Everyone in the town of Storybrooke was a chess piece for Mr. Gold. Her majesty hadn't figured it out yet but they were all assembled to fit his advantage. And when Emma Swan was in the correct place then he could start moving them accordingly.
He knew that he needed to get Emma on his side and quickly. She probably wouldn't like but he needed to get her under his thumb before Regina got her under hers.
IT was going to break his wife's heart that he was going to let the adoption fall out but this was more important. She wouldn't understand. She probably never would forgive him even after her memories returned but he would get over the guilt eventually. He always did. There would be more children born now that time was unfrozen and he imagined not all of them would be wanted. They could have one of those. Any child could love both of them and fill the hole that they both had on account of each other's stubborn refusal to love each other. He couldn't love her again. Not after how she abandoned him and their son when Bae was just a baby. He had no doubt that some of the old feelings he'd had for her remained. There had to be something there if he could stay married to her for 28 years in this world but he would be fooling himself to think he'd ever love her.
And because he didn't love her she didn't see the point in loving him either
But whether or not they loved each other didn't matter today, because it just wouldn't make today any less difficult to go through.
He had been looking forward to raising that child just as much as his wife was.
Dawn didn't know how late she stayed up but she knew that when she dozed off she didn't dream, nor did she feel completely rested when she woke up at the sound of her husband in the room.
"What time is it?" She asked as he pulled the throw blanket over her shoulders.
"The sun's coming up," he whispered, "Go back to sleep."
"No," she struggled to sit up, "We have to find the baby."
"I'm going to ask Ms. Swan o do it."
"No," she pulled herself to a sitting position and stretched out the kinks in her back, "No. If she finds out about the agreement then she's not going to let you get the baby."
"Dawn, Dawn," he grabbed her shoulders, "You have to trust me."
"The more you keep saying that, the more I worry," she muttered, "When you're planning on following through with things you don't ask me to trust you. You just assume that I'm automatically going to. When you have to ask me to trust you then that's when I start to worry."
"Dawn-"
"I need you to be honest with me," she whispered and grabbed his hands, "Honey, I need you to be honest with me. Will we get this child?"
"There is a chance that we may not."
She felt her chest tighten. Tears formed in her eyes but she blinked them back, "Of course not…that would be too easy and if there's anything that says anything about our relationship it's that our lives are NEVER easy."
"Dawn-"
"You don't break deals," she said angrily, "You never make an exception now what could possibly happen to change that?"
"You won't understand."
"I understand that we're losing the chance to raise this baby because of something you're planning."
He drew a breath, "I need to get Emma Swan to owe me a favor."
She scoffed and shook her head, "Oh this is a new low for you."
"You need to trust me."
"Give me a good reason after you pulled this," she snapped angrily, "I don't ask you for anything. I go about my day and I put up with the fact that people are terrified of you and they shun me because of that. And that's alright because somewhere in here is someone with an antisocial personality disorder. You asked me to marry you so that you would have a companion and I do that. I wanted this one thing and it falls through and you expect me to trust you? Just so you can get Emma on your side."
"There will be other babies."
"And there will be other opportunities to get a favor," she told him.
"You need to calm down," he told her, "I told you that you wouldn't understand."
"Then explain it to me!" she demanded, "You've hated Regina for years and for some reason that hate runs deeper than just disliking her for how she runs this town."
She touched his face and forced him to look at her, "I know that we're not…there's not much to fight for in our relationship. But whatever we have…whatever this is then surely it's not worth throwing away for vengeance against Regina."
He pulled his face away from her touch and closed her hands, "There will be other children."
She felt her jaw clench as he put her hands in her lap and kissed her cheek, "Have a good day dear."
She waited until he was out of the house before she lowered her head in her hands and started sobbing.
