CHAPTER 12
Emma had just about decided to close up for the day when the man came into the Sheriff's Department.
It was still fairly early, just a little past five, but seeing as it was a weekday she felt pretty sure nothing requiring her services would happen for the remainder of the evening. On the off chance something did happen, she would be on call. So far, though, her tenure as Storybrooke's sheriff had been pretty quiet. The little town wasn't exactly a hotbed of criminal activity. The only arrests she had made had been those of Leroy Brown for public intoxication (three of them so far), but those tended to occur on the weekends. And they were pretty cut and dried: she simply picked up Leroy at whatever establishment had deemed him a nuisance that night (twice it had been the diner, once the bowling alley), deposited him in a cell, and let him out again with a warning once he had sobered up. Really, the PI arrests were more of a way to keep him from the much more serious crime of DUI than anything else. And Leroy was much less trouble than any of the bail-skippers she had dealt with in her previous career. He might give her a little lip when she first arrived to fetch him, but by the time they arrived back at the station he was generally ready to pass out on the closest cot. After he slept it off, he was usually contrite (well, as contrite as Leroy ever got, which wasn't much) and would promise to at least attempt to stay out of trouble, and the matter would be at an end until the next time he got unruly.
If Leroy Brown were the only thing she had to deal with, her new job would be a cakewalk. Unfortunately she also had Mayor Mills to contend with. The woman had seemed to accept the townspeople's decision gracefully, but she delighted in making Emma's job, and her life, as difficult as possible. Emma had thwarted her once so far, right after her election, in the matter of the Zimmer twins. Ava and Nicholas Zimmer had been caught shoplifting from Mr. Clark's store, and after doing a little digging Emma had discovered that the twelve-year-olds had been living by their wits since the death of their mother. Of course, the mayor had caught wind of the twins' situation almost as soon as Emma uncovered it. Regina had immediately arranged for them to be sent to separate group homes in Boston, where, Emma knew, they would be swallowed up by the foster-care system that had chewed her up and spit her out.
Emma wasn't going to stand by and allow this to happen without exhausting all other options first, so she had taken it upon herself to find the twins' unknown father. She had managed to do so via the one possession of the man the twins had—a broken compass. It hadn't been much of a stretch to realize that Mr. Mystery Father had most likely acquired the compass at Gold's pawnshop, and that Gold, being the methodical businessman he was, would have kept a record of the transaction. Both deductions had turned out to be correct. Surprisingly, Mr. Gold had been most accommodating when she approached him asking for the man's name. He had produced the needed information almost immediately and had given it to her with no hesitation. Michael Tillman, it turned out, was employed at the local garage and had had a fling with the late Dory Zimmer approximately thirteen years earlier.
That Emma had been able to track down the twins' father on the strength of one broken compass was miraculous enough. But to Emma, the true miracle was what had happened afterward. Michael Tillman had been initially resistant to take custody of the children he had never even known about. A well-timed "dead battery" on the outskirts of town had turned the tide. Once he actually laid eyes on his son and daughter, it had been a different story…just as Emma had hoped. Tillman had decided to step up and raise the children whose existence he'd never suspected.
Emma, already a hero to the town after her honesty about the fire at City Hall, became even more so after her deliverance of the Zimmer twins from the foster-care system. What was more, she became even more of a hero in Henry's eyes. More than anything else about the affair, Henry's hero-worship galled Mayor Mills. She had set out to take the new sheriff down a few pegs.
And she had succeeded. Weeks later, Emma still cringed at the thought of the Sidney Glass fiasco. How she ever could have believed the reporter was on her side, she would never know, especially with her ability to tell when people were lying. Apparently it had grown rusty during her stay in Storybrooke, was all she could think. In retrospect, it was painfully obvious that Sidney was Regina's man through and through. Somehow, though, Emma had missed this factoid while the whole situation was occurring. Not only had she wound up with egg on her face in front of the town that had just elected her sheriff, Mayor Mills had officially banned her from seeing Henry.
It had been three weeks since she had seen her son, other than a couple of stolen moments here and there (thank God for Mary Margaret. If Regina wondered about Henry's having two "detentions" in the last few weeks, so far she hadn't said anything about it). Emma missed Henry every minute of the day. It was ridiculous, she knew; she had lived for nearly a decade without knowing his whereabouts at all. But the kid had wormed his way under her skin and into her heart, she had to admit to herself. She only hoped it would be a while before he started asking about his father again.
Since she hadn't been allowed to see Henry, Emma had taken to staying longer and longer hours at the station. Tonight, though, she was ready to escape for a little while. She thought she might go to the diner for a cheeseburger and a hot chocolate (heavy on the cinnamon, of course). Afterward, she might head over to the B&B and visit Amy.
Amy was still staying at the B&B. To Emma's immense relief, finding out about Mr. Gold's duplicity hadn't caused any physical harm to the girl. She was still pregnant, now nearing the eight-month mark, and Doc had even eased up on his restrictions a little. She was no longer on strict bed rest, but except for her visits to him, he had asked that she remain as close to home as possible for the duration. So far, she had complied. Aside from the occasional short walk when the weather was good (which, in Maine in February, wasn't often), she had been sticking around the bed and breakfast. Emma suspected that this was more to avoid the chance of running into Mr. Gold than to follow the doctor's orders. In the month since she'd left his house, Amy had neither seen nor spoken to her former employer. But he still knew what was going on in her life. And it was because of Emma that he did.
This arrangement had begun shortly after Ava and Nicholas Zimmer were reunited with their father. Emma had felt duty bound to stop by the pawnshop and thank him for his help in the matter. Not only had he provided Michael Tillman's name to her, he had given the man a month of paid "paternity leave" from the garage, which he not-surprisingly also owned, to settle into life with his new-found twins. Though she still disliked and distrusted the pawnbroker, Emma had to admit that had been a kind thing to do. As such, she felt she owed him an official thank-you on behalf of the department.
He had accepted her thanks graciously before asking her if she'd seen Amy. Something in his eyes as he voiced the too-casual question had forced her to respond honestly that yes, she had, and Amy was doing well. Somehow, before quite realizing what she was doing, Emma had found herself agreeing to visit Amy a few times a week, and to report to Mr. Gold afterward.
Since then, she had gone to see Amy at least twice a week after her shifts. Often it was more like three or four times. Afterward, she would contact Mr. Gold and give him the details of the visit: how Amy had looked, what she'd worn, what they had talked about.
Emma felt like a double agent. She rationalized her behavior by telling herself that she genuinely liked Amy and would have visited her often in any case, which was true, and that she owed Mr. Gold for his help locating the twins' father, which was also true. But there was a deeper reason for it: she felt guilty.
Though she had believed at the time Amy had a right to know about Mr. Gold's past as a baby broker, she was no longer sure that this had applied to Amy's baby. Maybe it had been so early on, when he first took Amy into his home. But Emma suspected that this had no longer been the case as time went on. For Mr. Gold had genuine feelings for Amy. He had never come out and admitted this to Emma, but she had sensed it from the first time she saw them together. He was so different when he was with her: gentle, caring, and protective—a far cry from the man who struck fear into the collective heart of Storybrooke. Seeing him and Amy together, Emma had been struck with the certainty that Mr. Gold had been a good man at one time, and perhaps the good in him wasn't entirely gone. Now that they were apart, she could still see it in the way he asked about her, the look in his eyes as she told him what he wanted to know.
Moreover, Amy had had feelings for Mr. Gold as well. Emma remembered how she had been around him. There had been absolutely no fear in her; Emma would have sensed it in a moment if there had been. All she had been able to sense was gratitude, admiration, and honest liking, and underneath it all a current of what was unmistakably physical attraction. Even now, knowing what she did, Amy couldn't keep the sadness from her eyes when his name was brought up, or the wistful longing from her tone on the rare occasions she spoke of her time in his home.
It was painfully obvious that they missed one another. However, Mr. Gold had honored Amy's demand that he not contact her in any way. And Amy seemed determined to avoid him. Emma couldn't guess why the pawnbroker had stayed away from the girl, but she knew the girl's reasons had to do with her unborn baby.
Amy had decided to keep her daughter. "God only knows how we'll get by," she had told Emma during their most recent visit, "but after everything we've been through together already, I can't just give her away. I'll do whatever I have to to make sure she has everything she needs." Emma admired the girl's determination and courage. She wished she'd had some of that fortitude when she'd been in the same situation.
Emma was trying to help her out however she could. Right now, that was mainly by offering emotional support—at least until she got a few paychecks under her belt. But she wasn't the only one trying to help Amy Miller. Mary Margaret had been quietly stockpiling diapers ("whenever I see them on sale I pick up a few packages," she told Emma) and was knitting a receiving blanket. Marco was hard at work on a cradle, which he hoped to surprise Amy with in the near future. Dr. Hopper had taken it upon himself to help Amy apply for the assistance she would need, such as WIC; he had also given her a copy of the latest edition of Dr. Spock. Ruby and Ashley had pooled their resources and managed to buy a decent amount of 0-3 month clothes. When the baby outgrew these, Amy could trade them for larger sizes at the infants' consignment store in town. Granny Woods had declared that Amy and her baby had a home at the B&B for as long as they needed. Knowing the strain this would put on Granny's finances, Amy had in turn announced she would take over cleaning duties at the B&B as soon as she was on her feet again after the baby came.
But Granny Woods's finances were OK for the time being. When Emma had gone to Mr. Gold's house the day after Amy left to get her things, he had asked her to tell the old woman that their previous arrangement still stood. She still owed him no rent on the inn or diner until Amy gave birth, as long as there was always someone staying with Amy. Though Granny knew something of the events that had transpired, and was absolutely furious with Mr. Gold, she had agreed to this. What choice did she have? Amy and the baby's well-being came first. Mr. Gold was also continuing to pay Amy's medical bills. Emma wasn't sure if Amy knew about this; she didn't think the girl would stand for it if she did know. She had declared, often, that she no longer wanted to be beholden to the pawnbroker for anything. As soon as she got on her feet, she said, she would pay him back for all he'd spent on her. Then she could be done with him. Emma had pretended not to notice the pain in the girl's eyes as she said this.
Lost in her thoughts, Emma didn't notice the man until he was standing right in front of her desk.
Though she had seen him a few times in passing since her arrival in Storybrooke, she couldn't immediately place him. He was in his early forties, she guessed, tall and broad-shouldered. She couldn't help thinking that he was rather good-looking, with strong, masculine features and striking hazel eyes.
Then the man took off the hat he had been wearing, and she knew him. The hair gave him away. There was only one other person in Storybrooke with that oddly shineless hair, so dark brown it could really be called black.
"Sheriff Swan," the man said a trifle nervously. He twisted his hat in his hands as he spoke. "I don't believe we've been officially introduced. I'm—"
"Joe Miller," Emma said. "You're Amy's father."
The man looked startled. "Yes," he said. "How did you…" He trailed off.
"The hair," she explained. She decided not to mention that she had gotten a pretty good look at him at Graham's memorial service. Anger flared in her at the memory of how he'd stared impassively at his daughter as she reached out to him, how he'd turned away from her and left without a single word. "What can I do for you, Mr. Miller?" she asked briskly, biting back the hateful words she really wanted to spew at the man.
Joe Miller fidgeted a bit. "Well, I'm not really sure," he said slowly. "I just…well, I know you've made friends with my daughter. I guess I really wanted to ask you how she's doing."
It was on the tip of Emma's tongue to retort, "Why don't you just go by the inn and find out for yourself?" But as she looked at the man's face something inside her softened. She knew he had not been much of a father to Amy even before their falling-out. She knew he had treated her abominably when he'd learned she was pregnant. But her gut told her that he regretted both of those things. It seemed to Emma that he might be trying, in his own way, to make things right.
"Amy is all right," she said. "She says she feels like she's as big as a house. She isn't, really—she's only gained weight around the middle—but she keeps saying she feels like a beached whale."
He smiled a little at that. "That's how Grace was at the end," he said. "I used to have to pull her out of her chair whenever she sat down." His face saddened at the recollection.
Emma felt a stirring of pity. Up until now, she realized, she had thought of Joe Miller as the villain in Amy's situation. Surprisingly, she had never considered Mr. Gold to be the villain, more like the anti-hero—the man who had originally had nefarious intentions, but who as the drama progressed had fallen for his intended target, only to be hoist on the petard of his past misdeeds. The villain of the piece had been Joe Miller, with his continued rejection of his own daughter.
But now she wasn't so sure. Now that she had actually met the man, she sensed that he wasn't the baddie so much as—what? Perhaps another anti-hero? There was no excuse for his past treatment of Amy. But the fact that he was here now indicated that he was not completely irredeemable.
As if he could read the gist of her thoughts, Joe Miller sighed. "I haven't been the best father to Amy," he confessed. "I'm sure you know some of…our history. I was never much of a father even under the best of circumstances. When she…ran into trouble…I really messed up. I'm still not exactly sure why. Amy had always been a good kid. Good grades, no sneaking out or drinking or trouble with boys or anything like that. God knows she was much better-behaved than I was at her age. When she met that boy, when he got her pregnant, I should have been more understanding. She was only trying to find the love I'd held back from her all her life; I realize that now. If I'd been a better father in the first place, maybe none of it would have happened. I see that now, but I didn't at the time. The truth is I didn't want to see it. It was just easier to lay the blame on her shoulders instead of where it really belonged." Wearily, he ran a hand through his hair. Though it was the same shade and texture as his daughter's, it held quite a bit of gray.
Visions of cheeseburgers and hot chocolate vanished from Emma's mind. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Miller?" she suggested quietly.
…
Emma never fully understood why Joseph Miller had chosen to unburden himself to her, of all people. Perhaps it was because she was a relative stranger. Or perhaps it was because she had once been in Amy's position, young and pregnant and alone in the world. Whatever the reason, he bared his soul to her that evening. Later, she was glad he had. She only wished he'd had time to do the same thing with his daughter.
He told her a little about his life. He'd grown up right here in Storybrooke, the son of a poor family. They'd lived a hardscrabble existence while he was growing up; he had decided early on that he would get out of that world as soon as he was able. Football had provided an escape for him, an emotional escape, and almost, almost a literal one. He'd had offers from several colleges before a devastating injury in his senior year at Storybrooke High. Though he had eventually recovered, his football career was over, along with his dreams for college and a life beyond Storybrooke.
He had made the best of it. He'd managed to land a job at an insurance company after his high-school graduation. He was good at his job and frugal by nature. By the time he was in his early twenties, he had managed to save enough money to buy the insurance company from his boss upon the older man's retirement. Although he was a long way from the privation of his childhood, it still wasn't enough for him. Though he put on a cheerful face to the world, on the inside he was a broken man, always thinking of what might have been.
Then he had met Grace. For the first time in his life, Joe knew what true happiness was. He found it in her smile, and later her arms. She had loved him completely, and he had worshipped the ground she walked on. With her love, he had been able to let go of his bitterness about the past. If the events of his life had led him to her, he would gladly go through them again, as long as she was waiting for him.
When Grace died, just minutes after the birth of their only child, Joe's bitterness had returned with a vengeance. This time it had consumed him completely. Rather than healing with the passage of time, the hole in his heart had instead festered more and more with each year. He had withdrawn from everyone he had left, including his daughter. "I loved her," he told Emma, tears in his eyes. "I love her now. She might not think so, bur it's true. I just wasn't able to show it, for some reason."
His inability to truly connect with Amy had only grown as she did. "It was impossible to look at her, sometimes," he confessed. "She's so much like Grace except for her hair. The older she got, the more like Grace she was. People talked about that; they said how sweet it was that I had a living reminder of my wife, but I didn't see it that way. Every time I looked at her, all I could think of was what I had lost."
Eventually, he had come to blame his daughter for the death of his wife. "I knew it wasn't right…she was only a baby. She had no choice about coming into this world. But it was easier than blaming myself."
As the years went by, he grew more and more frozen in his resentment—at how his life had turned out, at the fact that he was still trapped in the town he had longed to escape. But mostly at the fact that he had lost the one person in his life who'd made him truly happy. Mired in his misery, he was blind to his daughter's love for him. "I was an idiot," he confessed freely. "If I had just reached out to her once, I would have realized that I still had someone to love. Maybe not my Grace, but the next best thing. She tried so hard to make me happy over the years. She worked so hard to make me proud. And I was proud of her…I still am. But somehow, I could never get past my own anger to tell her that."
When he discovered Amy's pregnancy, the rage and pain that had festered inside of him for nineteen years had finally broken free. Unfortunately, Amy had borne the brunt of it. "I said the most horrible things to her. Things no father should ever say to his child. And the hell of it is, I regretted them even as I was saying them. But they just kept coming. Then I hit her. Jesus, the look on her face…I hated myself. I told myself it was her I hated, that she'd shamed me in front of the whole town. But I knew better. I couldn't let myself see that it was my fault, though. If I accepted that I was at least partly to blame for the mess she was in, I had to accept the rest of what I'd done over the years. I shut her out. I kept her at arm's length. No wonder she fell for the first guy who came along. If I had let myself see what I'd done…what I'd become…I think the guilt would have killed me."
Emma had to know. "And then you found out Mr. Gold had taken her in. Amy's told me you two had…'done business' together before. I'm sure you know about the adoptions he's brokered. You had to realize he was probably planning the same thing for Amy's baby."
Joe sighed. "I do know. And I did realize. That's the most monstrous thing of all. I just kept…rationalizing, I guess. I told myself Amy had made her own bed, and she could lie in it. I told myself there was no way I was going to let her raise an illegitimate child in my home. I wouldn't let myself think about the fact that it was my own grandchild I was talking about."
"But then there came a point when you couldn't rationalize anymore," Emma said, keeping the censure out of her tone with effort. After all, the man was remorseful now. She knew he had come to her in an attempt to at least begin to fix things between him and his daughter. Telling him exactly what she thought of his past actions wouldn't accomplish anything.
He nodded. "After I saw her at the memorial service…I just couldn't get her out of my mind. You'll never know, Sheriff Swan, how much I wanted to reach out to her then. When she said 'Daddy' and held her hands out to me…I wanted just to pull her into my arms and tell her 'I'm sorry. I love you. You've never shamed me, never. It's me I'm ashamed of'. I could hear myself saying the words, I could see myself hugging her…but then, I just couldn't. It was like something was pulling me away. So I ran." The tears finally spilled from his eyes onto his cheeks. He paid them no mind. Emma's own eyes were wet as well.
"That night I started having the dreams," he continued.
Emma looked at him sharply. "Dreams?" Why that should make her think of Graham, she didn't know. But it did…and it made her uneasy.
He didn't seem to notice her reaction. "Yeah. I have them about every night now. They're…I don't know how to describe them, really."
"Try," Emma urged through lips that suddenly felt numb.
"Well…I guess you could say they're about the way things might have been. The way things could have been if I'd been able to move on with my life after losing Grace. Grace is still dead in my dreams, but Amy and I…we're a family. It's just the two of us, like it always was, and Amy takes care of our home, and of me, like she always did. But…we're happy. We love each other, and we don't have any trouble showing it. I spoil her a bit, I suppose, but she's one of those girls it's impossible to truly spoil—sort of like she is in real life, I guess. And she's a good daughter, never causing me a minute's worry. We have a very simple life, but it's a good one."
"Doesn't sound that weird to me," Emma said. "You're dreaming about the way you wish it had turned out. I think we all do that."
"Yes, I understand that. That's not really the strange part, though. In these dreams…we don't live here in Storybrooke, and we don't live in modern time. It's almost like…what I've read about medieval times. I'm not an insurance salesman; I'm a miller. Not such a stretch, I guess, considering my surname. I'm sure a dream analyst would have a field day with it."
"So you're living the life you wish you lived, only in a different time and place," Emma said slowly. She thought for a minute what Henry's reaction would be to this: They're not dreams! He's remembering his real life, his fairy-tale life! But she was twenty-eight years old, and she'd known all her life there were no such thing as fairy tales. Still, it was…disconcerting, to say the least.
"That's how they started. They were good dreams, in the beginning. I rather looked forward to them each night. But lately…I guess in the past couple of weeks…they've gotten disturbing."
"How so?" she asked.
"She disappears. I search high and low for her. I ask all her friends where she might have gone—and that's another thing; even though we're in another time and place, most of the people I know here in Storybrooke are there, although some of them are quite different. I do everything I can think of, but I never find any trace of her.
"And then one night, after she's been gone for a few weeks, a man comes to me. I call him a man, but he's really more of a…creature. He has the face and body of a man, but his skin is…not right. It's scaly, oddly colored. Sometimes it looks gray, sometimes greenish, and it sparkles. And his eyes are frightening. They're yellow, with no whites, like an animal's eyes."
"Ugh," Emma said, shivering in spite of herself.
"And the strangest thing is I know him. Here, I mean, in Storybrooke. As insane as it sounds…the creature in my dreams is Mr. Gold."
"OK, now you're seriously freaking me out," Emma blurted. She wasn't sure whether to be glad Henry wasn't around to hear this, or sorry. It might give him a clue as to Mr. Gold's "true" identity. He still hadn't figured out who Mr. Gold's fairy-tale counterpart was, or Amy's. Nor had he figured out what their story might be. If she weren't banned from seeing him, Emma thought, she would run this by him, get his theories on it. Maybe he could piece the story together from what Mr. Miller was telling her.
Then she shook her head. Jesus, she thought disgustedly. I'm getting as bad as Henry. I'm actually starting to see everyone in town as a potential fairy-tale character. Get a grip, Swan.
"Sorry," she added. "It's just…that was kind of out of left field."
He waved his hand. "I know. Believe me, I know how crazy it sounds. I've even thought about making an appointment with Dr. Hopper, but I'm afraid he would say I was certifiable and haul me off to Juniper Hill."
"You might be surprised," Emma said dryly. "So, Amy goes missing and a few weeks later, Mr. Gold in monster form comes for a visit. Then what happens?"
"I'm here about your daughter," the creature announces—in the dreams the miller knows him to be an Imp, but he never remembers this in his waking moments.
"My—daughter?" the miller repeats, still trying to come to terms with the sudden appearance of an Imp in his dooryard.
"Yes, your daughter," the Imp says with exaggerated patience. "Pretty little thing, dark hair, blue eyes, about yay tall? Lived here with you all her life until a fortnight ago? Suddenly vanished into thin air—poof!" The Imp snaps his fingers and giggles. A chill runs down the miller's spine at the sound.
It takes him a moment to realize what the Imp is telling him. Finally he gets it. "You know where she is?" the miller asks. The hope in his voice is painfully obvious.
"Of course," the Imp says casually, leaning against a tree and studying his nails as if the matter is of no great importance. "I can tell you exactly where she is—for a price."
"Anything!" the miller says immediately, though he has suddenly realized who the Imp must be and knows he may end up paying a terrible price, indeed for this deal. He doesn't care. All he cares about right now is finding out where his girl is, and if she's all right. He'll gladly pay with his life for the information, if he must.
The Imp raises one eyebrow. "Anything?" he repeats. "My, my, that is tempting—but no. I ask only for a small token."
"Name it!" the miller declares, not without relief. Frantically he thinks of the items in his home that might suffice for such a creature.
"I want your daughter's necklace," the Imp says, his nonchalant tone abruptly turning greedy. His eyes glitter with avarice. He's actually rubbing his hands together, the miller notices. "The one that belonged to your wife, that passed on to your daughter after her death."
The miller knows exactly what he's referring to. For an instant his heart twists in pain. It quickly passes. He'd give all the jewels in the kingdom to have his daughter back again. Even if it means parting with one of the only remembrances he has of his wife, he'd much rather have his living reminder with him again.
"It is a deal," he says, hoping the Imp won't want to shake on it.
He doesn't; he's too busy clapping his hands and jumping up and down, giving that demonic, high-pitched cackle. "Wonderful!" he exclaims. "Now, go fetch it like a good boy. As soon as you give it to me, I'll tell you your daughter's whereabouts."
The miller nearly burns the wind running into the house. It is a small, simple dwelling, sparsely furnished; times have been hard in their village for as long as he can remember. He and his daughter are better off than most. Though he knows he could afford a more lavish lifestyle plying his trade elsewhere, he's never seriously considered leaving. This is home.
He returns in only moments. Terrified that the Imp will have disappeared in the brief time he was inside, he is relieved to see him still leaning against the tree, whistling an incongruously cheerful tune. "Here," he gasps, still panting from his mad dash and frantic search through his daughter's few possessions. He stretches out the hand holding the necklace.
"Why thank you, sir," the Imp giggles. "Now, to answer your question…your daughter is with me. Oh, not literally here with me," he clarifies as he observes the miller's eyes swerving from side to side, "but she is in my home."
The miller gasps, clutching his stomach as if the Imp has dealt him a physical blow. To think of his precious girl being held captive by the likes of this…this…thing! For a moment he thinks he may faint. Fear for his daughter keeps him from this, however. If he passes out now, the Imp will likely vanish, and he will never know what has become of his daughter. Nor will he be able to bargain with the Imp to free her.
"Please," he begs once he can finally breathe again. "Please tell me she's all right. Please tell me she isn't harmed…that she's alive. I beg you, Rumpelstiltskin, tell me my girl is all right!"
The Imp lifts a brow again at this. Very few are brave enough to call him by name, though of course he knew the miller had realized his identity almost instantly. Desperation will do funny things to a man. He has seen enough desperate souls in his abnormally long life to tell that this man is at his breaking point.
"Well, you did say 'please'," he muses aloud. "I'll give you points for that…but that wasn't part of our deal, now was it? I believe I only promised to tell you where the girl is, not how she is. Another price will have to be paid if you want to know that."
"I have nothing else!" the miller cries in despair. Then a thought occurs to him. "Except…"
"Yes?" the creature draws out the 's' until it is a hiss.
"My daughter's ring. It also belonged to my wife."
"Hmmm," the creature says, affecting great disinterest. "Perhaps…the market for jewelry is not what it was, you understand. I don't really even need the necklace, truthfully, I just happen to know you've not much else to bargain with—"
"Please," the miller begs in a near-whisper.
"Oh, all right," the Imp agrees in a put-upon tone. "I suppose it won't hurt to at least take a look at it. Then I'll decide if it's worth such…valuable information." He speaks in the tones of one bestowing a great favor.
Before he can change his mind, the miller flees to retrieve the ring. Before he returns to present it to the Imp, he presses a kiss upon it. "I'm sorry, my love," he whispers. Whether he is speaking to his daughter or his wife, even he cannot say.
Back outside, the Imp takes the ring and turns it over and over in his hands, studying it closely. He holds it up to examine it by the light of the moon.
"This will do," he says finally, as if this is just an ordinary business transaction. The miller nearly collapses with relief.
His relief turns to horror at the next words. "Your daughter is fine. She's in good health. Of course, there is the small matter of her being with child—"
His sentence is cut off as the miller springs at him with a cry of rage. All fear is gone from the man now. At the mention of his daughter—his innocent daughter!—carrying a child, all fright vanished. He is certain that Imp took his daughter for his own twisted, lecherous desires, and impregnated her with his demon spawn. Fury courses through him at the thought, overriding his fear, overriding his good sense.
The Imp is almost caught off guard by the action—but only almost. He throws up a barrier just in time, for the miller would have had his hands around his throat in another fraction of a second. Not that the man could have done him any serious harm, but still…The miller slams against the invisible shield with full force and topples to the ground.
"That was a very unwise thing to do," Rumpelstiltskin says menacingly, towering over the prone man. His eyes have turned completely black, the miller notices. He is past caring. He is past caring about anything. Hopelessly, helplessly, he begins to sob.
"Oh, God," he moans. "My child, my baby, my little girl…"
He wishes the creature would go ahead and kill him now, put him out of misery. In his despair, he fails to notice the conflicted expression ghosting across the Imp's face. When Rumpelstiltskin reaches out to him, he cries out and twists away.
"Stop that sniveling," the Imp says impatiently. Then he does something the miller never expected. He pulls him up by the hand. Looking at him in confusion, the miller realizes his eyes have changed color yet again. They are now a golden-brown, very nearly human, and the expression in them is something like compassion.
When he speaks, his voice is likewise more human. It is softer and filled with the same thing the miller can see in his eyes, that is almost like kindness. "I mean no harm to your girl," he states. "I have not touched her in the way you think. The child within her was there before I even met her."
Somehow, the miller believes the words. "But…how…?" he asks weakly, unable to finish the thought.
The Imp finishes it for him. "How did she get with child?" he asks. The miller nods. "There was a young man in your village in the earlier part of the year, was there not? A stranger. A wealthy stranger. A prince, he said, from a far-off kingdom."
The miller recalls the young man instantly. "I never trusted that man," he whispers fiercely. "I never believed that prince story for a moment. I told my girl to keep her distance from him…"
Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head ruefully. "Has any daughter ever listened to her father when it came to a young man?" he asks rhetorically. "He filled her head with all sorts of pretty stories. You may not have believed his claim of royal blood, but she did. He told her she would be his princess, and someday his queen. He told her whatever he thought she wanted to hear to make her fall in love with him." He shakes his head again, the expression on his face now one of bemusement. "The sad thing is, he could have told her he was a beggar and she would have fallen in love with him anyway. The girl was ripe for romance."
"There are not many prospective suitors in our village," the miller admits. "The few there are were put off by her…unconventional ways. She's one of the only people in our village who knows how to read, for one thing; I taught her when she was still tiny. Many said I never should have done that, for what good does it do for a woman to fill her head with knowledge? But she was so bright, so inquisitive. To me the mistake would have been not allowing her to learn."
The Imp smiles, and despite the jagged, fearsome-looking teeth the miller finds the smile comforting. "She is very intelligent," he allows. "A bit naïve, perhaps, but life will cure her of that soon enough."
"I bought her books whenever I could spare the money," the miller continues. "I'm afraid she developed some…rather forward-thinking ideas from them. I don't necessarily think that's wrong, but she was never shy about voicing her opinions. The young men in the village never knew what to make of that, or of her."
Rumpelstiltskin laughs aloud. The laugh is completely different from his mad cackle. It is deep, joyful, and again, oddly human. The miller has heard that Rumpelstiltskin was once a man, who became an Imp through a deal gone wrong. He's starting to believe it could be the truth.
"Yes, I can imagine that too," he says. "She does have some very…progressive ideas. She's told me some of them. She believes a husband and wife should share equally in the care of the home and the raising of children. But she also believes that, if the wife has any marketable skills, she should ply her trade along with the man, so that both are contributing financially to the household."
The miller sighs. "Again, I believe she has a point. But I was a bit too indulgent when it came to her odd ideas. I never cautioned her that most young men of this realm are not nearly so forward-thinking."
This has begun to seem like a casual conversation between two men. Indeed, the miller has almost forgotten that this is the creature that is presumably holding his daughter hostage. When he sees the necklace glittering in the abnormally long fingers, however, he remembers exactly who—what—he is dealing with. "But if you didn't plant the child that is growing in my daughter, why did you take her?" he asks pleadingly. "Why are you keeping her from me?"
The Imp seems to be choosing his words carefully. "I did not take her," he finally replies. "Nor do I hold her against her will. She left your home intentionally, to avoid causing you shame. She knew your business would suffer when word got out that your daughter was with child and unmarried, so she chose to leave. I found her near my home, and when I heard her tale I offered her a place with me until her child is born. I made a deal with her." The miller pales visibly, and Rumpelstiltskin chuckles. "Calm yourself, man. Our deal is simply this: I will provide a home for her until her child is born, and then she may proceed with her life as she chooses. She can return to you, or she can go on to one of the realms where her modern ideas are more widely accepted. In return, she has promised me the infant."
Although the miller feels somewhat more comfortable with his daughter's situation, he doesn't like the thought of her child—his grandchild, after all—in the care of an Imp. "What will you do with the child?" he asks.
Rumpelstiltskin is mildly surprised by the question. Most fathers would not have thought to ask, he knows, would have simply been grateful that the little bastard was taken off their hands and their daughter's reputation could remain unblemished. But this man is not like most. He views his daughter as more than chattel to be married off, and obviously cares for his grandchild as well, illegitimate though it may be. The Imp decides he will favor the man with the truth.
"If I tell you, you must promise never to speak of it," he warns. The miller nods his assent. "I will find the child a home. That's what I do with the infants I take. I know there are all sorts of stories about why I make deals for newborns, but the truth of the matter is that I give them to people who can't have a child of their own for whatever reason."
This doesn't fit with the stories the miller has heard. He has never personally known anyone who gave up a child to Rumpelstiltskin, but he has heard rumors of what the creature does with the infants he takes. There have been whispers of sacrifice, of cannibalism, of even more unspeakable acts, but he has never heard that the Imp takes the children and gives them to the childless. As he stares into those very nearly human eyes, though, the miller knows that Rumpelstiltskin is speaking the truth. This creature, dark and twisted though he may be, still possesses a shred of humanity. The miller knows instinctively that he would not harm an innocent babe. Then, too, there is the other thing he has always heard over the years: that Rumpelstiltskin does not lie. He may not tell the whole truth, he may twist it so it is indiscernible, but he does not lie. As he gazes at the Imp that may have once been a man, the miller thinks this may be the only true thing he has ever heard about him.
What Rumpelstiltskin does next convinces him. The creature takes something from the breast pocket of his dragon-skin jacket and presses it into the miller's hand. The miller is too surprised at the sudden contact to flinch. It flits through his mind that Rumpelstiltskin's flesh, though it is oddly colored and textured, is not cold and scaly as he would have thought. Though it is as rough and dry as he imagined, it is quite warm, and not unpleasant.
When the miller finally looks at the object which the creature has given him, he is surprised to see it is a bit of broken looking-glass. "It's magic," the creature explains, seeming to read his thoughts. "If you whisper to it the name of the one you want to see, it will show you that person. It will show you exactly what they are doing at that moment."
Before he realizes it, the miller has whispered the name of his beloved daughter to the bit of glass. Instantly the glass fogs, though he was careful not to breathe on it. Then the fog clears.
He sees his daughter sitting before a fireplace. She sits in a rocking chair, her legs stretched out and her bare feet on a hassock. She is wearing the blue dress she wore the last time he saw her. Not surprisingly, she holds a book in her hand. As he watches, she lifts her other hand to turn a page, then continues to read. She is humming a little, rocking back and forth to the beat of the melody. He is overjoyed to see that she is alive and healthy as the Imp promised, and appears to be content as well. Certainly she is not a tormented captive.
When the miller finally lifts his eyes again to Rumpelstiltskin, they are shining with tears. "Thank you," he whispers. He holds the bit of glass out to the creature.
But he shakes his head. "Keep it," he says gruffly. "That bit of glass was once part of a much larger mirror. I still have the rest of the pieces; I will not miss this one." He seems to struggle with himself before blurting, "I know what it is to have your only child run from you without a word of explanation. At least you can rest assured that she did it out of love, not fear. She will return to you one day."
The miller is overwhelmed at such a generous gift. He gazes again at the image of his daughter within the glass. Moments pass before he thinks to look up again, to ask what the price will be for such a boon as this.
But when he looks up, Rumpelstiltskin is gone.
"That's when I wake up," Joe finished.
The young sheriff nodded slowly, although her eyes were troubled. "It still sounds like what I said earlier," she said finally. "You wish so badly things had turned out differently that you're making it that way in your dreams. Your subconscious turned Mr. Gold into a monster on the outside, but a benevolent creature within…kind of the opposite as he is in real life." Or is it? she thought to herself.
Joe Miller nodded, accepting the explanation. "You're probably right," he agreed. He wondered to himself why the sheriff looked so disturbed at the recounting of his dreams. But it had been a long day, and he was weary. He was relieved that he had finally unburdened himself, but it had been far more tiring than he expected. Now that he had finally gotten everything off his chest, he wanted simply to go home and go to bed early.
But before he excused himself, there was something he needed to ask. "So what do you think, Sheriff?" he blurted before he lost his nerve. "What should I do now?"
Emma frowned thoughtfully. "I think," she said slowly, "that you need to visit Amy soon. And I think you need to tell her everything you've just told me."
This was obviously the answer he had hoped for, for he sighed with unmistakable relief. "I will," he vowed. "Not tonight, because it's getting late. But tomorrow I'll take off work for the day and go to see her." He looked at Emma with desperation plain in his eyes. "Do you think she'll understand?"
Emma didn't hesitate with her answer this time. "She'll understand," she said with certainty.
"Good," he declared. "I hope…I hope it's not too late for us."
Impulsively, the pretty blonde reached out to grasp his hand. "It isn't," she declared.
But it was. Someone had overheard their conversation.
Silently, Regina Mills stole out of the sheriff's department. She knew what she had to do now. It was really too bad, she thought with a twinge of regret. It was too bad that Amy Miller would have to be hurt further, so soon after losing the man she thought she loved. Although she knew what the girl thought of her, Regina still felt a certain fondness for her; she had been so good to Henry. But it couldn't be helped. Joe Miller was remembering now, just as Graham had. He would have to be eliminated.
She would see to it that tomorrow never came for Joseph Miller.
…
Amy was half-asleep when the knock sounded at the door of her room at the inn.
"Coming," she called groggily. She climbed out of her warm bed with reluctance and padded across the threadbare Oriental rug to answer the knock.
Out of it as she was, for a moment she wasn't surprised or displeased to see Mr. Gold. She had always been confused when woken suddenly; she thought for a few seconds that the past month had been a bad dream, and she was still at Mr. Gold's house, and he was checking in on her before he left for work, as was his habit.
Thoroughly disoriented, she opened her mouth to say "Morning, Mr. Gold." Then, all of a sudden, her bewilderment fled. She knew instantly where she was, and that her ex-employer/almost-lover should not be here, at Granny's Bed and Breakfast, at—she glanced at the clock—11:32 PM.
Instead of her former customary greeting, she said sharply, "What are you doing here?"
He fidgeted a bit, something she had never seen him do before. "Amy," he said uncomfortably. "I know you asked me not to…bother you, but I thought you would want to know."
She was wide awake now. "Know what?" she almost snapped.
Gold wet his lips nervously. "It's your father, dear," he said finally. "He…collapsed tonight. He's in the hospital."
Amy's blood turned to ice water. "Oh my God," she whispered. Then a thought occurred to her. "Is this one of your tricks?" she demanded.
Mr. Gold slumped a bit at the ire in her voice. "I'm afraid not," he said quietly. "I suspected you might think as much, however. I brought someone with me who will assure you this is no trick."
He moved aside. Emma Swan stepped into the doorway.
"Emma…" Amy said questioningly. The blonde shut her eyes at the unspoken plea in the girl's voice.
"It's true, Amy," she said gently. "Your father is in the ICU at Storybrooke General. He had a massive heart attack earlier this evening." She paused for a moment before adding, even more gently, "It doesn't look like he's going to make it."
Amy simply gaped at her for a moment. Any time now, the sheriff thought, the tears would come. She moved to take Amy into her arms.
Instead, Amy whirled around. For a split second, both Emma and Mr. Gold thought she was returning to bed, choosing to ignore the news or dismiss it as a nightmare. Instead, the girl went to the tiny closet beside the bed. Before they could ask what she was doing, she had pulled out a coat and a pair of sneakers.
"Take me to him," she requested calmly.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Emma began to say. The words died in her throat as she looked at Amy's face. The young woman wasn't crying, but her eyes were too wide, her face too pale and still. If she refused, Emma realized, the girl would start screaming like a banshee, and they would end up taking her to the hospital anyway. So instead she said, simply, "OK."
"Sheriff Swan," Gold whispered. "Are you sure…?"
Amy froze in the act of slipping on her shoes to stare at him. "I'm sure," she said. Taking a good look at her face, he too realized it would be best not to refuse her. At least, he thought to himself as she finished putting on her shoes and shrugged on her coat, she would be in the best possible place if something were to go wrong.
They took the cruiser. The short ride to the hospital seemed to take an eternity. Hoping to lighten the heavy mood a bit, Emma turned on the radio.
"All this thing gets is the oldies station," she announced, painfully aware of her too-bright voice. It was the first time any of them had spoken since they got into the car. "I hope that's OK with you guys."
Gold made a small sound she took as assent. From the backseat Amy said flatly, "The oldies station is the only one that comes in anywhere in Storybrooke." After a small pause she added, "I like it, though."
Silence fell among them again. The only sound in the cruiser was "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets. Presently the fifties party tune ended and a Roy Orbison song Emma had always liked replaced it.
Apparently it was a favorite of Amy's as well. "A candy-colored clown they call the Sandman," she sang softly along with the radio, "tiptoes through my room every night. Just to sprinkle stardust and a whisper, 'Go to sleep, everything is all right'." But all three of the people in the car knew that everything was most assuredly not all right, and might never be again.
"I close my eyes," Amy continued along with the radio, "and I drift away. Into the magic night, I softly say, a silent prayer, like dreamers do, then I fall asleep to dream, my dreams of you.
"In dreams, I walk with you. In dreams, I talk to you. In dreams you're mine, all of the time. We're together in dreams, in dreams…"
She was singing to Gold, Emma recognized. It appeared that he realized it as well; though his posture was ramrod straight as always and his expression as inscrutable as ever, she saw the quick working in his throat as the lyrics hit home. It was the perfect song for them, she thought.
"But just before the dawn," Amy continued along with the hauntingly beautiful tenor of the Texan who had died years before she was born, "I wake to find you gone. I can't help it, I can't help it, if I cry. I remember that you said good-bye. It's too bad that all these things can only happen in my dreams. Only in dreams, in beautiful dreams."
While Amy sang the last bit of the song, Emma noticed that Gold was paying close attention to the lyrics. At "'I remember that you said good-bye,'" he closed his eyes briefly. Once again, she had the uncomfortable thought that she had done the wrong thing by telling Amy about the "adoptions" Gold had brokered in the past. Though she still believed that had been his intention for Amy's baby in the beginning, she was increasingly certain he had changed his mind as he grew to know her…and just maybe, to love her. What was more, she believed that Regina's "spilling the beans" had been no case of drunken loose lips. Watching the two of them as the beautiful heartbreaking song played, Emma suspected that Regina, too, had sensed the feelings that were growing between the young girl and the pawnbroker…and had sought to destroy them.
The song ended as they pulled into the parking lot of Storybrooke General Hospital. "And now here's Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs with 'Little Red Riding Hood'," the deejay announced cheerfully, "on Storybrooke's station for the oldies, WOAT!"
Emma turned the car off. "We're here," she said unnecessarily. Before she had the words out, Amy had opened the back door of the cruiser and was flying toward to the double doors of the hospital's main entrance. For a girl nearly eight months pregnant she could move pretty fast, Emma observed.
By the time Emma and Mr. Gold caught up with her, Amy was at the nurses' station in the ICU. "I want to see my father," she was announcing to the lone nurse on duty. "Joseph Miller. Where is he?"
The nurse, who Emma noticed bore a striking resemblance to Nurse Ratched, frowned. "I'm sorry, visiting hours are over," she said crisply.
Amy clearly didn't care for this answer. "I want to see my father!" she demanded. Her voice rose in pitch. Gold recognized that tone; she was going to work herself into a right frenzy if she was denied.
"Miss Kesey," he said smoothly, coming up beside Amy. "The young lady wishes to see her father. He's in a private room; there's no chance of her disturbing the other patients. What can it hurt to bend the rules just this one time?"
The nurse took in Amy's condition. She recalled the grim prognosis for the insurance salesman who had come in earlier that night. Most of all, she recognized exactly who was more or less demanding that she allow the girl to see her father. It was well known among the hospital staff that Mr. Gold's donations made up the bulk of their funding. If he were to be displeased for any reason, those donations would undoubtedly stop.
Nurse Kesey was a hard woman, but not a stupid one. She knew very well on which side her bread was buttered. "He's right through there," she said, indicating the room directly opposite the nurses' station. Tossing a hurried thank you over her shoulder, Amy turned and fairly ran to the room.
As she entered the private room, her run slowed to a trudge. Until she laid eyes on her father, Amy had clung to some small hope that this had all been some elaborate hoax to get her into Mr. Gold's clutches again. But once she saw Joe Miller, that hope flickered and died.
He looked so small in the hospital bed. Though he had always been a tall man, broad-shouldered and solidly built, he seemed to have shrunk. He was hooked to what seemed hundreds of machines; myriad wires and tubes snaked out of each arm. His eyes were closed and he was deathly pale. For a moment, Amy feared he was already dead. Behind her, Emma Swan thought the same thing. She had to stifle a gasp at the sight; the change in the man she had seen just a few hours earlier and the blasted ruin in the hospital bed was immediate and profound. If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn it was a different man.
Then the sunken eyes fluttered open. They were the same hazel of the man Emma had spoken with earlier, and the man with whom Amy had lived nearly all of her life.
This small motion galvanized Amy into action. "Daddy," she breathed, moving quickly to the man's bedside. Tenderly, she took one of the corpse-like hands into her own.
He tried to speak. Only a strangled croak came out. Obviously frustrated, he tried again. This time he was successful. "Baby," he managed.
"I'm here," Amy said soothingly. "I'm here, Daddy." She sat in the chair at his bedside, still holding his one hand in both of hers.
With an effort he rolled his head to face her. "Pretty girl," he gasped. "My…pretty girl."
"Of course," Amy said, laughing lightly though tears shone in her eyes. "I take after you, you know."
"No…" The word was almost a sigh. "You're…her made over. I…hated that. Hated seeing what I'd lost, every time I looked at you. Hated it…and loved you for it."
This little speech seemed to exhaust him. He closed his eyes as his head rolled to the side. Amy never let go of his hand. At last, at long last, she knew the truth. He had finally said "I love you" in the only way he was now able to.
Softly, not even aware she was doing so, Amy began to sing again. She knew the song was a favorite of her father's. He had idolized Elvis in his younger years, identifying with the dirt-poor Mississippi boy who had grown up to be a star. Her mother had loved the King, too. Granny had told her once that this song had been the first dance at their wedding. She didn't realize she still remembered all the words to it, but they flowed freely as she grasped her dying father's hand.
"Love me tender,
Love me sweet,
Never let me go.
You have made my life complete,
And I love you so.
Love me tender,
Love me true,
All my dreams fulfilled.
For my darlin', I love you,
And I always will."
Though the tears had finally spilled from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, her voice was strong. Hovering in the doorway of the room, Emma felt tears sliding down her own cheeks. She didn't bother to wipe them away.
"Love me tender,
Love me long,
Take me to your heart.
For it's there that I belong,
And we'll never part.
Love me tender,
Love me true,
All my dreams fulfilled.
For my darlin', I love you,
And I always will."
A hand gently touched Emma's elbow. She turned to see Mr. Gold standing beside her. Somehow she wasn't surprised to see that his own dark eyes were oddly shiny.
"Perhaps we should give them some privacy," the pawnbroker murmured.
Emma nodded and moved to leave. The exit of the sheriff and the pawnbroker was unnoticed by both the man in the bed and the girl at his side.
"Love me tender,
Love me dear,
Tell me you are mine.
I'll be yours through all the years,
Till the end of time.
Love me tender,
Love me true,
All my dreams fulfilled.
For my darlin', I love you,
And I always will."
Emma and Mr. Gold sat in the ICU's small waiting area. Mr. Gold had fetched coffee for the two of them, but they barely touched it. They sat silently, waiting for Amy to come to them with the inevitable news.
After what seemed to be eons, but was really less than an hour, Amy appeared in the doorway of the waiting area. Tear tracks streaked her face, but her eyes were dry.
"He's gone," she said quietly.
Emma jumped up. Though she was not by nature a physically demonstrative person, it seemed perfectly natural to take the young pregnant woman in her arms. Amy melted into the embrace. Her shoulders shook as she buried her face in the blonde's shoulder.
Watching them, Gold felt a twinge of envy. How he longed to be the one holding Amy at this moment. He could imagine with perfect clarity the way she would feel in his arms, how her face would fit perfectly in the hollow of his own shoulder. He could almost feel her there, with the hard mound of the baby between them. But she wanted none of him, not now and probably never again. For the first time, he allowed himself to comprehend that she had good reason.
Once she had finally left the Sheriff's arms, she finally deigned to look at him. Her face and voice were no longer cold, as they had been before, but neither were they warm. Rather, both were strangely matter-of-fact.
"Why are you here?" she asked. He strived to gauge her tone—was it accusatory? Caring? Suspicious?—but he could discern nothing but simple curiosity.
It was Emma who answered. "Mr. Gold was the one who found your father collapsed in his insurance office."
At this revelation Amy's eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth to fire off another question. This one, Gold knew painfully, would be far more direct. He could almost hear her words: "Did you kill my father?" It was ridiculous, he knew. He certainly hadn't caused Joe Miller's heart attack, and in fact had done everything in his power to help the man. So why did he feel so guilty under that flat blue gaze?
Before she could ask the question that would destroy him, however, Emma spoke again. "Your dad called Mr. Gold, asked him to meet with him at his office. When Mr. Gold arrived, your father had already had the heart attack. He called 911. He did CPR until the paramedics got there. He did everything he could to save him, but the damage was too severe."
It was the truth, but Gold couldn't shake the feeling that the young sheriff was lying for him. Perhaps it was because he hadn't told the woman the whole truth. As was his wont, he had left out certain things. He had left out the promise he'd made to Joe Miller just before the paramedics swarmed into the office. He'd also left out the nonsensical babbling Miller had been doing when he arrived at the office. But was it really nonsensical babbling? his inner voice spoke up.
None of that mattered right now, though. The only thing that mattered was that Amy was looking at him now with a cautious sort of gratitude. It was the kindest look she'd given him all night.
"You tried to save my father?" she asked.
Gold tried to reply, but found he was unable. He simply nodded.
Amy gazed at him searchingly. He almost squirmed under the blue orbs. She must have satisfied herself that he was telling the truth, though, for she nodded slightly. "Yes, I think you did," she said. "In any case, you kept him alive until the ambulance got there. If you hadn't, I might not have been able to say good-bye. Thank you for that, at least."
The words were civil, conciliatory almost. But her voice was still oddly flat. Any love she had ever felt for him, he understood with an ache in his heart, was long gone. With effort, he tore his eyes away from hers. It was unfortunate; had he not done so, he would have seen the uncertainty in those beautiful gray-blue eyes, the dawning comprehension that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't been lying when he told her she was different from all the other desperate souls he had made deals with over the years.
She turned then to Emma. "I'm very tired." she said simply. "I'd like to go home now."
Home, Gold thought. He wished mightily that it was his home to which she referred, but knew it wasn't.
Emma nodded. "I'll take you back to the inn," she said quietly.
"But there are things I need to do here first, aren't there?" Amy asked. "I need to…oh, sign papers, I guess. Make arrangements for the funeral."
Finally, he found the strength to speak. "I'll take care of that," he told the two women.
"Can you do that?" Emma asked. "I'm pretty sure it has to be the next of kin who signs the paperwork."
She was right, of course, but she'd forgotten to take into account the power Gold had in this town. "I'll do what I can," he says simply. "If there's anything that absolutely requires Amy's signature, I'll arrange for it to be signed at a later time. I don't expect that will be a problem." He addressed his next words to Amy. "Don't worry about the funeral, dear. Your father was an insurance salesman; they're notorious for planning out those things far in advance. I know he had a will as well as an advance directive. Most likely he also outlined his wishes for a funeral."
Amy simply nodded at this. She'd been too quiet since coming to inform them of Joe's death, Gold thought. He had expected floods of hysterical tears, not this eerie calm. It was too much like what had happened after Graham's memorial service. He hoped that didn't mean she was going into shock.
Looking into her eyes, though, he didn't believe that was the case. Rather, he thought, she seemed at peace. She was sad about her father's death, undoubtedly. But she had had a chance to say good-bye. They'd had a chance to say the things they'd never been able to say to each other. Although he was gone, he had left her with the knowledge she had sought all her life: that he truly did love her. Knowing this, she would be able to channel her inner strength and move on with her life. His girl, his strong, brave, beautiful girl; Gold had never been more proud of her than he was at that moment. If only he could tell her so.
"Thank you, Mr. Gold," she said almost inaudibly. "Thank you…for everything."
"Amy," he said with perfect honesty, "I wish I'd never had to do any of it." And he did. Given the opportunity to change the events of this horrible night, he knew he would do so without hesitation, without a thought to the cost. A monster could love, too, he thought. And though Amy deserved a far better man than he, he knew not even a perfect man could love her any more than he did. He loved his girl in a way he had never thought possible: selflessly, unconditionally. He would do everything in his power to see that she had the life she deserved. If that meant letting her go, that was the price he would pay.
The sheriff's thoughts were running on an entirely different track. She saw the way Amy had slowly warmed to Mr. Gold again during this long and terrible night. Amy was capable of great anger, Emma knew, but she had learned on this night that the young woman was also capable of forgiveness. Maybe, the blonde thought, the loss of her father would bring her and Mr. Gold together again. She found herself hoping this would be so, hoping that the unlikely couple would find a way to put the past behind them and build a future together. If things were to work out for them, it would almost be as though her father had given her one last gift.
That would all come later, though, if it came at all. Right now Amy needed rest more than anything else. Gently Emma took the girl's arm. "I'll take you back now," she told her. She turned to the pawnbroker. "I'll come back for you once I get Amy home."
Docile as a child, Amy allowed the sheriff to lead her down the hallway, back toward the hospital entrance and the parking lot beyond. Gold watched them go before turning to make his way to the nurses' station. There was a lot to be done, even though Joe Miller had indeed planned everything in advance as best he could. He had known somehow, Gold thought. Even before the invisible fist closed around his heart, the man had sensed that his time was short. Why else would he have called Gold to his office this evening? Why else would he have gotten Gold to make the promise he had made—a promise he would have no trouble keeping, since it fit so perfectly with what he had already planned to do?
As he spoke with Nurse Kesey about the steps that had to be taken now, he half-expected the mayor to show up. It was her way. After Graham's death, she had attempted to take charge almost immediately. It wouldn't surprise him if she attempted the same thing now. He would enjoy thwarting her this time almost as much as he had enjoyed doing so upon the former Sheriff's passing. But the woman never came.
She knew, though, Gold thought as he settled down to wade through the necessary red tape. Though he couldn't say how, he knew that Regina Mills was entirely aware of Joe Miller's demise. Inexplicably, he also knew that she had had a hand in this death as well. Two citizens of Storybrooke now had met their fates just as they seemed to be within reach of happiness. It was too much of a coincidence.
He knew he couldn't prove it. Joe Miller's autopsy would reveal a heart attack, just as Graham's had. The cause of death would be noted as natural causes, just as in Graham's case. Only Mr. Gold knew there had been nothing "natural" about the death of either man. What he didn't know was how, or why. Yet. But he would. Before much more time passed, the pawnbroker thought, he would know everything there was to know.
He only hoped he could find some way to protect Amy before he himself was destroyed.
And The Chapter That Really Would Not Die is finished. I had to rewrite it several times before I was satisfied. Hope everyone likes it. I left a few questions unanswered: what was the promise Mr. Gold made to Amy's father? What, exactly, was the "nonsense" Amy' father was babbling? Could it have to do with a certain Evil Queen-turned-Mayor? In time, all shall be revealed.
As I mentioned in a previous chapter, at first I had Joe Miller pegged as a one-dimensional d-bag. I even thought he and Regina might join forces to keep Amy and Mr. Gold apart. But as the story progressed, I realized that Amy's dad wasn't a bad man so much as a bitter, angry one, made that way by the death of his dreams and the person he loved. Not unlike a certain pawnbroker we know and love. I knew early on that he would die, but I thought it would be a traditional villain's death. I certainly never expected to be fighting back tears as I wrote his death scene.
I know a lot of my readers and reviewers have been missing the flashbacks to the fairy-tale world, so I put one in this chapter. Just so we're clear, Joe's dreams were actually buried memories of his previous life as the miller. By the time he realized this, though, it was too late. As Mr. Gold suspects, the "nonsense" wasn't really nonsense at all. Never fear, dearies, there are more flashbacks to come, heavy on the Amy-Rumple. All in good time.
CYA time: I don't own anything except my OCs. Walt Disney and Co. owns the show. The songs I used in this chapter, "In Dreams" and "Love Me Tender", are the property of the late Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley. (BTW, a YouTube poster gave me the idea to use "Love Me Tender". He/she mentioned that it was sung at their father's bedside as he passed away. I'd been trying to think of a song for Amy to sing to her father, and when I read that I decided it was the perfect one.)
Mad love to my readers and reviewers. I can't believe how many favorites I've gotten! You guys rock. I'm currently in love with a couple of other fanfics on this site; in addition to the ones I mentioned a few chapters ago, I'm digging "Hands On Me" by Awesome Fat Kitty (my new favorite pen name as well) and "Time Around" by RhineGold. Also the entire opus of Twyla-Mercedes. Chick has yet to write a Rumple story that's less than awesome.
Almost forgot to mention: I took a page from the show's book and scattered a few Easter eggs in this chapter. One is a fairly obvious "Skin Deep" reference. The others are fairly obscure. Bonus points to anyone who gets the shout-out to Stephen King in particular.
Sweet dreams!