Note: I know, I know. I'm a very evil author and it seems like I'm doing everything in my power to keep them apart. But the update is here, everyone can put down their wooden spoons, cheese graters and various other kitchen implements that they're wielding in a threatening manner now…
Thank you guest reviewers! Warning: Strong language at the beginning of the chapter.
Carrot Cake
Chapter Fourteen
Third of November 2002. Four forty-nine PM. Morestead Road. Sixty limit. Beginning to rain. Bae in the passenger seat chattering nineteen to the dozen. They won, three-nil, Bae scored.
Morestead hill. Sixty limit. Raining. Blind summit. Van coming the other way. Slow down. Car coming the other way. Car on the wrong side. Fuck! Hit the brakes. Other car swerves. Not enough. Spinning, sliding, steer into the skid. Too little, too late. Tree. FUCK! "Dad!"
Impact. Black out.
"Bae? Bae? Bae, are you all right?" Right leg trapped. Agony. Probably broken. "Bae?" No reply. Look left. Take it in. Bae. Bae's face. Blood everywhere. Bae's eyes. Open. Glassy. Staring. Very, very dead. "Bae!"
Throw up. Black out.
Gold woke with a start, gasping for breath and drenched in cold sweat. He was no stranger to the nightmare – he'd had it on a near-daily basis in the months following the accident – but it had been a long time since he'd last dreamed of the crash. Gold groaned and sat up, taking in his surroundings and peeling off his soaked shirt. It was a sign, it had to be, a sign telling him to tell Belle. With a guilty feeling of something akin to indulgence, he wondered what it would be like to have Belle beside him on a night like this, to hush and comfort and hold him, murmuring nothings and not caring if he cried to her. The nightmare itself was bad enough, but sometimes, Gold found that waking up alone after it was even worse. This time, it wasn't so bad. He was in the living room with the lights and the TV still on, so he'd evidently fallen asleep in front of the CSI triple bill, all three episodes of which he'd seen before – small wonder he'd nodded off then. After he'd come home from the date-that-wasn't, Gold had settled himself down in the living room to wait for a call that might or might not come, determining not to drown his sorrows in Glenmorangie in case the call did come and he was too plastered to deal with it appropriately. Belle hadn't rung, or the phone would have woken him up sooner. Gold felt for his mobile and realised with a sinking heart that it was in his suit jacket, thrown over the arm of a chair ten feet away. If she'd rung that, he wouldn't have heard it buzz even if he hadn't been asleep at the time.
He cursed loudly. God, he was an idiot.
Gold heaved himself off the sofa and grabbed his jacket, fumbling in all his pockets until he found the phone. Belle had rung and left a message, three quarters of an hour ago. He swore again and listened to the voicemail.
Well, that certainly explained why she hadn't turned up in cathedral green at six o'clock, then. He hadn't really suspected that she'd done a bunk on him; he knew there had to be a good reason, but as time had gone on, naturally he'd become more concerned.
He hit redial but her phone was off. There was no answer on her landline, either, so she was more than likely still at the hospital. Gold ran a hand through his hair and sighed. Time to weigh up his options.
Thank God he'd decided against the whiskey.
X
The eighteenth of February 2010. One twenty-six AM. Wake up. Stomachache. Really bad, like period pain. Worse than that. Can't be that anyway. Feel sick. Run to bathroom. Retch. Nothing to come up. Morning sickness starting early today.
(Belle had had the dream so many times before that she knew what was coming next.)
Warm and wet down below. Fuck. Look down. Blood everywhere. Fuck! Try to scream, no words come out, voice choked round fear in throat. Voice a whisper, "Gary! Gary! Call an ambulance!" The baby… "Belle?"
(That wasn't right. She'd had to call him another couple of times before she got enough volume to actually get a response. The voice was wrong too. In her lucid dreaming state, Belle's brow furrowed. It sounded different. Softer, gentler, more Scottish.)
"Belle?" Fingertips on her hand.
(That was wrong too. Gary had never done that before.)
"Belle?"
"Belle?"
Belle opened her eyes to see Gold sitting in the chair next to her, his fingers brushing softly over her knuckles to wake her. She blinked a few times, taking a moment to work out where she was. It was the maternity unit waiting room; she was sitting in one corner with her head resting on her knees. She looked at Gold again.
"I got your message," he began. He looked sheepish. "About half an hour ago."
"You're here." Well, state the blinking obvious. Gold smiled.
"That I am."
"I thought you didn't like hospitals."
He shrugged.
"They're easier when you're not the patient."
Belle couldn't help herself, and she threw her arms around him. Although caught by surprise, he put his free arm around her, patting her back before they released each other by unspoken agreement, the angle rendering the embrace awkward.
"How's Ashley doing?" Gold asked.
"Better now Sean's here. She had her first contraction at half-one this afternoon but she ignored it because she's two weeks early. She had her second at three and then she freaked out and called me. I can't tell you much really, I've been napping on the job…"
Gold tutted.
"As bad as Dawn." He paused. "How are you doing?"
Belle leaned her head back against the humming vending machine.
"Better now you're here." She smiled. "I'm sorry. Just on top of everything else, I'm beginning to think that fate's got my number. It's been one of those evenings."
Gold laughed.
"Aye. A sod."
They stayed quiet for a while in the corner of the room, Belle with her knees drawn up to her chest and Gold with his bad leg stretched in front of him.
"Do you want to talk?" he offered presently. His voice was perfectly neutral but there was a spark of hope in his eyes. Belle nodded. They might as well; who knew what fate might throw up in their direction if they didn't grab this opportunity whilst they still had it?
"Let's get some of that dishwater they market as coffee," she suggested.
"Yes, I've never understood it. Why does food become inedible as soon as it crosses the threshold of a hospital?" Gold asked. "I mean, it's the same basic stuff that goes everywhere else, but I swear hospital food is unique. Maybe they disinfect it as a precaution and it has a knock-on effect."
Belle couldn't help but laugh as she swung her legs off the chair, and they left the waiting room together. Belle paused at the exit.
"Do you think I ought to tell Ashley I'm scuttling off for a bit?" she asked. Gold shrugged.
"Up to you."
"Hmm." Belle thought for a moment before nipping back and knocking on Ashley's door.
"It's me," she said.
"Come in," Ashley called, and Belle entered. "Not long now. Hopefully."
Belle smiled.
"I'm going for a coffee," she said, before adding. "You were right about Gold."
Ashley raised an eyebrow.
"He got my message," Belle continued. "He's, erm, here."
Ashley's eyes widened.
"Right," she said. "If that's not love I don't know what is. He hates hospitals."
Belle just rolled her eyes.
"From the look of it, he literally dropped everything and came. Maybe he wants to rescue me from the building's perils. Hang in there, Ash."
She ran to catch up with Gold. They found the canteen more by luck than judgement, Gold joking that they simply had to follow the smell of cabbage.
"So," Belle said once they were sitting in the near-empty canteen opposite each other and had exchanged a couple more opening pleasantries; the only other occupants at that time of the evening were mainly staff on the night shift. They were going to have to bite the bullet sooner or later and talk about what they had been meant to talk about earlier. "Long stories. Do you want to go first or shall I?"
"I will. I'll be as succinct as I can."
Gold took a deep breath.
"As you know, I have an ex-wife, Liz. We were married for ten years, and we divorced fifteen years ago. There was no-one else involved, we just… wanted different things, I guess." He paused. "We had a son. Baelfire. Bae for short."
"Had?" Belle prompted softly.
"He died," Gold continued. "Ten years ago on Saturday. That's why I had to go to Winchester, what the flowers were for. My Bae's grave."
"Thirteen white lilies."
"He was thirteen."
Belle reached out and took Gold's hand, pressed flat on the table beside his mug. Their circumstances were very different, but she too knew the pain and grief of losing a child.
"What happened?" she asked.
"Car accident. I lost a son and gained a limp. It was hardly a fair exchange. Bae was killed instantly; blunt force trauma. He didn't suffer."
"I'm sorry. I know everyone says that, but I am."
"I know." He ran his thumb over hers. "You move on, but you never forget."
"I know." Belle sighed. "I had a miscarriage at twelve weeks. I still had nightmares about it tonight, nearly three years later." She snorted. "Being in the maternity unit probably didn't help on that score. I've never really had much of a problem being around children, babies, pregnant women. No trouble with Emma and her son, none all through Ashley's pregnancy. Just sometimes you wonder what might have been, you know?"
Gold nodded.
"I understand where you're coming from," he said. "Dawn's the same age as Bae would be now. You can't help thinking 'what if'. It makes you feel…"
"Like you've failed," Belle finished quietly. "Someone who's totally dependent on you, and even if it's not your fault, you feel like you've failed them."
"Yes." Gold let go of his mug and reached across the table for her other hand, their dishwater coffee momentarily forgotten.
"That's pretty much it," he continued. "Well, of course it isn't, but I hope it's enough for now."
Belle squeezed his fingers.
"It's enough," she said. "You already know most of my story, but I'll fill in the gaps." Belle took a deep breath of her own. "As you know, I have a soon-to-be-ex-husband, Gary. We met at school and we were together for just under nine years in total. After eight years I wanted to end it, but before I could make a clean break, I fell pregnant. We were married within two months and lost the baby a fortnight later. Things just went downhill from there. I moved here eighteen months ago to start afresh, and up until recently, I hadn't looked back. We'd been separated six months, I didn't just run away. I suppose I should have done something about getting a divorce, but at the time I didn't want holding back. It seems like chickening out but at the time I just wanted to get away more than anything."
"You did what you had to do to cope," Gold agreed. "After Bae died, once I was out of hospital and the funeral was over, the day before I was due back at work, I dropped everything and took off back to Glasgow for a week. I thought I was being a coward at the time, but sometimes there's a fine line between being brave and self-destructing. We've both walked it."
Belle looked down at their clasped hands on the table and up at Gold's face, open and accepting. They'd told each other what needed to be told, and they were still there, still hanging on. There was more to be said; naturally there would still be questions. Belle wanted to know about Bae; she wanted to imagine Gold with a son and without his cane, but those questions could wait for another time. Everything important was out on the table. There were no secrets now, no misunderstandings. It was evident that they had both been scared of laying out the cracks in their pasts for the other to see, and the reaction that they would receive, but when the time had come, it had been comparatively quick and easy. Belle sighed.
"I get the feeling we could have avoided all this if I hadn't lied about being a Miss when we first met. Well, if I'd corrected your assumption. I didn't really lie."
"Exactly," Gold said. "The two are very different." There was a smirk at the corner of his mouth that was trying hard not to turn into a full-blown grin.
"Technically…"
"I do thrive on technicalities. And believe me, the way things have turned out, I've no doubt that something would have happened and we'd still be sitting here having a similar conversation." He couldn't stop the smile now, and Belle had to give a snort of laughter of her own. "You're still Miss French to me, if that is what you prefer." Belle nodded. As Ruby had said, everyone, even those who knew her past, called her Miss. She had put her old name out of her new life along with everyone else. She couldn't have hoped to move on from Gary if she had still worn his name.
"Soon I will be a Miss again, properly. I talked to Gary yesterday, and we are definitely getting a divorce. Someone's handling it for me up north."
There was a long pause.
"We're a right pair of broken dolls, aren't we?" Belle said.
"We're not broken," Gold said. "Not really. We've been broken, but we're mended now, we've picked ourselves up and carried on. There aren't any rough edges or obvious cracks, but we'll never be as good as new. We probably have enough baggage between us to fill a carousel at Heathrow."
"A burden is always lighter when shared," Belle said. "If you're willing to share mine, I'd like to share yours."
"I'm not exactly what you need," Gold pointed out.
"Are you trying to put me off?" Belle asked, her eyes narrowing.
"No."
"Good, because it's not working. I don't know what I need. I don't think I care. But you're what I want."
"I'm very glad, because you're what I want too."
Gold released his grip on her hands – Belle hadn't realised just how tightly they'd been holding on – before he stood and grabbed the back of his chair, dragging it round the table to sit beside her. Belle leaned in to his offered arm, resting her head on his shoulder as she had done in the gardens on their second date. It was only four days ago, but so much had happened since then. She glanced sideways at Gold.
"On the subject of dropping everything and just going," she began, "did you drop everything and come here? Because I hate to inform you, but you aren't properly dressed." She flicked his open shirt collar, tie-less as he was.
"Yes, well… Best to get these things sorted out sooner rather than later. I had no idea what you thought I might be up to when I didn't answer."
"What were you up to?"
"I was either watching CSI or asleep. I just didn't hear the phone, that's all."
"So you shot out of the door as soon as you got my message?"
"Practically, yes. I have a feeling I even left the TV on, and I've only just remembered that I left your flowers in the sink."
Belle laughed.
"After everything that had already happened, I wasn't going to give anything the chance to throw a spanner in the works again," Gold continued. "So I thought it was time to just go for it. There was nothing to lose."
I'm very glad you did," Belle said.
"I think we've beaten fate now, though," Gold murmured. He leaned down to kiss her, and Belle accepted him gladly. It wasn't going to be plain sailing, nothing ever was. But now they were too determined to let anything more come between them. Perhaps running had been the right thing to do before, but it wasn't now. This time, it was cowardice that would lead to destruction, and they could help each other to be brave.
After a little while enjoying their togetherness, Belle looked up at the clock.
"I wonder how Ashley's doing," she murmured.
"I'm afraid I can't offer much reassurance," Gold said. "Bae was born in three hours flat from first contraction to holding him. We were incredibly lucky. He never liked to hang about."
Belle laughed and took a sip of her coffee, remembering it at last. It had gone stone cold and tasted vaguely of cabbage soup, so she decided it was probably better to leave it.
"Ruby'll be here soon," she admitted. "I phoned her in a panic earlier. She and Granny were coming to give me a lift home. It'll be a bit of a shock for them to go into the waiting room and find I'm not there."
"Do you want to go back?" Gold asked. Belle shook her head.
"Not yet." The lighting in the canteen was a bit softer than in the maternity unit, there was less bustle and noise. It was easier to think properly, rather than give in to the agitation that the fraught atmosphere of the waiting room seemed to inspire.
"Thank you," Gold said eventually. "For understanding."
"I should be the one thanking you. You ran out of your house, without a tie, no less, and came to a hospital to see me. And I'm not even a patient. I'm sorry, I shouldn't tease. Thank you, too." She sighed. "This conversation could have had so many endings. I like this one."
"So do I."
Belle was beginning to feel lethargic again in the warm room, and as inviting as it was to fall asleep in Gold's arms, she knew she shouldn't. It was quarter to midnight, and by the time they got back to the maternity unit, Ruby and Granny would almost definitely be there. Reluctantly, she pulled away and they left the canteen, walking back through the corridors together.
Belle was proved correct when she heard Ruby's voice from outside the waiting room.
"…but where is she if she isn't here?" she heard her friend say, her voice frantic.
"Ruby, calm down," Granny said. "She's probably gone for a coffee."
"But…Belle!" Ruby exclaimed on seeing her friend open the waiting room door, coming over and throwing her arms round her, narrowly avoiding hitting Gold in the face. "Where've you been? We came in here and… Hello, Mr Gold."
For possibly the first time in her life, the usually loquacious Ruby appeared to be utterly dumb-struck.
"I'm guessing there's a very long story behind this," she said eventually.
"Oh yes," said Belle. "One day, I'll tell it to you."
"So…" Ruby began, obviously wanting desperately to ask how things were without actually asking. She grinned when she looked down and saw Belle's fingers interlaced through Gold's.
"Everything's fine," Belle said.
"Well, I'm glad that's sorted out," said Granny firmly.
"So… now what?" asked Ruby, settling herself on a chair beside her grandmother.
"Since we're here, we may as well wait for Ashley," Granny suggested. "From what I can make out, it should be very soon. The nurse that I asked said the midwives had been in with her for the last half an hour."
"Belle!" Sean's voice came through the door, the man himself following a few moments later, beaming from ear to ear even if he was looking slightly faint. To his credit, he didn't bat an eyelid at finding three more people waiting on news of his partner and their child than there had been when he'd last looked. "It's a girl!"
"Oh Sean!" Ruby squealed and ran over to give him a hug. "Congratulations! Give all our love to Ashley. I'll bet she's knackered."
"She is, but she can't stop grinning. Neither can I."
"Has the little one got a name yet?" Granny asked.
"Alexandra," Sean said. "That's what we'd decided on for a girl. She's got a pair of lungs on her and no mistake. She was screaming so loudly I'm surprised you didn't hear her in here."
Soon everyone had given their congratulations and well wishes, and Sean had returned to Ashley. Ruby was chattering on to Granny in one corner, but Belle was still standing where she had been when Sean had run in, gazing at the door. Gold squeezed her hand and she looked up at him, smiling. The ghosts that could come between them were at rest, and they could now start their relationship afresh, with no secrets or fears.
It was a night of new beginnings all round.
To be continued
See, all sorted. No evil cackles in sight. The next chapter will be the last, people. I can't believe it's almost done!