Note: Thank you, guest reviewers! Well, the general reaction to the last chapter did not disappoint, so here, without further ado, I present you with the next instalment. Note of warning – mild language throughout. Everyone's emotions are still running a little high, after all…
Carrot Cake
Chapter Eleven
"Come on, darling. Come on, up off the ground. You'll freeze down there."
Belle was vaguely aware of warm hands on her shoulders trying to pull her up and a cease to the raindrops pattering onto her head. She hadn't even realised that her legs had given out and she'd fallen onto her knees on the pavement, her hands still pressed over her face to muffle her sobs.
"Please, Belle, get up and come inside. Come on, love."
Belle moved her hands to see Granny and Mary Margaret hovering over her, Granny rubbing her shivering shoulders and Mary holding a big umbrella over them all. Further down the street, Belle could see Ruby standing in the road, still screaming after the long-vanished tail-lights of Gold's car.
"Ruby!" her grandmother called sharply. "Ruby, you're making a scene and it is not helping!" Her voice became soft and cajoling again as she returned her attention to Belle. "Come on, darling, please get up."
Shakily, Belle got to her feet, Granny still keeping a firm hold on her shoulders. Mary Margaret pushed the stray tendrils of damp hair out of her face, and Ruby came out of the road and followed them up the path; there wasn't enough room under the umbrella for all of them.
"Belle," Gary began as they reached the front door.
"Get out," Ruby snarled. "You've caused more than enough damage for one evening. Get out, or I'll deck you one."
"Get off my property or I shall call the police and have you forcibly removed," Granny said coolly. "In fact, I can do it right now. Graham!"
"Hello?" Graham appeared in the doorway.
"Please escort this… trespasser out of the way," Granny said.
"Of course, Ma'am." Graham got his warrant card out of his pocket and showed it to Gary. "I suggest you comply with the lady's wishes."
Gary made no further comment and left the doorway. Belle heard his footsteps getting fainter down the path before Ruby closed the door against them.
Everyone in the house knew what had happened – Belle wouldn't be surprised if everyone in the street knew after Ruby's efforts – but they all kept a respectful distance, talking in muted tones in the kitchen and living room and leaving the damsel in distress in the exceedingly capable hands of the loyal Lucas dragons that were Granny and Ruby. Only Emma was waiting in the hall to see her, having come out with Graham, and she gave her friend a hug, letting Mary Margaret manhandle the umbrella through to the kitchen.
"You keep Belle company; Emma and I'll keep things smooth down here," Granny said to Ruby.
"Of course," Ruby replied, calm and efficient in a crisis once more, her earlier outburst all but forgotten. "Come on, love, let's get out of the circus."
She steered Belle up the stairs towards her bedroom, where just a few hours ago they had been getting ready for the party, chatting and laughing without a care in the world.
"I feel so bad for Astrid and Leroy," Belle mumbled, because she was finding it far easier to focus on worrying about other people's problems than to try and work out how the hell she was going to sort out her own. "I've just ruined their party."
"They'll understand," Ruby reassured her. "Leroy's well on his way to being unable to remember any of tonight anyway."
"I wish I was."
"No, you don't," her friend said firmly. "A sore head in the morning won't make things better now, will it?"
Belle shook her head and let Ruby steer her into her room, the same room she had occupied since she had first come to live with Granny as a child. It still held memories of her younger years; Ruby had never made a clean transition from child's room to teenager's room to adult's room. She switched on the pink fairy lights, still left over from when she was a six-year-old afraid of the dark, despite the fact that they clashed horribly with the burgundy bed linen and curtains.
Normally Belle loved Ruby's room, nosing about and piecing together her life from the nicknacks left for sentimentality's sake, but now she saw none of it, burying her face in the pillows as she relived the scene on the pavement in her head.
"That's it, let it all out." Ruby sat down on the bed beside her, stroking her shoulder and murmuring words of comfort. "You've had a rotten time so you just cry it all out."
Belle did so, but she was crying more in anticipation of the events that were to come than those that had passed. In the cold light of day, when they were all sober and thinking straight, everything would have to come out again, and not be hidden away until something was sorted out. The cold, hard truth.
And the flowers, the small, detached part of her persisted. The flowers that weren't for her and weren't for another woman.
"I don't know what's worse," Belle said. "The fact Gary turned up on the doorstep unannounced hoping for a reconciliation and promptly insulted you and Gold, or the fact Gold just left you to deal with it all."
"He'd just found out his girlfriend's married," Belle murmured. "The only thing I'd want to do would be hightail it out of there and leave them to have a domestic on their own terms." She shifted a little and looked up a Ruby, playing with the tassels on the pillow case. "You can go back to the party if you want to."
Ruby shook her head with a small smile.
"Don't be daft. I'm not leaving you alone in your misery."
Belle nodded.
"Thank you."
There was a long pause.
"Oh, Ruby, it's all my fault. I should have told him from the beginning. It's just, when we met, he automatically assumed I was a Miss and I didn't correct him."
"I suppose that the fact we all call you Miss doesn't help either." Ruby patted Belle's hand. "I'm sure that he'll understand when you explain it to him. And if he doesn't, well, I'll carry through on the threats I was making outside." She paused. "I'm sorry I yelled at him. It was just… The way he just left you to deal with Gary when you were obviously so upset about the whole thing."
"What else could he do? He was just as upset as I was. You and Granny and Graham managed to deal with Gary quite effectively though." Belle sighed. "I'm more pissed off with myself, for allowing this to happen."
"It's not your fault. You had no idea that Gary would gatecrash a party to try and get back together with you. He's either an idiot or a psychopath."
"And I still need to talk to him like a responsible adult without beginning that I hate him and he's ruined my life for the last bloody time."
There was a soft knock on the bedroom door.
"Belle, it's Emma. I just wanted to know if you wanted me to give you a lift home."
Belle thought about it. At home she could wallow in her misery without fear of disrupting the party or preventing Ruby from enjoying herself. On the other hand, at home she'd be alone, without anyone to reassure her that it would all be all right in the end and threaten to tear Gary limb from limb for her.
Ruby made the decision for her.
"Don't feel you ought to go," she said. "If you don't want to be on your own then you can stay here as long as you like, if you're ok bunking with me."
Emma peered round the door and Belle shook her head.
"No, but thank you for the offer."
"That's ok." She paused. "It'll be easier in the morning, when everyone's cooled off. I could get Graham to arrest Gary for something if you like."
Belle managed a weak smile.
"I'm tempted, but that might make matters worse."
"Hang in there, Belle."
Emma disappeared back round the door.
"She's right, chickie," Ruby said. "It'll be easier tomorrow. Phone him in the morning and make a date to explain, and if he can't accept it, then…" She tailed off. "This isn't what you need to hear."
"It's ok. I understand."
They fell into silence, but it was nice to know that Ruby was there if she wanted to talk. Belle was on her third mental replay of the evening, wishing there was something that she could have done to make it better, but she knew that there wasn't.
And for some stupid reason, the flowers were still bothering her, inane as they were in the grander scheme of things.
"Ruby… Could you ask Mary Margaret if she's got a minute, please?"
"Sure, give me a sec."
She left the room, and returned with Mary Margaret a few moments later.
"Hey. Ruby said you wanted a word."
Belle nodded.
"The flowers that Gold bought this morning. They weren't for me and they weren't for another woman. What were they? What type?"
Mary Margaret was a florist, and Belle was the daughter of one. They both knew the language of flowers and their hidden meanings. Perhaps she could shed some light on the conundrum that way.
"Oh, Belle, I did so hope that they weren't for you. They were lilies. Thirteen white lilies."
Lilies. The flowers of choice for funerals and grave arrangements. The flowers most commonly associated with death.
"Oh, crumbs," she moaned.
"What's up?" Ruby asked. Mary Margaret explained the significance. "Oh, bugger."
Belle sighed, and the small, detached part of her finally fell silent. The mystery was just about solved but now she felt even worse.
"Bugger," Ruby repeated after Mary Margaret had added more reassurances to hers and Emma's and left the room. "I really shouldn't have yelled at him."
Belle said nothing. Presently there was another knock at the door. Granny popped her head round.
"We're doing the cake now if you wanted to come down and see it."
Ruby looked at Belle and cocked her head on one side to question. Belle nodded and got off the bed. This was Astrid and Leroy's occasion after all, and she'd wanted to give them a proper send-off, however miserable she was now feeling.
No-one commented on her red eyes and nose as she came downstairs and Astrid and Leroy cut their going-away cake to great applause. She stayed down to talk to Astrid for a little while and wish her well in her new home in Kent, but when Leroy interrupted them to grab Astrid for a drunken kiss, something inside her twisted and Belle found herself making her excuses and retreating back to Ruby's room.
She lay back on the bed, staring at the fairy lights. It was time to be proactive. She had lived with the shadow of Gary hanging over her for years, but no longer. This was her chance, and she wasn't going to let it slip through her fingers. But she was going to do it on her own terms. If she could heal the rift between her and Gold, then hopefully she could rely on him to help her through whatever happened with Gary. She didn't have a plan for dealing with either of them, but she had a tiny ray of hope.
I believe you, my dear, but I am in no state to try and deal with this rationally at the moment.
"Belle?"
Ruby was peering round the door. Belle looked up at her, blinking away the spots in front of her eyes that staring at the lights had caused.
"People are starting to leave now, and you're being offered lifts again." She paused. "My previous words still stand."
Belle shook her head. She was feeling marginally better, but she still did not want to go home alone to the prospect of confronting Gary first thing in the morning.
"Can I stay with you, just overnight?"
"Of course, as long as you don't mind borrowing my pyjamas."
Belle nodded.
"Ok. We'll make a battleplan for you tomorrow. I swear, we'll get you through this. I didn't exactly help earlier but I hope I can make up for it."
"Thanks, Ruby."
She'd get through it. All she needed was a plan.
X
Gold pressed a damp flannel over his face with a groan, half-tempted to submerge fully beneath the surface of his bathwater and stay there. Whether Ruby's words had had any substance behind them or not, he certainly felt like a complete bastard at that point in time. From their four sentences of conversation, Gold had surmised that Belle's all-but-ex-husband was a git of the highest order and he'd left her alone to deal with him. He hadn't had much choice really; it wasn't his fight to get into and at the time he'd still been reeling slightly from the revelation. It was his own fault, really. He shouldn't have gone, not after the day he'd had. Having spent God-only-knew how long in tailbacks along the A303 on the way home, Gold would have been perfectly happy just to go straight home for a hot bath to ease his leg and a stiff drink to make him feel better. But the prospect of seeing Belle and having her brighten his day like she always managed to do had proved too tempting, and look where it had left him.
He removed the flannel and drained the tumbler of Scotch on the windowsill next to him. He wasn't in as much physical pain but the alcohol wasn't doing all that much to help his mental turmoil. He couldn't really blame her for not telling him. They'd only been out twice, and he wouldn't have mentioned Liz yet had he not brought her up by accident. No, the only thing that really stung was Ruby's accusation that Bae's flowers had been for another woman. Gold should have known that word would get around, since it was fast becoming obvious that his and Belle's relationship was no secret amongst the small community in the precinct.
Presently the phone rang, its shrill bark dragging him back to reality. Gold sighed and ignored it. As usual, he'd forgotten to bring the cordless into the bathroom with him and everything else aside, getting out of the tub was one thing he could not and would not do with any degree of haste. If it was important, whoever it was would ring back.
But what if it was Belle?
By the time he'd got himself out of the bath, fished his towel off the radiator and limped through to the bedroom, the caller had rung off. He dialled 1471 for the number. It was a local one, but not one he recognised immediately and not Belle's because there weren't any fives in it. He hadn't memorised her number but he remembered the very peculiar way in which she'd written her fives.
Probably a wrong number, but he brought the phone back into the bathroom with him just in case, putting it on the windowsill next to the whiskey. It didn't ring again.
Oh, to hell with it, he thought, once his bath had started to go cold and he'd given it up as a bad job. He hit redial, well aware that it was half-eleven at night.
"Hello, Lucas residence," said the voice on the other end of the phone. It was Ruby, and Gold almost hung up in alarm. "Hello?"
"Hello… I missed a call from this number about half an hour ago."
"You did? I wasn't aware we'd rung anyone up… Hang on, is that Mr Gold?"
"Yes, it is," Gold replied, but he was cut off by a scramble on the other end.
"Gold?"
It was Belle's voice, soft and tentative.
"Hello, Belle. Did you ring earlier? I didn't get to the phone in time."
There was a pause.
"Yes," She sounded guilty. "It was a spur of the moment thing; I was going to wait till tomorrow, but I didn't, and then I chickened out and hung up."
"Give it half an hour and it will be tomorrow," Gold pointed out.
She managed a weak laugh.
"I'm sorry I left you in the lurch," he continued.
"It's all right. I'm sorry about Gary." There was a murmur of another voice in the room on the other end. "Ruby says she's sorry for calling you a bastard over the flowers. Have you… Were you at a funeral today?"
"No. Visiting a grave. It's a long story." Gold paused, thinking of the bottle of Scotch still on the bathroom windowsill and how much of it he'd drunk since taking it in there. "I've had a bit to drink," he admitted.
"I'm not exactly stone cold either. I think we'd be better off telling our long stories face to face anyway. That was why I rang, really. To set a date of sorts. Well. I nearly rang."
"Tomorrow afternoon?" Gold suggested. Maybe that was too soon, but as with Dawn's problems, better sooner rather than later.
"Hmmm." He could hear her anguish over the phone line.
"What's up?"
"Before everything turned nasty I'd told Gary to piss off and come back tomorrow. I don't know whether he'll take me up on it after everything that's happened and I don't want him getting in the way again. After close of business on Monday? Cathedral green?"
"Under St Stephen's Arch if it's raining. Sounds fine to me."
There was a pregnant pause.
"Ok. I'll see you then."
"Till then, Belle. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Gold. Thank you."
Gold smiled. All was not lost.
To be continued. The next update will likely be slightly delayed due to more important things (like life) getting in the way of writing time, so I thought I'd leave you all on a positive note. It looks like everything's back on an even keel, doesn't it? *Evil cackle.*