(Another short drabble for Swanfire week. This one is off theme - I’m bad with memes, and everyone deserves one free space, I’m using mine early. Anyway, it’s set in an AU where August never shows. Read here, or on AO3)
Their first anniversary together, Neal gets Emma a road map to Tallahassee that he’s marked with all sorts of restaurants and tourist traps that he wants to stop at along the way. She is about to have Henry, and so their anniversary escapes her mind and she forgets to give him a gift. He teases her about it nonstop, but after Henry is born they do take the road trip and they stop at ALL the places Neal has marked along the way, collecting pictures for Henry's baby scrapbook.
Emma - adamant she will not forget this year - gets Neal a new set of paintbrushes that he’s been eyeing at the store, but won’t get because of their budget. Neal loves them, but explains that wood is the gift for five year anniversaries. He gives her and Henry a matching pair of pjs to replace his old t-shirt that she sleeps in. She loves the gift, but still wears his t-shirt underneath them.
Emma is determined this will be the year she gets it right. But why did it have to be leather? Paper and Cotton were so much easier. Finally she decides to get him a nice new watch with a leather band. She has ‘You stole my heart’ engraved on the back. Neal cries because it’s the best gift anyone has ever given him. He got her a new leather recliner to sit in while rocking Henry to sleep, since the last one was second-hand and falling apart. She points out that Henry is almost two and she won’t have a baby to rock to sleep much longer. He asks if she’d like to change that.
Neal is thankful this year is so cheap, the budget is tight with Henry starting preschool. He buys Emma a bouquet of flowers and a nice card which he writes a thoughtful message in. But he still worries after the watch she is going to show him up. She gives him a single blueberry, which is a relief, but also confusing as hell. Is he supposed to eat it? She laughs and tells him, “That’s how big our baby is right now.” And Neal cries again, because, okay, now that is the best gift anyone has ever given him.
With two kids under five in the house, Neal thinks that what they really need this year is a trip. But at best he can afford a babysitter. So he and Emma go out to dinner, and the ability to relax is a better gift than most. She gets him a set of paintbrushes to replace the ones he has worn out in the last couple years, and a rueful smile to let him know she remembered his snide remark on their second year together. He buys her a wooden sign for their front door, with their last name and a blank spot for the address. He tells her, one day, he’ll buy her a house where they can proudly hang that sign. His gift this year is a promise.
This year Neal resists the urge to buy iron bracelets for his entire family. It is a traditional gift back in the Enchanted Forest, as Iron repels magic and fairies. But that life is behind him. So instead he books them their first trip away from Tallahassee, taking the kids to Disney and making a point to buy Emma candy in every store they go in. She thinks it’s silly, but the kids are eager to help her eat all her candy. Her gift to him involves some alone time, a bottle of chocolate sauce, and not much else. They make an absolute mess out of their hotel room, but Neal can’t even feel a little bad for house cleaning the next morning.
Neal is quite familiar with all the possible gifts for this year, but again, he is striving to forget about the family he has lost and instead focus on the one he has gained. Emma is pregnant again, their third child due any day now, and more than anything she just wants to relax. Furthermore, they’ve agreed to keep this year cheap because they are saving for a house. Three kids in a two-bedroom apartment just isn’t doable anymore. She gets him a nice new scarf, and he gets her a throw blanket. They wrap them and their two children in the blanket and spend the evening watching movies as a family.
Emma has developed quite the green thumb since moving into their little house only a block away from Henry and Mary’s school. Neal loves watching her in the little garden out back, explaining all the different plants to their older children with Jenny on her hip as they walk through the rows of flowers and vegetables she has planted with their little plastic watering cans in hand. So this year he buys her several decorative pots for their front porch and he takes her to the nursery to pick out all the different flowers she wants to fill them with. Emma, gives him three painted coffee mugs. The first, says “World’s Best Dad” and is painted in stars and constellations like the ones he tells Henry about to get him to fall asleep at night. The second, in much shakier handwriting says “I <3 You” and has tiny hearts - the only thing Mary can draw - all over the side. The last one is just splashes of color, tiny fingerprints still visible in the paint.
“That one is from the baby,” Emma explains, and once again she wins ‘Best Gift’ this year.
They are both stumped this year - no pun intended. After a few months of searching, they confess neither one can find a decent gift made out of willow. That’s when one of them proposes the idea - and years down the line no one can remember which one - that they renew their vows under the willow tree at the Shakespeare Garden across town. Their first wedding was a rushed courthouse ceremony, Emma was at least five months pregnant, and Neal wore jeans. This time they do it right. So ten years of knowing and loving each other, the remarry by the water under the weeping willow tree. Henry is Neal’s best man, Mary is entrusted with the rings, and little Jenny does her best to toddle down the aisle throwing fistfuls of flowers, almost hostility, at the guests.
“Can we stop with the themed gifts now?” Emma asks as they eat leftover cake, their three children piled up and passed out, still in their fancy clothes, on the corner of the dance floor.
“Why?” Neal asks with a raised eyebrow, “Worried I’ll outdo you for tin?”
“No,” she laughs, leaning her head against his shoulder. “There just is no better gift than this.”
