Reset

All eyes around the table turned to the carpenter and he realised immediately he had said the wrong thing.

“You’ve SEEN the baby?” Ruby exclaimed.

Marco looked down at his notepad as he mumbled, “yes.. I am building her a crib..”

“I should probably mention,” Leroy mumbled, “I kinda.. decorated the nursery for her.. last week.”

“You did what?!” David shouted, “why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought you all knew!” Leroy argued back.

“You did work for the Evil Queen?” Granny looked at Leroy in surprise.

Leroy shrugged, “she pays good money, and she baked me a cake.”

Marco nodded, “she made me a cherry pie.”

Leroy turned to the older man and smiled, “I got a lemon thing, posh French name.”

“Tarte au Citron,” Granny answered, “she supplies them to the diner if you want to pay for a slice.”

Ruby turned to Granny in surprise, “she makes the lemon tart?!”

“Have you ever seen me bake a lemon tart?” Granny retorted.

“Did YOU know about the baby?” Ruby asked her grandmother with a questioning glare.

“She might have mentioned it a few days ago,” Granny admitted quietly.

All Hell broke loose in the room as people started to shout at each other for withholding secrets or doing odd jobs for Regina until Mary Margaret stood up and put two fingers in her mouth and let out a loud whistle. Everyone quietened down and looked towards her.

She nodded gratefully, “so,” she shook her head in surprise, “it would seem that nearly everyone already knew about the baby.”

Ruby made a move to speak and Mary Margaret nodded, “except Ruby. So.. I suppose all there is left to say is that David and I support Regina in this new family she is building for herself and we’d like that to be repeated to anyone in Storybrooke who doesn’t already know that Regina has a baby.”

Mary Margaret looked at Ruby, “although it sounds like it might just be Ruby.”

Ruby shrugged and then folded her arms and pouted.

Mary Margaret flopped back into her chair and David spoke up, “the important thing is that no one gives her any trouble, I know there are still a few people holding grudges towards her but for the safety of the town we all need to.. be respectful. Can you ensure that message is distributed to the town.”

Everyone nodded and then David sighed, “right, good, onto actual council business,” he looked at the agenda in front of him, “Leroy, housing?”

Leroy nodded, “as you all know, since the curse broke a lot of people have been wanting to change their living arrangements. Thing is, Storybrooke was made in a certain way, no empty houses. So now some people are moving out, some people are growing their family.. we’re about to have a housing crisis unless we do something. Fast.”

David nodded, “I agree, we need to start building now.”

Leroy nodded and clicked a button on a remote control that was sat in front of him, a projection screen flicked to life behind him with a map of Storybrooke on it. Leroy stood up and approached the screen and pointed to a couple of areas outlines in green, “the dwarves have been on a few walks around town and we think these three areas are the best for building, we think a couple of blocks of apartments here,” he pointed, “and some starter homes here,” he pointed to another area “and we should be good to go.”

“This brings up a whole other issue,” Mary Margaret pointed out, “Storybrooke is growing but no one can leave the town line, we need to build more houses, maybe another school, we need doctor’s, dentist’s, midwives..”

David put his hand on his panicking wife’s arm and looked at her with a serious expression, “it’s a valid concern but we need to focus on the immediately issues and then look at that after. The woods around Storybrooke are huge, it will be many, many years before the town grows out of its current infrastructure and we’re still looking for a way home.”

Emma looked up, “you are? I thought it was decided to stay here?”

David looked at Emma and nodded, “that has been decided but we will still look for a portal back for those who wish to go back to the old world. Ideally we would want to find or create a stable portal that would allow people to travel back and forth.”

Emma frowned but slowly nodded “I see..” she whispered and looked down at her notepad. She could hear Leroy continuing his plans for the new housing but she didn’t take in any of the details. She could feel the cold feeling of loneliness clawing at her chest, the family that she had found seemed to be slowly being taken away, piece by piece.

Chapter 13

Mister Gold stood formally in the living room of 108 Mifflin Street, he wore a tailored suit and overcoat and leaned forward, balancing on the cane he grasped with both hands. He looked every inch the terrifying man he was with the exception of his face which was panicked as he stared down at the baby seat.

“No, no,” he whispered tersely, “don’t cry little one..”

Grace looked up at him with an uncertain face and was every inch the baby on the verge of major tears.