Authors Note: This is meant to be just a cute little fluffy fanfiction without much depth to it (don't expect very long chapters either.), I suspect it will be the only of it's kind as this is not my usual fandom, but I got into Raising Hope a few months ago and just found Sabrina & Hopes relationship to be absolutely precious. This whole fanfiction will take place before the episode: "Squeak Means Squeak." As you know what happens there. There should be not many spoilers involved other than the fact that Sabrina and Jimmy are indeed together in this fanfiction (In later Chapters) and the season two finale about Lucy (Also in a later chapter.) Without further delay, I present to you a witty little one-shot (in several parts) about what happens when Hope goes through a toddler-life crisis trying to find her Mother, to the style of "Are You My Mother" by P.D. Eastman.
"Are you my Mother?" Hope wonders to herself one afternoon as she's left alone with Maw-Maw while her Grandma Virginia has to make an emergency car trip to help her Grandpa Burt get his foot unstuck out of a particularly pesky gopher hole.
Maw-Maw never normally was in-charge of Hope, everyone from Jimmy to Virginia to Sabrina had banned it strictly because Maw-Maw even while lucid, was not the most loving of Grandmothers. But it was desperate times that resorted to desperate measures, and desperate measures themselves was what caused Hope to ponder if the fossilized tyrannosaurus rex staring down at her sitting in her crib, was the mother she had been hearing so much about.
According to the other babies at Shelly's, Mothers were just like Fathers! They were supposed to take care of you and love you, Maw-Maw didn't do any of that, but Hope had noticed how often her Daddy and Maw-Maw kissed or Maw-Maw acted like they were married. The other babies had told her about that too, Mommy's and Daddy's were married and in love, they did those kinds of things. (She just never picked up on how her Dad didn't return those feelings.)
It was the kiss on the cheek just before her Dad went to work that made Hope think of the possibility, and as she sat in her crib, a slightly lucid Maw-Maw hovering over her with a smile, that she thought she might be correct on her assumption.
"Whew! Someone smells stinky, let's go give you a bath!" Maw-Maw smiled at the child before plucking Hope out of the playpen and carrying the just barely one and a half year old to the families washroom, humming a catchy little tune as she bounced the girl on her hip.
That was when Hope decided that Maw-Maw must be her Mother, she was even taking care of her like a real mother would, of course the concept of full-time care versus a single bath out of nearly a year without any other care whatsoever was lost on the little girl, to her the next five minutes were forever and five minutes ago was how things had always been, so a bath for her was cause to be excited. Especially when the one bathing her was probably most likely, her Mother.
"And the water goes into the tub!" Maw-Maw explained as she shimmied little Hope out of her onesie, the faucet running, but something was bothering Hope as she got her undershirt and diaper taken off. Her Daddy always put the bathtub faucet right into the middle of hot and cold, so that it was slightly lukewarm water, just warm enough so that Hope didn't freeze or burn. But Maw-Maw had put the faucet only to one direction, and Hope didn't know if it was going to be too hot or too cold until she was dumped into the half full bathtub.
And she started to scream.
It was cold, much too cold! It felt like she had been sat in a bunch of icewater, and while that had been fun in the middle of the summer with her Daddy and Sabrina in the kiddie pool with her, it was nearly October and it was cold enough outside without adding freezing temperatures to the inside!
"Maaaaaaaa!" Hope screamed as Maw-Maw struggled to keep her in the tub, the toddler jerking and splashing around as Maw-Maw cursed whatever part of her decided to bathe a baby. Hope was about to scream again when she heard the front door open at the same time as she was yelled at by her Grandmother.
"Now you stay in that tub, Louise! I know you hate getting clean, but you can't be dirty all day from playing outside with that Jefferson kid!"
Her Maw-Maw had officially lost it, and so did Hope as she let out a distressed scream, her entire body covered in shivers until she heard quick footsteps just in the hallway as whoever it was ran as fast as they could to the bathroom door, the poor freezing toddler bursting into tears at being so cold.
"Maw-Maw!" There was an angry shout as the bathroom door burst open, and a figure crossed the room in barely a step to rip Hope out of the freezing water and out of the deranged womans hands, and Hope finally managed to stop crying long enough to see Sabrina cradling her to her chest with an upset look on her face. "That water is much too cold, Maw-Maw, you could have given Hope some serious hypothermia!"
"I swear I wasn't trying to drown the baby, officer! He's my great-grandson and well, I'd be doing the kids a big favour, but don't tell them that."
Sabrina could only shake her head as she left Maw-Maw in the washroom, holding a towel-swaddled little Hope close to her as she made her way into Jimmy's room to find a blanket to keep Hope toasty, she knew just what cold water did to her in October if she was left soaking for too long, so she could only imagine what it would do to a baby. Hope could get pneumonia, or worse. "Let's get you warm, Hope... We won't let you get sick with a cold." She whispered to the child.
That was when Hope decided that Maw-Maw couldn't possibly be her Mother. The older woman might kiss her Dad a lot, but she did NOT know how to take care of her, Maw-Maw almost got her sick even and there was no way that a Mother would let their child get sick if they could prevent it.
"There we go, Hopey." Sabrina whispered as she finished wrapping the warm blanket around Hope and held her in a very tight snuggly embrace, whispering calming words to the obviously still very cold and traumatized baby girl. "I've got you, sweetie, I've got you."
Hope knew that her Mother would be someone who knew how to properly take care of her and prevent her from getting sick, she just didn't know who.