Chapter 23
"I'm sorry. I can't." With a slash of her hand, Emma sweeps the age progressions back into the folder, picks the lot up, then steps over Gold's feet.
He seizes her wrist. "Oh, yes, you can, dearie. Sit back down."
"Please, Emma," Belle urges. "You know how important this is."
"It's a mistake, a coincidence. It can't be him." She shoves her captured arm into Gold's chest, pushing him back into the couch and forcing him to release her.
"Emma, please!" Belle scrambles to her feet as Gold fumbles for his cane. He barks, "We had a deal, Ms. Swan!"
But the sheriff ignores them and with a slam of the door, she's gone. Belle stops short in the foyer, staring in dismay through the strained glass. She draws in a shuddering breath and speaks reassuringly, but her words affect only herself: Gold has already written Ms. Swan off. He's so used to being betrayed and tricked by the few he's placed his fragile hopes in that he's never thought himself included in the community of those Emma has been destined to save; it's so easy, then, to pull away from her, as she has just done him.
Belle says, "She'll come back. Give her time. She's had a shock. Haven't you?"
With a growl, Gold struggles to his feet, hauling himself up by the arm of the couch. "What are you talking about?"
"If it's true, it's got to be the most amazing coincidence in history. Your son—her lover? Out of the millions of people in this world—"
He stoops to fetch his fallen cane, then straightens, his teeth gritted. "Not coincidence, Belle. The Fates. The son of the Dark One coupling with the savior—a sick joke of the Fates. Or part of some plan, I don't know, to unify magic or obliterate evil." He walks rapidly toward the study, calling over his shoulder, "I don't give a damn what brought them together. She knows where my son is and she won't tell me; that's all that matters."
Belle trails after him. "What are you going to do?" He doesn't answer her, just keeps walking. "Rumple, please! What are you—you're not going to hurt her, are you?"
He pulls the door to the study open, but lets her see the indignation on his face before he enters. "I'm sorry, Rumple." Her hands fall to her sides. "Sorry I doubted you and sorry she ran out on us."
"She's the daughter of a man who tricked me and imprisoned me in a fairy-dust mine. Do you know what fairy dust does to my kind, Belle? Casual contact, less than an hour, causes nausea, headaches, joint pain; prolonged contact causes mental illness. I was in Charming's prison for nearly a year. I should have died, but my curse wouldn't let me." He pauses, leaning against his desk to rest a moment. His back is turned. "I knew he'd imprison me; I'd planned it that way, so that they'd think they'd neutralized me, let down their guard, and Snow did, enough to trade me the last piece of information I needed. I knew he'd do his best to weaken me, but I never suspected he'd order his guards to beat me and starve me. So much for heroes." He glances over his shoulder at Belle. "So, more fool I, that I trusted his hero daughter."
"She'll come back," Belle says lamely. "Please, Rumple, don't give up."
"I've wasted too much time already." He continues across the room, past the Early American desk and chairs, the imposing legal library, brightened by the African violets and porthos plants that Belle has added and the photos of Belle that Gold has added. He opens the face of an Ethan Allen pendulum clock, behind which hides his wall safe, and from there he removes the ornamental egg.
Belle rushes forward and tries to stay him with a gentle hand to his arm. "This is a mistake, Rumple. Magic might find Bae, but it will only drive him away from you. It's why he left in the first place, because of how it changed you."
His face frozen, he sets the egg on the table and opens it, removing the vial. "No more wasted time," he growls. Despite his anger, he can't look her in the eye.
She takes a step back. "Rumple! We had a deal! I expect you to live up to it."
Now he looks at her, pointing toward the living room. "She broke our deal when she walked out! She broke it, not me. I'm no longer obligated—"
"Yes, you are," Belle shouts back at him. "You're obligated to me! Your deal was with her and me, and I haven't walked out! I'm still in it, and you owe me seven days."
He snorts as he slips the vial into his jacket pocket.
"I'm not kidding, Rumplestiltskin. I expect you to live up to your agreement with me, just as I will for you: I'll continue to pour everything I've got into this search, and in return I expect—demand—my full sixty days. You will honor your agreement with me, Rumplestiltskin, just as you honor me."
He stares at her unblinking; she stares right back. They're panting slightly with the exertions of their anger. He slams his hand on his desk, sending some of the file folders slumping onto the carpet.
Belle doesn't budge. In a hushed voice, she repeats, "As you honor me."
He releases a heated breath, but fishes the vial from his pocket. He holds it a long moment, relishing the warmth and power radiating from its contents. But at last he blinks and lays the vial back into the egg. "As I honor you." He closes the egg and replaces it in the safe. When he turns around again, he's leaning heavily on his cane; he walks out of the room, feeling her eyes upon him.
She lets him go.
Day Fifty-Four.
They hadn't slept well last night. They'd slept together, but not in each other's arms, and they hadn't made love. He's not angry with her, nor she with him, but he's overwrought, and he builds a wall of thought around his emotions. Brick by brick, he's rebuilding his original plan, adding to it all he's learned in this world, and she grants him the space to do that. He will regain his equilibrium in a day or two.
He'd had an early court appearance this morning, and a nasty one: the meanest yet as two couples seemed to forget it was a child they were playing tug-of-war over. His personal opinion is that neither should have custody, but he's not hired to have a personal opinion: he leaves that to expert witness Archie, who, to Gold's relief, recommends family therapy for all concerned.
He's come home to the pink house just as cranky as he left it, but despite his anger, a smile pops out as enters the foyer: Shostakovich is on the stereo, coconut milk chicken is baking in the oven, and Belle is humming in the kitchen. She returns his smile as he comes in and trumps the smile with a kiss. She's makeup-free, barefoot and in jeans and a ponytail, and no runway model can hold a candle to her.
"Did your client win?" she asks as she tosses a salad.
He smirks. "Not exactly."
"Did the other side win?"
"Not exactly." He steals two grape tomatoes from her bowl and tosses one into his mouth.
"Who won, then?"
"I hope the child did." He feeds the second tomato to her.
As they sit down to eat, he doesn't ask how her research went; if she had made progress, she would have told him. And when they retire for the night, he doesn't cross another day off his calendar: he's discontinuing that practice so that she won't feel he's reminding her of her failures.
"I miss you," he ventures as they change for bed, for she's given up her work as his paralegal in order to devote herself entirely to the search for Bae.
"I miss you too. When this is over—when we have Bae with us—would you like to continue your law practice? I really enjoyed being your researcher."
"If we don't come back to Storybrooke, I'll need to find another occupation. I'm not really a lawyer, you know," he smiles ruefully.
"There's a whole townful of families who'd disagree with that, Rumple. You've done a lot of good for them."
"I did a lot of bad to them," he mumbles.
"It's the man you are now that matters. A man a son can be proud of." She kisses him. "And a girlfriend."
She makes a pillow of his shoulder and they talk idly until they fall asleep.
Day Fifty-Five.
As a personal favor to Gold, and a break from the intensity of the child custody cases, Judge Fairfax and her stenographer forgo their lunch for the Doves' divorce hearing. Fairfax shakes her head in puzzlement as she looks from one to the other of the trio standing before her. "Only in Storybrooke," she says, mystified. "Standing here before me are a husband, a wife and her paramour, to have a marriage of nearly thirty years dissolved, and we're all tickled pink about it."
"Just setting things back the way they were supposed to be, Your Honor," Dove remarks.
"Well, that aim won't be fully achieved until Regina's the one standing before me," Fairfax scowls, then her face clears. "All right. Let's proceed."
It's over in ten minutes, and Fairfax invites the plaintiff, the defendant and the attorney/co-respondent to her chambers for a quick lunch. Every so often, Fairfax pauses, shakes her head again and mutters, "Only in Storybrooke."
On the courthouse steps, Josiah turns to Belle. "How do you feel?"
"A little relieved, a little sad. We had a good life together," she answers thoughtfully. "It just wasn't real."
"Neither were we," Josiah admits. "But yeah, it was a good life. Thank you, Bindy."
"What are you going to do now?" she asks.
"Back to work." He shrugs, then looks at Gold. "I sold that rowboat this morning."
"Yeah? To whom?"
Dove sniggers. "Robinson Crusoe. He swears he remembers it from his days on the Island of Despair."
Gold chuckles. "I tip my hat to you, Josiah. You were right about 'faux antiquing' that hunk of plywood and glue."
"When I took that boat down from the ceiling, though, it got me to thinking," Dove's eyes trail across the courthouse lawn, past the street, past the stop signs and lampposts and to the horizon. "The fishing here's kinda lost its appeal, you know? If you don't mind, Mr. G., I'd like to take a long weekend, have a go at the Androscoggin River."
Their smiles falling, Belle and Gold blink at him a full minute before Belle ventures, "Are you sure, Jo?"
"No one's ever succeeded in leaving Storybrooke," Gold points out.
"Regina has, apparently."
"The curse didn't affect her; she cast it. But everyone else who's tried—"
"Ruby, Ashley, Emma, Kathryn—"
"Has done so to their peril," Gold finishes.
"But the curse is broken. It's over; we're free. Aren't we?"
Gold considers the problem. "It seems likely, but why take a chance? We need to test it first."
"How are you going to test it, unless someone leaves?"
"Jo-" Belle warns.
"Me," Gold says. "I intend to leave in five days. Why don't you wait another week? I'll call you if the coast is clear."
"What makes you think it would be any less of a risk for you than for me?"
Gold throws a furtive glance at Belle. "I'll have protection that you won't. Give me a week to check things out, okay?"
"Please, Jo," Belle adds.
"You're forgetting, you two: fish have got to swim and birds have got to catch 'em." He gives Belle a peck on the cheek. "I'll wait until Easter though."
They watch him climb into his Yukon. "He'll be all right, won't he?" Belle wonders. "The curse is over, isn't it?"
"Yes." Gold draws in a deep breath. "Sure, he'll be fine. I'll check it out though."
"After you've brought magic into this world?" Belle frowns.
"Emma hasn't come back, Belle," he reminds her. He bites his tongue but the rest of the comment hangs in the air: And your research has produced nothing.
"I still have five days." She juts her chin out.
Day Fifty-Six.
Belle gives Gold a frantic push, shoving him out of a dream about pancakes. "Someone's downstairs," she hisses.
"Call the sheriff." He curses as he yanks on his pajama bottoms and grabs his cane. He creeps down the hallway, with Belle, her cell phone pressed to her ear and a spiked high heel in the other hand, following closely.
"It's the answering service. Emma's not picking up."
"I'll distract him. Sneak around the back way to the study and grab my gun." He raises an eyebrow at the high heel. "What do you plan to do with that: compare shoe sizes?"
"A heel to the eye or the throat can be a powerful weapon," she argues. "I know because Emma gave a women's self-defense class last year."
A voice from the bottom of the stairs interrupts them. "For two people are who trying to be sneaky, you two make enough noise to wake Rip Van Winkle. You left the back door unlocked."
"Emma!" Belle calls out, rushing down the stairs to hug the sheriff.
"Rip Van Winkle—one of Regina's early experiments with sleeping curses," Gold muses, coming down more sedately. "She didn't let the portion simmer overnight, as she should have. Always in a rush, that one. Anyway, the spell was supposed to be permanent, breakable only by True Love's Kiss, but the recipient—"
"You mean 'the victim,'" Emma corrects.
"Awoke after ten years."
"Twenty."
"No, dear, it was ten. I remember clearly because he came to me right after awakening and asked to be put under again. Seems the nagging wife he'd tried to escape by allowing Regina to curse him hadn't changed a whit." He's at the foot of the stairs now, watching Emma warily. "But, I take it, you have? Changed your mind, that is?"
Emma can't face him, so she faces Belle, who plugs in the coffee pot. "No, I didn't, but I—well, I felt bad about running out on you, so I came to apologize."
"Your apology is worthless, dearie, unless it's followed by a name and an address for the man you know as Henry's father." Gold leans on his cane.
Emma slowly seats herself in her usual chair at their kitchen table. "I don't know where he lives. I haven't seen him in ten years."
Gold thinks a moment. "So my son doesn't know he's a father."
Working up her anger, she scowls at him. "He left before I knew I was pregnant—but not before he framed me for a felony and vanished."
Gold lowers his head, his hair hiding his face.
"That can't be Bae, then," Belle says, carrying three mugs to the table. She sounds both relieved and disappointed at the same time as she looks to Gold for confirmation. "The kid who walked two miles to return a purse that a traveling potter had dropped in the road. The kid who once fought a bully twice his size to protect little kids from him."
"The kid whose father abandoned him," Gold says softly. "Whose grandfather abandoned his father. You see, it's not his fault, Ms. Swan. It runs in the family." He brings the sugar bowl and the milk pitcher to the table, and sits down.
"Does anyone want breakfast?" Belle asks, but is answered with polite refusals.
They're silent as they wait for the coffee to perk, and they're still silent as they sip their coffee. Emma finally blurts, "I can't do it. I know I'm going back on my word and I'm sorry for that, but I can't face him again, and I can't risk him coming here. If he finds out about Henry—what if he wants to take him?"
"We'll represent you," Belle says.
"It's not what the law wants that worries me; it's what Henry wants. I told Henry his father died a hero. How will he ever trust me again if he finds out I lied about that?"
"I'll make a deal with you, Emma," Gold offers. "If it's Bae, I won't tell him about Henry or you, and I won't bring him back here."
"Really? You'd kept your son and his son apart like that?"
Gold answers emphatically, "There's nothing I wouldn't do to find my son again. I think I've made that abundantly clear."
"How can you keep information like that from your own son?"
"I'll trust that sooner or later, you'll change your mind." Gold studies her. "If your ex is Baelfire, I can be. . . your scout. Inform you what he's doing, what he's like now, and then you can decide if you want to see him, or let Henry see him." He leans toward her. "Ms. Swan, all I want is be reunited with my son. I'll leave it to you to decide what's best for your son, even if he is my grandson."
She thinks it over a long time, but when she decides, it's quick: she pushes away from the table and stands. "I'm sorry, Gold, I can't. I just got my son back a year ago; I can't risk losing him." She rushes for the front door, and they follow her.
"Emma, you're being unfair!" Belle protests.
"We had a deal, Ms. Swan," Gold snarls. "I gave you the information you needed to save your son. All I ask is the same in return." But she's yanked the door open. "Ms. Swan?" She's on the porch now. "Emma! Emma, it's my son; surely you can understand. Give me the second chance with Bae that you got with Henry."
"I'm sorry." Anything else she might say is drowned out by the sound of her Bug's engine starting.
As she peels out into the street, Gold thrashes the porch rail with his cane, shattering the latter. Belle doesn't interfere, just brings him his spare cane.