A/N: I am not a police officer and have never taken any courses whatsoever in their processes. I did what research I could online concerning missing children, but mostly try to keep to some basic generalities in this fic to avoid being too unrealistic. Hopefully no one holds it against me!

Some more darkness in this chapter, but what's that old saying about it being darkest before the dawn? We're getting there, guys, I promise.

The next few weeks passed in the closest thing to contentment Gold had felt in ages. Twice a week, he made his way to the library where Belle would have a stack of books waiting for him at what he'd come to think of as their table. Some needed their bindings resewn, others had stains to be worked out, a few just needed a bit of loving care to have them looking their best again, and all of them demanded the whole of Gold's attention—because they mattered to Belle. She loved these books, and it made her smile so brightly whenever he was able to restore another one to its former glory, and more often than he'd ever have dreamed, Gold found himself falling to sleep with thoughts—not of the gun downstairs—but of glue and thread and the myriad of uses lemon could have on old paper.

Every morning, even on the days he wasn't going to visit the library, he would find himself looking up from his usual mindless tread to the shop, his eyes searching for—and finding—Belle as she unlocked the library. She always had a smile or a wave for him; once, she even crossed the street and gave him a hot cup of tea she swore she'd ordered accidentally. Gold had nursed the drink to last him the whole day, and even when it grew cold, he curled his hands around it and felt his heart warm.

But then November hit. November. It used to be his favorite month. It was the month his son was born. The month Bae was first placed into his father's arms and Gold felt every day of his miserable life worth it just to look down into Baelfire's eyes. Later, when Milah left, when divorce papers turned into vicious custody battles, November was the one month Bae vehemently insisted he spend entirely with his papa. Four weeks of nothing but time with his son. Gold had lived for November, once upon a time.

That was a long time ago, though.

Now, November was only another reminder that his son was gone. Gold woke up November 1st with a lump already choking him, one that made it impossible for him to swallow his coffee and toast. No matter. He never ate much in November, not when thoughts of his boy were so prevalent.

And this year was the worst of all.

This year, Bae was turning eighteen.

Eighteen. The pivotal year for missing children cases. At eighteen years of age, Bae was no longer a minor, and his case could easily slip through the cracks, never to be opened again.

"That's not going to happen," David insisted, a week before Bae's birthday, when Gold bit the bullet and made the call. "There was enough evidence of foul play that the case will be left open. He's not a runaway, Mr. Gold, and he's never been classed as such. We're not going to stop looking for him."

"Then why haven't we found anything?" Gold bit out. The phone was clutched so tightly in his hand that he thought it might crack any second. "It's been over five years!"

"I know," David said, so quietly that Gold's anger nearly melted into fear-tinged sorrow. "I'm sorry. I'm leaving for Boston tomorrow. I'll give your number to Phillip, okay?"

It was too little. Far too little. But Gold had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on private investigators, bribes, and mercenaries and come up with nothing. What did he have to lose by David doing enough to let himself sleep at night, his own daughter safe and sound in her bedroom above him?

"Thank you," he made himself say, in deference to the memory of this man's blood that had stained his hands and the broken nose David had never once complained about in public.

But it still wasn't enough. That night, Gold couldn't even open the photo album, unable to bear the blame he'd see staring back at him from the frozen eyes of his son.

"You okay?" Belle asked him one evening.

Gold roused enough to realize that he'd barely opened the first book on her seemingly endless stack of damaged tomes. "Yes," he said.

Pausing in her shelving—a graceful dance that seemed second-nature to her and often had him fighting not to stare—she sat next to him at the table. "If you're not feeling well, we can save these for another day."

"I'm fine."

She nodded, but she didn't get up and she didn't speak.

"Really, I'm fine," he said. He stared blankly at the book laying open before him. Logically, he knew something had to be wrong with it. Why else would she have left it out for him? But his vision was blurry and he couldn't make himself focus long enough to detect whether it was a stain or a torn binding that he should be attending to.

"How's the third Redwall book going?" she asked.

Gold's shoulders stiffened. He felt a line of tension banding around his temples. "I…I can't get into it."

"Really?" Belle tilted her head. "I actually thought Mattimeo was better than Mossflower. The villain was more engaging, and when Matthias's son was kidnapped, I felt so awful for his father, having to go after him and try to rescue—"

"I just haven't had time to read," he interrupted, the blood rushing in his ears. "It's a busy time of year for me. And reading's not always high on my list of priorities."

"Right." Belle's tone was subdued. Though he didn't dare look over at her, he suspected she wouldn't be looking back at him anyway.

Guilt was an uncomfortably familiar emotion, sinking stones into the pit of his stomach.

But Belle was a stronger, better person than him, and she rallied quickly. "Do you mind if I ask…" She leaned forward, as if she wanted him to look at her, but Gold couldn't. His muscles had all seized up and his mind was fixated on the fact that a fictional mouse was probably going to be able to save his kidnapped son while he himself had been able to do nothing for his own boy.

"What is it about Redwall that you like so much?" she asked. "Don't get me wrong, they're cute books and have a lot to recommend them, but they are on the simpler side of things. Everything's always presented as so black and white—these animals are evil, those are good, and they're always going to fight. The heroes always choose the right in the end, and the villains may sometimes see the error of their ways, but they always reap the consequences of their sins. It's just… I never would have guessed you'd have the patience for them, let alone love them."

Was that what Bae had liked so much about that first novel? Had he longed for a simpler world? A clear-cut, black-and-white place where his papa wasn't just the monster of Storybrooke and his mother actually cared about him beyond the child support checks?

It struck Gold all over again, so suddenly that he gasped, that he'd never know. His son had been missing for over five years. He was about to legally be a man—and Gold would probably never see him again. Never see what he looked like all grown up. Never reminisce with him over those idealistic books he'd liked as a child on the cusp of becoming a teenager. Never look over to his son and find a man staring back at him, probably taller than him, definitely braver than him.

"Rumplestiltskin?"

Startling at the sound of his name, Gold accidentally met Belle's eyes. She was so beautiful, even here in the fluorescent lighting made dim by the overpacked bookcases on every side. She was so kind, and sweet, and patient—everything he didn't deserve.

"The idea of a simpler world can have a powerful allure," he said hoarsely. "Villains don't deserve happy endings so they don't get one. Heroes fight for what they love so they're able to protect their families. In the real world…it's all muddied up, so who's to say that if something bad happens, it's not just an accident rather than your own just rewards?"

"You don't like the uncertainty?"

"No." Gold snorted lightly. "Personally, I can only profit from a world where villains get away with their crimes and good things happen to the undeserving. But…"

But Bae deserved a world where he'd be spared the sins of his father. Bae deserved to live in a storybook reality that ensured his heroism would see him delivered to a happily ever after.

"I'm sorry," Gold said abruptly. He closed the book he still couldn't have described even with a gun to his head—he could test that theory later tonight, actually—and collected his cane so he could stand. "I shouldn't have come tonight. I'm not helping you at all."

"No, it's okay!" Belle stood with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he almost thought he saw her reaching a hand toward him, but when he turned his head, she was only standing there, her hands hanging at her sides. "You don't have to go. Sometimes it's nice just to talk."

She was lonely, he suddenly remembered.

But his hands were empty. Too empty. And there was only a week before his baby turned into an adult—if he were still alive at all.

"I'm sorry," he said again, and he left.

Ran away.

It was what he was best at, after all. And at least this time, he was saving Belle from being around him as the darkness closed in on him.

By the time he made it home, his ankle screaming, his hands sweaty, his breathing staggered, the most he could do to keep himself from the gun waiting in the closed drawer was to pace up and down the entryway, the library's copy of Mattimeo in one hand and his cane in the other.

"Oh, Bae," he whispered. "Bae, I miss you. I wish you were here."

When he tried to read, the words swam in front of his eyes. Not that it mattered. Matthias the Mouse would save his son, Gold knew, and they would live happily ever after, and the series would continue, and Gold would read them because he had nothing left of his son, and with every new happy ending, he would realize anew how badly he'd failed his son.

Because Gold was a villain. He had to be. It was the reason his son was taken from him. Why no one could find him. Why the police continued to find nothing. Gold was so much of a failure, so much of a coward, that even in a muddied, less-than-ideal world, his fate bled over onto his undeserving son.

It was all Gold's fault.

He should have known something was wrong. He should have realized immediately, no matter what the authorities said, that Milah would never just run away with Bae—she'd never risk Gold's checks not being able to find her—that this was more than just a mother fleeing with her son to keep him away from his father. He should have known, despite the grisly remains of the car where Milah and her lover had burned along the curve of a slippery highway, that his son wasn't dead. That he was still out there. He shouldn't have needed the lack of remains, and then, eventually, the belongings found in that Blue Star Wish Foundation warehouse, to convince his father's heart that his boy was still alive, lost, needing him.

He should be able to find him, even now, with all the resources and money and power that were less than useless.

Gold didn't touch the gun even once that night. It was too easy an escape. Too quick an end.

He didn't deserve it.

A snowstorm rolled in the next evening, covering all of Storybrooke in a thick white blanket so cold Gold didn't even bother doing more than opening his front door and then closing it again on the stark vista that greeted him. A phone-call to Dove and then his housekeeper were all he needed to leave him free to spend the next several days—or weeks—holed up in his house.

At some point, Gold found himself in the kitchen. His housekeeper always left pre-cooked meals in his refrigerator, and he supposed he'd come in for one of those, but gradually, he became aware that he was standing at his back door, staring out into the yard. It was completely fenced, but there was a gate at the back of the property that led out to Maine's woods.

The cold had made intricate frost designs along the corners of the glass in the door, and Gold thought they looked beautiful. Like rainbows sparkling in the fog, the frost scattered sunlight in shimmers that nearly blinded him. His hand—empty and aching for hold of something small and useful—lifted to the doorknob. He'd dressed in a suit this morning, more out of habit than anything, and surely, if he only stepped outside, he'd be warm enough to take in deep breaths of the ice-tinged air.

When Gold blinked and breathed, he realized that he was outside. Snowflakes fell to melt in his hair. The cold seemed a tangible thing, sitting in his mouth, trickling down his throat, icing intricate designs over his lungs.

Bae used to love the snow.

Gold closed his eyes lest he give in to the shadow-memories of his boy in the yard, lobbing snowballs his way, hiding under snowdrifts and ambushing him in the soft snow, threatening him into making snow angels with him and never letting his papa get away with calling his own creations snow demons.

Here, in this very yard that Gold was trudging through, his cane lost somewhere behind him, his son had laughed. Had played. Had pulled his father down and into him, all laughter and rosy cheeks and invitations to play.

The phantom Bae only hammered in just how alone Gold was now.

Something under the snow caught Gold's left foot and he found himself on his knees in the snow, his hands clenched so tightly over handfuls of the frozen moisture that steam actually lifted from his fists. His mouth was gaped open, as if he meant to scream, but no sound emerged.

Was Bae cold, wherever he was, shivering and curled up into a tight ball? Did he remember the snowball fights he'd shared with his papa? The thick, dark cocoa Gold would melt into heated milk to warm them up? The way they'd cuddle together on the couch and read books together?

Did his son remember him at all?

The gun was too quick an escape, but just then, staring at the gate that led toward the woods, realizing anew just how heavy this snowfall was, Gold thought how easy it would be to slip into the trees. He could follow the phantom laugh and the shadow footsteps of his lost boy until the night fell, the darkness claimed him, and the snow hid all traces of him.

He could disappear as easily and completely as his boy had.

It would be only fitting, wouldn't it? To vanish into thin air. To disappear so completely that no one would think to look for him until spring. To share in his son's tragic fate.

"You can't," he whispered to himself. "You can't."

He hadn't wrapped Bae's gift yet. It was upstairs, sitting on his bed, in a box, the wrapping paper pulled out of the hallway closet and left leaned up against the coffee table in the living room. He'd meant to use the yarn his boy had picked out—on some unremarkable trip to a hobby store during one of their precious shared weekends—to tie a bow around the wrapped present.

And Bae's birthday was only six days away.

Gold couldn't miss it.

He wouldn't. Not another one.

Struggling to his feet, Gold turned away from the gate and headed inside, scooping up his frozen cane as he went.

It took nearly three days before he thought to call Belle and let her know he wouldn't be in at his usual time. Though she'd probably already guessed, considering the entire town had nearly shut down, still Gold didn't want her to wait for him in the drafty library rather than snuggling up in her little apartment to read and enjoy herself.

Only, he didn't know her phone number.

It was the flyer, in the end, that saved him. Under Belle's name, there was a number, and it took Gold only four or five tries before he could dial it. Rather than her own phone, it rang the library's, but Gold was actually relieved by that. Calling her personally seemed a bit too forward—something beyond the acceptable relationship of volunteer and librarian.

Of course, he'd promised to try being her friend.

After an interminable wait, the library answering machine clicked on. Gold left a short, succinct message that he wouldn't be able to stop by for the immediate future and hung up with an air of relief.

If he also felt a little disappointed that Belle hadn't answered, well, that was neither here nor there. After the way he'd stalked away from her the other night, she probably didn't want to talk to him anyway. In fact, she'd probably be relieved that he wouldn't be bothering her for a while.

Gold tucked the flyer away again in his little book and headed downstairs. He had a spinning wheel he hadn't used in far too long calling his name. It would pass the time—and lessen the emptiness in his hands.

Bae's birthday came and passed. Gold left his present out the whole day, wrapped and waiting for his son's arrival, until the clock rang midnight, and then he made his monthly trek upstairs to the door so firmly kept closed. Not even the housekeeper stepped foot inside so there was a layer of dust over everything.

Keeping his mind firmly set in neutral, Gold opened the window, heedless of the cold night air wafting in, set the present down atop the bed, and then rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and began to clean. First, he dusted the surfaces, wiping them down until they gleamed: the desk with Bae's papers all arranged in their folders. The shelves where his toys were still placed as haphazardly as he'd left them. The slanted table where Bae had sketched and drawn. He'd just barely decided to try his hand at painting when he'd… Well, he hadn't gotten the chance yet, but Gold still dusted the tops of all the paints he'd bought for him before he'd known his son wouldn't be coming for another week's visit. They were all dried out, he could tell, but he left them as they were.

He moved on to fluffing out the few stuffed animals his son had kept, then shifted the present to the desk and stripped the bed. In the closet across the hall, he kept several more sets of bedding, and in place of the sheets patterned with lightning bolts, he chose out a set striped in red and gray. The closet required little of him since the door was kept closed, but Gold still took his time straightening the clothes on their hangers and tweaking the pile of presents kept on the floor.

His chest was tight, his heart a knot of rubber bands, pulling painfully at scars that radiated in every direction, by the time Gold scooped up this year's present and added it to the pile. The first year, he'd already been shopping for Bae, so there were a whole handful of gifts all ready and waiting. The next year, he'd still been hopeful, so that layer nearly matched the first. The third year…well, that had been after the terrible day Bae's shawl had been returned to him, so there were only three packages waiting. The next two years, he'd only bought one present each. And this year…this year, he'd restrained himself yet again.

If Bae were here, he'd have gotten him a razer and shaving cream. He'd have picked him out his first adult suit and selected an array of ties. He'd have made a big deal of this milestone in his son's life.

But Bae wasn't here.

So Gold placed the single brightly wrapped box atop the others and closed the closet door on all of them.

A few last details—polishing the wooden bedframe and desk, closing and then washing the window, plugging in a new air-freshener—and his self-imposed task was done for the month.

With the stripped bedding in the hall, Gold stood motionless in the middle of the room. He could still remember those first months, when he'd crawled in here night after night to curl up in a ball on his son's bed, breathing in the scent of his baby, staining the pillowcases, the blankets, the carpet, with his own tears and snot and desperate grief. This was where he'd first held the gun in his hand and contemplated ending it all.

Slowly, every movement as efficient as he could make it, Gold stepped out of Bae's bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Another year down. Another checkmark in his little book.

The roads were open, the snow melted somewhat, the clouds moving westward, when David called him. Gold had made it to his shop and was pretending to go over the ledger Dove had left out on the counter for him, so he nearly didn't even answer the phone.

But distractions were always welcome, and Gold flipped his phone open and answered with his usual brusque "Hello." He regretted it nearly immediately.

"Phillip doesn't have anything on Baelfire," David eventually got around to saying, and while Gold was still reeling from the double-blow of hearing his son's name spoken aloud and having the last tiny splinter of hope he'd had seared to nothing, he said, "But he did have something on Jones."

Jones.

Fury was a red-hot blaze in Gold's chest. Jones, Milah's lover, prone to eyeliner, lounging against any nearby wall or doorway, and taunting Gold with every deficiency he and Milah both saw in him. Jones, who'd had the gall to call himself Bae's stepfather and boasted that he'd obviously be the one to teach the boy sports and women and driving.

Jones, who'd died in a car accident with Milah, driving too quickly along a cliffside road. His skeleton had been recognizable only by his dental records and the prosthetic hand he'd worn. His only saving grace that Gold could think of was the fact that Bae had not, in fact, as they'd first believed, been in the car with them. Though no one knew where he'd been instead.

"What about him?" Gold gritted when he could be sure he wouldn't chip a tooth.

"Phillip picked up one of Jones's associates a couple months ago, some guy called William Smee, and according to him, he and Jones both used to work for Pan Industries. That's a front for—"

"I know what it is."

Gold couldn't even recognize his own voice. He was awash in memories of a lifetime ago.

"You do?" David asked, clearly surprised.

How much more surprised would he be to know that Gold had grown up in the very shadow of Pan Industries, better known as the Neverland Gang? One of the dirtiest, most widespread crime rings on the eastern seaboard, imported from Scotland—and headed by Gold's own father.

Not that Malcolm had ever claimed Gold as his. He'd thrown him away as fast as possible and never looked for him again. And after a while, Gold hadn't looked either.

"Jones was working for Pan?" he asked.

"That's what Smee said. If you really know what Pan Industries is, then you know that Neverland runs a huge child trafficking ring. If they—"

"You think that pirate sold my boy into slavery?" Gold demanded.

"We…we can't know that for sure. But it gives us a new angle, all right? We can go back to—"

"I can do you better than that," Gold said. He gripped his cane in one hand, the phone in the other, and vowed to himself that his father wouldn't get away with this.

All this time, Gold had been more than happy to forget that period of his life entirely. He'd never told anyone anything about the gang that had alternately raised him and thrown him away, which one they did depending on the day. Maybe, he couldn't help but think, there'd always been a little bit of that lonely boy inside him, desperate to win his father's love, or at least attention, that had kept his mouth shut.

But if Malcolm had dared go after Bae…if his father or any of the Lost Boys had touched a single hair on his boy's head…then this was war.

And Gold didn't lose, not anymore. Not when it was his son at stake. To save Bae, Gold would burn the whole world down, and he'd start the fire with the spark of his father's blackening bones.

"Are you still in Boston?" Gold asked David. "I'll meet you there. You and Prince are both going to want to know what I have to tell you."