OUT OF THE ASHES

Thanks to good planning and taking advantage of everyone's talents, Gold and his people were able to take out electrical services, including back-up services to The Library. The lack of light allowed Gold to remove the desired scroll and dagger handle from the magical vault. Then while Belle engaged Luminere in a distracting, daring confession regarding her real identity, Gold was able to make the switch using his own and Jefferson's talents of fetching (sending items across distances).

On the plane trip back to Asheville, Belle composed a letter to her father, letting him know that she is alive and well. Gold again self-medicates in order to manage the rigors of crossing the ocean.

As they arrive back in Asheville they are prevented from going into The House by a large, dark, unsavory cloud.

The Cloud

Chapter 24

A.N. There's smut in this chapter (Do I need to keep these alerts or does everyone realize this is an M rated fic?)

Gold was slumped over, leaning onto Belle, who had (finally) given into her own fatigue and was dozing with her head against his shoulder. There were delicate threads of a delicious dream, something with Belle, doing something with Belle, doing something with Belle.

He dimly heard Jefferson calling him.

"Gold, we've got a problem. We need you up."

Damn, damn, damn.

Go away.

"Come on old man. We need your help," Jefferson was shouting at him. "Get up! Get up! Get up!"

No.

Gold felt someone shaking him. He could smell the person, all outdoorsy and fresh, vaguely pine-scented and lemony. Definitely female. Emma.

"Come on, Gold! Get your skinny ass up! There's something wrong with The House."

Gold was still befuddled from his own self-medicating. He didn't want to. . . he didn't like having to . . . he didn't . . . .

He managed to blink his eyes open.

An angel with golden hair was leaning over him. Definitely lovely, sweet Emma. "There's a cloud over The House. It's dark and nasty feeling. And it stinks." Correction: it's a screeching, bitchy Emma.

He blinked a couple more times. He began to focus.

"Good boy. Now stretch out and come on. We can't get in. We can't call in. We have no idea what's going on inside," she explained to him. "None of us can get through. We need you."

She was standing by him with the van door opened.

He looked out through the opening and could vaguely make out a messy, dark fog, like licorice cotton candy. He sighed. Not a lot of choices here. He probably was the only one who could handle this stupid, stupid mess. Gee, thanks dad.

He took a couple of deep breaths and slowly got out of the van, stopping a moment to massage his bad leg. Emma handed him his cane and spotted him as he walked over to The House. The darkness was palpable. And, as Emma had said, it had a distinct . . . odor. He recognized it as the smell of dark magic, an acrid smoky stench of bitterness mixed with the reek of sickly sweet decay.

It was his father's signature, the leavings of an unholy force, one that craved chaos and death, pain and despair.

Gold reached out his hand. Steeling himself, he touched the darkness. For a moment it threatened him, threatened to overwhelm him, to sweep him away, to suck him into the vortex of darkness. This is where he belonged. It beckoned to him to fall into the heart of darkness. So much power if he would accept it. If he would only accept it.

He pulled back and took a breath. Seductive, the allure of dark magic, everything he could ever want. He just had to reach out and take it.

He took another breath. No, he knew better. The dark path was not the path to power and riches; he had learned this long ago. It was the path to destruction.

For a second time, he steeled himself and reached into the darkness and now, this time, he felt cold, a bone-chilling iciness of frozen emptiness, an aching need that could never be filled, solitude without hope of companionship, winter without hope of spring. It spoke loudly to him – this was what he deserved. This was what was waiting for him. No matter what path he took – there would be – nothing – nothing for him.

He pulled back again.

He was so tired, his mind still heavy with the stupor from his medication. He didn't know if he could go through this again. But . . . he had to. He closed his eyes and suddenly he felt lightness and warmth, like sunshine on his face on a cold day, like an uplifting melody coming through a miasma of cacophonous noises. He opened his eyes and saw that Belle had come to stand by him. She had put her hand on his arm.

"Now try," she encouraged him.

And this time when his hand touched the dark murky curtain surrounding his home and the people he cared about, the cloud pulled back from him as if it wasn't able to tolerate his strong, healthy energies. It began to fade away, moving rapidly away from his hand and disappearing, leaving behind the clear, clean lights of the night.

"Wow, it breathes better here now," observed Emma. "That was fantastic. It looked like you two combined your talents."

Following Emma, Jefferson, Archie and David had come up behind Gold and Belle.

"That was awesome!" Jefferson said. "You just walked up that . . . whatever it was. . . and now it's gone."

"What the hell was it?" Emma asked.

"My father left a calling card," Gold replied curtly. "He's an arrogant bastard given to flamboyant, over-the-top gestures."

"Like father, like son," Emma muttered under her breath.

Gold glared at her. "Sass? I just cleared out a dark numbing cloud curse and I'm getting sass?"

"Yeah," Emma admitted. "Somebody had to say it." She leaned in and gave him a gentle hug. "So, what the hell was it?"

Gold stiffened up with her hug but did answer, "It's a mood altering spell. To anyone just passing by, this place would have made them depressed, as if they were helpless and had no options. To someone sensitive, it could make them feel desperate and hopeless. A very dangerous spell – the kind you might cast on enemy troops if you were fighting a war," Gold hesitated. "Well, maybe that's what he thought too. Come on. Let's get the box and go in. I need to sleep about fifteen hours."

Jefferson retrieved the plain box and followed Gold and Belle as they went inside.

The shop bell rang announcing their arrival. Inside, The House was dark and cold. There was an airless quality to it, stale, as if it had sat closed up for too long.

"Gold, 'bout time you got here." It was Leroy. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in Gold's darkened shop with an axe in his hand. Regina was lying on the counter top with a rag on her head. She pulled it off and looked over at Gold as he came in the door. She slid off the counter and ran over to him.

"You sorry-ass son-of-bitch! Am I ever glad to see you! That cloud thing settled over us late this afternoon and we couldn't get out and no one has been able to come in. We weren't even able to get phone calls or even a telepathic tweet out. So we've heard nothing from anyone," she spoke all in a rush. "I tried everything I knew but nothing worked!"

"Regina," he reached over and took her by a shoulder. "You did well. There wasn't anything you could have done. This was addressed to me," he told her. "Is everyone all right here?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. Everyone just kinda shut down and those that were here, Mary Margaret and Killian remained in their rooms. Leroy and I came down here to see what we could do."

Leroy had gotten up and walked over to Gold and Regina, still holding his axe. "Thought I'd be more helpful here, just in case something came in. Wish Ruby had been in the building but she's working second shift."

"Ruby would have been good to have here," Gold agreed, respectful of the shapeshifter's fighting prowess.

Some beeps started coming from the counter. Regina's pocketbook was sitting there. "That's my phone. I bet messages are coming in." She walked back and retrieved her phone. She looked at it. "Yeah, Milah and Ashley both tried to come in after their work and weren't able to make it. They've gone over to Locksley's house."

"Makes sense," Gold approved of their decision. Locksley was Emma's boss and Regina's would-be lover (if not for his pesky on-again, off-again wife). He was also one of those people who had a wide variety of talents, but nothing extraordinarily powerful. Like so many others in Asheville, he was completely untrained. His talents, that Gold had noted, included some modest telepathy skills, a touch of immediate precognition and a bit of environmental awareness – a lot of small skills that make him a good police officer. He knew about The House and Regina's Talents so he offered something of a safe house when residents didn't feel comfortable coming home like when there was a Black Cloud surrounding The House.

Regina ran her hands through her hair. Belle saw that the woman looked tired and her usual immaculate personal appearance had suffered some lapses. Her clothes were wrinkled and her lipstick faded. "I did the best I could. I just . . . I've never encountered anything like that cloud."

"Regina, if you had tried to take it on, it could have killed you, or sapped your life force or. . . enthralled you."

Regina pulled back from the sorcerer, "What?"

"One of my father's favorite tricks. To steal the powers of others for himself or take away the will of a magic user so that they become a mindless slave . . . or worse, a mindful slaves, when a victim retains their self-awareness but has no choice but to obey."

"So I did right waiting for you instead of taking it on?" she said.

"You did. Now go upstairs and get some rest. I've taken care of things," he told her. "You too Leroy. You did great."

"Not found too many creatures that don't give an axe some respect. If anything had come through that door, I'd've been ready for it."

"Can't argue with that. Mad dwarf with an axe - pretty scary," Gold said.

Gold waited until Regina and Leroy had left. David had left earlier, vaulting up the stairs to check on Mary Margaret. Archie stretched and making his apologies, also left to go upstairs. Emma was still there. And Jefferson was still waiting, holding onto the wooden box and Belle, of course, Belle was there. Gold took the box from Jefferson. He opened his safe behind the picture behind the counter and gently placed the box inside. He added additional wards to the safe, telling it to be inconspicuous.

"Go home and rest," Gold ordered Emma and Jefferson who both immediately headed on up the stairs. It was only after they left that Gold slumped and leaned heavily on his cane. Belle could see he was deathly tired but had been holding it together for his people.

"You need to go up to the apartment and rest yourself," Belle told him. "Here, lean on me," she directed him.

"It's times like this that I really wish The House would put in an elevator," he complained as he began the arduous task of climbing four flights of stairs.

"Why doesn't it? I mean, I've heard all these stories of . . . well, like it combined Mary Margaret's and David's apartments when they got married."

"The House has its own agenda. It really doesn't seem to like electricity and technology. I'm surprised we have central heating and air much less lights and plumbing. We've all wished for an elevator but so far, nothing. I keep hoping I'll come back in one of these days and ta-da, there it will be."

He leaned on Belle as they went up the stairs. It was with a sense of relief that they reached his apartment. The door opened at his touch and Belle helped him inside.

"Your father's magic?" Belle asked him when the door shut.

"Yeah," he wasn't sure what she wanted to know.

"It's very dark. It's very powerful," she said softly.

"Yeah," he agreed. "And he doesn't fight fair. And he doesn't care who gets hurt as long as he comes out ahead."

"So, what are you going to do?" she asked.

"Apparently he wants to see me. Sending The Cloud is his typical way of letting people know he's in town." He considered, "Well, I need to get the fourth scroll and the dagger piece from his domain. So going to see him is a good cover for taking care of my own agenda."

"Do you know where the scroll is?" Belle asked.

"No," he admitted.

"Then you'll need somebody who can feel it out for you, won't you," she said softly

Gold looked at her. He realized where she was going with this. He shook his head, "Absolutely not. You are the last person I would want to take on this particular venture."

"Why not?" she had to ask.

"It's not safe. My father is a homicidal maniac and the people . . . the creatures who hang out with him are crazy and willing to do whatever he asks them to do. It's not safe," he repeated.

Belle didn't pursue the topic.

"Right now," he told her, "I find I'm exhausted and I want to get to bed." He held out his hand to her.

Belle realized that although she had shared his bed before, it had not been as his lover. It had been as a concerned friend.

Very different.

She remembered the very large bed in the center of the room.

She'd spent the night in there wrapped around a sick and shivering Gold after she had poisoned him.

And the morning after he had. . . well it had been very pleasant but because of Jefferson's concerns, they had been interrupted and nothing had been concluded. She glanced up and she could tell that he was thinking about that morning also – his eyes had darkened and there was that faint sexy smile on his face.

"Let's get some sleep," he said, his hand still held out while he patiently waited for her to take it.

She took his hand and he led her back with him to the bedroom. She looked around but did not see Lovecraft. Apparently the cat wanted to give them their space.

Belle felt comfortable in his bedroom. She thought that it reflected the best sides of his personality, solid, elegant, efficient. He had turned on one of his stained glass lamps to give the room a soft rose light. She realized she was excruciatingly tired. Kissing her forehead, he helped her undress down to her standard plain cotton undies, removing her shoes, her skirt and her top. She stood dressed only in her bra and panties. She watched as he stripped off his socks and shoes, his jeans and removed his shirt. He pulled the bedcovers back and took her hand again.

"I thought we both needed to sleep," he told her and led her to the bed. She climbed in while he turned off the light and then lay down next to her. She turned to him and he touched the back of cheek with his hand. "You know, I love you," he said quietly.

"I do, I read people's feelings, you know," she answered. She turned her head and kissed the back of his fingers. "You know, I love you," she told him.

"It's harder for me, I don't read feelings," he confessed.

"And you don't trust women and what they tell you," she told him. "I understand. I guess I'll have to keep telling you, and showing you, and convincing you." And she kissed him on the chin.

"Be patient with me sweetheart," he pleaded with her.

"We'll go at your pace, darling," she promised him.

She found her eyes drooping and closing. The warmth and comfort she was wrapped in was too much. She drifted off.

He held onto her in the darkness. She loved him. She trusted him. He wanted to believe it. He really wanted to believe her. But he'd been hurt before, deeply hurt. He thought back to when she had first come into his shop. Alone, so young, so slight, so desperate. She hadn't trusted him them, but she had decided to take a chance on his beneficence.

He remembered being pleasantly surprised by how pretty she had cleaned up. Her eyes had sparkled and her soft, curling hair had reflected gold.

He remembered that he had been puzzled by the nature of her Talent and foolish man that he had been he had discounted her empathic abilities as having any merit.

He remembered that he had been made wary by her Fae blood. And he was still wary. Did she know? He thought not. He knew she believed her mother dead but he thought that was most unlikely. Her mother was one of the feckless Fae that amused themselves with human males but then grew bored and moved on. He knew that her poisoning him was a complete accident – that she'd had no idea that her blood her Fae blood was a toxin to the likes of him.

As the light from the street played around the room, the soft shadows blending into the darkness, he knew he was losing the battle and he was falling asleep.

+ + + + Saturday Morning

Gold stretched out. The light was coming through his window. He realized it was late morning. Belle was still asleep. She had rolled over onto her back. She still had a hand on him and he laid his own hand on hers.

"Have you figured out what you are going to do?" she asked him without opening her eyes.

He knew what she was referring to. "About my father?" he asked just to be sure they were talking about the same thing.

"Uh hum," she answered, opening her eyes just a bit.

"Not entirely. I can't take anyone with me who has a clear Light alignment, like yourself, Archie, Ashley, Mary Margaret or David. I can take Neutrals, like Ruby or Emma or Jefferson or Leroy. Or those with some Dark allegiance, like Killian, Milah or Regina. Jefferson and Emma have already put in their time, so I'd prefer to use someone else."

Belle had opened her eyes completely, "So what are you thinking?"

Gold leaned back in the bed. "I thinking that I would like to keep you in bed all day and have sex with you in a lot of different ways."

"There's more than what we've done?" she asked him her blue eyes wide and innocent.

"Oh yeah," he answered with a smirk. She was kidding him, right? He looked over at her. Maybe not. "You liked what we did in the shower?" he asked her. He thought she might have. The woman actually screamed her way through her orgasm.

She bit her lower lip and nodded. "It was intense and very . . . fantastic. Yes, I liked it."

"Well there are some other positions that are similar that we could try."

"All right," Belle was most agreeable. "Do you . . . do you have a favorite position?" she asked shyly. Belle wasn't a fool. She knew this man was over three hundred years old and certainly he had been in relationships with other women.

"I'm not picky but I will confess to liking it when the woman is on top. I get to see her face when she comes for me and when she's in that position, then I have access to all her splendid assets," he told her smiling. He shifted, a bit uncomfortable. Belle always looked beautiful to his eyes, but somehow Belle first thing in the morning was at her best. It was her most alluring time. Her eyes always looked smudged and her hair would frame her face in a glorious disarray. She looked soft and vulnerable. And, he knew without reading her mind that at this moment she was trying to imagine herself astride him. He couldn't stop himself and reached for her.

Belle folded herself into him allowing herself to be dragged across his body. He rolled on top of her and kissed her thoroughly, then lifted her up so that he could unfasten her bra. Next he was reaching down to remove her panties. He stopped a moment to admire this woman in the morning light. Her body with the artificial tan was still somehow luminous, each curve just exactly right, her skin soft and smooth. He traced down her arm and then brushed his hand over her hip. He raised up and kissed her shoulder and then deliberately caressed a breast, his fingers lingering over the nipple already hardened for him. He rolled the nipple in his fingertips gently pulling it out further and was rewarded by a faint whimper. He kissed down her body, keeping her on her back.

Belle was already quite aroused and he soon found that she was already slick with her own sweet honey. He lowered his head and taking his time began to lick and kiss her. He was pleased when she spread her legs more for him, welcoming his kisses and quite soon, quite, quite soon she cried out, her body responding to his exquisite refined torture. This time he didn't stop with her first one, but continued, this time ignoring her protests that it was too soon, too much. When he latched onto her clit, distended and hardened, he felt her shudder and shake, her body rocking against his. This time, he pulled back and reaching over into his nightstand for a condom, prepared himself to enter her. But Belle pushed him onto his back.

"I want to try this thing where I'm on top," she told him. She straddled him and stopping a moment to hold him, she lifted herself and hesitantly began to lower herself onto him. It was everything he could do not to push up, but to allow her to take control. She finally was able to sit down on him with his swollen cock pushed all the way inside of her.

"Wow, this is different," she told him. "What do I do now?" she asked.

"Whatever you like," he told her reaching over to rest his hands on her hips.

She experimented, lifting herself and pushing back down, leaning forward and then rocking back and forth.

"With your permission, this may help," and he set his hand between them so that with each push, she rubbed herself against him.

Belle soon enough found a rhythm. "This . . . is. . . wonder . . .ful," she managed to tell him as she rode him and he saw her quickly enough spiraling into another paroxysm of pleasure. She stopped, panting, trying to recover.

He gave a moment but then pressed her. "I'm not finished," he told her. "Keep going." And dutifully, still a bit dazed, Belle managed to begin rocking against him again but this time as she pushed down he would push up. "Harder," he told her and she strove to meet his demands. When Belle came apart for him yet again, he sat up, holding her to him while she clung to him, barely sensible. Allowing her a brief respite he pushed her onto her back and managed to change their positions so that he finished on top.

This time Belle screamed for him, beginning with several sharp cries and then a longer cry as she came undone for him and he, unable to restrain himself any longer, he spilled himself in several long, hard spasms. He collapsed onto her.

It seemed awhile before either of them could move and only a concern that his seed would seep from the condom stopped him from staying joined with her.

He got up and disposed of the protection and then rejoined her in the bed flopping down beside her.

"It's going to take me a little while to recover from that," he confessed.

"Me too," she answered shakily. "I didn't know I could do one right after the other like that. That was like. . . five times."

Gold stretched, feeling rather proud of himself in this instance, well deserved, he thought. "We are well matched, my Belle. Compatible."

Belle rolled over to hug him. "Is that what it is?" she asked. "Well, if we're so compatible, I'm guessing that you're getting hungry because I'm starving. Can we get breakfast or lunch or something?" she asked him.

"Here or go out somewhere?" he asked.

She considered. "Either way. Do you have a preference?"

"I was thinking here, but I don't know if we'll be able to keep our hands off each other to make it all the way through preparing a meal," he said realistically. "Why don't we get the car and go out to Edna's. They have excellent coffee. Serve breakfast all day, including salmon on a chewy roll."

"Do you mean they serve lox and bagels?" Belle asked him.

Gold thought a moment, "They call it something else, but it's good."

"Edna's it is, then," agreed Belle, realizing that she was really quite ravenous.

"Do you have anything clean to wear?" he asked her. She had brought her luggage up to his room the night before.

"I don't know. I didn't take a lot and everything is frumpy," Belle told him.

"Yes. Those clothes were pretty awful. I'll be glad to see you back in your . . . the other things you were wearing. And can we have Milah have a go at restoring your hair? I hope she can fix it back the way it was." As he turned to go into his own clothes closet, Belle heard him mutter, "I liked the way it was."

Belle had to smile.

She had gotten up to see if there was anything for her to wear in the suitcase of clothes. He caught her moving around the room out of the corner of his eye. She had wrapped the sheet around herself. She was still modest around him and he found it charming.

He had to smile.

As he returned his attention to his closet a flurry of color and fabric caught his eye and he opened the closet door all the way. He saw what was now hanging in his closet.

Pretty flowing skirts in bright colors and pastel colors. These all belonged to . . .

"Belle," he called her attention to him. He stepped out of the way so that she could see what was now in his closet.

"What are my clothes doing in your closet?" she asked.

+ + + 3A

Emma had dropped into Jefferson's bed the night before barely getting her shoes kicked off.

She'd awakened early enough and shifted out of the bed doing her best not to disturb a slumbering Jefferson. She realized she needed a shower and stripped off in the bathroom to jump in the man's shower to wash up. She wrapped a towel around herself and came back into the bedroom to rifle through Jefferson's closet and his chest of drawers. She borrowed some boxers, a pair of sleep pants and an undershirt. She hesitated but opted to keep on her sportsbra under the undershirt. She was finger combing her hair when . . .

"Damn, Emma. You look fantastic."

She regarded the young man who was propped up on one elbow in the bed.

"You look tired as hell," she told him.

"Well it's how I feel. I used quite a bit of magic in Avonleigh and then drank all that wine. Got a hell of a reaction headache."

"Get you anything?" she asked him.

"Give me a couple of aspirin, please. They're in the medicine cabinet."

"You don't have anything stronger?" she asked him.

"Absolutely not," he assured her. My vices have been reduced to beer, wine and aspirin – nothing stronger."

Emma got the man a couple of aspirin and found a short stack of paper cups. She took one and filled it half full with water. She handed it off to him and sat down on the side of the bed.

"What do you make of that cloud thing that surrounded The House last night?" she asked him.

"A barrier of some type. Gold said it was a calling card from his father," Jefferson told her.

"His father? We all heard him talking about that. What does it mean? What do we know about his father?"

"His father is some kind of dark entity. I've heard Gold refer to him as a demon. I don't know if he meant it literally."

"But it would seem that his father is some kick-ass evil sombitch?" Emma asked.

"I guess," Jefferson told her.

"Well, that just sucks," Emma summed it up. "I gotta go. I need to unpack and wash some clothes. Get something to eat."

As she started out the door, he called out, "Emma, I've enjoyed what we had these past few days. I'd like to see you again. Maybe take you out to another diner or even a restaurant."

"I'm always up for a burger and a beer at 51 Grill," she told him.

"Tonight?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure. Pick me up at six," she gave him a big smile and went on out.

Thanks so much to all my reviewers (still getting neat ideas from you people): MyraValhallah, jaime. wan. kanobi, Robin 4(Guest), RoxyMoron, jewel415, juju0268, OneMagician, karolprado, spacecats, cynicsquest, thedoctorsgirl42, Anne Andrews (Guest), Chauchi, deweymay, orthankg1, RaFire, Grace5231973, The Prince's Phoenix, Erik'sTrueAngel, DruidKitty (5 and 6), emospritelet, and Aletta-Feather

NEXT: Belle discovers a way for her to go Undertown

Killian gets an assignment