A/N: A huge thank you to those who are reading this and for the kind reviews. I've grown to love these characters so it means a lot to me. To Guest: Vivienne is going to get worse. Much worse. There's a sequel to follow this called "All of Me" about Viv and her True Love. The title is both a play on Rumple's proposal to Belle, and the John Legend song. I heard the song for the first time long after I had the skeleton of Viv and Dillion's story put together and was shocked at how dead-on it described his feelings toward her. But that's still a long way off. Thank you again toward everyone, and on with the show.

Oh yes, I totally ignore the rules of human biology here for story purposes. *evil laugh* Go away, reality! We don't take kindly to folks like you around these parts...

Expectations: The Price

One moment Rumple is rushing toward his daughter, and the next he is at her side, the protection spell doing what it is meant to do. His first fear, accompanied by soul-rending grief, is that he is too late.

Vivienne lies on the side of the road, her head at an angle, as are her limbs. She looks like a ragdoll tossed into the corner by a careless child. Her pink denim jeans are dark with blood, her blue t-shirt torn halfway from her body, her skin ash-white. Rumple is aware of Moe next to him, screaming for the Gods, but he has no attention to spare the old man. The magic sets his hands glowing lavender as he places them on Vivienne's shoulders and lets it pour into her.

Faster! It isn't healing her fast enough: he can feel her life seeping out of her like water from a sponge, the essence that is his little girl flowing into the gutter along with her blood. He lets out a cry and increases the strength of the healing spell, unwilling to give up, and it is then that he feels her Life-Force brush tentatively against his mind. She is unconscious, but her spirit is reaching out toward him: it is aware of his presence and what he is trying to do. He feels fear and pain and sorrow, but also an overwhelming faith that he can fix it. He is her Papa: he can do anything.

Life-Force healing…he's heard of it, and the consequences, but never tried it himself. His healing magic has always been sufficient. This time, though, it isn't enough. With an animalistic snarl he grabs hold of the energy and tears it open, combining it with his own magic. His vision grows dark and his heart stutters from the strain, but he refuses to give up. He hears "She's gone" from someone and he turns his head toward them blindly. "SHE'S NOT! I WON'T LET HER BE!" There is a ripping pain inside of his skull and he falls forward next to his broken child. I didn't let go this time. I held on. Wherever we end up, we'll end up there together. I won't leave you, Vivienne. Papa's here…

/

Rumple forces his gummed eyelids open and takes in a stark-white, unfamiliar ceiling. There is a sting in his right hand and a sensation of warmth, but it takes him a moment to realize it is someone holding it. His head weighs a bloody ton, but he manages to turn it slightly and make out his wife sitting in a blue plastic chair at his bedside. She looks haggard, tear-stained, and achingly beautiful.

"Viv…" he manages to croak out.

"She's alive." Belle whispers. "You saved her, my love. She's badly hurt, but before you collapsed you were able to heal her enough to stabilize her. She's going to recover."

"I want to see her." He tries to get up and his head swims.

"Rumple…"

"I need to see her. Please…" He forces himself to stand on shaking legs, noting he's still in his same clothing. "Take me to her." He sees for the first time an IV running into the back of his hand, and he almost yanks it out in his frustration.

Belle knows it's useless to argue with him. Instead she allows him to lean on her and guides him down the hall and to another room. She's been back and forth between them for the last few hours. "She's still badly injured, Rumple. You need to be prepared." Her voice shakes as she pushes open the door, and she blinks away moisture at his anguished sob.

Vivienne is in the middle of the hospital bed, her head and body swaddled in white bandages. Various tubes stick out of her thin arms and monitors beep as they monitor her body signs. He stumbles toward the bed, still dragging the IV, and tries to summon the healing magic again, but he's drained to the dregs and nothing happens.

"Hey, none of that." Belle scolds him gently. "You've nothing to spare right now, Mister. When you're recharged you can give her another dose. They promised, she's out of danger."

Rumple reaches out and pushes his knuckles against the girl's cheek. "We argued. I was trying to reach her…about her coldness. I told her we wanted her to see Dr. Hopper and she ran out…Moe…it wasn't his fault. No one could have stopped in time…I was too hard on her…she's just a baby…"

Belle wraps her arms around him and he gives her the rest of the story, of Vivienne overhearing the conversation and her fury at his refusal to retaliate. "That must have been so hard for you." She whispers. "I know you had to have wanted to lash out at them."

"They made my daughter cry. I wanted to destroy them." He admits, leaning against her. "Belle…there's more. In order to save her life, I had to make a decision and I had to make it very quickly. There was no chance to talk to you or to her about it: she was slipping away too fast."

"Tell me." There's an edge of panic in her voice and it kills him.

"My magic alone wasn't enough to save her. I had to tap into her own…Life-Force, I guess you'd call it. Everyone has one, and it's finite. It can't be replenished or regrown, even with magic. At least, not without catastrophic consequences. When a woman conceives part of her Life-Force goes into her offspring. If the woman has none extra to spare, no conception is possible at all: it's her body's way of protecting itself, I suppose. I had to use all of her extra energy: she'll never have a biological child of her own. She'll be barren."

Belle closed her eyes and her grip on him tightened. "There's other options: in vitro..."

But he's shaking his head. "Her eggs will never even mature. She'll go through puberty, but she'll never have a blood-time. It was the only way…"

"She's alive." Belle finally replies. "That's what matters. You did what you had to do to save our little girl's life."

"How do I tell her?" He stares at his hands. "How do I tell her that this is the one thing I can't fix? She thinks I can do anything…"

Belle doesn't deny this, just holds him as they watch their daughter's chest move up and down.

The door opens, and Rumple and Belle turn to see Faith, red-eyed but with a determined look on her face. Flanking her are Emma and to their surprise Regina.

"We're here to finish healing her, Papa." Faith glances at the tiny form on the bed. "You drained yourself dry, and we all know you: you'll do it again and again until she's better. But the three of us, we can do it right now and have her home tomorrow."

"Faith…" Belle begins, but her oldest daughter shakes her head. "Let me, Mum. Let us." She puts a hand on Belle's shoulder. "She's my baby sister…"

"You break the connection immediately if you start to feel weak." Rumple orders his daughter. "The last thing this hospital needs is three of us laid up." He looks over at Emma and Regina, who have been silent. "Thank you."

Regina shrugs. "You better be thankful. I cancelled a nail appointment for this." She moves around to the other side of the bed. Emma takes the other side and Faith stands at the foot of the bed.

"I plan on reminding your kid of this the next time she mouths off to me." Emma's lips twitch. "It's up to you, but I think you should consider leaving that breathing tube in." Emma has been told multiple times by Liam that the Gold siblings do not get spanked. Usually right after she's warmed up his own backside. She and Killian are both of the belief that Vivienne's manners and behavior might be much improved if she was turned over someone's knee on a regular basis. Still, she's family (sort of) and no child deserves this.

As Belle and Rumple watch, the women and the girl begin letting their magic flow into Vivienne. Rumple keeps a close eye on Faith, ready to step in if she shows any signs of weakening, but she never falters in her task. Finally Regina motions to the others to stop.

"We've healed her bones and her internal injuries. She's going to be sore for awhile, which she should enjoy because it'll give her something else to whine about." Regina cracks her neck. "And now…" she eyes Rumple "you owe me a favor. I'll be in touch as soon as I think of something I need." Without another word she leaves the room, and Faith is trying hard not to giggle.

"Faith, you want to grab a burger or something?" Emma offers the girl. "You may feel fine, but you should eat anyway."

Faith looks uneasily at her parents and Rumple motions toward the door. "Go. We'll be fine."

"Call me if you need me." Faith hugs them both tightly. "Tell her I love her, okay?"

"Will do." Belle promises.

/

It's almost midnight before Vivienne finally awakens, and stares up at her parents out of wide, terrified eyes. The whimper she lets out around the breathing tube breaks Rumple's heart.

"Shhhh, it's okay, Vivienne. We're here." Belle touches her cheek. "You're in the hospital, darling. You were in an accident, but you're going to be okay. Your Papa, and Faith and Emma and even Regina healed you up. You have to stay here tonight for observation, but tomorrow you should be able to go home."

Her eyes flutter shut again and she seems to sigh, and Rumple kisses her on the forehead. "Get some more rest. Mummy and I will be right here, all night."

Hurt, and still confused, Vivienne drifts again into sleep.

/

Vivienne glares at the scrambled egg fragments on her plastic tray and stabs one with a fork. Stupid eggs. She can tell they're the fake powdered kind and not the real ones she eats at home, and they're gross. She threw the first batch on the floor when they were presented to her, and would have done the same with the next tray had Dr. Whale not threatened to make her stay another day if she didn't eat everything. And he was standing right there watching her, looking like he thought this was funny!

Her parents, traitors, had kept their promise to stay the night, but were they here now? No. They were off…somewhere…doing something else instead of at the bedside of their poor child. She shoved a piece of the fake egg into her mouth and forced herself to swallow it, making appropriate gagging noises. "There. I ate it! I'll probably end up back here tonight when I get food poisoning!" She pushes the tray toward Dr. Whale.

"Well, aren't you just a little ray of sunshine?" Whale shakes his head. He walks over to the bed and kneels down, looking Vivienne in the eye. "Listen to me, Little Miss High and Mighty. I delivered you. I pulled you out, and if you don't knock off the attitude I swear to God I'll shove you right back in." He picks up the tray, gives her a huge smile, and saunters off.

The door opens again a minute later and she hopes it's her parents come to bail her out of this miserable place, but to her surprise and immediate unease it's Dr. Hopper. Vivienne's lip curls into a sneer. She's heard about him, and she thinks it's really funny that a man who wanted to be a cricket thinks other people need help for being crazy.

"How are you feeling, Vivienne?" Dr. Hopper sits down on the edge of the bed and she moves her feet over a bit, wincing. They keep telling her that she's healed, but she thinks they must have screwed up for her to still hurt this bad.

"I want to go home!"

"I know. You'll be out of here real soon. I just thought before your Mom and Dad get back we could talk a little bit. Your Dad told me about the fight you had."

Vivienne's eyes narrow. "It's all that stupid Mrs. Murphy's fault! Blabbing about my family like that! I never would have been mad if it wasn't for her! Then my Papa…" she turns away, stone-faced.

"You really love your Papa. It must have hurt when you felt like he wasn't on your side. I bet that made you even more angry."

"He's always supposed to take my side!" Vivienne turns back toward Dr. Hopper. "He's really powerful and he could have made her pay for what she said! But he wouldn't do it!"

"What did you want him to do to Mrs. Murphy?"

"Turn her stupid, ugly, spotty daughter into a horsefly or something!" Vivienne hisses. "When I get out of here, I'll make them pay if Papa won't!"

The expression on Dr. Hopper's face is unreadable.

/

You wanted my opinion so here it is, no holds barred.

Vivienne needs help, and she needs it immediately.

We talked for nearly an hour, and I learned a lot about her, a lot of it disturbing but some of it very positive.

First of all, she's not what we would classify as a sociopath. She's capable of very strong emotions: love and guilt being two of the strongest. She does have compassion in her, and she does feel guilty if she harms someone. Those traits are crucial to recognize and develop. Vivienne's biggest issue is that she's willing to ignore those positive traits and give into her negative ones. She might feel bad about kicking her brother, but that won't stop her from doing it.

She also has very poor impulse control, the kind we usually see in much younger children. If she wants something she takes it and if she wants to do something, she does it. She feels that her own desires outweigh any potential consequences. And you can stop glaring at me because you know I'm right or you wouldn't have agreed to have me evaluate her.

I want to see her twice a week, starting tomorrow. And you make her come, no matter how much she might fight you on it, and believe me, she will. If you love her, and I know you do, you'll make her come.