Longish updates! Huzzah!
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Belle was open in the emotions she showed, Gold found. Then again, she always had been.
When she was happy – which, currently, was often – she would smile and laugh openly. She was always so full of expression and life that it sometimes took his breath away; unable to grasp that she truly was alive.
Two and a half weeks into their re-acquaintance and he still was not entirely used to her in his life again.
It was, however, Belle's rare moments of unhappiness where her resemblance to the caretaker he'd first fallen for knocked the air from his lungs. She once ventured a comment about Regina having talked to her about him and the old wounds opened so suddenly he found himself snapping at her. She took it in silence, until he told her she should go for the day. She stood, brushed her jeans off and gave him a hard look, identical to the way she'd looked at him the last time he had seen her face, the last time he had sent her away.
"I'll see you tomorrow, then," she said very deliberately and left.
And he was irrationally relieved when she did.
She didn't mention Regina again, but it was several days before she settled back into what peace they had formed between themselves.
Gold sometimes wondered if this was fate's way of giving him a do-over, a chance to get it right. But that wasn't what he wanted – not quite. He didn't want a second chance from a Belle who didn't remember everything he had done to her. He didn't deserve her, then. If he was going to get a do-over, it had to be a proper one.
It was ridiculous, those thoughts, because they led him to long nights researching ways to return Belle's old memories. Ridiculous, and furthermore, dangerous. If Belle was simple Bridget, a girl indebted to him for breaking a piece of merchandise, she was still marginally safe.
"I feel I should start bringing you tea," Belle declared one afternoon. She hadn't been working on the cup that day; simply meandering the shop looking at the objects with a peace that made it seem as though she owned the place.
"Why's that?" He asked.
"You need it."
"Do I?"
"That or more sleep, but I can hardly enforce the latter," she said cheerfully.
He raised his eyebrows. "Hardly."
She grinned at him, "Honestly, though, you look ready to pass out on your feet,"
That's because I'm up all night working out how to save you, while wondering whether or not I should. "Part of getting old, dearie."
"You're hardly old," she said stubbornly. Before he could respond to that – not that he had anything particularly witty to say; Belle left him struggling for words more than he was at all comfortable with – she continued, "And am I 'dearie', now, too? Do I get to have a pet name for you?"
He tensed, trying not to show it and arouse her ever-present curiosity. 'Dearie' was his old nickname, but 'dearie' was what she had been for him, when she was not Belle. He couldn't call her Belle here. And he positively refused to call her Bridget.
There was a moment's silence, and then he gave her his ironic grin. "Call me whatever you wish, dearie. I'll answer to any hail from your voice." He said in purposely-flowery tones. Bridget raised an eyebrow but couldn't contain her giggles. He grinned wider, looking entirely pleased with himself.
"Oh, I'm holding you to that!" She said when the giggles subsided. "Now I need to think of something truly awful."
He chuckled and waved her off to work on the cup that was, after all, her reason for coming – though she knew this was less and less the case. She went, but spent her thoughts, not on silly nicknames, but wondering if she had ever actually heard Gold call her by name.
Aw fluff...ish.
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