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Nobody knew when the lights started to appear. It was just a quirk of the town, one of many, that at 3 AM every morning there was a series of light flashes on Main street in no particular order. At least, that’s what most people thought.
Belle thought maybe she was discovering a pattern. The lights were soft, a gentle glow in the darkness. A soft white contrast to the dim glare of the yellow streetlights. Indeed, the street lights made them barely noticeable; there was no risk of them being blinding to passing cars or people who happened to be walking about at the witching hour. They could almost come from anywhere. They definitely came from the pawn shop. No one looks directly at the pawn shop.
The pattern unfolds itself slowly, calmly, like the lights themselves. Belle notices them one night when she can’t sleep, reading by a low bedside lamp in a pile of blankets. Her curtains in her apartment above the library are wide open, as they are often are due to absent-mindedness at bedtime. The sodium glow of the streetlights doesn’t bother her, and it isn’t as though the shops along Main street employ dancing neon signs 24 hours a day. Storybrooke was quiet compared to her time in Buffalo, New York for library school. Belle prefers it not to be completely dark, truth be told, as she often wakes in the night to moments of disorientation set more easily to rights with a quick survey of her surroundings.
She supposes she’d just never been awake at exactly 3 AM before that first night, because that is the only time the lights appear. At first, Belle assumes her eyes are playing tricks on her when the first light appears in the corner of her vision. She is quite tired, and reading at three o’clock in the morning; her poor eyes put up with so much abuse from her bookish demands on them, no wonder they might start rebelling. The second light followed quickly, two more quick lights after that as Belle finally turned her head from her reading to the window. The lights lingered at times, or dashed off so quickly as to almost be imagined. By the time the last lingering glow had faded, Belle had made her way to the window to try and ascertain their origin.
The front window the Mr. Gold’s pawnshop burned for a few seconds with the afterimage of a flash; Belle could see its round burnished shape hovering in the air a moment like a picture developing on film. Blinking a few more times, her eyes cleared completely and she sought out the window of the shop in the darkness. It was impossible to see in the darkness and her own night vision being shot after looking too closely at the little “show.”
Standing at the window fifteen minutes later, Belle resigned herself to not knowing what the source of the anomaly was and shuffled back to sleep. She stared at her book a few moments, not really taking anything in, before shrugging it off and trying to go back to sleep. She was sure there was a perfectly reasonable, dull, small-town reason for the incident.
A week later, after getting up at 2:50 AM five nights in a row to watch the light show, she was no longer so sure. Belle made another notation in the notebook she’d started to keep the second night of her vigil once the show ended, the lights never lasting more than two minutes after starting at 3:00 AM. Staring into the darkness, Belle realized she was starting to become slightly obsessed. She shook her head in disbelief, looking down at the ink markings of her notes that looked like chicken scratches in the dirt.
“What the hell is going on?”
*****
Belle stood outside City Hall, biting her lip. This probably wasn’t such a great idea. Was a couple of lights really a matter for the Mayor? However, Belle was beginning to feel like she was at the end of her rope in terms of where to go next, and straight to the top seemed like the best idea. A small voice wondered about going straight to the source, but it was quashed.
She had already tried to get information from the usual town sources. She’d bought Leroy a beer at Granny’s a few nights back, to catch-up with the man and press him for information. She’d felt a little guilty about it at first. Leroy was a friend, she really ought to have asked him for drinks without an agenda, but too many 3 AM wake-ups had killed her patience.
“Hey, Leroy,” she’d said as casually as she could manage after a discussion about folding fitted sheets. “You ever notice those strange lights on Main street early in the morning?”
“Notice ‘em?!” Leroy scoffed. “Sister, I was one of the first people in town to see the electric light show.” He gestured, to no one in particular, as his witness.
“Really?” Belle leaned closer, avid.
“Yeah,” Leroy said. He sounded somewhat affronted, but Belle wasn’t worried. He almost always did.
“Bout a year or two back, I was working on the project to remodel the library before it opened back up.” He paused for a drink, and Belle calculated it would have been about two years ago, right when she was finishing up library school. She’d heard rumors that her hometown library would finally be opened after untold years of closure, and she couldn’t keep herself from hoping against hope there might be a way to use her newly minted degree.
“So I’d left my favorite hammer on the roof where were working this one day, and I went back to get it,” Leroy was explaining.
“At three o’clock in the morning?” Belle couldn’t help but interrupt.
“Hey, you don’t mess with a man’s favorite hammer,” Leroy said as though it were apparent. Belle shrugged.
“Anyway, I’m up there right? Looking around with my flashlight, when all of sudden-BLAM! Those crazy lights start going off like it’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind or something.”
Belle nearly choked on her beer. “Uh huh, right.”
“It’s true!” Leroy insisted. “I thought little green men were going to land and ask me to take them to my leader. Wouldn’t’ve minded giving them the Mayor . . .” he mused, then quickly looked around him for a lurking Regina Mills or her supporters.
“I’ve seen the lights, Leroy. They aren’t that bright at all. You’d barely notice them unless you were looking for them!” Belle nearly sloshed her drink in her insistence.
“Yeah yeah.”
“The question is, what are they doing?” Belle got a faraway look in her eye as she began to contemplate her new favorite obsession. “They’re not bright enough to be signal flares, yet they seem to have a signal-like pattern. I’ve been looking into-”
“Clark!” Leroy shouted at the top of his considerable lungs and Belle blinked in shock. “You owe me a beer, man!”
“No I don’t!” Belle heard the pharmacist say faintly from across the diner.
“The hell you do!” Leroy growled and got up to go harass the man.
And that was that.
Granny, Ruby, even Sheriff Graham--none of them had been of any kind of use. They were either clueless, superstitious, or totally uninterested.
“It’s not breaking any kinda law, Belle,” Graham had told her gently, as though she was spoiling for a flight.
“I’m not complaining about the lights,” Belle hastened to reassure him. “I just want to know what they’re for.”
The Sheriff had shrugged his leather-clad shoulders and cocked his head. “Guess it isn’t for us to to know, eh?” He smiled at her and she smiled back instinctively. Then shook it off.
“Wait, how do you know it they aren’t breaking any laws?”
“Pardon?” Graham seemed somewhat nonplussed that his charm hadn’t ended her enquires.
“I can’t be the first person to ask about these things,” Belle narrowed her eyes in realization. “You’ve had to check out the lights for yourself at some point to find out they’re not breaking any laws, haven’t you?”
Graham rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Welllll . . ..”
Belle gave him a pleading look. She may have used The Eyes.
“City Hall,” he said. “Mr. Gold has some sort of permit from City Hall for the lights.”
“Thank you,” Belle said. She could feel the thrill of a tangible lead.
A lead that, unfortunately, now had her standing outside of City Hall contemplating her life choices. The small voice tried one last time to convince her that the Pawn Shop really wasn’t such a bad option before she strode forward determinedly into the building.
The Mayor’s smile was a shiny red warning, like the colorful stripes on poisonous frogs. “Miss French,” she purred. “And what can I help you with today?”
“Madame Mayor,” Belle said cautiously. Personally, Belle wasn’t much afraid of the town’s regal and overbearing mayor. She harbored no illusions, however, that if she did something that the Mayor personally didn’t care for, the woman might take it out on the public library she knew Belle thought was so precious. Her curiosity could kill the Cat in the Hat if she wasn’t careful.
“I was wondering if I could ask you about a . . . permit,” she began.
The Mayor’s smile never faltered. “You’d like to apply for a permit? What for? Some sort of library project?” Her eyes were starting to narrow.
“No! No,” Belle said. “I don’t mean a permit for myself. I wanted to know about an existing permit.”
The smile was gone but its ghost remained. This woman has on so many masks it’s nuts Belle thought to herself. Still, she’ rather deal with smiling and insincere than angry and vindictive.
“I see. And whose permit are you interested in?”
“Mr. Gold’s?” Belle ventured. “I mean, I assume it’s Mr. Gold’s, since it has to do with his shop.”
The Mayor leaned forward in interest, her eyes now keen and focused. “Mr. Gold’s shop,” she said, relishing each word.
Belle internally rolled her eyes. She did not know what those two had between them, but their rivalry was legendary and frankly, somewhat childish. It was almost sibling in nature and would have been somewhat amusing if they didn’t use the whole town to wage their battles.
“Yes. You see, since I live across the street from the Pawn Shop, I couldn’t help but notice that there are some lights that come on at night.”
As Belle spoke she noticed the Mayor’s face slowly darkening and prayed it wasn’t at her.
“I don’t have any kind of problem with the lights,” Belle said. “I mean, they’re strange, you know? So random and--anyway, I was wondering what kind of permit Mr. Gold had that allows for the lights to happen every night.”
“Well,” the mayor straightened back in her chair, face distinctly less friendly then when Belle had entered. Belle swallowed down the instinct to keep talking.
Something shifted in the Mayor’s face and she gave Belle a small pout. “I’m afraid I can’t go into any details . . . but I can tell you what kind of permit Mr. Gold has.”
“Thank you,” Belle said relieved.
“Of course, I understand completely if you find the lights . . . troublesome,” the Mayor continued. “Not everyone was quite happy with the permit being issued, but it was decided by a committee and well, you know how it is.” The small smile was back, added to it a vaguely conspiratorial tone. Ah,Belle realized, falsely sympathetic and trying to start shit, that’s a good look as well. She probably hoped that Belle wanted to register some kind of formal complaint against Mr. Gold, begin some old battle anew.
“Of course,” Belle echoed, smiling with relief. Let the Mayor read that as she would.
The Mayor shuffled some papers around in a probably unnecessary fashion, glancing down at one and responding.
“It’s a permit for an art installation,” she said. “It’s a ten year permit, with about eight years left.” She looked up. “Like I said, it was approved by a committee. I suppose everyone’s idea of ‘art’ is different.”
Belle nodded, not really listening as her mind whirled over the new info. The return of the Mayor’s danger smile signalled the end of the meeting and Belle thanked her as she stood to go.
“Oh, one last thing,” the Mayor said as Belle turned to go. Of course, Belle thought, but turned back anyway.
“Technically, the permit isn’t for Mr. Gold.” The Mayor ticked her head to one side, contemplating the magnitude of technicalities in running a town.
“Really? Who’s it for, if I can ask?” Belle felt confusion winding up her new intel into knots like a kitten with yarn.
“It’s for his son, Bae Gold.” And with this, the Mayor was clearly done with the librarian so Belle took her leave.
*****
“Do the brave thing,” Belle muttered to herself.
The not-brave thing would have been going into the archives of city hall, documents that were stored onsite at the library, and digging through city council minutes until she found documentation about the committee that issued the original art installation permit. Odds were though that such documentation would contain dry meeting minutes taken by a bored secretary and perhaps a list of how members voted. Maybe the original submission and description of the art installation would be included, the motherlode that Belle has been searching for, but honestly, enough was enough.
The answer was literally in front of her. It had been across the street from her the whole time, taunting her, and she was ready to go straight to the source.
Belle wasn’t certain why she’d delayed the inevitable for so long. She knew of Mr. Gold’s reputation--it hadn’t changed much from the same bogeyman tales of her pre-university days--but it had never really bothered her. Exasperated her, yes, especially the tiff between Mr. Gold and her father that seemed ongoing and unfounded. The stuff with the Mayor was downright . . . weird. But personally, she’d never had any sort of problem with the taciturn Mr. Gold. Well, he could bring his son to the library more, 13 was about the age a lot of boys stopped reading as much and could really use the encouragement--
Enough stalling. Belle’s vague sense of disgust with herself propelled her forward into the pawnshop with a quaint tinkling noise from above the door.
Mr. Gold was behind the counter and he looked up with an almost imperceptible shake of his hair away from his eyes. For some reason, Belle was struck dumb by the sight.
“How can I help you?” Mr. Gold said quietly, with what Belle supposed was meant to be a sort of menace but to her just sounded smooth.
She gawked a moment more, then found her footing again.
“Mr. Gold,” she said with an unsure smile, walking up to the front of the glass case he stood behind. She stopped herself just before him, hands falling palm down on the cool glass to catch herself. An eyebrow on the pawnbroker may have twitched, but he said nothing.
“I was wondering, that is, if you don’t mind, but could you maybe tell me . . .” Belle was hemming and hawing , she didn’t think that happened outside of books. She took a deep breath. “What’s with the lights?!” She finally managed, exasperated with herself.
Mr. Gold’s face, before a placid and vaguely uninterested mask, furrowed into some new shape that Belle could only classify as ‘supremely displeased.’
“Miss French, I have a permit for the light display--”
“Oh, I know,” Belle cut him off, ignoring his huff of displeasure. “I know the shop has a permit for an art installation issued to Baelfire Gold that’s good for at least eight more years.” She started digging through her coat pockets to pull out her notebook. She’s vaguely aware that Gold was attempting to speak before she cut him off again with a small cry of victory, splatting the notebook down on the counter. She jabbed a finger at the esoteric marks she’d hatched out over days worth of 3 AM observations. “What I want to know is, what does it mean? ”
When she bothered to look Mr. Gold in the face again, she was shocked to find him, well, shocked. His eyes were wide, mouth slightly agape and his breathing seemed to catch. Belle could almost feel it moving across her own lips as she realized she had leaned a good ways over the countertop with her notebook, quite far into the man’s personal space. He was holding himself perfectly still, eyes flicking from her own to her notebook and her hands resting scant inches from his own hands, which he slowly curled into themselves and withdrew behind the counter. Belle rather thought she was scaring the man with her intense questioning, but couldn’t think of a graceful way to back down now.
Gold cleared his throat, staring still at the counter top. “Do they bother you? The lights?” His voice was quiet as before, but the potential for menace was gone.
“Yes. Well, no,” Belle said hastily. “The lights themselves don’t bother me, the mystery of them . . . ? I’m afraid I’ve lost a fair amount of sleep over it.” Embarrassment was beginning to creep into her voice. “I saw them by accident, at first. I got up a few more times to watch them and I just-I just really need to know what they mean.”
“What makes you so sure they mean anything?” Gold asked, shifting his cane from one hand to another.
Belle huffed, then leaned forward onto her elbows atop the case. Gold’s eyes got impossibly big, and she noticed the lovely smooth color of them even in the dim of the shop. “Come on,” she said, bluffing her way through the shame. “Why on Earth would you go through the trouble of getting an artistic installation permit from Mayor Mills just to twinkle some lights every night unless they meant something?”
A palatable hit, she couldn’t help but think, as his mouth began to curve into a genuine smile despite what Belle was sure was his best efforts. A shame he doesn’t do that more, she also thought. It was a very good look for him.
It was her turn to be shocked when he suddenly leaned across the counter himself, bringing those eyes she’d just been admiring directly before her. “Alright, Miss French,” he said, voice amused and conspiratorial. “I suppose you’ve earned it.”
Belle blinked rapidly a few times, brain muddled by the smell of the man’s cologne or possibly his hair. For a moment, she forgot what he was talking about, and half hoped for him to close the distance between their mouths for an unexpected but not unwanted caress. She snapped back to reality when Gold pulled away, and gestured languidly toward the curtain to the back room.
Heart pounding, Belle walked around the counter to fall in step just behind Mr. Gold as he pushed the curtain aside to let her pass.
She’d never been to the back of the pawnshop before; she’d rarely been in the pawnshop at all, save the occasional unique gift hunt. It was . . . cluttered, was the nicest word she could think for it, ‘fire hazard’ being another. For all that, it was fascinating space, and Belle had the sense of being surrounded by hoarded treasure rather than disorganized trash.
She craned her neck around, trying to take it all in, when a cautiously cleared throat caused her to whip her attention back to her host. Gold was standing near a shelf, a book in hand and Belle hurried over to see. He cracked the book open to a page in the middle, one turned to so many times the book held the memory of the place and it fell out almost completely flat without him needing to turn a page.
It was a chart, an alphabet more accurately, dark black ink listing out all 26 characters plus some numbers, beside them a series of dashes and dots.
“Morse Code?” Belle said, turning to look up at the man beside her. Gold nodded slightly. His finger traced a letter here and there, and Belle saw faint pencil marks besides the letter he indicated.
“Once upon a time, my son had a friend,” Mr. Gold began, and Belle was rapt upon his face as he told his tale to the book in front of him.
“Bae doesn’t have a lot of friends, given-well, given the way things are,” he sounded apologetic to the absent son, and Belle felt a twinge within her. “But Emma-that was his friend-didn’t care about things like small town gossip, and she and Bae got on like a house afire. Bae had never had a best friend like her before, and Emma, well, Emma had had a rough time of things but you never would have known it when she and Bae were together. Two peas in a pod, those kids.”
He was silent for a few long moments, and Belle felt her heart began to drop with impending dread. “What happened?” She nearly whispered.
Gold seemed surprised to find her still here, or possibly so close. He glanced at her and back at the book, licking his lips quickly.
“Emma was in foster care, her foster family lived across the street from us, and they had to let her go,” there was a hint of anger in his voice. “Bae begged me to apply as her foster parent, to keep her from being sent back to another group home in Boston or a family far away.”
“Did you?” Belle was on tenterhooks as the story unfolded.
Gold finally looked at her steadily, a glassy sheen to his eyes. “Yes, I did, but I was denied.” Belle let out a shuddering breath and he continued before she could pry again. “My ex-wife, Bae’s mother, had come back into town demanding custody of Bae despite leaving without a trace for several years. While the court was clearly going to rule in favor of me maintaining custody, the ugly battle with Milah and her criminal boyfriend was enough to lose me the chance of being a foster father at the time. Emma was shipped off, and it was months before things had settled enough here for me to investigate what happened to her further.
“It was a wretched time for Bae, having his mother storm back into his life and losing his dearest friend. It had to have been awful for poor Emma as well. I wasn’t able to find out much about her, after she was back in Boston. They said she was gone again, back out in the system, and that was as far as I was allowed to get.”
Belle could feel her own eyes beginning to fill, and she swallowed hard to keep tears at bay. Gold shook his head and heaved a sigh. “The lights, you care about the lights,” he said, shaking his head in self-recrimination.
“No, it’s fine-” but she was cut off.
“Bae and Emma used to flash lights back in forth from the windows of their rooms at night, likely when they were supposed to be sleeping.” The small smile was back, sadder and sweeter. “They taught themselves Morse Code, and thought themselves quite clever for it. When Emma-when Emma left, Bae struck upon the idea of sending out lights to show Emma where he was, to lead her home, if you will.” Slowly, Gold closed the book and set it down on a nearby surface.
Belle swallowed hard. “That is so sweet,” she managed with a tremulous smile.
Gold snuck a peek at her through his hair and seemed visibly startled by her reaction. Belle wondered how people normally responded to the story of the lights.
“You figure out what the message is?” He asked lightly, and she appreciated the effort before she could become to maudlin.
She shook her head ruefully. “No, I hadn’t gotten as far as thinking of Morse Code- I don’t know why, they were basically giant Aldis lamps in your window. I likely would have gotten there soon, but. Well. I think I might have gotten carried away with the conspiracy of it.”
The smile they shared filled her with a warm glow.
“Well, Miss French, the message is currently ‘hey you’ so I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much about not decoding that bit of witticism.”
“Huh,” Belle said, thinking it over. “I would have thought it something a bit more . . .”
“Intelligible?” Gold suggested.
“Meaningful?” She offered. Gold shrugged.
“It changes, actually, every 6 months or so. It’s usually short, just two or three words since it can take some time to program the lights. When he first started, it was things like ‘miss you’ and ‘I’m here Emma’ but he’s recently turned 14 and discovered the angst of Pink Floyd, so now we get ‘hey you.’” There’s a slight eye roll at the joys of teen parenting.
Belle laughs. “Oh, that makes sense. Really, it could be much worse.”
“Indeed.”
There’s an awkward bit of silence then, flowing into the room and twining about them like a bothersome cat. Belle isn’t sure where to go from here, barging her way into this man and his son’s personal lives like a bull in a china shop. Hints of embarrassment over her silly obsession start to creep over her again.
Gold clears his throat and fiddles a bit with the top of his cane. “I, I was rather worry that you might have a problem with the lights,” he said, still not quite facing her, not quite avoiding her. “When no one lived above the library, the possibility of a genuine complaint was extremely thin. When you came back to town, well, I expected you a bit sooner than now. And a bit angrier.”
“Angry?” Belle was astonished. “Who could be angry after hearing that story? Plus, it’s a lovely bit of innovation; art and science project in one. I’m sure people think it’s quite clever!”
Gold is looking at her directly, face unreadable but not unfriendly. This close to him, she realizes he looks down at her, but only just. “Miss French,” he says carefully. “No one knows about Bae and Emma. Or what the lights really mean.”
“What?” Belle blinked at him owlishly. “But what do you tell people when they ask.”
He gives a small, understated laugh. “No one ask Miss French, that would require speaking to me.” He gestures to himself, the case in point.
She shakes her head. “That’s-that’s ridiculous.”
“I suppose so.”
“It’s Belle.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“My name,” she said it slowly, like it was his fault for not catching on to her non sequitur sooner. “It’s Belle.”
“I’m . . . I’m aware of that,” he said, still befuddled.
“Good.” She beams at him. “I feel like perhaps you should call me that.”
“Very well . . . Belle.” He’s hesitant, but not as much as Belle thought he might be, not as much as rumors and reputation would have lead to her believe an hour ago and she would have definitely stopped believing a few moments ago. “My name is Alasdair.”
“Alasdair,” she says, vowels playing differently in her mouth than his, but still quite pleasant.
“Yes.” He clears his throat a little, eyes darting about. “Most people don’t know about that either.”
Well that clinches it. “I like it,” she breathes, soft as a feather, then lifts herself slightly on her toes to brush her mouth against his.
At first only his mouth moves, just a hint of acceptance that encourages Belle to press closer. Then his hands come up to rest on her shoulders, and she dares to wrap arms around his waist. The kiss is tame, but Belle feels it down to her toes.
They break apart after a moment. Alasdair is staring at her with an intensity that makes her shudder, and he loosens his grip as she gently tightens hers.
“Well,” he starts, then seems unaware how to continue.
Belle grins, wide and slightly tipsy up at him. “I like you,” she tells him.
“You’d be the only one.”
She gently swats one of his arms, then ducks her head under his chin. She feels him resting it into her hair with a sigh.
“I like you too,” is his quiet admission in the still of his workroom.
“Thanks for telling me your story,” Belle quietly replies. She knows the message in the lights hadn’t been meant for her, but nonetheless, she feels like they’ve led her somewhere wonderful .
*****
Six months of dating the feared Mr. Gold had caused some of the people in town to look at her a little sideways, but Belle really could care less. She and Alasdair had been very happy getting to know one another, and his son Bae seemed to think of her as the Best Thing to happen to his father in a while, so all in all, they were forming into a nice little unit.
Belle hummed to herself under her breath as she sorted books at the desk, a happy habit despite the selection being “Wish You Were Here.” Bae’s predilection for Pink Floyd was still going strong.
The door opened, and Belle smiled up at the teen girl who came in. She was wearing a large flannel shirt, a backpack slung heavily over one shoulder. Her long blonde hair seemed a bit worse for wear, and Belle wondered if it was a windy day.
The girl seemed hesitant, pausing several feet away when Belle asked if she could help her.
“Um, do you know, the pawnshop, across the street,” the girl was twisting her hands together, then shook her head at herself. “Nevermind, I’ll just go.”
“Wait!” Belle said quickly. She slid down from her high chair and came around the edge of the counter. The girl pushed a chunk of hair behind one ear and looked down at her scuffed shoes.
“The shop’s closed to do inventory, but I know Mr. Gold is still in there,” Belle kept her voice low and even while she gestured across the street. “I could even go over there with you, if you want.”
The girl bit her lip, and Belle thought there might be tears starting to well up in her eyes. A thought hit Belle like a thunderclap.
“What’s your name?” She asked, holding back the urge to reach out a hand to the young woman.
The girl sniffed, running her sleeve across her eyes quickly and looking at Belle.
“It’s Emma,” she said, and then looked away again.
By the time she had the courage to look back, she was surprised to see tears welling up in the eyes of the petite librarian, who had a huge grin on her face.
“Emma,” Belle said. “Welcome home.”