"Hear that?" the doctor said. "That's your baby's heartbeat."

Mary Margaret smiled. "David, it's real," she said.

He smiled. "I know."

When the appointment ended, she said, "It's still kind of hard to believe that there's this whole new life... and it's ours."

"Tell me about it."

"I can't wait to be parents."

"Me neither."

She glanced at her watch. "3:30. We still have two hours before we have to get to Ella's."

He smiled. "I have an idea what we could do."

When they arrived at Ella's, Thomas, Ruby, Dorothy, Mulan, Phillip, and Aurora were already there.

"Hey, thanks for coming," Ella said.

"Wouldn't miss it," said Mary Margaret with a smile.

A few minutes later, Ariel and Eric came downstairs. "Are Belle and the mystery guy here yet?" Ariel asked.

"Not yet," said Ruby.

Almost no sooner had she said this than the doorbell rang upstairs.

"Ringing the doorbell?" said Ella. "That has to be Belle's boyfriend."

A moment later, Belle and Robert came down, Robert carrying a baby carrier. "Hi," said Belle.

"Who was the rude woman who came to open the door?" Robert asked.

Ella chuckled. "That would be my stepmother. Sorry about her; we don't tend to ring the doorbell."

"I tried to tell you," said Belle.

"Oh, that baby is precious," Mary Margaret said, smiling at little Neal. She thought about how in a few months she would have a baby of her own.

"Indeed he is," said Robert.

"So. Would you like to sit down?" Ella asked.

Robert and Belle sat down in the circle.

"What exactly is this going to entail?" he asked.

"We just want to know you," said Aurora. "Belle's one of us, and we're very protective of our own."

He shrugged. "There isn't much about me to know."

"Where are you from?" asked Ruby.

He frowned. "That's sort of a complicated question."

"Do your best," she replied.

He sighed. "Well, I was born on a small farm that my parents owned. When I was around a year old, I moved to the city. Then I ended up in a town nearby when I was eight. Never really bothered to go anywhere else."

"What happened to the farm?" Dorothy asked.

"My father sold it. Dragged me to the city." He blinked. "Why are we doing this again?"

"We just want to know who you are," said Mary Margaret. "Your story."

"Then do I get to know your stories?"

"If you want."

"Really?"

Mary Margaret shrugged. "I mean, it's not as though they're secret. My stepmother is the mayor of this town."

Robert raised an eyebrow. "Really? Regina Mills is your stepmother?"

Mary Margaret nodded. "My mother died when I was eight, and my father married Regina two years later. He was mayor back then. After he died last year, Regina decided to run in his place. And now she's the mayor." She smiled. "Oh, and there's also the fact that I'm pregnant."

His eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yep. David and I are going to be parents." She smiled and kissed David.

"That's rather an interesting story."

"Pretty much the same story as mine," said Ella. "Just throw two annoying stepsisters into the mix and replace "mayor" with "CEO." Used to be the biggest company in the area, but now it's on the verge of having to close because of bankruptcy. Oh, and remove the pregnancy. We're good."

"Yeah," said Thomas with a chuckle.

"So, now do we get more of your story?" Aurora asked.

"What about you? What's your story?"

"Oh." Aurora frowned. "Well, my birth parents put me up for adoption, and I was adopted by my two mothers. Then last year I found my birth parents. We talk sometimes now. Not much more to it, really."

"And you?" He nodded to Ruby and Dorothy.

Ruby shrugged. "Well, my dad died before I was born, then when I was born my mom left me with my grandmother and ran off."

Robert frowned. "My mother left us, too. Me and my father. That's when he sold the farm."

"I live on a farm," said Dorothy. "With my aunt and uncle."

"What about your parents?"

"Died in a car accident when I was five."

"All of our stories are out of the ordinary," said Belle. "I mean, you know mine. My father owns an advertising empire and wants me to be his heir."

"Mine's not that out of the ordinary," said Mulan. "I just have parents who think girls are supposed to be housewives and nothing more. Because apparently this is the sixteenth century."

"And I just have six older sisters," said Ariel. "What's weird about that? Oh, well, then there's the hunters that killed my mother. Guess that's not normal."

"You all do have strange stories," said Robert. "And I thought being abandoned in the foster system by your father so he could run off and go gambling and drinking was strange."

"My dad drank, too," said David. "Crashed his car while driving drunk."

"Yeah, compared to all of them, being heir to a seafood chain is almost normal," said Eric.

"My parents' company makes shoes," said Thomas. "That is weirder than seafood."

"Eh."

"And then there's me," said Phillip. "I'm just a normal guy."

"You're the only guy that matters to me," said Aurora with a smile.

"See, Robert?" said Belle. "I told you they weren't going to judge you. Everyone is weird here. That's why we're all friends."

"Alright, alright, I stand corrected. Fine. After I left the foster system, I met and married a woman named Milah while in college, and she gave birth to Neal." As if on cue, the baby waved a chubby fist in the air, and Mary Margaret felt her heart melting. "Then Milah left, decided motherhood wasn't for her, and then I met Belle a few months ago when she came to sit in on a class." He smiled at Belle, and she smiled back.

"Well," said Ella, looking at her watch. "It's time for the auction."

They filed upstairs. A bunch of rich-looking people were sitting in rows facing the front, where Ella's stepmother stood with Anna and Chloe. "Ella," she said when she saw them. "Come up here."

Ella shot them all a pleading look and stood up by her stepmother and stepsisters. They all sat in the back row. Mary Margaret had her reservations about this plan, but she would do anything to help her friend.

"Greetings, all," Ella's stepmother began. "Thank you all for coming. As you know, I am auctioning off some of the things belonging to my late husband. With me are my daughters, Anna and Chloe, and my stepdaughter, Ella."

There were some murmurs from the crowd.

"Now. The first thing we're auctioning off is my husband's collection of antique storybooks."

Mary Margaret gasped and looked up at Ella, who had a horrified look on her face. Right off the bat, they were selling Ella's favorite thing.

"We have to make sure we get that," she whispered to Belle, sitting beside her.

Belle nodded.

"We're going to start the bidding at one hundred dollars."

"One hundred," said a voice near the front.

"One ten," said another.

"One twenty."

It went on like this, until someone said two hundred and thirty dollars, and nobody said anything. Then Ariel shouted, "Two hundred and forty!"

There was silence in the room. Then... "Two fifty."

"Two sixty!" shouted Ruby.

"Two seventy."

"Two eighty!" Aurora called. Ella grinned at them.

"Going once... going twice... sold for two eighty to..." her stepmother's gaze froze when she saw Aurora. She narrowed her eyes. "The young woman in the back of the room."

An hour later, they had bought all of the things in the collection, and Ella walked over to them. "It worked!"

"Did it?" asked Belle, nodding towards her stepmother, who was also coming over.

"So. You lot bought all of the things."

"Yes."

"Then I take it that you have sixteen thousand, three hundred and ninety dollars?"

"No..." said Mary Margaret, blushing slightly.

Her stepmother nodded. "I see. Well, needless to say, come up with the money or I'm suing you all."

"We changed our minds," said Ariel. "We don't actually want the stuff."

She shrugged. "It's too late. You have to take it."

She walked back up to the front of the room, and Ella said, "Oh crap."

Belle turned to Robert. "You're studying business and law. Is there any way you can get us out of this?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. But I'll do my best."