They stood hand in hand, waiting. People milled around them, voices calling to each other, cries of I'll miss you and conversations shouted into cell phones. But none of that mattered. They were there. They were together.

"Are you ready for this?" Belle asked. She turned toward Gold and he briefly shut his eyes, squeezed her hand just a little too hard, before he turned and met her eyes.

"It's all I've ever wanted."

She smiled and pushed up on her toes, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. "Soon, my love." They had gotten more comfortable with each other, more willing to share in quick bits of affection and pet names. He called her sweetheart. She called him love. And they had fallen into that naturally in the last few months.

Everything had just…settled…after he asked her to marry him. He felt so much more confidence around her, brought her more and more into his world. They had gone to a handful of trials and Belle had been successful at almost all of them. Oh sure there had been bobbles. Mistakes made most of the time by her, occasionally by Bandit who was still young and sometimes a bit impulsive. But there had been no great disasters since that first one. He had watched her compete successfully against people who had many more years' experience than she did.

She told him, once late at night, that she was thankful for all he had given her. A new life, love, a family. She was an orphan, in a way. Mother long gone, father now gone as well. Yet somehow she had found her way into his family. And it just felt right. Even though the wedding was still a ways off. Not long now though. A few weeks. They had planned something very small, just a handful of people at the house, the dogs. Dr. Archibald Hopper, town psychiatrist, doubled as the town's Justice of the Peace and would come to the home to marry them. He had introduced her to the soft-spoken man soon after he'd asked her to marry him and she had taken an instant liking to him.

"It's here," Gold said and he coughed, trying to disguise the way his voice cracked on the final syllable.

She stepped in close to him, wrapped an arm around his waist. "You're nervous."

He turned slightly, met her eyes. "Yes, well…"

"He wanted this," she pointed out.

"He did."

"And you fought for it." He had fought and fought hard. In the end, Milah, who had been faced with the possibility of social workers and child psychiatrists invading her house and life, of having everything disrupted, had simply thrown in the towel.

Gold had been ready to go to court. He had his lawyers on his side. He had Belle there to support him. His son had been ready to stand up and testify that he wanted to come live with his father. It had all been in place, including Belle's role in his life and her willingness to love Baedden as if he were her own child.

And then Milah had simply walked out of it. It was too much work. And the truth was she didn't care enough. She had never cared enough. She had her new paramour and he was more important than hanging onto the son she had never really wanted.

She had signed away all her parental rights without looking back. In the end, they had agreed to a reverse arrangement of the one they had had before, with Baedden visiting his mother for two weeks out of the year and living the rest of the year with his father.

He had won.

Without ever having to fight.

And today everything changed. Today his whole life shifted and became the one he had always hoped for but had never thought he could actually have. Truth be told, he expected to die alone and lonely, a corpse discovered when someone noticed that his truck hadn't been moved in a few weeks and the sheep were making horrible noises in the barn.

But now he had Belle.

And Bae.

The bus was pulling in, carefully maneuvering into its designated spot. Gold remembered waiting here, not really all that long ago. A handful of months, nothing more. He remembered the nerves then. Nerves of a different sort. He had been out of sorts, anxious, and in many ways looking forward to the whole thing being over.

He loved his son. He had wanted him with him always. But every year he came and every year it just got worse. Until this year. Until Belle.

"This wouldn't have happened without you," he murmured. His eyes never left the bus but he leaned down and pressed a kiss into Belle's hair.

"It would have," she responded with and she sounded so sure of herself.

He glanced at her for a moment. "I don't think it would have."

She was going to say more. He was sure of it. Belle had such confidence in him, in Baedden. She never seemed to really know the force she was, the force she had become in his life. Maybe someday she would understand.

But that would come later. The door to the bus had opened and people were starting to pile out. He had expected Baedden to be first. Usually he made sure he sat up near the front of the bus, where the driver could see him if he glanced in the rear view mirror. But this time he was fourteenth off the bus.

He knew because he counted every damned person getting off the bus before he saw his son.

And then Baedden was there. His backpack was slung over his shoulder and he stopped after he hit the ground, looking around him. Belle shouted his name. Of course she did. And then his son looked up and it was like a ray of light. A smile broke out on his face and he waved one hand excitedly at them.

Excited.

Happy.

He was happy to see them. No longer the sullen kid who got off the bus year after year but a kid who was genuinely happy to see them both.

"Papa!" he said, rushing over to them. And then he was hugging Gold. And Belle was hugging them both.

And it was perfect.

Utterly perfect.

"Are you ready to go home, son?" His voice was choked with emotion and he felt Belle squeeze his arm. Baedden nodded and they stepped off together, one of his arms around Baedden, the other around Belle. His own perfectly imperfect family. He couldn't imagine anything better.

A/N: I want to take the time to thank everyone for being here for me through this whole story. Every favorite and review that I've received has meant so much and has kept me going through writing this whole story. This is my longest story to date at over 106k and it's because of all of YOU that I was able to keep going and keep writing. So from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU.