Dinner was less awkward than Gold had feared, thank God. The addition of Belle to the proceedings was enough to facilitate some conversation between father and unwitting son. Bailey, it turned out, was a charming child, and he had clearly been raised well.
He regretted that he had missed the first ten years of his son's life, and that regret would haunt him until the day he died. But, and this surprised him, he didn't regret that Bailey was raised by Belle. He harbored no illusions about his capability as a parent. His father had been distant and largely uninterested in having a son. Gold had no idea where to even begin to parent a child and the longer he was here the more he understood that. Milah had proven herself completely unfit to the point that the state had stepped in. But Belle, though, was a natural. She was firm with him, insisting on hearing a teacher's side of a homework dispute or refusing to let him claim he wasn't hungry enough to eat his vegetables if he planned on having dessert, but she never veered into being harsh. Their every interaction was colored by an assurance that they loved each other.
The more he watched the intimacy between mother and son — and when exactly had be begun thinking of Belle as the mother of his child, anyway? — the more he both relieved and envious.
"Well then," Belle finally said when the adults were full and Bae had eaten a full serving of vegetables, "who's ready for dessert? I made a cake."
"Cake sounds lovely," Gold said, moving to help her clear the table but she shooed him back to his seat.
"What kind of cake?" Bae asked enthusiastically.
"Strawberry shortcake," was the reply.
The boy was still obviously confused by Gold's presence in his home but had seemed to accept whatever stranger had meant chicken parmesan and strawberry shortcake for dinner.
"So Bae," Gold decided to try his luck with conversation again having had a few glasses of wine over dinner and a little practice now. "How did you like your new game?"
At this the child's eyes lit up.
"It's sooooo cool!" Bae was practically vibrating from excitement in his chair and it was all his father could do not to give everything away then and there. "It's all in 3D so it looks like everything in my Pokedex is holographic!"
Gold had no idea what the hell a Pokedex was, but the boy seemed excited.
"Are there any other games you'd want for it?"
Bae quickly nodded and rattled off a list too fast for anyone to keep up with him.
"Why don't you write that all down for me and I'll see what I can find later, yeah?"
By now, Belle had returned and set plates of cake down at the table.
Bae got a pensive look on his face before facing his mother.
"Okay, what's going on?" Bae said.
"What do you mean?" Belle asked him, even though it was clear that this had gone on as long as it could.
"Yesterday you were so upset after he left, but today he's bringing me presents and we're having cake and it's not even my birthday and you want us to get to know each other but he says he's not your boyfriend. Who is he?"
Belle looked at Gold and took a deep breath, he knew she had to be the one to deliver this news and he felt his heart start to race at the prospect.
"Bae, honey, do you remember the talks we had about your birth mom?"
He nodded, but didn't reply.
"I know you don't remember a lot about her or Killian, but we always assumed that Killian was your birth dad because that's what she said," Belle reached out and took her son's hand comfortingly. "Before you were born, though, your birth mom was married to Mr. Gold and he did some looking into it and we're pretty sure that he's your dad."
Bae's jaw dropped and he looked back and forth incredulously between the two of them, pulling his hand from Belle's and leaping away from the table.
"He can't be my dad, Killian was supposed to be my dad. I don't have a dad anymore!" the boy was becoming hysterical, and while intellectually Gold knew this was the most important piece of information that Bae would ever get it still hurt his heart to be rejected out of hand.
"I know this is a lot to take in, sweetheart," Belle crooned, moving to hold him tight in her arms.
Gold clenched his hand around the handle of his cane so hard his knuckles turned white. He wanted to go to them and to wrap his son in his arms and promise that he'd never leave him again, that there would never be anything to fear ever again because he would always be loved and provided for and protected as long as he lived, but Bae was sobbing into his mother's skirt and he knew he would not be welcome there just yet.
"You won't let him take me away, will you?" the boy sobbed and at that Belle gasped and enveloped the boy tighter in her arms.
"Bae, no! Nobody is going to take you away. That's not something you ever, ever have to worry about," she was smoothing his hair back off his face and kissing his forehead frantically and he was clinging to her.
"I won't leave you again," Bae cried out.
Belle looked apologetically over to Gold as Bae continued to shake and cry before he finally pried himself out of his mother's arms and ran out into the living room. He could hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs indicating that his son had retreated to his room.
"Well that could have gone better," Gold said sardonically.
"Just…stay here," Belle said. "I'll be right back and I'll explain everything."
She rushed out and up the stairs after her son, leaving Gold alone in the dining room feeling more alone than he'd ever felt in his life.
It was close to twenty minutes later that Belle finally returned, leading a much calmer Bae who had clearly been crying for a good portion of the missing time.
"Mr. Gold," she said softly, "Bailey has something he'd like to ask you."
She looked down at the boy in front of her and whispered 'go on' so softly Gold could have imagined it.
"Do I have to call you dad?"
Gold felt relief flood through him at that simple question. She'd somehow done it, she'd gotten him to understand.
"No, Bae," he said as gently as he could manage. "You don't have to call me dad, although I'd certainly like it if someday you did. You can call me whatever you like. You can call me Mr. Gold or Arthur — I'd prefer if you didn't use Artie, though."
He wrinkled his nose at the hated nickname and Bae gave a small laugh at that.
"I think I'm going to call you Arthur," the boy said. "For right now."
"That's alright," he replied. "Whatever makes you comfortable. I'm not trying to replace your mom, I just want to know you. I never knew about you before and I've missed so much."
"Was there something else?" Belle whispered to her son, just loud enough to be audible, and Bae nodded, taking a deep breath and seeming to summon all the bravery he had.
"Do you want to come to my basketball game on Friday?" the boy said. "Afterward mom and I get pizza and ice cream and she said you can come to that, too, if you like."
He saw Belle give Bae's arm a reassuring squeeze, as though congratulating him for doing so well.
"I would like that very much," Gold said, smiling at the boy again from sheer relief.
"Okay," Belle broke in. "Now that that's all settled, how about Bae goes and takes a bath to calm down some and then changes into pajamas and then we have cake? Does that sound good?"
Bae nodded, trotting off up the stairs and leaving the two adults to their conversation.
"I'm sorry about that," Belle sighed. "I should have warned you but I didn't think it would be that bad."
"I had no idea he was so attached to Killian," Gold tried not to let the bitterness he was feeling seep into his voice but it was so damn hard.
"It's more the opposite, actually," Belle sighed. "Before they lost custody the Jones' kept trying to get him back. It was clearly a long time ago, and he did see a therapist when he was little, but he's always had a fear of them taking him away. I'd hoped by having you here when I told him so he could see that it was you and not Killian he might handle it better. Apparently, I was wrong."
She flopped down into a chair across from him as though completely exhausted.
He poured her another glass of wine wordlessly, splitting the remainder of the bottle between both their glasses.
"Thanks," she said before taking a sip. "You're going to spoil me if you keep bringing good wine for dinner, you know."
"So I'm invited to more dinners? That's comforting."
"Why wouldn't you be?"
He shrugged.
"This one didn't exactly go to plan."
"We both knew this was going to be a rough night going into it. He'll come around."
"Bae said you don't bring men home," he blurted out.
She narrowed her eyes at him.
"No, I don't make a habit of introducing strange men to my son. You're a bit of an outlier."
"No boyfriends?"
"Not that it's any of your business," she muttered. "But I've been a single mother running my own business for the last ten years, both my parents are dead, and I have no local family. Where am I getting the time or babysitters to go on dates with these hypothetical men?"
"So you don't date?"
"I've been on a few since he came around," she shrugged. "But unless you count he time his therapist came to dinner or the home observations with his caseworker this is the closest thing I've been on to a date in the last couple years. What about you, though? Ten years is a long time to wait to remarry."
"Who said I was going to remarry?"
She snorted incredulously.
"Whatever you say."
"So this is the closest thing to a date you've been on?" He changed the subject, not comfortable at all with the direction this conversation was moving in. "I'm not sure how I feel about that."
"Well, it's involved a bit more yelling and crying than I usually prefer but overall it's been a nice evening, you have to admit."
He was forced to concede that point.
"Dinner was excellent," he added for her. "And the company, of course. The wine was surprisingly good as well, which may account for the ease of company."
She chuckled at that and clinked her glass to his before taking another sip of her drink.
He met her mirth-filled eyes and they both seemed to realize the direction the conversation had taken at the same time. A jolt of recognition went through him that the look in her eyes wasn't amused anymore, and it wasn't strictly platonic or co-parenting. He recognized in her the same need to connect that he felt.
He didn't know if it were the wine, or attraction, or the fact that they were both apparently lonely — he didn't even know who made the first move. He just knew that a split second later her lips were pressed against his and his hand had come up to touch her hair.
It only lasted a few heartbeats, but the moment passed as suddenly as it had begun.
"Oh," she said softly, pulling away from him. "That was a really dumb idea."
He was too shocked that she'd kissed him to even agree, instead nodding along mutely. Whatever else they were, they were not lovers. They were strangers thrown together by circumstance who now had to share the same child. Adding any stronger feelings to their situation could only hurt Bae in the long run, and neither one of them was willing to do that.
He was spared having to attempt to continue a conversation with her by the reappearance of his son, dark curls plastered to his head with water and clothed in a cotton T-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants with little cartoon monkeys all over them.
It was a charmingly domestic scene as the three of them sat and ate their cake. Bae answered any question given to him and supplied some of his own, seemingly genuinely interested in this man who was apparently going to be in his life from now on. Belle offered gentle encouragement when necessary, but otherwise seemed more than happy for the two to simply sit and become acquainted with each other.
It wasn't until late that night when he had returned to his empty home that he realized that the two of them were the only family that he really wanted to have.
