Beautiful Lily

Reconnecting

After peeling out of the car dealership he drove around town for a few hours. His hands on the wheel kept his hands busy, which maintained the illusion of feeling productive. He knew he needed the space to think and to be alone with his thoughts. When the driving didn't suffice his needs he immediately thought of his spinning wheel and turned back around toward Main Street. It was almost noon by the time Mr. Gold arrived to open his shop. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he immediately headed to his private office and sat down behind the spinning wheel. When he noticed that there wasn't any straw to spin, he searched his shop for a spindle of anything to mimic the tactile sensation of spinning. When he finally found some, he sat back down at his wheel again and started to spin.

He had lost all track of time, mindlessly turning the wheel. He couldn't tell if it was the sound that was reassuring, or if the feeling of the wood beneath his fingertips was what gave him pleasure. He didn't know for sure and he didn't care, because it was temporarily accomplishing a goal in pacifying his anxieties. After quite some time, he finally looked at the clock that sat on a mantle against the wall. It was almost 3:30 and at any moment Henry would be arriving at his shop.

When the door bell to the front door jingled, Mr. Gold called out confidently from the back of his shop, "I'm in the back room, Henry."

Following the bell's jingle was the sound of items in his shop accidentally knocking into each other which was then followed quickly by the sound of "oof!"

"I'm not Henry," called out the mysterious person. "My name is Hercules. Are you Henry's grandfather?"

Mr. Gold came out from behind the back of his workshop to finally meet this Hercules that Henry had mentioned yesterday. The tall muscular man with sky-blue eyes stood awkwardly in Gold's shop afraid to move, afraid of touching something important and then breaking it. Gold noticed Hercules' new wardrobe. He was already assimilating to the style of this land; tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a simple maroon shirt that hid under a black leather jacket which covered him up better than his previous attire from the chill.

"I am," answered Gold simply. "So you're Hercules," Gold said eyeing him up and down before proceeding, "how can I help you today?"

Hercules attempted to move forward to talk to Gold when his head knocked into the bikes that were dangling from the ceiling. The bikes became dislodged from their hooks and started falling to the ground. Hercules caught each one before they hit the ground and carefully attempted to place all of them back on the ceiling. Noticing that Hercules was causing more harm than good by moving, Gold shouted forcefully at Hercules, "Just... stop moving!"

Hercules did as instructed and gently placed the items safely on the ground. "I was told from Henry that he likes to see you here every day after school. I was hoping to catch up to him and say 'thank you'."

"Before his adventure with you... yes, he did visit me at my shop after school, but unfortunately, I'm afraid he has not shown up for either one of us today," Gold said disappointingly.

"Well, uh, I wanted to give this back to him," said Hercules pulling out Cogsworth from within the depths of his jacket pocket. "It served me well. I was able to confront Hades, saving Elsa's soul from the Underworld, returned it back to her body here and then became a god in the process." Even as the words of what happened to him in the past twenty-four hours left his mouth, Hercules found himself completely astounded.

"If that's true, then why are you here gracing us with your presence? Shouldn't you be on Mt. Olympus right now?" inquired Gold, questioning his presence as he stepped closer to Hercules.

"After Elsa showed me around Storybrooke, I realized that she was... not only amazing, but that she was like me. And I loved how she saw this town, how she viewed life and how it was ok to live differently and that it was possible to also live happily. All my life I've felt like an outcast and it was her who made me feel like I belonged. And so... I became a god when I retrieved her soul from the Underworld, sacrificing my mortality in order to get it. At the time, I knew what to I had to do. I knew I had to save her because... I loved her. I did eventually get a chance to meet my father face to face on Mt. Olympus, but it was then that I realized where it was that I belonged, and it was with her in Storybrooke."