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Isabelle was excited. She had bought the flowers from her father’s shop and decorated them herself; keeping in mind the man she was getting them for. He did not seem the flower type, but she hoped he would at least appreciate them, if not the gesture. She had around half an hour until his shop closed, so was sure she had enough time to drop them off without him noticing her.
She waited patiently at the corner, his shop just twenty feet away. Knowing his schedule better than anyone in Storybrooke, she was surprised to see him walking down the street back to his shop, a small smirk on his face, a slight spring to his step – well, as springy as a man with a cane could muster – as Gold opened the door, flipping the sign back to open and disappearing inside.
Now was her chance. “Do the brave thing,” she whispered to herself, taking the first few steps to the darkened shop. She rushed forward, laying the bouquet of roses at his door and rushing away before she was seen, still too shy to let him know it was her. Pleased with herself, she turned back to her Library and prepared to hide in the back room going over paperwork to kill time before she headed upstairs to her apartment.
The door was unlocked, something she always did and something her father always criticised her on. But as she always told him, “nobody steals books they can read for free.” She went straight for the back office and put on her headphones as she decided to finish her last few documents, completely immersed in it until she heard the faint chime of the doorbell.
Archie was waiting at the door, a large tome of psychological disorders clenched between his hands. “Belle!” he sighed, obviously relieved at her answering out of office hours. “I forgot to drop by on my lunch and have to bring this back today... You do not mind, do you?”
She managed a smile, and held the door wider to let him through, moving behind the main desk. “Anytime for you, Dr Hopper.” She moved behind the main desk and took the book from him, scanning it onto the machine and placing it in the returns trolley to return to its place later. And froze. On the desk besides the trolley was a bouquet of the most beautiful roses she had ever seen, lilac and red framed with baby’s breath, wrapped in a silver glittered paper and obviously costing a fortune it was so wonderful. She lifted them to her nose and inhaled deeply, taking in the heavenly scent.
"Someone is loved this Valentines,” Archie smiled, his eyes lighting up as Belle grinned at him. “Who are they from?”
Belle looked through the flowers, searching for a card or note of some kind and coming up blank. There was nothing to tell her who left them for her. “I have no idea; they were not here an hour ago though.”
“Ah well. Never worry, I am sure they will tell you soon enough.” He pulled at his coat tightening it around his frame. He turned to leave, stopping at the door and turning to face her one last time. “And anyway, with the amount of glitter on that paper, I doubt they came out unscathed. If they don’t tell you, you will be able to find them.”
Belle chuckled to herself, stroking the petals of one of the fuller blooms, deciding quickly in that moment that she had to find out who bought them for her. She had to. She grabbed her coat from the back office and set off to Grannies, the local diner, knowing that that was the only place anybody respectable would spend their evening – she did not want to go wandering round the Rabbit Hole. Grannies was busy, as always, but she managed to get the last booth to herself, and ordered a sweet iced tea when Ruby came for her order.
She didn’t have to wait long until Mr Gold walked in; holding a bouquet of Red and Yellow roses, the edges of the petals dipped in gold glitter and tied together with a blue ribbon. He looked really uncomfortable, but made his way to the counter, ordering a large coffee and scanning his eyes over the room, quickly finding Belle.
He limped over to her, cane in one hand and flowers in the other, and gave her one of his crooked smiles. “Miss French, what a pleasure to see you here.”
“Pleasure is mine, Mr Gold. Are you staying long, or would you care to join me?”
“I would love to,” he smiled, sinking down to the bench opposite her, laying his flowers besides hers. “It seems you have an admirer. May I ask whom it is?"
She looked down at the roses, the gold tipped ones she had bought him glistening beside the silver sparkle of her wrapped ones. “I have no idea. I wish I knew though…” ‘The brave thing…’ she reminded herself. “I feel terrible but they would need to be let down gently.”
A twitch ran through Golds face, quickly hidden behind his stoic expression. “No chance for romance then, dearie?”
“There is only one person who holds my heart, I am afraid. But it is unrequited.”
“Mr Gaston seems very taken with you still, if you wished to continue your courtship.”
She laughed, a bitter sound as she looked at him; really looked. From his greying hair to his gold tooth and his sable eyes he was beautiful, if only he could see it. “Greg and I have been over for a long time and neither of us would be looking to start over our relationship. We are simply friends. Anyway,” she added in a conspiratorial whisper, “I know he has the hots for Blue.”
Gold looked a little taken back, but said nothing as Ruby brought over her drink with a smile and moved back to waitressing. “So who is it who holds your heart, then, Miss French? You are a lovely woman and I presume they cannot be indifferent towards your affections.”
“He doesn’t even know,” she sighed, taking a few sips of her drink. “We have had tea together, and taken walks together and he does not take any notice of my advances.” She hoped he would realise what she was hinting at, but all she could get from him was a rising of rage in his features, although carefully schooled.
“Well… I am sure you will be-” he stopped, face going blank and mouth dropping in shock, a look that would have been comical to her if the uneasy feeling of dread had not crept up her spine.
“Mr Gold? Are you alright?” she questioned, leaning forward to brush her fingertips against his tightly closed fist resting on the table. “What is wrong?”
“You have a little glitter on your collar, dearie.” His face was frozen, eyes blown wide, and jaw slacking. He reached up and brushed the back of his hand against the collar of her dress, pulling it back and inspecting it.
Belle blushed, face turning crimson as she brushed her hair back, almost enjoying the rush of sparks beneath her skin where he had touched her. “Well, the paper on these roses is brushing off everywhere. I am surprised I am not covered in the stuff.”
“It is gold,” he whispered, turning his hand to show her the few specks of golden glitter on his fingertips. “It… it was you who left me the flowers…” He did not look happy at the idea, his forehead creasing and the corner of his mouth twitching in a way that she could put no emotion to it. Gold usually wore a mask of indifference, but with her she had thought him to be so open, but now, his mask was creeping back into his features, hiding whatever emotion he was feeling. Belle could never compare it to anything that resembled happiness.
“Rumford,” she sighed, not daring to raise her voice above a whisper in case anyone heard her address him by his given name, one he had given her over a cup of tea in the back of his shop one cold winter evening. I thought…” She found there were no words to correctly deal with the situation at hand. “Well, it is Valentine’s day…”
And there the mask was again. Pulled back into place and blocking off his reactions to the world and gave her a smile that was a poor excuse to the word – it was more a snarl but she knew him well enough by now to know he would never show her the true darkness within him. “You thought you would show pity to an old man and gave him flowers. Very kind of you, dearest.”
“No!” She could not allow him to think such things about them, she had thought he had known better of her… “You are my friend-“
“And as your friend, Miss French, I can tell you that you need not do such things. I had not even noticed what day it was.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but Ruby walked over to the table with his coffee to go in hand. “There you go, Gold. Don’t forget to tip.”
This time he really snarls, the words he barked out so heavy with his accent that Belle had no idea what was said but knew better than to think anything nice about it. Ruby’s face burned scarlet and she turned to storm off, not willing to let the old dragon see how he upset her.
“You could try being nice, Gold,” Belle scolded, her arms crossing in front of her as she stared him down. The fire didn’t leave his face but he stayed still and silent for a few moments, the only sign he was still holding back his rage was a vein which she could see ticking on his forehead. “You make it so hard for anyone to love you.”
That broke him. He stood quickly, cane clattering against the table as he slammed his fist onto it with a force that made her shrink back. He was never like this with her. Where was the kind and gentle man she had grown to care for? “That’s the thing, dearie. I am an impossible man to love.”
He made the same was as Ruby, turning and rushing off, people moving from his path like he had a bomb attached to his chest. Everyone knew to keep their space from Mr Gold, especially when he was in one of his signature tempers. Belle, ignoring her half empty ice tea, followed suit, grabbing the flowers as a last thought and followed him outside and catching up with him quickly – a man with a cane was not hard to keep up with, even in her heels.
“And yet I try!”
He stopped midstride, not even bothering to face her. She could see the rapid breaths that left him, his Armani covered shoulders rising and falling quickly in succession. “What?” It was barely a whisper, so soft that if she had not been so focussed on him she would have missed it.
“I try,” she sighed, feeling all the happiness she had felt draining from her. This was not how she envisioned revealing her feelings but she knew if she did not do it now she would never get the chance to do so again. She prayed that it would not mean losing their friendship but she had to take a leap of faith. “It is not easy. You are an arrogant pig at times, you can act quite like an ogre and still I try to love you. To be honest I did not try at first, it just hit me that I had fallen for you so hard and all I knew was that things wouldn’t be the same between us. So I have tried getting closer to you for weeks. And this is where it has left me. Buying you flowers and standing in the middle of the street confessing my love.” His shoulders slumped, almost like he didn’t want to hear any of what she had to say. He did not return her feelings. Her eyes filled with tears but she tried to stop them from falling onto her pale cheeks. “I am no Elizabeth and I know you are certainly no Mr Darcy, but I thought there was hope for us… it seems I was wrong. Goodbye Rumford.”
She made to turn and walk away, dropping both of the flower bunches on the ground behind him and setting off in the direction of the library and her home, already envisioning what she was going to do to make things better tonight – she was going to run herself a bath, light some candles and read a new book (maybe Memoirs Of A Geisha, maybe World War Z) simply anything to take her mind off the ache she could already feel building in her chest. She heard no footsteps behind her, he was not following, was not going to stop her and it was that final thought that made her tears fall freely.
The library was empty, dark and cold. Her normally happy place was seeped in sadness and she found no comfort being surrounded by all of the books for a change. The stairs to her apartment which led from the office and inside her room she felt safe, knowing nobody ever came to visit her, but she never made it to the top step. About halfway up her knees gave way beneath her and she crumpled to the ground, tears wracking her body with large shudders.
She had no idea how long she sat there, long enough for the tears to run and her legs to shiver from the cold of the concrete stairs. It did not matter to her though. All she could think about was the look on Gold’s face when he realised it was she who bought him the flowers. How could he have so much anger for such a kind gift? He could have done what most people did and simply say thank you. He didn’t have to confess his undying (and untrue) love for her. All she had wanted was for him to be the kind man she knew him to be. Be the Rumford she had fallen in love with. He-
“I try.”
Belle jumped slightly, startled by the interruption. She had not heard any of the doors being opened in her morose state but here was Rumford, standing before her on the bottom step, hair dishevelled and eyes red rimmed, mask back on his face to hide whatever was going through his mind.
“What?” she whispered, voice hoarse from crying and she knew this was such a similar position to what she had been in an hour ago. He couldn’t really be here after all that, surely. Life was not a book. You did not get to save the princess from the tower, you did not slay the dragon and you certainly do not live happily ever after.
“I try. It is not easy,” he did not look at her, his eyes downcast and focussing on his cane. He looked so much younger than his years like this, shuffling from foot to foot, leaning heavily onto his gold tipped cane. “I can be an arrogant pig most of the time and a downright ogre the rest. But when I am with you, Belle… I want to be a better man. I want to be the man you deserve, but I know I never can be. I want to be the reason you face lights up when you laugh, I want to bring out those dimples in your cheek when you smile and I want you to know that as broken and decrepit as I am, I am yours, truly. I have loved you since I first saw you swishing about outside my shop in that god awful polka dot skirt and your ridiculous sky high heels. I saved every book in my collection for you to read, I brought in tea from all over the world as an excuse to get you to spend time with me to try their different flavours. Any excuse to have you look at me the way you do, like you do not see the demons inside me. You…” he took in a deep breath and finally raised his head to look at her. His eyes were glistening and his mask was gone. All she could see was pure love shining from him and her heart broke slightly at the sight of it. “You make me want to be a better man. But I never dreamed a woman as lovely, kind and caring as you are would even want to look twice at me. Let alone believe herself to be in love with me. And I know I have probably destroyed all and any chance of you wanting to give us a chance, but… I brought you flowers. I left them on your desk knowing you would like them. Red for love, and I know lilac is your favourite colour. I wanted to just make you happy, even if you did not know it was from me.” His eyes dropped back to his feet again, gripping his cane ever tighter. “I will leave you be, now, my love. I am sorry for everything I have put you through.”
By now, Belle was sick of them walking away from each other like they always did. So when he made a move to leave, she kicked off her heels, listening absently to them falling down a few stairs and raced down them, catching his shoulder and pulling him back.
“I apologise if anything I have done or said has upset you, Belle,” he muttered, eyes baring into hers like he was looking at her mind tic.
“You love me?” Out of everything he had said that is what she chose to focus on. He loved her. He loved her, he loved her, he loved-
He barely had chance to nod before she stood up on her toes and brought her mouth to his hard. The kiss was brutal for a moment, him still and frozen, but when she dragged her lips against him softly he sighed and melted into it. “I love you,” he sighed, lips never leaving hers.
“I love you,” she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving everything she had into the moment – every moment of happiness, every second of desire and every breath of love, she breathed it all into him – knowing full well he was doing the same.
And in that moment, when she pulled back to breathe, resting her forehead against his, looking into each other’s eyes and gripping to each other like it would all disappear if they let go, she knew she had been wrong. Sometimes, just sometimes, people really do get their happily ever after.