Chapter Text
Prologue
"Listen sis, you are not gonna believe the new librarian."
Belle perked up out of her book where she sat at the other end of Granny's lunch counter. Regina had wasted no time on this, in fact, she must have hired the very first applicant she received. This was the opening salvo in response to Belle's triumph in persuading the city council that, with a generous donation toward the necessary repairs and upgrades, it was in the best interest of Storybrooke to reopen its library over Regina's objections that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
Belle hoped that Regina's success in thwarting Belle's efforts to find a both qualified and sympathetic candidate backfired horribly. A backfire that could and would be helped along if she had anything to say about it. The mayor may have gotten the drop on her this time, but these occasional digs were all Ms. Mills could ever really muster.
They both knew where the power roosted in this town, and it was not in the mayor's office but rather in the little pawn and antiquities shop, just across from the soon-to-open library.
Belle listened pretending to become very attentive to her drink and the novel open in front of her.
"He says he's twenty-four, but his face is so fresh I wonder if he even has to shave every day!" Regina was all but giggling, disgusting, but she was going on, "And he brought his infant son to the interview! That adorable accent! All apologetic about not knowing the town yet having just arrived," the mayor practically gasped for breath trying to get it out too quickly, "and did I mind terribly? He would find a reliable babysitter as soon as possible. Oh the poor boy! I of course told him that I am a single parent myself, and that his plight was completely understandable. I gave him the number for the local daycare. I can't believe what a find he is!"
"Scottish you say?" Zelena was kicking a foot and chewing her straw, all but drooling in rapt interest. An utterly nauseating display. Zelena was Belle's age, for gods' sakes and drooling over a mere boy. Regina's encouragement did nothing to help. "Sophisticated or provincial? The Scottish can have such a charm about them, in either case."
"Sophisticated enough to be educated, but I would say rustically charming with roots in poverty, a definite boot-strapper." Regina took a bite of her lasagna and delicately licked a bit of excess sauce from her lip. "I offered him the apartment above the library for now, but I'll need to find more suitable accommodations because of his disability. That elevator only goes to the basement, who would design a building that way? I can't bear the thought of him carrying his baby up and down with that cane for long. The housing market in Storybrooke is so tight these days."
Belle knew that for the bald faced lie it was. More like, there were few available rental properties that Belle herself did not own. Precisely none, in fact. So the mayor wanted to be certain that her bonny young Scotsman did not become Belle's tenant. That was her way in. The Mayor may have managed to squeak a candidate into the position before Belle could, but that did not mean that he had to become, or remain, the mayor's pet. He could be hers.
Belle smirked. The poor mayor was trying for any leverage she could weasel since her resounding defeat over the library initiative. Yes, the bonny young Scotsman would be hers.
Belle left a wad of bills to cover her lunch and a sizable tip behind and she swiftly exited the diner, a new mission evolving in her mind.