A/N: ... My chapter titles, guys. I'm such a dork.


Alicia was six when she started staying with Mr. Gold. With the absence of a baby, they were able to walk up and down the main streets as they pleased, and for the most part, they were unbothered.

Oh, people still gave them funny looks. Mr. Gold was fairly certain they thought he'd stolen her and was planning to sell her on the black market. But no one was brave enough to confront him about it, so it gave him a certain amount of pleasure to be willfully ignored as he and his foster daughter walked to the shop.

He set her up in the backroom, and when he didn't have customers, he kept her company. It wasn't until eleven that he heard the bell in the main room of the shop ring and he had to leave.

"Here," he told her, giving her a little packed lunch – one PB&J, crusts cut off; one bag of baby carrots; one juice box and one cookie. "Eat this. I'll be right back."

He emerged to find Sheriff Graham examining a quiver of arrows and a wolf-skin cloak.

"How much for this?" asked Graham speculatively, studying the quiver.

"Ah," said Mr. Gold. "Well, that is a genuine buckskin quiver from the Iroquois tribe. If you bring it here, the price should be hooked on the inside –"

"Daddy?"

Mr. Gold stiffened. Graham looked around in confusion. At the same time, the men dropped their gazes to the little girl standing next to the pawnbroker.

"Daddy," she said, grabbing his hand with her own, extremely-sticky ones, "I spilled my grape juice."

For a long, terrible moment, Mr. Gold couldn't think of a response.

"Where?" he asked finally, fully aware of Graham's amused look.

"And my sandwich asploded."

"Where?" Mr. Gold repeated, not bothering to ask how a sandwich could explode – he'd fostered enough children by now to just know.

"On my hands," Alicia responded.

Mr. Gold looked down at their entwined, purple-and-brown hands.

"I see," he said.

Graham stifled a laugh.

"Alicia," Mr. Gold said with forced calm, "could you go get some baby wipes for Daddy?"

"Huh-uh."

"… Why not?"

" 'Cuz I used 'em all," Alicia replied with a gap-toothed grin.

"On what?"

"My dolly. She needed diapers."

"What?" Mr. Gold gaped at her, unable to believe what he was hearing. Graham was practically rocking with suppressed laughter. "Well, did she – did she use them?"

"Uh-huh."

With a noise in the back of his throat that was almost a whine, Mr. Gold started to put a hand over his eyes. He managed to stop himself just in time, staring at the sticky concoction on his fingers with disgust.

"It's okay, Mr. Gold," Graham told him, looking inside the buckskin quiver. "I can get the price for you – it's says twelve bucks."

Mr. Gold scoffed. "Unlikely."

"It says twelve bucks and a box of hand wipes from the store."

Alicia plucked the handkerchief from Gold's pocket, roughly wiped her hands with it, and skipped back to his office. Mr. Gold studied his completely-soiled pocket square in disgust; eyes narrowed, he looked over at Graham.

"Twenty-five dollars," he bartered, not liking the sheriff's mischievous grin, "and I'll settle for the crumpled napkins in your pocket."

"Twelve and a box of hand wipes."

Mr. Gold had never accepted a price so low for something – even if it wasn't really buckskin from the Iroquois, it still stung.

"Deal."