Anonymous said:

I'm not sure if this would be a full prompt, but I can see Gold wanting to take hundreds pictures of Bae while on vacation.

Anonymousnerdgirl said:

Adoption!prompt: Gold goes a bit crazy taking pictures of the family vacation.

Ctdg said:

a prompt for your adoption!verse if you're interested : they lose bae somewhere, i don't know maybe at the pier or a fair during a walk, and for the first time gold gets very angry with bae when finally they find hi,. sorry the bit of angst

He knew he was overdoing it, but Belle and Bae were being so patient with him he couldn't help snapping pictures of every little thing. He'd never had a family before, and though he had Bae's old photo albums thanks to Belle, there was something special about taking pictures of things that he'd have memories of.

He could see the weary patience in Belle's expression, and Bae was a kind enough boy to follow his mother's lead and pose in front of everything his father directed him towards. Belle even cheerfully took the camera from him on more than one occasion so that he and Bae could be in pictures together, or found strangers to hand it to so that he could have a few with all three of them. He made a mental note to figure out some way to thank her for not beating him over the head with the camera like he could tell she secretly wanted to every time he made them stop in front of yet another point of interest and smile so he could capture the moment on film.

It was the third day of their trip and so far they'd indulged him at the beach and the aquarium, and now they were indulging him at the pier.

"Hey Dad?" Bae finally said. "I'm going to go look at the stingrays, okay?"

Gold couldn't suppress the sheepish look at his face as his son wandered off to the edge of the pier to look down at the stingrays that were jumping out of the water and flapping through the air like they were attempting to fly before landing back in the ocean. He'd not really realized how much his son liked marine animals before this trip, but made a mental note of it for later. Maybe his son would like a fishtank.

He snapped a few pictures of Bae at the pier's edge, just in case. Belle rolled her eyes at him, but her patient smile took any sting out of the gesture.

"Come on," she said, taking his arm and steering him towards a nearby bench. "We can watch him from here. You probably should rest your leg, anyway."

She was right, of course. He'd been pushing himself far too hard with all the swimming and walking they'd been doing. He wouldn't admit to it, of course, but he had started popping the prescription painkillers his doctor had given him (and that he had stopped taking entirely years ago) just to go to sleep the last couple of nights. Maybe he'd not been as subtle about his knee as he thought he'd been.

"You know," she said when he failed to reply to her, "you won't forget everything just because you don't have a picture of it."

"It's not just that," he said with a sigh. "I've missed his entire life. I have ten years of photo albums that I'm not in, and ten years of memories that I don't have."

"You're not going to make up for all that in a two week vacation, either. There will be other albums, and other memories," she promised. "And you'll be in all of them."

"I just want to have something that's ours," he replied. "You and Bae...you're the only family I've got, you know."

She smiled at him thoughtfully before hooking her arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder. He wondered briefly how he'd become so used to Belle touching him. Nobody touched him. He'd been alone for ten years and he thought he was used to it, then one day he had walked into her house and suddenly he wasn't used to it anymore.

"You know, you're important to both of us," she said softly. "You're his father. He loves you."

He bit back the small twinge of disappointment at her reassurance that Bae loved him immediately after her proclamation that he was important to both of them. He wasn't sure where it had come from, but he was inclined to blame the damn hotel employees who kept assuming she was his wife. It made it damn hard to keep thinking about her platonically. He'd been a little afraid of this happening the moment he found out how good she was, but after her date with Michael Tillman he'd been congratulating himself on how very not jealous he had been of the other man. Of course, she'd been reluctant to even go on that date and had come home to spend the rest of the evening sitting on the sofa with him and their son – he realized now that might have been part of his easy acceptance.

He couldn't let himself fall for her, dammit. That was just simply not even an option. Belle was the mother of his son, and that was all. She was lovely and kind to him, of course he was fond of her. It was only natural, really, for him to develop feelings for her. The problem was, there was no way those feelings could ever amount to anything.

For one thing, she was completely out of his league. For another, pursuing any sort of romantic relationship with her would either end in marriage or, more likely, in his son being hurt – there was no third option. They were far too close for it to be a possibility, even if she did reciprocate; which she most certainly did not, or else she'd have been as upset as him by people thinking they were a couple.

It was like some sort of cruel joke. Rip a man's heart to pieces, leave him in solitude for a decade, and then offer him everything he could ever want in a family but force him to live apart from them and never be able to risk getting any closer. Life sure as hell had a strange sense of humor sometimes.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Belle's voice broke into his thoughts.

"I was just thinking," he searched desperately for an answer that wasn't the horrible truth. "I was just thinking about how strange fate is sometimes."

It was close enough to not being a lie, anyway.

"Yeah?" she lifted her head to look at him. "How so?"

"Well," he began, "what if I'd never found the box with his birth certificate in it? Or not seen the doctor's reports with his eye color listed? Or if Milah never lost custody? What if she'd left him at the hospital earlier in the day and your friend had been able to find a foster family for him? What if he'd had a different mother? Different parents? Would I still be here with you watching him?"

"Probably not," she agreed. "Luckily all those things went our way, isn't it?"

"I'd have tried to take him, you know," he said, momentarily unable to look at her. "That first day. I came to tell you I was taking him."

"What changed your mind?" she sounded somber, but not angry and he hated himself now for ever having contemplated fighting her in the first place.

"You fainted, and he came inside and saw you and he was so upset and so protective. He barely wanted me near you, and I remember thinking well, that's it, then. I lost my chance to have him because he'll always love her more." He took a deep breath before facing her. "Do you hate me?"

"Should I?"

"Probably," he said with a shrug.

"Well, I don't. I was nothing to you then but a name on a piece of paper and he was your son. You didn't owe me anything, and you ultimately didn't end up taking him. You've always tried to do what was best for him. If our positions had been reversed, I'd probably have done the same thing."

"Would you?"

"I think most anybody would have. You hear cases like ours all the time where everyone wants full custody and nobody ever stops to think about the child. I'm proud of how far we've come for him. It's not always easy, but I think Bae is happier than he's ever been before as a result. And you're a really good dad. I'm glad to have you here."

Gold was a little breathless at her easy absolution. He'd never planned to tell her that for fear of what she would think of him. He'd not wanted to risk putting so much distance between them, and yet he had told her and she had forgiven him immediately. More than forgiven him, she didn't seem to find him in need of her forgiveness. His heart felt like it might just stop altogether.

"I'm glad we're making this work, too," he finally replied. "I'm happy to know both of you, not just him."

He was pretty sure it was the closest he'd ever get to telling Belle that in his secret fantasies of a perfect family, she was always there – that she was the thing he tried the hardest never to let himself want. He'd been successful at hiding it for the most part, even from himself, but he wanted her just the same and this trip was only serving to reinforce how very much he did.

She smiled one of her half-smiles at him, almost as though she was reading his mind before she spoke.

"Why don't we get Bae and go find something horrible and deep fried for lunch? You can take a picture and everything."

"That sounds like a very good idea," he replied, grateful for her interruption to his thoughts. "And I will take several pictures."

He stood up slowly, his knee still paining him, and glanced around looking for Bae. Only his son wasn't standing at the railing anymore. Gold glanced around but didn't see him anywhere on the part of the pier they'd been sitting at. Belle seemed to realize what was wrong the exact second he did, her head whipping around as she scanned the crowd for signs of their child.

"Do you see Bae?" he asked her, even though he knew the answer before he asked.

"He was here a second ago," she said frantically. "He must have wandered away."

Right, wandered away. Gold clung to that thought, because if he wandered away he was still probably safe someplace. If he wandered away, it meant no one had snatched him away and that he hadn't fallen into the water.

"You look back where we've already been and I'm going to go try the other side of the boardwalk," she was suddenly in full on military commander mode, all sense of sweetness gone.

If anything, he was grateful for her cool head because he had completely frozen.

"He...he can swim, right?" Gold asked her timidly, looking around the barricade that blocked the tourists from the ocean.

"What?" it took her a second to catch up with him. "Oh, yeah. Of course. He's a great swimmer. And he'd have called for us if he fell."

He wasn't sure which one of them she was reassuring, but he was willing to cling to it like a lifeline.

"Go look for him, if you see a cop or a lifeguard, stop them and ask for help," she reminded him. "Call me as soon as you find him."

And with that, Belle dashed off to the side of the pier they hadn't yet visited. Gold was damn near frozen with terror, but he had to look. His son needed him to look for him. He finally got his legs working again and began going back the way they had come. Stopping at everyplace they had visited to ask if they'd seen a little boy alone. None of them had. He looked desperately for Bae, but also for a police officer or a lifeguard or anyone with any kind of authority who he could go to for assistance finding his child.

Bae could be anywhere, he could be with anyone. He could have lost him forever because they'd not been paying attention. Why hadn't they been paying attention? Had anything they'd said been important enough to lose their child over?

He was pushing himself too hard, his knee was killing him and it was all he could do to keep going, but Bae needed him and he couldn't miss this opportunity to be there for his son again. He couldn't, and he wouldn't. If they just found the boy safe and sound he'd never not be watching him again, he promised. He'd never take another risk like that again.

The phone ringing snapped him out of his self-recriminations and he fumbled getting it out of his pocket.

"Belle?" he said into the phone breathlessly.

"I found him," she said. "He's fine, we're going back to the bench now."

"I'll be right there," Gold felt all the terror and tension in him focus on one task – he had to see his son again and know that he was okay.

It took him longer to get back to the bench than it had taken him to walk through the pier in the first place, adrenaline no longer carrying him and his knee reminding him with every step that he'd nearly failed his son. Finally, though, he saw them and his legs just about went out from under him in relief. Belle was giving a stern look to a sheepish looking Bae, but when she saw him she gently pushed Bae over in his direction. Bae trotted over solemnly and reached his father just in time to prevent Gold from simply collapsing.

Gold dropped to his good knee, wrapping his arms tight around Bae. The boy accepted this reaction patiently, but after awhile began squirming until finally Gold released him.

"He walked away to follow the stingrays," Belle had appeared while he was focused on his son. "We already talked about how he needs to let someone know before he wanders off."

"I'm really sorry," Bae seemed near to crying at the realization that both his parents had been so worried about him. "I didn't want to interrupt and I didn't think I'd go so far away. I'm sorry, Dad."

"No, I'm not angry," Gold reassured him. "I was just so worried about you, Bae."

He pulled his son into another tight hug, and this time Bae wrapped his arms back around him and buried his face in his neck. He felt a slight dampness there and realized that Bae was crying. That set Gold crying, too, and next thing he knew Belle was knelt down next to them, her arms draped around both their shoulders in an awkward hug as she mumbled little shushing noises at both of them.

He wasn't quite sure how long they sat like that, but eventually the moment was over. Gold and Bae both pretending like they hadn't just been crying on the other one and Belle petting both their hair comfortingly.

"Now, how about lunch?" she broke the silence.

"Yes," he agreed, clearing his throat. "I think before that little scare someone said something about deep fried?"

"I remember the same thing," Belle replied, offering her hand to help him up and he accepted with a grimace. "I think after this little adventure, whatever it is should also be on a stick."

"Deep fried and on a stick it is," Gold said, patting Bae's head gently one more time just to reassure himself that the boy was really fine and hadn't been lost forever. "How does that sound, Bae?"

"Can we get funnel cake, too?" the boy asked quietly, as though afraid of being rebuked again.

"Funnel cake sounds like a marvelous idea," Gold replied. "Come on, let's go find a stand."

Bae was careful to remain in view the rest of the day, and Belle stuck close to Gold's side (and always next to his bad leg) until they returned to the hotel after a feast of corn dogs, french fries, lemonade, and funnel cake. It was only once they were safely ensconced in the safety of the room and he could finally be by himself for a moment that he let himself accept he idea that he'd damn near lost his son – his entire family – with nothing to show for it but photos and an empty heart.