The Queen of Broken Hearts

The Calm Before The Volcano

It had been an emotional evening for the Hatter family after cutting ties with Rumple, Grace seemed to have taken it the hardest even more so than Kitty had done but no one could blame her, she had been extremely close to Rumple and Kitty could only imagine how the young girl was feeling, Grace had idolised Rumple, she had always found a way to defend the man, she knew he was bad but she never wanted to believe that he could do something so horrible to her. Grace had crawled into bed with her parents the previous night with her stuffed rabbit in her arms and tear marks on her face, she had been crying in her bed for hours before she has crawled in between her parents, Kitty had slightly woken up and turned in bed to hold Grace in her arms and the young girl had snuggled into her mother's arms eventually falling asleep but she had managed to only get a few hours of sleep, she kept waking up and falling back asleep.

She felt exhausted the next day and Jefferson and Kitty felt horrible with how badly their daughter had slept, they were going to meet and his apparent fiancée, Jefferson had mocked the man for keeping his fiancée a secret, resulting in a swift slap to the back of the head from Kitty, but now the Hatter family were sitting in Neal's apartment room with Neal, Emma and Henry waiting for Neal's fiancée to show up. Grace was excited to spend time with her new uncle, she had liked the man when she first met him. She was glad to have more family, she loved her little family but in her mind, the bigger the family she had, the more people she had to love.

The woman showed up and she looked shocked to see a full family sitting waiting to meet her along with a blonde woman and a young boy, she looked over at the family sitting on the sofa together, Kitty with Grace curled up on her lap and Jefferson with Jack sitting in his lap playing with one of Grace's dolls that he had taking a liking to, it was a princess in a sparkly dress, he had loved the sparkling of the dress so much Grace told him to take it. Henry was sitting on the other side of Kitty leaning on her arm and Kitty smiled up at Tamara "hello there... I'm Kitty it's a pleasure to meet you." She says extending her hand towards Tamara "I'm Neals sister." She says and Tamara shakes her hand with a smile "it's lovely to meet you to, I'm so sorry I never knew Neal had a sister." She says and Kitty smiles.

"oh it's alright we're technically only half siblings, same mother different fathers, our mother passed away when I was younger so he never got to find out about me until recently." Kitty explains and Tamara nods her head "ah I see, well I'm Tamara." She says and Kitty nods her head with a smile, Jefferson just raises his hand in a friendly wave "hi there I'm Jefferson, Kitty's husband and like my wife said it's a pleasure to meet you." He says being polite as Tamara sits beside Neal "nice to meet you Jefferson, who are these lovely children?" She asks putting a smile on but something about how she said it made Kitty feel slightly protective of her children and she held Grace slightly closer, something only Emma seemed to pick up on and take note of but she never mentioned anything.

"This is our daughter Grace, and our little boy Jack and this is my little kitten Henry, he's my godson and he's Neal and Emma's son I'm sure Neal told you all the ins and outs about our complicated family tree." Kitty says jokingly and Tamara just nods her head "yes well he certainly did try to but I think it just confused me even more to be honest." She says and Kitty laughs, Neal had bought bagels and cream cheese and so Kitty decided to make them up for everyone to eat as Tamara and Emma introduced themselves to each other. Grace just sat leaning into her fathers side as Jack just continued to play with his doll happily, Jefferson was happy to see the little boy play with the toy, he seemed more than happy playing with his doll.

It was around thirty minutes later and Henry was become more chatty with Tamara "So how'd you guys meet?" He asks her and Kitty leans forward curious to hear the story and she smiled over at her brother who smiled back at her "Um... well, I was super late to work, rushing like crazy, guzzling my giant coffee, when this guy crashed into me." Tamara says gesturing to Neal who just smirks and sits back chuckling and Grace looks over at her uncle who just gives her a gentle smile and opens his arms and she moves over to sit in her uncles lap and he wraps his arms around her and whispers to her and Kitty sees her nodding her head and Neal whispers something else to her and it seems to make her feel better and Kitty takes a breath of relief and mouths a 'thank you' to her brother who nods his head to her in recognition.