A/N: Gold/SB Belle is obviously my favorite thing to play with at the moment. The title is from the Fiona Apple song of the same name.

The Way Things Are

"There's a man."

He wasn't an attractive man. He was too lean and angular, his mouth too wiry and his eyes too full of secrets. She finds those dark eyes of his on her far too often, that thin mouth drawn tight across a clenched jaw.

"Are you going to tell me who he is?"

She pushes herself from the sofa and crosses to the window. There was something off-putting about him, something that slipped away as soon as she tried to pin it down.

"No."

She should find his watchfulness, his knowing (yet searching) stare disturbing. But whenever she catches him staring (between bookshelves, down diner counters, across busy streets), she feels not the creeping, clammy chill she should, but a sharp electric spark, straight down her spine.

"It's just that he watches me."

Sometimes he glances away so quickly it seems as if his gaze drifted over her only accidentally; sometimes he locks eyes with her for an instant. In that instant, he demands her answer, but he will not ask the question. And always there is that jolt, that unsettling feeling that she has forgotten something important.

"Do you feel threatened by him, Ingrid?"

She draws back the curtain with one hand and peers down into the street.

"No. I don't."

"Why not?"

The good doctor cannot hide his surprise. Even with her back to him, she knows his eyes are wide behind his round tortoise shell glasses. A smirk twitches at the corner of her mouth. Why should he understand, when she cannot understand it herself?

"Because even as I'm standing here, talking to you," she says slowly, carefully measuring out each word (for speech, after so many years out of practice, is both a luxury and a chore), "I'm looking for him. I'm hoping he'll pass by."

She is not looking, she is waiting. He appears, as she knew he would, paused at the corner of Main and Moncton. He watches the cars go by, drawing his sunglasses from his face and tucking them carefully in his breast pocket. He is in no hurry.

"And has he?"

Below her, Mr. Gold looks up, as if he can feel her eyes on him. She should not like him, this strange and sinister man, who never speaks to her but only stares, alternately furious and sorrowful. Dr. Hopper is right; she should be frightened. But in the tiny moment of that contact, in that crackle down her spine, some innate, uncovered, long-forgotten version of herself surfaces, gasping for air. She should not want him. She does not want anyone else.

"No. He hasn't."

Mr. Gold finally lowers his eyes, a bitter grimace on his face. He strikes the pavement with his cane with unwarranted spite and heads in the direction of his shop.

"Why do you think he watches you?"

She leans against the window to keep her view of Mr. Gold as he limps away. When she loses sight of him, she lets the curtain drop back over the glass.

"I couldn't tell you."

That, at least, is the truth.