#if anyone else is looking for an absentee father who goes to the store for cigarettes and comes back 10 years later lmk

[hoboblaidd]

I love how Mr. ‘I Walk the Lonely Path of Death and Ruin’ is out here inadvertently adopting children. He’s all ‘I’m mysterious and focused solely on my world ending goal’ and then Nanna, Orana, or Cole show up and he’s just 🥰

[branlovestowrite]

Emma and Hope: American Girls

Seven years ago today I gave birth to my daughter. She has been so wonderful and I discover new things with her every day. One of those things has been the fun of playing with 18-inch dolls. I always wanted an American Girl doll, but could never have one as a child. Santa brought my kiddo one for Christmas, and playing with her and her doll inspired me to buy myself the doll I always wanted.

This story is taken directly from that experience. It’s a canon-compliant, post S7 slice of fluffy domestic goodness set in the Swan-Jones household. Many thanks go to @kmomof4 who helped me develop the idea after I pestered her nonstop about AG dolls. Thanks also to her for being my beta on this cavity-inducing fluff fest. I hope you enjoy this sugary treat!

Title: Emma and Hope: American Girls

Rating: F for fluff… sooooo much fluff

Words: ~2,500

Also on AO3

Summary: Emma has sworn that her child will have everything she never got to have, including the expensive toys she always wanted. When Hope gets an American Girl doll for Christmas, Emma goes a bit overboard in buying accessories. Killian is concerned for their budget, and the fact that their house is being taken over by dolls.

Emma Swan was nine years-old when she saw her first American Girl catalog.

She'd been staying in one of her many foster homes. The situation was not the worst she'd been in, but it was definitely unpleasant, with an absentee father, bratty children, and an alcoholic mother. But the family had money. The catalog had come in the mail one day. The children, both being boys, had no interest in the dolls, but Emma swiped the booklet and stashed it among her possessions before anyone else saw.

She poured over those pages, marveling at the beautiful dolls and their accessories. She loved the snippets of the stories of each girl, learning a little about their lives in the past. Emma didn't stay very long in that home, but when she left the catalog came with her. She carried it with her for five years, looking at it constantly until the pages were worn thin. Eventually she found the books that came with the dolls at a library, and was able to read their entire stories. But she knew she would never be able to have one of the dolls themselves. No one was going to buy an $80 doll for an orphan girl.

More than twenty years later, Emma sat in bed in her beautiful home, next to her handsome husband, and paged through the American Girl website on her iPad.

"What's that?" Killian asked, peering over her shoulder.

"Dolls. I'm looking at some possible Christmas presents for Hope."

"She has quite a few dolls already. Does she really need any more?"

"These are special dolls." She scooted over on the bed to lean into her husband's side and show him the page she was looking at.

"They are pretty, but perhaps a bit strange looking with their bucked teeth. And their eyes look a little… what's the word you use? Creepy?"

"They're not creepy," she scoffed, lightly punching him in the arm.

Killian looked closer at the tablet. "Bloody hell! Over one-hundred dollars for a doll? Swan, she's six. Why on earth would we spend that much on a doll for her?"

"I told you, these are special dolls. They're made to teach kids about a period in American history. The dolls come with a book, and there are these outfits and accessories you can buy that are period-correct. The dolls are good quality and last a long time. Some people that had them as kids have passed them on to their own children."

"Did you have one?"

Emma looked up from the screen and gave her husband a pointed stare.

"Of course not. My mistake." He sighed and placed his hand on her arm. "So now that we have a daughter, you want to give her something you could never have?"

"Bingo." She looked back down at her device. "I just can't decide which one. There are so many now. When I was a kid there were only four dolls, but now there are eleven historic dolls, plus these contemporary ones, and the Truly Me dolls. It's so hard to decide."

"Which one did you always want?"

Emma set the iPad back down and smiled warmly. "Kirsten. She was a frontier girl. I loved her rustic clothes and furniture, and she had blonde hair like me, and it was braided in these cute little pigtails and looped around her ears. Her family was Swedish, and she had the cutest little accessories, like this Christmas wreath thing she wore on her head."

Killian looked fondly at his wife. "Then I think you should purchase that one."

"Not that easy, sadly," Emma sighed in response. "Kirsten was retired a while back. You can't buy her anymore." She looked back at the screen once more. "I was looking at maybe Julie, or Kit, or maybe Tenney."

"This all sounds quite strange to me, Swan." He grabbed the tablet from her and scrolled through the page. Setting the device back on the bed, he decisively touched one doll, bringing up her page. "This one."

"Are you sure?" Emma asked. "That doll doesn't even really look like Hope, and a lot of girls like these dolls because they look like them. Maybe we should get one that has blonde hair?"

"No, Swan, this is the one."

"How do you know?"

"Because, thanks to your parents, Hope loves horses, and this doll's book has a horse on the cover. That, and her green eyes remind me of yours."

Emma couldn't help the blush that crept into her cheeks. "Okay. Felicity it is."

§§§§§§§§§§

Of course, Hope loved the doll. Emma would never forget the smile on her daughter's face when she opened the box on Christmas morning.

"An American Girl doll!" she'd squealed. "Just what I've always wanted since I was a little girl!" Emma and Killian had chuckled at her hyperbole, but chose not to correct her.

After the holidays were over, and life returned to normal, Felicity continued to be a constant presence in their lives. She accompanied Hope everywhere. All the residents of Storybrooke got to know the doll, and Hope made sure everyone knew the entire story.

"This is my doll Felicity. She's an American Girl doll. She came with a book about her life. It had a horse on the cover! Felicity lived in a time called '1774.' That was a really long time ago. But she didn't really live back then because she's just a doll."

Hope had definitely inherited her Grandmother's chatty tendencies.

On the third Monday of January, Hope had the day off of school. Emma made plans to take her down to Boston for a girl's trip where they would visit the American Girl store. Having Felicity was fun, but Emma had secretly decided they needed some accessories.

Hope chatted the entire drive about how excited she was to see Felicity's outfits and furniture. Emma thought she knew what to expect, but she was still overwhelmed when they arrived. The store was huge, with dolls everywhere. There were so many displays showing the dolls and all the additional outfits and beds. And there were outfits for kids that could match the doll's clothes. Hope immediately decided she needed to get one of those, but Emma told her to wait until they saw everything before she picked something out.

They explored both levels of the store, Hope bouncing from display to display, her face lighting up more at each turn. She froze, however, when they reached the Truly Me section.

"Mommy, can you hold Felicity for me?" she asked as she held the doll aloft, not removing her eyes from the display of dolls before her. Hope was enchanted. She wandered slowly through the area until she found a doll with curly blonde hair and blue eyes. "She's so pretty, Mommy. Doesn't she look just like me?"

The look on Hope's face convinced Emma that she was going to buy that doll for her daughter. Without looking at the total, she swiped her credit card for the doll, along with a doll-sized bunk bed and two outfits with accompanying doll clothes. Then they went to the bistro and had a lovely lunch with Felicity and the new doll before piling in the car and returning home. The day was a beautiful memory. It involved a lot of driving, but Emma felt it was worth it when she remembered the look on her daughter's face.

The next day Emma and Killian took Hope to Granny's for dinner. When they arrived, they ran into Alice and Robin.

"Did you get a new doll?" Alice asked Hope. "That's not Felicity, is it?"

"Nope! Felicity is at home in her new bed. This is my new dolly."

"What's her name?"

"I haven't named her yet," Hope deadpanned, her words accompanied by a flourish of her hand, as if it were obvious the doll was as yet unnamed.

"Do you have any ideas?" Robin asked.

"No! It's really hard to decide. She looks just like me, so I thought of calling her Hope, but my name is Hope and she can't have the same name as me!"

"Obviously," Robin chimed in.

Hope pulled the doll away from her body and looked at her face. "She looks like me, and I look like Alice, so the doll looks like Alice too."

"Good observation," said Robin.

"But I can't call her Alice. That would be silly, right?"

"What about Tilly?" Alice suggested. "That was my cursed name."

Hope furrowed her brow. The dynamics of curses still eluded her. But after a moment she relaxed her expression. "I like it!" She declared. "Her name is Tilly!"

§§§§§§§§§§

Tilly the doll fit in well with her new family. Emma spent much of her spare time playing with Hope and the dolls. When they weren't playing, she was perusing Amazon on her iPad, looking for additional clothing and accessories. She bought some more colonial-style outfits for Felicity and a couple more outfits for Hope that included matching doll outfits for Tilly. Then they needed somewhere to store the clothes, so she bought a wardrobe for the dolls. After also acquiring a table and a doll-sized kitchen, they decided that there wasn't enough space in Hope's bedroom to house everything, and they set about rearranging the furniture in a room across the hall, declaring it the "doll's room." This is how Killian found them when he came home one Saturday afternoon in late February.

"What, may I ask, is going on?" he queried as he stood in the doorway to the room.

"We need more space for the doll stuff," Emma replied matter-of-factly.

"We do have a playroom set aside for Hope's toys. Perhaps the dolls could live there?"

"No, I want them here. These toys are special."

"Yeah Daddy, they're special," Hope chimed in.

Killian shook his head and walked downstairs to begin preparing dinner, which Emma's parents and brother would be joining them for.

When their guests arrived, David joined him in the kitchen while Mary Margaret went upstairs to join the girls. Neal, now in his early teens, settled on the sofa in the living room with his phone.

"They've really gotten into the dolls, haven't they?"

"Aye." Killian took a sip of his beer as he turned to face his father-in-law. "It would appear my home is being invaded by a small army of expensive toys."

David gave him a warm smile. "You know, I regret a lot of things with Emma. I know it was out of my control, but that doesn't stop me from wishing I could have raised her and given her the things she always wanted. It's nice to see that you guys are able to do that for Hope."

"The things she always wanted…" His words sparked an epiphany in Killian. "I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner."

"Huh?" David asked.

"Can you finish chopping these, mate?" Killian asked. "I need to make a quick phone call."

"Yeah, sure. Is everything alright?"

"Never better, Dave. I just had a realization that I don't want to wait to act on."

§§§§§§§§§§

The ringing of the doorbell brought Hope barreling down the stairs with a cry of "I'll get it!". Killian tried to run to the door to stop her as Emma raced from upstairs to do the same. Neither were successful. Hope flung the door open to reveal a large package left by the postman.

Hope sucked in a deep gasp. "What is it? Is it for me?!"

Killian observed the package, looking at the return address on the shipping label, as he'd learned to do recently. The sender's name tipped him off to the contents inside. "No, love. This is for Mommy."

Hope looked dejected for a moment, her six year-old brain having trouble accepting when others received gifts in her presence. Emma took in the enormous box and smiled at her daughter. "Do you want to help me open it?"

"Okay," Hope responded sullenly before her eyes suddenly brightened. "If it's something I like, will you share it with me?"

"I don't know what it is, sweetie," Emma said, looking curiously at her husband.

"It's something for Mommy to share with you," Killian replied with a smirk. Using the sharpened tip of his hook, he sliced open the tape on the box so Emma could pull the flaps apart. The contents inside were covered in a thick layer of bubble wrap, obscuring their appearance. Tentatively, Emma started to peel away the protective packaging to reveal the treasure inside.

Her face lit up as the contents became clear. Gingerly she lifted the largest item away from the box to cradle it in her arms. "Kirsten," she breathed, before her face split into the widest grin Killian had ever seen. She beamed up at him. "You got me Kirsten?"

"Aye," he said with a smile. "Seeing you and Hope play with her new dolls was charming, but I thought you should have the doll you've always wanted."

"How did you even know how to get her?"

"I called Henry and asked for his help."

"And he knew where to find vintage American Girl dolls?"

"Actually, no. But, thanks to her cursed memories, Jacinda did. She had a false memory of wanting one of these dolls when she was a child. She helped me find the doll on this website called "e-bay". She was so inspired that she ended up purchasing a Samantha doll for herself and Josefina for Lucy.

"We can have a tea party with our dolls!" Hope cried out excitedly.

"Indeed my little cygnet, you can and you should. However, I think for now we should take Kirsten and the rest of the contents of this box upstairs to add them to our collection."

"Now that we have three dolls you can play with us too, Daddy!"

"I believe I will. I will take Felicity, but I do have a request. She needs a pirate outfit."

"That will probably be hard to find on Amazon," Emma said with a chuckle.

"You have magic, Swan. Conjure one up."

"And a little Jolly Roger!" Hope said, jumping up and down. "The dolls need to have some pirate adventures!" She dashed up the stairs, making a beeline for the doll's room.

Emma held Killian back from following their daughter. "Thank you," she said, looking up into his eyes.

He returned her gaze lovingly. "You are most welcome, my love. What's the use of being married to a pirate if you can't have some treasures of your own?"

She smiled at him before lifting up on her toes to capture his lips in a soft, sweet kiss. "You're the best treasure of all."

Tagging the CS Crew. Let me know if you want to be added or removed from my tag list.

@artistic-writer @bleebug @cat-sophia @courtorderedcake @flslp87 @gingerchangeling @hollyethecurious @initiala @jonirobinson64 @kmomof4 @kymbersmith-90 @laschatzi @lassluna @lillpon @nerdyhuntress @resident-of-storybrooke @rouhn @searchingwardrobes @sherlockianwhovian @shireness-says @snidgetsafan @snowbellewells @teamhook @thejollyroger-writer @thislassishooked @winterbythesea @winterbaby89 @wingedlioness @wyntereyez @yayimallamaagain