Chapter 20

His first appointment is due in thirty minutes, but Storybrooke's small enough he can drive downtown in five minutes, so Gold hurries down to the shop with the sheriff in tow. He's doing this in response to her question, "It's a long shot, probably ridiculous to even try, but I've learned when you're searching for someone, don't rule anything out until it rules itself out. You got anything that we might get a DNA sample from? Baby teeth, hairbrush, clothes?"

Dove is already in the workroom, cleaning the keys on a 1923 Underwood. When he looks up to greet them, Gold notices dark circles under the man's eyes. "Hey, Mr. G."

"Hey, Josiah," Gold casts a quick glance at Emma. He'd like to ask how Dove is doing, and especially, whether Dove plans to accompany Belle on the appointment with Archie. But with the sheriff here, Josiah would give a polite, vague response. Gold grabs another idea: "Hey, would you like to come to dinner tonight? I don't know what Belle's got on the menu, but it's guaranteed to be good."

Emma cocks an eyebrow. Gold supposes the invitation seems odd to her, as socially awkward as if Kathryn Nolan had invited Mary Margaret Blanchard for Sunday brunch. What she doesn't know, Gold muses, is that the crotchety pawnbroker needs to hang on to the one friend he has in this world.

"Sounds good," Dove says.

"Ms. Swan, perhaps you'd find this typewriter interesting," Gold suggests. "It supposedly was owned by Woodrow Wilson's private secretary."

"You're gonna open your safe, huh, and you want a little privacy," Emma surmises. "Go ahead. I'll wait here."

Gold pauses for just a moment when he enters the showroom. It's only been three days, and nothing's changed in the shop, but he misses the place. The next time he stands behind that cash register, he may be a father again. The thought makes his heart pound as he opens the safe and brings down, to clutch to his chest, a dull brown wool cloth. If Regina had noticed this cloth in the list of items he'd written into the curse to have brought over from the castle, she probably had chalked it up to the touch of madness that imprisonment had caused him. Only three people in this world would know what this cloth meant to him; now there would be a fourth.

He returns to the workroom, where Emma is admiring a shield that once belonged to Sir Lancelot. His voice quiet, he presents the cloth to her.

"Bae's?" She handles the cloth with reverence.

"It's a shawl. I wove it for his mother, but she wrapped him in it right after he was born. We kept him bundled in it until he started to crawl."

Emma folds it carefully. "I'll get it back to you ASAP." And she's gone.

Gold starts to inquire about Dove's welfare, but his cell phone rings: Belle's informing him his first appointment has arrived early.

He groans as he ends the call. "Josiah?"

"Yes, Mr. G.?"

"Bring the dominoes tonight, huh?"

Dove flashes a grin. "Sure thing."

The hired driver reaches for the door to the back seat of the Caddy and assists Belle in as Dove stands by awkwardly. Dove casts a guilty glance at the driver's seat, but Gold whispers, "Let someone else do the driving today. It's traditional for the family to ride in the back."

"Family," Dove echoes. "Thanks, Mr. G." He and Gold seat themselves on either side of Belle.

They're dressed in formal black, all three of them, except for a splash of white on their collars–a sprig of baby's breath, requested by Josiah as a reminder of the happiness the baby brought them. Each of them carries an object, an offering that will be laid at the headstone: a Nerf ball from Josiah, a hair bow from Belle, a wooden ducky Gold has removed from the nursery wall.

Leaning against the door, Gold is withdrawn, tired and anxious, because last night he dreamt of this funeral, dreamt of burying this child-that-would-have-been. But when his dream self peered into the casket, the body he found was not an infant's: it was the teenage Bae's. Hearing Gold cry out, Belle had come running from the nursery. She had awakened him, taken him in her arms, and in a moment of disoriented weakness he'd shared his fear with her. In the morning as soon as he awoke he was furious with himself for upsetting her, but his anger dissipated when he felt a warmth pressed against his back. Belle had slept beside him, holding him through the night.

She's chatting now with Josiah, speculating on what the child might have become, what she might have looked like. Josiah persists in his claim that the baby would have been a boy. Gold wonders if this talk is healthy, but Archie has told him that in the healing of the heart there are no rules.

"She would have loved books and cars and antiques," Belle says, "that's a given. But she would've found something of her own too, something to set herself apart from her family. A child needs to feel unique, special. Was it like that with Bae?"

Gold shoots her an annoyed look: why is she forcing him to remember his nightmare?

"When we were in the Dark Castle, you had a lot of drawing supplies in his room," Belle continues. "He's the artist of the family, yes?"

"His mother," Gold mutters. "She taught him."

"And you taught him to spin, I'm sure."

"Yeah."

"Every teenager has to develop his own identity. What was his special thing?"

"He, uh," Gold struggles against the lump in his throat. "He was an athlete. No tree was too tall for him to climb, no ram too mean for him to ride. Would've been a soccer player if he'd grown up here."

"Is a soccer player," Belle insists. "Is. He's here and we'll find him."

Gold accepts her tutelage. "Is."

"Holy cow," Dove interrupts. "Look!" They've arrived at the cemetery and the chauffeur is pulling up behind the hearse, but they can't see the open grave or the casket for all the people crowded around.

"The whole town's here, looks like," Dove comments. Gold doesn't find this unexpected: the Doves had many friends. As the three of them approach the grave, the crowd parts for them. Handshakes, hugs and gentle words are offered to Josiah and Belinda/Belle. . .and, to his surprise, to Gold/Rumplestiltskin. Snow is the first, pressing her cheek against Gold's: no one else is so bold, but there are plenty of handshakes and soothing words.

The unexpected kindness cracks him open. He yanks his sunglasses from his coat pocket and hides behind them. He would stand apart, lest the town might catch him sniffling, but Belle doesn't permit his isolation. They stand together at the foot of the grave, her hand clasped in his, her strength bearing him up and his, her. Dove stands at Belle's left side and Archie, whom they've asked to lead the service, stands at Gold's right.

Archie speaks of the joy children bring, not only to their parents but to their community. He speaks of the miracle of love and the magic of hope, and he reminds the listeners that these, once created, cannot be uncreated; they endure outside of time.

Then each of Adelena's parents voice their farewells in their own, individual ways. Josiah reads a poem, "The Barefoot Boy," and Belle sings a song, "Carry." Leaning on his cane, Gold reads a storybook, The Velveteen Rabbit.

The would-have-been parents leave their mementos–the ball, the bow and the ducky–on the casket. Gold tucks his book under his arm, gathers his cane and Belle's hand, ready to walk back to the car, but a rustling draws his attention back to the grave. Emma has stepped forward to lay a daisy on the casket.

A/N. "Carry" is a Tori Amos song. A very short chapter, but the mood is about to shift, so I wanted to leave some space to decompress. Coming up: Three centuries of waiting prove to be too much for Rumple.

Thank you, Cynicsquest, for saying just the right thing to kick-start the next act. You'll see the result in the next chapter.