Chapter 13
Jefferson didn't really know what to make of this land without magic when they'd first come here.
"It's strange remembering everything while everyone else walks around as if nothing had ever existed as it was before" thought Jefferson in those first few days maybe that was why Regina trapped him in his home, but those first few years Jefferson found he missed his homeland more then he thought he would. What was stranger though was spending each day with the children and having them not remember the truth. He could have brought Grace to remember if he dared, but it was the others that kept everything he knew within his own mind. Now the children Rumple, and Belle had shared, they thought they were his, and they didn't remember the mother who had loved them. That pained him worst of all as he looked upon Nicholas and Helena and Annabelle. Sometimes, he felt it even when he looked at Grace, for she didn't remember either, and in their land she and Belle had spent many a happy time together. Jefferson wanted them all to remember it as he did, but he knew that there would be another time for that. As the years passed Oh so slowly, Jefferson waited for that moment to come. Until then though he did his job, the one Rumpelstiltskin had charged him with; he stood guard over his children. He protected them from Rumple himself because Jefferson knew all too well that in this land without magic that their father would have to do things that put them in danger and in the first days in this new land, he worried he'd have to keep Rumple from harming his own children unwillingly. It was the hard part of this new life they led. It went right along with that part that pained him when he saw Rumple all alone every day. Sometimes, he wanted the children to remember if only so Rumple might be okay, but he never risked it even as Rumples alter personality proved himself the same man who had always loved his children even when he didn't know they were his. Yet even Jefferson saw how much he cared for Helena, Nicholas, Annabelle, and Grace. They didn't remember their real father at all and what was worse was Rumpelstiltskin or Mr. Gold as he was called here, didn't remember them. In the very beginning, it had been confusing until they'd all seemed to adjust to something that they didn't understand they were adjusting to. After that it became normal. Their own strange twist of normal that Jefferson didn't want to understand as the years turned with nothing ever changing. That was until one night something strange came to disrupt the normal. Something that began with Mr. Gold knocking on his door in the middle of the night when only Jefferson was awake. He had never looked anything but calm until that moment. That night though, there was nothing calm about Robert Gold, and upon first sight Jefferson wondered if that meant their ever-turning clock in this land was about to end with the arrival of the savior.
He hardly recognized the man at his door, he was disheveled, wild eyed even, and Jefferson felt scared at the sight of it. Jefferson had only seen Rumpelstiltskin this way once before. Just after Belle had died, when he had locked himself in his tower, and kept everyone at arm's length even his children. He had been mad with something that was more then grief, but something Jefferson knew was also a deep self-loathing. Gold looked like that now as he stood wet from the rain, his hair still dripping, and his suit drenched. Yet in that image too was a defenseless care to him that was almost endearing as Jefferson laid his eyes firmly on the man in front of him.
"What the hell's happened to you? You look like a drowned rat" laughed Jefferson the manic in him coming out in his laughter. He invited the man into his home watching as he leaned heavily on his good leg. It was the first time Jefferson had seen the man without his cane in this land and without it he limped heavily, so much so that he wondered if he should attempt to assist him, but in the end, he didn't dare. He only watched him enter his kitchen and collapse with a huff into a chair at his kitchen table.
"I was hoping you could give me something to help me sleep. Something to give me a dreamless sleep. The act keeps alluding me and without something…I fear I will go mad" whispered Mr. Gold, there was a weary waver in his voice that had the man running his hands over the length of his face. There was a hysteria there too and yet, Jefferson was stalled by his very request. Because wanting sleep he could understand, but a dreamless sleep was something else altogether. He suspected there was more to his tale and he was determined to get it before letting this man sleep.
"Really, who did the boasting?" said Jefferson.
"Your girl Grace actually. I saw her at Granny's today" said Mr. Gold, he looked so tired that as Jefferson fixed the tea, he felt sorry for him.
"Something's truly haunting him" thought Jefferson once again remembering a time when he had been this desolate just after Belle had died, but somehow it had never gotten this bad and Jefferson knew that was because his children had given him something to hold onto that he didn't have now in this magicless land.
"He needs something to hold onto and in this land, Regina has gotten her wish. He no longer has anything to keep the demons at bay" thought Jefferson wishing he could tell him the truth of his reality and if there would be a time when he had to watch as Regina's curse broke him just as it was meant to break them all. Suddenly, Jefferson was reminded of the reality of their situation. That he was no better off then anyone else in this situation. That his memories didn't give him the sustainability that he thought. Because Jefferson had no idea how long this curse had been cast or how long before the savior was to come. He had no idea how long their sentence was meant to last. All he knew was that they were in Storybrooke Maine and there was no magic here and everything was repeating just as Regina wanted it to be. It made him madder than he already was which was why he preferred not to think about it even as he found himself always thinking of it. He had no idea if it'd been twenty-eight years yet or if the savior were anywhere near here.
"What could scare Gold so much though that he's afraid to sleep?" thought Jefferson, the question interrupting any other thought that he had as he looked at his friend as he sat wild and fearsome at the table.
"So, what's keeping you up" said Jefferson seeing immediately that Gold was reluctant to tell him.
"What are friends for, Gold, if not to tell all your troubles to?" whispered Jefferson in response to his silence. He had made the dream tea and as he spoke, he set the man's cup in front of him. There was a healthy dose of tea there for him, but Gold didn't touch it right away the way Jefferson had expected. Instead, he sat looking at him as if summing him up even though he already knew that he could trust him, but Jefferson didn't comment. It was something Gold always did and looking at the man, it made him miss the man he had been. For that was something that Rumpelstiltskin had never done. Once he'd come to trust him, there had been no more questioning, and yet when the man had made up his mind, he wrapped his hands around his cup of tea still as always silent.
"Drink it slow…and you won't be leaving tonight. After drinking that you won't be fit to drive, so you'll be sleeping in my guest room, and I'll hear nothing of it" said Jefferson sitting down now to watch the man enjoy the tea. Yet there was some vulnerability to him still as he sat there. Something that he wasn't saying that was bursting out through the seams of his skin. Sitting there, Jefferson thought that maybe he shouldn't pry at first that he should let Gold keep whatever secrets he had, but he couldn't. Because no matter what world they were in this man was his friend and he couldn't let him suffer in whatever way he appeared to be now.
"I keep seeing a woman…in my dreams. A very beautiful woman who leads me through someplace…some castle like place. I've had these dreams for a long time, but recently they've changed. She's always there…she lets me see her face now…she hadn't before, and she keeps screaming at me. Always the same thing…a single word…always screaming. I wish she'd stop screaming" whispered Mr. Gold, Jefferson could see in that moment as the man's head started to droop. If he hadn't took his tea when he did, he would have spilled it across the table, and just like that the dream tea was doing its work. Jefferson knew Gold would be asleep soon, but before he was, he had to know more about this woman who haunted his dreams. He suspected who it was. Knew really, but he was afraid to jump to conclusions as he could suddenly see her just as he pictured Gold was.
As he spoke Jefferson didn't need to be told who the woman in his dreams was. He knew it was Belle and yet the screaming didn't make sense to him.
"What's she screaming?" whispered Jefferson.
"She keeps screaming this old name from a fairy tale for children. She keeps calling me Rumpelstiltskin" exclaimed Mr. Gold, his eyes beginning to droop. Jefferson took him to the guest bedroom, wondering as he did if Belle was trying to help him remember.