Her Mother always told her not to laugh or else she would get wrinkles. He thought that was ridiculous.

Of course whenever he and the others tried to tell her that she just brushed them off with a brief "you don't understand".

But on the contrary, he was pretty sure he did understand. She was put under so much pressure by her Mother to be perfect, to find a prince and settle down. To be nothing more than a trophy wife for some bumbling prince in a far off land just to further her Mother's ambition.

She was being used.

Of course, she never saw it that way. She didn't even see her own beauty. She had revealed to them that her Mother would often pretend to be the magic mirror and tell her that she was far from the fairest in the land, all three of the other villains stopped in their tracks to correct her thinking but it was too deeply imbedded.

But he thought she should smile, wrinkles be damned. Because if she really wanted to know the truth, that is what truly made her the fairest of them all. When her eyes lit up from a joke that Carlos told her, or some halfhearted attempt at kindness from Mal. Or even when he would do little things for her, like steal her that scarf she wanted from the market or walk her home at night (he wouldn't say it, but he worried).

And her laugh. Her laugh was just as pretty as the rest of her, and that laugh could put just about anyone under her spell.

So he hated it when she tried not to laugh. Now that she was free from her Mother she had gotten better, loosened up a bit, but there were still times Jay noticed that she pursed her lips in an attempt not to smile. In those cases he would just try his best to make her laugh and then give her a pointed look when she did, just to let her know that he knew what she was doing.

Then there was Doug. Doug made her happy. He made her smile more than Jay ever thought he had seen.

He made her laugh, and he made her walk around with this floaty smile on her face.

So Jay was happy. As long as he kept her happy, he would be happy too (if he ever made her cry, Jay was more than capable of snapping him in half).

Well, he was trying to be happy. He couldn't help but feel a sad tug in his stomach when he saw them, he guessed it was because she was drifting away from them. Away from him.

But Evie was happy so he was happy, wrinkles be damned.