I meant for this to to be just a one chapter thing, but I kept getting more ideas so I decided to continue! Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed this!
Snow White had always considered herself a capable person. She was a woman who could survive as an outlaw, rob passing coaches without difficulty, break into high security castles almost undetected, and kill an ogre with a single arrow. Even as Mary Margaret she had been capable enough to find her true love in the woods and escape crazy mad-hatters.
Oddly enough, Snow was beginning to think longingly back to all of those situations. Nothing on earth could compare to the difficulty of being a mother while being mayor with a mad Snow Queen and a backstabbing Rumplestiltskin in the picture. Just in the past day or so, she'd had to give up her child again, survived a crazy curse, and, on top of it all, watched as Rumplestiltskin attempted to kill her daughter's boyfriend. Then, she'd had to try to comfort both Belle and Regina, who both didn't seem appreciative, before David convinced her to give up and come home. In short, Snow White wanted nothing more than to sleep for eternity. Even a poisoned apple was sounding promising at this second, so long as David waited at least twelve hours before waking her up. Scratch that, she needed a month of sleep to catch up after this.
"He's asleep," Snow breathed in relief, closing the door to Neal's room with something remarkably close to a whimper.
David smiled wearily, moving towards his wife to give her a soft kiss on the cheek, then the neck.
"Shall we-"
David's warm suggestion was punctuated suddenly by the loud trilling of birds, Snow's ringtone. Seconds later, Neal let out a loud wail that could likely be heard across the town line.
Snow let out a very unprincess-like exclamation before answering her phone with an angry, "Yes?"
"Mary Margaret? It's Leroy. There's an emergency at the Rabbit Hole and we need you to come here right away."
Snow blinked back tears. "Shouldn't you be calling the Sheriff about this?"
David gave her a look of dread.
"No, sister, this is mayor's business. Hurry!"
"Be right there," Snow said with a sigh.
David and Snow exchanged long-suffering glances as each moved to their own duties; David to their screaming son, Snow to the coatrack. The only good thing about this, Snow thought, was that she at least got out of baby duty.
She half-ran to the Rabbit Hole, suppressing her growing sense of dread. Surely there couldn't be a new problem already?
Snow threw open the door with a bang. The only trouble was that the Rabbit Hole was so loud that the dramatics of her entrance were lost. She scanned the room for Leroy and finally saw him over at the bar with the six other dwarves.
"Leroy, what is it? What's wrong?" Snow gasped.
To her surprise, all Leroy did was grin at her and hold out a shot of what looked like tequila.
Snow looked from Leroy to the tequila and back again, feeling as though she'd just gone from in the Rabbit Hole to down the rabbit hole.
"What?" Snow finally blurted.
"Shots, sister. On us! We've barely seen you since the prince was born, and we figured you could use a night out," Leroy explained.
"And we knew you wouldn't come unless there was an 'emergency'," piped in Happy cheerfully.
Snow closed her eyes and breathed deeply, holding back tears. One night at home. That was all she wanted. One night of peace.
"Snow? You okay?" Asked Sneezy between sneezes.
Snow forced herself to smile. "I'm just a bit overwhelmed. I'm so grateful that you did this for me."
The dwarves grinned from ear to ear. Snow took her shot in one huge swallow, causing her companions to cheer.
Snow soon lost track of the amount of shots she had taken, and, as was typical of Snow, complete honesty followed.
"I'm just so tired," Snow sobbed, leaning against Grumpy's shoulder. "It's all just a bit too much. David is so helpful, but there are just days when I can't take it anymore. And now I can't lose my baby weight and I feel so useless..."
Leroy, the most sober of the dwarves (Sleepy had passed out after about two shots) patted Snow's back gingerly.
"You're Snow White. You can do anything. We all know you can, right fellas?"
The other dwarves nodded.
"Aaaaabsolutely," slurred Doc, before slipping off of his stool.
"But I can't! And I d-don't even know how to be a good mother... my m-mother died before she could teach me. I can never m-measure up to her. All I do is lose my children!" Snow finished with a loud wail, before burying her head further into Grumpy's shoulder.
Leroy frantically gestured for more shots now that Snow wasn't looking.
"You know, ever since I killed Cora, I've felt different. I'm a m-monster, and I even yell at my friends. I'm s-sorry... I d-don't know what's happened. I j-just can't get rid of this d-darkness in my heart-"
"That's ridiculous," Leroy retorted.
Snow lifted her tearstained face off of her friend. "W-what?"
"You are the kindest person I've ever met. It's enough to almost make me sick sometimes. Darkness in your heart? What darkness? Sure, you've been a bit testy lately, but everyone gets that way sometimes. You're only human. You put people above yourself always, and sometimes that means making the tough choice. Killing Cora saved all of our lives, and you sacrificed part of yourself in the process. If that isn't goodness, I don't know what is," Grumpy finished, taking a long swig of beer as though to end the conversation. "Now drink your tequila."
Snow sniffed but swallowed yet another shot. "Thanks, Grumpy."
Leroy snorted. "There's no need to thank me. I'm just telling you what you're too damn noble to realize yourself."
Snow smiled a small watery smile. "You know, Leroy, I'm really glad that you tricked me into coming out tonight, even if I didn't want to be here at first."
Leroy looked at her in surprise, but Snow carried on with words increasingly slurred.
"It's nice to be out of that house. I love that baby, but sometimes his screaming is enough to drive me insane..."
Leroy decided to ignore Snow's usual habit of slipping out uncomfortable truths. "Yeah, I'm glad you came too, sister."
It was in the early hours of the morning when Snow arrived back home, humming quietly to herself as she stumbled into bed.
"What was the emergency?" Charming murmured sleepily into the pillow.
"Noooothing," Snow cooed, leaning down to give her husband a long kiss.
"Mary Margaret, how much did you drink?" Asked David, slowly waking up to a bed that smelled increasingly of alcohol.
"Enough to know that I loooove you," she said in a sing-song voice, giving her husband yet another kiss.
David smiled, wrapping his arms around his extremely inebriated wife. He figured that answers could wait until the morning, if Snow remembered any of it.
As she passed out quietly in his arms, nuzzling gently against his chest, David smiled. He was glad that she'd had a night out; it had been a long time since he'd seen her this relaxed. He'd pieced together enough of what had happened to know that two things were necessary. First of all, he needed to thank the dwarves for this one. Second of all, he was going to have to hire a babysitter and soon if he was going to stay Snow's primary drinking partner.
In the end, Snow really needed to thank her dwarves as well. Her alcohol aided slumber actually got her what she wanted: twelve blissful hours of undisturbed sleep.