Since he had lost his son six years ago, Raphael Gold had spent every weekend alone in his shop. During the week, he spent all of his free time in his office, making himself availably unavailable, filling his time with mundane things that kept his career thriving. Instead of friends, he had hobbies, and he had spent the past six years trapped in those hobbies and his businesses. When he was bored, he had always been able to pull out a model he was building and delight in the way his old hands could craft something out of nothing, or to look over some accounts to see if he could find a snag to untangle, or intimidate the townsfolk of Storybrooke for sport.
Not today, though. Today, he was filled with such wretched disappointment, he couldn't even bring himself to get out of his chair behind the register to lurk in the back of the shop.
He had had no warning that he would feel this way. He was used to spending time without Belle—she had only spent a couple afternoons in his office that week, and only for about an hour, and she had only spent about five minutes with him yesterday. Most of his day was spent in solitude, building things and fixing things and reading things. Those times didn't make his heart ache, didn't crush him with the thought that he would be lonely and grumpy forever.
The only difference that he could think of today was the fact that Belle did not give him any hint as to when she would be back. Yesterday, he had been fine. Once she was gone, he had contented himself to think that she would be back, that she was somehow as drawn to him as he was to her. She would be back by Sunday afternoon, ready for lunch. He hadn't realized how tightly he'd been holding on to this shred of hope until it was wrenched from his grasp. Lunch time came and went, the shop remained empty, and Gold fell deeper and deeper into a self-induced coma.
When darkness fell, and it came time to close the shop, he carried himself home with the care of one who thought their bones might disintegrate. He had always been a lonely man, and it had been a burden he was willing to bear, but it was like, as soon as his body got a taste of companionship, it couldn't let go.
In order to sleep, he'd had to consume nearly a third of a bottle of Lagavulin, which had caused him to perform a stunt with his knee on the stairs that he was sure he would feel in the morning.
He was not wrong. His knee throbbed so much the next day that he gave his entire lecture sitting down. This seemed to somehow endear him to his students, and he was ambushed by a group of girls after class—wanting to discuss his accent, of all things.
He vowed never to drink on a work night again—at least, not downstairs.
He tried to escape to his office, but his protesting knee and resulting slowness made him an easy target to follow. His only solace came from the fact that it was Monday, and Belle might come by and invite him to lunch again.
"Dr. Gold," one girl said, waiting until he had sat behind his desk to speak. They were all crowded in the doorway, and he was certain that the group's number had been growing. It wasn't even all female anymore. Where the hell was Belle?
"Yes, dearie?"
She flushed, and he realized that she had no idea that his pet name wasn't affectionate.
"You never finished telling us about where you grew up. What was it you said? Wes—go?"
He gritted his teeth. "Lesmahagow." He had said it, but it wasn't true. He had never been to the town—it had been the most complicated name he could think of, and he'd been hoping to deter them with the complexity of his brogue.
"Could you say that again?" a voice in the back piped up.
"I love the way you say things," someone else sighed.
For all of his fearsomeness, Gold could think of nothing terrifying to say at the moment. It appeared that he was too outnumbered—they had attacked him out of his element, and now he was just going to have to succumb to the ambush.
"Lesmahagow."
There was another collective sigh, and Gold was tempted to crawl under his desk, but he couldn't let anyone know that he feared his students when they didn't fear him.
He had no more chances to deter them with complicated Gaelic terms, because their questions soon became generic, just excuses to listen to him talk. He gave them clipped responses, and when his cell phone buzzed because he had a text, he cut himself off mid-sentence and dove for it.
"Dr. Gold?" someone prompted, but he was no longer paying attention.
"I have a meeting," he said, waving a hand in the general direction of the group. "Go to class."
He didn't care that he sounded like a disgruntled parent—he only cared that they left him to open the text. It had to be from Belle—she was, after all, the only person who would ever text him.
He was not disappointed. Her name flashed across his screen, sending his heart into frenzied thumping. Once he read it, however, he wanted to sink into the chair again, until the day was over and he could finish off the rest of his Scotch.
Can't make it for lunch today or tomorrow, sorry.
The best way to not say anything stupid was to not respond, and so he didn't, but another text came seconds later.
It appears that there has been some sort of scandal in the biology
department, in which a TA has been arrested for soliciting sex from
minors. The mayor herself is now holding an emerg
The text cut off, and he wondered if she had stopped typing, if he should run up to her cubicle to make sure she was safe, but the rest of the message appeared seconds later. Phones were a mystery.
ency session on sensitivity training and sexism. Because
apparently, now none of us can be trusted not to be pimps.
It made him chuckle, despite the fact that he was certain that this training session was the mayor personally attacking him, depriving him of the one thing that made him smile. This was a silly notion, but he was going to hold onto it because being angry at Mayor Mills soothed him.
I do hope that, if you did intend to become a pimp,
you would consult me for my business expertise.
Absolutely.
As glad as he was to hear from her after days apart, he couldn't help but feel as though she had just written his death sentence.
Tuesday dragged like no other day had. Perhaps it was because, for all the other days, there had been hope, but Tuesday was just a day filled with emptiness, and ambushes by the students in his Tuesday/Thursday classes. Both nights had, again, seen him at the Lagavulin, this time lying in bed in his silk robe, feeling like he should be smoking a cigar and lying next to a Playboy bunny. Instead, he read from Cormac McCarthy, finding its grotesqueness to be a suitable distraction.
Wednesday dawned, bleak and grey, and Gold found that he had to convince himself to get out of bed. It had been four days since he had seen Belle, and he could not find any hope within him. He had considered cancelling class, but he was a legend at the university for never having done so, and he wasn't about to ruin that just because he was hung up on seeing his TA.
He limped into class at 9:22, eight minutes to spare, and sat at the desk. While his knee wasn't as bad as it had been on Monday, three nights of drinking himself to sleep hadn't done him any favors. He was determined to give this lecture standing up, so as to regain his ferociousness, but to do that, he would need to gather his strength.
It was known that Dr. Gold started class exactly when class started, and did not tolerate late arrivals. He didn't lock the door, but this was because he preferred to mock any latecomer without mercy, until they either slunk out of class to never return, or cowered out an apology at his feet. The only tolerable excuse for tardiness was visible blood, bruising, or muscle damage—and even then, he would often gesture to his cane and stare. Thus, most people learned by the second week of class that you either arrived on time, or not at all.
The last few stragglers scooted in at 9:29, and Gold stood to begin. This class was on contemporary literature, with a heavy leaning on critical theory, which meant that he spent a good portion of the class standing and lecturing. It was rare that he asked for class discussion, and even more rare that someone volunteered information, since it was known that he did not operate under the idea that there were no stupid questions or wrong answers in regards to interpretation.
He did not use slides nor provide notes or visuals, instead preferring to get up and lecture. The one luxury he did provide his students was his storytelling voice, which was slow enough to give them time to take notes. He would repeat information if asked, but he was rarely asked, and he was certain that some of the quicker note-takers made a good profit selling copies of their notes to those unused to having to pay attention in class.
Had he not given today's lecture thousands of other times, he was certain he wouldn't have gotten through it. It was only the ability to go on autopilot that kept him talking, instead of giving in to the despair creeping along his ribcage.
At 10:02, he paused to give his class time to catch up on notes before he switched topics. In the silence, he could hear the doorknob rattling. He narrowed his eyes, and his already silent class became somehow more silent. They had all seen him go up one side and down the other on people walking in late, and that had been for offenses as small as five minutes. This was thirty-two minutes late. There was bound to be a bloodbath.
"I wonder who that could be." Gold's voice was a soft growl, and he had the tiny grin of a jolly executioner. There were a few nervous laughs from the class, but it remained otherwise silent enough to hear a butterfly land.
Then, the door was flung open, and Gold had no time to register that it was Belle before she was screaming and running over to him. He paled, his first thought being that something was wrong—she was being chased or stalked or followed, and had come to him for protection—but then she flung her arms around his neck.
He was certain that he had never been so still in his life. He was not used to being hugged, and the fact that it was the first thing that Belle had done upon seeing him had given him sensory overload. Also, she was still screaming, and he thought he might have been going deaf.
"Oh my god, Dr. Gold, you'll never guess what happened!" Her voice was about ten times more high-pitched than usual, and he winced. Now that his body was done pretending it didn't work, however, his knee decided that it did not like having another person using it for support, and he stumbled backwards, managing to catch himself on his cane.
"Do tell," he said, teeth gritted against the pain. He wasn't too upset, though, because Belle was here, interrupting his class just to hug him. It made up for decades without lunch.
She jumped back, clasping her hands in front of her. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot about your knee. Should I get you a chair?"
"I can move around," he said, stung at the way she treated him like he belonged in a home. "I'm not an invalid."
"I didn't mean that and you know it. I almost knocked you over! I feel bad." She folded her arms.
"I can hit you with my cane. Would that make you feel better?"
She pursed her lips, hands on her hips, and he had the urge to sweep her up and twirl her. He had missed her so much more than he'd even realized.
"Would you get on with it? You're interrupting my class." He gestured out to the room, filled now with wide-eyed students, gawking in amazement.
"Oh, yes, right." She turned to the class and waved. "So, I was sitting in my office and I got this email from the Puckerbrush Review."
She paused, watching him. He wasn't sure what she was looking for, so after a few seconds, he pressed his lips together.
"Okay. And?"
She looked out at the class, expectant, and one girl raised her hand to ask what the Puckerbrush Review was. This seemed to be what Belle had been waiting for, and she clasped her hands together.
"It's a literary magazine run by the University of Maine's main campus, dedicated to publishing the best in their field."
"So, they emailed you?" Gold prompted, folding his hands over his cane.
"Yes, and they're going to publish me!" She squealed, looking like she was about to throw her arms around him again, until she glanced at his cane and settled for jumping up and down while the class gasped and clapped.
He felt a surge of pride—his student, his Belle, was getting published, maybe even for her work arguing against him. He almost smiled, but since he was in class, he didn't, and he knew she would understand.
"Did you submit part of your dissertation? Your writing sample that got you in?"
It was like he'd thrown water on her. She settled down, edging away and chewing her lip. He drew his brows together.
"Actually, I won for a creative work."
As much as he loved literature, Gold held a certain amount of disdain for writers, and he felt his face automatically curling into a grimace before he could stop it. The class renewed their clapping, but Belle continued to watch him and chew her lip.
"It's not poetry, is it?"
"Oh, no, it's a short story." She smiled again, and he knew he would never feel disdain for any creative endeavor she undertook.
"Thank god. I hate poets." His lip twitched in a smile, and she hopped again.
"No, you don't. You love Keats."
His chest filled up with air at the fact that she knew this, could so readily trot out this fact. "Well, Keats has something no modern poet has."
"Oh? And what's that? A way with words? A sense of romance? An unquenchable need to find beauty and truth?" She exchanged a conspiratorial look with his entire class, and he felt a surge of jealousy.
"He's dead."
While the rest of his class looked cowed, as usual, at his sense of humor, Belle let out a bark of laughter.
"All right, beast, you've made your point. You hate everyone. But I won't let you pretend not to be happy for me, because I know you are, and I have more to tell you later, so meet me at Granny's at noon."
Her last statement sent such a wave of relief through him, he thought he might fall over. Instead, he wrinkled his nose, because he was Raphael Gold, and he did not just agree to things when there were people present. His name may as well have been 'Difficult Gold.'
"Can't you just go to my office and tell me after class?"
"No, because I've got two days' worth of work to catch up on because of that stupid sex seminar. But hey, I guess it was worth it, because now I know all the dangers of selling minors for sex." She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I've got to get going. I'll see you in a few hours."
He was about to bid her goodbye, already preparing ways to restore order to his now-chuckling class, and then she leaned forward to peck him on the cheek, and he was certain that his heart had exploded. He stood stock still, unable to form any words as she chirped out another farewell and flitted out of the room.
The catcall from the back of the room jarred him out of his stupor, and the glare he gave his class would have been effective in silencing them for the rest of their lives.