I was watching This Is Us and I was inspired to write about Snowing deciding to foster/adopt. Set in the Lost Get Found universe, obviously before they met Emma. Consider this my late anniversary gift for this verse, which was last month. I never expected it to get so much attention, so thank you all for reading and reviewing it! Trigger warning: Infertility is heavily discussed in this.

Maybe you and I were never meant to be complete

Could we just be broken together

If you can bring your shattered dreams and I'll bring mine

Could healing still be spoken and save us

The only way we'll last forever is broken together-Casting Crowns

David could hear Mary crying and it broke his heart.

That morning they had gone to the doctor, buzzing with excitement. On Christmas they had gotten a positive pregnancy test. They had spent the next few days talking about the baby, picking out names. They had gotten so ahead of themselves, it had just been a long time coming. They were finally going to be parents!

Then the doctor ran some tests and a few more. He walked back into the room with a sullen face. Mary wasn't pregnant. She hadn't lost the baby, there had never been one to begin with.

"It's rare, but false positives do happen," he had told them.

Mary didn't say anything, she was quiet. From the moment they left the office and on the whole car ride home, not a single word escaped her mouth. David tried to do what he did best, comfort her. He told her they could try again, that they would have a baby someday. Her eyes stayed focused on the road ahead of them. When they got home, she went straight up to their room. David followed at first, only to get a door slammed in his face. She needed her space, he respected that.

Now she was sobbing and he wanted to do anything he could to fix it. He knew he deep down there was nothing he could do. She wasn't pregnant, they weren't going to be welcoming a child into the world.

Next Christmas, once again, it'd just be the two of them.

David was okay with that, he would be fine if it was just the two of them until the day he died. He married Mary because he loved her, not for the possibility of a baby. He knew she would be, too. It still wasn't their dream.

A single tear fell down his face. He wanted a child, he wanted a family. David had been that kid obsessed with dolls and babies, he babysat for families nearby the farm. He loved kids, he ran lots of events for the children of Storybrooke. Everyone always asked when he was going to have one of his own.

Maybe it wasn't going to happen. Maybe his dream wasn't meant to come true.

"I don't want to try again."

The words slipped out of Mary's mouth so quickly, she couldn't take them back. She didn't want to, but she had been keeping it in since the doctor's office. It had been 2 weeks and she was due to return to work soon. She and David sat at their usual table at Granny's. His hand hovered over his coffee mug, staring at her.

"What?"

"I…I think I want to get on the pill. Just so there's no possible way that I could get pregnant." It was pretty redundant in her mind, since it clearly wasn't going to happen, but she didn't even want to think it could.

David's brows furrowed. "I don't understand. Are you saying you don't want a baby?"

"I'm saying I don't want to ever think I'm pregnant again." Mary chewed on her lip. "David, these past few weeks have been hell on me, on us. This is just from us finding out that we weren't really pregnant. What if I did…and then I lost the baby? I don't think I could handle it."

He slowly nodded. "Whatever you want."

"I do still want a child," she told him. "I just…it's obvious that I'm not going to be able to carry him or her. There are other ways."

David reached over and took her hand. "Of course there are, we can talk about them all."

Mary let out a deep breath. "I'm sorry, David."

"Hey, don't do that. Don't blame yourself."

"But it's my fault. You heard the doctor…"

"These things just happen. There's nothing you could've done to prevent it." David lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Mary, I just need you to know, no matter what. I love you. If it's just us, I'll be okay with that."

Mary bit her lip once again. "That's not your dream."

"Sometimes happy endings aren't what we think they'll be." He smiled. "I just need you for mine, you have to know that."

She nodded and gave him a weak half-smile. Mary knew he was right, she felt the same. Deep down, though, she really wanted a baby.

A few days later, school had started up once again. Mary stood in her classroom, addressing 20 4th graders, who were still on a vacation buzz. It was hard to get their attention, but she managed to convince them to share at least one fun thing they had done over the break. The day went by quicker than she expected.

After her assistant helped the bus-riders to their specific lane, she stayed behind with those who were going to be picked up. One of her students, Joselyn, was coloring when her mother walked in, holding two car seats. Mary raised an eyebrow and stood up, walking over to Dory.

"Hey Mary," Dory grinned. "How was your holiday?"

"It was okay. Who are these two?"

"This is Nicholas and Ava," she explained.

Mary smiled down at the infants, tickling their chins. They gurgled up at her, pumping their fists. "I didn't know you were pregnant."

"I wasn't. They sort of fell into me and Michael's laps. He had a niece who was pregnant, she didn't tell anyone until she was in her last month. She wasn't ready to be a mother, so she asked us to adopt them."

Mary paused. "Adoption, huh?"

Dory shrugged. "We always talked about doing it, we had some troubles conceiving Joselyn, but she was our surprise. There are just so many babies in need of a home."

Mary nodded in agreement as Dory walked over to help her eldest daughter with her things. She knew she had to talk to David.

"I don't need a child that I share blood with," Mary told David that night over dinner.

He nodded in agreement. "I was hoping you'd bring this up."

She giggled. "Why didn't you?"

"I just wanted to wait. We just found out that you weren't really pregnant, I figured I'd give it time."

"Michael's niece was lucky, she had family to take her babies. Not everyone is. I just…I think we have a lot to offer."

David grinned. "Well, then let's start looking."

The next few months were spent looking into agencies and putting out applications. They built a profile and allowed their agency to put it up. They got some interviews, but nothing concrete. Mary loved each young woman that they came into contact with, yet wasn't surprised when they would get the call from their social worker saying she went with someone else.

Mary was a school teacher, David the town sheriff. They had references, a beautiful home. Yet, something just seemed to be working against them. After the 5th failed match, David was starting to lose hope.

He was sitting at his desk one afternoon when Graham walked in, holding two cups of coffee. David looked up with a grateful smile.

"Thanks," he said, accepting it.

"No problem." Graham sat across from him and took out his phone. "Aw, yes."

"What?"

"Nothing, it's just my sister and brother-in-law. They've been fostering these three kids for the past two years and just found out they get to adopt them."

David arched an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah, now that their other kids are older, they wanted to give back. There are so many children in the system in need of homes."

So, David did his research. He found videos of people who had fostered, from former foster children themselves. The statistics of foster care were alarming, so many children were in need of good, stable homes. While a lot of the children were going to be reunited with their families at some point, there were many in need of forever homes.

He waited another week before bringing it up to Mary. They had yet another failed interview and he could tell she was growing discouraged. It started off by simply sending her a video of a family adopting their foster child. He figured at the least, she'd think of it as a cute little story. She was constantly tearing up over happy Facebook posts.

That night, he worked one of the rare late shifts. As sheriff, he normally would choose to be home before dinner, but Leroy had requested him to switch. He didn't get home until a little after midnight, being careful not to wake his sleeping wife as he changed and crawled into bed.

Moments later, he felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist.

"Fostering, huh?" She whispered.

He slowly smiled. "You're still awake."

"I was waiting for you. You know there are risks, don't you? There's a chance that the child could be reunited with a biological family member."

"And a birth mother can change her mind up until the adoption is finalized," he pointed out.

"You really wouldn't mind possibly not getting a baby?"

"I just want to be a dad. I don't care how old the child is."

He finally looked down at her, the moonlight drifting through their window. A smile had spread across her face and he traced her cheek with his finger.

"Okay," she whispered.

"Are you sure?"

"You said that sometimes happy endings aren't what we expect. We'd still be helping a child that needs a home, we'd still become parents. I want to do this, I already started looking into classes."

He grinned and kissed her. "I love you, so much."

"I love you too, more than words can say."

She snuggled into his side and he held her closer.

"You do realize this means we could have a baby by Christmas after all, you know," he whispered.

Snow smiled. "I can't wait."

Little did they know their baby, their child, was just 4 hours away in a group home in Boston. She had long given up hope.

Luckily for her, they had enough hope for all three of them.