Princesstiannah prompted:
"And tomorrow he comes to dinner and they fall in love and get married" isn't good enough, please can you fic the dinner? Maybe an unexpected good night kiss and embarrassed apologies. Pretty please, with a cherry on top x

She had offered him dinner. Dinner. Well, it wasn't exactly a son but it was a start. He'd intended to inform her that he would be fighting for custody as he hadn't known the child was his until recently. Then she had fainted and he had caught her and all his plans went to hell.

He didn't know what had summoned Bailey French (Bae his mother had called him) to her side, but all of a sudden the boy had been there. He'd been frantic, worried, and begging to know that she would be alright. They had gotten her down on the floor and Gold had elevated her feet and then Bae had sat next to her, eying suspiciously a man who would give his right arm just to hug him and that was when Gold realized that he had already lost his son. No matter what was legal or how much money and effort he threw into it now the boy would always belong to her.

Gold had grown up with no mother and barely a father, he was determined his own son would not suffer that fate.

He'd had no choice, really, if he wanted to know his only child. Dinner it would be.

He prepared for this dinner the way a younger man might have prepared to propose. Everything had to be absolutely perfect from his suit to the wine he was bringing as a gift to Miss French. He'd bought a handheld game system of some sort – the clerk assured him that it was the newest and most expensive and therefore least likely to be owned by a ten year old – for his son. Hopefully, Bae didn't already have one – hopefully, the boy liked video games. Was he even allowed them? Oh God, he didn't know if his son played video games. This was going to be a disaster.

She'd not told him when to arrive, but he thought she might forgive him his eagerness when he arrived on her doorstep at 5:30.

She seemed to have been expecting him, at least. She was wearing a simple yellow sundress and making him realize he was completely overdressed for a family dinner and what on Earth had he been thinking?

"Mr. Gold," shealmost smiled in greeting when she saw him on her doorstep, but her face quickly settled back into a nervous frown. He couldn't really blame her. This was already the most awkward he'd ever been in his life.

"This is for you," he muttered quickly, shoving the wine at her. "And I got Bae a present...assuming he doesn't have one and you think he'll like it. I'm sorry, I should have called to ask I just..."

"No, no, it's fine" she interrupted him gently after taking his parcel, for which he was intensely grateful as he wasn't sure he could have stopped talking by himself. "I think he'll be thrilled, he's been begging me for one. Please, come in."

She had softened up a little, he noticed as he brushed past her into the house. She seemed like a kind woman, and he had probably evoked some pity with his babbling. He wanted to like her, because he wanted to know his son was taken care of. Honestly, the more time spent in her company the better he felt about Milah having given Bae away.

"Bae," Miss French called up the stairs, "come down and say hello to someone."

There was the thundering sound of a little boy barreling down the steps and landing with a dull thud on the floor next to his mother. He had energy, apparently.

"You remember my friend Mr. Gold from yesterday?" she asked him, petting his hair lovingly.

Bae nodded, glancing suspiciously between his mother and this new man who had upset her so much the day before and Gold felt a tug at his heart. His son had his eyes.

"I brought you something," Gold practically choked out, holding the gift towards his son. "If you'll have it."

Bae inhaled sharply, his entire body tensing as his focus settled on the box being presented to him. Still, though, he looked at his mother pleadingly rather than take it. She nodded encouragingly at his son – their son, he amended, he belonged to both of them. It was only once he received her permission that Bae reached out and clutched the toy as though it were the only thing he'd ever wanted in life.

"What do you say?" Miss French reminded in that tone used by mothers the world over.

"Thank you, Mr. Gold," the child recited flawlessly before looking beseechingly towards his mother. "Can I play with it now?"

"After dinner," she replied. "I'm going to cook now, why don't you keep Mr. Gold company for me, yeah?"

Bae looked stricken at the prospect of being left alone with a stranger, but Belle just smiled at them both, ruffled her son's hair, and exited (presumably) to the kitchen.

The two of them stood alone staring at each other until the silence became awkward. Gold could honestly think of nothing to say that would interest the child. He wanted to know everything about him, but he couldn't even think of where to begin asking. Everything encompassed far, far too much.

"Are you dating my mom?" Bae finally interrupted his thoughts and Gold thought he might drop dead of an aneurysm then and there.

"No I'm actually...I'm not dating your mom," he managed to get out without sputtering too badly, before a different thought occurred to him. "Why? Does she bring boyfriends home often?"

Bae shrugged disinterestedly, his attention now once again focused on his present rather than the man who was apparently not making inroads with his mother.

"You're the first guy she's ever had over."

Gold's eyes shot involuntarily to the kitchen. Objectively, Belle French was a very attractive woman with her shiny hair, porcelain skin, and elfin features. From what he'd seen and his subtle inquiries into her life before approaching them he knew she was well educated, outgoing, and generally liked. The idea of her not dating anyone didn't seem to mesh with his own knowledge of the woman, although perhaps she was just more discreet than Bae's biological mother had been.

He'd been quiet too long again and had completely lost the boy's attention to a list of features on the box of the gaming system.

"Tell you what," Gold said conspiratorially, "why don't you give that a try and let me know how you like it. I'll just pop into the kitchen and see if your mom needs any help."

Bae seemed torn between pointing out that this stranger was in no way an authority figure and the overwhelming desire to play with his new toy.

"I'll tell her I said it was alright," Gold added and Bae didn't question him further, dashing up the stairs faster than Gold would have thought possible. It seemed his son was a natural athlete.

Miss French was stirring something on the stove absentmindedly as she read her phone, but she glanced up at him as he entered.

"So it went well then?" she said with a sympathetic smile.

"I told him he could go play his game," Gold sighed at his own self-defeat and sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. "I had absolutely no idea what to say to him. I want to know everything, but there was so much I just had no idea where to begin."

"He's ten," she said with a smirk. "Asking how school was is a good place to start."

"Does he like school?"

She shrugged.

"About as much as any kid his age. He likes science and history, hates math, and his language arts grades are getting better but he's still having trouble thanks to his dyslexia."

"He's dyslexic?"

"Oh," she seemed to suddenly realize who he was. "I'm sorry, of course you don't know. He was diagnosed a couple years ago. It's not too extreme, but reading and writing are still a bit of a challenge."

"Has he seen a specialist?"

"He has an IEP at school and that gets him extra help."

"Does he need to see a specialist?"

"Specialists are expensive," she said finally. "And he's doing well."

"Miss French," he said as seriously as he could. "He is my son. You're not alone anymore. If he needs something, just tell me and I'll get it for him."

She looked like she was about to argue with him, but shook her head strangely.

"I'm sorry," she replied. "I keep thinking of you as a stranger and not wanting to take advantage. You're right, though. I'm just not used to having anyone to go to about his problems."

"I hope you don't mind me asking this, but you do seem a bit young to have an adopted child his age."

"I'm a little older than I look," she chided. "But honestly? Bae was a complete accident."

"Yes, he has a history of that."

She looked at him in surprise and then broke out laughing. Her entire face changed, and it took her a moment to catch her breath.

"He apparently does," she said, wiping tears from her eyes. "Anyway, I was fresh out of college when my father died and left me his house and his florist. So I was living here alone and my friend Ruby called me one night panic stricken. See, Ruby is a social worker and Bae's mother just showed up at the hospital at 11 o'clock at night and handed the baby over to the triage nurse in the ER and said she didn't want him anymore. So Ruby needed a place for an infant but all her foster families were either full or couldn't be reached for an emergency placement and I was the only person she knew with enough space for a baby. How was I supposed to say no to something like that?"

"And they just let you have him?"

"No, not like that. It was only supposed to be a temporary placement – one night only. So here I am, twenty-three years old, my father has just died and now I have an infant who just will not stop crying. I didn't even have a crib, he only had a carseat and some diapers and formula Ruby brought over and that was it," she paused and he could see she was on the verge of tears at the memory but politely pretended not to notice as she swiped under her eyes before continuing. "I just couldn't get him to stop screaming and finally I couldn't take it anymore, it was four in the morning and I just was exhausted and I broke down and cried. So it was two of us sitting in my living room sobbing uncontrollably. And then finally he just...stopped. He stopped and looked at me and made this gurgling noise and then I wasn't crying because I was alone anymore and neither was he. I just kind of...fell in love."

She smiled shyly, staring down into her pan and checking it for doneness.

"We had some struggles with his birth mom after that, of course," she continued. "Turns out she wasn't quite as done as she thought she was, so that delayed things quite a bit. But in the end it all worked out, and by the time her rights were terminated he was four and had been with me the whole time. By then it was almost no trouble at all to get to keep him."

"Wait, so Milah came back for him?"

"Oh a few times, actually," Belle replied. He could tell this part still bothered her but she was trying very hard to aim for nonchalance. "Her and that boyfriend of hers...Killian something."

"Jones," he supplied. Killian Jones had been his wife's love as well as the reason given for the end of their marriage.

"Right," she said as though the name itself tasted bad. "Killian Jones. About once or twice a year they'd make noise about wanting visitation, then they'd start skipping visits and vanish off the face of the earth again. I was actually a little relieved when they got caught dealing. I know that the ultimate goal of the foster system is supposed to be keeping families together, but I was never in it for the foster system. I was only ever in it for Bae."

"Does he remember her?"

"Bits and pieces. He remembers not liking their visits, but he hasn't seen her since he was four years old. He broke his arm while visiting over there and wasn't allowed unsupervised visitation anymore. That's the last time he saw either of them."

Gold felt his blood pressure rising at the story of Bae being hurt under Jones' care. He'd never liked the man, and the thought of him laying a finger on his child...

"What happened with his arm?" he ground out. If Jones had touched Bae...

"Oh, nothing like that!" Belle exclaimed. "He was playing outside alone and Killian was inside getting high. Bae fell and hurt himself. A neighbor found him and tried to take him home, but nobody was answering the door so she called the police. It...wasn't ideal, but nobody ever laid a finger on him I can promise you that."

She eyed him for a moment, as though sensing he was trying calm himself down and then seemed to make a decision, pulling open a cupboard and removing two wine glasses. She took out a corkscrew, opened the bottle of wine he'd brought and poured both of them a decent sized glass.

"Here," she handed him one. "I think we could both use a drink."

"To co-parenting," he toasted and she smiled and accepted.

"So I answered your questions," she said. "Here's mine. What took you so long?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Why did it take you so long to find us? You're a clever man, Mr. Gold, and you obviously have resources at your disposal. You can't mean to tell me it took you ten years to find him."

"The short answer is that I didn't know to look," he explained. "I knew he was alive, but I assumed he was Jones' - Milah certainly acted like he was."

"I was under that impression as well," she admitted.

"At the time he was born, Milah was still using my address as her billing address for obvious reasons. I kept copies of all her documents during the divorce proceedings just in case. A few months ago I was cleaning out my attic and found the box. When I went through it to check for anything important, I realized that the baby had brown eyes," he paused to see if she would register the meaning of his statement before continuing. "I don't know how much you know about genetics, but Milah's eyes were grey and Jones' were blue. It would be nearly impossible for them to have a child with brown eyes."

"Perhaps she just had another lover?"

"Yes, that's where my mind went as well, but I counted backwards and nine and a half months before his birthday was, well, my birthday."

She laughed so hard at that wine nearly came out her nose.

"Oh God, that burns!" she exclaimed, grabbing a paper towel to cover her sneezes.

That was the moment when he realized he might not mind co-parenting with Belle French as his boy's mother.

"You should call me Arthur, by the way," he said once she had managed to collect herself and refilled both their glasses. "If we're going to both be his parents, you don't need to call me Mr. Gold."

She considered that for a moment.

"Yeah, you're right," she agreed. "You can call me Belle."