ONCE UPON A TIME IMAGINES AND PREFERENCES

D.Nolan - "A New Addition" (C)

A/N: This imagine was requested by @iamKhrfan123 (Sorry, the tag wouldn't work and I'm not sure why) - It's not a person-specific imagine, meaning that it uses "(y/n)" and can be applied to anybody. To the requester: thank you so much for requesting! I enjoyed writing it and I hope it's what you wanted.

"What's taking him so long?"

I shrugged, glancing over at Regina, wondering the same thing she was.

I don't know," I said. "He is looking for a dead man, so the least we can give him is time."

"August isn't dead, (y/n)," Henry blurted out as he sat down on a barstool in the Charming apartment.

I sighed. "Sorry. Looking for a lost man, I mean."

David had set out to look for a man named August Booth almost immediately after we'd found signs of his presence in the forest. Personally, I didn't think finding an old belonging or two of his meant he was alive, but Emma and Henry seemed to think that was the case. And David would do anything to help his daughter Emma, hence why he was the one out searching.

I tried to be optimistic about the situation - which should've been easy, because having hope had never previously been a problem for me - but I didn't see how it was possible that August was still alive and out there.

Before I has a chance to voice any of this, there was a knock on the door and I shot to my feet. David opened the door and walked in, carrying an old cloth bag on one arm. But no August.

I walked over to him, and he kissed my forehead in greeting.

"You didn't find him?" I asked, taking a step back and closing the door behind him.

He shook his head. As he spoke, his eyebrows were knitted together as they usually were when he was frustrated or thinking about something.

"No," he sighed. "I didn't find anything."

Emma shuffled over, giving an obvious glance at the bag still hanging off of his arm. "Well, you obviously found something."

"I meant about August," David corrected himself. "But yes, I did find something else."

Emma's blue eyes looked up at David's. "Well?"

He muttered a haphazard "hold on" and moved over to the small table set up in the room. As soon as we could clear everything off, he gently set the bag on the table and pulled open the top. The bag shifted.

"Why is the bag moving?" Regina asked, both her and Henry moving closer to get a better look.

"You'll see," David answered. He moved his face closer to the table. "Come on out, little guy."

Little guy? What did he have in there that he would be talking to? Right as I opened my mouth to ask, a small ball of light brown fur crawled out of the bag and fell on the table, bringing a light chuckle from David's lips.

"David?"

I moved to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder as his arm wrapped around my waist. "Why do you have...a dog?"

"An extremely small one at that," Regina commented.

"I found it," was David's simple answer.

"Charming, we're gonna need a little bit more of an explanation than that."

"Well," he started. "As I was heading back through the forest on my way to the car. I heard a rustling in some bushes, which turned out to be him." He gestured at the tiny dog on the table that was currently curled up in a ball. "He was completely alone, so I decided we could keep him a while."