Belle had left the house not long after Henry arrived. She didn't want to get between father and son bonding time, and truthfully she wanted to see a bit more of the town. She actually really liked it here. Things were cheaper than she was used to, and it kind of felt like walking through a Christmas card. She still felt a little self-conscious wandering around since everyone else seemed to know each other, but it was a holiday so there must be other strangers around someplace.

It seemed like she was drawn back to Theo's shop, though. She was trying to give him some space at least until Neal had talked to him about everything, but she couldn't help it. She kind of liked him, and there was only so much she could do alone by herself in a strange town.

There was a little bell over his door that rang when she came in, and she smiled to herself at the sound of it. It felt like a good omen somehow, like in It's a Wonderful Life. Theo was at the counter when she came in, and she saw the moment that he recognized her a couple seconds later because his eyebrows jerked up into a look of shock before he schooled his features back to normal. She didn't think she looked that different out of her Lacey-drag, but maybe she did. She'd left her hair down and was wearing jeans with her boots and a jacket over top. There was a sweater that flashed her belly button underneath the jacket, but compared to the things he'd seen her in before she looked practically respectable.

"Good morning," she said as cheerfully as she could as she pulled off her gloves and scarf and tucked them in her pocket. "Henry came over after you left, so I thought I'd leave the two of them alone."

"Probably for the best," he said. "Did Neal speak to Emma about any of this yet?"

"Yeah, he called to tell her where Henry was before I left but I don't know much more than that."

He nodded and went back to fiddling with the book he'd been working on when she came in, which she could now see was a ledger of some kind. She was kind of disappointed that he she wouldn't have his full attention today after she'd gone to all the trouble to track him down, but she couldn't exactly complain about it when she had come to his place of business unannounced after they had pretty much come to an unspoken agreement not to acknowledge anything that had happened the night before.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" she asked at last to fill the silence. "I don't have anything else to do today and I was getting bored."

He looked around quickly and grabbed a feather duster before handing it to her, apparently feeling like that was the end of the conversation. At least now she knew where Neal got his occasional prickliness from. Still, she'd asked and dusting wasn't precisely a hardship. She left her coat on the counter next to him as she made her way around the room tending to his precious antiques. The silence started to get to her, though, and humming Christmas songs only went so far to fill her time.

"How long did Neal and Emma date?" she asked. She'd known Neal since college and they hadn't really talked much about their romantic histories because it hadn't ever come up and she found herself wondering how, precisely, one ended up with a secret love child you never knew about.

"On and off for most of high school," Theo said. "Although they did start to get pretty serious senior year and the following summer."

"And she really never said anything about the kid? Did things end badly or something?"

She looked back over her shoulder, trying to decide if he minded her prying or not but he wasn't even looking at her.

"I don't know all the details myself," he said, still looking at his ledger. "But I understand there may have been some hurt feelings on both sides."

"I guess it's just one of those things with teen romances, isn't it? The inevitable fiery ending."

"I suppose. Still, it was disappointing when it happened.

"Yeah?"

He set his pen down and looked right at her, and the way his gaze seemed to see into her soul curled Belle's toes in her shoes.

"To be honest, I don't think he ever got over Emma. And I don't think any girl after that ever looked at him quite the same way she had. So...it was disappointing for everyone. I'd hoped he could have that sort of true love in his life."

"Did you ever have it?" she asked.

He didn't answer right away and looked up in the air as though trying to find an answer for her before he finally replied.

"No," he said at last. "Not with Neal's mother, not with anybody before or after her. But I would have liked that for him."

Belle nodded and went back to her dusting in silence. She'd never had that either, and hadn't really ever felt the loss of it before right now.

Lacey was a surprisingly industrious worker, and she was still dusting the knick-knacks when it was finally time to lock the door for the day and start closing up.

"Is it time to go already?" she asked when he locked the door and flipped the sign. "I guess I really zoned out."

"It won't be too much longer, Lacey," he said as he returned to the counter to pack up his ledgers. "If you'd like to have a seat in the back I'll give you a ride back."

She grimaced and walked up to the counter to where she'd left her coat. To his surprise, she pulled out her wallet, opened it, removed her driver's license, and put it down on the counter in front of him.

"My name is Belle," she said. "'Lacey' is just a name Neal came up with because he thought it sounded more like a girl you wouldn't like."

He picked up her license and read the information on it. Sure enough, her name was listed as Sabella Bernice French, her address was in New York, she was going to be thirty in February, and her photo looked a lot more like the young woman standing in front of him than it did the siren he'd gotten drunk with the night before.

"So it is," he replied lamely. What else was he supposed to do with this new information?

"I was going to wait for Neal to tell you himself, but I don't think he's going to do it anytime soon," she wasn't even looking at him now, she was fiddling with her hands and staring at the countertop like there was a script in the wood. "My name is Belle, I met Neal when he was in undergrad and I was a TA in his English class, and this whole plan was really poorly conceived. We've never even so much as kissed."

"And what plan is this, exactly?"

"He wanted to bring home a girl so awful that you'd have to like his next one, and I was trying to get my dad off my back about getting married and providing him with grandchildren. Neal was going to take me to a family wedding in June and hit on all my cousins."

He handed back her ID, trying to figure out what to say to that. It certainly sounded like something Neal would do, but honestly how could he respond to that?

"Do me a favor and don't tell Neal my middle name," she said as she put her ID back in her wallet. "He'll never let me live it down."

"It's not like he has much room to talk," Theo said. "His middle name is Horace."

"Horace?" she said incredulously. "Why?"

"Don't ask me, his mother chose it. I was supposed to choose if we had a second one."

"Oh goodness," Belle said with a sweet little giggle. "Poor Neal."

She had her lower lip between her teeth and he had the sudden urge to reach out and touch her face and pull the lip free with his thumb. He could lean across this counter and press his mouth to hers, taste that lip for himself and see where things went. It was a beautiful distraction, but it couldn't last forever.

"I have to put these in the office," he said, picking up his pen and ledger and retreating to the backroom.

He shouldn't be so nervous about being around her. She seemed eager to get to know him, and the night before she'd asked for even more. He wasn't a teenager with his first look at a pretty girl, this shouldn't be so intimidating. And yet he was so nervous he dropped his damn pen in the doorway between the front and the back. Before he could even pick it up himself she'd scurried over and picked it up for him.

"Thank you," he said, taking it from her. He should move away, but she was smiling and he liked her smile.

"There's uh, mistletoe," she said softly and pointing upwards. Oh, damn. He'd forgotten about that. He'd bought a sprig of silk mistletoe and a half dozen rolls of wrapping paper for Neal to go on a science field trip in the twelfth grade, and he'd put it up in the doorway to the backroom of the shop every year since then. Nobody ever went back there besides him, nobody had ever been caught underneath it before.

She had backed against the door frame and was chewing on that lip again and there was nothing for it now. He was completely sunk and there was no way on earth to resist the pull as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers. It was like an electric shock through him the second they touched, and some part of him had been afraid that he was misinterpreting her signals but then her arms were around his neck and she was holding him tight as she pressed her body against his. The ledger hit the floor and he wrapped his arms around her waist.

This was all wrong, but it felt so right he could hardly care.

Neal had dropped Henry off with his mother about an hour ago and gone shopping. It was almost Christmas, and he didn't have any gifts for his son. If nothing else, he at least wanted to try this much. He knew that he was going to have to get a lawyer and file for partial custody, and there were a lot of other decisions to make, too. He needed to decide where he was going to live if Henry was going to be here. His life was in the city, but Henry was going to be here. What was he doing that was so much more important than knowing his son?

That would, of course, mean a career change and a major life overhaul, but he didn't want to be an absentee father. Henry was a really great kid, and he wanted to be a part of that. He'd warned Emma already that he meant to do whatever he could to be involved and it hadn't turned into a fight, so that was a good sign, all things considered. He could tell that she knew that she'd fucked up, but it was still a hard thing to deal with. But it was Christmas time, and he didn't want to worry about that yet. He wanted to focus on the good things right now and so he was.

His dad's car was still outside the pawn shop when Neal passed it, which was a little bit strange since he'd thought he would have headed back home by now. Probably got sidetracked on inventory or something, and Neal decided to drop in and say hello. If nothing else, his dad probably needed a reminder that it was time to go home. The door was locked when Neal tried it, and he'd been about to knock when he'd realized it was dark in the front. He was probably in the back in that case, so Neal decided to spare his father the walk out front and circled around to the alley where the service entrance was. The door there was unlocked, and Neal let himself in.

"Hey pops," Neal said as he shut the door. It was darker inside than it had been out, with only one lamp providing light to the back.

As he turned back to face the room, he realized Belle was in there as well. She was standing about five feet away from a daybed that had been back there as long as Neal could remember and staring at him. Neal's father was sitting on the daybed in his shirt and pants, which was odd because Neal was sure he'd left the house in a full suit with a tie. On a second glance at Belle, her hair was messy and she was barefoot where she stood.

"Oh for fuck's sake," Neal exclaimed, covering his eyes before he could take in any more details of the scene. "I thought we were going to talk to him about that later!"

"I couldn't wait!" Belle replied, and he could hear them moving around now that his eyes were closed.

"I'm sorry, was there a time limit on trying to sleep with my dad? Do you turn into a pumpkin at midnight?"

"Shut up," she said. "You were busy! What was I supposed to do?"

"I cannot believe I am having this conversation," he said, trying not to image any part of what he'd interrupted. "At which point did making out with my dad turn into one of the top things you had to do in Storybrooke?"

"Can we please have this conversation later?" his dad said before Belle could reply. "This isn't really the time or the place."

"There's not really a whole lot more to discuss," Neal said, uncovering his eyes and leaning his head back so he was staring at the ceiling. "I assume she told you about our arrangement, I just really don't need to know about any of the rest of it. Ever."

"Hey, I wasn't planning about telling you about this," Belle said. "Trust me, you'd never have known."

Neal finally looked back down. His father had put himself back together and she'd smoothed down her hair.

"Somehow, that doesn't make me feel better about it," he said. "But I don't wanna know. I'm going home, and you two...don't tell me about it. We'll talk about my day...after."

He let himself back out and shut the door behind him. He was definitely never walking through another door without knocking ever again.

Belle was really enjoying the remainder of her vacation. Neal was making headway with his child and ex, and that left Belle largely to herself as far as his father was concerned. Once Neal had given his implicit approval (well, he'd told them not to tell him and left it at that), Theo had gotten quite a bit friendlier with her. They'd been flirting almost non-stop, and there had been a few more makeouts. It was kind of like being in high school again, and she was having a good time with him.

Christmas eve was here, though, and she had all kinds of plans for how she planned to welcome Christmas once everyone was in bed. She'd actually bought the Christmas lingerie as a joke, but if she was able to get some use out of it then dammit, she was going to put on a green velvet fur lined bra and a pair of matching panties with mistletoe on them and sneak down the hall to his bedroom. She had a robe on, but it was still nerve wracking waiting for him to let her in.

"I've got a surprise for you," she said as soon as he opened the door, and she brushed past him before he could question her.

"Oh really?" he asked her with a smug little grin on his face. "And what would that be?"

She opened the robe and let it fall to the floor eagerly, savoring the way his eyes got wider at the sight of her. She'd missed having a guy be this happy to see her, it was so awesome to have someone be that into her.

"Do you like it?" she asked, trying to prompt a response when he didn't volunteer one immediately. She was pretty sure he did, but she was the one wearing a green velvet thong so she was going to get her compliments.

"Yes," he said in a strained voice. "Yes, I do like it. It's...wow."

"'Wow?'"

"Yeah...you're – your breasts and uh…"

"And?" she said, turning slowly so he could see the rest of it. He was staring slack jawed by the time she'd done a full turn, and she just wanted to kiss him.

"You look amazing," he finally said, and she jumped forward and threw her arms around her neck to kiss him. They worked their way back to his bed before collapsing into the sheets. She liked the way his fingers felt on her ass when she was on top of him. He was a lot of fun, and she liked him so much.

"What is this?" he asked once she finally came up for air.

"Well I didn't exactly have time to pick out a Christmas present," she replied, leaning down to kiss his lips again.

"You're a vision in tacky lingerie," he said when she'd broken away. "But I meant more like, am I going to see you again after this week?"

She smiled and leaned down to kiss him again. He was so damn cute and she liked him so much.

"Of course," she replied. "I think Neal's going to be up here a lot more often, so I can always hitch a ride up with him. You know, if you want me to."

He smiled and looked a little relieved and her heart did a little flip in her chest. He was so cute and so sweet, and she was going to have such a good time getting to know him better. But, for right now, she was having a really good time with him underneath her eyeing the mistletoe on her crotch.

"See something you like?" she asked, wiggling a little bit. "It's just a suggestion, but it is good luck…"

He looked at her for a second, and suddenly he flipped her onto her back and kissed her neck. She stifled a giggle as he kissed his way down her body.

"This is the best Christmas ever," she said with a sigh. "I got everything I wanted."