Ghost
A ghost of a kiss.
.
Sort of a companion piece to 'In the End'. Explanations below.
.
.
A ghost of a kiss,
Wakes Gold up from his dream filled slumber; his foggy eyes open slowly by its lingering, all the same as any other day, to find the bed he lays in is empty of another.
He's alone, he's all alone. Yet his hand still reaches over, spreading fingers longingly over the vacant spot next to him. They linger there hopelessly.
The sheets are still warm.
.
.
.
.
He finds a note.
Finds it left under a half eaten bowl of soggy Fruit Loops. Gold walks over to it with a crippling sense of forbiddance to do otherwise; the occurrence of finding it having long since become a repetitive source of cruelty to his increasingly lonely days.
It's hastily written, Sorry, I had to go. It says. Then just below it's signed simply,
Emma
.
.
.
.
He's missed her. But only just, apparently.
"She's already long gone."
Ruby informs him, distracted as she hustles to clear a table at the busy diner, the lunch rush being at its peak. She quickly brushes past him to carry on with her day unperturbed by his missed opportunity. He only frowns deeply as she does so.
Gold takes out his phone, decides to call her. But all he ever seems to get is her voice.
"I'm not here."
She informs him. He lowers his mobile from his ear, barely catching the rest of her message, "...I'll get back to you when I can..."
He hangs up instead.
.
.
.
.
"Have you seen my mom?"
Young Henry asked as he entered the dreary pawnshop, storybook in hand and looking like a hopelessly lost boy without his mother by his side. Gold looks up, and buries away the steady sadness that threatens to overwhelm him at any given moment as he stares at Emma's beloved son.
"I can't seem to find her."
All he says in return is, "neither can I."
.
.
.
.
A darkly figure shadows him.
Gold catches sight of the young man, lingering incessantly in the corner of his eye as he closes his shop early for the night. But he's too preoccupied with thoughts of stopping by the sheriff's office to find that misplaced wife of his to pay much attention to him.
Until that boy appears right next to him like a magic trick; smiling and staring at Gold curiously.
"You look sad."
He muses, continues to stare invasively before tilting his dirty blonde head, "have you lost something that you love, Mr. Gold?
He's taken aback by the odd question, even more so by the deeply sinister cadence to it.
"I don't think so."
The young man only grins, "Are you sure about that?"
Gold doesn't know what to say or why he then forgoes his original plans for the evening and decides to go straight home, only to find it's still very much empty.
Emma's nowhere to be found.
As he stands there, Gold can't help but to think then of the boy's knowing and cruel smile.
.
.
.
.
He soon finds himself settling into bed.
Closing his tired eyes, Gold feels defeated by a growing and heavy weariness. But not long after he does he senses Emma's familiar presence nearby, drawing closer to him like some sort of ethereal spirit; one he cannot hope to grasp, not as sleeps descends and drags him down with it.
He falls without seeing her once.
Only the ghost of her kiss will wake him.
.
.
.
.
And then Gold loses her all over again
.
.
Author's Notes:
I'm surprising myself with these latest updates. Inspiration seems to have struck me randomly yet again, and this is what came out of it. I mentioned above that this story could be a companion piece to 'In the End' in which Pan's succeeds in casting the curse and Emma dies. This is just an AU scenario of that, in which Pan has decided instead of making Gold remember Emma and losing her. He tortures his son with having her and not really having her at all.
Needless to say, Pan is a jerk.
xoxox
Happy Halloween, all :)