OUaT Challenge: Mass Pregnancy Fic

Link to Challenge on Forum: https (colon slash slash) .net (slash) topic (slash) 102217 (slash) 105881150 (slash) 1 (slash) Fanfic-Challenge-Mass-Pregnancy-in-Storybrooke

Post-Neverland, 'What If' Pan never came to Storybrooke AU. Challenge is quite simply; *EVERY* woman in Storybrooke gets pregnant at the same time. Emphasis on the word *woman*. The fun comes from the possibility of all the Swan Queen and Red Beauty shippers with magical conception, and all the Fairies (other than Astrid/Nova) with immaculate conception. Although personally I rather like the idea of Ruby being knocked up by a 'regular' wolf on a full moon night.

Reason for the challenge; one of the more reoccurring themes that I've come across in my browsing of OUaT fanfiction is the concept of Magical Conception, what with the whole True Love concept, that two magically empowered women (or men, ugh) can have a child because of said magic and aforementioned True Love status with one another. Plus, between all those stories I've been reading and Snow and Charming wanting to have more babies, the plot bunny just won't leave me alone. So I thought to share it, see what comes from it.

Story:

Title: Once Upon a Blue Moon

Summary: After the night of the blue moon post-Neverland, every woman in Storybrooke discovers she is pregnant, even those that did not have a… partner that night.

Rating: Originally M for Adult Content, Language, and some of the stuff babies come from, but now Rated T because of how sappy and fluffy the story turned out. Additional chapters and/or sequels may push the rating back up at some point.

Disclaimer: Once Upon A Time and all characters belong to the ABC Company, which is a subsidiary of the Disney Corporation. I do not own, nor gain any profits from the distribution or reading of this story, it's just for fun and to get rid of a particularly annoying plot bunny. Storyline is canon up to part way through Season 3 episode 9 "Save Henry", where instead of Pan coming back to switch bodies with Henry, he's actually restrained in some way that does keep him on the island until the Jolly Roger is away and he can no longer follow. After that, nothing like what happened on the show.

Pairings: Charming Snow, Swan Queen, Beauty Beast, and Grumpy Astrid/Nova.

One Month After Return of Jolly Roger

Night of the Blue Moon

"Are you sure about this, Ruby?" the woman known as Granny to everyone in town, asked her granddaughter as the brunette walked out the back door, taking her red cloak off.

"Stop worrying, Granny," Ruby laughed. "I've been a good little wolf all year. I deserve a night of fun and freedom. And I can control myself now, so I won't be a danger to anyone. Besides, it's not often that I get to go out three times in one month. Ha! And the moon even looks kind of blue right now. Later, Granny!"

"Just be careful, Red!" the older woman called out as the young werewolf transformed and ran off into the woods. "Kids these days."

"Tell me about it," a grumpy voice echoed out from the counter.

To the widow's surprise, it was not her usual drunk after-hours patron dwarf, but a three-sheets-to-the-wind flower shop owner, also known as Belle's estranged father. "Something I can help you with, Mister French?" she asked, not in the mood for his usual diatribe of late.

"Nothing you'd care to hear, I'm sure," he grumbled, taking another swig of his beer.

"Why don't you just go talk to the girl?" she said, exasperated. "It's not like she's hidden away in a tower or anything."

"After what I did?" he gave a drunken laugh/grunt and resumed nursing his alcohol.

"Gold aside, do you really think that sweet girl wouldn't forgive you for that?" she pointed out, pulling out a beer of her own to sip.

"She always was too good for me," he cried into his beer.

"There, there," Granny patted him on the back. Better an emotional wreck than the usual angry drunk Grumpy turned into.

"Dreamy!" Astrid exclaimed upon seeing the dwarf.

Leroy grinned in the way only Nova could make him feel. He waved her over and replied, though in a still kind voice, "It's Grumpy now. Or Leroy if that helps. How are you, Nova? Now that you moved out of the convent, I mean?"

The brunette fairy giggled and stepped closer. They were on the docks, next to Leroy's boat. She was now dressed in an adorable pink outfit of wool and fleece rather than the blue habit she'd worn for the 28 years of the curse, and yet all who asked she insisted she was still a fairy, just not a nun. To Leroy, this was the best news he'd heard in decades, now he just needed to figure out how to ask a fairy out on a date. As luck would have it…

"Well, since you asked, there's uh, actually been some, uh… difficulty with that," Astrid sheepishly admitted.

"Anything I can help with?" Leroy asked, his face filled with concern.

"Well…" Astrid looked down and away, squirming a bit. "OK, let me start at the beginning, OK?"

"OK," he nodded his head, putting down the load he'd been holding since she first walked up.

"There really aren't any places in Storybrooke that I can afford to live, and while Granny's is nice, it can be more expensive than renting a house or apartment, and as it would turn out there really isn't a lot of turnover in the real estate market, what with Mister Gold owning most of the land and nobody really moving out or away so that kind of limits my options, and really I don't need that big of a house in the first place, but all the apartments are really expensive, since I don't exactly have a steady job and my savings, well, aren't that great in the first place, and then I remember that you have your boat and I was thinking that, maybe, uh…"

As she wound down to a close, wringing her hands and looking back and forth between Leroy and his boat, it didn't exactly take a massive leap of logic to get what she was driving at. Still, better to be clear on matters than to leave anything vague for later misunderstandings.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You want to rent out my boat… for you to live on?"

"Uh… yes?" she squeaked, suddenly sounding quite unsure of herself and this idea.

"And you want to do this, knowing that I also live on this boat, and thus we would be living… together?" he further clarified the point.

"Well, I certainly wouldn't want to kick you out, that would not be fair, and I can pay you, I have… uh, a little under five hundred dollars saved up… total…" she started to look down, but couldn't help glancing up at him, hopeful.

"Hn," the dwarf grunted, picking up the load he'd put down before.

Just as the fairy was about to turn away in disappointment, his voice trailed back toward her, "Just so you know, there's only one bathroom, the shower is always cold, and the whole place smells like a beer case most of the time. I've got a hammock and a bed, I usually sleep in the hammock because the bed is a mess. You help keep the place clean, help with expenses, we'll start with fifty bucks a month… uh, after the first… uh, six months. We'll see where we go from there."

"Oh Dreamy!" Astrid squealed and launched herself at the dwarf to hug the stuffing out of him. He squirmed uncomfortably for a few moments, but the smile never really left his face.

"I told you," he grunted, trying to hid his embarrassment at making the woman he loved happy, "It's Grumpy. Or Leroy."

"You'll always be Dreamy to me," Astrid replied with total honesty and a radiant smile.

Leroy's smile for the rest of his life could be attributed to that one sentence.

"Henry! Time for bed!" Emma called up the stairs from the foyer of the Mills Mansion at 108 Mifflin Street.

It had been three weeks since they'd returned from Neverland, narrowly managing to save Henry and escape Pan's grasp once and for all. Some had argued that it had been luck, but both the boy's mothers knew it had been their overprotective natures at work that had the both of them in the cabin with him after putting his heart back. When either one of them had been needed on deck, the other stayed behind, not wanting to risk one last second grab by their son's great grandfather. As it turned out, Emma had been about to ask Regina to relieve her once they were in the air, when Pan showed up suddenly trying to switch shadows with Henry. At least, that's the way Rumple explained it after the fact.

He'd never so much as laid a finger on Henry's shadow as Emma had tackled the eternal boy and thrown him to the deck. Rumple had been about to open up Pandora's Box, but instead Emma had started pounding on the kid, teenager really, and didn't stop enough for the magic to take effect. The ruckus had been enough to draw the attention of the others and the fight had spilled out onto deck. They were still in the air, Pan's shadow sealed into the sail that was powering their flight. Before he could call on it though, he'd been tossed overboard. The Lost Boy Felix had tried to catch him, but it ended with both going overboard. Despite the popular stories, the fact of the matter was even Peter Pan needed pixie dust to fly, and the last of it was going with Tinkerbell on the Jolly Roger. Afterward, Rumplestiltskin confirmed that even if he had survived the fall, or teleported back to his island paradise, Pan no longer had the magic to cross realms, and his shadow was now bound to Hook's sail. He was no longer a threat.

Since coming back to Storybrooke, neither of Henry's mothers had been OK with him being very far from them. The first night back, despite assurances that Pan was no longer a threat, Henry had gone home with Regina, sleeping in his old room. Just after midnight, Emma had shown up on the mayor's front step, begging to sleep on the couch. Regina had almost kicked her out, but seeing how desperate and worried the blond had been, she'd relented, freeing up one of her many unused guest rooms for the Sheriff's use. The next night, Henry had gone back to Snow and Charming's apartment. Regina happened to show up right before midnight to beg for the same favor she'd granted Emma. They'd both slept on sleeping bags outside their son's room that night. Since then, wherever Henry slept, both Emma and Regina were in the same building, though thankfully after that second night not right outside his room.

"No need to shout, Ms. Swan," Regina remarked as she walked up behind the blond. "We'll be going up to tuck him in momentarily."

"Yeah, just giving the kid a five minute warning," Emma smirked.

"You know, he thinks we're smothering him," the brunette said, handing a filled glass to the woman in red, white and blue (red jacket, white tank top, blue jeans).

"It has been three weeks," she reluctantly admitted. "And things have been quiet. No magical disasters, no surprise visitors to town with malevolent intentions, and even the Lost Boys have quieted down these past few days. Still, this… living together thing, as a family. It's… nice."

"It is," Regina said with her usual amount of caution, which is to say a lot while waiting for the back stabbing to begin.

"Mm, is there something in this? I mean, something more? It tastes… different. Good, but… different," Emma asked of the drink in her hand.

"I know," Regina agreed, briefly glancing at her own. "It must have been a particularly good batch. I have excellent taste after all."

"That you do," Emma agreed, savoring the taste of her drink. "You always wear such… mm, nice outfits. And just look at your taste in bed partners!"

They both laughed drunkenly at the joke. Since the sleeping bag debacle, Emma and Regina had both just agreed to sleep in the same bed, as dealing with their natural competitiveness made choosing sleeping arrangements more trouble than it was worth otherwise. Not that anything ever happened between them, of course.

Finishing her drink, Emma took her empty glass and Regina's, saying, "OK, I'll lock up down here, you go on up and get our Found Boy into bed. I'll be up in a bit."

"Right!" Regina nodded, and then shook her head. "Wow, there must be more alcohol in that. I can't remember the last time my cider made me this tipsy."

"Hm, I love your cider," Emma giggled, stumbling to the doors and windows to make sure they were closed and locked.

"Yeah, you know you do!" Regina cried out drunkenly.

With only a brief stumble, after she'd succeeded in conquering the stairs, Regina made her way to her son's room, where he was already under the covers, though with his book on his lap and sitting up with the lamp on next to him. "All ready for bed?" she asked with a genuine smile. In the years since he'd run away to Boston and come back with his birth mother, she'd found that they came more truthfully than in all the years prior.

"Yep, brushed teeth and everything," he grinned, briefly looking up from his story book.

"So, what are we reading tonight?" she asked pulling out the chair that she sat on during their nightly bedtime stories. Emma always sat on the end of the bed.

"Mom, not until Ma is here," the eleven-almost-twelve year old admonished her.

"You're right, you're right," she held her hands up in surrender. "Perhaps I'm just a bit too eager. You're like our own little Scheherazade, the anticipation sometimes gets the best of me. I suspect the same can be said of Ms… of Emma."

Henry grinned, like he'd just heard a private joke that only he knew the punch line to and he wasn't sharing. Fortunately, before either of them could die of anticipation, Emma finally finished downstairs and eagerly joined them.

"So what is tonight's story going to be?" the bubbly blond bounced on the end of the bed.

Henry and Regina both laughed at her antics, happy to see the once standoffish and overwhelmed Savior so happy and carefree after everything that had happened to them. Emma, in turn, was just as happy as Henry to see the 'Evil Queen' smiling and showing her honest feelings rather than hiding behind a strictly maintained mask of manipulation. Things had changed for them since Neverland, and despite the horrifying experiences of it all, not to mention past experience of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, they each dared to hope that it was all for the better and would continue to get better.

Turning to the appropriate chapter, Henry began to read, both his moms paying avid attention as he spoke, "The Tale of Pinnochio. Once upon a time…"

"I feel so guilty," Snow whispered softly to her husband, now legally so in two worlds.

"Oh, and why is that?" he said with amusement.

"For kicking Emma and Henry out of the apartment," she said with a faint blush.

David chuckled briefly at that, before replying, "Well, it was either us or them, and in Emma's words; better to spend the night with the Evil Queen in her castle than to inflict our teeth-rotting sweetness on the rest of the town. Besides, it's been almost a month. I think it's time we got started on all those babies you said you wanted." He kissed her breathless.

When they parted, if only to catch their breath, she put her arms around his neck and whispered up at him, "Babies? Plural? Aren't we confident, Charming."

"I've got a lot of time to make up for, and I like my chances," he whispered lovingly back to her. "After all, if you recall, it wasn't that long after our honeymoon that we found out you were pregnant with Emma. I don't think it had even been a full year from our wedding day to her birthday."

"Then let's not waste any more time," the short brunette gasped before engaging her husband in another breath-stealing kiss. Clothes were discarded, bodies moved together, and they made it to the bed… eventually.

"Rumple?"

"Yes, Belle? What is…" Gold stopped mid-question, all thought leaving his head at the sight on full display before him.

"Ready to ring your little bell?" the brunette asked coyly.

"Oh my yes," the Dark One managed to croak out before his dark nature took him over.