Anonymous said:

on the vacation, a strange man starts hitting on Belle (much to her dismay) so Gold comes in and saves the day by pretending to be her boyfriend/fiancé/husband and later apologizes like crazy.

Anonymous said:

not sure if you are still taking prompts for your rumbelle adoption verse, but I figured I'll just throw it out there: bae telling gold he'd like it if belle was seeing someone

PLEASE NOTE: I am submitting back chapters of this story right now, and have quite a few prompts saved for future installments. Feel free to comment with prompts you want to see filled, but don't be surprised if they don't happen for awhile/if they've already happened and we just haven't gotten that far yet.

Gold was usually the first one awake in the mornings. He was a bit of an early riser by habit anyway, but since they'd been in the hotel he'd been sleeping even less than usual (he generally attributed this to his excitement over spending time with Belle and Bae). It was actually a fairly pleasant routine. He would order room service and spend the morning reading the paper. Belle and Bae would drift in at some point, although it varied as to who would wake up first, and they would make plans for the day. Judging from the late night they'd had, and the fact that she had stayed up extra late, he anticipated spending this morning with his son.

On entering the shared living area, though, he was surprised to find Belle already sitting at the table wearing a bathrobe and sipping on a mug of coffee. She didn't notice him right away, too focused on the book she'd been reading all week. He wasn't sure how to alert her to his presence without startling her, but he also didn't want her to think he'd been watching her. And, he realized, the longer he stood in the doorway thinking about it the creepier he was being. He finally decided to pull the door closed behind him as though he'd just walked through it.

"Good morning, Belle," he said as casually as possible.

Belle jumped a little, glancing up from her book at him with a strange look on her face.

"Good morning, Arthur," she replied, her gaze darting back to her novel.

"Did you sleep well? Sweet dreams?"

She made an odd choking noise and was he just imagining the scarlet blush that swept across her neck and the visible portion of her chest?

"I couldn't quite sleep, no," she replied. "Too much on my mind."

"Anything I should know about?"

No, he definitely wasn't imagining it – she was blushing.

"Nothing important," she replied. "Just excited to go to the city for the Fourth."

"Sick of the beach already?" he said teasingly.

"Oh God, no!" she replied. "I'm sorry, I'm just...it was a long night."

She said the last with an apologetic smile.

"Belle, I was teasing" he said. "Are you sure you're alright?"

She didn't answer right away and he didn't have the heart to force her to respond.

"How about we start over?" he offered.

"Please," she replied, sounding relieved.

He cleared his throat before speaking.

"Good morning, Belle, you look lovely this morning," he said in a slightly theatrical voice. "How's your book?"

"It is getting very sad," she replied. "But it's so well written I'm not sure if I can care."

"What book is it?" he asked. She held it up to show him the cover. "The Age of Innocence? You're reading Wharton on vacation?"

"It could be worse," she pointed out. "I could be reading Kate Chopin."

"Touche. Although you don't seem the sort to swim out into the ocean and not return. I don't think I've seen you go in past your shins yet."

"Maybe I have been spending a bit too much time in the sand," she conceded. "You just have no idea how much of a luxury it is for me to be able to read multiple chapters of the same book at a time. Usually I'm skimming on my phone while in line to pick him up from practice."

He wasn't quite sure what to say to that, he never was when she mentioned a sacrifice she'd made for motherhood. She didn't seem to resent Bae which would have been cause for concern, but he could tell that a part of her missed these little luxuries. He'd never had to sacrifice anything for another person in his entire life. He'd certainly never had to dedicate himself entirely to parenting like that. He wanted to ask her about it, to try to understand her reasons for giving up her twenties to raising a child, why she'd forgo her hobbies and interests like that. But she seemed strained today, and it wasn't the time for a heart to heart. The poor woman needed a nap, if anything, and he was on the verge of suggesting it when Bae's door opened and the boy emerged.

"Has the lady been up with breakfast yet?" he asked, coming over to sit at the table with his parents.

"No, I'm sorry sweetheart," Belle said. "I forgot to order it and then I think I distracted your dad."

"So no waffles?" Bae said, sounding disappointed.

Belle looked like she was on the verge of apologizing, but Gold decided to save her.

"I have an idea," he interjected. "Instead of having breakfast in the room why don't we put on our bathing suits and go get something at the diner on the pier? Then we can go swimming right afterward."

"Okay!" Bae sounded excited at the novelty of breakfast out. "I'll go put my suit on."

Breakfast ended up being a nice outing, Bae being in a particularly cheerful mood this morning which seemed to bring his mother out of some of her funk. Gold still had no idea what that had all been about, but he was relieved to see it passing seemingly as quickly as it had come. Belle wasn't generally prone to moodiness; if anything he would call her over laid back. When it came to their son, that was probably a good thing since he was very aware that he tended towards panic where Bae was concerned. In general, they struck a good balance.

She was still avoiding eye contact, though, which he found odd. He didn't think anything strange had happened at their dinner last night. Belle had always been prone to touching him since the day they first met – she was a physical person and he'd learned not to read too much into that – so it seemed odd that she might be acting strange over holding his hand and kissing his cheek. On the plus side, her strange behavior had left her absolutely fixated on their son. Usually, when he was around she would quietly defer to his need to pay attention to Bae and keep to herself. He hadn't ever gotten to see her when she was entirely absorbed in parenting before. It suited her, he thought. Her entire bearing changed when she was talking to her son even if it was just about the merits of syrup versus honey as a pancake topping. She seemed honestly delighted by everything he said or did, and Gold found he was content to watch them talk and tease.

After breakfast, the small family walked straight down to the beach. Belle once again laying out with Edith Wharton to keep her company while Bae dashed down to the surf. Gold followed his son at a slower pace, but soon they were ensconced hip-deep in the water playing a makeshift game involving splashing each other while simultaneously avoiding being splashed.

"Was last night a date?" Bae suddenly asked his father after a few minutes of playing.

"Why would you think that?"

"You guys were all dressed up and you went out alone," Bae pointed out. "And mom has only ever gone out like that the one time with Coach Tillman."

"No," Gold said. "It wasn't a date, son. Your mom and I are just friends. We're trying to get to know each other better so we can be better parents to you."

"What do you mean?"

"We both love you very much, Bae, but we don't know each other very well so it's kind of hard sometimes to know how to handle certain things like you staying over with me or me paying for you guys to do things. So we're trying to become better friends so we can handle those things easier. It's...kind of like dating, I guess, except there's no romance. We're not going to be together like that."

"Why not?" Bae asked innocently, and Gold wasn't sure he had a good answer.

"Because," he stalled, "our relationship with you has to be the most important thing and changing that could risk our ability to be a family for you."

Ha! That was a perfectly legitimate answer which completely side-stepped the fact that he was fairly sure he was completely smitten with her.

"But you're both lonely," Bae continued, "all the time. And you both love me and you get along together."

"There's more to relationships than that," Gold explained. "It takes a lot of work for two people to be together and it's always a risk. Neither one of us is willing to take a chance on your happiness."

Bae looked away for a moment and another thought occurred to Gold.

"Why? Do you want us to date?"

"Well," Bae bit his lip in a manner that so much resembled Belle that his father could hardly stand it. "Sort of. I just want Mom to be happy. I think she spends too much time alone and you're the only guy she really seems to like being with."

"Your mom makes her own choices," Gold reminded Bae. "If she wanted to spend time with other men, she would."

Bae didn't respond, looking pensively towards the beach where his mother still sat. Gold splashed a bit of water in the boy's face, and was rewarded with a grin as the child launched himself at his father. Gold let himself be tackled, dragging Bae underwater before resurfacing. Still, though, his thoughts remained on Belle.

"Do you think we should invite Mom to play?" Bae asked after another round of splashing and dunking left both of them soggy and sputtering.

"We can," Gold acceded. "In fact, how about I go get her?"

Bae nodded enthusiastically, letting Gold walk off towards her. She usually would see him as he approached, but this time she gave no sign. He was confused until he got a little closer and realized why. There was a younger man standing not three feet away from Belle and attempting to chat her up. Belle was intensely focused on her book in an effort to avoid being sucked into conversation, but to no avail.

"So what room are you staying in?" the man asked her. Belle ignored him as much as she could, but he asked again and again until she was forced to answer.

"Why on Earth would I want to tell you that?"

"Oh come on," he replied. "I'll show you a great time."

"I highly doubt that."

Gold's first instinct was to confront the other man directly and insist he leave her alone, but the slightly more rational part of his brain reminded him there was really no need for that. A small rearranging of the actual facts would have this guy running off like a rat fleeing a sinking ship.

It was really more fun than it should have been to drop down onto the towel next to Belle with no preamble and press a quick kiss to the top of her head. She startled, and looked at him with confusion but didn't say anything, even when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, darling," he said with a wink, "our son has requested your presence in the water."

"Has he now?" Belle replied, closing her book over a bookmark and tucking it into one of her beach bags. "Well who am I to reject an invitation from my two favorite guys?"

"I'll just...leave you to it, then," the other man yelped, scurrying away to find some greener pasture to harass.

"Sorry," Gold said once he was out of earshot. "You didn't seem to be enjoying him and I thought this was the best way to make him leave."

"Oh no," Belle replied. "Trust me, any time you want to interrupt a meat head college student hitting on me I don't care how old and married you want to make us sound I'll still be grateful."

"I may hold you to that," he teased. It really didn't bear thinking about how much fun it had been to give in to the illusion of being together. "Either way, Bae wanted to invite you to play with us."

She held his gaze for a moment before rising to her feet and offering a hand to help him up.

"I think I may just take you up on that offer," she said sweetly. "It's been too long since I kicked that kid's butt."