Chapter 9

Sheriff Graham was a decent man, or at least he thought of himself that way. He knew he had his faults but he had some good things about him as well. Since Emma had found out about him and Regina's affair, though, he hadn't been feeling the best. He headed back to his patrol car one morning when the sound of little feet running towards him caught his attention. He turned and saw young Rose French running towards him with a bright smile on her face. Mr. Gold was lagging behind her, unable to keep up with his little girl.

Graham smiled at the little girl and knelt down to her just as she reached him, calling "Sheriff Sheriff Sheriff Sheriff!" again and again. She threw her arms around him and he gave the little girl a hug. He hadn't seen her in a while.

"Hello there, Rose," he smiled. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Yeah, I've been with my Daddy," Rose smiled, turning and pointing at Gold, who had finally caught up to them. Graham raised his eye brows as he stood up to talk to the man.

"Daddy?" he asked skeptically with a raised eyebrow.

"Recently discovered," Gold half smiled and gave a slight shrug. That actually caught the sheriff off guard. Wait, he was serious? He was actually Rose's father? How drunk had Lacey been? But he didn't say any of this out loud.

"Well, she's a beautiful little girl," he said. "I'm glad she finally found the rest of her family."

"Catch any bad guys?" Rose smiled up at the sheriff, hugging his leg. Graham looked down at her and smiled, shaking his head.

"No, not recently," he said. "But you know what to call if you see any, right?"

"Call 9-1-1!" Rose said confidently, nodding her head at each number.

"Look at you, you smart girl!" Graham smiled and ruffled her hair. Rose giggled and then she went back over to her father. Even Gold cracked a smile. "Well, I need to head back to the office," the sheriff continued. "Now Rose, you be a good girl, aye? Mr. Gold, good day to you."

With that he turned and headed to his car before driving off. Gold looked down at his daughter and held her hand as they headed across the street to the diner for lunch.

"Rose, sweetheart, how do you know Sheriff Graham?" he asked, curious.

"Back in the old room, he would bring food to me and Mommy," Rose said, swinging their hands together. "He and Mommy would talk and he told me stories about his doggy. And then after we got out of the new room, when Mommy got in trouble, he would stay with me in the house and teach me about safety and what to do in am emmmermergency."

Gold smiled softly as he listened to her. So the Huntsman had been a friend to his daughter, and to his Belle. When this curse was broken, he would have to thank him.

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"Huntsman!" Rose smiled wide and waved when the young man entered the cell. The little girl never failed to make him smile even on the darkest of days. It was hard to believe that she was the daughter of the Dark One.

"Hello little Rose," he smiled softly and nodded to Belle as he brought them their tray of food. Rose happily dug in and proceeded to talk with her mouthful.

"Have you seen your doggy in the forest again?" she asked.

"No, not for some time," Huntsman said, looking down at the ground. He was as much a prisoner as they were, locked up in this castle with no escape to his home in the forest. Regina had kept her promise of making wolves illegal to hunt but it felt like a hollow victory when he was not free.

"Tell me about her please?" Rose asked.

"Well…. She was a silver wolf, with one black eye and with one red eye. She was always by my side whenever we went hunting," He said. Rose was fascinated as she listened, she'd never seen any real animals before, she only had descriptions from her mother and her huntsman friend.

Belle smiled as she listened to him. She knew about his imprisonment with the queen, she felt awful for him. She hoped that one day they could all be free. After they ate Huntsman stayed behind, telling Rose some more stories about when he was a free man, and she fell asleep to the sound of his voice, curling up against Belle who wrapped around her arms around her and held her close.

"…Is there any new of the curse?" Belle asked.

"Regina's been talking about it more, saying that the time is almost here," he said.

"How much time do we have?"
"I wouldn't go past half a year."

That frightened Belle. Less than half a year was all the time she had before they were taken to this land without magic, Nova had been filling her in on her monthly visits. She looked down at her daughter. She still had never met her father, that was something she had tried and failed again and again to make happen. Whether he hadn't received the letters she had tried to write him or he was ignoring them, she didn't know. She hoped it wasn't the latter, she knew he loved her… Didn't he?

"You're sure that my letters were sent to him?" She asked, looking back at the man.

"As far as I know, they were sent," he said. "I can try again, I know how important it is…. I better get going."

She nodded. "Thank you for telling her stories, she really enjoys your visits," She said.

"And I enjoy telling her, she's the brightest light in this castle," He smiled softly and gently patted Rose's head without waking her before he left the cell. Down the tower stairs back to the main part of the castle, Huntsman wanted to see if any of the letters had gone through. Up to the messenger pigeons, he took Belle's latest letter out, ready to send. But there was a noise behind him that startled him.

"Looking for these, Huntsman?" Regina said, holding several of the messages that Belle had tried to send. Huntsman's eyes widened as he whipped around to see her.

"You… You've been stopping her letters," he said.

"Well ofcourse I have, can you imagine the Dark One's wrath if he knew that his beloved was alive and well and with his daughter after I told him she was dead?" She snapped. "There will be no more attempts to reach him, that is an order."

Huntsman swallowed. Now Rose would never meet her father…

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Coming home that night to the smell of burnt food, Rumple had had enough. He had Rose head up to her room and play while he went to the kitchen. Lacey was scrapping off burnt pasta sauce off of a pan, her face filled with such anger that at first she didn't even notice that he was standing right there. When she finally did, she blew her bangs out of her face and glared at him.

"Why don't you take a picture, it'll last longer," she growled at him.

He sighed and shook his head. "That's it," he said. "I'm teaching you how to cook. Throw that away, get a new one out." He left the room for just a moment as he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. He came back in and started getting out ingredients. Lacey had still yet to move, staring at him confused.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I just said I'm teaching you how to cook, now throw that out and start up some water to boil in a pot," he said as he started thawing some chicken. She just stared at him for a few more moments before she followed his orders.

Filling the pot with water and setting it to boil, she looked over at him. "What, are you a chef now? How do you know how to cook?"

"I lived on my own for a long time, Lacey, I can take care of myself, and I can take care of Rose too," he said.

"Are you saying I can't take care of my daughter because I can't cook?" She snapped.

"I'm saying that I can offer her a healthy meals to her because I can cook, and I'm going to be teaching you how to do the same. She's your daughter, it's time you started to provide for her, and I am here to help."

He was surprised when she didn't snap back at him, perhaps he really was getting through to her. While the water was boiling he had her chop mushrooms and onions, and he pan fried the chicken. Then he had her put in spiraled pasta and add the chopped vegetables and a red sauce to the chicken. She seemed a bit more relaxed with his help and direction, it brought back memories when she first started to learn to cook in the castle. He hoped that he could break down her walls of aggression so he could get back to the real Belle, so she could be a better mother to Rose.

"So I heard that you took Rose out of preschool, what's that all about?" she asked, leaning against the counter. "You're not her parent, you have no right to do that."

"Rose was being bullied by her classmates and was being neglected by the teachers. As her guardian at the time, it was best to remove her from that before something bad happened. If we were to put her back in that situation, it wouldn't get any better." He said plainly.

"She can handle herself, she's a tough girl."

"She is four years old." He said, looking over at her. "She needs help, she needs protection, she needs support. Throwing her to the lion's den and expecting her to be ok just because you say so, that is neglect."

"I do not neglect my daughter!" She snapped.

"Maybe not physically, but emotionally you do," he said. "You don't give her any positive attention, any alone time you have with her, you're off drinking at the bar."

"Well I'm not allowed to drink anymore, maybe instead of dropping her off with the doctor for the whole day, maybe she could stay home with me, her own damn mother?!"

"Lacey, keep your voice down, we can have a conversation without shouting," he said, looking back to the pan, the chicken still had a while. "If you are certain that you can take care of Rose by yourself, then I would be more than happy to let you be her parent again."

"You don't have the authority to take my child or keep her away," she snapped. "She is my daughter, my flesh and blood and you have no claim to her even if she does think that you're her father."

"I don't have to be her flesh and blood to care for her." He said, turning back to her. "Even if I'm not her father, I have been a father before, and I care for her well being like she was my own. I won't stand for her being yelled out for being an innocent child and making simple mistakes. I won't stand for putting her in unhealthy and negative situations like that preschool. I won't stand for her to be afraid of her own mother and seek comfort in a total stranger. So I will say again, if you are willing to be a proper parent to that little girl, then I will be happy to let you."

She was silent, studying him, and he finished turning over the chicken. He wanted to yell but he wouldn't, not to her, not when Rose could hear them. He was determined to make sure that this worked out for the three of them, and getting into a full blown argument would only fracture things.

"….I didn't know you'd been a father before…" she said quietly.

"Very few people do, it was a long time ago." He said.

"What happened?"

"…I was too controlling, too obsessed with success and riches to see that I was losing him…. And he left, thinking that I'd abandoned him." He looked back up at her. "I won't let Rose go through life thinking she is unloved."

"She is loved, even if I'm not the best at showing it…" Lacey said.

"Then you can improve. And I'm here to help."

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and back with a new chapter after *old woman voice* 84 years...

we've got graham, my baby graham, i miss him so much. And we got cooking with rumple! i always think that rumple would make a fine cook, let me know if you agree. things seem to finally be going well, but who knows where this story will take us next.

hugs and loves,

darkonesroses