A/N: This story was started as a gift-fic for a dear friend of mine. It contains massive amounts of fluffy, some family drama, some angst, and even more fluffy. Our kids aren't always what we expect them to be. Neither are our parents. As Rumple and Belle attempt to raise four very different children, and Emma and Killian bring up their free-spirited and energetic son, they'll learn that sometimes what we end up with is better than anything we could have ever expected. I'm always shy about asking for reviews because I'm a total coward. I'm always afraid of being told it is utter crap. Yeah, I'm thin skinned.

Oh, and I have to apologize for any missing or wrong words. I've tried to fix them all. Last year I had a TIA (mini-stroke). Since then I tend to skip words or use completely wrong ones. I swear I'm not lazy, just...scratched and dented a little.

Expectations: The Spark

Whale doesn't need the threat to be spoken to be aware of it. Gold's dark eyes flicker up to meet his, just once, and he reads the warning in them as clearly as he read his morning paper a few hours earlier. If anything goes wrong, even the smallest thing, Whale's life is forfeit. He will die at Gold's hand, slowly and painfully and without a shred of mercy.

Strangely, he isn't offended by the threat. Whale is more aware of his own flaws than anyone else, but he also knows he's a good doctor, a damn good one (when he's able to stay sober, and he's getting better at this) and being a good doctor means being able to read between the lines. There is so much more being said here than what Gold isn't saying.

Right now Gold is trusting him, perhaps reluctantly but doing so, with his entire universe. Beyond the promise of retribution for failure, Whale sees what no one else in town, with the exception of Belle, sees. It sparks within him a profound and unexpected sympathy.

Gold is terrified.

So the smile Whale offers to him, and to the nervous woman lying between them, is genuine. He loves this part, really loves it, and he never has to fake his enthusiasm.

"There it is." He points at the monitor, at the grainy vaguely bean-shaped blob. It's tiny, but clearly visible. He makes an adjustment to his equipment and moves his wand (just as magic as anything Gold owns, he thinks privately. Thank you, Science) and is satisfied to hear the rapid staccato of the child's heartbeat. He knows a thing or two about hearts, after all.

"Everything looks great." Whale sees them both let out a breath of relief. "Exactly where it should be as far as size, the heartbeat is strong, and you are in excellent health, Belle. There's no reason at all you shouldn't have a healthy baby. I'd say probably right around the end of November. Let's say November 27th.

Belle is still staring transfixed at the monitor. "She'll be here for Christmas, then." She gives her husband a delighted look, and he bends down to kiss her forward. He's never had much use for the holidays here. They are not, after all, his holidays. In the past, he's even made it a point to limp past various festivals just for the sole purpose of being able to sneer at them. Whale suspects this year may be different, and that other children may end up very disappointed in Santa because Gold has bought out the entire toy selection at Finnegan's.

"It's too soon yet to know the gender." Whale advises the couple, and immediately realizes it's not necessary.

"Maybe for you." Gold retorts with a smirk, and his wife rolls her eyes. "Someone cheated." She explains. "He wasn't even going to tell me he used magic to find out, but when he came home with a pink teddy-bear…"

Gold gives her an unrepentant smile. "You know you were just as impatient to find out as I was." He gazes back at the monitor, at the tiny and undeveloped form of his daughter, and there is a tenderness in his expression that Whale is again aware few but Belle have ever been allowed to witness. It doesn't necessarily make him like Gold: he doubts anything could make him actually like the man. He still vividly remembers the time the man beat him for the amusement of Lacey. He thinks he understands him a bit better now, however. Seeing his love for his wife, for his unborn child, his fear that something will go horribly wrong and he'll lose one or both of them, Whale realizes that the demon may just in fact be human after all.

/

Gold may be the closest thing to a true sibling Regina has ever had.

As strange as that seems to her at times, it's really the only thing that fits. She's never viewed him as a father-figure, he hasn't her been her mentor for a long time now, they certainly aren't friends, and unlike what she suspects about Zelena she's never entertained even mildly romantic feelings for the man. He slept with her mother: even if she had developed a school-girl crush on him that little tidbit alone would have quashed it to dust.

They are rivals, competitors, and in spite of herself she enjoys it and she thinks that at one point he enjoyed it as well. He might still, if she hadn't made a mistake that she now allows herself to regret.

Regina had completely and horribly misunderstood his attachment to his little housekeeper. Oh, she knew he was fond of the girl, but she thought it akin to how a man might dote on a favorite pet. She set the girl up to try and break his curse for her own amusement, hoping it would cause the imp a great deal of embarrassment and fluster him a bit.

Even after she had stashed Belle safely away in her tower, she still hadn't realized the truth about his feelings. Hadn't realized it was possible for Rumple to even have those kind of feelings. She'd planned on teasing him, telling him that his little pet was dead, and then sending her home to him. It was just, in her mind, another volley in their years of one-upmanship.

Then she'd seen stark devastation in his eyes at the news, for just a quick second before he hid it away, and she realized she had blundered badly. Regina knew two things in that moment: that Rumple was deeply in love with the girl and that when he found out the truth, he would tear Regina apart with his bare hands. For the first time in years, she had felt a stab of guilt. Didn't she, better than anyone else, know what it was to lose the love of your life, to have them snatched away from your grasp forever? It was done, though, no taking it back, and there was certainly no possibility of allowing Belle to go free after that.

She was right. He had wanted to kill her when he learned the truth. She had thought it a weakness in Belle that the girl asked him to spare her life, but she now very grudgingly recognized it for what it was. Regina believes Belle would have been perfectly happy to see her dead: she just didn't want the stain of yet another death on her beloved's heart. Belle is a lot tougher than she'd given her credit for, although Regina sometimes privately thinks to herself that the asylum is exactly where she belongs: anyone who falls in love with Rumple is obviously insane. She is more than willing to, borrowing a phrase Henry likes to use, throw Cora under the bus as solid proof of this.

She sits at the counter now in Granny's nibbling at her cinnamon pastry when she sees the couple enter holding hands, and take a seat behind her. They ignore her presence, and she ignores them in return, until she hears Ruby stop by their table to take their order.

"Decaf tea and a sausage omelet." Belle orders. "Oh, and some toast. Thanks, Ruby."

"Decaf?" Regina isn't facing Ruby but she can picture the face the woman is making. "Since when do you drink…oh my God, Belle, are you PREGNANT?"

There is dead silence in the diner, and Regina cannot help turning around. Gold is smugly grinning like a lunatic (appropriate) and his wife looks both pleased and embarrassed.

"Oh my God, you are!" Ruby screams and leans over, almost crushing Belle in a hug. "Congratulations! When are you due? Do you know what you're having yet? When's your baby shower?"

"November 27th. No idea on the shower." Belle shrugs. "Haven't thought about that. And…it's a girl." Ruby screams again and hugs her, and then hugs Gold as well, and Regina nearly chokes laughing at the startled and somewhat horrified look on his face. "Breakfast on the house today! And don't worry about the shower. I am going to throw you the biggest one anybody ever had! And I get to be Aunt Ruby and spoil her rotten."

"I think her father may beat you to that." Belle winks at Gold and he shrugs. "My daughter will have everything she ever wants." Everything I couldn't give her brother. He doesn't say it out loud but Regina hears it anyway, and so does Belle. She reaches over and squeezes his hand.

Regina waits until Ruby has served the couple their teas, and then approaches the table herself. "Congratulations." She hopes she sounds sincere because she is.

"Thank you, Regina." Belle is polite but devoid of warmth, and Regina doesn't blame her for that. The girl may be willing to forgive, but she's not ready to forget, especially not after Regina tried to come between them again with Lacey.

You don't get it, and you never will. I liked him the way he was. We were two of a kind, he and I. The only people in the world capable of really understanding each other. You were changing him, making him over into someone else, someone I didn't recognize. I was losing him.

"You certainly didn't waste any time." Regina glances at Gold, who gives her a meaningful look in return. "Sometimes, Your Majesty, you don't know how much time you'll have to waste. We felt it was better not to wait, especially since we want more than one."

She can't help herself. She wants to, but she can't. It's just not in her nature. "I can understand that, a man of your age. It's such a good thing your wife is so much younger than you are. I'm sure everyone is going to be surprised at how quickly you…succeeded. Especially all those handsome young men I see going into the library all the time…" She lets the implication hang in the air between them.

Belle calmly reaches across the table, and picks up her husband's nearly full glass of iced tea, and Regina realizes with a start that the girl means to fling the liquid into her face. Only Gold's hand on her arm stops her. "Sorry." Belle sounds anything but. "Hormones, you know."

"No, dearest, she wouldn't know." Gold raises an eyebrow. "Her Majesty has never known the joy of carrying her own child, remember? She had to borrow someone else's. How is my grandson these days, Regina? Though I suppose I should ask Miss Swan instead."

"Henry is fine. I just saw him yesterday. " Regina returns the volley. "Belle, dear, I hope you have a delightful child. Where Henry is concerned, my nurturing overcame his genetics. Perhaps you'll have the same luck with your daughter. Congratulations again." Regina quickly moves away from the table just in case Belle was still "hormonal".

Why does she do these things? Regina shakes her head as she leaves the diner. She'd really only meant to wish them well on their baby, but when it came to Gold she just couldn't resist trying to wind him up.

Siblings, she thinks ruefully. He's more my brother than Zelena ever was my sister. And I still don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

/

Small towns keep secrets poorly, if at all, and it is right around noon that Ashley hears the gossip that the Golds are expecting a daughter.

Inside of the kiddie seat in the shopping cart, Alexandra is enthusiastically pointing her pudgy finger at everything on the shelves and informing her mother "We need that!" Every time Ashley adds something to the basket Alex claps and cheers, gaining them amused looks from the other shoppers.

She gazes at her little girl, with her sunny smile and blonde pig-tails and her Winnie the Pooh T-shirt that is she is starting to outgrow but still cries to wear anyway. She looks at the almost-healed scab on Alex's left kneecap and her Velcro Barbie sneakers. She remembers long nights of colic and fevers and worry, of hearing "Mama" for the first time, of watching Alexandra race around their yard with her Daddy pretending to be a dragon about to eat her. She remembers walking into the kitchen one morning to see her daughter and everything else covered in sticky, wet flour and Alex proudly presenting her with a handful of paste and an announcement of "Bresist!"

There are a thousand moments like that craved into her memory. She treasures each and every one and she cannot forget, even for a moment, that if it weren't for Emma Swan Gold would have cheated her and Thomas and Alexandra out of every joyous and frustrating and wonderful experience.

She tries to be fair. She did, after all, enter into his agreement willingly. However, she would argue that she was young and naïve and he took full advantage of that. Even after he knew, the bastard knew the pain and heartbreak of losing one's child.

Ashley also knows (as she puts a box of completely unhealthy sugared cereal into the cart, to Alex's delight) that her antipathy toward Belle doesn't really make much sense because the other woman has never done anything to her directly. She's tried, in fact, to be friendly. Or she had in the beginning, in any case, before Ashley coldly rebuffed every effort she made.

In the beginning (Ashley pushes the cart around the corner of the aisle into the canned vegetable section) she had thought that anyone who could love a bastard like Gold had to be just as twisted and evil. In an odd sort of way, she could have accepted that. Two damned souls reaching out to each other.

What she cannot comprehend is how someone who is by all accounts a decent and caring human being can ignore all their better judgments and love someone who is neither decent, nor caring, nor to Ashley's way of thinking even human. Not only love them, but willingly marry such a person, and…well…(she shudders at the thought) and be willing to raise children with them…

"We don't need those." Alex points at the cans. "None of these, Mommy."

"Oh yes we do." Ashley laughs. "Don't you want to grow up big and strong?"

"Nope." A pause. "Can I walk now?"

Ashley lifts her daughter out of the cart and puts her on the floor, and then turns to select along the beans, peas, and carrots, all of which Alexandra will practically have to be force-fed. She blames that entirely on Thomas, who gives his dinner the same woe begotten look his daughter does whenever it happens to contain something actually decent for him.

Choices, she thought back to the child-rearing book she'd read. Give her choices. "Okay, Alex. Would you rather have carrots or string beans for dinner tonight?"

There is no answer, and she turns around expecting Alex to be sulking at both options, but instead the area next to the cart is empty. Rather than panic, Ashley simply sighs. Her own fault for turning her back. Alexandra knows the rules and she doesn't mean to wander off. She just…forgets sometimes. She never goes very far.

Ashley forgoes the vegetables for now and pushes her cart into the next aisle, and sure enough there is her little girl, having an animated conversation with someone who is stooped down to her level and listening to her avidly.

"When I'm queen." Alexandra is assuring the woman. "No vegetables anywhere."

"None?" And Ashley groans to herself as she recognizes the voice. "But I like carrots. May I please keep carrots?"

Alexandra thinks about that. "Okay. But just carrots, and only cause they aren't green."

"Thank you, Your Highness." Belle stands up and curtsies to the little girl, making Alex giggle.

"Hi Mommy." Alexandra waves at her mother. "This is my new friend. Her name is Belle."

"Ashley." Belle nods her head. "Sorry. She just came up to me and started talking." Ashley glances over at Belle's cart and sees several boxes of soda crackers.

"Alexandra, what have I told you about wandering off?" Ashley scolds her child. And then she remembers something, a kind of hazy, misty memory of being a tiny child in her room, and refusing to go to sleep.

"If you don't behave" her nurse is admonishing her "The Dark One will come and get you and carry you away, and no one will ever see you again. He takes bad little children and no one knows what he does to them, but they're gone forever."

Ashley remembers pulling the blankets up over her head when her nurse is gone, afraid to peek out for fear of seeing the terrifying Dark One leering at her. She suspects that Belle was probably told the same thing as a little girl: she thinks most children probably were back home. Only in Belle's case she really had been carted off by the fabled demon. For some reason that makes Ashley giggle, even with the real knowledge that it had almost happened to Alex as well.

And it would have been my fault too. Not just his. I was young but I wanted…what I wanted too badly to think of the consequences.

"I'm…sorry." Ashley tries to explain. "I was just realizing how much easier this would be back home if I could use the same threat to get her to behave that my mother and nurse used to use on me."

Belle gets it and laughs as well. "Go ahead and use it. He'll be flattered. He thinks it's hilarious that my mother used to use the threat of him to get me to eat my turnips."

"Turnips are disgusting!" Alex agrees with a shudder.

Ashley feels awkward suddenly. "I don't suppose you can use that on your baby."

"Not unless I want her to stare at me like I'm an idiot. 'Be good or your father will carry you off' doesn't sound as intimidating." Belle looks amused.

"You have a baby?" Alexandra is interested, and peers into Belle's cart. "Where? I want to see it!"

"It's not born yet. It's still in my tummy." Belle leans down again and takes Alex's little hand and puts it over her abdomen. "She's still very tiny right now but she'll come out later this year and then you can see her."

Ashley braces herself for the dreaded "How did the baby get in there?" question, but Alexandra just cocks her head. "Will you make her eat vegetables?"

"Some vegetables. But never turnips." Belle pledges and makes a silly face, causing Alex to giggle in delight.

"My daddy doesn't like turnips either." Alexandra explains. "Does your baby's daddy like turnips?"

"Yes, very much. So I let him eat all of them."

Alex looks amazed that anyone could like such a horrible thing.

"Belle…" Ashley pauses. "I know I haven't always been very nice to you. My history with your husband…I'm sorry I took that out on you. I'm still not sure I understand whatever you see in him, but I'm happy for you."

"Thank you." Belle looks relieved, and Ashley thinks that it truly bothered the other woman to be disliked for no reason. "I know what people think of him, and I'm not saying he hasn't earned most of it in spades but if you can get passed his defenses he's one of the sweetest and gentlest men I've ever known."

"I just…" Ashley glances down at her daughter again, her heart bursting with love. "He would have sent her away, to some other family, and I never would have seen her again."

To her surprise Belle is shaking her head. "That's not what he was going to do. Yes, he was planning on taking her, but not to give away. He was going to keep her, Ashley. Raise her himself. He thought that if you were willing to give her up that easily then you didn't deserve her."

There was more to it than that, of course. In their world, he had never had any intention of taking Alexandra. It was simply part of the set-up before the Curse was cast. Here, though, he confessed to Belle one night that he'd already made plans to assimilate the child into his life. "I was going to name her after you." He whispered in the dark. "She was going to be my new beginning."

She's not making excuses for his behavior, Ashley realizes. She's just explaining his side of things, how he'd seen it, and although Ashley still can't forgive him she feels a cold place within herself thawing a bit. "I didn't know that. He never said."

"He won't, either. He likes his reputation as a heartless ba…" she gazed down at Alexandra, who was staring at her raptly. "Man."

Ashley points at the crackers. "Are you sick in the mornings?"

"Some. I thought those might help."

"A little bit. But there's this special kind of tea that I always drank and it worked a lot better. This world has something close enough that it should work. Come on, I'll show it to you."

They head down the aisle together with Alexandra running ahead and giving her opinion on various items, and Ashley knows that Belle is watching the little girl and imagining shopping with her own child in a few years.

"You will love being a Mom." Ashley reaches down and squeezes the other woman's hand.

/

Rumple is glad this first one will be female. Right now a son would seem…disloyal somehow, although he knows the idea is ridiculous. He knows that if there is a Beyond, and his son is somehow watching him as Bae promised he would, that he'd be happy for them regardless of the child's gender.

Girls have their own unique set of challenges, he supposes, but the one thing he's reasonably sure of is that they are exceedingly fond of their Papas. He's seen how happy Belle is now that she's mended her relationship with her own father, and how she loves spending time with him. They'd gone to see him earlier today, Belle wanting him to hear the news of his impending grandparenthood from her rather than the town rumor mill. French had reacted to her announcement by bursting into tears, hugging her, and then shaking Rumple's hand (much to Rumple's surprise). He surmised that the man was so happy to finally become a grandfather that he wasn't in the mood to be especially picky about how it happened.

Hours later, with Belle gone off to do some kind of errand, and alone with his thoughts in the shop, he's pleased to see Henry arrive to confirm the news for himself. He is more pleased that after expressing his congratulations the child is willing to stay for a bit. He looks so much like his father at that age (there is little of Emma in him that Rumple can see or will admit to) and he is an intelligent and thoughtful boy, just as Bae had been. He is careful not to bring up subjects that might make the boy uncomfortable, such as Henry's baffling and growing affection for the damned pirate. The idea the bastard might one day have a hand (pun intended) in raising Bae's child makes every instinct Rumple has yearn to remove other body parts one at a time. It almost makes him physically ill to think of, truth be told, but he is biding his time for now. There is no guarantee that Hook's relationship with Miss Swan will ever reach that level. If it does…

He pushes the thoughts aside for now and instead entertains his grandson with stories about things Bae did as a child, and Henry is desperately hungry to hear them, to try and piece together in his mind the father that is still in many ways very much a stranger to him. It is nearly dark when he sends the child back home, and he is sorry to see him go. He has to admit to himself he is jealous of Charming, jealous that he'd so instantly bonded with Henry, but their relationship is newer (he reminds himself) and there was no reason they couldn't be just as close someday.

The Evening Star is bright overhead as he makes his way to his front door, stopping to gaze up at the pink house thoughtfully. He'd considered having it repainted until recently, but he thinks for now he'll leave it as it is. Girls like pink, don't they?

He goes inside and shuts the door behind him, and feels that same sense of relief that he always feels coming home now. The knowledge that in addition to removing his coat he can also remove the man he still wears outside of these walls. He can be himself for a little bit, such as he is, where showing warmth and weakness is encouraged and he can do so without worrying that he's endangering those he cares about by doing so.

Belle is asleep on the sofa, her chest rising and falling steadily, and her eyelids flickering as she dreams. There's an empty tea-cup on the coffee-table near her, and a book lying on the floor where it's fallen out of her hands. The rush of love he feels almost buckles his knees. He moves and sits down next to the sofa, and leans his back against it, just content for a little while to be near her and know that for now she and the child are safe. He frees his mind toward a matter that's been pressing at him since yesterday: an appropriate name for his daughter. The name he had planned on bestowing upon Cinderella's daughter can no longer be used for obvious reasons. Besides, this child is his. Her very existence a faith-driven miracle…

As the answer comes to him, he is aware that Belle is awake and her hand is gently stroking his hair. He relaxes into her touch and they sit in silence for a bit until he hears her stomach growl and she laughs, breaking the mood.

"Your turn to make dinner." She reminds him. "The baby wants chicken. It's in the refrigerator."

"And how would the baby prefer her chicken to be prepared?" He inquires.

"She isn't picky. She just said chicken."

He pauses for a moment before rising. "I had an idea, for her name…" he is hesitant, knowing that perhaps she might wish to name the child for her late mother, but he plunges ahead anyway. "If you'd like to hear it."

"I'd love to hear it." She leans forward and strokes his cheek. "Names are your area of expertise, after all."

"This baby…" he knows what he wants to say; he just needs to figure out how to put it into words. "She's more than just a child. She's a symbol, in a way, of your continued faith in me even when I haven't always deserved it. So that's what I'd like to call her. Faith."

"Faith." Belle says the name as if she's tasting it, and she smiles. "I think it's perfect."

In that instance, another worry is lifted from his mind. His daughter has a name now. They've seen her minute form on the sonogram screen. She is real. She exists. And apparently, she's fond of chicken. He stands up and heads for the kitchen, wondering idly what else she'll like and what she'll dislike. If she'll be dainty and feminine or (as he suspects) as stubborn and strong-willed as her mother. He pauses for a moment, gathering his energy and tries to focus the future, to get a glimpse of her, and for just a moment he does: he sees his Faith as a girl in her teens, resembling both her father and her mother, but with his hair and his brown eyes. She's small and slender and there's fire and intelligence in her gaze and she's gazing up at someone adoringly. A someone that isn't him. A tall, blond young man who bears a strong resemblance to Charming. A someone that can only be Neal Nolan, grown to fledgling manhood and the pup is staring back down at Faith with an expression that can only be described as moonstruck.

"Oh, and Faith isn't dating until…ever." He calls back into the living room.

"I think she may take issue with that." Belle calls back to him. "You didn't like my father trying to keep us apart. Don't be a hypocrite."

"Then I'll just turn every boy in town into slugs…" he mutters under his breath.

"I heard that and you will not!"

No, he probably wouldn't. He doesn't like the idea of some dimwitted boy pawing at his daughter, but he supposes (probable lack of intelligence aside) that she could probably do worse than Neal. At least he'll be raised to be a gentleman, and honorable. He has a horrible and terrifying thought that the vision was wrong, that Faith really will be like her mother and will lose interest in the Nolan boy for some…a mental image (not a vision) comes to him of some future spawn of Hook and Emma Swan leering at his little girl and he shudders, and feels some sympathy for Moe French.

Well, then he'll just have to see to it that Faith understands the Nolan boy is the best choice for her. He can't create love with magic, but there's nothing that says he can't encourage it. He tries to be reasonable: sooner or later Faith will give her heart to someone (hopefully not literally: one never knows around here) and he can do his part to make sure it goes to someone worthy.

That's a long, long way in the future, however. Right now he has a hungry wife and growing child to provide for, and he relishes knowing that this time, he can. This time he can guarantee that they'll always go to sleep with full stomachs, and have warm clothing to wear, and that every single need they could ever possibly have will be met immediately.

This time, he's going to get it right.