Work Text:
The sleek black Cadillac’s quiet purr was the only sound to be heard as Mr. Gold drove carefully along the dirt road through the woods. He’d made the trip more than a dozen times, but his companion who sat in the passenger seat, fidgeting and wringing her hands in her lap quietly, still proved to be anxious whenever riding in a car. Belle didn’t like the sudden start and stop of the gas, no matter how gently he braked, and her stomach proved to disagree with the fast motion. But going gently and slowly, she seemed to be able to relax after a while, more distracted by the green sea of foliage beyond the polished windows.
“It looks so much like home,” Belle commented, smiling slightly. Turning her face to him, lips velvety red and eyes lined with kohl (the she-wolf’s doing, no doubt), she wrinkled her nose curiously, asking, “Do you ever miss it?”
Mr. Gold hesitated, eyes steadfastly fixed to the road. It was so easy to scare the wildlife here, and he’d seen deer and rabbits on more than one occasion, enough to make him wary that anything could dart out in front of the car. Glancing at her cautiously, Mr. Gold cleared his throat. “Sometimes,” he frowned to himself. “This world has its advantages, but it’s also...” He waved a hand impatiently. “I find it silly, tedious. When Sheriff Swan came to town, it was much harder to adjust to the things I knew and the things I remembered.”
“I thought that was just me,” Belle confessed, smiling apologetically.
“No, darling, not just you,” Mr. Gold murmured quietly. “Not by a mile.”
Belle blinked, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly. She opened her mouth to ask one of the many questions he knew she’d been wondering for some time, but then she seemed to decide against it and turned back to look at the forest. They let the silence settle between them, not uncomfortably, before a bit of a shadow caught his eye in the shades of the trees ahead. “Up there,” he said, pointing as his hand remained on the steering wheel.
“...oh,” Belle sounded surprised, and a smile lifted at the corners of her mouth as she sat forward, as much as her seat belt would allow. The cabin loomed in the distance, looking more dank and unused than ever. Of course, they had no intention of going inside, though the idea made him snicker quietly until he remembered the last member of the French family who’d visited.
Mr. Gold fancied himself to have a bit of a black sense of humor, but that was pushing it even by his standards.
With practiced ease, he pulled the car off the road and in front of the soft lawn of pine needles and mud. It was always colder and more moist in the thicker parts of the forest where the sun never truly shined through enough to chase away the chill or the wet. Living in Maine, Mr. Gold had found the weather to be something of a force and a will all its own, a type of magic even he couldn’t tamper with.
“Ready?” he asked, slipping the keys into his pocket and gathering his cane.
Belle smiled brightly, fidgeting her legs to lift the basket up from the floor board and nodded enthusiastically. “Yes.”
All the dates indoors hadn’t held up thus far, so Belle had suggested a picnic. Gold had no aversion to that, especially since the weather was getting warmer. He personally thought Belle could do with some sunshine. Perhaps it was her years in confinement, but she seemed so pale. He had always remembered her glowing, soft and sparkling and warm, but here she seemed almost tired. No less lovely, but sometimes, it pained him to look at her.
His little Belle was only ever meant for sunlight.
For his own part, Mr. Gold enjoyed the outdoors, be it sitting on his porch or tending his garden. Memories as a boy growing up in another world brought back his experience fishing and catching and hunting, meagerly but successful enough to keep food on the table and enjoy the solitude. It went against his general steely image of the shadowy loan shark in his dusty pawn shop, but contradiction had always suited him well.
They stepped out of the car, Belle wobbling a bit on the uneven ground in her heeled ankle boots. He’d told her to dress comfortably, but the little thing had forgotten, of course. Then again, in his pressed suit and impeccable sapphire embroidered tie, he could hardly make a case for comfort (though he did enjoy the security it brought). They made quite the clumsy pair, Gold struggling to find footing as he stepped through the forest with his cane, and Belle clutching at his arm as she attempted to do the same. They rounded the cabin, passing under trees and uneven terrain with enthusiasm.
“Do you ever stay there?” Belle asked curiously, casting a whimsical glance at the dark cabin.
“Rarely,” Gold murmured, his eyes trained on the ground so neither would trip over any roots. “I mainly had the thing built so people would know the property was lived on.”
“It’s pretty,” Belle murmured thoughtfully, the tension in her body unwinding as they both became used to the slippery ground. She shifted her basket in her other arm that cradled hot burgers and crispy french fries, tucking her arm more comfortably in his. “It could make for a nice little home, all on its own.”
Mr. Gold smirked. “Do you want it?”
“What?” Belle laughed, gaping up at him.
“You know the saying, I’m sure, dear,” Mr. Gold drawled, looking up ahead to where the trees began to thin and the light began to brighten. “What’s mine is yours.”
Oh, he was so desperately tempted to look at her, to see if he’d overstepped his boundary (again), but resolutely kept watch on where they stepped. The sudden silence was nearly overwhelming following such words, and his heart pounded in his chest to a painful degree until he felt the gentle touch at his arm. He glanced down and found Belle resting her cheek against his suit jacket, ducking her head so all he could see was her mass of chestnut curls. He knew, though, that the little squeeze at his arm was not imagined.
That, he knew.
Mr. Gold led his little love through the forest until it opened upon a meadow of sweet grass. Heather and lavender edged the woods, creating a softness to the otherwise bland scenery. The sun was deigning to shine for them and keep the chill at bay, but only barely as it continued to roll behind the rather thick, dark clouds. After Gold took the picnic basket, Belle spread out a thick quilt on the ground, neither of them trusting the ground to be warm or dry enough along the coast of Maine to not ruin their clothes.
“I’ve never been on a picnic,” Mr. Gold finally said to break the silence. Belle looked up, her eyes wide and curious as her pale hands smoothed out wrinkles before she curled up like a mermaid. Gold took his time, first passing the basket to her, and then unbuttoning his jacket slowly, looking at the edge of the forest. “I’ve worked out in the woods, on the land for years, but it was always just that, you see. Work.”
“How do you find it?” Belle asked, smiling as she took his jacket, draping it across her lap before offering her hand. He took it gratefully, putting most of his weight on his cane as he gingerly lowered himself to the ground. It took him a long while to readjust before his bad knee was comfortable enough, the pain easing most when it was gently bent without any pressure on the joint.
Once settled, he cast another glance around them, trying to ignore the tension lacing his back. He was unused to being anywhere that was out in the open, more accustomed to shadowy corners that allowed him the luxury of seeing all and not being seen. “I’ve always enjoyed the solitude,” he confessed with a little smile. “So I think I could learn to enjoy it outside.”
Belle smiled at him, her face soft and relaxed and her gaze loving as she pulled the cloth back from their food and set out the meal in plastic containers. “I don’t mind being alone either, you know.” At the skeptical raise of his eyebrow, Belle shrugged gently. “I know you think I’m lonely, but I’m not. I enjoy people-friends, family, but I don’t mind being on my own, either. You’d think I would be craving attention after being alone for so long,” Belle winced, picking a fry between two fingers. “But it’s not like that. Not at all. I thought it would be, I thought I would want to meet everyone in the world and never be by myself again, but truthfully, it’s a bit of an unpleasant shock.”
Mr. Gold’s hands were frozen over his food, staring with wide dark eyes at his girl. “No one has been... cruel, have they?” he asked, haltingly, trying to pull words together in the wake of such a confession.
“Not at all, no,” Belle shook her head desperately. Biting her lip, she looked down at her knees that peeked from under her lacy burgundy dress. “I suppose I’m more suited to being alone. No brothers or sisters, only one parent-I never realized how often I’d always been on my own.”
“But you had maids,” Mr. Gold supplied, taking a small bite of the hamburger. He chewed thoughtfully and slowly, his eyes following hers to rest upon her knees that suddenly seemed so vulnerable in the daylight, and so incredibly pale. “Servants. Courtiers.”
“Not as many as you might think,” Belle smiled, shrugging again, only with one shoulder this time. She rested her cheek against her shoulder, sighing a little and leaning her weight on her arm. She spared a little giggle, her eyes twinkling at some memory she’d recovered. “So many of them thought me odd and funny.”
Mr. Gold frowned, his eyes darkening as he set his hamburger down. “So many of them are also idiots, my dear. You shouldn’t-”
Belle waved a hand carelessly, laughing. “You don’t need to be offended on my behalf, Rumple,” she said sweetly, earning a little relieved smile from him, a softening around the crinkles of his eyes. “I suppose it was quite true. I preferred books to people, and daydreams to friends. I’m sure if I’d had the patience, I would’ve tried my own hand at writing stories, but I had none of my own to share. I wanted to collect them instead. But for all I can remember, it was never unhappy. I was alone, but I was not lonely.”
“Until we came here,” Mr. Gold finished quietly, looking down at the front of his suit. He saw out of the corner of his eye how Belle nodded hesitantly, eating a couple of french fries. In the growing silence, he knew that she was hoping he would share something too, that would perhaps bridge the gap between them. It was not an unreasonable hope, for who knew loneliness more intimately than a beast? In their world, it had been her chance to learn more about him, to heal him and help him, in his loneliness. Now it was the common denominator between them. Things in the old world that had endeared them were turned into prickly vines here, vines that caught them and tightened the more they tried to fight against them. She wanted to tear down curtains, to open windows and push past wood and glass and bone and stone until she could find him bare and vulnerable and what was underneath the brittle cowardice.
That was not something he was sure he could afford, not here.
To know him in their world, at least he could protect her from himself. At least there, he had possessed the restraint to turn her away, the strength to let her go and not be crippled irrevocably by her memory (or so he told himself). In this world, it was all so unforgiving, a weakness of flesh and emotion he couldn’t understand. He was not entirely sure that he wanted to.
Lost in his thoughts, Mr. Gold hadn’t noticed when Belle had leaned forward and taken his hand in hers. At the warm contact, he jerked, his eyes widening in their honeyed brown way, fearing what he’d find. Instead, Belle smiled sadly, moving closer until her leg pressed against his and they were sitting more comfortably upon the rumpled quilt. “You’re lonely, too. Still.”
“It’s a good color on me,” he chuckled, sipping the coffee she’d thought to bring in a cannister. Black and bitter, just as he liked.
“Oh, must you be as contrary as Mistress Mary?” Belle huffed, squeezing his hand playfully. His eyes caught her, halfway to sipping more of his coffee, and Belle blushed, smiling. “I’ve been reading a new book. It had had a little poem in it where children sang-”
“Yes, The Secret Garden. I know it.”
Belle raised her eyebrows, a smile growing on her face. “Do you? I’m not finished yet, so don’t tell me how it ends.”
The sun was kissing her hair, creating an auburn light on her chestnut hair. It burned against the green all around them, and the sudden urge to touch the glossy curls around her shoulders overtook him. Instead, he busied his hands with the rest of his hamburger. “It’s a classic. Do you like it?”
“A little girl lost in a vast, dark manor to explore, owned by a mysterious recluse?” At Mr. Gold’s sudden silence and realization, Belle giggled, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his cheek. The softness of her lips lingered over where she could feel his five o’clock shadow beginning to show, her nose, sprayed with freckles, following the line of his jaw. She lowered her voice to a soft murmur that teased the hair that framed his face and tickled his ear. “I confess, I’m quite in love with it.”
The hand that did not hold his own came to rest on his leg, warm above his knee, and the gentle touch of her shoulder next to his arm brought the light scent of her perfume against his collar. Raising his eyes as high as the delicate dip of her throat, he reached a shaking hand up and twirled a curl that fell over her shoulder between two clever fingers. Belle might have been holding her breath, for all he knew, but he enjoyed her sudden closeness, the stillness and the unwillingness between them to part. Winding the sleek lock of hair around his finger, he smiled wryly, his voice a whisper when he asked, “Would you like your own garden, Belle? A secret to keep?”
Ducking her head down to watch as he laced his fingers between hers, Belle shifted enough so that her feet were tickled by the grass through her grey stockings, and she sat closer. “I would,” she whispered back, though why they spoke so quietly, Mr. Gold did not know. They were alone, after all. Her eyes traveled up, bright blue like the bottom of a lagoon where the sunlight met it. Her look was always as intimate as a touch, and she touched him again-over his jaw, down his nose, around his mouth, across his brow. She smiled, biting her bottom lip in her study of him. Had he been more aware of himself, he would have been uncomfortable, being looked at so. “A bit of earth to call my own, to see things grow... I think that’s the line,” blushing, Belle tilted her head. “Could you give me one?”
“Of course I could. Trees with great white flowers that change color when you touch them, or shrubs that yield the brightest berries you could ever dream. Roses to match your lips,” he sighed, his hand that played with her hair brushing against her shoulder, his thumb caressing the soft skin of her collar. Belle might have shivered from it, but he couldn’t tell if it was the touch or from the chill when the sun went behind the clouds again. “And your skin.”
“For having never been in love before, you know how to court very well, Mr. Gold,” Belle whispered, and they both shared soft, breathless laughter. Shifting her legs so that she could lean closer, Gold held his breath as she cupped his face in her hand and tilted her head up.
Before they could share a patiently longed for kiss, the sky cracked in half with a jagged line of lightning. The clouds that had covered the sun were growing steadily darker, and Mr. Gold looked up quickly, sighing noisily, “Bother.”
“We should probably go inside,” Belle decided morosely, and he nodded, pulling away with no little amount of disappointment. The playfulness that flowered between them withered as they separated and began to gather their things into the basket, but before they had a chance to even begin picking up the quilt, heavy, fat raindrops began to water the meadow. “Oh!”
“Hurry, now,” Mr. Gold said, just before the sprinkle turned into a full downpour. Belle yelped, gathering up the quilt, and Gold took the basket in the crook of his arm before looping the other with hers.
They hurried as fast as they could under the cover of the forest, breathless in their attempt to run. Mr. Gold’s cane slipped more than once through mud, and Belle’s heels began to sink into the ground halfway back. At one point, Belle found herself caught, sunk into the ground and tugging at her own legs. Completely soaked through with rain, Mr. Gold turned to stare at her feeble attempts to free herself, before doubling over in laughter. Belle’s sweet giggle joined his own, and she pushed her wet hair away from her face, flapping her arms uselessly. “I’m stuck!”
“I can see that,” Gold chuckled. He set their basket down and walked back carefully to wrap his arm around her back. With a gentle pull, he lifted Belle up, and she squealed when she came free, throwing her arms around his neck. His hair was plastered to his face, his dress shirt sticking to his arms and chest humidly beneath his vest, but he shifted her up so she stood upon his toes and not in the mud.
“My shoes!”
Balancing her on the tips of his toes, so as to not ruin her stockings, they glanced back to see Belle’s heeled boots sticking up out of the mud proudly. Mr. Gold rolled his eyes, looking down at his girl with askance. “I told you not to wear those bloody things.”
With her dark hair hanging like seaweed, sticking to her cheeks and her neck, her eyes looked even brighter blue up so close, her skin whiter, her lips redder, and Mr. Gold was just vaguely aware of how close they stood. She shivered under a blast of a wet breeze that wound between the trees, and he puffed, “I’d offer you my jacket, my dear, but I’m afraid it’s ruined.”
“So are we,” Belle laughed, leaning her forehead against his shoulder.
“Might as well run with the theme, I suppose,” Mr. Gold muttered, and with strong arms, lifted Belle into his embrace.
“Rumple-put me down!” Belle gasped, holding onto him tightly. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes as they stumbled towards the car. “You could slip-we could really get hurt, and then-”
“I may be handicapped, but I’m not an invalid,” Mr. Gold muttered, nudging her cheek with his nose as they made it to the car. “Be a lamb and reach into my pocket for the keys, love.”
Belle maneuvered until her little hand found its way into his pocket, her wine painted nails fiddling with the keys until she could unlock the door. Mr. Gold set her inside safely on the passenger seat, saying, “There’s a blanket in the back.”
He retrieved the basket, quilt, and his jacket from where they’d left it, loaded them into the trunk, and then climbed into the car. The rain continued to wash over the windows, and Mr. Gold frowned in distaste as wet leather creaked beneath both of them. He stuck the keys in the ignition, but rested his forehead against the steering wheel for a long moment, his other hand falling beneath the wheel to rest on his knee. It no longer ached, but throbbed with his heart beat painfully until he felt a dull queasiness low in his gut. He could feel the joint, almost bruised from his attempt at gallantry, the muscles so sore they were numb with weakness. It’d be a miracle if he could drive, let alone walk Belle to her door.
A gentle hand on his shoulder made him turn his head to the side to see Belle sitting closer, her face pinched in concern. “Are you alright?” she whispered.
Closing his eyes briefly, cheek to the spoke of the wheel, Gold nodded. “I’m old, that’s all.”
“I wish I could drive us,” Belle fretted, glancing out the back window as if hoping to find someone else in the backseat. Looking back at him, she traced some of his wet hair away from his face with hesitant fingers. “You look so pale.”
The urge to bat her hand away rose up quickly, and even though he knew it was in defense of his pride, it still brought a sour taste in his mouth. Sitting up, he turned the keys and shook his head, muttering, “I’m fine.”
Belle quieted, nodding warily as she sat back and buckled her seatbelt. She gave one more glance to the cabin, tucking the blanket she’d found in the car around her legs. There was unease between them now, another attempt at a date having been ruined. He hoped that it being due to the weather was a better sign. It was a little less annoying than someone else interrupting them, he supposed, though Mr. Gold was beginning to think he and Belle were doomed to never finish a hamburger between them.
As the Cadillac gained distance into town, Belle scooted across the seat, her attempt to be subtle ruined by the distressed creaking of wet leather. She nudged her head against his shoulder until she earned a hard pressed smile from Gold and his arm around her shoulders. Whether it was apologetic, he couldn’t say, but her stubborn likeness to that of a kitten never failed to melt the ice in his veins.
“Was your first picnic so utterly terrible?”
“No,” Mr. Gold pulled the car up to the curb of the library, turning his face to look down at the little soaked sprite in his car. He smirked, bemused in her hopefulness. She was afraid he wouldn’t have enjoyed himself? Shaking his head, he pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead, murmuring, “Perhaps now that you have your own cabin, we might try again. Indoors, but I doubt much could intervene our date, then.”
Belle bit her lip, smiling as she drifted into happy thoughtfulness over that idea. “Yes,” she decided, nodding and leaning up to kiss his cheek. “Yes, I think we might.”
Mr. Gold gave her hand a squeeze and watched as she fumbled her way out of the car and back into the rain. He called out for her to be safe, but he didn’t think she could hear him as she hurried under the awning of the library. Only when she turned to wave at him did he relax, waving back and putting his car in drive. Though he couldn’t walk her to her door, he did make sure to watch until she was safely tucked away in her warm library, leaving only a trail of wet stockinged footprints in her wake.