Mrs. Gold came out of the bathroom, her eyes hollowed out and empty.
Will had thought she couldn't get any worse than she'd been in the blue mosquito's office. But, this was Belle broken. This was a Mrs. Gold beaten back to a place he didn't think she could ever get herself out of.
He'd thought he was helping her last night. Bloody hell, he'd thought he was saving her when slugged Keith and put him out with the rest of the trash. But, she'd been dying by inches ever since he'd walked through her door.
He was the one who'd done this. He was the one who'd said all the bloody stupid words Mrs. Gold had been trying not even to think, asking if she was pregnant. Hell, he was even the one pulled the bloody clever slight of hand so Tom didn't know he was ringing the bloody stupid test so she could find out the bloody stupid answer.
Mrs. Gold dropped the stick on the coffee table in her small living room. Positive.
"I can't," she whispered. Her dead, empty eyes met Will's for a moment but they weren't seeing him. "I can't do this."
He didn't understand. Can't what? Can't have the baby? She—she was going to get rid of it?
He tried to say something, to argue, to beg. . . . But, the words choked him. This world wasn't their world. Girls meeting doctors on the sly to get rid of hidden burdens didn't risk bleeding to death or infections that rotted them out from the inside. Potions Tom Clark probably stocked could uproot a new life and send it away like a bad dream, but they didn't carry hidden prices in poison or magic.
But, he wanted to scream, girls in this world have choices. If they can't find a magic potion or a healer with a quick knife, girls here don't wander out onto the weak place in the ice rather than tell their big brother what they've done.
Yeah, she'd believe that. Her old man had tried to do the next thing to killing her just because she'd been in love with the Dark One. People stopped by every day to remind her how lucky she was her husband was gone. Bloody hell, the true love child sheriff figured Keith for an improvement over the last bloke Mrs. Gold had fallen for. What would any of them do if they knew the Dark One's spawn was growing inside her belly?
Will had seen the dark cells under the hospital. He knew Mrs. Gold had been locked up there for twenty-eight years. If she decided to keep this baby, how long before they decided to lock her up there again? Bloody hell, how much more proof would the pack of self-anointed heroes need she was mental?
And, once they decided that, someone else could sign off on getting the grub out of her. Not Frankenstein, he was still scared of the Dark One and too attached to his arm. But, Will had seen the Seven Dwarves fight. Dark Ones, dragons, they didn't care. Good ole, grandfatherly Doc would have no problem stomping on a baby monster till it was nothing but a wet smudge on the streets.
Ease up, he told himself. Breathe. Doc hasn't done anything. Belle hasn't done anything.
Yet.
The memory of a child falling into darkness, fingers slipping through his. A crack in the ice, a crack in the world, what difference did it make? Something precious and beautiful was gone forever. There'd been an all too brief eternity when he had desperately believed he could still make it right—
—Till he had fought his way out of darkness to find all his struggles had only brought him a dead body on a cold hill with empty eyes that stared blindly at a gray sky, never seeing him.
The way Belle was staring now.
Don't do this, he screamed silently. Don't. We'll find another way. Don't. Please, Belle, just hang on a little longer.
He closed his eyes for a moment, tasting the uselessness of his words, like ashes. I know that's what you've been telling yourself for weeks. I know you feel like you don't have anything left to hang on with. I know it hurts so bad you can't believe it would hurt worse to just let go. I know I can't even tell you why I think you have something to hang on for.
But, please, don't let go.
All that poured through his mind in the time it took Belle to crumble onto the couch, her knees curled to her chest in a small ball of pain. He didn't think she remembered he was there. "I can't do this," she repeated. Tears began spilled out of her blind eyes. In a voice of animal pain, her words like a ragged wound, she said, "I can't do this to him. I can't."
"Him?" Will said, not understanding.
Belle had begun to rock back and forth, like a child in agony. Will wasn't sure if she had even heard him. "He lost his son," she said. "After everything, he lost him. He saw him die and he couldn't stop it. It—it killed something in him. More than anything else Zelena did, it killed him. He'd lived in cages before. He—he shattered his leg to save his son before Bae was even born. And he lived with the pain. Because it saved Baelfire. He could endure anything if it saved his son.
"It didn't save him. Bae died, and it destroyed him. And I didn't see it in time. I can't take his child from him. I can't."
This was the real reason she hadn't gotten a test sooner, Will thought. Because, she couldn't let herself know. Because, as soon as she knew, she had to choose. She could stay in Storybrooke and keep fighting their thankless battles or she could leave and fight a battle that might be just as bleak and even more hopeless. What happened if she tracked Gold down and he wanted nothing to do with her? What happened if she told him about the child and he didn't want anything to do with a monster grub of hers? Or if he did want it but wanted to make sure she had nothing to do with it? Gold was a bloody brilliant lawyer even before the curse broke, and the laws in this world gave an edge to fathers who'd been thrown out on the road and left to die.
Not that that was what she did.
But, it was what she thought she did. And being punished for it (oh, gods, what kind of idiot was he? Why didn't he see this sooner?) was what she thought she deserved.
When Hook stomped on her, when people spat at her, when sewer-muck like Snotty attacked her and the sheriff still thought going out with him was a good idea, she thought she deserved it.
Oh, bloody hell.
Will sat down next to her and, very carefully, reached out a hand and put it on her shoulder. "It's going to be all right," he said, hoping she heard, hoping his words meant something and weren't just animal sounds.
He put a hand on her other shoulder and, as gently as if she would shatter in his hands with one wrong move (which she very well might), he turned her around to face him. "It's going to be all right," he repeated.
"It can't be," she said, her voice soft and ragged. "It can never be right again."
Give her the truth, he thought. Or give her the right kind of lies. "I thought that," he said. "For years." Truth. "I'd messed up everything. I had it all and I flushed it down the loo. Then, I dug it out of the septic tank, covered it with muck, ran it through a blender, stuck it down the garbage disposal, and threw a hand grenade in after. And, then I found a way to really mess things up." He took a deep breath. The truth, then. As much as he could bear. "The woman I loved was dead. They tortured her.They made her bleed and tore her mind apart and, when I realized I'd been wrong, that I loved her and needed her, that's when they killed her." Lies. Truth. The only truth he'd known for what seemed like eternity. "She was dead. I knew she was dead. I'd have torn the world apart with my own two hands to save her, but there was nothing I could do—except make some even more colossal mistakes. I had to see the—the—" He swallowed back words he shouldn't say in front of Mrs. Gold. Or the baby. "—the worst piece of bloodthirsty filth to ever crawl out of a cesspit holding her and her thinking—thinking this was OK before I realized how badly I'd messed up.
"Except it changed. Not because I deserved it. Not because it was right. It changed because—because sometimes, after a lifetime of doing nothing but putting cesspits and tripwires in your way, the universe spins out something beautiful, something perfect. And it decides you're the lucky bloke it'll hand it over to on a platter. You never know why. No explanations. It just happens."
Belle looked up at him with watery eyes, but the tears had stopped falling. He wasn't fooled. There was a point where you were too worn out to cry. At least, she was listening to him. "You said she threw you out, your Anastasia."
"I said I had it coming, too. But, it's OK. Because. . . ." How was he supposed to say this so Belle could understand? Say it without saying all the things he'd couldn't—mustn't—tell her? "Belle, I love my wife. More than I love breathing or hearing my heart beat in the morning. She could—could—" Break my legs and leave me on the road to die. No, bad way to put it, "—could throw me to another world where there's nothing to do but play Pac Man and beat up Snotty and get locked up by pain-in-the-neck sheriff who hasn't got a clue about feeding prisoners. And, it's OK so long as I know she's all right."
"It's not all right," she whispered. "I hurt him, and it's not all right."
"It will be," he promised her, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. "I promise, it will be."
It would be easy.
The words were like a snake hissing in his mind.
Will looked at Belle. She was tired and exhausted, with no strength left.
It would be easy, the voice hissed again. Take her, hold her, comfort her. She's too alone, she needs someone too much. She won't even notice as you seduce her. . . .
Will turned on the voice. Shut. Up.
Images flooded his head, how he could do it, sleep with her.
Stop it, he told the dark shadow lurking inside him. Stop it, I won't do this to her.
Innocent touches slowly becoming something more, an answering fire building inside her. The hunger—not for a lover or a roll in the hay, the hunger to be held, to be seen, to matter.
She was broken. She was ground to powder, starving more for kindness, for a human touch that wasn't a blow more than her skeletal form was starved for food.
This is not kindness, he told himself. However this began, he knew how it would end. He knew how Belle would look at him when she came back to herself. Whatever brief gift a night together would give her, she would wake in the morning and see one more betrayal. And there would be nothing—nothing —he could ever say, no truth he could ever give to make it better. He had to step away, to let her go.
But, I want her, a part of him said, as desperate and lonely as Belle must be. It was the cry of a lost, abandoned child.
No, he snarled back. I want my wife. I want the woman who looks at me and sees a man instead of the world's—no, the worlds'—biggest, most colossal excuse of a failure. I want— Memories of a terrible, dark time ran through him –I want the woman who can see me caged in a cell and knowing a homicidal magic user may show up at any moment and murder her for being there, and she only wants to help me. Not this. This is a lie. This is me putting the last nail in the coffin of anything that can ever go right between us.
But, I want her.
Gently, cursing himself for a fool, Will put his hands to Belle's shoulders and pushed her away.
"Belle. . . ." No, he shouldn't call her that. "Mrs. Gold. . . ." His brain began putting together long, convoluted stories, reasons for leaving, reasons why this (except she didn't know there was a this) was a bad idea. He could lie to her, he could tell her bits and pieces of the truth. He could—he could—
No, there was no time for that. He couldn't stay here. The longer he stayed, the more chance the really stupid part of his brain would get back in the driver's seat and destroy whatever chance he had left of fixing everything he'd broken.
"I've—I've got to go," he said, getting up, pulling away from her. "I've got a plan—I can—I can—Just wait, all right? I can fix this." Oh, what a liar. What a coward.
At least, this coward knew to run from a battlefield.
"Just don't do anything." Don't walk on the lake where the ice is thin. Don't jump into the dark cracks between the worlds. Don't cross over the town line where no one is waiting for you on the other side. He ran, getting out her door as fast as he could go.
Will Scarlet ran from of the library and down the street, dashing down an alleyway where no one could see him. It was already dark out. No one seemed to be about, Storybrooke's poor excuse for a nightlife happening somewhere else.
His hands reached up to his face where his fingers—and no one else's—could feel the dry, thin edges of what he'd made. His true self had pushed against it, breaking against the words and images he had worked in with blood. He'd felt himself thinking of her as Belle, not Mrs. Gold, almost undoing all his work.
Why not? Take away the mask. Go back to her. Tell her everything. Beg her forgiveness.
He'd reached for the paper edge when he heard footsteps in the alley. Looking up, he saw the pirate outlined against the street light behind him, a few of his cronies hanging back.
"Will Scarlet," Jones said, trying to sound like an inquisitor pronouncing doom (he should know, he'd met a few). "I've been looking for you. You've been causing a lot of trouble lately. Tsk, tsk. You know, before last night, I would have said you'd learned your lesson and knew to stay out of my way. You need to go back to that."
The man in the ally bit back on a laugh. It's no use going back to yesterday, he wanted to say, quoting Alice. Because I was a different person then.
His name wasn't Will Bloody Scarlet. But, let the captain call him that. He didn't mind. It might make this more amusing in the end.
His hand fell away from the paper mask. He walked towards Jones, smiling. But, in the shadows, the captain couldn't see the too-sharp flash of his teeth.