Chapter 8
As soon as he opens the front door to his house (their home), he can hear Belle humming. He clings to the happiness in her voice like a drowning man clings to a life preserver.
Belle is stirring something in a pot on the stove. Her back is to him as he enters the kitchen (their kitchen). She smiles over her shoulder. "So you're repainting one of the upstairs bathrooms, too." She neglects to mention that it's the bathroom adjacent the nursery.
He shrugs. "I was on a roll."
"Robin's egg blue. I like it."
He knows; it's the color of the first gift he ever gave her, a dress he'd bought for her in Glowshire. As he paints he smiles, remembering the difficulties he had describing Belle's size to the seamstress; after all, he had no idea how much of what he saw when he stared at her was Belle and how much was clothing: skirts and petticoats and corsets and whatnot. He'd finally decided he'd cheat: he chose the dress that he liked best, one whose color matched her eyes, and once he got it outside he enchanted it so that it would adjust itself to the wearer. After that hassle, he'd summoned the seamstress to the Dark Castle and let her and Belle work out the rest of the new wardrobe.
He can't wait for the day she remembers that story.
"I'm glad."
She turns back to the stove. "Did you hear? Kathryn's decided to continue with her plans for law school. After all she's been through, I really admire her."
"Forgiveness requires strength, but she's a strong person." He glances at her hopefully. "As are you."
"Thanks, but I don't think I've ever had much cause to be. Other than difficulties with my dad, life's gone easy on me so far." She spoons up a sample of her current experiment, turns and invites him to taste; she lifts the spoon to his mouth. "My first attempt at homemade spaghetti sauce," she announces. "Too spicy?" She's looking intently at his mouth as he licks the flavor from his lips.
"A dash more basil," he advises, reaching past her to the spice rack. Instinctively, he sets a hand lightly on her back as he leans past her.
She suddenly gasps.
"What's wrong?"
Her eyes widen. She grasps his wrist, presses his hand against her belly. He feels a flutter, gentle as a butterfly wing against his palm. "Feel that?"
"Oh yeah," he breathes. This, too, he'd missed with Milah, though he's not so sure she would have shared such moments with him. It suddenly occurs to him that he never once asked Milah whether she was happy when she discovered she was pregnant. He'd just assumed. . . .
But it's here now, this chance to share in the mystery of the formation of a life. He looks into Belinda's eyes and imagines he finds Belle there, Belle, who would have declared this pregnancy the greatest adventure of all, and who would have welcomed him along for every moment of the journey–he, her husband. Gold's heart sinks to his shoes. He has no right, legal or moral, to this moment. Just an emotional right that only he knows about.
But Belinda keeps pressing his palm to her belly. "I felt something this morning, but it was so faint, I wasn't sure. But that, that was definitely a kick, wasn't it?"
"A kick Beckham would envy," he declares. He lingers, taking this moment that somewhere, deep inside Belinda, Belle is offering him. But it's a moment they're stealing from Josiah and Belinda.
Late that night, long after the spaghetti and the ballet, he sits in his basement, thinking. He's hoping Emma will break the curse before the baby is born, because there's no way the hospital or the Doves will allow him to be present for the delivery. Then again, no matter when the curse breaks, this baby is still Josiah's. For once, Rumplestiltskin draws a blank. He has no idea how to make this work. He only knows the three of them have to.
It's Belle's strength, so much greater than the power of the curse, that he's thinking of when August Wayne Booth has the nerve to call him to ask for help in making a believer of Emma. That wasn't Belinda reaching out to him to experience the baby's kick, he's certain of it: it was the stubborn, strong Belle. When the curse is lifted, he will thank her, and continue to thank her every day for the rest of their lives.
Leaning on her strength, he agrees to help Booth. No, he hasn't forgiven the fraud, has no intention to; he's a villain, so nobility is not required of him, and he freely tosses sharp barbs when Booth comes around. But Belle, Adelena, Bae and Dove, and most of all, Rumplestiltskin himself, need for the savior to emerge, so he allies himself with the man who lied to him.
Refusing the young mother's plea to help her gain custody of Henry is one of the hardest things he's ever done. His heart bleeds, not just for her, but for himself, because when Adelena is born, he'll be in Emma's boots. As Emma storms out of his shop, he vows that he, Dove and Belle will respect each other, will work to preserve the baby's ties to each of them. Will be deserving of Adelena's pride.
"I was the same age you are now when my son was born. Believe me, I know exactly what you're feeling," he says to Emma, after she's long gone and he can safely speak. "And believe me, no matter how old you get, or how far away your child goes, that feeling will never change."
Booth is failing miserably in his efforts to convert Emma, and just as desperate, Regina has attempted to lure David into an affair and away from Mary Margaret. It's hard to be patient with all these people, but, unknown to the rest of the world, patience is Rumplestiltskin's greatest strength, a patience made concrete by his bottomless love for Bae and a bracing of stubborn hope.
And the Knowledge. In the old world, he had glimpses of the future: a mother's kiss that will awaken a child from a sleeping curse and awaken a town from the lies it's been living under. His own hand, glowing with magic. An airplane, with the savior seated beside him.
As he paints Adelena's bathroom, he imagines—because he no longer can See, he can only guess—her future. He can't picture her in the Enchanted Forest; she seems a child of this world. Probably, she will have her mother's chestnut hair and her father's rectangular face. But she will inherit qualities from her stepfather as well, and that causes Gold concern.
A great deal of concern.
"Adelena's been especially fractious today," Belinda comments as she sets the table. She straightens, rubbing her lower back and groaning.
Gold comes up behind her and grips her shoulders, pulling them back. "Stand straight. I know when you're hurting it's tempting to bend in, but if you'll make yourself stand up straight, keep your shoulders back, and when you sit, put a pillow behind you, you'll hurt less." He reaches around her to set a hand against her belly. "Your center of gravity's changed, so your posture needs to change too."
She leans back against his chest, resting her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes. He can feel the baby stir beneath his palm and tightens his arm just a little, bringing himself closer, taking more of her weight onto himself. He has to lean into his cane more to compensate, but he doesn't mind. He would stand like this for hours, their bodies pressed together, her hair tickling his nose, her warmth surrounding and comforting him. Emotions compete for supremacy in him: desire, protectiveness, pride in a child that isn't his, the need to be needed.
They were wrong, back in the Enchanted Forest: there is magic in this land. It flows through every living thing. It's here, beneath the palm of his hand and resting against his shoulder. "Belle," he says, with just enough breath to ruffle her hair, but not enough voice for her to hear him. He lowers his face to her hair to kiss the top of her head.
"You must've gone through this with your wife."
The words break his enchantment. He releases her, hobbles–for his ankle suddenly aches–over to the kitchen table, distributes the silverware to occupy his hands. "Ex-wife. No. I wasn't there during her pregnancy."
"Where were you?"
He can't meet her gaze; he's embarrassed, for surely she knew how close he'd come to kissing her, and that's why she chose this topic. She knows, he's sure, that he doesn't talk about his former wife. "There was a war. I was drafted."
"So you missed the pregnancy, the birth?"
He smiles ruefully. "And the marriage. It seems I was absent from that too." She makes a sad sound, but before she can say anything, he changes the subject. "So what's for dinner? It smells wonderful."
"Lemongrass coconut chicken." But she doesn't move to the stove; she just watches him with disappointment and puzzled longing. Despite her maternity top and jeans and the dash of lipstick and mascara she wears, she's so Belle standing there with her hands folded over her belly, where his hand had rested a moment ago. He can't help but speak her true name. "Belle?"
She finally moves to the stove. "Dinner will be ready in ten. There's time if you'd like to wash up first." As he starts for the stairs, she glances over her shoulder. "Funny, most people would shorten my name to Lin or Lindy; Jo calls me Bindy. You're the only one who's ever called me Belle."
"Is it all right?" He studies her.
"I rather like it." But in her smile there's no sign of recognition.
Regina storms into his shop, ablaze with anger, frustration and–she thinks she's hiding it, but she's wearing it like a stale cologne: panic. She announces that her apple tree is dying. Gold smiles and makes a dry joke. It won't be long now; even Regina admits it: "The curse is weakening."
He looks hard into her eyes. "Hallelujah."
"You have to help me. You're in this just as deep as I am. You created it."
"Yes, and I told you then that someday, the child of Snow White would break it. It seems, Madame Mayor, that you still have a bit of a hearing problem."
"We've been in this together, from the beginning."
He throws her the only bone left, though he knows she won't bite. "Perhaps you giving up Henry is just the price you have to pay to keep the curse unbroken." He's telling her the truth: she must choose between Henry or revenge, love or hate. But the only reason he tells her the truth now is so that later, when she's kneeling in the rubble of her broken plans, when she's lost both revenge and love, she'll remember he gave her a way to save one or the other, and she in her greed refused to let go of either. And he, who will have his family and Regina's envy, will walk away with both love and revenge.
Still, the queen refuses to cut her losses. She wants magic to fix her problems, so like thousands before her, she calls for a deal–ignoring the fact, though he reminds her of it, that there's (almost) no magic in this world. (He's still telling the truth: he just neglects to mention that he has a method to summon magic here.) She offers anything–how many times has he heard that before? He turns his back on her, offering only one piece of advice: leave town before the awakened mob catches up to you.
Stunned, she walks out.
He might feel sorry for her, except he gave her a way out and she wouldn't take it. He might worry for the welfare of his former student, but then he thinks of Belle, Josiah and Adelena and he's mad as hell.
Until, in moving away from her, he finds himself standing before a globe on his counter and he realizes this world awaits him. It's just days away now: the breaking of the curse, the summons of magic, the reclamation of his beloved, the discovery of his son, the birth of his stepdaughter.
No, the best revenge won't be Regina's loss of everything. The best revenge will be in knowing that the last, most important lesson he offered her, she refused to learn: that if they let go of the anger, love is possible even for the likes of them.