Expectations: Vivienne

If we lived in the Enchanted Forest, Vivienne thinks often, I'd be a princess.

The little girl knows she's exaggerating that a tiny bit. Technically Grandfather had been a Duke, not a king. Viv couldn't really understand what the difference was, however. He lived in a castle and had knights who were loyal to him and he could tell everyone in the village what to do, and they had to obey.

She's supposed to be focusing on finishing the addition problems on her worksheet, but instead Viv allows her mind to wander free and into far more pleasant daydreams.

In her fantasy, her mother had broken her father's curse (she was still a bit fuzzy on that) and turned him back into a man (she was fuzzy on exactly what he was prior to this as well). Grandfather welcomed Belle home, and gave his blessing on Belle to marry Rumple.

Her parents went to live in Rumple's castle and a huge village was built around it, and it was never winter there. Vivienne had a huge closet in her room full of beautiful silk and velvet gowns, and a nurse to help her choose one and get dressed each morning. There was a stable area with real horses, and Vivienne had her own pony, with a silver mane and tail. She called her Starlight.

No one ever made her learn math there because she was a princess and didn't need it. She learned useful things like dancing and how to play the harp. And there would be grand balls all the time that people from all over the land would attend, and her parents would dance together in the middle of the floor while the guests nodded and admired them.

Vivienne would be the most beautiful girl there, and the boys from other kingdoms would all try to get her attention, and she would just shoo them away because she was waiting for him to arrive. She wasn't sure what he'd look like but she'd know him when she saw him, her True Love. She knew he would be extraordinarily handsome, and the women in the room would swoon (she didn't exactly know what swooning was, but apparently women did it sometimes). He would ignore all of them and walk up to Vivienne and kiss her on the hand and ask her to marry him…and then ask for her name…

"Miss Gold?"

"Please. Call me Princess Vivienne." The little girl replies still lost in her fantasy, and then is rudely yanked out of it when her classmates burst out laughing.

"Well, Your HIGHNESS, if you would please grace the commoners by telling us what you answered for number 5?" Her teacher does not look amused. "And for the record, Miss Gold, I will not be calling you Princess Vivienne now or at any other time."

"Sorry, Ma'am." Vivienne is blushing in embarrassment. She hopes the incident will be forgotten about, but she can see by the look on her mother's face when she gets home that afternoon that her teacher has called.

"How was school today, Your Highness?" Belle asks politely.

"Mum! It wasn't fair. I wasn't even talking to her, I was just…"

"Daydreaming?" Belle raises an eyebrow, and Viv sheepishly nods. "I was imagining meeting my True Love for the first time."

"I see." Viv wonders if Belle will scold her for daydreaming but she does not. "Was he handsome?"

"He was very handsome. And we were going to live in a castle and…Mum, why do we have to stay here? Why can't Papa find a way take us where you used to live? Can you please ask him again?"

"Life there wasn't as glamorous as you seem to think. There wasn't even any indoor plumbing, and it was so hard to get water to a tub and get it hot that people didn't even bathe very often. And on hot days, all we could do was fan ourselves because there was no air conditioning." Belle sits down on the sofa and pulls Vivienne down next to her. "Your Papa has spent years trying to come up with a way we could go for a visit, but I'm not sure there is one. This is our home now, and this is your kingdom."

"Besides." Andrew's voice drifts in from the other room. "Princesses have to be pretty."

"Andrew!" Belle scolds. "Apologize for that."

Andrew saunters into the den. "Sorry you're not pretty enough to be a princess, Viv."

"Well, you're a…boy!" Vivienne fires back.

"At least I'm not a girl!"

"Enough, both of you." Belle rubs her eyes. "Andrew, go finish your homework. Viv, you can come help me go through some of your old clothes and toys so we can donate them."

"If you bought me princess dresses you could give all my clothes away." Viv offers.

"You already have more dresses than most little girls get in a lifetime. I'm not going to buy you ballgowns."

"But we're not poor, Mummy! We could buy me gowns and a build a castle in town…" Viv gives up: her mother is clearly not sold on Viv's idea to improve their life.

I will be a princess someday! I will!

/

As a little boy, sometimes Rumple would lie in his bed and stare up at the ceiling, and let his mind spin as his fingers often did.

His favorite story was about a far-away kingdom that had been conquered by their neighbor. The royal family had been killed, but a clever nursemaid managed to smuggle the newborn prince out of the castle safely. She knew the soldiers would kill the baby if they got their hands on him, so one day she snuck into a brothel and there she found a baby newly born. She left the little prince in the crib and took the other baby with her. At that point, Rumple wasn't sure what to imagine happened to the real child of Malcolm and Sharlotte. But he imagined that somehow his mother had managed to survive the slaughter and she was looking for him right this moment. She would walk through the door and tell him that he was really a prince and take him back to their magically restored kingdom. He'd bring the crones along with him and they'd all eat nothing but rich cakes the rest of their lives and sleep in beds as soft as clouds.

So he isn't unsympathetic to his youngest daughter's desire to be royalty.

He'll freely admit he's indulged Vivienne a bit more than was probably wise. Faith was never really the type for dressing up and having tea parties or anything else, well, "princessy". Viv is always thrilled to get pretty new clothing, or a piece of costume jewelry, or some other bauble from the shop. If she has delusions of grandeur as a result, well then, everyone will just have to deal with it. The truth is that he wants to spoil her now while she's still here, because she'll be spending the bulk of her life elsewhere. She has ambitions that are too large for Storybrooke to contain.

He thinks she'll probably end up in Paris: she is already in love with the city from when he took her there a few months ago, and devours as much information on it as they are willing to provide her. He also suspects that she may end up working in the fashion industry if the clothing she's recently started making for her dolls is any indication. She's quite good, his girl. And more than a little bit entitled, he realizes with a sigh, as he holds his oldest and youngest daughter apart to keep Faith from choking her sister.

"You knew I loved that sweater!" Faith is so angry her face is red. "You know I wear it all the time!"

"You're supposed to share!" Vivienne retorts. "You don't even care about clothes! I'm allowed to borrow!"

"That's if you wanted to WEAR it! Not so you could cut it up into doll clothes!" The older girl breaks down in tears. "Granny gave me that the Christmas right before she…"

Vivienne, to her credit, looks both startled and guilty. Granny may not have been particularly fond of Rumple, but she'd always doted on his children and they had adored her. Her passing has been hard on all of them, particularly on Faith. It was months before he could get his grieving daughter to even set foot back inside the diner because "It won't be the same!" Vivienne's actions today had torn that wound wide open again, and his little one was keenly aware of this.

"I'm…I'm sorry, Faith." Vivienne whispered. "I didn't remember Granny gave that to you. I just wanted it to make a blue dress for Merebethe cause the material is so soft."

Faith continues to weep until she feels something brush up against her cheek. She opens her eyes and squeals to see Rumple holding the sweater, fully restored, in his hand. "You fixed it! You fixed it!" She hugs him so tightly it takes his breath away. "Thank you, Papa! I'll never forget this!"

"Go put it away." He kisses her forehead quickly. "Your sister and I need to have a talk."

Faith gives Viv a "You are SO going to get it!" look and goes into her room, shutting the door. Rumple knows her well enough to know she plans on listening against it (he would) so he temporarily casts a spell to soundproof it, and then turns back to Vivienne, who is digging a bare toe into the hallway carpet.

"You know you're not supposed to take things without asking."

"I forgot it was special!"

"I know. But you did go into her room and you did take it. Viv, objects…can hold power. Even for people who aren't magical. Just the act of loving something imbibes it with certain properties it lacked before. Those objects become talismans of a sort. Do you understand?"

"No." Viv shakes her head. Rumple reminds himself he's speaking to a six-year-old. "Love creates magic in the air, objects suck that magic in and become full of it. That's why our possessions are often so special to us. You didn't know the sweater was the one Granny gave her, but you did know she loved it. You had to have known she'd be upset if you destroyed it."

"But you fixed it so it's all okay now."

"Not quite yet. I need to speak to your Mum and we'll decide on how to punish you."

"Please don't tell Mummy. She'll be very mad!"

"I don't keep secrets from your Mum, Viv."

Not very many, anyway.

/

It was worse than she imagined, the punishment. Each of the children had assigned chores they were expected to complete each day, and for the next week Vivienne had to do Faith's as well as her own. The little girl considered this patently unfair and wasn't shy about letting them hear it."

"Now I know how Cinderella felt!" She yells over her shoulder at her mother, while yanking the sheets off of her bed for the laundry.

"Don't forget the pillow cases." Belle replies back sweetly. "And leave Ashley out of it, please."

"Someday, I'm going to live in Paris!" Viv continues. "And I'll have a French boyfriend and eat French bread all day and we'll walk along the river and go to museums and I'll be so happy I never leave. You'll be sorry when I'm gone!" She dumps the sheets into a laundry basket.

They'll all be sorry when I'm gone! They'll call me and beg me "Oh, please, please Viv, come home!" and I'll just laugh and hang up on them.

I'll show them all.