Warning: this is a long freaking chapter. It skips around a bit, too. Some of the events take place before those of the last chapter. Hope it's not too confusing.
CHAPTER 8
Emma Swan did return to visit Amy a few times. Often she would come with Henry after he had gotten out of school for the day, but a few times she came alone. It didn't escape Amy's notice that she always timed her visits, whether solo or with Henry in tow, for when she knew Mr. Gold would be away from the house. But that wasn't really so unusual. On the days when Ruby stayed with her, her friend would all but bolt from the house the moment he returned home for the evening. Ashley was slightly more comfortable with her former employer, but even she never lingered once he came home. Although Amy had grown to like and trust her benefactor, it was plain that the rest of Storybrooke still saw him as a sinister character.
They never did discuss Emma's reasons for giving up Henry or whether she felt like it had been the right decision. There were several reasons for this, the main one being that Emma's few solo visits were rather short, especially after she became deputy. Most times she would drop by during her shift, so her calls were understandably foreshortened. Another reason was that Emma was "close-mouthed as the devil" (in the words of Sheriff Graham, who occasionally stopped by himself) regarding her past. Amy felt it would be best to get to know the woman a bit better before bringing up such a sensitive subject again. But it was academic anyway; although Amy's heart was broken, her mind was made up. She was going to place her child for adoption.
The very night after she met Emma Swan for the first time, Mr. Gold decided that the time had arrived at last to talk to Amy about her plans for the baby. She was finishing the light supper Ashley had prepared for her and watching a Family Guy rerun when he poked his head in.
"Good evening, dear," he said, just as he usually did. "Mind if I come in?"
As always Amy was pleased to see him. "Hi, Mr. Gold," she said. "Yes, of course you can come in." It felt strange to be inviting him into what was technically his own bedroom.
He smiled and entered. "Good, you've eaten," he said when he saw the tray on her lap holding the remains of the grilled cheese and tomato soup Ashley had fixed for her. "Are you feeling well?"
"I feel great," she said. "I feel just as good as I did before the contractions, really. I can't believe I'm going to be stuck in bed for the next few months."
"I know that will be difficult for you," he told her as he moved to sit in one of the armchairs by the bed. "You're used to being up and around constantly, even with your pregnancy. I know you'll follow Dr. Dockery's orders, though. We certainly don't want anything like what happened a few nights ago happening again."
"No, we don't," Amy agreed. "That was not one of my life's more pleasant experiences. If that was even a taste of what real labor will be like, I'm definitely not opting for natural childbirth."
He laughed. "I doubt anyone could blame you for that," he said. He grew serious then. "Have you given any more thought to what you'll do once the baby is born?" he asked.
Amy was a little caught off guard by the sudden change in subject, but she felt at ease enough with him now to discuss the matter more openly than she had the last time he broached the topic. "Yes," she responded. "I told you the first night I was here that I really wanted to keep her, but I didn't think it was possible." She fell silent.
"And?" he pressed gently.
She sighed. "And I haven't changed my mind," she answered. "Believe me, I've thought and thought about how I could raise a baby on my own, but I just can't see how I'd be able to manage. I have no money, a twelfth-grade education, no family to speak of. I know Ruby and her grandmother and Ashley would help me any way they could, but none of them are much better off than me financially, and I wouldn't feel right accepting help from them."
"And the baby's father?" Mr. Gold queried. "You don't think there's any chance he'll change his mind and return…decide to accept his responsibilities?" He anticipated her negative answer, but he wanted to cover all the bases.
She shook her head slowly, a little sadly. "I seriously doubt it," she said. After all this time, she finally felt ready to open up to Mr. Gold about Todd. "He…wasn't the guy I thought he was."
"I'm betting that many young women in your situation come to that conclusion eventually," he said gravely. "At least you figured it out early on."
Again she shook her head. "No, I mean literally, he wasn't who he said he was. He told me he was from Augusta, that he had been planning to go on a trip down the coast before he started at the university in the fall, but when he came to Storybrooke he liked the town so much he decided to spend the summer here instead. I believed him, of course; why wouldn't I? It wasn't until he left that I decided to Google him and found out there was no record of a Todd Prince in Augusta. I checked the University in Orono, which is where he said he was going, but there was no record of him there either. I checked all the other colleges and universities in that area, but he wasn't enrolled at any of them. It's like he vanished into thin air…or never existed at all."
Gold had to admire the girl's resourcefulness. "It sounds like you made quite an effort to locate him," he told her.
She smirked a little. "Yeah, I did. At first it was because I was still in love with him in spite of everything"- she shook her head yet again, this time in self-disgust—"but luckily I got over that pretty quickly. Then I kept trying because I figured he would need to sign away his rights once the baby was born, so I could go ahead with an adoption. I didn't want him coming back years from now and saying I never told him about the baby and causing trouble for the adoptive parents. I don't think he would do that, but you never know."
"You can place the child for adoption without his consent, you know," Gold informed her kindly. "All you have to do is list the father as 'Unknown' on the birth certificate."
She looked as if she might cry then, but to his relief she didn't. "I know," she admitted. "I didn't want to do that, though. I mean, what if she finds her birth certificate one day? She'll think her birth mother was a slut. But I guess that's what I'll have to do. In a way it's true, I guess—I really didn't know him." She grew silent then, looking pensively into space.
Gold decided then that if he ever came across the father of Amy Miller's child, he would do everything in his power to make the man wish he had never been born. He was touched that Amy finally trusted him enough to reveal the duplicitous nature of her baby's father to him; he could tell that although she put on a brave face, she had been deeply hurt by the discovery and still felt pain over it. He didn't like to see her forced to relive these memories, and from a business standpoint it really had no bearing anyway. He decided to move on.
"If you want to pursue an adoption," he said gently, "it's time to go ahead and make some plans. You're nearly six months pregnant; you only have a few months to find a home for the baby."
This jolted her from her reverie. She raised a startled face to him. "Find a home?" she asked. "I thought I would just sign the papers when she was born and the state would take it from there."
Here it was—the very thing he'd intended to bring up from the beginning. It was high time to do so. So why, he wondered, now that the time was finally here, was he so reluctant?
Because, he admitted to himself, he cared for her. At some point over the past few months, his feelings for her had moved beyond simple liking, past mere physical attraction. Although he didn't recall ever feeling the emotion before, Mr. Gold thought he might be in love with Amy Miller.
He had tried to deny it to himself, but it was true. He was infatuated with the girl. He thought of her at odd moments during the day. He lived for the moment each evening when he would walk through the front door and find her there, smiling, happy to see him. He relished each and every conversation they had, often replaying them in his mind days, weeks, and months later for his own enjoyment. He loved to look at her; he now found her to be breathtakingly beautiful even when she wasn't smiling, as she so often was. He grew livid at the thought of anything or anyone causing her pain. If he was truly honest with himself, he had to admit that his own use of her for his own ends made him sick with guilt. Had he had even a glimmer of hope that she might return those feelings, he would do everything he could to help her keep her baby. If he thought there was even a small chance she wouldn't be repelled by the idea, he would even ask her to marry him and raise her child as his own.
But there was no hope of that. She was young, beautiful, innocent in her own strange way. Even though she had known the physical joys and crushing disappointment of love, she still had a pure, unworldly quality about her he thought she would retain no matter how many lovers she took. He was old, lame, and, he was forced to admit to himself if no one else, corrupt—the very antithesis of everything she was. All he had to offer her was his wealth, and she wasn't the sort of girl who cared for material things. That she could ever feel anything approaching love for him was unthinkable. In her desperation to keep her child, he thought she might agree to a marriage of convenience with him; though he would have been satisfied with this at one time, he found now that he couldn't bear to think of such a thing. If he couldn't have her completely, as his true wife for the right reasons, he wouldn't have her at all.
So he would stick with his original plan. He would find a suitable adoptive family for the child and arrange a private adoption. He would accept his broker's fee, though he no longer cared about that. He would have papers drawn up that would stand up to an examination in a court of law. There were several reputable attorneys in the area who owed him favors, and any one of them would do this for him. He would tell Amy that the sum she would receive was not a payment for her child, but rather a standard gift in private adoptions that was mean to cover her expenses during the pregnancy. Since he had paid and would continue to cover her pregnancy expenses, the money would be hers to do with as she wished. It would be a sizable amount, too; he would make sure of that. She would be able to move on with her life, and he hoped she would find the happiness she deserved.
With this resolve it was easier for him to continue with the original offer he had intended. "You could do that," he said slowly, carefully. "However, I wouldn't advise it. Adoptions through the state can be very…complicated. Now most likely, your baby, being a newborn, would be adopted right away. But you would have no idea as to what sort of family she was going to, and there's always the chance that the adoption could fall through. If that happened, more than likely the baby would end up in the system. And the sad truth is that once a child is in the system, it often stays there. I would recommend a private adoption instead."
Amy shivered at the thought of her precious baby in the foster-care system. Although there was no such system in Storybrooke, she had read enough and seen enough movies and TV shows to know what the system was like, and the terrible things that often happened to children who were in it. Surely that wouldn't happen to her child. But after everything she had gone through with this baby, she wasn't willing to take any chances.
"A private adoption…" she mused. "Yes, I think that would be the best thing." She gazed at him with those guileless blue eyes, and he had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. "How would I go about that, though? I don't know where to begin."
With tremendous effort he managed a crooked smile. As he finally made his offer, no one ever would have guessed that his heart was breaking.
"I can help you," he said.
…
She had agreed, of course. How could she not? With what Mr. Gold was proposing, her baby would go immediately to a couple who were desperate for a child and had the means to give her everything she could ever want or need. If she turned the baby over to the state, there were no guarantees, and she would never know for sure whether her daughter had been quickly adopted into a loving home, or ended up as just one more child in the foster system. It was one thing to give her child up knowing she would be going to a good home, quite another to leave her to an uncertain fate with the state.
And Mr. Gold was going to arrange for her to have some choice in the parents. Though she still thought a closed adoption would be best, as he had told her that first night there were ways to find the right set of prospective parents even if she would never know their identity. He had promised to contact several attorneys he knew who specialized in adoption. They would have client lists and would be able to prepare dossiers for her to look through that would give her a good idea as to the kind of people they were, without revealing any identifying information. The attorneys would also prepare a dossier on her, Amy, also leaving out any telltale identification. When Amy found a couple that sounded right, that couple would be given her dossier. If the couple thought she sounded right, there would be calls and e-mails, though a face-to-face meeting was, of course, out of the question. In this way, Amy would have at least some knowledge of the family that was going to raise her child. After the birth and the adoption all communication would cease, but at least she would have gotten to know them, hopefully enough to know that she had made the right choice.
She was lucky, she knew. Without Mr. Gold's help, she likely would have had no option but to turn over her baby to the state. There was only one law firm in Storybrooke, and none of the attorneys there handled adoptions. Being on bed rest, traveling to another city was impossible. But Mr. Gold had contacts throughout Maine and the Northeast, all of whom, he assured her, would be happy to work with her.
Mr. Gold had been a godsend, all right. Fate had finally smiled on her when she met him in the park that day. She still thought it was a pity no one else in town saw the things in him that she did, and the kindness he was capable of. A small part of her (well, maybe not such a small part) still wished there could be something more between them. But she realized it was unlikely. Though she knew he truly cared for her, she believed he viewed her as…not a daughter, exactly…maybe more like a niece. There was no way a wealthy and sophisticated man like that could ever have romantic feelings for her.
As grateful as she was to Mr. Gold, after he had left her that evening Amy cried herself to sleep. Until now she had hoped against hope that some eleventh-hour miracle would happen and she would be able to keep her little girl. But now things were moving forward. There would be no deus ex machina. It was time to stop wishing and do what was best for the baby.
But as she fell asleep that night her final thought was a prayer to a God she wasn't even sure she believed in: "Please God, help me find a way to keep my baby."
…
After that night they rarely spoke of the adoption plan. Knowing the subject was painful for her he avoided bringing it up, keeping their conversations to lighter topics, including the perennial favorite of what she was reading currently. This was when he began to take his meals with her in the evenings. On Sundays, when the shop was closed, they would breakfast together as well. Often he stayed with her until she was ready to go to sleep. They would watch TV (they both enjoyed crime procedurals) or play chess (she had never played before, but caught on with surprising speed) or Amy's especial favorite, Scrabble. They had some intense Scrabble games; though Amy had an extensive vocabulary due to her love of reading, Mr. Gold had retained most of his Scots dialect from growing up in Glasgow (although he remembered almost nothing of his early life, he knew he was a native Glaswegian; he had emigrated to America…sometime). This led to some passionate competitions.
Occasionally Amy herself would bring up the adoption, asking if he had heard anything from the attorneys. He would assure her that they were all compiling information on prospective parents, which he would get to her as soon as he had received it. She was usually satisfied with that answer and would move on to another, brighter subject.
A week after Amy had come home from the hospital Thanksgiving arrived. Granny and Ruby had invited her to have dinner with them, but she declined. She told Mr. Gold she didn't think she was up for a car trip into town just yet, but her real reason was that she didn't want to leave him alone on the holiday. She guessed, correctly, that he had spent most of his holidays alone. She knew what that was like and didn't wish it on anyone, especially not on the man who had been so good to her.
Mr. Gold seemed sincerely pleased that she would be spending the holiday with him and declared that he would cook their Thanksgiving dinner. Amy raised her eyebrows at that, but she was in for a surprise. When she came to the dining room at noon on the big day (Doc had OK'd her getting up for dinner, as long as she returned to bed immediately after) the table was laden with a feast: glazed Rock Cornish hens, wild-rice pilaf, and roasted Brussels sprouts. Once again Mr. Gold had laid the table with china, crystal and silver, and had even thought to buy a pretty fall floral arrangement for a centerpiece. It looked like a magazine spread.
And everything tasted as wonderful as it looked. Amy ate until she was stuffed. She even ate the Brussels sprouts, which she had never liked before, but the way Mr. Gold had prepared them, caramelized with shallots, they were delicious. For dessert there was pumpkin pie; the pie, Mr. Gold jokingly confessed, was from the bakery in town.
Despite the formal atmosphere of the dining room it was an entirely laid-back, pleasant meal. Amy told him later that she couldn't remember a better Thanksgiving, and he had to admit that he couldn't either. After dinner they repaired to the master suite per Doc's orders and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade (it was a Storybrooke tradition that the parade aired in reruns all day on the local station).
"I'd love to get to actually go one day," she said to Mr. Gold as they watched the marching bands.
He smiled at her. "Maybe you will."
She grew wistful. "I always thought, someday when I was married and had children, we would go to New York City for Thanksgiving one year. We'd watch the parade and have dinner somewhere really fabulous, and we'd stay through the weekend to see the Christmas decorations."
He reached for her hand. "You'll get to do that one day," he promised her.
Once the parade was over they sat around just talking for a long time. Amy told him the little she could remember of her childhood, and many stories of her teen years, which she did remember fairly well. There were some sad stories, mainly having to do with her father (birthdays that had been forgotten, events he hadn't shown up to) but there were some happy ones as well, mainly involving Ruby and Ashley. Some of her tales had him laughing out loud.
One of these anecdotes also solved a nearly decade-old mystery involving one of the town landmarks, a huge marble statue of a steed that resided in the park. Eight or nine years previously, some unknown delinquent or delinquents had placed a goodly amount of fresh horse manure directly underneath the noble steed's hindquarters. Regina Mills had been furious, since she had commissioned the statue herself (there was even a replica of it in her office at City Hall). She had gone so far as to offer a $250 reward for any information leading to the culprit or culprits. It did no good; the vandal or vandals were never apprehended. No one knew for sure who had done it, although several people were suspected. The prank was still legendary among the schoolchildren of Storybrooke, as well as not a few adults.
As Mr. Gold recalled, Ruby Woods' name had been bandied about as a possible suspect. No one had ever been able to link her to it, though; the defacement had occurred in the dead of night, while most of Storybrooke was fast asleep. It had remained one of the many mysteries of the town—until now. Amy admitted to him that Ruby had most definitely been involved, but it had been Amy herself who masterminded the practical joke. They had snuck out in the middle of the night to the stables at the edge of town, where there was naturally an abundance of horse turds. They had filled a large bucket with the droppings and managed to carry it all the way back to the park and complete their mischief without bringing attention to themselves.
Gold roared with laughter at the story. He actually had tears of mirth in his eyes. He had found the incident humorous when it occurred, mainly because it was a rare and entertaining sight to witness the icy mayor hopping mad. Finding out all these years later that the brains behind the incident had been none other than the shy, sweet girl who currently shared his home, his enjoyment was increased tenfold. There was much more to Amy Miller than met the eye. Underneath that introverted, bookish façade was a streak of spirit and irreverence. He had sensed it from the beginning, caught glimpses of it from time to time, and now had proof of it. Who couldn't fall in love with such a girl?
"You're lucky you two weren't trampled to death by a team of spooked horses," he managed to gasp once he could finally speak again.
Amy smiled. "They were all in their stalls. I was worried they would cause a commotion when we came in so late at night, but they didn't. Then again, they knew us. We'd been taking riding lessons at the stables for a couple of years by then. I remember that was one of the reasons people suspected Ruby. The funny thing is, I was taking lessons at the stable too, and everyone knew Ruby and I were best friends. But so far as I know my name was never even brought up."
Granny had known, though, she told him. "The minute we came in to the diner that day after school, Granny called us into the back room. She looked us dead in the eye and said, 'I can't prove it, but I know it was you two. Which one of you came up with the idea?' I confessed, of course, because I didn't want Ruby to take the fall. I figured she was going to take a switch to both of us. But she just smiled and shook her head and said, 'Well, at least you were smart enough not to do it in broad daylight. For God's sake, Ruby, try not to open your mouth and fall in it when people start speculating. Knowing Mayor Mills, she would probably send you to juvenile detention.' Then she told us to go get ourselves some pie. She never said another word about it."
"I should call up Regina and ask her if the reward still stands," Gold threatened playfully.
Amy giggled. "Wonder if there's a statute of limitations on defacement of a town landmark."
"If there isn't, she would probably come up with one," he smirked.
Later she brought out one of her most treasured items—a small wooden chest filled with photographs and other mementoes. Gold enjoyed looking through the pictures of her and her friends at different ages. He couldn't help noticing that in the pictures of her with her friends, Amy stared straight into the camera and smiled gaily. In the few pictures of her and her father, however, her smile was tentative, forced. There were no photographs of her mother in the box.
When he asked about this she shook her head. "I don't have any pictures of her. I guess my father might have some, but he must have put them away. The only one he left out was their wedding picture on the mantel. There probably weren't that many pictures of her to begin with; Granny said she hated to have her photograph taken."
Mr. Gold nodded. "I can see that," he said. "I barely knew your mother, but I remember she was a very introverted young woman, much more so than you. You're really only shy on the surface; you can be drawn out eventually. Your mother, though, was almost pathologically shy. Everyone was surprised when she began to date Joe Miller, and eventually married him. He was very outgoing and gregarious, almost her polar opposite."
Amy was surprised. "Really?" Though her father put on an act in public as a bluff and hearty hail-fellow-well-met, at home he had always been silent and sullen. She had always assumed his jovial public persona was for appearances' sake only. Was it possible that once he really had been the man most people still saw him as?
"Oh, yes," Mr. Gold said, a faraway look in his eye. "Your father was…different then. He was young, of course, just starting out in business. I didn't know him much better than your mother, but I would meet him in town from time to time and he was always friendly. Very few people are towards me, you know, but he was." He said this without rancor.
"Well, of course," Amy reasoned. "If you and he had business dealings together—"
Gold interrupted. "That's just it, though. We didn't start doing business together until much later. At that point, he was strictly on the up-and-up. I used to wonder how he would ever make a go of his career, as scrupulously honest as he was, but he did quite well, mainly because everybody liked him."
Amy was flabbergasted. "Are you sure this is my father you're talking about?" she asked incredulously. "Maybe you're thinking of somebody else."
Gold smiled at her a little sadly. "No, dear. Your father was another man in those days. Now that I think of it, maybe it shouldn't have been so surprising that your mother came out of her shell for him. He was a good-looking young man, tall and strapping, with that curly dark hair. You have his hair, you know. But mostly you look like your mother."
Amy smiled with shy pleasure. "I do?" Granny had told her this before, and she'd always thought she resembled her mother judging from the wedding picture. But somehow it was nice to hear it from Mr. Gold.
"Very much so," he assured her. "Grace was a very pretty young woman. Her hair was dark blonde, but you have her eyes…and her smile." He was a little amazed that he remembered all this so well. He hoped Amy wouldn't be saddened by his reminiscences, but she didn't seem to be so far. On the contrary, she seemed intrigued and interested. He supposed no one had told her very much about her parents in their younger days.
"They met when your mother went to work as his secretary," he continued. Amy nodded; Granny had told her this as well. "Apparently it was love at first sight for both of them. They began dating right away and were married within a few months. It was quite like a romantic movie, actually."
Amy had to ask. "And exactly how many months after the wedding did I come along?" This explained a lot, she thought to herself. Her mother must have gotten pregnant unexpectedly and her father had felt trapped into marrying her. No wonder he had always treated her the way he did. He had probably never wanted her to begin with.
Mr. Gold's answer squashed that theory, however. "You weren't born for quite some time, dear. I'm not sure exactly how long they'd been married, but it was a couple of years, at least, between the wedding and your birth."
"So it wasn't a shotgun wedding?" The information came as a surprise. It certainly didn't fit what she knew of her father.
"Well, that was the general assumption at first," he admitted. "As time went by, though, it became apparent that Grace wasn't pregnant, and that she and Joe were quite literally crazy for one another. I would see them out and about occasionally. Grace was still very quiet, but Joe managed to draw her out a bit. Her whole face would light up whenever she looked at him, and he, he looked at her as if she were some sort of precious jewel. When she did become pregnant—with you, obviously—your father was the happiest man alive. The day they found out you were going to be a girl, Joe came into the diner and handed out a big box of 'It's A Girl' cigars. He even gave me one. I wish you could have known your parents together. The man Joe was then would have made you an excellent father. Unfortunately, when Grace died, it seems as if the best part of him died with her. It was as though someone just pulled the heart right out of him."
She was silent for a long moment. "No wonder he can't stand me, then," she said finally. "I took the only thing he loved away from him."
"I don't think that's it exactly," Mr. Gold said gently. "It's probably true that whenever he sees you he thinks of the wife he lost. You look so like her. But I don't think it's you, yourself he can't stand. I don't believe he blames you for her death, either. If I had to guess, I would say he blames himself. Not that he should. As far as I know, Grace was perfectly healthy. Her pregnancy with you was uncomplicated. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong during the birth…"
"She hemorrhaged," Amy nearly whispered. "The doctors did everything they could to stop it, but it happened too fast and she lost too much blood. She died just a few minutes after I was born."
"That's what I heard, but in Storybrooke you can never be sure," Mr. Gold said. "The gossip mill is always running overtime here. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that no one was responsible for your mother's death. It wasn't your fault; you were just a tiny baby. It wasn't Joe's fault; he couldn't have known what was going to happen, and I believe he would have died himself to save her if he'd been given the choice. It wasn't even the doctors' fault; as you said, they did everything they could. It was just one of those terrible twists of fate. But I believe the combination of his guilt and his grief is what caused him to hold you at arm's length all your life."
His words gave Amy some comfort. For the first time, she realized that maybe what Mr. Gold said was true. She had always grieved for the mother she had never known, but now a part of her reached out to include her father in that grief—the handsome, vibrant young man who had loved her mother beyond reason. She had never really known him either, she saw now.
"Maybe I should try to talk to him again," she mused. "Maybe, if we could just sit down and hash things out…" She trailed off.
"Maybe you should," Gold agreed carefully. "I'm not so sue that now is the time, though. It's likely to be very emotional, and you're in a delicate condition. Perhaps after the baby is born and you've recovered your strength would be a better time to reach out to him."
"You're right," Amy agreed. "Right now I need to think about the baby. There's plenty of time to try to work things out later." She gave him a smile of pure gratitude. "I'm so lucky to have you, Mr. Gold. You've helped me so much. Not just materially, although you've been more than generous there, but you've helped me figure so many things out as well. If I do manage to set things right with my father I'll have you to thank for it."
Guilt nearly choked him at her sincere words. He hid it well, however. Once almost completely unknown to him, guilt had become his constant companion over the past few months. "I hope," he said, not entirely succeeding at keeping the emotion from his words, "I truly hope, Amy, that all the good in this world comes to you. I don't know of anyone who deserves it more." Quickly he rose. "But now I think it's time you went to sleep. You've had a big day, after all; your first time out of bed in a week. You need to rest up."
"All right," Amy said agreeably, for she was tired, and she also had a lot to think about. "Night, Mr. Gold."
He leaned forward and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, then dared to kiss her swiftly on the cheek. She looked a bit surprised, but nothing more. He knew she saw the kiss as nothing more than an avuncular gesture. "Good night, my dear," he half-whispered, then left the room as fast as his lame leg would allow.
Amy ruminated for a time on the revelations of the evening, but soon enough her eyes began to close. She was asleep as soon as she turned off the bedside lamp and laid her head on the pillow, and her sleep was deep and dreamless.
But Mr. Gold, closeted in the library in his favorite chair, a glass of neat Scotch by his side, never slept at all that night.
…
As the holidays approached, interesting events continued to occur in Storybrooke. Insulated as she was in Mr. Gold's home, Amy was still kept informed of the goings-on in the town by Ashley, Ruby, Emma, and Mr. Gold himself.
The most major occurrence happened in early December, when Henry, upset about something, had run away again. He had sought refuge in the old mine at the edge of town, which his adoptive mother had been promising to have covered over for as long as anyone could remember. Dr. Hopper had realized where he most likely had gone and had followed him into the mine. There had been a small earthquake—unusual in their part of Maine, but not unheard of—and they had both become trapped in the mineshaft.
Emma's first major act as deputy of Storybrooke had been rescuing her son and his psychiatrist from the mineshaft. It was only through the intervention of Dr. Hopper's beloved Dalmatian, Pongo, that she had realized they were in the old mine elevator; when the entrance to the mine had been dynamited in an earlier effort to save the two, it had actually driven the elevator further underground. Thankfully she had followed Pongo's nose and her own instinct, and what could have been a terrible tragedy had a happy ending instead. Henry and Dr. Hopper were both brought to safety, neither of them too much the worse for wear.
Amy didn't find out about the mine incident until it had been safely resolved. Mr. Gold had been aware of the incident as it was happening, but he had kept it from her until he knew for sure that it had ended well and that everyone involved were all right. When he finally did tell her, he downplayed the episode as much as possible; but Amy was able to read between the lines and comprehended that Henry and Dr. Hopper had narrowly escaped a terrible fate. She was a little upset with Mr. Gold for not telling her about the occurrence until it was over, but she understood his reasons for doing so. If she had known that Henry was in such danger she would have been hysterical. Mr. Gold had only been thinking of her health and that of the baby. Knowing this, it was easy for her to let go of her initial resentment at having the news kept from her and forgive him.
The other events were much less dramatic, but still quite remarkable. They mainly had to do with the strange attraction between Mary Margaret Blanchard and the former John Doe, David Nolan. David was recovering, but he had almost total amnesia. He remembered nothing of his wife or marriage or his life before the coma. Though he returned to his home when he was ready to be discharged from the hospital, he remained quite enamored of the shy, pretty schoolteacher who had read to him during his coma, and who had been one of the people to find him by the river after he wandered away from the hospital. Naturally this didn't sit well with his wife or with Regina Mills, who seemed to consider it her prerogative to help him regain his memory and truly reunite him with Kathryn.
To her credit, Mary Margaret did everything she could to discourage David's attentions. She avoided him whenever possible, even quitting her volunteer work at Storybrooke General, which she had done as long as anyone could remember. But David was incredibly persistent, and since Mary Margaret was attracted to him as well it soon became harder and harder for him to turn him away. Just when it seemed that they would no longer be able to hide their feelings for one another, though, David regained his memory.
He had actually been at Mr. Gold's shop when his memories finally returned. Apparently he had glimpsed an old lawn ornament which he and Kathryn had put in their front yard as newlyweds, and it had triggered his buried memories. He had decided that he owed it to himself and to Kathryn to attempt to salvage their marriage, and had bid Mary Margaret farewell. Mary Margaret had then sought comfort in the arms of Dr. Whale, one of the physicians at Storybrooke General whom she had dated a time or two in the past, but the affair was short-lived.
Mr. Gold himself told Amy of David's miraculous epiphany in the pawnshop. Though he didn't say one way or the other, Amy got the sense he was disappointed that David had remembered and had decided to put duty before what his heart was telling him. She was a little let down herself, for she liked Mary Margaret and would have liked a happy ending for her. But she had to admire David Nolan's determination to do the right thing at the cost of his true feelings. That, she felt, was the mark of a real man. Then, too, if he and Mary Margaret had begun a relationship it would have only fueled Henry's fantasy that they were Snow White and Prince Charming. Perhaps this real-world resolution to what he perceived as a fairy-tale situation would help him understand that his dream world was just that.
Emma Swan and Sheriff Graham were likewise battling a growing attraction to one another, but both were still in the denial stage. Even if Mr. Gold hadn't shared his theories about this with her, Amy would have seen it on her own. It was evident in the way Emma reacted whenever Graham's name came up, and vice versa. Once they had both dropped by to visit Amy at the same time, neither knowing that the other one was going to do so, and the heat between them had been palpable. She laughed about it with Mr. Gold later that night.
Although it was clear to Amy and Mr. Gold that Emma and Graham were fighting their feelings for one another—and losing—it never occurred to either of them how their own situation paralleled that of the sheriff and his deputy. Though they were no longer in denial about their own feelings, neither could yet fathom that the other might return them. If Amy had still been able to get out and about, all of Storybrooke would have known about their respective feelings. As it was, most of the town was still in the dark about it, though the rumors still flew. Only Ruby knew for certain that Amy was falling for Mr. Gold and him for her, and even Ashley had realized sparks were flying.
"There's so much sexual tension in that house it isn't funny," Ruby had told Ashley privately. "I almost wish they'd just go ahead and screw each other blind. It would ease things up a lot."
"You're such a perv, Ruby," Ashley had responded mildly. "You're right, though. They definitely want each other. I think it might even go deeper than that."
Ruby was amazed at Ashley's uncharacteristic insight. "Do you really?"
"Yeah," Ashley replied. "I don't want them to…you know…what you said. But it would be nice if they admitted their feelings to each other. It would be a good thing for both of them. Amy is so happy, and Mr. Gold is like a different person when he's with her. Wouldn't it be great if they finally figured it out? They could get together, and Amy could keep the baby. I bet Mr. Gold would raise it as his."
"Dream on, Ash," Ruby scoffed. Deep down, though, she agreed with her friend. It would be a wonderful thing if Amy and Mr. Gold realized they were meant to be with each other and decided to raise the baby together. Ruby knew it would never happen, though. If she had learned one thing in this life, it was that life never turned out like the movies. There were no fairy-tale endings. Even so, Ruby found herself hoping against hope that what Ashley had said would come to pass.
…
One morning about ten days before Christmas, Amy awoke to such an unusual sight she thought for a minute she was still dreaming. Mr. Gold, clad in his usual suit plus a black apron, came through the door of the master suite carrying a small blue spruce in his arms, roots still attached.
"Ho, ho, ho," he said when he saw that she was awake.
"Mr. Gold!" Amy exclaimed as she sat straight up in bed. "What on earth?"
"I thought you might like to have a Christmas tree," he said with a shrug. "The day is almost upon us, you know." He carried the tree to the large chest along one wall and placed it carefully into a small galvanized bucket that had magically appeared in the night.
"I know that," she said. "By the way, if any packages get delivered to your shop that you didn't order, don't open them. They're Christmas presents. I ordered them with the bank account you set up for me. One of the presents is yours; I don't know exactly when it will get here, so to be safe just bring everything here without opening it first. Ruby's going to bring me some wrapping supplies."
"I would have been happy to do that for you," he said as he finished whatever he was doing with the little tree—replanting it in the bucket, she supposed.
"I know. But you already do so much for me. Ruby said she didn't mind."
"Well, if you've been ordering presents you definitely need a tree to put them under," he told her, turning to smile at her. "I know it's small, but it's the best I could do on my own."
"It's perfect," Amy said truthfully. "Where did you find it?"
"In the woods. I went out at dawn looking for the perfect tree for this room. I've never had one in here before, but it occurred to me that this is where you spend virtually all of your time, and I thought we should brighten it up for the holidays. After Christmas I'll replant it right where I found it."
"That is so sweet of you," Amy said, touched. "You really didn't have to go to all this trouble, though. An artificial tree would have been just fine."
"Nonsense," he said with a wave of his hand. "Artificial trees just don't feel like Christmas. I wouldn't have one in my house."
"You decorate for Christmas?' Amy asked, trying to keep the incredulity out of her voice and not quite succeeding. Somehow it just didn't seem like him.
He laughed. "Of course I do. I don't go 'all out' as they say, but I at least put up a tree every year, and hang a wreath on the front door. Douglas fir, of course. Have to represent the old country. But seeing as this is your world for right now"—he gestured around the suite—"I thought we should haul out the holly in here as well. When I saw this little fellow, I knew he was the one, just what you'd choose yourself."
"He is," Amy laughed. "Are you going to decorate him for me?"
"Of course," he said. "What's a Christmas tree without tinsel and baubles and such? I have more than enough ornaments and other accoutrements to bedeck Mr. Blue Spruce here. I even closed the shop for the day so I could stay home and deck the halls. A little bird told me that Christmas is your favorite holiday, and by God we are going to celebrate in style. We'll start by getting this joint dressed for the part."
And they did. After a breakfast of hot chocolate, fruit salad, and cinnamon rolls, Mr. Gold went to work on the small tree. She had figured he would do it in red and gold to match the rest of the room, but to her delight he had bought all blue decorations. "The big tree in the library is red and gold," he explained when she mentioned as much. "I thought you would like something more to your own taste in here."
She was touched that he had thought of putting a Christmas tree in her room in the first place, and she would have been happy with any color scheme he had come up with. She would have been thrilled with an artificial tree and ornaments from the dollar store; this had been the norm in her previous Christmases at home.
Her father would have ignored the holiday completely had it been up to him, but every year Amy had resolutely hauled out the mothbally fake tree with the cheap ornaments they had had all her life. He would always rise to the occasion enough to put some gifts under the tree once it was up and decorated. Even though most of the presents had tended towards the impersonal—gift cards, bath sets, the occasional article of clothing—she had appreciated his effort. Every year she had hoped that this would be the year they actually celebrated Christmas as a family, but every year she had been disappointed. Invariably, she opened her presents alone Christmas morning while he watched TV in the den. He would open his own presents from her in there, and they would thank one another perfunctorily before she left to have Christmas dinner with Ruby and her grandmother. Even as a small child Amy had known it was a poor excuse for a Christmas, but it was all she had.
She'd never told Mr. Gold about these earlier Christmases, but knowing what he knew of her life with her father he could imagine them easily enough. He had determined to give her the best Christmas of her life thus far, and seeing her laughter and smiles he knew he was well on the way to succeeding. After breakfast he put an album of carols on the stereo, and he decorated the tree with her input. Once the tree was fully decorated he had turned on the lights (blue, of course), and they sat admiring his handiwork and listening to the festive music. Amy even sang along to the ones she knew, which was most of them: "O Come, All Ye Faithful", "Silent Night", "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". After her particularly lovely rendition of "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear", Mr. Gold informed her gravely that if she ever had the chance to further her education, she should definitely study music in addition to anything else she decided to pursue.
Only one small blip marred their lovely day. As they were eating their breakfast, Amy realized that Mr. Gold was troubled about something. Being Mr. Gold, he didn't come right out with it, or obviously show that anything was amiss; rather, he was a bit too cheerful, too talkative. It was a credit to Amy's intelligence that she saw this almost immediately, and a testament to their growing friendship that she called him on it.
"What's wrong?" she asked him point-blank once he finally came to a stopping place in his cheerful patter about Scottish Christmas traditions.
He feigned ignorance. "Why, whatever do you mean, dear?"
She wasn't buying it. "You're upset about something," she declared. "I want to know what it is."
He looked into her eyes and saw the implacability there. She wouldn't rest until she found out what was troubling him. Sighing, he decided his best course of action was to tell her the truth.
"This morning," he began, "when I was in the woods, I ran into Sheriff Graham."
That wasn't the answer she had been expecting, and her brow furrowed a little. She sat silently, waiting for him to go on.
"He was…" he paused, searching for the right words, "most distressed. It seemed he had been chasing a wolf through the forest."
"A wolf?' Amy echoed. "But there aren't any wolves in this area."
"No, there aren't," Mr. Gold confirmed. "If there had been a wolf, I would have seen it anyway. I tried to tell him as much. But he was adamant. He was in such an agitated state, I decided it was best to humor him."
"What happened then?" Amy breathed.
"Nothing, really," he said calmly, though his dark eyes were still troubled. "He babbled a bit about some sort of dream he had last night. I was still trying to calm him, so I told him that some say dreams are actually memories of our previous lives. That only seemed to agitate him further, though it wasn't my intention of course. I kept hoping he would come to his senses, but he was…well, he was almost like a madman. I was getting ready to invite him here," he admitted. "He was upset, but I didn't believe he was dangerous in any way. I planned to try to get him to calm down, call Deputy Swan to fetch him. Before I could encourage him to come to the house for some coffee and breakfast, though, he took off again."
"Dear God," Amy said finally. "It almost sounds as though…" She couldn't continue.
He finished her thought for her. "As though he had lost his mind," he said. "I know. I confess, that was my first thought. As soon as I made it back to the house, I called the station. Deputy Swan answered. She didn't seem too pleased to hear from me, but I managed to find out that Graham had made it to the station and was proceeding with his shift as usual. I think he'll be all right," he concluded. "I flipped through some of the psychology books in the library. Apparently, such behavior isn't all that unusual after a particularly vivid nightmare. I'm fairly certain now that's all it was…a nightmare. At some point between the woods and the station, he must have come to his senses and realized he same thing."
Amy couldn't suppress a shudder. "I hope you're right," she said. "Poor Graham. Poor you, to come across him in that kind of state. I know it must have scared the bejeezus out of you."
"Yes," he said honestly. "After I researched it a bit, though, I understood. At any rate, he seems to be doing all right now. Try not to worry about it, dear. I'm sure it was nothing to be concerned about."
Because she knew it was what he wanted, she dropped the subject. Still, throughout the day it remained in the back of her mind. When Mr. Gold left the room to get them some lunch, she even called Emma and asked her straight out if Graham was OK.
Emma didn't seem as surprised about two people calling to inquire about Graham as Amy thought she should. Yes, she admitted warily, he had seemed a little off when he came in that morning. But he had recovered quickly and was out doing his patrol now. Amy sensed she was holding back, but she had to be content with the information.
If Amy had been anyone but Mr. Gold's ex-housekeeper and current housemate, Emma would have confided in her. She would have told her about Graham's bizarre behavior the night before: how he had nearly hit her with a dart, how he had followed her into the street to explain himself (not just for almost nailing her with the dart, but about his relationship with Regina), how he had suddenly forced her into a passionate kiss, the feelings said kiss had awakened in her. But knowing Amy's closeness to Mr. Gold, the newly minted deputy of Storybrooke thought it best to keep these things to herself. Though she liked Amy and trusted her as much as she did anyone (which admittedly wasn't much) she didn't want to take any chances on the girl telling the pawnbroker that Graham's peculiar behavior had started earlier than he knew.
Even though Amy knew Emma wasn't telling her the whole story, she was reassured by the brief conversation. By the time Mr. Gold came back in with their lunch, she had decided to roll with his explanation that Graham had suffered a bout of post-nightmare psychosis, and was over it now. As the day spun on, she was almost able to forget about it entirely.
But only almost.
…
At first, Amy had no idea what had jerked her out of her deep sleep. Still caught in the state between dreaming and waking, she thought for a moment it had been her alarm clock. For a second she thought she had overslept and was going to be late for school. When she remembered she had graduated the year before, she thought she had to get up to fix Mr. Gold's breakfast. She had actually turned on the lamp and was searching for her robe when she caught a glimpse of the clock: 3 A.M.
Total recall came back to her then. She was pregnant; she wasn't officially employed by Mr. Gold anymore. She wasn't even supposed to get out of bed. As if agreeing with her, the baby kicked. "Get back in bed!" Amy fancied she was saying.
She did, but she was wide awake now. What had woken her, she wondered. Could she be going into preterm labor again? No, she realized almost immediately. She felt fine, no cramps or anything. So what had jarred her out of her slumber?
As if in answer to her question, the old-fashioned rotary phone on the bedside table jangled again.
She reached for it, but the ringing was abruptly silenced. Mr. Gold must have answered it, she realized. The realization comforted her not a bit. "A ringing phone after midnight is never good news," she remembered Granny saying once.
Granny. That had to be what it was, Amy thought. The old woman had been in poor health for the past few years. She must have suffered another heart attack. Amy recalled Dr. Whale saying at the time of her heart attack that the next one would likely be fatal. Oh God, no.
Amy had commenced grieving for her best friend's grandmother when a knock sounded at the door. "Come in," she managed to call.
Mr. Gold entered the room. He was wearing a pair of burgundy silk pajamas with a large gold G embroidered on the breast. As always, he carried his cane, which managed to look like an accessory rather than a necessity, even with pajamas. From the neck down, he looked every bit as elegant and impeccable as she was used to seeing him.
From the neck up, however, was a different story. His long brown hair was still mussed with sleep, but looking into his eyes she saw that he was also wide awake. His face was ashen.
"Amy, dear," he said, a trifle shakily. "I was going to wait until morning to tell you, but I saw that your light was on. The phone must have wakened you. I'm afraid I have some bad news."
There was no worse sentence in the English language, Amy decided; it even beat out "Put your feet in the stirrups and slide down to the end of the table."
"It's Granny, isn't it?" she wailed.
Confusion flashed briefly across his face before being replaced by comprehension. "Mrs. Woods?" he asked. "Oh, no. Mrs. Woods is fine, as far as I know. It's Graham, dear. Graham passed away last night."
The words didn't compute right away. "Graham?" Amy asked stupidly.
"Sheriff Graham," he said, more emotion in his voice than she had ever heard before. "He's gone, Amy."
Gone? What did he mean, gone? Had he left town? Of course not, no one ever left Storybrooke. What the hell was Mr. Gold trying to say?
Mr. Gold swallowed hard before continuing. "Sheriff Graham…collapsed at the station late last night. Miss Swan was with him; she called the paramedics immediately, but it was too late. They think it was his heart."
Finally she realized what he was telling her. "Sheriff Graham is dead?" she whispered.
He nodded, a genuine expression of sorrow on his face. "I'm afraid so."
As the words sank in, she let out one long, agonized, piercing cry. In a flash Mr. Gold was by her side, holding her tightly. "It was very quick," he said in a vain effort to comfort her. "He probably never knew what hit him. Amy, dear, please don't get yourself too worked up. You know Graham wouldn't want you to endanger yourself or your baby. It was fast, darling. Fast, probably painless, and he died in Miss Swan's arms. Think about it, dear; could there be a better way to go? Quickly, no suffering, and in the arms of the person you love…we should all be so lucky."
The words did no good. Amy continued to sob against his shoulder, her tears soaking his pajama top. Gold felt a bit like crying himself, though of course he didn't. He had liked and respected the young sheriff, though he hadn't been above uttering a veiled threat to the man now and then when circumstances warranted. Still, he had never wished any harm upon the man. That he had died now, just as he seemed within arm's reach of true happiness, seemed most unfair. Gold didn't truly believe that the young man's death had been quick or painless, either. From what he had gathered, it had been anything but. However, he had died in Miss Swan's arms, and there was something to be said for that. At least the young man hadn't died alone. He hadn't died unloved. Gold understood this, and he knew Amy would too, once she had calmed down.
He knew, too, that Graham would never have wanted Amy to be so distraught at his death, especially in her delicate condition. It was this knowledge that helped the pawnbroker get a hold of himself. "Amy, dear," he said firmly, even as he rocked her back and forth, "you absolutely must calm down. I know this is very upsetting. The death of a young, seemingly healthy person…it's inexplicable. It's against all of nature's rules. But letting yourself become hysterical now won't help Graham. It's too late; he's gone. You have to think of the baby now. You know he would want you to put the baby first."
This approach did the trick. Slowly, slowly, Amy's sobs quieted. She remained limp in his arms, her tears still flowing but no longer on the verge of hysteria. "Poor Graham," she was finally able to whisper, "poor Graham."
"I know, I know," Gold crooned, continuing to rock. "It's very sad. All the more reason you must remain strong, dear girl. If you're this upset, imagine how poor Miss Swan must be feeling. She thinks of you as a friend, you know. She's going to need your help in the days to come."
It was the best thing he could possibly have said, and it was also the truth. Although his main concern was the well-being of Amy and the child within her, he actually was quite concerned about Emma Swan. Emma really did think of Amy as a friend, he knew. She would need someone to lean on after this terrible tragedy. But, he also knew, she would never allow Amy to grieve so much she risked her own health. As he saw it, there was a way for some good to come of this awful situation. Amy would put her sadness aside to be strong and supportive for Emma, and Emma would do the same for Amy. It would be good for both of them.
"Try to sleep now, dear," he urged as Amy's tears finally came to a stop. "I'm going to try to do the same. I'll keep the shop closed today, too; it's only respectful, don't you think? I'll need to go to Graham's apartment at some point during the day. I own the building he lived in, you know. I was his landlord. I'm going to gather some of his personal belongings and see if Miss Swan might want them. I think she'll appreciate that, don't you? But I won't leave until I know you're all right."
He shifted to rise, but to his astonishment Amy clung to him. "Don't go," she said pleadingly. "Stay with me."
He didn't hesitate. Part of him had hoped she would ask him to do so. "Of course," he said soothingly. Any other time he would have been hesitant at the very least, or refused outright. Sharing the same bed was a potential minefield. There were too many bad situations it could lead to. The impromptu slumber party of a few weeks before had been a different state of affairs. He had remained fully clothed and on top of the covers, she had been under them, and contact had been minimal. But under ordinary circumstances he would never have risked actually sleeping under the covers with her, both of them in nightclothes. The possibilities for awkwardness and outright disaster were endless.
These weren't ordinary circumstances, however. This was a time of sadness. The same rules didn't apply. He knew she merely wanted the comfort of another human being close by, and truth be told, he wanted the same. The news of the sheriff's death had hit him harder than he would have expected. In his own way, he realized with no small surprise, he was grieving.
So it was that he felt only a little trepidation sliding into the bed when Amy slid over. He lay flat on his back, wondering if the would simply lie side-by-side all night like two sticks of wood, or if she would continue to hold onto him for dear life. He hoped for the latter but knew it might not be such a good idea. Although sex was the very last thing on his mind at the moment, that didn't mean his body wouldn't have other ideas. Not that he would ever act upon it, but it would still be incredibly awkward, especially if she noticed.
As he pondered this Amy shifted until her head once again rested on his shoulder. Of its own volition his arm moved to wrap around her. His hand rested on the mound of her belly. He felt the baby stirring within, and began to relax. This would be all right, after all. Even if he did experience an unwanted…physical accident, the way they were laying she wouldn't know. And he didn't think it would happen anyway; at any other time, almost certainly, but not right now.
As he drifted off the thought crossed his mind that this was far more comfortable than he would have imagined. It was more than comfortable; it was right, somehow. Though he knew better, he couldn't shake the thought that they had lain this way many, many times before. Even the movement of the baby under his hand was familiar. Though he had always been a cold realist, he had to admit to himself that perhaps three really were more things in Heaven and Earth than were dreamt of in his philosophy. The events of the past few months had really driven this home to him. Why had he felt as if he knew Emma Swan from the first moment he had met her at Granny's Inn? And why was he increasingly certain that he had not only known Amy Miller before, but had loved her…and was beginning to think, judging on the hazy recollections, that she had returned the feeling?
Before he could think more deeply on this, though, sleep finally overtook him.
…
Several miles away, in a house nowhere near as grand as Mr. Gold's estate but still more luxurious than anyone else in Storybrooke could ever aspire to, Regina Mills awoke from her own fitful slumber.
She finally gave up any hope of sleep and rose from the bed. It felt so cold and empty without Graham. True, he hadn't slept here every night, but she could always count on his presence in her bed a couple of times a week, at least. Even on the nights he hadn't been beside her, his scent on the sheets and pillow had been a comforting reminder.
She finally allowed herself the cold comfort of tears as she remembered once more that Graham would never again share this bed with her. Though his scent still lingered, she knew it was only a matter of time before that, too, faded. Then he would truly be gone from her life forever.
And she had done it herself.
I had no choice, she reminded herself as she pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the bedroom window. Though it had nearly killed her to do so, she knew she had made the right decision. He had been remembering. He had turned against her. Worst of all, he had aligned himself with that Swan bitch. Had she allowed him to live, he would have been nothing but a threat, a danger. She really had had no choice.
Her eyes narrowed as she willed the useless tears to stop flowing. This was all Emma Swan's fault. None of this would ever have happened if that bitch hadn't come to town. The woman seemed intent on taking everything Regina called her own; first her son, now her lover…who knew what she would go after next?
She had to be stopped. Regina knew this for sure. The only question was how? So far, the woman had thwarted every one of Regina's schemes to drive her from town. Regina supposed it was time to step things up now. She hadn't wanted to hurt the woman. Driving her from town would have been good enough. The woman was Henry's biological mother, after all; though Regina had no intention of allowing her to be any part of her son's life, she was after all the reason Regina had a son. She did care about Henry. She had never been able to love him as a mother should, but she did care deeply about him. Now that Graham was gone, Henry was the only thing left she did care about. If she could have avoided it, she would not have harmed the woman who had given birth to him.
But the woman had given her no choice. Just as Graham had given her no choice. It wasn't going to be as easy to get rid of Emma Swan, however. It wasn't simply a matter of squeezing her heart to dust as she had done with Graham. No, she would have to deal with this in the way of this world. Perhaps she would arrange an accident.
Taking Emma Swan out of the picture permanently would have to wait, though. For one thing, it was too soon. If the sheriff and the deputy died mysteriously too close together, even the dimmest bulbs in the town would start asking questions. Anyway, there were other fish to fry at the moment.
Someone else was beginning to remember. This had happened a few times over the past 28 years, but until now it had always been fairly easily resolved. Usually it was a matter of a simple spell, like the one she had used on the tacky windmill that had caused David Nolan to "regain his memory". Had Graham not remembered so much so quickly, she would have been able to perform a similar spell on him. Alas, by the time she had realized the extent of his memories he had already remembered she was not to be trusted.
She wondered who was beginning to remember this time. That was one of the loopholes of the curse Rumpelstiltskin hadn't bothered to warn her about: she would sense when someone's memory was returning, but she wouldn't sense exactly who it was. She would have to wait for them to give themselves away—and hope that they did so early enough for her to do damage control. It had been one of the Imp's ways to keep things interesting in the new world.
She smirked. Well, the joke had been on him, hadn't it? He was just as much in the dark as the rest of them. Except for the matter of the word "please"—he had managed to retain that if nothing else, and had certainly used it to his advantage enough. Sometimes she almost wished she had allowed him to keep his memories; his counsel at times like this would have been most helpful.
Rumpelstiltskin…could it be he? Was he the one who was remembering? She hoped not. "Mr. Gold" was far cleverer than the vast majority of the town, an aspect of his true self she had allowed him to keep. If anyone could keep their returning memories a secret until it was far too late for her to intervene, it was he.
However, she didn't believe he would do so. She had kept her end of their bargain. He lived in wealth and comfort. His estate was far larger and grander than even her own. He was the only other person in town with as much wealth and power as she. She had allowed him to pursue his own interests without interference from her, so long as they were not at cross purposes with her own plans. Besides Regina herself, the man currently known as Mr. Gold was the only victim of the curse who had actually come out ahead.
If it was indeed the man-turned-Imp-turned-man who was remembering, she was still safe for the time being. But there was no way to know for sure. Worse still, her sense of returning memories was stronger than it had ever been before. Did that mean someone else was remembering as quickly and clearly as Graham had? Or—worst of all—could more than one person be remembering?
Regina felt as if all control was slipping away from her. Seemingly overnight, her happy ending had turned to ashes. She had conveniently forgotten that her own son was afraid of her, that her lover was her lover only because she held him in thrall, and that her townspeople disliked and distrusted her. In her mind now, everything had been perfect until Emma Swan had arrived in town.
And everything would be perfect again, she vowed to herself. She would find out who was regaining their memories, and she would take care of them. If it meant dealing with them the same way she had dealt with Graham, well, she had no qualms about that. If she could crush the heart of her lover, she could certainly do so to some lesser townsperson. And then, she would exact her vengeance on Miss Emma Swan.
Yes, she would have her happy ending back…no matter how many she had to destroy in the process.
Aaargh…it was the Chapter that Would Not Die! I couldn't seem to wrap it up and didn't want to split it again. At last I got to Graham's death, which is where I had already decided to end the chapter, and I was like "Finally!" Then out of nowhere Regina decided to bogart the story for a few pages. Figured I'd better let her, since she is the Evil Queen after all. No telling what she'd do to me if I refused her.
I've got Chapter 9 pretty much written out in my head, but I still have to transfer it to paper. Obviously most of my time has been taken up with the ever-lengthening Chapter 8. By the way, I decided I am going to keep the story at M. It seems that further sexytime is not as far away as I originally thought. Don't you just hate it when the characters start taking over the story? At least they were nice enough to solve the mystery for me of exactly what Mr. Gold was up to in the forest that morning. Obviously the show will have a different explanation, but I rather like mine. (Although show-wise I'm still clinging to the hope that Mr. Gold was actually burying Graham's real heart after swapping it out with an animal heart. If he's retained his magic as well as his memories, it would be easy for him to enchant an animal heart in order to fool Regina, place Graham under some Sleeping Beauty-type spell, and spirit him away somewhere to recover. I've thought a lot about this, can you tell?)
Once again, only the OCs are mine. Everything and everyone else belongs to ABC, Disney, the Brothers Grimm, etc. By the way, there's a tiny clue in this chapter that reveals a little about Amy's father, and why he treats her the way he does. This came as a surprise to me, but I was glad for it. I knew he was more than a one-dimensional baddie, but I didn't know exactly what his motivations were. Now I do. Cookies to anyone who figures it out!
In the immortal words of Eric Cartman (actually the parallel-universe Eric Cartman with the goatee) "Ah love you gahs".