Love and 'Hey Baby' – the Charmings Way
by misscam
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's Note: Written to several prompts asking me to use "hey baby" for Snow and Charming. Set some time after 3x22, but makes no references to events after that.
II
Gradually, Snow becomes aware of kisses, soft kisses peppered across her face, every now and then lightly brushing her lips. There are hands too, hands stroking her sides, and she can feel herself smiling. She knows who this is, and it's not the first time she's been woken like this.
Sure enough, as she opens her eyes, it's Charming grinning cheekily at her.
"Hey baby," he says, and she raises an eyebrow.
"Hey baby?" she echoes. Oh, Charming has called her by terms of affection before, as she can remember quite a few 'darling'. But quite often he tends to use her name and treat that as a term of affection in itself. 'Baby' is definitely new.
"Emma," he says, and she stares at him. "Said we reminded her of this couple that lived next to her. They held hands and kissed in the hallway and greeted each other with 'hey baby' even after sixty years of marriage. She liked them."
"Emma said that," she echoes in disbelief. "Was she drunk?"
"She was getting there," he says merrily.
"Charming, are you drunk?"
"Noooo," he says, stealing a kiss. "Just tipsy."
Right, she thinks, though it's actually hard to think properly when his hands are wandering and he's kissing her whenever he's not saying anything.
"Charming," she says, and he hums happily at the back of his throat at the sound of his name. "Where is Emma?"
"Sleeping upstairs," he murmurs. "I carried her here. She got really drunk."
"Why?" she asks. Last she heard from them, the pair of them were trying to solve a case of missing hedges.
"She wanted to," he says, pausing for a moment and looking serious. "Said it was about time she got drunk, given her crazy life. That was after we handled the evil tree."
Ah, she thinks. She is starting to make some sense of this. Emma seems to have had a desire to get drunk, and Charming went with her and drank just enough to drink with her and not feel like a nanny, but not so much he couldn't look after her.
She smiles up at him. "You're a great dad, you know that?"
He looks wistful. "Want to be."
"You are," she says firmly.
He looks at her lovingly, then leans down and kisses her until her toes are curling and she feels breathless. Right. He always did get slightly more amorous when drinking, she recalls, as if removing even the slightest inhibition reduces him to practically tearing her clothes off.
She supposes that says something about how few inhibitions he really has about her.
"Love you," he murmurs, and kisses her again.
It's a good thing Emma is out like a light and Neal is at the age where he actually sleeps the night through, she thinks distantly, and kisses him back hungrily.
II
Snow is awake before the rest of her family, of course. She checks on Emma, who's snoring into a pillow, but is tucked in adorably, by Charming no doubt. Neal is awake the moment he spots her, raising his hands excitedly, and she lifts him up and kisses his head happily while he babbles.
She feeds him, finds him toys, and then sets about making breakfast for her family. With lots of coffee, of course.
It takes a while before Emma staggers downstairs, looking like a mess.
"Morning, Emma," Snow says, keeping her voice soft.
"Hi mom," Emma mutters, sitting down on a chair. "How did I..."
"End up here?" Snow finishes, and Emma nods tiredly. "Your father."
Emma looks genuinely touched, then picks a piece of dry toast and starts chewing on it with determination. It's something Mary Margaret learned after some late night wine drinking with Emma and the mornings after. Emma likes dry toast as a hangover remedy, an odd but endearing fact.
She's picked up quite a few of those facts by now.
After a few minutes, Charming pads into the kitchen, looking slightly better than Emma, but with messy bed-hair and fingers at his temple. Wordlessly, she hands him the glass of cold water she knows he prefers after nights of drinking.
He gulps it down, then glances at Emma.
"Morning, Emma."
"Hi, dad," she says cautiously. "Thanks for..."
She makes a gesture as if to say everything, and Charming smiles happily at her.
"Anytime," he says sincerely. Then he walks up to Snow, putting his arms around her and pressing a firm kiss to her lips. "Hey baby."
Emma groans , giving him a pointed look. "You remember that?"
"Of course," he says, winking at her. Emma groans again. Snow just watches, feeling a tug at her heart. Father teasing his daughter. Such an everyday thing, yet something that was denied them for so long.
"Right," Emma murmurs, stealing another dry toast. "I look forwards to weeks of you teasing me by greeting mom with 'hey baby' before you tire of it."
"Weeks?" Charming says thoughtfully, winking at Snow. "I was more thinking months."
"You are such a dad," Emma groans, missing the expression on Charming's face. Snow doesn't. She can see the emotion in his eyes, and touches his chest gently. Such a dad. All Charming ever wanted to be.
"I guess I am," he manages to say, keeping his voice light.
"Hmpf," Emma says, but she doesn't sound dissatisfied with the idea of that, not really. "Well, I'm going to leave you two to all that romantic stuff and go home, shower and feel miserable while hoping I didn't leave any embarrassing voice mails anywhere. Thanks for the toasts, mom."
"Anytime," Snow says sincerely, smiling at her daughter.
Emma gives her a soft smile in return, then gets up and steals another toast along for the road. But she pauses at the door, turning around to look at them hesitantly.
"That couple I mentioned?" she says, and Charming nods. "I did like them a lot. But..."
Snow bites back her instant urge to prompt. The key with Emma, she's learned over the years, is know when to push and know when to wait. It's a good thing she is good at pushing and Charming at waiting, really. This time though, it feels like a case of waiting.
"I like you more," Emma finally says. "See you guys later."
With that, she's out the door, and Snow leans against Charming, forcing back a few tears. As far as Emma goes, that was practically a 'I love you'.
Charming is smiling faintly as she peers up at him. "I guess she doesn't remember."
"What?"
"She was only tipsy when she was talking about that couple," he says, rubbing her back. "After she got drunk... Well, she left a couple of voice mails, including one for you. I believe 'I love you' was mentioned a couple of times in yours."
"Oh," Snow says faintly. "She was drunk. I won't tell her."
He smiles faintly at her. "But you're going to save that voice mail and treasure it, aren't you?"
He knows her too well, she thinks fondly, linking her arms around his neck. "Yes."
He kisses her again, twirling her around slowly a few times before pausing and pressing his forehead against hers.
"So how does sixty years of marriage, handholding, kissing, 'hey baby' and being parents to our wonderful daughter and amazing son sound like?" he murmurs.
"Hmmm," she says thoughtfully. "No."
"No?" he repeats, frowning.
"Sixty years is not enough," she says firmly, thinking of how much she loves him, loves their family, loves a life with them. "It will have to be an eternity."