The imp arched a brow at the lone man in his study.

Rumplestiltskin was many, many things, but unobservant wasn't one of them. For the past several weeks, Jefferson had been working alone, travelling alone, even just casually visiting alone.

That could really only mean two things:

The first, and most likely, was that Rumplestiltskin's prophecy had come to pass and the little mermaid had mustered up some common sense and left the boy. It wasn't that the Dark One found any particular fault in Jefferson (if pressed he would even go as far to admit that he liked the chatty young scoundrel), but as he had said; women were fickle, and not to be trusted.

Not that anyone should ever be truly trusted in his mind, but still.

The second, and far less likely, was that Jefferson managed to do the impossible; impregnate a mermaid.

He arched a brow and noted the boy still had on his wedding band. The slight pep im his step. How he kept checking his pocket watch. Fighting down the urge to sigh, Rumplestiltskin cut off the Hatter's sales pitch with a brisk, "When is she due?"

Jefferson paled.

"Well?"

"What does that matter?"

The imp frowned. Cocking his head he pressed a clawed finger to his cheek as he raked his gaze over the young man.

Jefferson's posture was tense, his fists clenched, his bottom lip unsteady-

"Oh, you insufferable twit! I don't want your silly little mongrel, I want to know how long my salvager will be out of commission!"

The Hatter relaxed, then grew indignant. "Don't call my baby a mongrel!" He righted his hat. "And December."

"Hm.."

"What?"

Rumplestiltskin waved him off.

Interest piqued, Jefferson's chin rose. "No, tell me."

"A word of advice, lad?"

Hesitant, he nodded. Jefferson knew the Dark One, for all his mystique and dubious morality, was a wise man.

"Hang up the Hat."

The young man flinched at the flick the shorter man gave his brim. "What?"

"Take these last few months, work tirelessly, build yourself up a nice little nest egg for when your little bundle of scales comes along, then-" He rolled his wrist. "Hang it up."

"But-"

"Remember what your mother did to you, and do better by your own."

His employer's words were still echoing in the portal jumper's head later that night. He sat at his wife's feet, one hand casually rubbing her ankle from his spot between her knees. Head resting on her thigh, Jefferson stared at the fire before him. He closed his eyes, enjoying the heat that tickled his shins through his thin sleep pants in the cool early summer air.

Arista hummed to herself. A melody from a song she had known years ago, stuck in her head now more often than ever. She couldn't remember the words, not the proper ones, but they didn't really matter. All that mattered was that her husband was home, safe and sound, as promised. Adoring fingers ran through his hair, her nails teasing his scalp and earning a hum of approval from him.

"Rumple knows," he murmured. "About the baby, he figured it out."

"Oh?" Her brows rose in mock surprise.

"What was the deal you made with him?"

"What?"

Her husband lifted his head. Eyes shining in the dim firelight, he shifted to put a hand on her stomach. The swell of her pregnant belly grew more and more obvious with each passing day, and sure enough, his anxiety grew along with it. "The deal you made to save my life after I got bit in Mirkwood. What was it?"

With a shrug, Arista leaned down to hold him. Arm around his shoulders, she rubbed her Hatter's chest. "It wasn't a deal. It was an exchange. He took a tear as payment and healed you." She smoothed his brow with a tenderness that made his stomach knot. "No deals. Why?"

"We waited so long for this i just…" Words failed him. Bowing his head, he licked his lips. "Don't want anyone to try and stake a claim on it."

"It?"

"The baby."

Her gaze fell to his hand. She watched him thumb the bump, took in his contrite expression, and felt a pang of fear in her chest. "Oh."

He rubbed her leg and kissed her knee before he sat up on his knees. "I know-" he swallowed, "how excited you are, because I am too," a smile blossomed over his lips, as nervous as it was genuine, "but I think the less people who know about it, the better."

She didn't look him in the eye. Voice low, Arista focused on his chin. She wondered if their child would have the same cleft in theirs. "Because of what people will say?"

"Because of what people might do. I've made…" Jefferson laughed breathlessly. With a sigh, he shook his head. His dark hair free from any product, his bangs fell in his eyes as he licked his lips again. "So many enemies. You don't even know. People have been after me my whole life because of who my mother is, and I don't…" His jaw clenched, the muscle in it twitching. "I don't want that kind of target on your back." His hand touched hers, his fingertips shaking and his features wan. "Or on theirs. Once it's born, we can teach it how to hide-"

Arista's response was simple. "No."

"Ris-"

"I don't want them to be ashamed of us," the mermaid whispered. Her features grave, she cupped his cheeks. As the Hatter's eyes fluttered closed, she kissed his brow, his mouth, before continuing, "We waited so long. If we asked them to hide...it would be like telling them they were a mistake."

The man huffed and dropped his brow to her breast.

Watery brown eyes fell to the top of his head.

As tight as he held her, Jefferson wouldn't meet her gaze.

Stubborn, he ignored how Arista thumbed his neck, how sincere her voice was as she told him, "You were not a mistake, Jefferson."

"Yes, I was." The whisper was steady, just shy of forceful, and it broke his wife's heart a bit. Jefferson heaved a sigh and fell back. Resting against her leg, he fiddled with the patchwork quilt in her lap. "My mother never wanted children and my father- he might not have been a bad man, but he shouldn't have been a father."

She watched him a long moment before she chose her words. "Just because you didn't belong in that family doesn't mean you don't belong in this one. And you couldn't have been a mistake." Arista smiled and wrapped her arms around him once more. Tighter than she had before. Kissing his cheek firmly, she stroked his face with one hand and held him close with the other. "You were made for me. Neptune chose you for me, a gift, the perfect mate."

"Mermaids don't even have mates," he grumbled, cheeks pink as she kissed his temple, his hair, and when she tilted his head back, he let her take his mouth.

A husky, sweet whisper was her reply, "But I do, so you must be special, right?"

His eyes peeked open. Arista's brown eyes sparkled back at him, warm and amber in the fire light. Unable to help himself his hand crept up her thigh, and he broke from her embrace so that his mouth could follow behind it.

She tapped the top of his head playfully. "Don't you start that again," she warned as his hair tickled the inside of her thigh.

Jefferson chuckled. Still, he leaned back without a fight, respecting her space as he always did.

As his gaze returned to the fire, Arista bit her lip. Curious, and a bit eager to learn as much as she could about her love's elusive past, she asked, "Do- do you think...he would have liked me?" When he looked over his shoulder at her, she clarified, "Your father, I mean."

The Hatter stared at her; taking in his wife's hopeful, anxious expression, he offered her a sweet smile. "He would have adored you."

The doubt fell from her face as she perked up. "Really?"

Jefferson nodded. There were so many similarities between Arista and his father; the warm demeanor, the well-meaning concern, that they had both fallen in love with someone who didn't deserve them...

As she blushed and lowered her face to hide her grin, Jefferson changed the subject. His fingers found hers, and he began to stroke them. To turn her hand over in his own, to caress the lines of her palm, to kiss each fingertip before he asked, "Have you thought of any names yet?"

"No," Arista replied easily.

"Really? None at all?"

That was unlike her. She was usually the pragmatic one between them.

She shrugged. "I thought perhaps of naming them after one of my sisters, but it didn't seem right to play favorites...then, perhaps after your parents, but you're already named for your father and-"

"Alice is hardly my favorite person," he finished for her.

A silence fell between them. It lasted only a moment, each of them fretting the same thing; what should happen if their child was incapable of loving them. Undoubtedly, their child would be loved, but the idea that they may not be loved in return was a daunting one. Arista, with her fear of her father. Jefferson, with his outright malice for his mother. It seemed neither exactly knew how it was a parent should love a child, but both knew they were capable of it. Their little one hadn't even been born yet and it was already adored...but that didn't mean time wouldn't make it resentful of them. Of the inhuman mother and thief of a father the couple offered.

Jefferson touched his brow to his wife's tenderly.

The sweet caress earned a few tears, but the mermaid appreciated the sentiment.

Swallowing the hoarseness in his throat, the young man held her hands tight and kept his voice low, "I was just wondering if you want me to ask Rumple if he could find your family? I mean, I know you miss them. It might be good for you."

A crooked, somewhat patronizing smile pulled at her lips. "That's very sweet, but, he would never let them...he'd never let me come back." The mere thought of her father made Arista's shoulders twitch, made her swallow, and her eyes fall to her lap. Where their fingers were entwined. "And I don't to go."

"I know, I know, but maybe Sebastian or one of your sisters could come here." The portal jumper offered her an encouraging smile.

He wasn't blind. He knew Arista longed for family, more family than he could give, and given the fact that they had waited so long for their little one to even happen, it may well only be the three of them. Three would be more than he ever had, but to her...Three was barely a family at all.

He touched her cheek. His heart fluttered as his wife melted into the touch. Yes, three would be enough for him, most certainly. "Just for a visit. Maybe when the baby's born?"

"You don't understand. I disobeyed my father. Nobody does that." The laugh she breathed was mirthless. Anxious. Fearful, and Jefferson's stomach knotted as she focused on the fire over his shoulder. "If they came to see me, even for an afternoon, he wouldn't let them come back. They'd be traitors, too."

"Who's your father, Ris?" Jefferson asked, features drawn.

"It doesn't matter." The mermaid lifted a shoulder in a manner that wasn't quite as careless as she thought it was. Her chin rose. Poised and defiant, she kept her words simple, precise, "He's not my father anymore. They're not my family anymore. You are." A more genuine expression blossomed over her face; warming her eyes and sweetening her mouth. She offered him a soft kiss before nuzzling their brows together. "And you're all I need."

Torn, he stared at her a long moment. The Hatter hoped she would change her mind without being asked, but she said nothing more on the matter, and he didn't want to push. Not when she was in such a delicate state, not about something that clearly hit so close to her heart. "I wish you could have both."

"I know. Me,too."

He leaned back between her legs. Playing with the blanket on her knees, he demanded, "Tell me about them."

A supressed sigh. "Why?"

"I don't know... I know so little about your life before me."

Which is exactly how she liked it, but it was hard to resist indulging him when he was looking at her like she hung the moon, when he was stroking her calf so tenderly, and found herself asking, "What do you want to know?"

"Do you have any experience with children? Any nieces or nephews?"

"Just my little sisters." A wide smile that hurt to wear. The thought of her younger siblings felt like a knife to her heart. "My eldest siblings Attina and Alana hadn't had any yet. They will, they're both… they practically raised me; I know they're have some of their own. Adella is training to be a warrior, so she likely won't have children. At least, not her own. Aquata is far too selfish to ever rear them, but with her looks, I wouldn't be surprised if she gave a few to her suitors." A smile cracked over her lips. "She always had men chasing her tail."

A crease formed in his brow. Surprised, not just by the sheer number of names being thrown at him, but the implication of her words. Jefferson blinked. "Women can be warriors?"

"Of course!" A light smack to his shoulder. "Just as men can be caretakers. My uncle, Sebastian, was both." His wife fluffed his hair thoughtlessly. "He spent his youth in the military with my father, but once he saw Attina... I think he regretted not having a family of his own. So he became an advisor to my father, and by extension, to all of us, too."

The note of melancholy in her voice made Jefferson hum. Stroking her thigh under the blanket, he asked a question he already knew the answer to. "You miss him, don't you?"

"Maybe even most of all." A lie, but a soft one. She did miss him more than she thought she would, than she thought possible, but not the most. "I'm glad I could see him, that he could see me. That I was happy." She touched Jefferson's face with care. Her words were true, painfully so. "I'm glad he approved of you. It meant more than I thought it would."

A swell of pride warmed his chest. "And what of your younger sisters?"

"Well, they're just trouble."

He chuckled.

A swallow to fight back the lump in her throat as her chin rose. Stubborn and proud, Arista told him, "They get it from me. Everyone knows it."

"I bet."

She didn't want to talk about them. She would surely start bawling if she did. Stress wasn't good for the baby, everyone kept telling her so. Swallowing, she deflected the subject to a sore spot, away from the open wound of little sisters. "And I got it from my Aunt Ursula. She had such a way with magic and people." Arista's smile turned bittersweet, then fell entirely. She had grossly underestimated how much talking about her aunt and uncle would hurt. Eyes glassy, her voice dropped to just above a whisper. "My father was so scared of her. He banished her, you know."

The human's brows rose, but she kept on. Her voice calm and clear and just a touch too emotionless to be truly detached from the situation.

"She was beloved, and very vocal about how things should be run. Damn near broke my little heart when she had to go."

Jefferson frowned. "How much power does he have exactly?"

"All of it," the mermaid replied, a bit sheepishly.

His brow tight, he sat up a bit straight. The pieces coming together for himself, painting a picture he didn't like at all. "What do you mean all of it?"

"What's unclear to you?"

"Well, do you mean, like, in the sense that he holds all the power in your family, or like-" An anxious chuckle. "-all of the ocean or-"

The shrug the princess gave was more casual than it had any right to be. "All the ocean is my family."

His jaw dropped, and when he realized she genuinely wanted to leave it at that, he got just a little snotty. "Oh you do not get to play that card."

An eye roll. "My family is a very... powerful family. Let's leave it at that."

Technically, they were demigods, but she didn't feel the need to go into semantics.

Jefferson glared. When she smirked in reply, he caved, deflating somewhat as he settled back against her legs. Fluffing the end of her blonde curls, he went back to the subject at hand. "So Sebastian for a boy then."

She beamed, brighter and purer than any star Jefferson had ever seen. Trying desperately to suppress the tears in her eyes, she shook her head and lowered her gaze, hoping he wouldn't notice how she held him a touch tighter for the mere suggestion of honoring her uncle that way. "We don't have to-"

"I want to."

"Okay, Sebastian for a boy." She bit her lip, eyes bright. "What if it's a girl?"

He cringed slightly. "Well-"

"What?"

Pursing his lips, he looked back at the fire. "I don't think it will be a girl."

"You don't? Why not?"

Jefferson shrugged. Gazing falling to her hair once more, he pursed his lips. "I don't know, it just feels like it will be a boy. You know, intuitively."

Brown eyes soft, Arista nuzzled their noses together as she cooed, "Jefferson, my love, my light, my sea; your intuition is garbage."

"Hey!"

"Remember the flying monkeys?" Refusing to let him recoil, her hands fell to his shoulders and held him tight. "And the Rodents of Unusual Size? And-"

"You've made your point, Ris!"

"So, it could be a girl." Her gaze swept over his face. "Don't you want a girl?"

His chin rose, head rolling nonchalant on his neck. "All i want is for it to be healthy."

"And male."

He sighed. "No, not necessarily…" He rubbed his brow. His wedding band gleamed in the fire light. "Girls are just so...different, from boys."

"Really," his wife drawled, "I hadn't noticed."

"No, I mean, they have different needs, they love differently." Anxiety played in his voice as his words became rushed, "What if I screw her up? Screw up a boy, fine he's off to fight the world, but a girl...I don't know. What if I can't...it's just different."

Than what must you think of me? Arista thought, but said nothing. Just stroked his hair from his brow, and assured him, "Yes, I suppose so. In truth, I have similar fears, should it be a boy. All my experience is with girls, I know what they need, how to handle the sensitivities, the foolishness, the anxiety that comes from being a girl, but...you're the first boy- man, I've ever…"

She shrugged, unsure how to describe it. She had known men of course, known her extended family, known how cruel suitors could be, but Jefferson was the first to show her kindness based on her, not her title or bloodline (or in Rumple's case, contractual obligation), and she didn't know how to explain that she was a bit afraid to have a boy. A boy who would grow into a man, who could turn violent, mean, on a whim like all the others she had known before.

The smile he offered was drenched in understanding, and the touch he offered the curve of her stomach incredibly delicate. "I guess no matter what, our little miracle is going to have a bit of a learning curve, huh, Mama?"

She chuckled. Palming her stomach, Arista began to nod. Then the mermaid frowned. Her brow furrowed. Her head cocked.

"What?" Jefferson straightened. "What is it?"

"Something's wrong."

"Wrong? Wrong how?"

Arista was quiet. Her fingers danced across her belly, pressing and prodding it, before a smile tugged at her lips. Not wanting to jinx it, to scare it, she kept her voice soft, "It's moving."

"What?!"

She hushed him with a laugh. Tears pricked at her eyes as he scrambled up to his knees. Shaky hands grabbed his and she pressed them low on her abdomen. "There."

Still as a statue, he held his breath.

"There it is again!" She whispered as tears began to flow over her lashes.

Jefferson let out the breath he had been holding in a disappointed sigh. "I can't feel anything."

She frowned, then beamed as another subtle flutter happened inside her, but tried to repress it for her husband's benefit. She failed horribly. "I'm sorry."

Still he pouted, though it was hard to maintain when Arista was glowing. The Hatter propped his chin on her knee. He took in her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her attempt at empathy (though she failed spectacularly).

Indeed, she was glowing.

"I love you, Ris."

Her blush darkened, but she perked up with pride. "I love you, too, my dear Jefferson."

He rubbed her stomach. Her body was warm under his touch. "You'll tell me if it happens again?"

She nodded and leaned down to kiss him. "Jefferson?"

"Hm?"

"I really do think you're going to be a wonderful father."

"You do?" the Hatter cringed as his voice cracked.

Arista nodded. Gaze warm and tone sincere, she told him, "I do."

Instead of replying, Jefferson decided to bury his face in his wife's lap. After a moment of silence, he stood, reached down, and swept her up into his arms.

"No!" The mermaid squealed, a dreadful delight coursing through her as he hefted her up. "You're not strong enough!"

"I'll- show you- who's-" He grunted, stumbling toward the bed. His feet tangled in the quilt, he tripped and sputtered, "Strong enough!"

Arista let out a shriek as he all but tossed her onto the mattress. Bouncing slightly, she offered him a shove as he tried to crawl in after her. "Oh no you don't!"

"Kiss me."

Stubborn, she looked away from him. "No."

"Arista, come on, kiss me."

She mewed, squirming under him as he nibbled at her jaw.

Tilting her chin, he offered her a dark grin. The thin moonlight cut through the curtains, casting across the bottom half of his face. "Gonna make me ask again, beta?"

The woman shivered. His hand ghosted up her thigh, shucking her skirt up along with it. The air away from the fire cool and his touch demanding. Swallowing, Arista could only manage to shake her head.

"Good. Kiss me."

His wife obeyed without another word. Her hand latched in his hair, she pulled him close.

A/N: I don't know if anyone's still interested in this story, but if they are, I sincerely apologize for the wait.