I was sitting around a few days ago and for some reason David's joke about Thanksgiving in Season Two popped into my head. Since it is almost Thanksgiving I started to think about how I would right a Charming-Mills-Stiltskin Thanksgiving dinner. Eventually I had so many ideas that I decided that I had no choice but to actually write a story about them. So here we go. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or its characters. They all belong to their respective creators and companies. Seriously, I'm just a fan girl.

Emma drummed her hands on the steering wheel of her car as she and Mary Margaret waited for Belle to come out of the library. A couple of weeks ago Mary Margaret and Belle had decided to have a big Thanksgiving get together for their entire family and today the three of them were all going shopping for everything they'd need to cook dinner tomorrow. Well, at first it was only going to be Belle and Mary Margaret doing the shopping, but Emma had thought it would be best if she came along to supervise just in case something went wrong or the two of them got carried away.

"I'm so sorry that I kept you waiting. It took me longer to lock up than I thought it would," Belle apologized as she opened the car door and slid into the backseat. As Storybrooke's sole librarian, it was her responsibility to look after the town library and since she wouldn't be in for the rest of the day, that meant she had to make sure everything was in proper order and locked up tight. Truthfully she didn't like that she'd had to close early since she didn't want anyone to come to the library to check out a book only to find all the doors locked, but this was important in its own way so she just had to hope that everyone else was busy making their own holiday preparations.

"There's no need to apologize. We still have plenty of time before the store closes," Snow reassured her from her place in the passenger seat. She'd been very careful to make sure that they left early enough that there wouldn't be too big a crowd, yet not so late that they'd have to rush. Running around like crazy people wouldn't do any of them any good.

Personally, Emma didn't think the store closing was what they should be worried about. She'd never been one for Thanksgiving but she'd heard how fast the shelves could empty when people rushed to buy everything for their big dinner. Even David had said that he'd run into some trouble when he'd bought the turkey earlier this week.

"You know, I'm still not sure we'll be able to fit all of our bags in my car," Emma said as she put the car into drive and headed for the nearest supermarket. She was well aware that her car wasn't exactly what you'd call spacious and they needed to pick up a lot of things.

"I'm sure they'll all fit just fine. And if they don't then Belle and I can just hold some of them ourselves. If that's alright with you Belle," Snow asked, turning in the front seat to look at the car's other passenger.

"Of course," Belle replied with a smile. After that the three of them fell into a companionable silence until Emma pulled into the store's parking lot and found a space relatively close to the front.

"Here we are. I'll go get us a cart," Emma said, putting the car into park and killing the engine before getting out.

"Thanks. Meet you at the front of the store," Snow asked as she and Belle got out of the car as well.

"Sure thing," Emma called back over her shoulder as she headed for the nearest cart return. Once she'd grabbed a cart she pushed it to the store front where she could see Mary Margaret and Belle looking over a piece of paper.

"Whatcha got there," Emma asked as she came to a stop next to them.

"Oh, well when Snow and I were planning dinner I volunteered to make a list of all the things we would need to buy. So I did a little research using Rumple's computer and found out what sort of food one eats during a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Everything we need to buy is right here. Have a look," Belle offered, handing the list over to Emma for inspection.

"I'm glad to see that your lessons on modern technology are going so well," Snow commented with a smile while her daughter looked over Belle's list. As much as she hated what Regina's curse had done to everyone, she had to admit that being given knowledge of how things worked in this world made everything so much easier.

"Yes, well, it does make work at the library much easier. There are still a few things I'm having difficulty understanding though. Just the other day Rumplestiltskin was trying to explain to me how people can store things they make on the computer in the clouds," Belle said, her voice tinged with a slight sense of wonder. The things the people of this world had managed to create were truly miraculous.

"I never knew Gold was so tech savvy," Emma joked as she handed the list back to Belle, deciding to leave the job of teaching her about Cloud to her boyfriend. And boy was that a sentence she didn't think she'd ever say.

"I suppose stranger things have happened. Anyway we should probably go get started. We have a lot of work to do and we all need to get home and get some rest so we can get up early tomorrow and start cooking," Snow reminded them happily. She couldn't wait for all of them to come together and hopefully bond as a family over making their Thanksgiving feast.

"Agreed. I was thinking that to save time we should each get some of the things on the list and then meet back up when we're done," Belle proposed, looking to Snow and Emma to see what they thought of her idea.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Emma said with a shrug.

"Then it's settled. Emma, since you have the cart you can get the heavier items and Belle and I can divide up everything else. Then when we've all got everything we need we can meet back up by the registers," Snow stated with a nod. The other women agreed with this plan and the three of them looked over the list to decide what they'd each get. When they walked into the store a minute later each woman headed off in a different direction to get their specific items.

Emma was able to get most of the things she'd been assigned, like yams, corn on cob, a carton of eggs, and cranberries, with very little trouble. However, when it came time for her to grab the last thing she needed, a couple jugs of apple cider, she ran into a slight problem. Mary Margaret had decided that she should get that particular item because it was close to the dairy section where she'd be picking up the eggs, but she hadn't told her what brand of cider she wanted her to get. That left Emma with the job of looking over the rows of choices and picking one. For a moment she almost wished that they would be making the apple cider from scratch like they would most of everything else so that she'd only have to go pick up a bag of apples. But David had convinced Mary Margaret that they would be spending enough time making the food as is, and did they even own an apple press? So already made cider it was.

Emma bit her lip slightly, eyes scanning the multitude of jugs before her. Part of her screamed that this was stupid and she should just pick one, but another part of her was worried that if she chose wrong then Mary Margaret's dinner wouldn't be the perfect family gathering that the princess had pictured. And after all the crap they'd all been through, they deserved that perfect dinner. So she picked up a few of the slightly more, but not most, expensive jugs and gave them all a good look over. Finally she picked one that advertised as being 'just like Grandma used to make', whatever the hell that meant, putting it in her cart and heading for the front of the store to meet up with the others.

When Emma got to the registers she found Belle already waiting with her arms full of food and ingredients.

"Hey. Mary Margaret not here yet," Emma asked as Belle put her items into the cart.

"Not yet. The last time I saw her she was trying to decide which pie crust to buy," Belle replied, grateful for no longer having to hold everything she'd been sent to pick up. Individually the items didn't weigh much, but after carrying all of them around the store her arms had started to get a bit tired.

"Ah," Emma said with a nod.

"Oh good, you two are already here! Sorry it took me so long, I ran into a little trouble getting the mashed potatoes mix," Snow apologized as she walked up to them and put her own armload of items into the cart, her hair mussed and her shirt missing one of its buttons.

"Oh my goodness! What happened," Belle cried with a look of concern on her face that was mirrored by Emma beside her.

"Well I managed to get a few boxes of the mashed potatoes mix that I wanted, but when I was picking up the last of them Baba Yaga came up from behind me and tried to yank it out of my hands. I tried to reason with her that there were plenty of other boxes of the exact same mix that she could get, but she insisted that the ones I'd chosen were the best and that she had to have them. So things got a bit physical. But I'm fine, really," Snow reassured them as she tried to fix her hair with her fingers. She hoped that she had a shirt button at home to replace the one that had gotten ripped off. She really liked this shirt.

"Who's Babayaga," Emma asked, clearly confused.

"I've heard of her! She's a witch who lived in a house with chicken feet," Belle exclaimed proudly.

"Uh-huh. And how do you know it was her," Emma asked Mary Margaret with a voice that was a mixture of curiosity and skepticism.

"I met her when I was on the run from Regina. I was traveling to another kingdom through the forest and I stumbled upon the clearing where she was living. She wasn't very happy to see me," Snow explained with a slight grimace. That was one of many things that she could have lived without. And clearly Baba Yaga hadn't grown any fonder of her over the years.

"Of course," Emma deadpanned. You'd think she would have expected this kind of stuff by now. "Anyway," she continued, "We should probably go check out.

"Good idea," Belle agreed, and the three of them headed to the register with the smallest line. Once it was their turn to check out, Snow and Belle moved their things from the cart to the conveyor belt and Emma positioned herself at the end of the counter to bag their groceries. By the time the cashier had scanned all of their purchases, their total was the surprisingly low amount of seventy-two dollars.

"I've got this," Belle said, reaching into her purse to get her wallet as Emma finished putting all their bags into their cart.

"Oh no, you don't have to do that! I can take care of it," Snow protested, reaching for her own wallet as Emma joined them.

"It's fine, really. We'll be dirtying up your kitchen and having dinner in your home so it's only fair," Belle countered, opening her wallet to reveal it was absolutely full of cash.

"Woah," Emma said, both shocked and impressed, "Where did you get all that?"

"Rumple gave it to me. Why," Belle asked, her face scrunching slightly with confusion.

"No reason! Let's just pay and get out of here," Snow quickly chirped while her daughter just stood there marveling at how much Gold spoiled Belle.

Belle handed the cashier some twenties and once she'd gotten change the three women headed out to Emma's car. As it turned out there was enough room for all the bags, but Snow still insisted on holding the bag with the more delicate items so that they didn't get damaged. Emma drove them all to Mr. Gold's shop so that her and Mary Margaret could drop off Belle before heading back home.

"Thanks for the lift! I'll have Rumplestiltskin drop me off at your house first thing tomorrow so I can help with the cooking," Belle promised with a grin. She was trying to learn how to drive herself but she wasn't near skilled enough yet to be driving around town solo. She could just walk over there tomorrow like she did whenever she wanted to go anyplace else but she wanted to get there as quickly as possible and that meant driving.

"We'll see you then," Snow affirmed with a grin and a nod as Belle got out of the car.

"Bye Belle," Emma called after her out the window.

"Goodbye," Belle called back with a wave before disappearing inside the pawn shop.

And with that Emma and Snow headed home to put away the food and get some rest for tomorrow. Cooking for twelve, even if Belle, Charming, and Henry were going to help them, was definitely going to be an experience.