Work Text:
Mr. Gold, of number 12 Rose Street, Storybrooke was proud to say that he was perfectly normal, thank you very much. He was the last person you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because he just didn't hold with such nonsense.
He would wake up every weekday at 6.30. He would get dressed and have a cup of coffee (one sugar, no milk) and a piece of toast for breakfast. Then he would get in his black shiny Cadillac and drive to his shop where he would stay until 8 o’clock in the evening.
His routine was disrupted one morning in July, when he found a young woman standing beside his car on the driveway. He looked at her suspiciously and noticed she was holding a container. He was ready to bark at her to sod off, he wasn’t buying anything when she explained she was his new neighbor. The house next to his mansion that had been on sale for years was large and expensive (although not as large or as expensive as his of course). Apparently, the woman -Belle was her name- had decided to settle down here. She was Australian but had grown up in England with her father. Her father still lived in London and she had spent the last years travelling around the world. She was also quite the chatterbox. He thanked her coldly for the cake but told her he didn’t eat anything sweet -a lie- and got in his car and left.
Mr. Gold was hated by all who knew him and he was fine with it. He owned most of the town and he had no desire whatsoever to be friends with his tenants. Miss Belle French might not be his tenant but he had no desire to be friends with her either. A friendly neighbor that came by at all times of the day to share food, refreshments and gossip was the last thing he needed. Besides, now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember seeing any moving vans or any other indication that someone was moving in. It was just as likely that the woman was trying to scam someone or she was unstable.
However, it turned out that Belle was indeed his neighbor. In less than a week, she had made herself a fixture in Storybrooke and seemed to be friends with everyone. She attended events at the Community Center, she joined Mrs Lucas’s knitting club, she started a book club of her own at the Public Library and she even participated in fund raisings. Not that Mr. Gold knew that or even cared. He just happened to know everything about everyone in this town. Miss French could do whatever she liked as long as she didn’t bring all those people to her house and annoyed him with loud conversations and music. Truth be told, she didn’t seem eager to do that. For all that she was social and friendly -and extremely beautiful, not that he had noticed- she never had any guests.
-----
Two weeks after their introduction, she walked in his shop. Those who came usually wanted to borrow money or make some sort of deal. It was rare for the denizens of Storybrooke to actually want to buy something from him. The last time he had a customer it was a woman who bought a guitar in an effort to stop her son from spending all his free time playing video games. It was a surprise then when she walked in and immediately started explaining how she had been meaning to come over and see all the things he had in his shop. He decided to indulge her and showed her around the shop, pleased to notice the gleam in her eyes when he shared tidbits of information about his antiques. In the end, she left with a rare edition of her favourite romance novel and a promise to come back soon.
-----
Mr. Gold was not a man prone to have a crush on a woman. He was a sophisticated, middle-aged landlord with a penchant for making deals, not some school boy. So after three months of tea, cakes and conversations with the lovely Miss French, he had to admit the truth. He was utterly in love with her. He loved her smile and her brilliant mind, her quirky sense of humour, her odd fashion choices. He had even come to like Philip, her pet owl, even though that infernal bird seemed to despise him with a passion.
He decided that the only thing he could do was try and see if perhaps Belle could feel the same for him. And so he found himself visiting Belle in her home for the first time, bringing her favourite red velvet cake with him. He knocked and waited. Belle opened the door just a crack and poked her head out to see who it is.
“Mr. Gold!” she exclaimed.
“Good afternoon, Miss French. I hope you’re well.”
“Very well, thank you!”
They stared at each other as he waited for Belle to invite him in but she didn’t seem inclined to do so.
Awkwardly, he extended the hand holding the cake and asked “May I come in?”
“Oh, right. Of course. Just… The house is a mess right now. Do you mind waiting here while I clean up a bit?”
“Of course not,” he answered.
Belle closed the door and he stood waiting. Not a minute had passed when she opened the door again and told him to come in. The house couldn’t have been in such a horrible state. It was clean and organised. Maybe she was one of those people that wanted everything to be perfect for a guest. He appreciated neatness in a person.
Belle went to the kitchen to make them tea and serve them a piece of cake. As he waited, he studied her home, trying to take everything in at once. The living room was painted a bright red. There was a large sofa and a coffee table across the flat screen TV on the wall. Apart from that, the room seemed bare. There was a side of the wall that was full of nails, like there should be frames hanging but no paintings anywhere. He turned a little and noticed a large wooden chest in the corner. He went towards it, wanting to examine the craftsmanship when Belle walked back into the room.
She carried a tray to the coffee table and he went to sit down on the sofa. She offered him his tea and just as she was about to take hers, her eyes widened and she seemed distressed. She quickly got up and grabbed a newspaper that he hadn’t seen from the floor. Her moves were so frantic that for a moment it seemed like the pictures on the paper moved. She hid it behind a cushion and smiled apologetically.
“I’m so sorry about that.”
“No need to apologise. It’s your house.”
“No. Yes. I mean… I don’t like mess. I can’t believe I left that lying around,” she muttered more to herself than him and sat down again.
They quickly fell into conversation and he started feeling a bit more confident about his daring endeavor. Belle was the first friend he had made in a long time, perhaps ever. Despite his grumpiness and his rudeness in the beginning, she had stuck by him. Surely, it wouldn’t be such a stretch of the imagination to assume there might be something more there.
He was just about to broach the subject when the strangest thing happened. A big, grey owl flew in from the half-open window and dropped a bright red envelope at Belle’s lap before flying out again.
It all happened so fast he didn’t know how to react. He was just about to ask Belle if she was okay when she grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and anxiously said to him “You have to leave!”
That was when he noticed the envelope. It seemed to inflate and grow until it would burst. His first instinct was to protect Belle and he was just about to take her out of the house when the envelope blew up. Completely lost, he looked as the envelope stood a foot or two above the floor and what looked like a mouth appeared on it. A booming voice coming from inside it started howling words he was too scared to understand.
It finished just as suddenly as it had started. At a loss for words, he turned to look at Belle. She was trembling and looking at him anxiously.
“What…” he started to say but words were failing him.
Belle took a deep breath and came close to him. She gently placed her hand on his and said “We need to talk.”