Synopsis: Belle French lives alone and she likes it that way. She’s lived alone ever since the terrible car accident which killed her mother and claimed her eyesight. Belle spends her days painting, in complete solitude, until one day she wakes up and hears movement outside. Somebody has moved into the cottage next door. She had grown comfortable in her solitary existence until Mr Gold crashes into her life. Now her future is uncertain, like a blank canvas, waiting for her to apply the paint and decide what kind of story she is creating.
Note: I’m going to echo Gold here – intentions are meaningless. This should have been updated a week ago last Friday but life happened. Anyway, in this chapter there’s a prompt from @rowofstars about Gold resisting getting called back into work which has rather unfortunate consequences. I’m intending to post Chapter Eight next Tuesday to fix it. Anyway, in the meantime – enjoy!
Banner by the incredibly amazing @rowofstars thank you so much! 🙂
Belle bit her
lip and wished the ground would swallow her up. She obviously couldn’t see
Nick’s expression, and she couldn’t deduce anything from his breathing. She
really wished he would say something as she was really regretting her honesty.
Nick had been honest with her, and it had felt like the right thing to do, to
admit that she liked him. However, the spiraling possibilities were really
starting to scare her, and she needed him to say something.
“Nick?” Belle
whispered.
“Sorry
sweetheart, you caught me off guard. I never expected … I never would have
dreamed,” Gold struggled.
“Dad,” Neal
called hesitantly. Belle tensed automatically and felt Nick’s hand curl around
her own. “Is everything ok?”
“Everything’s
fine,” Gold called back quickly. “We can talk about it later. If you could
close the patio doors …”
“And get back
to the garden,” Neal finished. “Alright.”
Like I said in another post, I’ve gone back and revised this chapter thanks to some amazing feedback I had. There’s a net gain of almost 750 words but I did change some stuff as well. Hopefully it makes more sense now 🙂
UGH. I knew Gold was going to fuck up. Things were too good. Neal was great, but this is really one of those things where he needed to caution Gold more than support him. Unfortunately… now it’s all worse. 🙁
Poor Belle. *HOLDS HER FOREVER*
MAKE IT BETTER, SAM. PLEASE????
This is where I could quote A&E and say “it’s always darkest before the dawn” but I would rather not get beaten up 🙂 Heh, I am going to fix it I promise! I just need to get RSS done, Chapter 8 is my first priority after that. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments *hugs you*
