Hey everyone! I had been getting stuck on one of my other fics (haven't abandoned it, though!) so I decided to write a smaller multi-chap one to get the juices flowing. Hope your like it, and regardless of opinion, please review!

Mother Gothel knew that things were changing, and she wasn't comfortable with it. Rapunzel had been talking about these infernal lanterns for years now, as if they belonged to her, but now they were all she talked about, and something she spoke of every day. Rapunzel had become affixed to the lanterns, and, by extension, the outdoors. She had begun asking for more books, for paintings of things she could not see.

"Mother…" she had brought up one day. "Could you get a painting of a waterfall for me?"

"Whatever for, Rapunzel? There's one just behind the tower." Gothel dismissed, chopping onions.

"I know." Rapunzel paused there. "But the window is on the other side of the tower, so if I lean out I can hear it, and you told me what it was, but I've never seen it."

Gothel hesitated. "It's nothing extraordinary. You're fine."

Rapunzel was silenced by her snapping remark, but Gothel was not foolish enough to believe she had dropped the issue. As soon as Rapunzel focused on something, she was consumed by it. It fascinated her and she could focus on it forever.

Mother Gothel slid her ingredients into a bubbling pot, and slinked upstairs to rest a little before dinner. She was, unfortunately, always getting older, and things began to exhaust her more easily. She laid down on her bed. Rapunzel had made it up again, piling on dozens of her little handmade throw pillows. She was so cutely disgusting.

She laid sleeplessly for 20 some-odd minutes, then slid back downstairs to check on dinner. Rapunzel, the little housemaid, was stirring the pot and seasoning their meal. Good.

"Darling, we have just enough time before dinner. Why don't you sing for Mama?"

"Sure! Yeah, of course!" Rapunzel bubbled, placing the lid on the pot. "But first, look!" she scuttled to the side and grabbed a piece of paper. "I made a countdown to when the lanterns come back. It's only in five days! And if we don't count today, 'cause it's almost over anyway, it's only four days! Now, wait, I'm not done." She grabbed another piece of paper, depicting a personal stormcloud just over the side of a mountain. "Ta da! Our waterfall."

"They don't really look like that, dear." Gothel snapped, annoyed.

"Oh, sorry." She placed the paper on the table and turned back. "But I could find out what they do if we went there! Mother, I'm almost eighteen, and I've been watching these lanterns every year. They go up high – higher than the tower! But if we got to the top of the waterfall, I doubt they'd go higher than that! We could hike up there together, and I'll pack food and blankets for us, and we can watch them together! Wouldn't that be – "

"Enough, Rapunzel, honestly! How many times do we have to go through this?" Gothel raised a hand to her temple.

"Sorry, Mother, it's just-"

"Rapunzel, please." She moved by the fire and sat down in a plush chair, head still in hand. "I'm feeling very worn out. Sing for me."

Rapunzel scooted her tiny stool next to Mother Gothel's large chair. "Of course, Mother." She sighed sadly. "Flower gleam and glow-"

…

"What are you doing, Rapunzel? You've been sitting there all morning."

Gothel was only exaggerating a little. Rapunzel awoke as early as ever, ran through her chores, and then gathered up her paints and sat in front of one of the few blank spaces left in the tower. She bit her lip and tilted her head, thinking deeply, but not painting.

"I just don't know what to put here."

"You exhaust me, Rapunzel, I'm going to go lie down for a bit. Wake me just before lunch."

"Of course, mother!" Rapunzel said cheerfully, trying to compensate for how she had upset her mother.

As soon as Gothel had slunk upstairs, Rapunzel picked Pascal up out of her paint box. "Coast is clear!" she smiled, and Pascal chirped a response.

"A waterfall would look great here!" Rapunzel nodded. Her smile dropped. "I just wish I knew what one looked like."

Pascal chirped again, and Rapunzel gasped. "I can't leave! What if someone should see me, and try to take my hair?"

Pascal squeaked, rolling his eyes.

"Well, no, I have never seen travelers around here. We'd have to be super quick though, just to be safe."

Rapunzel crept up to the staircase, checking to make sure that her mother was still asleep. "Looks good, Pascal!" she whispered, then crept over to the window.

The lizard squeaked approval, and Rapunzel reached out to grab the hook outside the window. She swung her body out, so her heels hung off the back of the windowsill. She needed perfect, perfect balance.

"Okay, here goes." She encouraged herself, and flung her hair up around the top of the tower. It wrapped around a few times, just due to the sheer length, and she gave it a quick tug to be safe. She nodded at her lizard friend and jumped off the ledge.

She screamed – she didn't expect to fall! Her hair caught her, it was wrapped well around the tower, but she was swaying off the side of the building, her feet a good two feet below the platform.

"Okay, concentrate. Come on." Rapunzel tried to kick her feet and climb up the side a little bit. She would only get up a few inches before she would slip and fall back again. These failures made her panic, and every time she looked down, she became less comfortable with this whole idea of being outside her tower.

"Rapunzel!" Gothel came to the windowsill, looking out and screeching herself. "How on earth did you get out there?"

"I-I was trying to get up higher and I can't do it!" Rapunzel stammered.

"Here, try and swing yourself a bit over here."

Gothel's strength had atrophied considerably, but she was still able to pull Rapunzel up enough for the girl to get enough footing to propel herself back into the tower.

"Rapunzel! What were you thinking?"

"I'm sorry, mother." Rapunzel said softly, pulling her hair back into the tower. "I thought everything would be okay."

…

Things were especially, especially not okay. Gothel was forced to face a reality that hadn't even yet crossed her mind. Rapunzel was supposed to be her solution, not another problem. This was supposed to be how Gothel stayed safe, stayed alive! But, there was one notable difference between Rapunzel and a flower, and one Gothel was only just accepting.

Rapunzel couldn't live forever.

Even if Gothel took every precaution and kept the girl as healthy and safe as reasonably possible. Even if Rapunzel learned her lesson and took no more stupid risks. Even if every bit of fate and faith combined to help Rapunzel live 100 years, she would still one day die. And Gothel knew she would then die as well.

But she wasn't ready for that to happen. Gothel would not die on any terms except her own, and she had to find a way to prolong Rapunzel's life infinitely, in order to prolong her own. So she needed to get the power in Rapunzel's hair transferred to another thing. Or, by Gothel's reckoning, to another person.

Which meant, Rapunzel was going to soon have a baby.

…

Gothel also knew that should couldn't simply forgo everything she had built over Rapunzel's almost-eighteen years. There had to be another option besides releasing Rapunzel to the outside world, with the hopes that she'd find a mate and have lots of small, magical babies. There were too many variables, and too great a likelihood that something would go wrong.

So she went on down to a pub where criminals of all sorts were known to gather. This was the place you went if you needed something, of any nature done. She scanned the crowd, drawing her cloak closer to her shoulders in order to try and remain unnoticed. She needed someone who was unthreatening – or, at least, less threating than so many of these men, with their furs and scars and Viking hats. She needed someone that would scare Rapunzel just the right amount.

And she found him, in a worn-through blue vest, sitting alone and drinking, counting out meager coins. He seemed desperate enough to take any job, which is exactly what she needed. Gothel approached him slowly, and when they made eye contact, she tried to smile, but smirked instead.

"Hello." She slid down to the seat beside him.

He stuffed all his coins in the pouch and gave her a puzzled look. "Do we know each other? I feel like we don't know each other."

"We're about to get to know each other."

"Look, if you're trying to drum up customers-"

"Not like that boy, I need your help instead." Gothel snapped. Huh, maybe she didn't look as old as she thought though.

"Well, what is it."

"I have a job, of the more unsavory sort, and I need a fellow like yourself to carry it out."

"What is it?"

"I have a daughter, and I don't wish to give too many details on the matter, but she needs to be with child."

"What." Flynn said, almost flatly. There was no way this woman was asking this. Any experience he had with parents was enough to show that they typically wanted quite the opposite.

"It's messy in execution, but whatever morals you have should be undisturbed, as I assure you that this is ultimately the right thing to be doing. And I have this-" with a thud, a considerable sack of coins landed on the table, more than Flynn had gotten from any one job.

"and she wants to be pregnant?" Flynn asked. Stealing tangible things seemed almost saint-like compared to this. But it was such an odd situation, Flynn wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Wants to be?" Gothel smiled fakely. "She needs to be, more than anything."

"So that's all you need me to do?" Flynn still sounded a little uneasy, but so much money was being offered up, for an act he already technically did so often. Romance, bed, leave. He had never done it quite like this, but well, if it's what the girl and the mother wanted…and for so much money…"Just hang around the girl, schmooze a little, kiss a little, bun in the oven?"

"That's right." She smiled, speaking in a sing song voice.

Flynn laughed, falsely believing he already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask. "And what if she doesn't like me?" As if!

"Well, you're only getting paid for the last part." The dark-haired woman said straightforwardly, dropping a sack of coins into his hand and leaving. "See that it's done."

Flynn felt his stomach drop. He was wrong, and he didn't get the answer he was expecting.

Review, please!