It was a stormy spring the year Grace turned three. The rain pounded the window panes; Jefferson mistook it for hail. The thunder was so loud it shook the walls…the lightning lit up the room in the way that fire and lanterns couldn't and Jefferson could not sleep.

Karenina did. Karenina could sleep through the house collapsing on her if it ever actually happened.

And then tonight, a shutter came loose and slammed repeatedly against the wall of the house, which also kept Jefferson up. He tried to shove his head underneath the pillow but that didn't even work.

He was going to have to endure it.

Another clap of thunder shook the house and he winced at how loud it was. Maybe he should take his family to another world until this was over? No, he had worked to do and Karenina wouldn't want to go with him, she loved the rain.

He heard a small pounding down the hallway and lifted his head to see his daughter throw open the door and run in, "Papa!"

She tried to make a jump for the bed but instead slammed into it and tumbled to the ground. Jefferson immediately threw the covers back and scooped her up when she started crying, "It's alright Grace, you're not hurt."

Karenina gave a groan at the disturbance and looked over her shoulder, "What's happened?"

"Grace is just scared of the storm," he held his daughter close. She whimpered in that way that automatically meant she had him right where she wanted him, and he held her closer.

His wife let her head fall against the pillow and she sighed in exhaustion, "Storms can't hurt you, Grace. You need to sleep in your own bed"

Grace wrapped her arms around her father's neck. Jefferson felt his resolve to back up Karenina in this firm attempt to keep Grace from going to their room every other night melt when he felt his daughter tremble, "Just for tonight, you can sleep in here."

"Hardly surprising," Karenina muttered.

He made a face to Karenina but her back was turned. Karenina was always the firm one when it came to their daughter. All Grace had to do with him was give him big blue eyes and he was hers.

"Come on," he whispered, "You can be in the middle."

Grace practically dove under the covers when another clap of thunder sounded above them.

"And you wonder why you don't get lucky so much anymore," Karenina muttered.

"Papa, what does that mean?" Grace asked

Jefferson felt his face grow red, "Ask mommy when you're older."

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Jefferson and Karenina had their own different duties when it came to parenting Grace. Karenina was better with the outdoor activities…the things that required her to move around. She played outside with Grace and kept her entertained, she took her to market and to buy things…or she played active games inside. Jefferson participated of course…but Karenina was better at them.

Jefferson on the other hand was better at the intellectual things. He was more patient than Karenina was to sit down and show her things. He was more patients and more literate thanks to his years of schooling…so it looked like it was going to fall to him to educate her. He didn't mind. He hoped Grace would form an eager attachment to learning and knowledge just like he had. He hoped that she would read about far away places and then he would be able to take her there and she would learn the customs of the worlds around them.

He hoped that she would become a portal jumper, like him…well not like him; he hoped that she wouldn't corrupt herself to get money like he had…

Gods, he could just imagine the adventures they would have together when she got older.

But for now, he would just have to read her the stories and let her mind take her to far off places. Every night, when he was reading, she'd crawl up into his lap and stare at the 'funny squiggly shapes' as she called them, and so every evening without fail, he'd read aloud to her and he would point to every word so that she could start associating what they sounded like to what they looked like.

And then one stormy evening after she was three, she crawled up into his lap like she always did. He wrapped the blanket around them both and started their nightly ritual. He was reading to her about Neverland. An awful place that trapped your mind and body in the same age that you currently were at.

Grace stared at the letters like she always did and then then she reached out and pointed to a word of her own. And she read it.

Jefferson's eyes widened as Grace sounded out each of the words in the sentence. At first her voice shook but she gained confidence and when she was done with the paragraph, she stared up at him expectantly.

Jefferson was so stunned that he wasn't sure what to do. His daughter just showed him that she was reading.

She was three! That was far too young, wasn't it?

He continued to sit there in stunned silence until Karenina came into the room. The bottom of her skirt was wet; she'd been outside, "Louie just yelled at me because the market boys have delivered overripe lettuce two weeks in a row. Apparently that's my fault."

Jefferson's heart started racing. He had to tell his wife! Without a word, his hand closed on her wrist and he pulled her over from the chair she'd just sat in to sit next to him.

"Jefferson, I just sat-."

"Sh!" he pointed to the paragraph under the page that Grace read, "Grace, show mama what you just showed me."

Grace's pride on her face was irreplaceable as she pointed to each word and said it flawlessly. When she was done, Jefferson wrapped his arms around his daughter and kissed the top of her head, "There's daddy's girl."

Karenina looked at him with wide eyes, "She can read?"

"She can read!" he said proudly and kissed Grace's face. Gods, his chest felt like it was swelling, he was so excited.

Karenina snapped out of her reverie and kissed her daughter's face as well. As it sunk in, she burst into a proud grin herself "Bu- how?"

"I don't know," he told her, "She just started pointing at the words and reading them to me just now."

Karenina stood, "I think this is reason to celebrate, I'm going to tell Louie that tomorrow you're going to have your favorite breakfast."

And Jefferson would get her a gift. Maybe her very own book to read over and over.

Gods knew he would've loved that when he was her age.

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"She's only three."

Jefferson stared at the darkened ceiling of their room. It'd been impossible to get Grace settled down to go to bed but she'd finally drifted off to sleep when the storm settled down. But Jefferson didn't think that was the reason, he knew that she was wound up because her parents were so excited and weren't settling down themselves.

But here…far past midnight, they were lying there listening to the rain pelt the window.

"Yeah," Jefferson's hand slipped in her's, "I know."

"Can three year olds learn to read?" she asked.

"Some can," he yawned. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and he wanted to sleep.

"Do you think it's because she's intelligent?" Karenina asked, "Or do you think it's something else?"

Jefferson rubbed his eyes, "like what?"

"Once I heard that some children of true love can be intelligent and magical. I used to think it was a myth until you told me where you got your magic from. Do you think the same thing happened to Grace?"

"You think we're true loves?" he asked. He'd accepted it a long time ago. He loved her far more than any man could love his wife but Karenina was more stubborn. It'd been a big step for her to just admit she loved him and maybe it'd been true love but to accept it fully like she was…that was a big step for her.

"Maybe," she said in the darkness, and then he heard her smile, "We'd be true loves….I can't even…understand that. Why should you love me?"

"Why should you love me back?" he asked and wrapped his arms around her, "Love is a funny thing, isn't it?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips passionately against his. He returned the kiss and started to roll on top of her. He expected her to refuse and claim she was tired but when she didn't, he got up quickly to lock the door and resume his husbandly duties with wife uninterrupted.

About three in the morning, they were dropping off the sleep when Karenina spoke up again, "Do you think that's why Rumpelstiltskin put us together?"

Jefferson reached behind him and interlocked his fingers with his wife's. It was something else that had occurred to him. Rumpelstiltskin rarely did something out of the goodness of his heart without it benefiting him in the long run. But what could they offer him?

Gods, he prayed it was just the jabborwock blood.

"There's a disturbing thought," he whispered and wrapped his arms around her but didn't voice his own worries. Not yet, "Get some sleep."