PART I

Apart from Wonderland Records and the newest addition to his real estate portfolio, Storybrooke had little and less recommend itself to Rumford Goldfellow. It was quiet and it was small. Nobody recognized him and nobody cared if he dressed in worn out flannel and blue jeans every day.

In other words, it was exactly what he'd asked for. Damn him.

If he had to make another HOOK record – and his manager assured him that he did – then he had stipulations: an environment free of fans, press, and junkies, within easy driving distance of his son. Killian Jones' handsome face in the tabloids might sell records, but Rumford Goldfellow wrote hits, and the label was only too happy to accommodate Rumford Goldfellow's demands.

Rumford bloody Goldfellow – what the hell had he been thinking? But that was the stage name he'd come up with at 17, when he thought it sounded fancy instead of cringe-worthy. It was better than boring Rum Gold – name picked by an alcoholic, if ever there was one. Rumford Goldfellow: The Man Who Wrote the Golden Riffs, said Rolling Stone. The Best Musician You Never Heard Of, said GQ. Pricks.

HOOK's publicists were going insane with Jones off the grid, but Rumford Goldfellow paid his manager very well to ignore their incessant calls and texts.

He should have been happy in Storybrooke. But Neal was still on the fence about bringing Henry up, and no matter how much he complained about being caught in the background of Killian's mob, having no photo shoots to sulk through and no assistants to wrangle him left Gold wondering what it was he actually did all day.

He shouldered his favorite guitar (an ancient acoustic that he almost always carried) and wandered toward the little town's Main Street. On a whim, he pulled out his mobile. To his surprise, Neal answered on the first ring.

"Papa, I told you we'd have to think about it, okay?" sighed his son, without preamble.

"Bloody hell, at this rate the lad's not even going to recognize me. You could at least let me take him out for an ice cream," Rum growled. He should have known better than to call his son again, but almost everyone else in his contacts list was a professional contact or someone else in the industry.

"I'm sorry, Papa, but you're a little unstable for a kid his age."

"Unstable? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm almost 50 years old and the music's selling. It's not like it was back then."

Neal didn't say anything. He didn't like to talk about his childhood, but Rum could never figure out why. They'd done alright through the worst of times, and he was practically rolling in it these days.

Maybe he hadn't known how to transition from pop-rocker to Papa overnight, but he'd done his best to compromise between Rum Gold and Rumford Goldfellow. And he kept making music – even when nobody was listening. It hadn't been easy.

But what else could he have done? One year playing lukewarm covers on a cruise ship still paid better than a year of the other work he was qualified for, and a little bit of fame could open doors for the boy that mere hard work wouldn't. Neal never went to bed hungry, which was a far sight better than his own childhood.

What did the boy have to complain about? Plenty, as it happened. The lad had left home for college at seventeen, a full year earlier than his peers (which made his Papa unspeakably proud), and had not returned home for the holidays.

"Look, just let him come up for the weekend," Gold wheedled when the silence started to bother him. "It's a sleepy little town in Maine: lobsters and light houses, that sort of thing. I'll send a driver for him. Nobody from the press has caught wind of it, and the studio's clean. No chance of your Uncle Mick shooting up in the toilets."

"You'll be recording for 10 hours a day," Neal groaned. "What's Henry supposed to do in there all afternoon? I can't let you keep him up until 4AM every night. That's not how we're raising him."

"You and Emma could come along, then!"

His son choked back a laugh.

"Neal, please. I know I've been out of Henry's life for a long time—"

"Five years."

"Yes, but I was on tour," he defended. Agreeing to flexible tour dates was a mistake he wouldn't be repeating. The bastards kept adding new cities behind his back.

"I did offer to fly you all out to Tokyo for the holidays," Gold insisted. "Henry's almost eleven now; he deserves to know his granddad."

"It's not a good time for us to leave town," Neal hedged.

"If Emma doesn't want to see me, then you and Henry could come up without her. Or I could come down. "

"Papa, you remember what happened the last time you came here…"

Gold winced. He did remember. It was right before Henry was born, and he'd accused Emma (who'd threatened to arrest him, and could have) of every vile, inflammatory thing he wanted to say to Neal's mum: greed, manipulation, entrapment…. The list went on. Emma hadn't deserved it – even Neal's mother wouldn't have deserved it – but it was Millie's smug, perfume-drenched ghost that haunted him when he saw the swell of Emma's abdomen.

He and Neal had visited (once or twice with a toddling Henry in tow) for a few tentative birthdays here and there, but he'd never been invited back into their home again.

"Well how about next weekend, then?" Gold asked, keeping the disappointment from overwhelming him. "Or the one after that? We'll be here for a month or so, at the rate we're going."

"We could probably work something out a couple of weeks from now. I'll talk to Emma about it, alright?"

"I'd pay for everything," Gold tried.

He heard his son sigh. "Yeah, I know you would, Papa. Look, I've got to go now – Henry's getting out of soccer practice soon. Bye."

The line went dead. It was at times like this that Gold desperately missed telephones with dial tones and cork-screw wires tethering them. They were always so satisfying to slam down, and they didn't cost three hundred dollars to replace. He threw the little plastic brick at the sidewalk anyway; the screen didn't even have the decency to chip.

So this was his life: a son he barely saw, a furious daughter-in-theory (Neal seemed to think she refused to officially become his daughter-in-law just to spite Gold after their row), a grandson who played soccer instead of footy, and a phone he couldn't break. Welcome to the 21st Century.

"You look like you could use a cupcake," said a feminine voice from right beside him.

Gold jumped in surprise, tried not to topple when he came down on his bad ankle (which still played-up at odd times), and over-compensated by swinging his guitar case. In the process, he managed to upend whatever the little girl was carrying.

Had she overheard something she shouldn't have? This was not a moment that he wanted to share with the public. Past-Prime Rocker Assaults Child – TMZ would have a field day misinterpreting that one. He'd be lucky if he didn't end up on a sex offender list.

It was on the tip of his tongue to chastise the chit for sneaking up on him, but she was already talking at him.

"Sorry! Sorry!" She wobbled on towering heels that led to perfect, creamy legs. Even in shoes like that, the top of her brown curls barely reached his nose, and suddenly Gold wasn't so sure what he was seeing. That was definitely not a little girl.

"Are you alright? You jumped a mile!"

She wasn't even looking at him as she spoke, already preoccupied by bending down to get her ribbon-wrapped box off the ground. Gold paused his tirade long enough to guess her age: early twenties, most likely. But he wasn't a tall man, and even in towering heels, this woman was short enough to be in middle school.

She flipped the box over, opened the top, and – with a resigned look on her face – took stock of the smeared mess.

"I didn't mean to sneak up on you," she said, finally lifting her eyes to his. They were blue: seriously blue. Blue like… like something magically, electrically blue. Well, lyrics had never been his strong point. What were you supposed to say in these situations? Bugger off, my leg hurts, my son hates me, and if you overheard any of that I will sue you, would not go over well. Your eyes are really blue was equally unlikely to impress; odds were good that she already knew.

He was spared making more than a stammering attempt at a reply when she saw him stumble a bit on his bad side. Damn! As if this weren't already embarrassing as hell for him.

"Oh, no, are you hurt? Do you need me to help you carry that?"

Suddenly there was a small hand wrapped around his, gently offering to carry his guitar case. Gold tore it away from her and snarled that he was fine.

She blinked up at him with those wonderfully blue eyes, then smiled and offered him the ruined box again.

"They may not be pretty, but they taste good," she said when he didn't react. To demonstrate her point, she dragged her finger through the whipped, yellow icing on the lid and popped a dollop into her mouth.

"Do you habitually sneak up on strange men and offer them pastries?" Gold managed, backing away. It only took him a few moments to find his equilibrium again.

"Not really. But I had a baker's dozen, and you really looked like you could use a pick-me-up. I hope your phone's not broken. Are you sure you're alright? " She pushed the box forward again.

"Yes," he grumbled. His leg would be fine; it just took him a moment to balance again.

She beamed at him. Probably she should have been more concerned for herself – in those heels, if he'd done more than knock her cupcakes aside, she'd probably need an ambulance.

Gold looked helplessly down at the sticky mess she was offering. Reluctantly, he took one of the unappetizing lumps, smearing icing all over the back his hand in the process, and having no choice but to lick it off. It was good: vanilla and lemon, with a hint of creaminess.

"So are you from Ireland or Scotland?" Blue Eyes asked as she helped herself to a cupcake as well. The stickiness didn't seem to bother her a bit.

"Scotland," Gold replied. It was a common enough question – the accent was a bit of a giveaway, no matter how much he'd toned it down over the decades. Apparently Americans couldn't understand what he said when he spoke like a proper Scot, so he'd learned to subvert it when he crossed the pond. Back then, you had to do what would sell, and that excuse stretched to any number of sins.

"Which part?"

"Glasgow." It was really difficult to sound cross when your mouth was full of something delicious. "It's a big city in the west," he added. Most Americans didn't even realize that Scotland was big enough to have more than one place: it was all North England to them.

"I'm from Melbourne," Blue Eyes confessed.

Gold was surprised. "Australia? You don't have much of an accent."

"No, we moved here when I was still a teenager – so I sort of phased it out at school, to fit in – but it wasn't very strong to start with. We're not all g'day mate and vegemite," she teased. "But you don't sound anything like the other West Highland accents I've heard."

"I guess we all adapt," Gold grinned, letting his full brogue slip through for a moment. Then he looked down at the ruined cakes. "I'll replace them," he offered, reaching for his wallet. "How much did they cost?"

He always had cash on him. Always.

"Oh, I couldn't let you… these were just something for Granny's. I can get more in a minute."

He'd wrecked a present for her grandmother? Well there was your evening headline: Rocker Granddad Rocks Grandma's Big Day. Alright, so it wouldn't be that bad. He was hardly front page news these days, and Blue Eyes was very beautiful.

"I'll replace them," Gold insisted.

"Well…" She looked unsure. Then, a wide grin lit up her face. "Do you have a few minutes?"

For Blue Eyes, he did.

"So how much do I owe you?" her new friend asked for the tenth time since she'd met him. Belle stifled a groan as she opened the side door of her shop and led him in.

"I already told you I'm not taking your money," Belle chuckled, excusing herself into the back room. She emerged a moment later and handed him a pair of plastic gloves, then ducked back in.

"If you want to replace them, I'll let you help, though," she called out to him.

Belle smiled and nodded at Astrid, one of her part-time workers currently occupied with a tray of the somewhat complicated lemon curd cupcakes they'd been piloting. Rum might not do well with those.

They would go with something simpler, she decided: yellow cake and chocolate. Anyone could handle that. She grabbed a tray of fully cooled cupcakes and a bag of chocolate icing, and then took both out to the small work station behind her display case.

When she tried to hand him the frosting, he looked at it like it was full of… well, of something brown and icky, frankly. Belle switched to the practical approach instead.

"This tip is really easy to use," she said, demonstrating a simple swirl with the bag. "All you do is squeeze and twist."

"So… you work here?" he said, still not accepting the bag when she offered it again. "You won't be in trouble with your manager for this?"

"Nah, the boss is just some crazy book lady who likes to daydream," Belle teased.

He didn't laugh.

"I'm kidding. I own the place, actually. It's Belle's Bakery – I know, boring name. But I'm Belle. Belle French."

"You certainly have more books than baked goods," he observed, glancing around the place.

"Well I set out for this to be a used book store, but the bank didn't like my business plan, so it sort of evolved into a reading cafe; we only do two or three different pastries a day, otherwise I'd never get any sleep. This place is my pride and joy – Leroy just finished the renovations a couple of years ago. It used to be a flower shop."

She wasn't afraid to let a little pride into the declaration: her cafe was lovely, and she knew it. It was warm and cozy, with a smattering of tables and arm chairs, and scores of used books crammed into shelves that covered almost every wall in the space.

"This is the part where you're supposed to tell me your name," Belle teased again, nudging him with her elbow. He stiffened.

"It's Rum," he scowled, as though he expected her to comment. "Rum Gold."

If that was supposed to be a joke, Belle didn't get it. She let it pass, and demonstrated on another cupcake.

He still wouldn't accept the icing bag.

"I thought it would be fun," Belle told him. "But if you really don't want to frost cupcakes with me, that's alright."

To her surprise, he set down his guitar case – that thing packed a punch – and gave it a try. He was very serious about the whole process, and very quiet.

"Are you a musician?" she asked. The guitar case made that fairly obvious, but Belle didn't know what else to say.

He rolled his eyes, but kept icing the cupcakes. They looked… edible. Not as pretty or delicate, but filling and tasty all the same. She'd probably have to ice another dozen for Granny's, but he'd made the gesture – which was kind.

"Well, of course you are," Belle babbled. "Sorry. I'm really putting my foot in it today."

A massive blob leaked out of the bag, now strangled in his hands, but he still didn't say anything. Great, she'd offended him, and she already knew for sure that he'd been having a bad day. Sugar.

"Let me start again – hi, I'm Belle and this is my cafe. Thanks for helping me with the cupcakes. What kind of music do you play, Mr. Gold?"

Rum seemed totally out of his depth, but his death grip relaxed and the frown cleared from his face. Apart from telling her a little about Scotland and offering to buy her more cupcakes, he hadn't volunteered any information about himself yet.

"Rock, mostly. And a lot of other people's rubbish, frankly," he added with a humorless chuckle.

"Oh, are you in a cover band?" A cover band would make sense. The Rabbit Hole had cover bands in and out all the time. "You know, you can perform your own songs here any time you like. I have open mic nights and poetry slams from time to time."

He was really staring at her now, and Belle felt as though she'd done something wrong again.

"I'm sorry if I'm saying something wrong," Belle said. "I just sort of assumed… one of the local artists comes in here to play whenever the Mayor has him booted from the park. I didn't expect to get something for nothing, if that's what you're thinking. I probably couldn't afford to pay your professional rate."

"No, I don't imagine that you could," he quipped. The words stung a bit, but his tone sounded relaxed and he smiled again.

Belle lifted up the simple glass dome on her counter and slid the remains of her ruined Lemon Curd cupcakes onto the doily.

"Aren't you going to throw those away?" Rum asked, suddenly interested in what she was doing.

"I do an Ugly Cake Fund," Belle blushed, indicating a large coffee can with a pattern of roses painted on the sides. She'd hate for him to think there was anything unsanitary about her work! The Mayor already had health inspectors on her case twice a month. Thankfully, Belle was a neat and orderly person by nature.

"One of assistants is a little clumsy, so there are lots of Ugly Cakes," she added. "As long as they're not dangerous, I put them here and people can make a donation. Or just eat for free. Whatever money I make goes into the children's book fund."

She nodded toward a fanciful trolley, very near the front of her shop, which had the words FREE TO GOOD HOMES painted amid dragons and butterflies. It was surrounded by a ring of half-size furniture, all of it mismatched and brightly colored. There were several familiar titles displayed, some of them slightly worn, but all appropriate for children learning to read.

Rum wasn't giving her any clues about what he was thinking about the Ugly Cakes, so Belle began boxing the cupcakes he'd made.

"Do you want to walk these over to Granny's with me?" she asked. Screw it – Rum worked hard on these, even when she kept insulting him by mistake – and she was going to serve them. They looked homemade, if a bit irregular. Probably that would not be a detriment to Granny's customers.

"You want me to meet your grandmother?" he blinked.

"What? No! No, nothing like that! Granny's is the name of the local diner. I bring her something fun to sell every day. You really haven't been in town for long, have you? I thought everyone knew Granny's."

"I, uh, just arrived," he confessed. Then, after a beat, he added: "I got a place on the harbor."

"That's a nice part of town," she congratulated him. "Did you buy or rent?"

"Buy," he grinned, suddenly comfortable with the conversation again.

"Congratulations! It's so good to see a new face in town to stay. So many people just rent a place for a few months in the summer and move on."

Rum quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Watch out, your face might get stuck like that." She made a silly face back at him.

He barked out a tiny laugh, and it seemed like all of his aloofness melted away. Rum wasn't a bad looking guy, when he wasn't scowling. Getting near to middle-aged, but he took ten years off his face just by relaxing, and the few streaks of gray along his temples made him look charming. Like her (people never guessed she was really 32), she had a feeling that Rum really didn't look his age at all – and she'd been right!

Belle decided then and there that she was going to get him to laugh – really laugh – before she said goodbye today. "Well if you've really never been to Granny's, I guess that means your Inaugural Lunch is on me!"

"That's really not necessary," he blanched.

"It's okay, Rum, I'm not going to be offended if you have places to be." She should have thought of that. Not everyone flitted in and out of work as needed.

"No, I just meant that I can pay…" He reached for his wallet for the tenth time that day.

"But you don't have to – I want to treat," Belle smiled, giving him his space. He seemed really on edge all of a sudden, and Belle didn't know what she was doing wrong, so she simply settled on being polite.

"Astrid!" Belle called into the back kitchen. "I'm taking an early lunch. Mind the register while I'm gone?"

"Sure thing," the petite nun grinned, stepping out into the front.

Rum looked shocked to see another person around, so Belle introduced him. Rum Gold, meet Sister Astrid – Sister Astrid, Rum Gold. The usual run-down. Gold didn't comment on the fact that Belle employed a nun, which she found odd, and Astrid couldn't shake his hand without covering him in lemon curd, so things got a bit awkward.

"I uh… had a little accident with some of the lemon curd while you were away," Astrid blushed.

Belle took stock of the sticky, golden blob running down the front of Astrid's apron and laughed. "That's okay, we had a little accident too," said Belle, pointing to their newly acquired Ugly Cakes.

They said their goodbyes and headed outside.

Rum followed Belle down the block, remaining a few steps behind her all the way to Granny's. He didn't say anything, but he lunged forward at the last minute, as they approached the building, to swing the door open for her.

"I'll buy lunch," he stated, as though that settled the matter, and slid the door shut behind them.

Belle shrugged. "Suit yourself, then."

If it made him comfortable, he could pay for her cheeseburger and iced tea; certainly accepting his terms would be more polite than starting an argument in front of everybody. They got a few odd looks as she dropped off the chocolate-frosted cupcakes at the counter, but the novelty of seeing her out with a man – and a new face in town, to boot – passed without commentary.

And now they were on a date. Did lunch count as a date? He couldn't tell.

If she knew who he was, she'd probably tell her friends about the time she dated a burned-out rock star, and (though it would have ruined some of the charm) things would have been simpler for him. But if she really didn't know… Gold both loved and loathed the possibility. He didn't have much going for him, at his age, that wasn't directly tied to his fame and money.

It was hugely intoxicating to think that she'd invited him out anyway.

His last date hadn't been like this, though, so maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part. At least she was letting him pay.

"So what's your favorite band?" Belle asked him, taking another sip of iced tea.

"Lately, it feels like HOOK is all I listen to." He hadn't lied. He hadn't. And Belle was clever, so she'd probably get the joke and figure out where she'd seen him before in a moment.

He made it into the background of a lot of tabloid covers these days, so she'd almost certainly seen him (even if seeing wasn't the same as noticing) as she waited in the grocery store checkout line, or idly flipped through channels on her TV. It would be a bit disappointing if she gushed and squealed about meeting Killian once she placed him, but Rumford Goldfellow was wholly prepared to indulge her; she'd been kind when he was just Rum Gold (he was almost sure her ignorance wasn't a ploy), and that counted for a lot to him.

And he wanted her, he realized. Well who wouldn't? She was lovely. But far too young for him. God, what would Neal say?

Belle wrinkled her nose. "Are they the ones with that song about getting drunk and wrecking hotel rooms?"

Okay… not the response he'd been expecting. Gold genuinely had to pause and think about their lyrics for a moment. That wasn't an aspect of the band that he paid special attention to. "I think so?"

"Well you're the one who likes them, so you should know," she grinned. "I think I've hear them on the radio. The music is pretty good, if you ignore the lyrics."

Gold nodded. He'd definitely pay more attention to the dribble Killian was writing this time.

"What about you?" he asked, because it suddenly mattered very much to him. "What do you like?"

"I like a lot of music from the 70s and 80s, actually," Belle confessed. "Bowie, Queen, Kansas… Wizard Lizard, obviously. I know it's corny, but I always listened to my mother's records after we moved here, and she had a few shelves of them mixed in with her library."

Gold nodded and tried to maintain his poker face. Was it possible she'd recognized him from a Wizard Lizard album cover? That would certainly be a novelty. Would she comment on how much he'd aged? Rum tried not to fidget as he thought about all the ways his body had changed.

He missed Wizard Lizard, sometimes. Things back then had been loud, fun, and – above all – young. When he reminisced over a bottle whiskey, it was Jefferson Madden – with his trademark top-hat, making love to the bass at 160 beats per minute – and Victor Whale – in his mad scientist get-up, cutting up the drums with a surgeon-like precision – that materialized.

Wizard Lizard was a relic of the past, though. Nobody went in for gimmick shows and glam rock anymore; it was strictly reserved for karaoke night. Once, the tabloids resurrected an old photo of him with big hair and dilated pupils when they were particularly frustrated by Killian punching a cameraman. Apparently gold body paint and leather was a fashion faux pas that you couldn't bounce back from, even after a couple of decades.

What the hell were Jefferson and Victor doing these days?

"I like to listen to a lot of classic rock," he told her. "But Brit Pop and Punk were good sounds for me. I like House of Heroes and Jack White too. Or anything with an over-the-top guitar solo."

Belle made a poor attempt at an air guitar, and teased him with a very playful Van Halen impression.

It was the single most ridiculous thing he'd seen in weeks. Not at all what the sophisticated actresses his manager picked out for him did on dates. So this definitely was not a date. That was fine, he didn't mind; shockingly, he was having a good time anyway.

Gold laughed – really laughed – and then they were both drawing stares as they tried to stifle themselves before their jaws started to ache.

"So, Rum…" Belle started, once they calmed down again.

Rum winced. He hated this part: the confession and request for… would it be money or drugs? No, probably not. An autograph, maybe? Tickets to the next show once they went on tour again? That wouldn't be too bad, actually. It might be nice to see Belle backstage, waiting for him.

"If you don't want to talk about it because we just met, I totally understand," Belle rushed. "But you looked really upset earlier, so… I just wanted to say that I hope everything's okay."

What?

"I'm sure it's none of my business," she carried on. "But we've just had a really nice lunch, and you were such a good sport about icing those cupcakes for me, so I had to ask. I know you're new in town… so don't be a stranger if you ever want to talk to somebody."

"It was my son," he confessed. To his dying day, he'd never know where that idiotic bravery came from. Neal would kill him if this story ever got out. "He's not my biggest fan, really, and—"

Damn. How was he supposed to work in a word like grandson?

"It's okay," Belle smiled, taking his hand across the table after he didn't say more. "Any time you want to talk, you know where to find me."

"Aye, and I suppose it's better than throwing my mobile," Rum teased. "Damn thing's nearly indestructible, it seems."

"Oh yes," Belle replied primly. "We couldn't let the Sherriff cite you for denting the sidewalk."

Rum Gold laughed for the second time that day.