I forgot to say this on the previous chapter, but I will say this now to cover all chapters-I do not own the characters or any story that sounds similar to the Once Upon a Time show. :)

Chapter 2 Desperate Measures

Gold limped out to his car, and only once the door was securely shut he allowed his hands to shake a little. He could not believe what had just transpired. He was a man known for his ability to think through a transaction and be three steps ahead of everyone else involved. Things always went his way, whether the other party felt they had gotten their own way or not. Now he was worried. No matter his hopes and speculations on the subject, he really didn't think the same girl that had been the only person in the whole backwards town that had ever voluntarily waved, talked, or wished him a good morning, would be coming to stay with him, and he would see .day.

Everything had been business business, except for her. Through all those months of her bestowing her smiles and salutations, he had waited for her to come to him and ask him for something-wasn't that why anyone gave him any sort of time of day? And yet the moment never came. When they did turn into months, the weaker part of his soul even thought that he would be willing to at least hear her out for her trouble if she should come to him, and yet, she never approached him for anything other than a hello or good morning. She was certainly confusing-beautiful, young, but confusing, and he didn't like people that caught him off guard.

Then her father had come to him (he then wondered if this was what she had been buttering him up for all this time, but her attitude about it later caused him to believe that perhaps she had not, after all), desperation in his eyes as he pathetically told him about how lean the month of January had been-how they were barely able to buy groceries, and he insisted that February was always their biggest and best month. In fact, Mr. French was so certain that February would be so good a month that when Mr. Gold raised his eyebrows and coolly asked him how sure he was, he told him he would stake everything else if he would just give him a 'small' loan to help them buy inventory and a few things they desperately needed.

This had arrested his attention. Gold was observant-he had made it his business to find what made a person tick, what their weaknesses were. After a casual mention from Dove and his own observations, he had concluded that Mr. French was Belle's-Miss French's weakness. She coddled and catered to her much much older, very frail father, one foot in the grave it seemed. He could use their current predicament to solve a problem he had realized only days earlier.

He was lonely.

He didn't like to admit any weakness on his own part, though he knew internally there were many (just not public knowledge, thank goodness, he had made sure of that), but one night after he came home, his housekeeper having gone home hours earlier and Dove gone home to his own family, the quiet ate at his soul in a way that it hadn't done before. He wasn't a people person, by any stretch, but suddenly he hated the quiet walls, the annoying hum of the fridge echoing the loneliness of the place, the tv dinners he choked down because he hated cooking when it was just himself. He knew the sudden realization had something to do with the documents in his study drawer and maybe even something to do with a blue eyed girl that made him want to do more than just grunt, groan, or bark at people. He even felt, for a moment, that there was no purpose in his life anymore. He had acquired the whole town, basically, held more power, had more money than anyone in the town (probably county-maybe even state), but his financial success did nothing to help ease his loneliness, and no amount of money could make the documents in his study any less hopeless.

He needed to do something before he went mad from the quiet. He had lived alone for fourteen years, and in the space of months all those years crashed down upon him and he knew-he knew, something must be done. Always one for planning ahead, he started imagining how he would solve his problem.

The day that Mrs. Smith let him know she was leaving to go spend more time with her grandkids (the lady had been needing to quit for some time-the house was beginning to show the fact that she barely kept things surface clean. She was simply too old to be scrubbing, and no one else in town would work for him), was the day that plans started forming themselves into something concrete. It was half a plan anyway. The other half came when he saw the pathetic old man begging him for enough money to get through February. The dual thought of hating to see such a happy, sweet girl like Miss French go hungry, and the other, perhaps more cruel thought that she could be the solution to his problem, made him agree to Mr. French's request and hold him to his commitment that he would gamble his entire life for the assurance of being able to make back the money of the loan in question.

Ah yes, Miss French would do anything for her father-even work for the town monster, he was almost sure of it, perhaps not as sure as he thought, with his shaking hands grasping the wheel. It was the perfect plan-the house would not be so quiet anymore (he needn't speak to her any more than to bark instructions, but that was more than enough for him-he just needed some sort of sign of life letting him know that he was not the only one in that great house), and he might get his house cleaned, maybe, hopefully. That was the problem with forcing someone in a deal they weren't expecting, instead of going through the normal channels to get a housekeeper. She could be terrible at both cooking and cleaning. Ah well, he supposed he could handle it for a year.

And she had done it- she did accept the deal, yet on his drive back all he could do was imagine Miss French's eyes -they were both cold fire and desperation. He would get to see those same eyes every day. The only person in the entire town that had deigned to speak something other than desperate pleas or spit at him behind his back, would be in his house! Those expressive eyes would be in his house every day, and see him in his own home-his only fortress, his place of quiet solitude, every day. All of a sudden he wasn't so sure of his plan. She would see him. Really see him. He wasn't a nice man, and he certainly wasn't going to change so that the same eyes that had given him a few happy smiles would continue to do so. She would fulfill her part of the deal, and he would have what he wanted-and that was that.

…

Mr. Gold's shop had always intrigued Belle. She had never had a cause to go inside, but the items in the display window always seemed to coax her closer, trying to tell her their stories, if she would but come inside. Now she was at the door and she knew she would not be finding out any stories today, not even the reason why Mr. Gold suddenly needed a live-in housekeeper. It was all very confusing, and if she thought about it long enough, concerning, but she squared her shoulders and pinched her lips together in determination, desperate that Mr. Gold would not see any quivering or fear on her part. Her father needed this break, this second chance, despite his foolish gamble, and after everything that he had done for her his whole life, this was a way to finally do something good for him.

The bell on the door caused Belle to jump a little, but that suddenly vanquished at the sheer overwhelming number of items she saw in the shop. It was like a dragon's lair of hoarded treasure. She even smiled a little at the thought of Mr. Gold covered in scales, his shop a cave and he at the mouth of it, raving and blowing fire at anyone who got too close. Seeing the dragon in question enter through the curtain in the back had her smile vanish and her desperate attempt to stand a little taller as she addressed the fire breather.

'Ah, Miss French, come to finalize the selling of your soul?' He said it so straight faced, yet his eyes twinkled-twinkled!-with cruel mischief that she snorted, both amused and angry.

'Is that what I'm doing? It's just business, isn't it? At least for you, anyway. You apparently can't keep a housekeeper so you have to twist someone's arm to get one-so here I am' she rubbed her arm as if plagued with phantom pain. 'The twisting has been done' she smiled blankly, and Mr. Gold didn't seem to know what to do with her.

'So…' She began. 'The contract?'

'Yes, yes, come this way.' He collected himself and limped into the back room where he had been before. Belle followed, taking in all the objects while she was there. As upset as she was, as many tears as she had shed the night before, thinking of leaving her father alone most of the week, she was still a curious creature, and the place was crawling with things wanting to be explored and discovered.

'It would be nice to get this finished before tonight, don't you think?' Mr. Gold's eyebrows raised impatiently towards Belle as he flicked his arm towards where he wanted them to sit and that frightened her enough to ignore her surroundings and sit at the table offered. He handed her a stapled contract for her perusal and she began reading his list of demands.

There were the normal things she expected, like cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming floors. Then there were the things she noticed that were a bit ridiculous.

'Seven thirty in the morning to eight in the evening-that's more than twelve hours!' She looked up, trying to read him. His face was ever stoic-all that time she had tried to crack a little of his shell to see if there was some sort of human underneath, she had never been able to expose anything other than the stern, always put together person he portrayed.

'It's good to hear you can do simple math, hopefully you'll be competent enough to read a recipe when you make my dinner.' was his calm reply, showing no remorse that dividing twenty thousand dollars, and whatever they would save from not paying rent was nowhere near equaling out. Truth was, Belle realized, that he could still turn them out of the house and building, could still take away everything they owned, leaving them with nothing, and thus, Belle realized that she would have said yes to not even getting the one day break she saw she got.

'I keep odd hours, and if I come home at seven or eight instead of six, I would very much like to have supper ready for me.' Mr. Gold said, shrugging the words off as he said them.

'Alright.' Belle spoke simply. She was not one to be able to negotiate the terms here. She read on. 'It says here that I am to make up a grocery list when needed-am I not getting them for you too?'

'No, no, Dove will get them.'

She nodded her head, acknowledging the statement. 'And every Saturday, I get to go home?'

He nodded, his eyes never changing, never giving away any sort of emotion.

'As it says, there' he pointed to the particular paragraph, cautious not to touch her. 'You may even spend the night there, on that particular evening. As long as you are back at the house early the next morning.'

Her shoulders slackened slightly. It was the thing she worried most about with this arrangement. As much as her father worried about what would happen to her at Mr. Gold's, she worried what would happen to him while she was at Mr. Gold's. At least being able to see him weekly, she could monitor him, and worry over him, and hopefully make up for the time she was away. Her father had mourned the loss of her mother for years now, and after she had died, Belle had realized just how much her mother had done for the both of them. It had placed so many things on Belle's shoulders and now she worried and wondered how he would even eat while she was away, since he now relied so much on her.

She read on, but she saw nothing that was worth risking losing everything over, so eventually, she took the pen he had given her-and signed and dated them. It felt like signing and giving away her very freedom.

At least it was only for a year.

Author's Note: This ends what I have already typed and edited (I've started on chapter 3, but nowhere near finishing it), so it may be a few days before the next update.

I hope you enjoy this chapter, and if you do, let me know what you thought! Thank you for reading!