Chapter Text
Belle, Emma, and Neal walked up the many staircases scattered around their high school on the way to Mr. Gold's classroom. Every day once the last bell rang the three friends would hang out in Neal's dad's room until they Emma and Belle’s parents picked them up from school. Belle's dad was always pretty late and Emma's parents picked her up pretty much on time every day.
Mr. Gold was considered to be the meanest teacher at Storybrooke High. He was one of those teachers that was very strict and didn't take ANY excuses whatsoever. He treated his beginning of the year Syllabus as a contract and as everybody’s favorite thing to say about Gold stated: Nobody Breaks a deal with Mr. Gold. He was often called the monster of Storybrooke High That is by anyone who didn't know him outside of school anyway. Even the Teachers considered him a monster, but being that Belle and Emma were Neal's best friends they knew better than that.
As soon as the last kid had left his classroom at the end of the day he would loosen up. His usually stiff and abrupt nature would relax, he smiled a lot and even joked around with the kids. That was one thing that belle loved about hanging out with him. He was always quick with a quip. Granted, he was never as loose as belle would have liked to see. He always wore a sharp clean cut suit that people never saw him without. Belle suspected that he only wore it as armor. Some days when the three came into his classroom Gold would be lounging in his chair grading homework assignments. Sometimes, mostly on test days, he would be hunched over a larger stack of papers with a scowl on his face. That was another thing that people didn't like about Mr. Gold, They thought that his Tests were insanely hard and were too scared of him to ask for help in his class from the man himself. Belle was never one of those people. In Fact, that's how she had met Neal.
She had been having some trouble in Mr. Gold's class about a month into the first year that she had him as a teacher for World History. She couldn't for the life of her figure out where she was going wrong so she went straight to the source to ask for help. She was on her way to the classroom when a small timid-looking curly haired had joined her on the stairs. He said his name was Neal Cassidy- his mother's maiden name- and that he was on the way to his father's Classroom. All she had told him was that she was on the way to see a teacher about a test. They talked and exchange numbers so they could text later and see if they had any classes in common. Belle was utterly amazed when the boy turned in the direction of the door that she was heading to and went inside. As soon as Belle saw the look that Mr. Gold had on his face when he saw his son, she was no longer scared of the man himself. He asked for his help and he was more than happy to oblige. With a little help from him, Belle knew exactly what he looked for in the work that he handed out and quickly became the best student in his class. That was when she started to hang out in his classroom as well.
After Belle had finished his course and she still hung out in his classroom after school she started helping him grade the papers from his freshman class. Her father was always late and Mr. Gold said that he refused to leave such a lovely young lady at school alone so as long as she helped him do this one thing she would be paying him back plenty.
She enjoyed helping him as well. Belle would never admit it to Neal but something about his dad always gave her butterflies in her stomach when he spoke or looked at her. So when she helped to grade papers she came up with little questions to ask Mr. Gold about what he looked for just so she could talk to him and have an excuse to stare at the man she had had a crush on for the past two and a half years.
This time she was looking at a question on a paper that was over Roman mythology. The question was ‘Retell the story of Romulus and Remus in your own words.' The answer was supposed to have been along the lines of ‘Romulus and Remus were a set of Roman twins whose mother was a vestal virgin and their father was the god, Mars. The current king thought that they were a threat to his rule. He ordered that they are killed and they were left to die along the bank of the Tiber River to die. They were then picked up by a she-wolf and raised with the wolves until they were adopted by a local shepherd. They defeated the king that wanted to kill them and they wanted to start a city of their own. They had a disagreement about who to name the city after. Romulus killed Remus and named the city after himself: Rome.' All this student had put on the test was that they were twins that were raised by wolves and founded Rome.
Belle asked Mr. Gold about the answer. He looked at her over his glasses and then at the paper. He took a moment before he answered
"Miss French, you do want to be a teacher, don't you?" She nodded and tried not to be too pleased that he had remembered that from what she had said once to his son after school a long time ago. He continued. "Then why don't you decide what they get?" he turned back to the paper he was reading before Belle had asked him the question. She decided to give him three out of the possible ten available and leave a note that said, ‘needs more detail.'
The three sat in a comfortable silence for a while longer, Belle and Gold grading and Neal was doing something on his phone until belles phone rang. It was her dad's number but she had no idea why he would be calling right then. She went to stand in the far corner of the room so as not to disturb the other two and answered.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Is this Isabelle French, Daughter of Moe French?"