Two days later, Rumplestiltskin was standing in front of a mirror with Belle. When he had decided to accept the part, he had told Snow he would handle the costume himself, which she seemed perfectly willing to allow as she still had Henry to worry about. A little appearance change was hardly big magic, even in Storybrooke, and besides, he had already decided that he would have to use it to deal with his leg. Regardless of how slow the float was going to be going, or what other safety measures they were taking, he wanted to be at his physical best since his grandson was going to be with him. He'd never let anything happen to the boy. Belle had agreed with him, and was now helping him with his appearance. One of his old world outfits, with some slight modification of colour would serve for the costume part, and that had been taken care of with very little effort. Most of the rest of the details had come together nicely, and it had finally started to snow this afternoon, much to Snow White's relief. For Maine, it had been a surprisingly snow free year, and Belle had been starting to think she was going to have to appeal to her fiancé.
The meeting the other night had been a small enough thing; mostly he had acknowledged his acquiesce when Snow announced it with a flourish that probably still made some of them nervous, and went back to his hamburger. Leroy, the dwarf formerly known as Grumpy, was going to be their driver. The dwarf was well on his way back to his original name of Dreamy now that he had settled down with his lady, the former fairy, Nova. He had been a friend of his Belle before, something which earned him the sorcerer's gratitude. In his turn, Mr. Gold had helped him and his little fairy get themselves sorted when she had left the sisterhood of fairies for her true love. They weren't exactly friends, but they had an understanding, and Rumplestiltskin would trust him to do the driving. Nova, herself, was helping out on the decorating committee (only soft things, fabrics and papier-mâché, just to be safe). Mostly they just made the few last minute changes, and rehashing various schedules. The festival Queen, Gretel, had chosen for her two attendants Grace, Jefferson's daughter, and her brother Hansel, in keeping with passing over the old ways in exchange for practices that were more modern (the festival Queen was traditionally attended by the two best placed or next most beautiful girls in the village), and her Father would ride with her as knight protector. Emma made some quick report about the security set up, distracted by the fact that every time she met Rumplestiltskin's eyes, she turned red and felt the need to look elsewhere. He probably shouldn't torment her, but it was the most fun he had during the whole thing.
Emma had dragged him aside after the meeting to remind him that he had a grandson, and might want to be more careful about what Henry might see. He assured her that he would do so and tried (and failed spectacularly) to be repentant about what had happened. He also reminded her that Henry rarely came to the house without a phone call, or some other arrangement, as it was much easier for him to just run over to the shop or the library when he wanted to see them and catch a ride with them. It seemed to please her, or at least reassure her. It wasn't as if his grandson didn't know what was going on between them, though, not with Belle having announced her pregnancy at Thanksgiving.
"How is that?" he asked Belle. He'd not made a lot of changes, really. He'd threatened to do something horrible and monstrous, but his lady reminded him that he was supposed to look wise and dignified, so he had settled for magically lengthening his hair and turning it completely white, while his skin got even paler than usual. They wrangled about the beard; on the one hand, the white beard was tradition in the village Rumplestiltskin had been born and brought up in, but Belle said that was horribly old fashioned (prompting him to remind her once again that he was not particularly old fashioned, merely old which got the usual response). Besides, she had never been fond of facial hair, especially on him, and she said that everyone would get the point without it.
The last day before the parade was spent practicing with his grandson, Henry so they could make their fight look good 'without any accidental death or maiming.' "Maiming should always be deliberate," Rumplestiltskin told his grandson. "If you are going to hurt someone, it should be planned."
"What about accidents? People get hurt in accidents all the time." Henry pointed out. "Isn't that why we are practicing? So there won't be any accidents?"
"Yes, we are trying to avoid them, but accidents are different, lad. Sometimes accidents are the universe's way of telling you that you shouldn't be doing what you are."
"What about when Belle fell off the ladder?" the cheeky little monkey asked him. He had loved every minute of Belle's stories, especially when she told him all about how they fell in love (well except the love part, that was kind of mushy. But the adventure of living with his grandfather the monster; that was pretty cool.)
"Nothing bad happened though. I think that was the universe trying to tell me something else," the older man said, reaching out just as Belle walked into the room and pulling her down to sit in his lap. Belle laughed, and smacked his hands before telling him to be good and carefully getting back to her feet. After that the talk turned general, with Henry finally opening up about something at school that had been bothering him, and Rumpelstiltskin trying to be reassuring; while resisting the urge to go and solve the problem for him. It was hard to remember that children needed to fight there own battles; he'd certainly never been particularly good about allowing Bae to do that, after his transformation. His son hid his troubles, and that was something he didn't want his grandson to ever feel he had to do. Instead he took him back into the other room and showed him some other tricks, the sort of tricks that his grandfather the prince would never show him; sneaky tricks that served well when fighting uneven odds with opponents who weren't so noble.
"Isn't that fighting dirty? I thought we were always supposed to fight fair?" Henry asked.
"If your opponent is fighting fair, certainly; but not everyone does, and if you know the sort of thing they are likely to do, you can plan accordingly. Now..."
The rest of the day passed quickly, and Rumplestiltskin found himself actually looking forward to the next day; well that and the fact that Belle's enthusiasm was infectious.
The winter solstice eve dawned pearly grey but not threatening. Rumplestiltskin reached up to pull Belle closer to him. The sun hadn't come up yet, and while there were all kinds of things that needed to be done before they left the house, at that exact moment he had his lady love in his arms, and everything else could wait.
"Hmmmm," she murmured, waking just a little and smiling up at him, where he leaned over to kiss her. "Solstice Eve, we should get up; there is so much to do," she said sadly.
"We have plenty of time for that, right now; let us just celebrate each other," he whispered before showing her exactly what and how much he wanted to celebrate on this particular solstice.