Chapter 2

Gold didn't go to the library the next day. For all his plans, he…was just too tired. His leg hurt, and he hadn't slept, so afraid he'd wake up to find himself in the hall with the gun in his hand, and he was still exhausted from his conversation the evening before. So he just…didn't go. He stayed in his shop all day and untangled a necklace, polished some silver, reset a brooch, and priced a detailed lamp. He'd have fixed the pocket watch too, but the light faded and it grew too late.

Once outside his shop, his step checked. He glanced in Granny's direction. A spare thought occurred to him—nearly the first time in eternities he'd wondered about anything outside of Bae and the search for him—that perhaps the librarian ate there every evening.

But his first step in that direction made his ankle twinge with a familiar warning, and Gold turned to walk home instead. With his mind fixated on the hot bath he needed, he walked through the hallway without pausing, ate his food without tasting it, and headed upstairs where the steam in the bathroom nearly put him to sleep. It was a normal enough day—right down to the fact that in the fogged-up mirror, looking into his old eyes, a razor near at hand, he found himself thinking that a slice could do more slowly what a bullet did in a second.

His hand shaking, Gold knocked the razor aside and fled into the bedroom.

His little book was starting to fall apart. Gold let it fall open to its familiar bookmark. He brushed his fingers over the invisible name.

"I'm trying, Bae," he whispered to the picture.

And then he made his newest tally mark. Which meant he couldn't help but stare at the checklist he'd made for himself on the opposite page.

"Go outside," he made himself say out loud. Sometimes he went days without talking so that when he did try to speak, it was hard. Perhaps he should start practicing. Start speaking to himself and really give into the rumors of madness that preceded him through town.

Well. He did go outside every day, walking to and from his shop, but this seemed like it should be something more. Like noticing the rain. He hadn't done that today.

"Talk to someone." He left off the every day. This was a checklist, and one he was working on, not simply accomplishing once and then moving on. A gradual process. He'd get there.

He had to.

"For Bae," he whispered.

Tonight, he left the last two points unread. They were beyond his means, and more failure piled on top of the rest of his life wouldn't help anything.

Taking a deep breath, Gold closed the little book and stashed it safely away in its spot. He'd go to the library tomorrow. He'd give young Miss French her umbrella back. And maybe…maybe she'd say something to make him notice a bit of beauty left in the world.

The library doors were thick and heavy and it took Gold three tries, five minutes, a silent pep talk, and the sidelong stare of a passerby to get him to pull one open and walk inside. The interior would have been dark if it weren't for the narrow windows and clever lighting Miss French had arranged, but there was still the sense that, once past the circulation desk, it would be easy to get lost in the winding stacks.

There was no bell to ring above this door, but the librarian seemed aware of his entrance regardless. He could hear her heels tapping toward him, and a sudden burst of panic made him want to toss the umbrella atop her desk and flee before she came around the corner.

For Bae, he thought, which paused him just long enough for Belle to come into sight—and for her bright smile to freeze him in place.

"Hey!" she said. "Twice in one week—this is a treat! Good morning, Mr. Gold. Or is it noon now?"

Words seemed to come so easily to her, and Gold was utterly grateful.

"Just noon now," he said. "I thought I'd return this to you. Thank you for its loan."

"Oh." She blinked at the umbrella he offered, and belatedly, he realized he should have stepped forward, should have placed it down, should have done anything but stood there like a statue while she had to come around the counter to gently take it from him. "You didn't have to make a special trip just for this."

His throat closed up.

Her smile returned as she glanced up at him. "But thank you. It's supposed to rain again this weekend, I heard. We'll have a wet fall, I suppose."

"Yes." He twitched his lips, but it had been so long since he'd smiled, he knew it probably more closely resembled a grimace. Or a snarl. "Well. Good for business, isn't it?" When she looked a bit confused, he added, "Don't most people love to curl up with a book when it rains?"

Her laugh was reward enough for the twist of nervousness currently making his stomach roil. "Yes, they do. Please tell me you're here to pick out a book or two for yourself! It never hurts to be prepared, does it?"

His hands were sweating. His heart was fluttering away in his throat. His nerves were making him feel vaguely nauseous. It wasn't an altogether pleasant sensation, but just then, with her hopeful look intent on him, Gold could no more tear himself from this spot than he could throw away that gun in his entryway cabinet.

"You've convinced me," he said, and basked in the glow of her smile. Unlike the sun, it didn't feel like a harsh spotlight, or the glare of an interrogator's lamp. It was warm, and gentle, just like the librarian herself. "What would you recommend?"

"You used to enjoy mysteries, didn't you?" she asked. If it weren't for the fact that he was suddenly inundated with memories of whole stacks of mystery novels, true crime accounts, police procedurals, and lawbooks, all devoured in those first couple years of searching for his son, Gold would have balked at the smooth, easy, amazing way Belle grabbed his hand to pull him deeper into her library. But as it was, he barely noticed, his eyes burning with the tears he'd refused to shed back then, so determined that he'd find his son no matter what it took.

But that was before the police had told him they'd found Bae's belongings in a warehouse owned by a shell company owned by another shell company owned by the Blue Star Wish Foundation—a front for arranging illegal adoptions of often kidnapped children to desperate people willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to be a parent. That was before he'd lost all composure, all hope, all dignity, and any purpose but one.

"Mr. Gold?"

He blinked and realized three things in rapid succession. One, Belle was watching him with concern evident in those eyes that shone too blue even in fluorescent light. Two, his nerves had been incinerated by the painful reminder of what really mattered. And three, the pretty librarian was holding his hand.

She. Was holding. His. Hand.

Gold stared down at the space where his palm met hers, where her fingers curved around the side of his hand, where her fingertips rested, so lightly, against the jutting bone of his wrist. She wasn't restraining him. She wasn't holding him back. She wasn't throwing him away from her. She…was just holding him. His hand. Like it was easy. Like she wanted to. Like this simple, kind touch wasn't revolutionary enough to rattle his world to its very foundations.

There were spots growing at the edges of his vision, but that was probably because he wasn't breathing. A long inhale, a shaky exhale, and finally he could rip his eyes from their—joined—hands to look up into Belle's worried face.

"I…I've lost my taste for them," he said.

Her brow furrowed—but she didn't let go.

"Mysteries," he clarified. "I don't care for them anymore."

"Okay," she said agreeably. "Are you more into fantasy then?"

He thought he probably was. Every night, he told himself his son was still out there. Every morning, waking to another long day that stretched into forever, he imagined Bae still alive, okay, coming back to his papa. And in this moment, with his clammy hand warmed in hers, Gold was more attracted to fantasy than he'd ever been.

But false hope inevitably ended in disappointment all the more crushing for its inevitability. He was hanging by the thinnest thread already. Another crash would take Bae's father from him in a single gunshot.

"No," he said. "I don't think happy endings are for me."

"Hmm." With her free hand, Belle tapped her finger over her lips. "You are a complicated one, aren't you? All right, how about westerns?"

He'd enjoyed them once, what seemed a thousand years ago, when he was young and determined to make a mark on the world, so fiercely insistent that he'd rise above the broken ashes and fractured nightmares that were all his father had left to him. But then life had intervened. Milah had intervened, leaving him as the worthless nothing he was, though not before crushing his heart. Taking on the corrupt, fighting for his own corner of the world, hadn't seemed nearly as important with a small infant on his arm and in his soul, needing fed every two hours and crying if anyone but his papa picked him up.

"If I were younger," he said with what he hoped was a wry tone but emerged as a bitter edge.

Belle laughed and tugged him deeper into the library, winding away from fiction. "All right. How about nonfiction? You probably get enough of antiquing and restoring on the job. What about world history? All those complex interrelationships between countries or those surprisingly serendipitous moments that make truth stranger than fiction?"

She did make it sound appealing. But Gold couldn't even manage basic addition and subtraction with his ledger anymore. His mind was lost in a fog twenty-three hours of the day, and details like she was talking about would slip him by, leaving him lost and defeated.

"Something easier," he said, avoiding her eyes.

"I have just the thing," she announced, and then came to a halt.

Gold looked around. They'd passed nonfiction and were deep in a cozy room decorated in bright colors. Tiny chairs and tables congregated between the short stacks filled with tall, slender books.

It was the children's area.

Fury hazed his vision. How did she know? Why would she do this? He should have known better than to trust her kindness. There was always a barb, a trap, a poison, behind every nice act. But who told her? He would cast them out into the streets. He'd blacklist them from ever owning property. He'd—

The sight of a book he hadn't seen in years, hadn't thought of in half a decade, caught his attention and doused all his vitriol.

Redwall. There was more than one. In fact, there looked to be a good dozen or more. Small paperbacks, each cover illustrated with mice and foxes and badgers and other small woodland creatures.

Before he quite realized it, Gold's hand had tugged itself free of Belle's and he was holding the first book close, cradling it as if it were worth more than every single item in his shop put together.

Bae had loved this book. He'd burrowed into the couch near Gold and devoured it for nearly the entire last weekend Gold had custody of him—the last weekend Gold ever saw him. He'd been mere chapters away from the end when it had been time for him to go back to his mother's, and Gold had told him he could take the book with him and finish it. It had seemed like such a small thing. He'd had no idea that the last conversation he would ever have with his son would be the one where Bae chattered excitedly about how the final battle might go between the mice and the rats.

Gold wondered if he'd ever got to finish it. If his son was still in suspense over the ending of this children's book about talking animals fighting battles of good and evil. He wondered if Bae would have read the rest of the series and talked about every one of them with his papa. If his room, shut and locked away for three years now in that mausoleum doubling as a house, would have been filled with bookcases stuffed full with the rest of the books in this series had things only been different.

"Redwall?" Belle said from just behind him. She was so close he could smell the roses and honey in her hair. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you? I was thinking more of the classics—you know, like Tom Sawyer or what have you. But these books are great."

"I…I've heard of them. Or at least the first one."

"Have you?" Her eyes were so bright. She was so kind. So willing to talk to him even when he couldn't conjure up more than a handful of words. "Well, then of course you have to try it. Do you want the second one too in case the rain lasts a while?"

"No," he decided abruptly. "If I like this one, I'll come back."

"Well." Belle smiled at him, a different smile than he was used to, close-mouthed and slanted and showing just a hint of a dimple. "I hope you love it, then."

That night, Gold closed the shop early and walked home while it was still light out. He barely even glanced at the cabinet in the entryway, his hand already full of a small paperback. After a brief stop in the kitchen to brew a pot of tea—after digging through nearly all his cabinets to find the kettle, the teacup, and some sugar—Gold took a tray with the tea things and his library book out to his garden.

A long time ago, when there'd been a small boy at his elbow with too much energy to be cooped up around all the knick-knacks and antiques in the house, Gold had paid a fortune to landscape the backyard. Since he'd never thought to tell them not to keep coming back, he supposed the landscaper was still taking care of the green yard, the pretty flowers creeping up trellises along the sides of the house, the pathways winding between trees for a growing boy to climb.

Just in the middle, where Gold could sit and watch his son play under the shade of a tree, there was a bench. There was probably a cushion for it somewhere, maybe packed away in the shed, but for now, Gold pulled his coat closer and sat with his steaming tea and a book in his hands. He wouldn't be able to stay out for long—it was fall in Maine and the daylight hours were growing ever shorter—but he was outside.

The skies were still gray, the wind was biting, there was definitely going to be rain the next day, but all Gold could see was how happy his son had been reading this book.

How gently Belle had smiled when she stamped it out and handed it to him with a soft hope that he'd come back soon.

Flipping open the book to the first chapter, Gold—for the first time in over five years—shared something with his son.

The book, and his success, kept him buoyed up for three days. It might also, he thought as he stood in front of the animal shelter, have deceived him into slightly overestimating his readiness for the next item on his checklist.

Volunteer.

Easy enough. Gold loved dogs. He even liked cats, most of the time. What he didn't like was attention. And mess. And any situation that poked holes in the shroud of untouchable monster that kept everyone in this town from bothering him—from getting too close and seeing just how weak and breakable and unfearable he was.

Gold imagined walking into the animal shelter. Daniel Stabler's Jeep was parked in the employee space, so it would be the tall, friendly, handsome, athletic man who would greet him. Probably with shock. Then maybe suspicion. Definitely wariness. And then would come the long uncomprehending stare when Gold volunteered to help with the dogs.

Truthfully, Gold wasn't entirely sure what the procedure was for all this, but he imagined the well-adjusted, well-loved Mr. Stabler bursting out laughing at the thought of Gold being allowed near precious puppies and lonely dogs. He imagined, if he were allowed, cleaning kennels in his suit, being knocked-off-balance by an exuberant mutt, landing in mud, being laughed at—or worse, pitied—by everyone nearby.

Turning sharply on his good foot, Gold strode away from the animal shelter.

He'd figure something else out. Not today. Today, he was tired and beaten and cowed. But tomorrow…after another chapter of Redwall…after a brave good morning with the librarian who, he'd started noticing, was usually outside the library when he walked by to open his shop. Yes. Later.

Later, he'd figure out something else to do to help those less fortunate than himself.

It seemed like an act of serendipity every bit as unbelievable as those Belle talked about in history when he noticed the flyer. It wasn't even at the library. It was at Granny's, and he'd stopped in for a cup of tea to go now that he was growing used to the drink—beginning to crave the warmth it lent him—and while waiting for the paper cup to be capped, he found himself staring at a community board where the words Storybrooke Library immediately caught his eye.

Beneath those words that, to Gold, spelled out Belle French, there were two other words.

Volunteers welcome!

It seemed so obvious. Belle, for all she seemed as amazing as a force of nature, was one woman. One tiny woman with not enough hours in the day—unlike him, who had far too many—and a library was a community outreach, an unofficial classroom, an event supplier, and a functioning lending outlet all in one. Of course she couldn't do it by herself. Of course she would need help. And of course she couldn't pay them—and Mayor Mills doubtless saw no need to allocate extra expenses for the library she hadn't even wanted to open in the first place.

Gold bowed his head to let his hair hide his quick glance around the diner. Then, more quickly than he'd moved since being tackled by a bruised and bleeding policeman three years ago, Gold snaked out a hand and stole the flyer. It was tucked safely in his jacket by the time Ruby turned to hand him his tea. He left a generous tip behind and limped, quite single-mindedly, to his shop.

There, safe in his haven, hidden from the sun's gaping stare, Gold smoothed the creases in the flyer and reread the words. Hours flexible, come as possible, coordinate directly with Belle French, and, almost as an afterthought though he supposed it was the whole reason for this task being on his checklist, a way to give back to the community. To think of something besides his son and his own failures in protecting Bae.

He could do this. He already went to the library. Anyone who saw him there, if they bothered to look rather than hurrying by with their eyes averted, wouldn't immediately guess him to be volunteering. It was subtle, and closer to his comfort zone than the animal shelter…and Belle would be there. He wouldn't have to wait to go see her until he'd finished reading a book that his heart insisted on savoring each word of in case it had been Bae's favorite.

That night, Gold folded the flyer up as neatly as he could and tucked it into his little book. It made the book seem fuller, poking out of three of its sides, a backdrop for the tiny ends of Bae's infant hospital bracelet.

"I'm trying, Bae," he whispered to the photograph.

That night, he dreamed of an empty library filled with endless copies of Redwall—and the gunshot that echoed through the cavernous stacks.

"Hey!" Despite the heavy stack of books wobbling in her arms, Belle greeted him happily enough. "Did you finish Redwall, then, Mr. Gold?"

"I did." Reluctantly, almost grudgingly, he slid the small book across the counter to her.

Belle set down her burden and moved to stand right next to him, only the counter between them, as she checked the book in. "And how did you like it?" she asked.

"It…" He swallowed. "It was everything I hoped."

He didn't think he imagined the trace of surprise in her eyes even as she said, "Well, good! Would you like the second one?"

"Yes. But…" Gold squeezed his hand tight over his cane. His words were disappearing again. His throat was closing up. Should he have brought the flyer? Did she need proof that he wasn't stalking or harassing her, he just wanted to do something kind—something to get his mind off how many nights Bae might go to sleep hungry, how much he'd doubtless learned to hate the Papa who couldn't find him—and she'd asked for volunteers so she shouldn't laugh at him for thinking he could fulfill some sort of need somewhere.

"Why don't we walk back and get the sequel?" Belle asked quietly.

And they did. Each step farther from the windows, from any peering eyes, made that lump in his throat shrink just a bit. Belle made a few comments about books she'd just gotten in and one she was reading, and Gold wanted to listen to her, but her words floated by him like a cool stream. Like a wisp of steam rising from a hot cup of tea to soothe his throat and tickle his nose and relax his tension.

"Here we are. The second one. Though, you know, they're not written in chronological order, and most of them are set in different time periods of the abbey, so you can really read them in whatever order you'd like."

"I'll take this one," he said, and nearly crumpled with relief that he could actually get the words out.

"Was there something else?" Belle asked him. Her voice was hushed, her eyes open, her mouth so willing to smile—and though she wasn't holding his hand, he couldn't forget that she had.

"I…"

He couldn't.

What would she think of him? Why would she want him around her all the time? She was surely hoping for vibrant young women who'd laugh and encourage and tease her. Or perhaps—his heart stuttered—she was secretly hoping for a handsome young man with a love for books who found it easy to be kind and heroic, who was brave, who could actually save the things he loved.

Not for Gold. Old and broken before he was ever even an adult, and now mangled and twisted into something closer to a monster or an imp than a knight in shining armor.

"Just this," he said.

The sour taste of defeat accompanied him all the way back to her desk. Belle was talking again, her accent so beautiful, her manner so open, that Gold knew, he knew, she wouldn't laugh at him. She wouldn't scorn him.

But she'd be disappointed to end up with just him. And that would be so much worse.

"Are you sure there isn't anything else?" she asked as she slid the book over the counter to him.

Gold stared at the cover with its mouse holding the sword and shield. A tiny creature more suited to being snapped up by the dozen larger predators but who nonetheless chose to use what weapons his weak hands could hold to fight. Not to end everything. But to try.

"I saw you were looking for volunteers," he blurted. "I thought maybe…I could…"

Her smile was more blinding than any amount of polished armor ever could be, and her hand clasping his over the book made him think that maybe fantasies really did come true.

For the first time, he wondered if Bae would be proud of him.