Author's Note, Part the First: There really is a Fascination parlor at Nantasket Beach and it really is a lot of fun. It sounds bizarre, but trust me, it's a blast.
Author's Note, Part the Second: I am completely and totally blown away by your response to this story. For a story I only planned to write a few chapters of, this thing certainly took on a life of its own, due in no small part to how much you all seemed to eat it up. Thank you so much for the follows and favorites and all your lovely reviews. (Seriously, the review count on this thing is insane, and I absolutely love you all for it.) I hope you enjoy the last part!
As it turned out, the prospect of winning chocolate only kept a person who did not care for bingo interested in the game for so long. It didn't help that Emma's first piece of chocolate had been her only piece of chocolate thus far. She had no idea where Snow was keeping the Kisses, so it wasn't like she could sneak one here or there, either.
Despite Emma's growing impatience, the rest of the family was still having fun. David had taken the jar of numbers from Snow and had started calling them out in funny voices. Henry thought his grandfather's antics were hysterical; Snow and Emma just exchanged sighs and shakes of the head.
After the second game, they moved on from five in a row and switched to playing patterns. Snow had suggested the patterns in an attempt to keep the game from getting dull, causing Emma to remind her that bingo was already dull. They had played a T, a square, and an X, and now they were playing four corners. Thank whatever higher power might exist, both Emma and Snow only needed one more corner.
"If a day ever comes that we can all get out of Storybrooke," Emma said when Henry excitedly covered his second corner, "I should take you guys down to play Fascination."
"What's Fascination?" Snow asked.
Emma paused as she considered her answer. She usually described the game as the bastard child of bingo and Skee-Ball, but that was hardly appropriate for the eleven-year-old at the table. "You sit at a game table and roll a ball down a ramp and try to get it into one of the twenty-five holes at the end. When the ball goes through a hole, it lights up a bulb on a backboard, and you essentially play bingo with the lights."
Henry raised his eyebrows. "That sounds like fun! Where did you play that?"
"There's a place at Nantasket Beach in Massachusetts." She didn't find it prudent to mention that she only reason she knew it existed at all was because she had followed one of her "clients" down to a bar along the boardwalk.
Henry grinned at her. "Maybe someday we can go down there and play." His eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, I just thought of something! Can we play coverall next game?"
Emma tried not to groan. Coverall took so freaking long. Before either of her parents had a chance to answer, she said, "We can play one game of coverall, but I think it'll be time for bed after that, Henry."
Henry wrinkled his nose at the mention of every eleven-year-old's least favorite time of day. He glanced up at the clock and discovered with surprise that it was almost ten. Well, there went protesting; he was already up past his bedtime. Dang it. "Okay," he agreed, though it was obvious he was disappointed.
The adults exchanged a smile over the boy's head, and David continued calling out B or O numbers in funny voices.
After David called O66, Snow finally yelled, "Bingo!"
"You have to give yourself a Hershey's Kiss, Gramma," Henry giggled.
Emma had forbidden Henry from eating any more of his winnings two games ago, saying that it was too close to bedtime for chocolate. She planned to put the one he had lying in wait and any others he won in his lunchbox tomorrow morning. Of course, that was provided he didn't sneak downstairs before her and eat them for breakfast.
Smiling at her grandson, Snow pulled her second Kiss of the night from the hidden stash and set it on the corner of her card. As everyone cleared their cards off, David returned all the numbers to the jar and handed it to Henry, who had asked to call the final game.
Coverall, to everyone's shock except Emma's, took over half an hour. By the tail end of it, both David and Emma only needed one more number to Snow's two and Henry's three. Father and daughter were locked in a good-natured race for the bingo crown. David wanted chocolate; Emma just wanted the game to be over.
Henry finally called I27, and Emma cried, "Bingo! Thank God."
David and Snow both chuckled as Snow gave Emma her Kiss for winning and then evenly distributed the rest of the pieces in the stash. "That's your cue to go get ready for bed, kid," Emma reminded Henry.
To her utter shock, Henry ran off without putting up a fight. Emma raised her eyebrows at Snow, who shrugged. "I think he's a lot more tired than he wants to admit he is," Snow told her. "He's up over an hour past bedtime."
Emma nodded. As she began collecting the bingo numbers from the table, she said, "You know something? I had a surprisingly good day today."
"'Surprisingly good?'" David asked teasingly. "We're the life of the party! You were expecting to have a terrible day hanging out with us?"
"Shut up, you know what I mean," Emma replied. "I'm just saying … I had fun."
"Me, too," Snow agreed, smiling gently at her daughter.
David couldn't resist. "Me, three."
Emma groaned. "Just because you're a father now doesn't mean you can start with the dad jokes, you know."
"I'm wounded!" he replied, gasping in mock offense. "The Dad Joke is an art form. Every dad aspires to perfect jokes that make every single member of his family groan. And then once we've achieved that milestone, we move up to the next level: Dad Jokes With Puns."
Snow snickered. Emma simply stuck her tongue out at her father as she dropped all the coins – minus the 1928 penny – back into the newly empty change jar. "Like I told Henry earlier, puns are not funny."
"On their own, no, puns aren't funny," he allowed. "But pairing a pun with a dad joke makes both the dad joke and the pun funny."
"Uh huh, sure. You keep telling yourself that." Deciding to head Henry off at the pass, Emma scooped up his Kisses and headed over to the kitchen cabinet where he kept his lunchbox. This way, he wouldn't be able to sneak them in the morning.
Well, unless he thought to look for the chocolate in the lunchbox, she supposed.
She returned the lunchbox to its rightful spot in the nick of time. Just as she closed the cabinet, Henry, clad in pajamas, darted down the stairs and headed for the bathroom to brush his teeth. Taking advantage of the quiet, Emma slipped upstairs to change into her own sleep attire.
The quiet only lasted a few minutes. "Emma?" Snow asked from the bottom of the stairs. "Is it okay to come up?"
"Yeah," she called back as she plopped down on her bed and began tugging a brush through her hair.
Snow climbed the stairs and, smiling gently, joined her daughter on the bed. "Did you really have a good time today or were you just saying that?"
"I wouldn't have said if I didn't mean it," Emma assured her. "Besides, you would have known if I wasn't having a good time. Believe me."
Snow smirked. "Oh, I don't doubt that. I thought your eyes were going to roll right out of your head if we had to play one more game of bingo."
"They probably would have," Emma laughed. "But even bingo was kind of fun."
"The chocolate was fun," Snow corrected.
"Okay, yeah, bingo is still awful, but chocolate makes it better."
They shared a quiet laugh. The moment of peace between mother and daughter was shattered moments later when Henry bounded up the stairs, followed closely by David. "Um, it's a little cramped up here for a party," Emma said when David took a seat next to Snow.
"Gramps said I should ask Gramma if she'll read me a story," Henry said as he unmade the little daybed that was doubling as his bed until they could find something else. "You know, since she's up here and all."
"You want a bedtime story?" Emma asked, eyebrows raised. "You're delaying going to sleep as much as you possibly can, aren't you?"
"I don't want today to be over," he admitted sheepishly.
"We'll do this again someday," Emma promised.
"Do you think we could maybe have a game night once a week or something?"
Emma looked to her parents, who were very much on board with that plan. "Sounds like a great idea, kid," she smiled.
Henry grinned back. "Yes! Thank you! Now I get a story, right, Gramma?"
"Right," Snow smiled. "Bring me the book and then make yourself comfortable."
Henry reached under the daybed for his storybook but Emma climbed off her bed and stopped him. "Uh uh, not yours."
Grandparents and grandson exchanged a bewildered glance as Emma dug through her bottom dresser drawer. She retrieved what she was looking for, returned to the bed, and handed the book to Snow. "We can read one of mine tonight," she said with a gentle smile.
Snow ran her hand over the cover of the book before turning a touched expression on her daughter. "Madeline?"
"'In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines,'" Emma recited. "It was my favorite when I was little. This particular book is actually an anthology of the six original stories. It's a little young for you, kid, but if you don't mind ..."
"I don't mind at all," Henry smiled.
Clearly enjoying this glimpse into their daughter's childhood, Snow and David held the book open between them. Snow's expression faltered just a tad when she spotted something stamped on the inside cover. "'Property of Southern Maine Child and Family Services?' Emma, you didn't–"
"No, I didn't steal a children's book," Emma laughed. "It belonged to the group home I was in when I was six, and I just fell in love with it. I used to sleep with it under my pillow just so none of the other kids would take it from me. When my new foster parents came to pick me up, they told me I had to give the book back. I started crying, but the director of the place crouched down, dried my tears, and told me I was welcome to take it with me. She explained to my foster parents that her own little girl loved Eloise the way I loved Madeline, and she couldn't imagine the kind of tantrum her daughter would throw if someone tried to take Eloise away from her."
As she told the story, Emma's voice had grown softer, more emotional. "It meant a lot to you," David said, his voice just as soft. "The director letting you take the book, I mean."
"It really did. She probably went out the next day and bought a replacement but still. She didn't have to let me take it in the first place."
Snow gave her daughter a smile through watery eyes as she turned to the first page. Henry got himself settled under the covers while Emma propped a pillow upright against her headboard and sank back into it. As soon as her family was comfortable, Snow began to read.
With the practiced skill of an elementary school teacher, Snow peeked over the top of the book every so often as she read to check on her audience. Halfway through the story, Henry's eyes had closed. Smiling, she continued to read.
"'And that's all there is, there isn't anymore,'" Snow finished, once again peeking over the book. Henry was completely out. Just as Snow was about to close the book and return it to Emma, she noticed to her complete surprise that Emma's eyelids were fluttering as she struggled to keep them open. Sensing an opportunity she probably would never get again, Snow turned the page and continued reading. "'In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines–'"
"What're you doing?" David whispered.
"Shh," she hissed, nodding her head in Emma's direction.
A quarter of the way through Madeline's Rescue, Emma finally gave in and let her eyes close. She was snoring lightly by the time Snow reached the end. Smiling, Snow closed the book and set it down on her lap.
"You do know how embarrassed she's going to be in the morning when she figures out she fell asleep to a bedtime story, don't you?" David whispered in amusement.
"Of course I do but that's tomorrow." Basking in the glow of reading her daughter a bedtime story for the first time, Snow grinned as she handed the book to David. "And you, my dear Charming, are not allowed to tease her about it."
"Me?" he asked with mock innocence. "I can't believe you think I would ever tease her about something like this."
"Oh, please. You were already thinking of jokes to use on her."
David shrugged, smiling. "Perhaps, perhaps not."
Shaking her head at her husband, Snow pushed herself off the bed and started to get Emma properly tucked in. Emma had turned down the bed before making herself comfortable, so all Snow had to do was very carefully tug the covers out from under her daughter's knees and bring them up over her legs. Now came the hard part: trying to get Emma to lie down without waking her. Leaving her slumped against the headboard would only result in a headache for Emma – or at the very least, a crick in her neck.
Snow held her breath as grabbed the bottom of Emma's pillow. She gave the pillow a gentle tug downward and, just as she'd hoped, Emma followed the motion in her sleep, repositioning herself on her side. Snow managed to get the pillow flat under her head just in time for Emma to tuck her hands underneath it.
Smiling in relief, Snow drew the covers around her daughter's shoulders. "Good night, princess," she whispered, bending down to press the barest whisper of a kiss to Emma's head.
While she had been getting Emma settled, David had done the same for Henry. They swapped spots to say proper goodnights to the family member they hadn't tucked in. Snow reached out to run her thumb down Henry's cheek and wished her little prince a good night.
When they met back up at the foot of Emma's bed, David held his hand out to her. She complied, slipping her hand into his and squeezing. He tugged her closer, releasing her hand to sling an arm around her shoulders. "So, both the kids are asleep," he murmured into her ear. "I don't know about you, but I'm not tired yet."
A little blush crept up her cheeks. "Why, Charming, are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
A mischievous grin was his only answer.
She grinned back, her eyes sparkling. "Then lead the way." He once again took her hand and started leading her towards the stairs.
At the top of the metal staircase, Snow paused and turned back to check on her sleeping family one final time. Tomorrow it would be back to work and school for everyone but today … today had been something special.
She faced forward with a calm smile and reached out to flick off the light. As she and David descended the stairs, she couldn't help admitting that she was already looking forward to the next snowstorm.