Fic: Things Once Lost - Chapter Twenty Three
Title: Things Once Lost
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Mr Gold/Belle, Henry, Emma
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Skin Deep
Summary: Set immediately after the events of Skin Deep. Mr Gold seeks the aid of new acquaintances to solve the mystery of the chipped cup.
X-Posted to FF.net here
Chapter One :: Chapter Two :: Chapter Three :: Chapter Four :: Chapter Five :: Chapter Six :: Chapter Seven :: Chapter Eight :: Chapter Nine :: Chapter Ten :: Chapter Eleven :: Chapter Twelve :: Chapter Thirteen :: Chapter Fourteen :: Chapter Fifteen :: Chapter Sixteen :: Chapter Seventeen :: Chapter Eighteen :: Chapter Nineteen :: Chapter Twenty :: Chapter Twenty One :: Chapter Twenty Two
The evening after our jaunt into town is much the same as ever. Except for the moment when a dozen red roses arrive at the door. Caroline takes them sceptically at first, and I realise she must dread the thought that they are from her father. But when she reads the card amongst them, she turns to me, delighted.
She sets the roses down on the nearest table.
“You don’t want to put them in water?”
“Later,” she says, and takes me by the collar of my shirt.
She kisses me deeply, the way I have become so accustomed to in such a short space of time, and I find that we are stumbling gently to the stairs. I break off the kiss for breath and she ascends, looking back at me. There is nothing but to obey her eyes.
We reach my bedroom and she drops herself onto my bed, all shining eyes and bright smiles. I could almost just stand and watch her lie there so elated. But I know that it’s not what she wants.
Careful to keep the bad leg in the right place, I climb onto the bed, aiming to lie at her side. With a swift moves she changes my aim, wriggles herself under me on one side. She laughs, pulling me in for a kiss.
The card in the roses was a bold move on my part, but apparently worth every agonising moment of deciding what to write. I will relive her eyes reading the words “I adore you” over and over.
I can feel her toying with the tight collar of my shirt as we kiss, and remove her hands from my neck to loosen it myself. She helps me off with my tie after that, hardly breaking our lips for a moment, and I hear the silk flop to the floor. I feel her at my buttons, bringing the shirt off my chest bit by bit. All the while I feel her sweet lips inviting me, her half-laughing breaths between frantic kisses.
And after a moment she changes tack and finds my neck with those lips and I freeze, half-lying on and half-leaning over her. A bliss that I have never before felt courses in my veins, and it’s worth all the magic in the world. I wrench my neck away reluctantly to look down at her, to see my beauty smiling back at me.
She gasps for breath happily, toying with the sparse hairs on my chest before her hands vie for the rest of the shirt to come off. I watch her at play, and it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Belle. Mine at last.
“I’ve wanted to do this so badly… even from when we first met, if I’m honest. Weird feeling at the time.”
She looks up at me then, grinning.
“But glad about it now, for sure.”
The shirt comes down my arms, leaving bare skin that she kisses. But my body’s arrested over her, and suddenly things aren’t quite as they seem.
Because she’s not Belle. Not really.
“Caroline.”
She pauses her passion, sensing the tone in my voice.
“What Gold? What’s wrong?”
And I cannot help the word as it comes tumbling.
“Everything.”
She frowns, her blue eyes sharp suddenly.
The helplessness I felt when my powers left is back, and I push myself up on the bed. She tries to pull me closer, but I sit back, just looking at her.
It isn’t real.
“I’ve lied to you. And I can’t do this, not on a lie.”
It’s all I can manage to say.
Her brow furrows, and she seems more focused on what my words mean than actually hurt by them. But she does not smile it off, as she has so many other things.
“How?”
And now I see the trap I’ve fallen into, because I cannot say. She would never believe it, and the return of her memories is unlikely, now that the magic I once had has dissipated forever.
“I can’t.”
She seems to pause for thought.
- :: -
“Is it a big lie?” I ask him, now straightening up on the bed.
Gold looks away, his eyes so strained he could bore a hole in the floor.
“Massive,” he admits.
And in a flash he is gone, his shirt falling off completely as he bolts from the room. I hear him limp down the stairs, and I pick up his silk tie from the floor, running it through my fingers.
And I smile to myself.
Things are just as they should be.
On to Chapter Twenty Four