amicustenebris | PSL - For Archie, Set After 4a

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PSL - For Archie, Set After 4a

With a kind of numbness that he hadn't felt since he cast Belle out of his castle and destroyed half his collection, Rumpelstiltskin made his way to civilization the very same night he was sent away. Once he hit the interstate it was not long before someone pulled over to offer help to the hobbling man, who looked like he'd wandered from a wreck. The stranger said they'd seen an abandoned car down the way a bit and offered to get him into town to call a tow truck.

He took advantage of his good fortune and was quickly able to access food, an ATM, a cane, and finally a place to collapse and eventually rent a car the following morning. He had thoughts of what he would have to do to figure out a way back over the town line. He understood the magic at work there, knew he could only go back in if summoned back in. But already the scheming began. Belle didn't understand his motivations, and he'd been incapable of correctly explaining. That was all there was to it. Part of him believed if he could say it right, if he could make sense of it all himself -- if he could just convince her that all she'd seen never meant he didn't love her? Then he could fix everything. Then he could be home with his wife, able to visit his son, able to walk and use magic.

He tried to call her from the phone in the motel. No answer. He tried a few times. There was an answer once. He couldn't speak.

Gold haunted that little hamlet outside of Ogunquit for a few days, with limited access to the internet or contact, just hoping he'd find some loophole that'd let him back in, afraid to wander out too far lest he lose his chance.

As far as he knew, Belle never caught on that he was calling. If she did, then she was patient. She stayed on the line longer than she needed. Spoke, and waited. Spoke. Then said goodbye. He couldn't work out why he could never say anything back, or even beg forgiveness. He kept doing it, knowing he couldn't stop himself crying afterward, knowing it was going to hurt every time, because he'd gotten so used to hearing her in the morning when she woke. And now when he called just to hear her it came with apprehension, certainty he'd hear that litany of accusations all over again, but he needed to. Maybe if he did speak, if he did let her know it was him, and he allowed it to happen, she might see he was sincere. She would forgive him. Remember she loved him. He would hand her the dagger and be her slave, be everything Zelena wanted him to be for her if that was what it took.

But he couldn't even bring himself to do that. It took him days to figure out why. That was when he headed south.

His rental car died just inside of Vermont. There were questions about his license. He switched to travel by bus from there -- crowded (good that he was traveling light), slow as sin -- he saw far more of the state than he really ever cared to. It felt ridiculously long for where he was headed, given how short a trip it had been by plane, but he didn't know if he could handle flying again. Not alone.

In Manhattan, the first place that he tried was Neal's old apartment, of course, and he did not expect to find it occupied -- by the Queen's married beau and his family, no less. They offered to leave it to him, which he declined. After a cursory search of the place, he found one or two familiar baubles, things his son held onto from his childhood all these years, somehow, things from their world, and he pocketed those, feeling an uncomfortable tightness that told him to get away, and he left as quickly as his legs could carry him.

Marion seemed especially keen to convince him to stay, at least until he found better accommodations.

He didn't trust it. He got away.

Crossing out into the evening air, he felt a rush of pent emotion and memory. Unkind words said in this very place. Hook's attack and his near death.

Then his actual death.

Then Neal's.

He went numb.

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Archie followed his gaze to look at the ducks. "That's fair."

After all, Gold knew more about his story than anyone else aside from Geppetto, Pinocchio, and Henry. It was only right the man be able to push back.

"Good people don't swallow their consciences until they finally do something so awful that they can't ignore them anymore," Archie countered. "I knew what we were doing was wrong, that we didn't need the money, but I went along with it. Patted myself on the back for things like 'We only scammed four people at that village! Their neighbors will be able to help them easily!' It took me over a month to catch up with Geppetto because I didn't leave right away. I walked with my parents for hours until I told them I'd had enough. And then I kept walking with them because they were right: I had nowhere else to go. If I went and confessed, I was going to be hanged. If I decided to run away, I'd be on the run for the rest of my life. The only reason I became a cricket was because I finally made the right wish for Blue to answer."

It was hard to consider arguing, as it was neither the place nor the time, but Rumpelstiltskin had a hand in his fate (and also hated the mendacious Blue with the fire of a thousands suns) and Mister Gold had been a lawyer. The desire was powerful on several fronts.

But he also realized, ahead of that anxious confusion that anyone was telling him this much of anything, that Archie was obliging what he proposed. He was being open. He was trusting him.

His first thought was of course that it was misguided. But it was something traded and felt correct.

"Irredeemable people don't have consciences at all, Doctor." Because he wasn't a good person, not by a long shot. But guilt ate him from the inside on the regular. "I saw the life you were living. I don't have a full understanding, but I know enough to know what kind of people your parents were. And again, you were in a desperate situation. That doesn't mean you had much of a choice, and people like that will do whatever they can to convince you that you don't have one at all. ...Needless to say, if they ever came to my door to sell anything personally, they likely never would have made it to parenthood."

Archie bit back the "Sometimes I wish they hadn't."

Sensing his pet's thoughts going in dark directions, Pongo got up to press his head against Archie's thigh. The man reached down and began scratching at his ears.

"You know what's strange? As awful as my life was under the Curse...I miss it."

"Sometimes bad people have children for a better world they are not going to be part of." An airy gesture. It sounded like something someone had said once that was meant to sound profound while also being bullshit.

He poured a cup of coffee and set it down on a coaster near the Doctor.

"Do you?"

Archie paused in surprise, wondering if Gold had somehow heard his thoughts. He decided that he didn't want to know, just to be more careful with his thoughts.

"Thank you." Archie took a sip, not needing to doctor it. They'd spent enough time around each other that they'd learned how one another took their caffeine. "I do. I had a decent job, wasn't stuck in a loveless relationship, and things between Marco and me were fine."

And he'd gotten away from his parents long, long before his thoughts had turned to murder.

"What about you?"

"I was very focused on my day to day then. And occasionally baffled when the Mayor would let herself into my shop to rant nonsense at me. ...In retrospect, I think she believed I awoke shortly after arriving." As he served himself a cup: "...Loveless relationship?"

"You were the one who gave her the Curse. Or at least pointed her in the right direction. It'd make sense if you put in a way to bring yourself around."

He wasn't aware that Gold had woken up "early" after Emma's arrival.

"Like a lot of the others. You'd be amazed at how many people were sleeping around behind their spouses' backs and such. Pretty sure the only reason we didn't have a ton of unplanned pregnancies would be because we'd start noticing things weren't quite right."

Being the town shrink meant that he had his pulse on all the latest gossip and was bound not to share it.

Unfortunately, he didn't catch on that Gold was potentially fishing regarding his own love life.

"I did, but not nearly as early as she seemed to think."

Archie offered a deeper explanation and honestly, Gold was a little grateful.

"Oh. I see."

He was talking about everyone else, not himself. Or rather himself in comparison to everyone else. Or at least that was how Gold was now choosing to read it. Because the alternative to that would have been that Doctor Hopper had been engaging in some loveless affair and literally no one had noticed or commented on it.

But then everyone was a little busy for a while.

Honestly, would anyone have really noticed or cared if Archie was engaged with someone? Well, he supposed if he was dating one of his patients or having an affair, they would.

Still, he had no idea that Gold was choosing to believe that he'd had a relationship that was somewhat decent as opposed to absolute garbage.

"Everything's been so...off...since the Curse lifted, but it's not really off since things are technically going back to how they used to be in the Enchanted Forest." An old thought occurred to him, and he figured that it might be good to ask. "My Cursed memories seemed like they were loosely based on my real ones. Like a modern, non-magical version of an old tale. Do you know why that might be?"

Gold shrugged. "The magic finding ways to fill in the blanks that Regina's writing left on the page, I'd imagine. You would have been less alarmed to dream old memories that just seemed to be slightly fantastical versions of the life you remember experiencing, no?"

"Makes sense," Archie agreed, taking another sip of his coffee. "We were basically living the same year over and over, and it needed to make sure we didn't start waking up." He grimaced. "Poor Ashley. Alexandra was on the cusp of being born for twenty-eight years. That had to be so uncomfortable."

The less said on her the better. Gold, after all, had been trying to collect on an old deal related to her right up until Emma threatened to run him in for human trafficking. And in truth, she had been right and presented it to him in a way that the magic would accept in nullifying the contract.

And he got a favor out of it. And maybe that was what the whole thing was meant to build toward, given who it led him to.

"It's probably a good thing that it was difficult for outsiders to wander in. The eighties were a silly time to be trapped in. Probably a boon for Regina that she was not so circular as the rest of us or her wardrobe would have been made entirely of shoulder pads."

Archie had been taking a sip when Gold had made that last statement, the image popping into Archie's head causing him to have to hold in a laugh. He coughed as soon as he swallowed, getting up to find a napkin or paper towel for his nose as he covered it with one hand.

"That hurt. Ow." He chuckled even as he grabbed a napkin.

"...Apologies."

Once the initial wave of confusion passed, a good deal of tension left the room. A touch of shared levity.

Well. He supposed one should take them as they came.

"But I don't see why many wouldn't miss how it was sometimes. It was a curse, a repetitive Hell. But routine is comforting in its own way."

"It's dangerous to drink around you," Archie teased as he dabbed at his nose.

Well, his sinuses were clear. That was for sure.

"It really was. Though it does explain a few things when it comes to interacting with Regina."

"How so?" He glanced up over the rim of his meg, finally coming to a place to settle down.

Archie settled back down after tossing the spent napkin in the trashcan. He hesitated, trying to come up with something that didn't involve dipping too deeply into anything she'd shared in confidence.

"I can't go into specifics," Archie explained apologetically, "but sometimes she'd start to slip. Once she started saying 'I'm the queen' when I asked her directly about something but changed it to 'the mayor'. I didn't think anything of it at the time."

Gold had no such professional requirements. "The number of times she would come into my shop and start barking demands... I admired the gumption even if she made no sense."

"Is that how she got Henry? Through you?"

Regina hadn't explained how she'd gotten through the adoption process so quickly.

"Not that I could ever really leave town to facilitate anything, but Mister Gold had connections." Plus a legal expert and pillar of the community made for a good character witness when vouching for someone's fitness as a parent.

Archie hummed contemplatively as he decided to risk taking another sip. "Those connections were outside of Storybrooke though. How did the Curse manage to manipulate things outside the town line so that we technically existed but nobody noticed anything odd? If I ordered a copy of my yearbook from Stanforth, would I be there in their records or would I just not show up like I do in my copy here?"

"It's a good question, and in truth, I have no idea." Gold knew some things existed outside the town line in perpetuity. His bank accounts, for instance. His degrees were legitimate. Records existed. But photographic ones?

"I wonder if that means that my degree isn't worthless after all," Archie mused aloud. "Or Pongo's therapy dog certification."

"Everything I have seen thus far suggests we exist in all capacities that we need to." Which he could concede was...a sentence. In truth he could not say whether that meant there were records of them that anyone could find or if the records could only be found when they needed them. That was magic for you. "It was why I wondered what you were spending in New York."

"Not that I've never thought about leaving Storybrooke, but I was pretty sure that I'd need to go through the exams again to be able to legally practice after the Curse broke." He took another sip of his coffee. "Not planning to leave any time soon though."

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