True Love's Proof

Chapter Seven

He had stared down an evil queen and protected Belle from a tyrant king. He had gotten underfoot and been banished out to the three bay garage towards the back of the property. Despite being free to enjoy the fresh air and coffee, he missed Destiny. He missed working on problems that had a solution. He missed the simplicity of it all. Food, water, air. He took his glasses off and rubbed his face, feeling every year of his age.

There was death on Destiny, it certainly wasn't a stranger. Senator Armstrong, Riley, Telford...Ginn and Amanda. But there was no time for grief. Between ships exploding, gates closing and food running out, there was no time to process the loss. He would work, looking for solutions instead of healing until he was so tired he would fall into a coma, unable to cope with the fallout of the loss.

But Storybrooke was not Destiny. Food, water and air were plentiful here. There were no explosions or berserker drones to distract him. He had tried to go through the various boxes in the garage but dusty, broken antiques weren't exactly life threatening enough to distract him. He pulled out his notebook and started scribbling equations but even that didn't hold his attention.

"Dammit!" he snarled, throwing the pad down on a workbench. He gave up any pretense of doing anything worthwhile and stood by the only window in the garage. He could see the majority of the house from this vantage point. Belle was in there, somewhere, grieving, and most likely being more productive about it. He had nothing to offer her, no platitudes or words of comfort. Grief was something that needed to be plowed through, endured before it could be overcome.

Maybe he had pushed his grief off for too long. Perhaps Destiny herself kicked him into this time bubbled world so he could rest, mourn and then go back to survival mode. Maybe it wasn't something as random as a solar flare. It wouldn't be the first time Destiny tested those who were most beneficial to her.

"Hey."

Nick turned to see Belle standing in the doorway. She looked so small in her little black dress and arms crossed in front of her. "Hey."

"Did you find anything helpful out here?"

He shook his head as he picked up his notebook and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

"Well, I found something inside that might be interesting to you."

"What is it?" he asked, following her back into the house through the back door.

"I don't know, I didn't open the box. But your name was written on an envelope that was taped to it."

They entered into the kitchen and he saw she had set out two cups for tea. "Where is everyone else?"

Belle had a small smile on her face as she poured the tea. "Emma and Henry went out to dinner at the diner. And Bae went with them."

He would most likely hear the whole story when he got back to Granny's that night. "I'm surprised Emma was that welcoming."

"I don't know if welcoming is the correct word." She set the tea pot down between them and took the chair across the table from him. "Tolerant is a better term."

"Baby steps, I suppose."

Belle traced a mark on the table with her fingertip. "Baby steps."

Nick took a sip of the tea and forced himself to not to pull a face. He was never a tea drinker himself but Belle had made it and considering she had just buried her significant other, he would drink the tea leaves if he had to. Actually, peering into the cup, there were tea leaves settling on the bottom. But there were more important things to be dealt with then a cup of bad tea.

"Belle?"

Her face went taught with an attempt to hold back tears but was failing. "It's just...you think your life is going to be one thing but then it becomes another. You never think that the other path will ever end. I took Rumplestiltskin's offer to get out of an arraigned marriage." She smiles slightly. "He said he wasn't looking for love and neither was I."

"But you found it."

"We did. And I thought that was to be the end of it. Happily ever after and all that entails."

He started to reach for the cup but caught himself. "So what happened?"

"Regina, happened."

"The Evil Queen?"

Belle nodded. "She locked me up for the entire length of the curse and told Rumplestiltskin that I was dead. He believed her. It wasn't a few hours before the curse broke that I was released and found him. I thought that we had finally reached the end. I had dreams of a backyard wedding, followed by a half dozen children."

He watched those dreams play out in her mind and then slowly fade. It was like watching Gloria trying to be brave all over again, determined to beat the cancer all over again but realizing it wasn't enough. It was like watching Amanda fade from view convinced he didn't love her with the same passion she loved him. And once more, he was reduced to a helpless bystander.

"Sometimes," she said softly, "I wonder if I missed my happy ending. What if it happened when we were reunited but I was enthralled with the idea of normalcy that my happy ending passed and I didn't realize it?"

"But don't all the fairytales end with, 'and they lived happily ever after?'"

"I suppose." She shrugged. "Hardly matters now."

"You said the path diverged once, it may again. Who knows, maybe you've only reached the half way point of your story."

Belle gave him a very small smile before she took a sip of her tea and immediately grimaced. "Ugh. Why didn't you tell me this was horrid?"

"I thought it was suppose to taste like that."

She looked at him surprise so he shrugged.

"I'm more of a coffee man."

And for some unknown reason, Belle laughed and Nick felt like a hero.

By the time Nick had walked Belle back to her apartment and made sure she was settled, it was almost midnight. He had the odd box and note from Rumplestiltskin tucked under his arm but he had yet to open either one. He was looking forward to see what the man had left him, figuring it was something that would help him protect Belle. But when Granny's came into view, he could see Bae sitting on the front steps, still in his dark suit.

"Bae."

His hands stopped fidgeting as he stood. "Hey, Nick. How's Belle?"

His answer was the only word he could think of to describe what he witnessed that day. "Brave."

Bae smiled slightly. "That's how my father described her."

"An apt description." Nick opened the front door of the house, Bae following him inside. Nick figured the sooner he had this discussion, the sooner he could go to bed. "How was dinner?"

"Good," Bae shrugs, locking the front door behind him. "It's not going to be an easy road but at least she's going to let me see Henry."

"A small victory then."

"A small but important victory."

Tomorrow was Sunday, he could sleep in. Though the fact that he was able to sleep every night since he had arrived in Storybrooke meant he had an overabundance of rest. He sat the box down on the dining room table and went into the kitchen. "You want a beer?"

Bae stood in the kitchen doorway. "It's late. I don't want to keep you up."

Nick shrugged and pulled out two beers anyway. "I'm used to pulling thirty-six hour shifts that usually end up being fifty-two hours. You're not keeping me up. Besides, you look like a man with a story to tell."

Bae took the bottle from him with a nod of thanks. "It has been an interesting day. I buried my father this morning but was able to spend time with my son this afternoon and evening."

They ended up settled in the front room of the bed and breakfast. There were embers in the fireplace, giving the room a cozy feel as they took up positions in the dated armchairs. They sat in silence for a few moments and Nick let Bae gather all his thoughts. It didn't take too long.

"I never knew she was pregnant." Bae was staring pointedly into the fireplace. "We met in the system. She had a much harder time of it than I did. She had been bounced around from foster home to foster home since she was a baby. I was fourteen when I was dumped into a place that was at least a decent home.

"I was on my way out of the home and heard that she needed a new place to stay. My foster parents took her in on my word. We were only together a couple times. I was going through training through the local college and fire house to become a fire fighter and she only had six months to go until she was 18.

"Then, two months before her 18th birthday, she was just gone. Our foster parents and I searched for her for weeks. But the one thing Emma knows how to do is hide. I didn't hear from her until she was thrown into jail in Phoenix. She was left holding hot merchandise that some of her so called friends had stolen and once they realized it could be tracked, they left her in possession of it. I tried to tell her I was in the middle of my certification tests and couldn't leave but I would get there as soon as I could. All she heard was I wasn't coming and that was the end of that."

"When was Henry born?"

"While she waiting for her court date. Since he was born in prison, to an unwed mother who was in the system herself, she had to give him up."

"Did you love her?"

Bae shrugged. "I was eighteen, I didn't know what love was. I cared about her, what happened to her. I still do but love..." He faded off with a shake of his head. "Do you love Belle?"

Nick almost choked on his beer. "What? I hardly know her."

"Then why are you taking such good care of her?"

"Because I promised your father I would."

"Oh, I see." Bae chuckled. "You just go around and take care of women when their significant others ask you to. Okay."

"Your father knew his time was running out and wanted to make sure that Belle was protected after he was gone."

"So how do you fit into the town? Who's Prince Charming are you?"

Nick laughed. "I'm here by accident. A time traveling fluke."

"So more science fiction than fairytale then."

"You could say that."

"What's going to happen to you when the curse breaks completely?"

"I suppose I'll get sent back to where I was." He hoped that would be the case.

Bae finished his beer. "And Belle? Will she go with you?"

God, he hoped not but he stopped himself from expressing that thought so bluntly. "I highly doubt it."

Destiny was no place for someone like Belle. She had no science background, definitely no military training. But he had to admit, he was going to miss her when he went back. She was becoming his friend and he certainly needed more of those. But Rumplestiltskin seemed to think that she would be going with him. He had foreseen his own death so it wouldn't be so far fetched to think that he had a similar vision of Belle choosing to go to Destiny when the time came.

Bae decided to change the subject. "Emma has to work an afternoon shift tomorrow and is letting Henry spend the time with me. I may even get to pick him up from school on Monday."

"Sounds like things might be working out for you then."

"My father dedicated himself to raising me when I was a kid. He made a hard life seem not so hard as long as we had each other. I really wanted to do the same with my own child."

"Is it better to have Henry at ten or to not have him at all?"

Bae nodded thoughtfully. "It's much better to have him, of course."

"Then don't waste the time you have now." Nick was more comfortable with this line of conversation, now that it had veered away from Belle. "What was something that your father did with you that made you feel loved?"

Bae grew wistful and smiled slightly. "Every night, whether we had food or not, we would sit together at the dining table. He would start a story and I would have to finish it." Bae turned to him. "What about your father, Nick? What was he like?"

This subject was a little touchier than Belle. "He was a hard worker."

"That's it?"

Nick shrugged. "He worked in the shipyards of Glasgow to feed his family. It didn't allow much time for bonding."

"How many siblings do you have?"

Nick hadn't thought of his brothers and sister in a while. He hadn't even bothered to contact them when he used the communication stones. They had all gone their separate ways when they could. He wasn't even sure if they were still in Great Britain. "Two older brothers and a younger brother and sister."

"Dead center. That must have been interesting."

Lonely was more like it. "It left me to my own devices, made me independent."

"Gave you wonderful people skills too."

Nick looked over at the other man to see him grinning in good humor. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before deciding to catch a couple hours of sleep before Sunday started for them both. Bae took their bottles out to the recycling and Nick retrieved his box from the dining room table.

When he closed the door to his room, he sat down on the side of his bed and opened the envelope that was taped on the top of the box. It was handwritten in a sharp scrawl but the message was very simple and direct.

This will get you home.

Nick opened the box, wondering what in the world could be in a box that could span time and space and return him to Destiny. What he saw nestled in the velvet lining baffled him. He gently lifted the glass bottle out of the box and held it up to the wan lamplight in the room. Whatever was inside the bottle glowed with a purply colored swirling matter. It was hard to tell if it was liquid or gas and with no other directions, he had no idea what to do with it.

Well, at least he had a chemistry lab at the high school that he could use to study whatever it was in the bottle. But that was for another day. He put the bottle back into the box and shut the latches before sliding it under the bed.