A/N: No prompt this time, just something I thought of while in the shower.
the hardest part was letting go, not taking part
"Belle?" her name falls from his lips, colored with relief and the slightest hint of worry. She is sitting on the closed toilet seat, holding something in her fingers that he can't see. Silence is not something he enjoys, not in a home where most days are filled with music and laughter and the smell of tea mixed with just a hint of coffee.
He was once a man that found joy in solitude, but now all he finds is pain as he stares at his beautiful girl and notices that her eyes, as light as the sky on most days, are now as dark as the deepest of oceans. There is patience in this life, and so he stands there gripping the ornate handle of his cane until his knuckles turn white and scream in protest. Seconds pass, fading into minutes, and he is on the verge of saying her name again when she actually looks up at him.
The look on her face is one he has never seen before, and yet somehow he still knows what it signifies. She looks as though she has broken a deal and his heart clenches in his chest as all of the horrible possibilities come crashing down around him. Belle only meets his eyes for a moment before she drops her head, gripping whatever is in her hand just a little tighter.
"Ten of them, Rum. Ten of them all saying the same thing," she whispers, and this time when she twirls the plastic stick in her hand he can see it clearly and his heart gets lodged somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. This can't be happening, but it is and when she nudges the trash can with her foot he looks down and sees the other nine plastic sticks laying haphazardly over one another.
Rumpelstiltskin has always been a coward, but never more so than in this moment when he doesn't want to know and yet he already does.
"Positive. All ten of them say 'congratulations you're having a baby' when all I really want it to say is 'sorry, it was just the stress making you sick', but… they're positive. We-" her voice breaks and she bows her head just a little more, tucking the small test against her stomach, wrapped up tightly in her hands.
He wants nothing more than to comfort her, and yet at the same time to move would be to fall. So he stands there, white knuckled and breathless until his chest feels like it will explode at any second. He thinks of Baelfire, long gone from him and the world and then he thinks about all of the other children in Storybrooke.
He thinks of Henry, and of the baby girl that belongs to Miss Boyd, and he knows those two children will grow up in this town.
This child, their child, will not.
Mr. Gold, because that is who he is in this world, looks away from his partner (because the word girlfriend is not enough and the word wife does not yet apply).
"We got careless, my dear," he whispers, the first words he has said since Belle and he closes his eyes. They both know what has to happen. This isn't some fairytale in which they get to live happily ever after with a son or daughter.
This is hell in which a war is about to ensue.
"It won't happen again," he adds and he can see her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. He sees her nod, and he closes his eyes once more.
This is the hardest part of the entire deal.
"I'll make the appointment for in the morning," Rumpelstiltskin offers and his beauty nods her acceptance, but she doesn't move to get up nor does she acknowledge him any further. He wants to sigh, but doesn't. He wants to scream at the world and curse Regina as he tears her down, but he doesn't do that either.
They exist in that small space and all he wants is to say three little words.
I'm not unhappy.