Many Years Ago, The Enchanted Forest
Rumpelstiltskin's eyes locked on the seer's azure orbs, her arms trembling under the weight of magic and power as she searched through the darkness for his path to Baelfire.
"You will not cast the curse. Someone else will. And you will not break the curse…someone…else…will…" She shuddered and nearly collapsed into herself, barely managing to stay on her feet.
"Tell me!" Rumpelstiltskin demanded. He knew there was more to this. He needed to know who these people were, where to find them, and how to make them do what he needed.
"I don't know," said the seer calmly. "Even my powers have limits."
"Uh-uh-uh," said Rumpelstiltskin as he approached her. "Not good enough, dearie." With a wave of his hand, he had a magical grip on the redhead's throat.
'"If you want to see the path you must take…there is only one way." The seer held out her hands. "Take this burden from me."
Rumpelstiltskin gave the matter several seconds of thought. "Eh…gladly!" He grasped her hands firmly in his, and let the magic shoot through his veins as her powers were transferred to him. He realized too late that the future was nothing but a tangled mess to him. The future was a puzzle with many pieces to be sorted, the seer explained. In time he would learn to separate what could be from what would be. He released his grip on her, and she crumpled into a heap in the dirt.
"This is why you wanted to give me your power!" Rumpelstiltskin screeched. "To free yourself from this torment!"
"In time you will work it all out," she assured him. He turned to leave her. "Wait. As gratitude, I offer you one piece of the puzzle." She held up her hand. "You will be reunited with your son in a most unexpected way. A young girl will be your key to finding him. She will be the result of many mistakes, and will be loved by many powerful men and women. She will have a connection to the one who casts the curse, the one who breaks the curse, a pure heart touched by darkness, a dark heart touched by light, a heart full of guilt, a heart full of anger, a woman led from darkness by love, a man pulled into darkness by loss, a woman who ran away from her truest love, and a man who ran away with his."
Rumpelstiltskin leaned in closer. "How shall I know her?"
The seer paused, then continued with waning breath. "Finding her won't be the problem. You'll know her when you hear that she has roots in a forest but came from a stable. But be warned. Someone…with a connection to her…will be your undoing."
"Then I'll just have to kill them."
On this particular Thursday afternoon, half of the nuns were supposed to be cleaning the convent and the other half were supposed to be visiting patients in the hospital. Not Astrid. The only job she was allowed to do right now was buy groceries. And as if her self-esteem hadn't taken enough of a hit in the past few days, she accidentally purchased a sack of flour from the general store with a rip in it, resulting in its contents emptying out onto the sidewalk as soon as she made it outside. Fortunately, there was only one person around, a female stranger whom she'd only seen in passing before.
"You know they have to pay for that, right?" the woman remarked. "I saw the hole in the bag. It isn't your fault."
"Thanks," said Astrid. "I mean, thanks for noticing. And not calling me an idiot like everyone else does."
"It's no problem," said the other woman as she knelt down to help Astrid push the flour into a pile. "I'm Helena Stable, by the way. I'm new in town."
Astrid paused to shake Helena's hand. "I'm Astrid. I think I saw you at Granny's the other day."
"You did. I saw you with Leroy. You seemed a little upset."
"Yeah. I'm fine right now. Mostly. Mother Superior has just been harder on me than usual lately. I don't think she trusts me anymore."
"I'm sure she'll come around," said Helena. "You've just got to show her what you can do." Helena paused and made a face at something over Astrid's shoulder. Astrid turned around and saw a man wearing a hat and a trenchcoat disappear into an alley.
"Who was that?" asked Astrid.
"All I know is that he's the guy who broke into Granny's. And just now, he kind of seemed like he was…I don't know…spying on us."
December 1993, New Haven, Connecticut
"And that's why all I need is someone who can help me find something to make a magic portal with," said Aerona. "I promise I'll never steal another ruby slipper from the department store again. I didn't know I was supposed to pay for those. I assumed that they were just for people to borrow like books at a library. But, anyways, there are plenty of other things that can be used as portals. And plenty of other places to look."
The man in the white coat scribbled something on his pad, looked to the other man standing beside him, and said, "Take her to one of the rubber rooms. I'll need some time to think through her pill regimen, so don't give her anything yet."
"Be careful," the other man warned. "Her pregnancy test came back positive."
Aerona whipped around to face him. "Excuse me?"
"Don't worry about it." He took her by the wrists and pulled her into a standing position.
"What the hell are you trying to do to me? I'm pregnant? How could you even know that?"
"Aerona, please calm down."
"No! I've done nothing that could possibly give you the right to hold me captive. I gave the slippers back, I apologized, and now, I demand to be shown out of this place immediately."
"Just shut up and come with me if you want to stay conscious."
Aerona turned her head around to face him, and in one swift movement broke his grip on her, then his nose. Then she bolted.
"Security!"
August 1994, Storybrooke, Maine
Mr. Gold had been reliving the same week with occasional exceptions for holidays for nearly two decades now. But twenty-eight years of monotony was nothing compared to the lifetimes he'd had nothing to do but plan, wait, and try to forget. With the conflicting realities he was holding in his head, it felt like so much longer. He kept a drawing of Baelfire in his office at the pawn shop. It was the first thing he looked at when he came in every day, and the last thing he looked at before he left. Everything he did was for the boy, as it had always been.
Every day, he came home from work to find Mrs. Gold somewhere in the house reading the newspaper, except for Thursdays when she stayed late at the library because that was the day Michael Zimmer went in with his kids and they knocked over a display of books that took an hour to fix. On Tuesdays, like today, Mr. Gold found Mrs. Gold in the living room wearing a bright yellow sundress that reminded him of the gown she'd been wearing the day they met. What he wouldn't have given to be able to reminisce about that with her. What he wouldn't have given just to call her Belle again. Her first name in this land was Rose, which he supposed was nice because it was the flower he had once turned her fiance into and given her. But it never would have felt natural to call her by a first name other than Belle, so he always called her Mrs. Gold, and everyone in town followed suit.
"Good evening, Mr. Gold," said his wife sweetly. "How was work?"
"The same as it is every day, darling." Mr. Gold sat down on the couch beside her. "Anything in the paper that would be of interest to me?" The newspaper was one of the only things about Storybrooke that in part changed consistently. The articles about what was going on in town were always the same, but articles about politics and whatnot were new every day.
"Perhaps this depressing little piece I'm reading right now." Mrs. Gold pointed to an article with a picture of a newborn baby girl in a bassinet starring up at the camera with wide tear-filled eyes.
New Haven, Connecticut: the parental rights of a woman living in a mental institution have been officially terminated. The woman, whose name has been withheld, was initially institutionalized because she firmly believes that she comes from a place called The Enchanted Forest. She has since proven to be prone to violent verbal and physical outbursts. She has tried to escape from the institution several dozen times including by attacking an orderly with a makeshift knife and by sealing herself into a laundry bag. In the past few weeks, she has several times physically attacked a nurse who refrained from updating her on the whereabouts of the baby girl. The woman named the father of her child as Henry Stable but refused to provide authorities with any other information. The one-month-old infant is now officially available for adoption.
"Why are you smiling, Mr. Gold?" asked his wife. "This is the most tragic story I've ever read."
"You say that every day when we read the paper, darling," said Mr. Gold. "I was thinking about how fortunate it would be if that baby girl were to be adopted into such a pleasant town as Storybrooke."
Mrs. Gold's face lit up. "Are you saying what I think you're saying? You want us to adopt her?"
"I…" That hadn't been exactly what he was going for. "Actually, I was thinking of…" He considered who in town might be equipped to take care of an infant. He ruled out everyone who was already struggling with their current set lifestyle, and anyone who he knew might mistreat a child. Then he realized that there was a chance that something could go wrong if he placed the child with any cursed family simply because keeping up with a growing child was hardly a reasonable request for people who literally couldn't remember their own names.
"Jefferson," Mr. Gold finally concluded brilliantly, or so he'd thought. Jefferson was keenly aware of the passage of time, had been an excellent father to his little girl, and he wasn't on Mayor Mills's radar. It seemed perfect.
"Doesn't Jefferson have his hands full with Paige?" remarked Mrs. Gold.
"I think he's always secretly wanted a second child." That part was true. Jefferson had put everything he had into creating a stable life for his daughter since he lost Aerona to Neverland. Fatherhood suited him more nicely than anyone would have expected.
Mr. Gold noted that his wife almost seemed disappointed that he hadn't wanted the child for them. Oh, well. She would forget in a week. He couldn't have another child right now. Not while he was still looking for the one he lost.
"Madam Mayor; to what do I owe the pleasure?" asked Mr. Gold as the mayor strode up to his counter.
"I have a favor to ask of you."
"Since when have you known me to dole out favors, dearie? You said it yourself. There's always a price with me."
"But this time, there's something in it for you. It involves a certain nun." That got the pawnbroker's attention. "I need you to inform Mother Superior that Sister Astrid has become inappropriately involved with the town drunk, and that she needs to put a stop to it before it gets out of hand. You may need to threaten to raise the nuns' rent in order to get her to comply. Does that sound appealing do you?"
"I'll consider it," said Mr. Gold. "Have a good day, Madame Mayor."
"Same to you." She left, satisfied. As soon as the mayor was out of sight, Mr. Gold turned over his closed sign and locked up the shop.
It took Mr. Gold three solid days of work and every ounce of persuasion he possessed to convince the adoption agency to bring the child to him, in Storybrooke. He would have them enter the town through an obscure path in the woods, so that they wouldn't notice when everything suddenly became visible the way that they would entering the easy way. He would sign the adoption papers himself, and then he would find Jefferson, convince him that a sister for Grace was exactly what he needed, and then sign the baby over to him.
"I must say, Mr. Gold, your references are absolutely impeccable," said the adoption agent on the other end of the line. "Your wife's are as well. I can't imagine a better family for little Kayla."
Mr. Gold smirked to himself. They probably hadn't even checked his references after the generous sum he'd offered them.
"That's what Aerona called her," said the agent quickly. "You and your wife can feel free to change her name if you want."
Mr. Gold paused. "I'm sorry, could you repeat the birthmother's name for me?"
"Ay-row-na. Apparently her surname is…Of The White Kingdom And The High Seas. You do know the story, don't you? About how she went all…"
"Yes, I am well aware," Mr. Gold cut in quickly.
What was he going to do now? Jefferson was no fool. He would ask about where the child had come from. Theoretically, Mr. Gold could lie for now and pretend he found the baby in the woods outside of town or something. But the child would have to find out who her biological parents were eventually or the purpose of bringing her into Storybrooke in the first place could be defeated entirely. Chances were that at some point along the line, Jefferson would figure out that he was raising Aerona's daughter by another man. And he already hated Mr. Gold enough as it was right now.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Gold?" asked the agent.
"Not at all. Just have the child here tomorrow at the time we discussed."
Mrs. Gold was predictably thrilled when her husband came home and told her the news that he had decided he wanted the baby for them after all. She spent the rest of the day converting the spare bedroom into a nursery. He soundproofed one of the rooms in his house and the large closet at the pawn shop so that he could hide the baby from Mayor Mills.
He had his reservations about allowing the newborn into his home and allowing himself to be listed as her father on the birth certificate. The elated look on his wife's face when he deposited the baby girl in her arms made him feel both better and worse.
"She's all ours," said Mr. Gold. "I've arranged for someone else to take over your job at the library for the time being. You don't mind staying home with her, do you?"
"Not at all," Mrs. Gold crooned. "It's alright, Kayla Gold. Mommy's here."
"I gave her a middle name, too," said Mr. Gold. "Belle."
"Why Belle?"
"I've always been fond of the name." Mrs. Gold accepted the explanation and took off to rock the baby to sleep in her nursery. If this adoption could make his wife's cursed life more rewarding, as well as help him break the curse in about eleven years, maybe it would all be worth it.
Over the next few days, however, watching Mrs. Gold with the baby began to stir up long-forgotten less-than-pleasant memories of the first few months of Baelfire's life. Milah had been an attentive mother back then, and repulsed as she'd been by Rumpelstiltskin, the one positive thing she had ever said about him to anyone after the Ogre Wars was that he was a good father. "If he's crying at night and just wants to be held and kept company, Rumpel always offers to mind him," Milah would say. "Sometimes I swear he'd nurse the babe himself if he could." Usually she'd said this because she enjoyed the crude and demeaning jokes that followed. But he liked that she appreciated his help.
"I need to sleep for a few hours," said Mrs. Gold when her husband came home from work one day. "If the baby wakes up, will you take care of her?"
He looked at his love's face, pale with exhaustion, dark circles and bags under eyes. "Sure, darling." Evidently, in the past two centuries he'd forgotten just how exhausting caring for an infant was. He should have known it wouldn't be fair to ask her to do it all herself.
Mrs. Gold turned to ascend the staircase, then paused.
"You know, you haven't paid very much attention to our daughter since we brought her home. As a matter of fact, I don't think you've held her once."
"I've been busy," said Mr. Gold lamely.
His wife gave him a look. "I think you're nervous."
"No." After a moment, he admitted, "Perhaps unsure of myself as a father."
"Well, she's already our baby," said Mrs. Gold. "Don't be a coward." Her last sentence was accompanied by a playful smile, but still hurt to hear, even though she'd forgotten their negative connotations of the word. Then, as if on cue, the baby girl started wailing in her nursery. "Go on. It's your turn. And for whatever it's worth, I think you're going to be an amazing father."
Mr. Gold pretended to smile before he went upstairs to the nursery, thinking that he'd never thought he'd be able to say that Belle and Milah had gotten the same thing wrong. He'd already done the worst thing that a father could possibly do.
He took the baby out of her crib and changed her, then fed her with one of the bottles of formula Mrs. Gold had already prepared. Then he rocked her in the rocking chair until she fell back asleep. After that day, Mr. Gold made a habit of routinely offering to take care of Kayla for a few hours after work or in the middle of the night. He went through the motions: change, feed, burp, rock, sleep. He learned to tell what she wanted by the way she was crying. Most of her cries were soft, sometimes even endearing. He found she was easy to please. Baelfire had been just as precious as she was but had been known to cry like a goat when he was unhappy. Sometimes even for no reason at all.
Mr. Gold didn't mind the labor involved in caring for the infant. But he did mind the extent to which she reminded him of his son. It didn't help when she sprouted dark hair at the age of six months that by the time she reached ten months became thick and curly, just like Bae's. And her eyes were already green like Belle's eyes. Mr. Gold tried to remind himself that Kayla had no genetic tie to either of them. Or to him.
The plan was for him to bring the baby into Storybrooke, make sure she was raised and cared for, and someday have her lure Henry and Helena to town. That was it. The plan hadn't been for the baby to remind him of the two people whom he cared for most in the world. The plan hadn't been for him to grow to enjoy her presence in his home and his life, as well as the welcome sense of unpredictability she came with.
I will do nothing else, he had promised himself. I will love nothing else.
What the hell was he doing? He'd fallen in love with someone. He'd admitted it to himself. He'd used the curse to make her his wife. And now they had a child. A child who was connected to someone who would someday be his undoing. A child who was meant to be his catalyst to finding Baelfire and nothing more. She was supposed to be his daughter on paper only.
"I haven't forgotten you, Bae," Mr. Gold whispered to the drawing at his pawn shop. "Wherever you are, I'm coming."
Baelfire had to remain the most important thing in Mr. Gold's life until he found him. That was all there was to it.
Mr. Gold straightened up when he heard the little bell ring, signaling that someone was in the pawn shop. It was his wife, baby on one hip and diaper bag on the other. As soon as the baby saw Mr. Gold, she squealed with delight and waved.
"If you're not too busy, could you keep her here for a few hours?" Mrs. Gold asked, hair disheveled and eyes desperate. "I need to run some errands."
"Of course," said Mr. Gold. She deposited the ten-month-old in his arms and the diaper bag on the floor behind the counter. Kayla squealed again and leaned into his shoulder, her dark curls brushing his cheek. Mr. Gold had by now mastered the art of carrying her in one arm while wielding his cane with the other. Another thing that reminded him of Baelfire's infancy.
"Stay here, baby girl," Mr. Gold crooned as he set her down in a playpen full of toys in the soundproof room. She gripped one of the wooden bars and pulled herself up into a standing position immediately when she saw that he was turning to leave. "I'll only be a moment."
The baby blinked her big green eyes. "Papa."
Mr. Gold froze.
"Papa."
In that moment, he could have sworn that he saw baby Baelfire, sitting on a blanket on the floor of their hovel holding a wooden toy. He saw two-year-old Bae pulling on his good leg, trying to follow wherever he was going. He saw five-year-old Bae asking him where his Mama had gone and when she would be back. He saw ten-year-old Bae asking his Papa to teach him how to spin. And he saw fourteen-year-old Bae looking up at him for the last time, clinging to his hand, begging him not to break their deal.
Mr. Gold roughly scooped the baby out of her playpen. He looked to make sure that his wife was out of sight. He couldn't do this anymore. He was going to find Jefferson and ask him to take the baby. He'd face the other man's wrath over Aerona's infidelity later. He'd put up with Mrs. Gold's inevitable scorn when he told her he'd "lost" their child. She would be livid. And devastated. But only for a week.
The only time that Mr. Gold could ever be seen in the church or anywhere near it was when he came by to harass someone about the rent. Once he'd seen all the nuns congregated there, human-sized with habits instead of wings, he'd declared it to be his least favorite building in the entire town. So Mother Superior was reasonably surprised and concerned when she saw him there at an abnormal time. She was even more shocked when he explained that one of her sisters had been fooling around with Leroy and identified which one.
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Gold, I had no idea," said Mother Superior. "I can assure you I'll look into the matter immediately."
"You'll have Sister Astrid out of here by tomorrow, or your rent will permanently be raised by two hundred dollars a month."
The nun's face fell. "Two hundred dollars? We can't afford that much!"
"Not my problem, dearie," said Mr. Gold. He enjoyed seeing the woman upset. Normally she was deceptively gentle, which aggravated him no end.
"I don't see how any of this is your problem," Mother Superior suddenly snapped. "You've never been a churchgoing man, so the way I see it, the whereabouts of those who are shouldn't under any circumstances concern you."
"No, no, don't you go pulling your self-righteous garbage on me, dearie," said Mr. Gold. "This is my town. You have to do as I say."
"Or what? We both know that you have no legitimate reason to raise the rent on the convent right now. The only explanation I can think of for this is that either you hate me even more than I thought you did or that you're in some sort of financial trouble. And if you really need an extra two hundred dollars that badly, I'd say that whatever's going on, you brought it on yourself."
"That's not true, dearie. None of this ever would have had to happen if it wasn't for you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"It was you!" Mr. Gold suddenly shouted. "You took him away from me!"
Mother Superior shook her head again. "You're wrong. We've already been through this. You drove him away."
"You took my son!" shouted Mr. Gold, raising the hand that held his cane. "And I will get him back!"
In a swift movement, Mr. Gold attempted to slam his cane down on the ground, but in doing so he smashed a large glass swan that sat on a pedestal nearby. Shards of glass sprinkled the area around them like confetti, a particularly large one striking Mother Superior's left cheek in the process. She stepped back and screamed. By the time a handful of nuns had rushed over to help, there was blood trickling down her neck.
Predictably, Mr. Gold found Jefferson and Paige at Granny's having a sundae. Equally predictably, he was easily able to convince Granny to watch Kayla for a few minutes while he spoke to Jefferson.
"I'll drop my rent check off at your office tomorrow," said Jefferson as soon as he saw the other man approaching.
"Good to know. But I'm not here about the rent. I'm here about my…about Kayla."
"Oh?"
"How would you feel about welcoming a second child into your home?"
Thinking that the Dark Lord had come to him for parenting advice, Jefferson cracked an amused smile. "You're considering adopting another child?"
Mr. Gold gave him a strange look. "The one I have isn't even a year old yet."
"I don't think it matters how far apart or close in age your children are, as long as you love them equally," said Jefferson. "What children need is to know that their parents love them and will always be there for them, no matter what. I'll admit that I had my doubts when I first heard that you were becoming a father, but from what I can see you've pleasantly surprised me. If you can show your second child the same love that you obviously have for your first, it seems to me that you should have no problem at all."
Mr. Gold turned around and looked at the baby girl who had called him Papa, innocent and giggling in Granny's arms as she slapped the counter with a giant wooden spoon. As soon as she saw that Mr. Gold was looking at her, though, she stopped what she was doing and met his gaze. Suddenly, it became too late to pretend that he wouldn't always think of her as his daughter. And giving her to someone else now would be just as wrong as what he'd done to Baelfire.
A few people on the streets between Granny's and the pawn shop turned their heads when they saw their miserly landlord carrying a baby girl who spouted out "Papa!" every few seconds. But he didn't care. He went home to his wife and told her that Kayla had said her first word. They celebrated with homemade cookies, and all was right with the world.
By the end of that day, the church was no longer Mr. Gold's least favorite building in Storybrooke. He'd never had a problem with the sheriff station before. But it wasn't nearly as nice of a place when viewed from behind bars.
"Ruby, I have to go to the hospital to take down Mother Superior's statement," said Graham. "Write up the rest of the paperwork. And keep an eye on our prisoner."
"Yes, boss," said Ruby cheerfully. She sat down to do her paperwork. When Mr. Gold coughed, she turned to glance at him over her shoulder, seemingly fascinated by his current state. Like a caged beast.
"Should I call your wife?" she finally offered.
"No. In fact, if you don't mind, stop by the library and tell her not to expect me home until tomorrow. And tell her not to worry."
"Why? I'm sure that if I told her to come over here now, she'd bail you out and you'd be home for dinner."
"No," said Mr. Gold. "I'd rather spend the night in prison."
"Fine," said Ruby. "Suit yourself."
Nothing, not even an easy way out of his current situation, would be worth seeing the disappointment in Belle or Kayla's eyes that he'd once seen in Baelfire's.