Chapter Text
The midwife lifts the baby and places her on Emma’s chest; purple and wrinkled and slimy, and so so outraged at being alive. Killian cannot tear his gaze away from her as she mewls her protest, moving shakily at the pace of the midwife’s hands on her back rubbing her dry.
“It’s a girl,” Emma repeats after the midwife, breathless and delighted.
“Our girl,” Killian coos, swiping his too-big finger through delicate, sticky locks on their daughter’s forehead. She’s turning more pink with every frantic heave of her tiny body, life establishing itself with a force and determination that fills him with awe. His heart swells with the enormity of it, of her, of the bright and joyful life that stretches out ahead of them. You will never need to be afraid he vows to this perfect being, his child, his daughter.
She nurses and Emma looks at him – laughing, still breathless – and reaches for a kiss. He caresses her face, offers her another drink which she accepts as the midwife takes the baby for some measurements. He doesn’t look at Emma as the young woman returns, the child now swaddled in some towels and wearing a little green knitted hat. Something about the midwife’s sudden change in movement draws his eye.
“Hold her for a second, Killian?” Emma murmurs and he looks at her. The bottom falls out of his stomach even as he numbly takes the child and Emma, suddenly ashen, wanly smiles. Her eyes are no longer bright, and they are distant, unfocused, looking at him as if through a long tunnel. He whirls to the midwife with her bloodstained hand, whose smile is supposed to be reassuring, but he can see the dismayed grimace underneath.
“It’s quite alright, just a little more bleeding than we like,” she says – lies – and then there is the sound of a bell. People in nurses’ uniforms flood the room and swarm around Emma, and he stumbles out of the way. The baby nuzzles into him, and he strokes her impossibly soft cheek almost absentmindedly. He surges forward through the tide of blues pushing around her and takes Emma’s cold, cold, ice cold hand.
“I wish Henry was here,” she says, and they wheel her away, a trail of crimson in their wake.
…
“Ready?” Regina asks with a smile, and Henry nods. He pats his pack full of souvenirs he’s collected over the past few weeks; little trinkets from markets and unusual pressed flowers, rocks in hues unknown to the Land Without Magic, letters from old friends addressed to Storybrooke residents. There is a little stuffed chimera somewhere in there which they have bought for the baby, and they cannot wait for Emma’s reaction to it. They left four weeks ago, and Emma should be due very soon now. Henry initially had hesitated to go, not wanting to miss his sibling’s birth, but Emma had reassured him: he had been late, way past his due date, and she was confident if they returned around this time there would be plenty of buffer.
Time enough for the trip to the Enchanted Forest he has been begging for endlessly, and now, just before he heads off to college, they finally agreed. Emma, vibrant and more real than ever in her late pregnancy, had bemoaned the fact she couldn’t accompany them on what she called Henry’s pre-adventure adventure.
“Last summer before college, kid. Soon you’ll be too wrapped up in exams to sleep in forests and converse with birds.” Henry had laughed and protested, and they had already agreed to make a trip together next year.
With that thought lifting her heart, Regina casts the magic bean and the portal back home opens before them. They step through, right into the mansion’s foyer. Blinking against the sudden change in surroundings they laugh at the juxtaposition of Enchanted Forest garb to the modern interior. Henry shrugs off his pack and cloak and sets to unlacing his boots. Regina has a much easier time slipping out of her soft shoes, and hanging her cloak on a peg she picks up her phone from the charging station on the side table. She frows, unease settling over her shoulders at the number of missed calls and messages. Wasting no time, she taps on the number that comes out on top. It barely rings two times before it is answered.
“Snow, what-“ And then she stops, silenced by the force of the voice coming over the speakers. “Hold on, slow down. Wha-“ Henry looks up from the laces he’s mostly undone, gaze fast and tense. “Wh- Oh god.”
“What?” says Henry, voice sharp. “Mom, what?”
Regina holds the phone to her chest despite Snow still talking, sobbing, on the other end. Her voice cracks. “Oh god, Henry.”