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raspberryhunterI think I won not_primetime! Of my three prompts, all of three of which I was kind of desperately yearning for, I got the one (DS9 - Kira and Garak, awesomeness, thank you so much!) that was secretly the one I wanted most (I know, not supposed to have favorites, and I did want all three very much, I just wanted that one more), I wrote one (a lot of my own prompt/issues just dovetailed so nicely with the prompt I received that it would have been difficult not to), and Bujold wrote me the third one by writing Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (spoilers) (well, except for Ekaterin, but I'm so happy right now I'm not going to hold it against her too much ;) ).
Anyway, the one I wrote! This fic was harder to write than any fic I have ever written (okay, fine, this is less than a year I've been doing this, but still), even though there were so many things going for it -- I loved the prompt (soooo happy to get a prompt that acknowledged the inequality in Belle/Rumpel, and I love the Emma-Gold interactions in canon, and honesty-in-interactions is one of my Things) and had a good time thinking about it. For some reason the fic just fought me every step of the way and went through an insane number of drafts. I'm not displeased with how it turned out, although I still feel like there's something in it that has remained resistant to my trying to hammer it into shape. I think a large part of it is the tension between a) I love shipping Gold because Carlyle has chemistry with everything, including inanimate objects, and b) there really needed to be (at least) one more level of honesty in there that this fic doesn't... quite... address. Though I, uh, may be working on that. YES. IT IS INDEED AN ADDICTION. I ADMIT IT.
Title: As on a Darkling Plain
Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Rating: PG
Characters: Emma Swan, Mr. Gold
Relationship: Emma Swan/Mr. Gold
Summary: Honesty isn't the best color on Mr. Gold; Emma's talent is finding people. Emma and Gold make a deal.
Notes: AU from "Desperate Souls"; spoilers for the first season of OUAT. Thanks to my betas Beatrice_Otter and ensconcedinya, who saved this fic from utter disaster.
jedibuttercup, thank you for a great prompt! I enjoyed writing this.
AO3 link here.
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Emma stalked into Mr. Gold's pawnshop, slamming the door behind her. "What," demanded Emma, thrusting the rag into Gold's face, "is this?"
Even through her anger, Emma was slightly amused to see that even Gold drew back a little at having something that smelled so foul right under his nose. He recovered quickly. "Deputy. Why would I have any idea what that is?"
Emma said, teeth gritted, "This is that sheep crap oil you I saw you messing with before. It was hidden near where they were doing all that construction work at City Hall. With torches and welders. And it's highly flammable, I hear. Could have brought the whole place down. Could have killed the Mayor. Maybe me, too, if I'd still been in the building."
Gold blinked, a surprised expression crossing his face so quickly Emma wasn't sure whether she had actually seen it. "How did you find it?"
"Ruby stopped in, looking for me. Lucky for me, as she found it. She must have a pretty sensitive nose -- I didn't smell anything, myself -- but she honed in on it immediately."
"Ah," said Gold, drawing out the word. "Ruby. Yes. I had not -- anticipated that she would be there. An oversight."
Emma scowled at him. "What are you up to?"
"Please, Deputy," Gold murmured. "How do you know I've done anything that you would object to?"
The man was impossible. "Gold, I'm not an idiot. I can tell you're avoiding the point."
"Don't you want to be a hero? Saving the Mayor from a fiery death? Don't you want to do that for your son? To win the race for the Sheriff position?"
Emma stared at him as the words sank in. "No. That is supremely messed up. Okay, no. No. For Henry, seriously? You remember the Mayor's his actual legal mom, right? And that you could have killed both of us? I don't want you to do this again." Emma pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. "You make my head hurt. I want you to stop this."
"What exactly are you asking for, dear?"
"Christ, Gold, you can make whatever elaborate plans you want to, not my affair. But if I'm going to be part of it, or if you're planning on hurting innocent people, I want to know, in clear simple words, not the legalese you like to throw at everything, what the plan is. It's not nice to use people like that, you know."
Gold smiled at her, a lazy, almost malicious smile. "And what will you promise me in return, Emma?"
"What?"
"I'm not the sort of man who gives my favors freely, dear."
Emma blinked. "It's common decency to inform people before you rearrange their lives, Gold, not really a favor." She supposed, from what she knew of Gold, it was probably easier to go along with him. "But okay, if you're going to be like that. Um. Let's see. Don't have much you'd want. I could offer to cook you dinner, but I'll give you free advice, you probably shouldn't take that deal even in exchange for nothing. Really, my only talent is finding people--" Something flared in Gold's eyes, and he made a sudden swift movement, almost instantly suppressed, but not quickly enough that Emma didn't see.
She narrowed her eyes, remembering something Gold had said, back when he'd given her Graham's walkie-talkies, about children growing up too soon, being lost. "You have a child. Who's lost." The very stillness of Gold's posture told her that she was guessing correctly. "Maybe I could try to find him. Or her."
The corner of Gold's mouth came up in something that was not a smile. "That would be hopeless, Emma. There are no records of him. No social security number, no hospital records, no paper trail at all. There's no point in even trying, this way. How can you find someone where there are no records, no contracts, to mark his path?"
"What's going on here?" asked Emma, frowning. "Were you guys refugees or something?"
"You could say that. I don't wish to talk about it anymore, Deputy." He turned away.
Emma thought about Henry, about lost things being found again. She touched Gold's arm, and he glanced back over his shoulder, surprise on his face. "Gold. I can try, okay? I might be able to narrow it down a little, at least." She hesitated. "You want to see your son again, right?" she said, a little uncertainly.
"If you knew," said Gold, a terrible longing in his voice, "what I had done so that I could see my boy again--" She could see him bite off the rest of the sentence. "No matter," he said instead. "Yes. That is an acceptable exchange, Miss Swan, provided I have your absolute discretion. I'll work with you." He laughed shortly, without humor. "What's one deal more, after all?"
Emma nodded. "Of course I wouldn't share your private information with anyone. But as for your half of the deal," she warned, "I know when people are telling the truth. So be careful."
Gold raised an eyebrow. "I see. Useful, that. But no need to worry. I've only broken one deal in my life, and this won't be the second."
*
"Mr. Gold. I'm here, as we discussed." She extended her hand to him.
He shook it, then hesitated, keeping hold of her hand. "Henry came by my shop," he said carefully. "He's talking to me a little more, now that you're working with me. He seemed -- less cheerful than usual, shall we say."
Emma winced, pulling her hand away. "Um. Well." Henry had taken Emma's loss of the Sheriff's race -- and her subsequent firing by Sheriff Glass -- without much outward reaction. It's okay, Emma, he'd said, hunched in on himself. Good loses. A lot. I understand. Somehow, it had been more heartbreaking than tears would have been. "He'll be fine."
"You might consider setting up an investigation business here in Storybrooke. Rent an office -- I could give you very good rates."
"I wasn't aware there was a big need for private investigation in this town."
"You've already got one job," Gold said, gesturing at himself. "There would be others. There's a need in this town for an investigator who is, let's say, not under the Mayor's thumb."
Emma stared at him suspiciously. "You're not going to set any other fires anytime soon, are you? Remember, Gold, we have a deal. You have to tell me if you're going to do that, right?"
He chuckled. "Yes, Miss Swan, that's our deal. No plans to manufacture crises at this stage -- though perhaps I should. As a return on my investment, you understand, should you rent from me."
"I hope that's a joke," Emma said under her breath. She pulled out a pad of paper and a pen, noted the date. "Anyway, that's not why I'm here. So. Your son. I don't think you told me his name?"
At his response, Emma paused to stare at Gold.
"Baelfire?"
"Yes," returned Gold, unperturbed. "I used to call him 'Bae.' Whether he goes by it or a variant of it now, of course, is anyone's guess."
"I'll say," Emma muttered. That was going to complicate things; the kid had probably changed his name the first chance he got. Baelfire. God. Still, at least, it would make it easy to track him down if he hadn't changed it. "Last name Gold too?"
"Almost certainly not. Possibly... some variant of Rumpelstiltskin. But very possibly not."
Emma squinted at him. "Like the fairy tale?"
"Indeed."
Emma waited, but no other information seemed forthcoming. She wrote it down. "All right. How old is he?"
Gold looked away. "My best guess is that he's forty-two years old."
"That can't be right." Emma frowned. "You can't be much older than that yourself. How old were you when he was born, six? And what do you mean, your best guess? Don't you know?"
"It's complicated. Very complicated. It would be best if I didn't get into it."
Emma studied Gold. She'd thought that looking for his son would tell her more about Gold himself -- that was how it normally worked -- but she seemed only to be uncovering more mysteries. "Okay. Uh. Right. Forty-two. Moving on."
*
Emma had spent the evening with Gold ransacking his house to find anything that might belong to Bae. Surprisingly, for a person who collected so much stuff, Gold had remarkably little in the way of Bae's belongings. Perhaps he'd purged them at some point in the past? Or perhaps it was part of the secrecy Gold cultivated. A Halloween costume, some sort of medieval getup -- that was the most interesting thing she'd seen.
"Henry told me your new job is working out," Gold commented, as Emma repacked a box of worn-out dancing shoes. Twelve pairs -- whatever could he have wanted with those?
"Yeah, the job's going pretty well." In fact, it was going much better than she'd anticipated when she'd taken Gold's suggestion to go into private investigation. Gold had been right: there was apparently a pent-up need for someone who wasn't tied to Regina. Mrs. Lucas had hired her to investigate whether some damage to her property was natural or manmade. Mary Margaret had asked her to look into the vandalism of her car. Most oddly, Regina herself had come by; apparently she didn't trust her pet sheriff to investigate the new stranger in town, and had paid Emma to do so. "Why?"
Gold shrugged. "Merely inquiring after my investment." He paused. "Henry seems happy about it. He's a good boy, you know. Trustworthy."
"Yeah, he is." Henry was ecstatic, though Emma was not sure how much this was because he thought what she was doing was a good thing and how much it was because it bound her even more to Storybrooke. She walked over to the window. "Crap. I think I stayed too late -- looks like the storm's here already."
Gold followed her gaze and frowned. "I believe you're right. Perhaps you'd better stay for a couple more hours until it blows over."
"Yeah, thanks," Emma said. "Listen, I brought my laptop, there were a couple of things I wanted to try, so you don't need to entertain me or anything. I don't think it's supposed to last all night; I'll get some work done and let myself out if it's really late."
He nodded and left the room.
Emma bent over her computer. She had a list of potential leads that she needed to check out. This was one of the most interesting parts about searching for someone, when it went well: the sensation of finding a lead, something that might flower into another avenue that might show where the person was, or another person who might lead her to the one she was looking for.
But tonight wasn't going to be the night she cracked it, it seemed. The trail of name after name, as she followed up, petered out into nothing. That was also to be expected, but as she systematically finished up a page of names, she also realized it was very late, and the storm had died down. "I should go home," she mumbled to herself. Just a few more names, she thought. I'll just close my eyes for a second, and do a few more names, and then I'll go.
She woke the next morning to find herself sprawled out on the couch, a blanket over her, her laptop closed, charging, and placed neatly on the table next to the couch, with a note on top of it.
I've gone to the shop. I should be back soon. If you leave, lock the door behind you. G.
Emma put the note back down, yawned, and stretched some of the stiffness out of her arms. She heard a creak, a noise. "Gold?" Silence.
Another slow creak. She frowned. She'd done her share of sneaking around in her life, and she knew the sound of someone who was trying not to make noise. Hm. She rose, padded soundlessly to the next room, peeked around the corner.
A stout man with gray-brown hair, definitely not Gold, his eyes furtively darting to and fro. A burglar? The man picked up -- what it was Emma couldn't quite see, placing it into a bag he carried. She strode into the room. "Sir. I'm going to have to ask you to give that back."
He straightened, looked at her, alarmed. "Deputy--?" Then he seemed to remember she was no longer in the sheriff's department. "No one was supposed to be here. What are you doing? She didn't say there would be anyone -- wait -- are you and Gold, um --"
She spared an amused, regretful thought for what remained of her reputation after the disaster of the Sheriff's race. Gold was an attractive man, in a disturbing kind of way, but-- well. She considered what else she could tell the man that he would believe, while keeping Gold's information private. "Me and Gold, no. Did it ever occur to you that he might like to hire an ex-deputy-sheriff private investigator to look after his things? Especially when he apparently keeps getting stolen from? Hand it over."
"I've got friends in high places," the man blustered. "They'll protect me. You can't --"
From the door a smooth voice said, "Will they protect you? Against me? You heard the lady, Mr. French. Hand back what is mine."
Both of them turned to see Gold, holding a revolver pointed at French. French gulped. He paused, reached into his bag, and pulled out what looked, to Emma, remarkably like a teacup, setting it on the ground. Gold, moving faster than Emma had seen him do before, scooped it up and examined it; by that time, French had scuttled out of sight.
Emma had started to follow the failed burglar when she heard Gold say, his voice filled with a controlled rage that made her shiver to hear, "French, you are going to tell me who told you to take this. You hurt her, and now you do this?"
"He's gone, Gold," Emma said. Not quite true -- Emma could probably have still caught him if she'd tried -- but she really thought that was not a good idea right now. Hurt 'her'? French hadn't hurt Emma. In fact, Emma was having a hard time imagining French hurting anyone. What was this all about?
"I will find him," Gold said, still in that silky, menacing tone, "and when I do--" He stopped, looked at Emma. "He's hardly innocent, Emma," he said. "This doesn't fall under our deal."
Emma's lips quirked. "All right. But just tell me -- that reaction was about more than a thief, way more than when you were stolen from before. And a teacup? What's all that about? And who is the 'her' you mentioned?"
Gold stayed stubbornly silent. Finally he said, "No. I'm sorry. I think you heard that wrong."
"You loved someone," Emma guessed, and when she saw Gold's eyes she knew she was right. "You loved someone, and this man French-- he wasn't kind to her?"
Gold made a visible effort to control himself. "Something like that. Moe French was her father. He was cruel to her, when he found out she'd been seeing me. He threw her out. She died. He doesn't remember that part -- he remembers his daughter, but not his actions, nor that I was involved. A -- memory loss incident. Tragic."
Emma said slowly, "And it bothers you that he doesn't remember. That he doesn't feel sorry for what he did." She frowned. Something about the story didn't quite add up, even more than Gold's customary reticence. It wasn't that Gold was lying, not exactly, but -- "What happened when she got thrown out? Where were you?"
"It was his fault! Not mine! His! Not --"
"Stop," Emma said quietly, and at the sound of her voice Gold did stop. Emma could see his hand gripping his cane, the knuckles white. She didn't even need her superpower to tell her that Gold was most likely not blameless in whatever had happened. Putting a hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly, she said, "Right. I'm sure there's plenty of fault to go around. But why add to it? Going after French isn't going to do a damn thing to help, you know."
Gold looked dubious. Emma tried another tack. "Let's say we find Bae. He wouldn't want to hear that you were --" what, torturing would-be burglars? She wouldn't put it past him, the way he'd been screaming-- "were being cruel, would he?"
Gold blinked, passed a hand over his forehead. "Bae. Yes. Well. All right, Miss Swan, you shall have what you desire."
Emma relaxed slightly, hearing the truth in his words. The crisis was over, she could see; Gold wouldn't go off in that dangerous mood, not this time. "It's the right thing to do, Gold."
Gold looked like he'd bitten into something sour. "Please. Let's not go into that. We've agreed that you're to have your way. There's no need to belabor the point."
*
"Ah, Emma," Gold greeted her as she walked into the pawnshop. "You just missed Henry. He just went off to meet Regina," he said. "A delightful child. We've been getting to know each other much better lately."
"I know." She wasn't quite sure what she thought of this development. I don't think Mr. Gold was a good guy in Fairyland, Henry had informed her, a serious look on his round face. But I think he could be. The same way you could be the savior, Emma.
Emma herself didn't know what she thought of Gold; she wasn't sure that hasn't tortured anyone while I've been watching counted as a positive personality trait. On the other hand, whatever demons drove Gold's actions towards people like French, he had never, as far as she'd been able to tell, been anything but kind to Henry, nor anything but loving in his descriptions of Bae. And yet -- whenever she looked at him, there was a hardness she saw in his face, a sense she got of endless calculations taking place behind his eyes.
Gold said, breaking into her thoughts, "He showed me that book of his. Very interesting. A couple of stories there I hadn't heard. It's surprising, you know, how many fairy tales are about parents and children. It was a quite -- informative conversation, we had."
"Huh. I didn't know any of the stories, not the way they were in the book. I guess I never had much time for fairy tales, in general."
"What do you think of his stories?" asked Gold.
She glanced at him. Still, she thought, she could see traces of a cold analysis in his eyes. "They're just fairy tales," she replied. "I wish he would get over them."
"They are the truth to him, Emma. You might accept that, and see where it takes you."
To believe in Henry, to believe Henry, to be drawn into his world, to accept and admit how much Henry could mean to her -- She said hastily, "Don't be ridiculous."
Gold said softly, "You don't have to believe all of it all at once, of course. You might think of the tales as an analogy. Analogies are true, aren't they, even they're not the literal truth?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore. That's not why I'm here," said Emma curtly. Gold shrugged, turned away to gather up some trinkets from the counter. "Listen. I was investigating something for Mrs. Lucas, and I found this shack in the woods, on your property, set up to -- well, to be frank, it looks like it's set up to hold someone there by force." She watched him closely as he moved around, stacking the items on different shelves. There was just a flicker of reaction, but it was there. "You promised to tell me when you made complicated plans that involved innocent people."
Gold stopped in his tracks. "So I did, dear," he said, his voice strained. "Well. Our dear Mayor -- she doesn't like your friend Miss Blanchard, as you know. And with all the drama regarding Mr. Nolan stepping out on his wife with Miss Blanchard, well. If Mrs. Nolan were to disappear for a while, and Mayor Mills were proved to be behind the abduction and framing of Miss Blanchard-- why, then, it would be very bad for our dear Mayor."
"Um. I'm sorry. I thought I just heard you say you were going to help Regina kidnap Abigail, blame Mary Margaret, and then use this to run Regina out of town on a rail."
"That's a reasonable synopsis."
"Gold. No. I mean, you know I'm not a fan of Regina, but -- this is a horrible idea."
He frowned at her. "It's a horrible idea," she explained, "first of all because it's not generally considered a good thing to go around kidnapping people. It's not very nice to the poor person you're kidnapping, to start with. Nor is it nice to the person who gets framed for it. Seriously? I have to spell this out?"
"And how far are you willing to go for your son?"
"Gold, that is so irrelevant it's laughable. What does this have to do with either of our children?"
Gold said, "I'm surprised you even ask. If Regina is taken care of... that leaves Henry free."
Emma rubbed her temples. "You know, you're a lot of work. No. Still no. There are some things decent people don't do. And even though Regina's a psychopath, she's Henry's mom. If I have to ask you what you're doing every five minutes, I will, but you are not going to do this. I'm not going to let you."
"In return--" Gold started.
Emma stepped up to him. "No. This isn't a deal. And I know you don't do things because it's the right thing to do. Just -- if you're just doing it because I'm making you, fine, but you're not going to do this kidnapping-framing-whatever thing."
Gold considered her, his eyes glittering. "Are you saying you're aligning yourself against me, Emma Swan?"
They looked at each other for a long moment. Emma suddenly realized how close she was to him. She could feel her heart beating faster.
"Not against you," Emma said finally. "Say, aligned with who you could be rather than with who you are."
Gold sighed, suddenly looking deflated. "I don't," Gold said tiredly, not looking at her, "do things for the right reasons. I know that. I've had -- problems in the past, ways of thinking about things it's hard to unlearn. Now that it seems finding Bae might become a reality -- well. For his sake perhaps I shall try. And with your help. You are -- a light."
It was the truth. Obscurely moved, Emma took his hand. He raised his eyes to her, looking faintly startled. "I won't say it's okay, Gold, but -- it's good that you're trying."
*
Emma knocked at Gold's door. No answer. She frowned. It wasn't like him to be late for their appointments -- ah, there was his car. He pulled into the garage, limped out carrying a paper bag that looked like it had come from Granny's diner. "Have you had dinner, Emma? I have extra sandwiches."
Her lips quirked up. "Offering me dinner? Are you getting soft, Gold?"
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Think of it as a job perk. I was hungry, and I thought it would be rude to eat in front of you without offering you anything. There's wine in the kitchen as well."
"Sounds good."
By mutual unspoken consent, they bypassed the large dining-room table and sat down on the couch. She was aware that if she moved an inch, their legs would be touching, and she concentrated on avoiding this. "Henry came by my shop again today," Gold remarked, taking a sip from his glass and a bite of his sandwich.
Emma did the same. The wine was very good. Somehow, she was not surprised. "Right, he mentioned he was going to when I saw him yesterday."
"We talked more about his fairy tales. The curse. Belief. You know, Emma, I think --"
"I think," Emma interrupted, "that we should talk about Bae, which is why I'm here. I hit another dead end, like I told you earlier today. I'm thinking maybe we need to go more into Bae's interests, things he might be involved in --"
Gold rolled his eyes, refilling his glass and hers too. "I knew I was going to want wine to deal with this," he remarked, taking a drink of his. "How many times do I have to tell you, Emma, I have no relevant answer to that question."
"Aw, come on. What about video games? This would've been the 80's -- Pac-Man, Space Invaders --"
"No. He liked to play -- games, you know, like any other child, hopscotch and blind man's bluff, when he was younger -- swimming, wrestling, when he got older."
Okay. This was encouraging, and far better than the nothing you'd be interested in she'd gotten when she'd first tried the question several weeks ago. Clearly she should have tried alcohol earlier as a tool to get him to open up. She filed this away for possible later use. "How about collecting things?"
"I beg your pardon?" He filled her glass again.
Hm. How many glasses had that been, exactly? "No more, Gold. I gotta drive home sometime this evening, you know, unless you really do want to hire me as an overnight security guard like I told French." She felt pleasantly buzzed. Ah, well. It took so long to get useful information out of the man that it'd probably wear off by the time she had to drive anywhere. "Collecting things. You know. Stamp collecting, coin collecting, I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. You're such a magpie yourself that I wondered if he maybe had any of that tendency."
He managed to look slightly offended and amused at the same time. "Magpie?"
"Yeah, just look at this house!" She nudged his shoulder. "You've got a spinning wheel in the corner there, Gold. Total magpie. I don't think I've ever seen a spinning wheel in real life."
He shrugged. "I may hoard things, but I actually do know how to use a spinning wheel."
"Yeah?" She crossed her arms.
"Oh yeah. I was a sheep farmer, you see."
"Huh." She mulled this information over. "Wouldn't have thought it of you. Thought you'd been born in a suit, doing lawyerly things your whole life."
He exhaled, the ghost of a laugh. "No. It was only after -- after Bae that I became interested in deals and contracts. I... made a bad deal. I didn't want to do that again. No, before that it was wool and sheep and spinning."
"That's how you knew about that sheep crap oil. Okay. So, Gold, show me. I want to see."
"Excuse me?"
"Spinning. I've never seen someone spin wool before."
He raised an eyebrow. "I... haven't done it in a while." He went over to the wheel, ran a hand over it in a gesture that was both affectionate and possessive. "I suppose I could." He cocked his head at Emma, a dark glint in his eye. "I'll make a deal with you, then, dear."
"What is it with you and deals?" Emma complained, but went over to where he was standing, stumbling only slightly. "Depends. What do you have in mind?"
He came closer to her. Emma saw his gaze flick to her lips; his own parted slightly, and his breath caught. She was conscious of her own breathing coming faster. But he turned away to fiddle with a cloud of wool and part of the wheel that was jutting out to the side. "Tell me about Henry," he said, his eyes on the wool. "It hasn't escaped my attention, you know, that you never want to talk about him."
Emma blinked, tried to regain her composure. "It's not Henry we're trying to find."
"Oh?" murmured Gold, slowly starting to turn the wheel.
Emma scowled. "Yeah. And anyway, you've known Henry for ten years, and you two seem to be together all the time now. You probably know him better than I do."
"Ah, now. You know that's not true. What was he like as a newborn?"
Emma watched the steady, almost hypnotic, motion of his hands, drawing the fibers together. She didn't know anything about textiles, but she was willing to bet that what was coming out was a fine example of yarn, even and straight. Gold, she thought, was the sort of person who would think anything worth doing was worth doing well. "Henry was beautiful," Emma said wistfully, remembering. "I wasn't a baby person, I'm still not, I guess, but my baby... was something special."
"It was the same with Bae," said Gold softly, his eyes on the thread, the relaxed, intent look on his face something that Emma had never seen on it before. There was something about Gold's face, the way his voice had gentled -- Emma could almost believe that he really had been a sheep farmer, once upon a time. "I would have done anything for him from the moment he was born. When you let him go... was it hard?"
The low compelling hum of the spinning wheel, the soothing tones of Gold's voice, created a quiet space where she thought she might say anything. "Yeah. Pretty much the hardest thing in the world. I really -- I had a difficult time of it, afterwards. But I -- wanted to give him his best chance. I couldn't raise a kid. I couldn't do that to him." She sighed, watching Gold's hands, as if he were weaving a spell. "But I failed him, didn't I? That he came to Regina --"
"Parents fail their children all the time," he said quietly. "I know that better than most. But you didn't fail Henry, not in this. You gave him his best chance. You know that."
"With a psychopath?"
"Regina is many things, many terrible things, but she's always loved Henry. Always protected him from the worst parts of herself. I've seen it, Emma. You know I'm speaking the truth. He's been happy, as happy as any other boy, though now he's getting old enough that he needs more, yes, he needs a light to follow, the light you can give him." His words were coming more slowly and in a more lilting rhythm, in time with the wheel.
Emma breathed out. "I can't believe he's ten now. He's the-- the most important thing in the world to me."
"They grow up so fast," Gold murmured. "Before you know it-- Have you told Henry, then, what you've told me? The way you feel about him? Have you told him you love him?"
"No," Emma whispered. "He knows -- that I wanted to give him his best chance. But -- no."
Gold let the wheel slow and stop, took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her fingers in a slow motion that reminded her of the way he had spun the wool. She shivered. "My dear, what are you afraid of?"
"I could hurt him so easily. I'm not, I don't know how to be a mom."
"You learn as you go," Gold said gently. "It's all right. You might choose to -- believe in yourself, and in Henry."
She pulled away from him. He let his hand drop. I'm still afraid, Emma did not say. But she thought Gold might have heard it, all the same.
*
Emma all but ran into the pawnshop, her laptop tucked under her arm, pausing only to flip the pawnshop sign to closed. "What--" Gold began.
"Gold. You're gonna want to see this." She set the laptop down on the counter and flipped open the lid as Gold, bemused, limped up beside her.
She smiled at him. "It turned out to be absurdly simple. I remembered what you said the other day, about sheep farming -- I thought perhaps Bae would have followed the same path. There's a website for Maine sheep breeders, as it turns out, and --" She gestured with her hand at the computer screen.
She watched his face as he peered at the screen. She could tell the instant he saw the name Bay Stiltskin; his whole face contorted with terrible hope. And then, as she kept watching, she saw him will himself to stillness, his face blank of any emotion, saw deliberation return to his eyes. "We can't leave Storybrooke, not yet," he said. "Perhaps he can come here, or --"
"Of course we can leave, Gold. You make no sense. And you need to find him yourself, not just wait for him to come to you. Why can't you leave Storybrooke?"
He turned to her, took her hand with one of his and smoothed a tendril of her hair with the other, though his eyes remained distant, as if he were only half aware of her. "You won't believe me, dear."
"Why not?"
"The curse is real, Emma. The curse Henry talks about? It's all true. We came here from another world, a world with magic, where we had other identities, other selves. The stories in his book are all true."
"Oh, come on," Emma said automatically, stepping back from him. "It's just fairy tales for kids. You've been hanging around Henry too much lately, gotten sucked into his stories, that's all. It's not real."
He smiled sadly at her. "Yes, I thought you'd say that. But don't you know I'm telling the truth?"
"I know that you believe it's true," Emma said slowly. "But --"
Gold sighed. "That's all right, of course," he said. "We've discussed -- allegories. But whether you think I'm speaking the literal truth or not, by the terms of the curse, we're stuck here in Storybrooke, and the only way out is for you to break the curse."
Okay, Emma thought. I'll play along. For now. "All right, how do we break it?"
"You're the focus of the curse. We must go to the library --"
"The library in the middle of town, the one that's boarded up?"
"Yes." There was something eager and hard in his look. "Under it, you'll see, is what you need to recover."
And Emma's skin started tingling. Not only was Gold not quite telling the truth, there was something else -- something not quite right -- "Gold," Emma said quietly. "Remember our deal."
The eagerness drained out of Gold's face, replaced by a curious mix of emotions: constraint, anger, and a kind of despair. He said softly, "Had I thought, Emma Swan, on what this deal would hold me to, I should never have taken it, not even for Bae."
He took a breath. "There's magic underneath the library," he said, the words dragged out of him. Magic again, Emma thought. Was Gold using the word, as he had implied, as an analogy? Could it be drugs, hidden underneath the boarded-up building? Or something related to an organized crime racket? It would fit, she realized. Gold's secretiveness, his unexplained prosperity, his dark past, the son estranged because of something his father didn't want to talk about.
Gold continued, "I was going to force you to recover it for me without telling you what it was for, by trying to represent to you that it was the way to break the curse. Of course, with the deal we made -- well, now you know."
"Why did you want the, um, magic?"
"To find Bae."
"First, I've already found Bae, and second, that's a lie." She studied him. The most insidious of lies: a lie he himself wanted to believe. But perhaps his faith in the deal they had made would help him admit the truth. "What did you really want it for?"
"Power," he whispered. "I've hungered for it, for the taste of it, for the feel of it, for all these years." A silence. "And now you know, Emma Swan. This is who I am."
This, she could tell, was the truth. Whether what he desired was really magic or simply a name for something more mundane, it was the power that drove him, that he coveted, that was keeping him from his love for his son. "I can't think," Emma said carefully, "that Bae would want this."
"No," Gold said, almost inaudibly. "He always wanted -- wanted me to be free of it. Henry also -- suspects, I think. But I need the magic. I must have it."
"Gold." Emma took his hands. "Gold. Your son. You would do anything for him. I know you would. Don't let this -- craving overpower you. I'll help. We're so close, Gold. We're this close to finding him. All you have to do is walk away." She paused, trying to think of words he would understand. "All you have to do is tell me how to break the curse, and we can go find him. I know how I feel about Henry, and I know how you feel about Bae. Choose him."
His eyes moved over her, but Emma wasn't sure he was seeing her. "Henry," he repeated, sounding lost and alone. "Bae. The magic --"
"Gold," said Emma, taking a step closer. "You can do this. You can. You don't need to choose the -- the magic. You can choose him." She didn't think he was really listening to her. How could she break through?
And then she knew how she could reach him. To fall into Gold's story. (Into Henry's stories.) To show that she understood what they were telling her--
Emma knew what broke the curses in Henry's stories, the stories Henry and Gold had talked about, the stories they had shared. She leaned forward and kissed Gold. His lips were warm. They opened to hers, gently.
When she looked into his eyes again, she saw in them not the usual hard calculations, but something softer, something confused and yearning and broken, something human. "Emma."
"Gold," she whispered.
"Breaking the curse is so easy, when you know the answer. True love's kiss. Whom do you truly love?" His gaze caught and held hers. "Henry," Gold said hoarsely. "The curse is keyed to you and to Henry. Give Henry true love's kiss, and the curse will be broken."
She nodded. It all made a kind of sense. Perhaps it was all in Gold's and Henry's minds; perhaps it was their allegory, a symbolic way to deal with their lives; perhaps magic was simply a way for Gold to talk about his addiction to power; perhaps (perhaps) it was really magic. And it was true she had never kissed Henry, had never quite dared to entrust her heart again to the boy who had stolen it away as an infant.
But -- perhaps -- she and Gold could both move past their fears. "Let's go, then, Gold. We'll find Henry, and then Bae. Will you come with me?"
Gold bent his head. "I will," he said.
-----------------------
Notes: Title is from Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach."
Anyway, the one I wrote! This fic was harder to write than any fic I have ever written (okay, fine, this is less than a year I've been doing this, but still), even though there were so many things going for it -- I loved the prompt (soooo happy to get a prompt that acknowledged the inequality in Belle/Rumpel, and I love the Emma-Gold interactions in canon, and honesty-in-interactions is one of my Things) and had a good time thinking about it. For some reason the fic just fought me every step of the way and went through an insane number of drafts. I'm not displeased with how it turned out, although I still feel like there's something in it that has remained resistant to my trying to hammer it into shape. I think a large part of it is the tension between a) I love shipping Gold because Carlyle has chemistry with everything, including inanimate objects, and b) there really needed to be (at least) one more level of honesty in there that this fic doesn't... quite... address. Though I, uh, may be working on that. YES. IT IS INDEED AN ADDICTION. I ADMIT IT.
Title: As on a Darkling Plain
Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Rating: PG
Characters: Emma Swan, Mr. Gold
Relationship: Emma Swan/Mr. Gold
Summary: Honesty isn't the best color on Mr. Gold; Emma's talent is finding people. Emma and Gold make a deal.
Notes: AU from "Desperate Souls"; spoilers for the first season of OUAT. Thanks to my betas Beatrice_Otter and ensconcedinya, who saved this fic from utter disaster.
jedibuttercup, thank you for a great prompt! I enjoyed writing this.
AO3 link here.
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Emma stalked into Mr. Gold's pawnshop, slamming the door behind her. "What," demanded Emma, thrusting the rag into Gold's face, "is this?"
Even through her anger, Emma was slightly amused to see that even Gold drew back a little at having something that smelled so foul right under his nose. He recovered quickly. "Deputy. Why would I have any idea what that is?"
Emma said, teeth gritted, "This is that sheep crap oil you I saw you messing with before. It was hidden near where they were doing all that construction work at City Hall. With torches and welders. And it's highly flammable, I hear. Could have brought the whole place down. Could have killed the Mayor. Maybe me, too, if I'd still been in the building."
Gold blinked, a surprised expression crossing his face so quickly Emma wasn't sure whether she had actually seen it. "How did you find it?"
"Ruby stopped in, looking for me. Lucky for me, as she found it. She must have a pretty sensitive nose -- I didn't smell anything, myself -- but she honed in on it immediately."
"Ah," said Gold, drawing out the word. "Ruby. Yes. I had not -- anticipated that she would be there. An oversight."
Emma scowled at him. "What are you up to?"
"Please, Deputy," Gold murmured. "How do you know I've done anything that you would object to?"
The man was impossible. "Gold, I'm not an idiot. I can tell you're avoiding the point."
"Don't you want to be a hero? Saving the Mayor from a fiery death? Don't you want to do that for your son? To win the race for the Sheriff position?"
Emma stared at him as the words sank in. "No. That is supremely messed up. Okay, no. No. For Henry, seriously? You remember the Mayor's his actual legal mom, right? And that you could have killed both of us? I don't want you to do this again." Emma pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. "You make my head hurt. I want you to stop this."
"What exactly are you asking for, dear?"
"Christ, Gold, you can make whatever elaborate plans you want to, not my affair. But if I'm going to be part of it, or if you're planning on hurting innocent people, I want to know, in clear simple words, not the legalese you like to throw at everything, what the plan is. It's not nice to use people like that, you know."
Gold smiled at her, a lazy, almost malicious smile. "And what will you promise me in return, Emma?"
"What?"
"I'm not the sort of man who gives my favors freely, dear."
Emma blinked. "It's common decency to inform people before you rearrange their lives, Gold, not really a favor." She supposed, from what she knew of Gold, it was probably easier to go along with him. "But okay, if you're going to be like that. Um. Let's see. Don't have much you'd want. I could offer to cook you dinner, but I'll give you free advice, you probably shouldn't take that deal even in exchange for nothing. Really, my only talent is finding people--" Something flared in Gold's eyes, and he made a sudden swift movement, almost instantly suppressed, but not quickly enough that Emma didn't see.
She narrowed her eyes, remembering something Gold had said, back when he'd given her Graham's walkie-talkies, about children growing up too soon, being lost. "You have a child. Who's lost." The very stillness of Gold's posture told her that she was guessing correctly. "Maybe I could try to find him. Or her."
The corner of Gold's mouth came up in something that was not a smile. "That would be hopeless, Emma. There are no records of him. No social security number, no hospital records, no paper trail at all. There's no point in even trying, this way. How can you find someone where there are no records, no contracts, to mark his path?"
"What's going on here?" asked Emma, frowning. "Were you guys refugees or something?"
"You could say that. I don't wish to talk about it anymore, Deputy." He turned away.
Emma thought about Henry, about lost things being found again. She touched Gold's arm, and he glanced back over his shoulder, surprise on his face. "Gold. I can try, okay? I might be able to narrow it down a little, at least." She hesitated. "You want to see your son again, right?" she said, a little uncertainly.
"If you knew," said Gold, a terrible longing in his voice, "what I had done so that I could see my boy again--" She could see him bite off the rest of the sentence. "No matter," he said instead. "Yes. That is an acceptable exchange, Miss Swan, provided I have your absolute discretion. I'll work with you." He laughed shortly, without humor. "What's one deal more, after all?"
Emma nodded. "Of course I wouldn't share your private information with anyone. But as for your half of the deal," she warned, "I know when people are telling the truth. So be careful."
Gold raised an eyebrow. "I see. Useful, that. But no need to worry. I've only broken one deal in my life, and this won't be the second."
*
"Mr. Gold. I'm here, as we discussed." She extended her hand to him.
He shook it, then hesitated, keeping hold of her hand. "Henry came by my shop," he said carefully. "He's talking to me a little more, now that you're working with me. He seemed -- less cheerful than usual, shall we say."
Emma winced, pulling her hand away. "Um. Well." Henry had taken Emma's loss of the Sheriff's race -- and her subsequent firing by Sheriff Glass -- without much outward reaction. It's okay, Emma, he'd said, hunched in on himself. Good loses. A lot. I understand. Somehow, it had been more heartbreaking than tears would have been. "He'll be fine."
"You might consider setting up an investigation business here in Storybrooke. Rent an office -- I could give you very good rates."
"I wasn't aware there was a big need for private investigation in this town."
"You've already got one job," Gold said, gesturing at himself. "There would be others. There's a need in this town for an investigator who is, let's say, not under the Mayor's thumb."
Emma stared at him suspiciously. "You're not going to set any other fires anytime soon, are you? Remember, Gold, we have a deal. You have to tell me if you're going to do that, right?"
He chuckled. "Yes, Miss Swan, that's our deal. No plans to manufacture crises at this stage -- though perhaps I should. As a return on my investment, you understand, should you rent from me."
"I hope that's a joke," Emma said under her breath. She pulled out a pad of paper and a pen, noted the date. "Anyway, that's not why I'm here. So. Your son. I don't think you told me his name?"
At his response, Emma paused to stare at Gold.
"Baelfire?"
"Yes," returned Gold, unperturbed. "I used to call him 'Bae.' Whether he goes by it or a variant of it now, of course, is anyone's guess."
"I'll say," Emma muttered. That was going to complicate things; the kid had probably changed his name the first chance he got. Baelfire. God. Still, at least, it would make it easy to track him down if he hadn't changed it. "Last name Gold too?"
"Almost certainly not. Possibly... some variant of Rumpelstiltskin. But very possibly not."
Emma squinted at him. "Like the fairy tale?"
"Indeed."
Emma waited, but no other information seemed forthcoming. She wrote it down. "All right. How old is he?"
Gold looked away. "My best guess is that he's forty-two years old."
"That can't be right." Emma frowned. "You can't be much older than that yourself. How old were you when he was born, six? And what do you mean, your best guess? Don't you know?"
"It's complicated. Very complicated. It would be best if I didn't get into it."
Emma studied Gold. She'd thought that looking for his son would tell her more about Gold himself -- that was how it normally worked -- but she seemed only to be uncovering more mysteries. "Okay. Uh. Right. Forty-two. Moving on."
*
Emma had spent the evening with Gold ransacking his house to find anything that might belong to Bae. Surprisingly, for a person who collected so much stuff, Gold had remarkably little in the way of Bae's belongings. Perhaps he'd purged them at some point in the past? Or perhaps it was part of the secrecy Gold cultivated. A Halloween costume, some sort of medieval getup -- that was the most interesting thing she'd seen.
"Henry told me your new job is working out," Gold commented, as Emma repacked a box of worn-out dancing shoes. Twelve pairs -- whatever could he have wanted with those?
"Yeah, the job's going pretty well." In fact, it was going much better than she'd anticipated when she'd taken Gold's suggestion to go into private investigation. Gold had been right: there was apparently a pent-up need for someone who wasn't tied to Regina. Mrs. Lucas had hired her to investigate whether some damage to her property was natural or manmade. Mary Margaret had asked her to look into the vandalism of her car. Most oddly, Regina herself had come by; apparently she didn't trust her pet sheriff to investigate the new stranger in town, and had paid Emma to do so. "Why?"
Gold shrugged. "Merely inquiring after my investment." He paused. "Henry seems happy about it. He's a good boy, you know. Trustworthy."
"Yeah, he is." Henry was ecstatic, though Emma was not sure how much this was because he thought what she was doing was a good thing and how much it was because it bound her even more to Storybrooke. She walked over to the window. "Crap. I think I stayed too late -- looks like the storm's here already."
Gold followed her gaze and frowned. "I believe you're right. Perhaps you'd better stay for a couple more hours until it blows over."
"Yeah, thanks," Emma said. "Listen, I brought my laptop, there were a couple of things I wanted to try, so you don't need to entertain me or anything. I don't think it's supposed to last all night; I'll get some work done and let myself out if it's really late."
He nodded and left the room.
Emma bent over her computer. She had a list of potential leads that she needed to check out. This was one of the most interesting parts about searching for someone, when it went well: the sensation of finding a lead, something that might flower into another avenue that might show where the person was, or another person who might lead her to the one she was looking for.
But tonight wasn't going to be the night she cracked it, it seemed. The trail of name after name, as she followed up, petered out into nothing. That was also to be expected, but as she systematically finished up a page of names, she also realized it was very late, and the storm had died down. "I should go home," she mumbled to herself. Just a few more names, she thought. I'll just close my eyes for a second, and do a few more names, and then I'll go.
She woke the next morning to find herself sprawled out on the couch, a blanket over her, her laptop closed, charging, and placed neatly on the table next to the couch, with a note on top of it.
I've gone to the shop. I should be back soon. If you leave, lock the door behind you. G.
Emma put the note back down, yawned, and stretched some of the stiffness out of her arms. She heard a creak, a noise. "Gold?" Silence.
Another slow creak. She frowned. She'd done her share of sneaking around in her life, and she knew the sound of someone who was trying not to make noise. Hm. She rose, padded soundlessly to the next room, peeked around the corner.
A stout man with gray-brown hair, definitely not Gold, his eyes furtively darting to and fro. A burglar? The man picked up -- what it was Emma couldn't quite see, placing it into a bag he carried. She strode into the room. "Sir. I'm going to have to ask you to give that back."
He straightened, looked at her, alarmed. "Deputy--?" Then he seemed to remember she was no longer in the sheriff's department. "No one was supposed to be here. What are you doing? She didn't say there would be anyone -- wait -- are you and Gold, um --"
She spared an amused, regretful thought for what remained of her reputation after the disaster of the Sheriff's race. Gold was an attractive man, in a disturbing kind of way, but-- well. She considered what else she could tell the man that he would believe, while keeping Gold's information private. "Me and Gold, no. Did it ever occur to you that he might like to hire an ex-deputy-sheriff private investigator to look after his things? Especially when he apparently keeps getting stolen from? Hand it over."
"I've got friends in high places," the man blustered. "They'll protect me. You can't --"
From the door a smooth voice said, "Will they protect you? Against me? You heard the lady, Mr. French. Hand back what is mine."
Both of them turned to see Gold, holding a revolver pointed at French. French gulped. He paused, reached into his bag, and pulled out what looked, to Emma, remarkably like a teacup, setting it on the ground. Gold, moving faster than Emma had seen him do before, scooped it up and examined it; by that time, French had scuttled out of sight.
Emma had started to follow the failed burglar when she heard Gold say, his voice filled with a controlled rage that made her shiver to hear, "French, you are going to tell me who told you to take this. You hurt her, and now you do this?"
"He's gone, Gold," Emma said. Not quite true -- Emma could probably have still caught him if she'd tried -- but she really thought that was not a good idea right now. Hurt 'her'? French hadn't hurt Emma. In fact, Emma was having a hard time imagining French hurting anyone. What was this all about?
"I will find him," Gold said, still in that silky, menacing tone, "and when I do--" He stopped, looked at Emma. "He's hardly innocent, Emma," he said. "This doesn't fall under our deal."
Emma's lips quirked. "All right. But just tell me -- that reaction was about more than a thief, way more than when you were stolen from before. And a teacup? What's all that about? And who is the 'her' you mentioned?"
Gold stayed stubbornly silent. Finally he said, "No. I'm sorry. I think you heard that wrong."
"You loved someone," Emma guessed, and when she saw Gold's eyes she knew she was right. "You loved someone, and this man French-- he wasn't kind to her?"
Gold made a visible effort to control himself. "Something like that. Moe French was her father. He was cruel to her, when he found out she'd been seeing me. He threw her out. She died. He doesn't remember that part -- he remembers his daughter, but not his actions, nor that I was involved. A -- memory loss incident. Tragic."
Emma said slowly, "And it bothers you that he doesn't remember. That he doesn't feel sorry for what he did." She frowned. Something about the story didn't quite add up, even more than Gold's customary reticence. It wasn't that Gold was lying, not exactly, but -- "What happened when she got thrown out? Where were you?"
"It was his fault! Not mine! His! Not --"
"Stop," Emma said quietly, and at the sound of her voice Gold did stop. Emma could see his hand gripping his cane, the knuckles white. She didn't even need her superpower to tell her that Gold was most likely not blameless in whatever had happened. Putting a hand on his shoulder, shaking him slightly, she said, "Right. I'm sure there's plenty of fault to go around. But why add to it? Going after French isn't going to do a damn thing to help, you know."
Gold looked dubious. Emma tried another tack. "Let's say we find Bae. He wouldn't want to hear that you were --" what, torturing would-be burglars? She wouldn't put it past him, the way he'd been screaming-- "were being cruel, would he?"
Gold blinked, passed a hand over his forehead. "Bae. Yes. Well. All right, Miss Swan, you shall have what you desire."
Emma relaxed slightly, hearing the truth in his words. The crisis was over, she could see; Gold wouldn't go off in that dangerous mood, not this time. "It's the right thing to do, Gold."
Gold looked like he'd bitten into something sour. "Please. Let's not go into that. We've agreed that you're to have your way. There's no need to belabor the point."
*
"Ah, Emma," Gold greeted her as she walked into the pawnshop. "You just missed Henry. He just went off to meet Regina," he said. "A delightful child. We've been getting to know each other much better lately."
"I know." She wasn't quite sure what she thought of this development. I don't think Mr. Gold was a good guy in Fairyland, Henry had informed her, a serious look on his round face. But I think he could be. The same way you could be the savior, Emma.
Emma herself didn't know what she thought of Gold; she wasn't sure that hasn't tortured anyone while I've been watching counted as a positive personality trait. On the other hand, whatever demons drove Gold's actions towards people like French, he had never, as far as she'd been able to tell, been anything but kind to Henry, nor anything but loving in his descriptions of Bae. And yet -- whenever she looked at him, there was a hardness she saw in his face, a sense she got of endless calculations taking place behind his eyes.
Gold said, breaking into her thoughts, "He showed me that book of his. Very interesting. A couple of stories there I hadn't heard. It's surprising, you know, how many fairy tales are about parents and children. It was a quite -- informative conversation, we had."
"Huh. I didn't know any of the stories, not the way they were in the book. I guess I never had much time for fairy tales, in general."
"What do you think of his stories?" asked Gold.
She glanced at him. Still, she thought, she could see traces of a cold analysis in his eyes. "They're just fairy tales," she replied. "I wish he would get over them."
"They are the truth to him, Emma. You might accept that, and see where it takes you."
To believe in Henry, to believe Henry, to be drawn into his world, to accept and admit how much Henry could mean to her -- She said hastily, "Don't be ridiculous."
Gold said softly, "You don't have to believe all of it all at once, of course. You might think of the tales as an analogy. Analogies are true, aren't they, even they're not the literal truth?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore. That's not why I'm here," said Emma curtly. Gold shrugged, turned away to gather up some trinkets from the counter. "Listen. I was investigating something for Mrs. Lucas, and I found this shack in the woods, on your property, set up to -- well, to be frank, it looks like it's set up to hold someone there by force." She watched him closely as he moved around, stacking the items on different shelves. There was just a flicker of reaction, but it was there. "You promised to tell me when you made complicated plans that involved innocent people."
Gold stopped in his tracks. "So I did, dear," he said, his voice strained. "Well. Our dear Mayor -- she doesn't like your friend Miss Blanchard, as you know. And with all the drama regarding Mr. Nolan stepping out on his wife with Miss Blanchard, well. If Mrs. Nolan were to disappear for a while, and Mayor Mills were proved to be behind the abduction and framing of Miss Blanchard-- why, then, it would be very bad for our dear Mayor."
"Um. I'm sorry. I thought I just heard you say you were going to help Regina kidnap Abigail, blame Mary Margaret, and then use this to run Regina out of town on a rail."
"That's a reasonable synopsis."
"Gold. No. I mean, you know I'm not a fan of Regina, but -- this is a horrible idea."
He frowned at her. "It's a horrible idea," she explained, "first of all because it's not generally considered a good thing to go around kidnapping people. It's not very nice to the poor person you're kidnapping, to start with. Nor is it nice to the person who gets framed for it. Seriously? I have to spell this out?"
"And how far are you willing to go for your son?"
"Gold, that is so irrelevant it's laughable. What does this have to do with either of our children?"
Gold said, "I'm surprised you even ask. If Regina is taken care of... that leaves Henry free."
Emma rubbed her temples. "You know, you're a lot of work. No. Still no. There are some things decent people don't do. And even though Regina's a psychopath, she's Henry's mom. If I have to ask you what you're doing every five minutes, I will, but you are not going to do this. I'm not going to let you."
"In return--" Gold started.
Emma stepped up to him. "No. This isn't a deal. And I know you don't do things because it's the right thing to do. Just -- if you're just doing it because I'm making you, fine, but you're not going to do this kidnapping-framing-whatever thing."
Gold considered her, his eyes glittering. "Are you saying you're aligning yourself against me, Emma Swan?"
They looked at each other for a long moment. Emma suddenly realized how close she was to him. She could feel her heart beating faster.
"Not against you," Emma said finally. "Say, aligned with who you could be rather than with who you are."
Gold sighed, suddenly looking deflated. "I don't," Gold said tiredly, not looking at her, "do things for the right reasons. I know that. I've had -- problems in the past, ways of thinking about things it's hard to unlearn. Now that it seems finding Bae might become a reality -- well. For his sake perhaps I shall try. And with your help. You are -- a light."
It was the truth. Obscurely moved, Emma took his hand. He raised his eyes to her, looking faintly startled. "I won't say it's okay, Gold, but -- it's good that you're trying."
*
Emma knocked at Gold's door. No answer. She frowned. It wasn't like him to be late for their appointments -- ah, there was his car. He pulled into the garage, limped out carrying a paper bag that looked like it had come from Granny's diner. "Have you had dinner, Emma? I have extra sandwiches."
Her lips quirked up. "Offering me dinner? Are you getting soft, Gold?"
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Think of it as a job perk. I was hungry, and I thought it would be rude to eat in front of you without offering you anything. There's wine in the kitchen as well."
"Sounds good."
By mutual unspoken consent, they bypassed the large dining-room table and sat down on the couch. She was aware that if she moved an inch, their legs would be touching, and she concentrated on avoiding this. "Henry came by my shop again today," Gold remarked, taking a sip from his glass and a bite of his sandwich.
Emma did the same. The wine was very good. Somehow, she was not surprised. "Right, he mentioned he was going to when I saw him yesterday."
"We talked more about his fairy tales. The curse. Belief. You know, Emma, I think --"
"I think," Emma interrupted, "that we should talk about Bae, which is why I'm here. I hit another dead end, like I told you earlier today. I'm thinking maybe we need to go more into Bae's interests, things he might be involved in --"
Gold rolled his eyes, refilling his glass and hers too. "I knew I was going to want wine to deal with this," he remarked, taking a drink of his. "How many times do I have to tell you, Emma, I have no relevant answer to that question."
"Aw, come on. What about video games? This would've been the 80's -- Pac-Man, Space Invaders --"
"No. He liked to play -- games, you know, like any other child, hopscotch and blind man's bluff, when he was younger -- swimming, wrestling, when he got older."
Okay. This was encouraging, and far better than the nothing you'd be interested in she'd gotten when she'd first tried the question several weeks ago. Clearly she should have tried alcohol earlier as a tool to get him to open up. She filed this away for possible later use. "How about collecting things?"
"I beg your pardon?" He filled her glass again.
Hm. How many glasses had that been, exactly? "No more, Gold. I gotta drive home sometime this evening, you know, unless you really do want to hire me as an overnight security guard like I told French." She felt pleasantly buzzed. Ah, well. It took so long to get useful information out of the man that it'd probably wear off by the time she had to drive anywhere. "Collecting things. You know. Stamp collecting, coin collecting, I don't know, that's why I'm asking you. You're such a magpie yourself that I wondered if he maybe had any of that tendency."
He managed to look slightly offended and amused at the same time. "Magpie?"
"Yeah, just look at this house!" She nudged his shoulder. "You've got a spinning wheel in the corner there, Gold. Total magpie. I don't think I've ever seen a spinning wheel in real life."
He shrugged. "I may hoard things, but I actually do know how to use a spinning wheel."
"Yeah?" She crossed her arms.
"Oh yeah. I was a sheep farmer, you see."
"Huh." She mulled this information over. "Wouldn't have thought it of you. Thought you'd been born in a suit, doing lawyerly things your whole life."
He exhaled, the ghost of a laugh. "No. It was only after -- after Bae that I became interested in deals and contracts. I... made a bad deal. I didn't want to do that again. No, before that it was wool and sheep and spinning."
"That's how you knew about that sheep crap oil. Okay. So, Gold, show me. I want to see."
"Excuse me?"
"Spinning. I've never seen someone spin wool before."
He raised an eyebrow. "I... haven't done it in a while." He went over to the wheel, ran a hand over it in a gesture that was both affectionate and possessive. "I suppose I could." He cocked his head at Emma, a dark glint in his eye. "I'll make a deal with you, then, dear."
"What is it with you and deals?" Emma complained, but went over to where he was standing, stumbling only slightly. "Depends. What do you have in mind?"
He came closer to her. Emma saw his gaze flick to her lips; his own parted slightly, and his breath caught. She was conscious of her own breathing coming faster. But he turned away to fiddle with a cloud of wool and part of the wheel that was jutting out to the side. "Tell me about Henry," he said, his eyes on the wool. "It hasn't escaped my attention, you know, that you never want to talk about him."
Emma blinked, tried to regain her composure. "It's not Henry we're trying to find."
"Oh?" murmured Gold, slowly starting to turn the wheel.
Emma scowled. "Yeah. And anyway, you've known Henry for ten years, and you two seem to be together all the time now. You probably know him better than I do."
"Ah, now. You know that's not true. What was he like as a newborn?"
Emma watched the steady, almost hypnotic, motion of his hands, drawing the fibers together. She didn't know anything about textiles, but she was willing to bet that what was coming out was a fine example of yarn, even and straight. Gold, she thought, was the sort of person who would think anything worth doing was worth doing well. "Henry was beautiful," Emma said wistfully, remembering. "I wasn't a baby person, I'm still not, I guess, but my baby... was something special."
"It was the same with Bae," said Gold softly, his eyes on the thread, the relaxed, intent look on his face something that Emma had never seen on it before. There was something about Gold's face, the way his voice had gentled -- Emma could almost believe that he really had been a sheep farmer, once upon a time. "I would have done anything for him from the moment he was born. When you let him go... was it hard?"
The low compelling hum of the spinning wheel, the soothing tones of Gold's voice, created a quiet space where she thought she might say anything. "Yeah. Pretty much the hardest thing in the world. I really -- I had a difficult time of it, afterwards. But I -- wanted to give him his best chance. I couldn't raise a kid. I couldn't do that to him." She sighed, watching Gold's hands, as if he were weaving a spell. "But I failed him, didn't I? That he came to Regina --"
"Parents fail their children all the time," he said quietly. "I know that better than most. But you didn't fail Henry, not in this. You gave him his best chance. You know that."
"With a psychopath?"
"Regina is many things, many terrible things, but she's always loved Henry. Always protected him from the worst parts of herself. I've seen it, Emma. You know I'm speaking the truth. He's been happy, as happy as any other boy, though now he's getting old enough that he needs more, yes, he needs a light to follow, the light you can give him." His words were coming more slowly and in a more lilting rhythm, in time with the wheel.
Emma breathed out. "I can't believe he's ten now. He's the-- the most important thing in the world to me."
"They grow up so fast," Gold murmured. "Before you know it-- Have you told Henry, then, what you've told me? The way you feel about him? Have you told him you love him?"
"No," Emma whispered. "He knows -- that I wanted to give him his best chance. But -- no."
Gold let the wheel slow and stop, took her hand in his, his thumb caressing her fingers in a slow motion that reminded her of the way he had spun the wool. She shivered. "My dear, what are you afraid of?"
"I could hurt him so easily. I'm not, I don't know how to be a mom."
"You learn as you go," Gold said gently. "It's all right. You might choose to -- believe in yourself, and in Henry."
She pulled away from him. He let his hand drop. I'm still afraid, Emma did not say. But she thought Gold might have heard it, all the same.
*
Emma all but ran into the pawnshop, her laptop tucked under her arm, pausing only to flip the pawnshop sign to closed. "What--" Gold began.
"Gold. You're gonna want to see this." She set the laptop down on the counter and flipped open the lid as Gold, bemused, limped up beside her.
She smiled at him. "It turned out to be absurdly simple. I remembered what you said the other day, about sheep farming -- I thought perhaps Bae would have followed the same path. There's a website for Maine sheep breeders, as it turns out, and --" She gestured with her hand at the computer screen.
She watched his face as he peered at the screen. She could tell the instant he saw the name Bay Stiltskin; his whole face contorted with terrible hope. And then, as she kept watching, she saw him will himself to stillness, his face blank of any emotion, saw deliberation return to his eyes. "We can't leave Storybrooke, not yet," he said. "Perhaps he can come here, or --"
"Of course we can leave, Gold. You make no sense. And you need to find him yourself, not just wait for him to come to you. Why can't you leave Storybrooke?"
He turned to her, took her hand with one of his and smoothed a tendril of her hair with the other, though his eyes remained distant, as if he were only half aware of her. "You won't believe me, dear."
"Why not?"
"The curse is real, Emma. The curse Henry talks about? It's all true. We came here from another world, a world with magic, where we had other identities, other selves. The stories in his book are all true."
"Oh, come on," Emma said automatically, stepping back from him. "It's just fairy tales for kids. You've been hanging around Henry too much lately, gotten sucked into his stories, that's all. It's not real."
He smiled sadly at her. "Yes, I thought you'd say that. But don't you know I'm telling the truth?"
"I know that you believe it's true," Emma said slowly. "But --"
Gold sighed. "That's all right, of course," he said. "We've discussed -- allegories. But whether you think I'm speaking the literal truth or not, by the terms of the curse, we're stuck here in Storybrooke, and the only way out is for you to break the curse."
Okay, Emma thought. I'll play along. For now. "All right, how do we break it?"
"You're the focus of the curse. We must go to the library --"
"The library in the middle of town, the one that's boarded up?"
"Yes." There was something eager and hard in his look. "Under it, you'll see, is what you need to recover."
And Emma's skin started tingling. Not only was Gold not quite telling the truth, there was something else -- something not quite right -- "Gold," Emma said quietly. "Remember our deal."
The eagerness drained out of Gold's face, replaced by a curious mix of emotions: constraint, anger, and a kind of despair. He said softly, "Had I thought, Emma Swan, on what this deal would hold me to, I should never have taken it, not even for Bae."
He took a breath. "There's magic underneath the library," he said, the words dragged out of him. Magic again, Emma thought. Was Gold using the word, as he had implied, as an analogy? Could it be drugs, hidden underneath the boarded-up building? Or something related to an organized crime racket? It would fit, she realized. Gold's secretiveness, his unexplained prosperity, his dark past, the son estranged because of something his father didn't want to talk about.
Gold continued, "I was going to force you to recover it for me without telling you what it was for, by trying to represent to you that it was the way to break the curse. Of course, with the deal we made -- well, now you know."
"Why did you want the, um, magic?"
"To find Bae."
"First, I've already found Bae, and second, that's a lie." She studied him. The most insidious of lies: a lie he himself wanted to believe. But perhaps his faith in the deal they had made would help him admit the truth. "What did you really want it for?"
"Power," he whispered. "I've hungered for it, for the taste of it, for the feel of it, for all these years." A silence. "And now you know, Emma Swan. This is who I am."
This, she could tell, was the truth. Whether what he desired was really magic or simply a name for something more mundane, it was the power that drove him, that he coveted, that was keeping him from his love for his son. "I can't think," Emma said carefully, "that Bae would want this."
"No," Gold said, almost inaudibly. "He always wanted -- wanted me to be free of it. Henry also -- suspects, I think. But I need the magic. I must have it."
"Gold." Emma took his hands. "Gold. Your son. You would do anything for him. I know you would. Don't let this -- craving overpower you. I'll help. We're so close, Gold. We're this close to finding him. All you have to do is walk away." She paused, trying to think of words he would understand. "All you have to do is tell me how to break the curse, and we can go find him. I know how I feel about Henry, and I know how you feel about Bae. Choose him."
His eyes moved over her, but Emma wasn't sure he was seeing her. "Henry," he repeated, sounding lost and alone. "Bae. The magic --"
"Gold," said Emma, taking a step closer. "You can do this. You can. You don't need to choose the -- the magic. You can choose him." She didn't think he was really listening to her. How could she break through?
And then she knew how she could reach him. To fall into Gold's story. (Into Henry's stories.) To show that she understood what they were telling her--
Emma knew what broke the curses in Henry's stories, the stories Henry and Gold had talked about, the stories they had shared. She leaned forward and kissed Gold. His lips were warm. They opened to hers, gently.
When she looked into his eyes again, she saw in them not the usual hard calculations, but something softer, something confused and yearning and broken, something human. "Emma."
"Gold," she whispered.
"Breaking the curse is so easy, when you know the answer. True love's kiss. Whom do you truly love?" His gaze caught and held hers. "Henry," Gold said hoarsely. "The curse is keyed to you and to Henry. Give Henry true love's kiss, and the curse will be broken."
She nodded. It all made a kind of sense. Perhaps it was all in Gold's and Henry's minds; perhaps it was their allegory, a symbolic way to deal with their lives; perhaps magic was simply a way for Gold to talk about his addiction to power; perhaps (perhaps) it was really magic. And it was true she had never kissed Henry, had never quite dared to entrust her heart again to the boy who had stolen it away as an infant.
But -- perhaps -- she and Gold could both move past their fears. "Let's go, then, Gold. We'll find Henry, and then Bae. Will you come with me?"
Gold bent his head. "I will," he said.
-----------------------
Notes: Title is from Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach."
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Date: 2012-08-10 11:11 am (UTC)Nice story.
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Date: 2012-08-12 03:04 am (UTC)BTW, I loved your NPT fic! Loved the River-Serenity dynamic. Loved how Mal/River (which is a pairing I have to admit I have trouble with) in it was really Mal/Serenity, which is kind of my OTP for Firefly :) Just lovely.
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Date: 2012-08-12 04:38 am (UTC)