Is part of the crack-tastic Faebiesverse I've been batting about on Tumblr. Keep in mind that I take my crack-verses very seriously. This is rather long and is narrated in a style very different from my usual style because it was supposed to be a quick headcanon post and is, instead, five thousand words.
Whatever. Pregnant Regina. Nothing else matters.
There are a lot of things that become Constant Topics of Conversation once they find out they're having triplets. Emma's personal favorite topic: Regina's Fucking Amazing Pregnancy Tits. Regina's changes depending on the week and time of day. Early in the morning, when she is crabby from lack of sleep and sore muscles, her only topics are getting Henry ready for school and cursing Emma's magic—although as the months progress, she tries to soften her words (a little). Mid-afternoon, she talks about food. Emma thinks it's hilarious and, one day, takes screenshots of Regina's texts over the course of three hours in which she lists her favorite snack foods in every cuisine available in Storybrooke and then some.
(When she sends the pictures to Henry, he bikes over to the grocery store and picks up three boxes of frozen churros. Emma is sure that Regina will refuse, but by the time she gets home, the two of them have eaten a box and a half between them. The third box has Emma's name written on it in Sharpie and she makes a point to thank Henry out of Regina's earshot.)
There is a space of about a month and a half, right around month five, when sex comes up as often as food. When sex happens as often as food. Regina starts talking about sex in terms of food and when Emma sleeps through her lunch hour instead of meeting Regina for a quickie, she learns more than the original meaning of 'aperitif' before dinner. By month seven, when Regina starts entirely freaking out about her weight gain and refusing to let Emma touch her, Emma is almost grateful. At least, she sleeps like the dead for close to a week, and then remembers that their obstetrician warned against sex after 30 weeks—something about risks to multiples and also magic babies—and does her best to shower Regina with adoration-sex for the week they have left.
But the real Constant Topic of Conversation is names. And at first—when all they know is three babies and are still torn between giddy and petrified—it's light-hearted and joking and they even spend two afternoons flipping through baby name books from 1983 and searching baby websites for the most outrageous names.
And then it gets real, and shit hits the fan.
They agree that parents' names are off the table. Parents' fake names are also off the table. And after that, they agree on nothing.
The first complication arises when Regina reminds Emma of her full, legal last name. Emma, perpetually ahead of the ball (not), just scoffs and says, "Aren't we just going with Swan-Mills?"
Turns out no, no they are not.
When she's finally allowed back in their bed—and it's made perfectly clear to her that it's only because Regina is already getting the worst sleep of her life so the lack of a human space heater is obviously not helping—all she says is, "Don't use Swan with it. It sounds stupid."
Regina huffs into the water bottle she's trying to finish before she falls asleep and turns away. "That's why we'll use Cisneros."
"That's not even my name," Emma gets out, before clapping her hand over her mouth. "Wait. I'm sorry. Please don't kick me out."
Regina huffs again. "I'm cold," she snaps, and Emma gratefully scoots over the midline of the bed and curls her body against Regina's.
On the upside, picking out names that go well with Ochotorena de Loíza Molinero cuts down possibilities quite a bit. On the downside, Emma vents to her father about Cisneros and how it's not even her damn name, David blindsides her with, "Well, Swan isn't, either, is it? It'd be Nolan or Blanchard," Emma stares at him blankly for about thirty seconds before she explodes with "Are you fucking kidding me right now?" and storms out. David vents to Snow. Snow, apparently, has a lot of opinions about first and last names.
She blindsides Regina at the office with a long, rambling speech about heritage and lineage and Regina shoves her into a chair about five words past lineage and explains in one low hiss that her mother was the name-bearer of a line of mill-women who built and maintained the largest stone mill on the Rio Júcar for over a quarter of a millennium without challenge from any man. That her father was the son of kings and lords and conquerers and bore the name of the wolf with pride. That her grandmother was wayfaring daughter of the only queen of Jaymanío and she will be damned if that lineage fades in favor of two names chosen on a whim and in a fit of pique.
Nor, she adds when Snow opens her mouth to protest, will she sacrifice the legacy of loss that Swan represents. Not unless Emma herself changes her last name, and only if Emma specifies that their children should not bear that name.
That night, Emma lays her head in Regina's lap and whispers against her just-starting-to-swell-stomach about how Swan is her and not her. Hers and not hers. "I like Cisneros for you, duckies," she says, and Regina keeps stroking her hair before she corrects, softly, "Accent on the penultimate syllable, dear."
The Names Thing stays peaceful-ish for seven more weeks, until week 20 when Regina suddenly bursts out with "I have to know," and Emma calls up Dr. Agnes after two minutes of just holding Regina's hand and saying, "Okay," until she stops trembling. And then there's an ultrasound with three little alien-shaped babies and Emma maybe starts to cry when she hears their heartbeats again but pulls herself together because Regina looks petrified and Dr. Agnes asks gently, one more time, "Are you ready to know the genders?"
Two girls and a boy.
(Dr. Agnes tells them a lot of things about probability of mixed gender triplets and Regina asks a lot of questions about possible magical interference and they go back and forth on different iron sources and supplements and at some point bed rest comes up because now it's real, now they are not just ideas in ether but two girls and a boy coming into their own inside Regina's slowly-growing stomach. Emma just says "Write it down?" weakly because two girls and a boy. Regina says, "Steak dinner, dear, and often," and smiles and smiles and smiles.)
They agree to tell only Henry. He's in the midst of a Game of Thrones phase and, as self-appointed Hand of the Queen, sees himself as the gatekeeper for all things baby; he therefore has no problem declaring patriarchy-reinforcing bi-color binary-gendered items not welcome. Everyone thinks he's just kidding until he throws the brand new pink baby blanket Snow's purchased in the trash compactor at the diner. "I said no pink," he says calmly, and goes back to eating his lunch.
Ruby laughs hysterically and gives him a double high-five. (She knows because Regina slipped and told Granny, and of course that meant telling Ruby. But it's okay, because Kathryn and Jim cornered Emma who was just woefully out of her depth with that.)
Regina does not take well to Emma's suggestion of Victoria—"If Whale thinks for a moment that one of our babies is named after him!"—or any boy names that involve God. ("That's basically eliminating every fucking Spanish name in existence, Regina!" "Could you be more prejudiced right now?") Emma staunchly refuses to add any girl name with "pretty" as the implied meaning. ("For God's sake, Emma—" "Oh, so now God's cool, huh?") Henry sits them both down and says if they choose letter-coordinating names, he's moving out.
Everything stalls for a while, neither of them wanting to bring up possibilities, until Regina (6 months pregnant, now, and she's officially waddling and it's adorable on every possible level) comes into the station just to visit and finds Emma asleep on that 1983 baby names book with a steno pad of possibilities written and crossed out and rewritten. There are notes scrawled next to a few of them, and one in particular catches her eye: "Mary ≠ God?"
When Emma wakes up, Regina's sitting across from her, writing out something in longhand on the steno pad, and she blearily gets out a "Babe?" before looking down and seeing the name book. "Shit—Regina, look, none of that—"
"Mercedes is a good name," Regina says, and hands Emma the steno pad again, with Mercedes Ochotorena de Loíza Molinero y Cisneros written across the bottom in her long, steeply angled script. "Flows well."
From Emma's list, they also pick Sofia—although Henry is sworn to secrecy about where Emma got it—and while there's some disagreement about form, Alejandro (Emma's pushing for Alex) also becomes a finalist. Except then there's middle names, and will the ones from Emma's list be first or middle, and regardless they still need three more names, and well, shit.
Regina's list, when she finally shares it, is way more eclectic and far nerdier, and when Emma finds out that Regina went to classical myths for inspiration, she kind of groans a little. "We're not naming the kid Ajax, Regina."
"Kathryn bought me an electric blanket, Miss Swan, your presence is by no means necessary."
Emma grumbles something about Regina only being cold because all of her body's energy is focused on digesting the 60 pounds of caramel rice cakes she'd eaten and Regina quite calmly ejects her from their bed with a single kick to the ass.
But on the weekend, when Emma's apologized via orgasm about four times and they're drowsing in bed, Regina still curled on her side against Emma with their hands intertwined on her upper thigh, they flip through a few pages of names and nothing is as polarizing as Ajax. And even the more eclectic ones are actually pretty badass, when Regina shares the meanings.
For example: Emma is more than a little skeptical about the name Isidro, until Regina explains that the fully translated meaning is gift of the queen of the throne and also tells her that Isis was the matron of motherhood and magic. And that kind of seals the deal.
Carolina means free person but also song of joy and there's something about the way Regina's elegant script faltered when she wrote it, how the vowels look interchangeable, that makes Emma circle it as a definite. And then she flips the page and sees Thalia and starts to laugh. "What's the deal with Thalia?" she asks, and Regina frowns.
"Why are you laughing?"
"I'll explain in a minute," Emma says, "just tell me why you like it."
"Two Thalias—one of the Graces and the muse of Comedy. It means abundance. Why are you laughing?"
Emma just smiles and kisses her softly and then turns on their TV and Blu-Ray. "I like it a lot," she says. "A lot a lot."
Regina looks at the red Netflix loading screen and back at Emma and says, "No." But Emma's already circled the name in green and then picks up the remote again and loads the early 90s Batman. "No," Regina says again. "Don't you dare ruin that name."
"I'm not ruining. I'm enhancing."
Three well-chosen episodes later and Regina is maybe kinda sorta on board with modifying the spelling to Talia. She's just about fallen asleep again—Emma has started up another episode and Talia al-Ghul is not in it so there's no point in watching—when her eyes pop open in horror. "Where did you get Alexander from?"
Emma's whole body stiffens up, which is a dead giveaway. "Uh, Alexander the Great. Duh."
"Emma."
"It means defender."
"Miss Swan," Regina hisses, and starts to sit up.
"Fuck. It doesn't matter, it's a good name. Regina, come on, lie down—"
"Tell me you did not pick Alejandro because of Lex Luthor."
Emma pinches her eyes shut. "I did not pick Alejandro—"
"Have the decency to look at me when you're lying to my face."
Emma spends the night in the guest room, but Regina doesn't cross the name off the page with their choices and hell yes, Emma's taking that as a victory. All she has to do now is make sure Regina never takes a closer look at the Wonder Woman 'verse and she will be golden.
Regina's ordered on moderate bed rest at week 29, and it's made Henry's responsibility to tout the superiority of Marvel every time she suggests a comic fest like they used to have when he was little. "She's gonna find out someday," he tells Emma flatly when she hands him a fifty to go buy new comics.
"After the birth certificates have been filled out," Emma replies.
Two nights before the scheduled c-section (33 and a half weeks, just past the average), when they're both pretending not to be frightened out of their minds and therefore both refusing to bicker about anything including the half-Hawaiian half-Meat Lover's pizza Emma and Henry split for dinner—Regina steals a few pieces of pineapple and doesn't ask about vegetables, which prompts Henry to get up and wash some baby carrots (which he then drowns in ranch dressing, but hey)—Henry asks if he can stencil the babies' names on their cribs. He's done a hell of a job with the nursery; the walls are a happy, buttery yellow with white stripes, and he put together all the furniture with David as his lovely assistant (no, really, David wasn't allowed to do anything but hand over tools or fasteners and was told directly that he was the lovely assistant). There are triptychs of different sizes and orientations on three of the walls, and all of the baby gifts have either been put away in their proper places or piled on the two benches in front of the (south-facing, like Granny suggested) windows.
"Their full names won't fit," Emma snarks, and Regina quirks an eyebrow but lets it go.
"Yes, sweetheart. You can."
"As in," Henry continues, "can you decide whose name is which?"
"Oh," Regina says.
But then Dr. Agnes drops in the next morning to talk about maybe riding the pregnancy out for another week, because the longer the babies can stay in the womb the better off they'll be. And Emma's nervous and uncertain and what about the risks and Regina's health and Regina's torn between please sweet Jesus let this pregnancy be over and they'll be safer? Dr. Agnes says they'll have to commit to full bed rest but yes, they'll definitely be better off.
So they wait another week, and everyone's nerves are shot to hell and Regina gives only a token protest when David and Snow start squatting in the main guest room, because David makes sure that the house stays clean and Henry stays fed and everything stays in working order and that Regina gets high-iron meals four times a day and Snow basically devotes herself to taking care of Emma who is still working full-time while devoting herself to taking care of Regina who is just so not made for bed rest.
Henry's idea to take her mind off things is to ask her to write out the babies' names in the formal calligraphy she never has to use, so he can turn it into stencils for the cribs. It turns into a massive project that requires digging boxes out of Regina's closet full of heavyweight paper and oak tag and fountain pens and ink bottles and cartridges and a lap desk that is Pepto-Bismol-pink and clearly from the late eighties. Basically, it's genius, because Regina's a perfectionist and more than a bit of an artist when it comes to calligraphy, and when Henry asks her to write out all of her formal titles, too, and then for a family tree of her side, she stops thinking about how scared she is.
Instead, she gets to focus on how Henry's fucking insane when Emma comes storming into the bedroom on day five of week thirty four and demands to know what the hell he was thinking. She's got tears streaming down her face and Henry gapes at her in horror and says faintly, "That it's their birthright. And mine, but I'm way too old for unicorns."
Regina props herself up on an elbow for about five seconds, then returns to lying on her side with a huff, and Emma bites her lip and then says, "He hung up my mobile in the middle of the room, Regina. Made it into a fucking chandelier."
"Oh," is all Regina says. And then she says, "Unicorns, Henry?" and smiles at him, cups his cheek with her hand.
"Not the goddamn point, Regina!"
They wait another week—thirty five, almost full term, almost almost almost—and Henry and David move one crib into the master bedroom so Regina can watch Henry cover one stencil with about six coats of gel stain to make it look like the name is branded into the wood. He's only just gotten started on the second crib when Regina blanches and cries out and tells him that she thinks she should go to the hospital and could he please call Dr. Agnes?
He gets the crib out of the way while calling the doctor and delegates calling Emma to David and gets Snow to help him get Regina up and into her shoes and as far as the landing of the staircase before Emma bursts in and sprints up the stairs and takes Snow's place while panting out that Jim is out front with the soccer team van and that everything's gonna be just fine.
"I know," Regina says, and she smiles at Henry before biting back the pain of another contraction.
Jim has the doors open and the A/C on high and as soon as Regina's settled onto the bench seat, Henry climbs in the front and shuts off the A/C and rolls down the windows because stale air has made her puke since the spring. Emma's got the hospital bag slung across her body and David grabs her elbow and hands her a Tron lunchbox before saying, "We'll see you there. Henry, you're in charge," and reaching forward to squeeze Regina's hand with a smile.
Jim floors it—but gently—and as soon as they walk in through the automatic doors, Regina's swarmed by nurses and swept away with Dr. Agnes pausing only for thirty seconds to say, "Hey, Emma, Henry. Settle in, I'll have someone come get you as soon as she's situated," before she's gone, too.
They're both kind of speechless and lost, and then Emma looks down at the lunchbox in her hands and opens it to find three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on potato bread, cut diagonally, with three granola bars, three of those little bottles of water and one very large, very red Fuji apple. "Oh," is all Emma says, before she kind of stumbles, and Henry guides her to a chair.
Jim goes to get Kathryn ("And Granny! And Ruby!" Henry shouts after him) and David and Snow come rushing in and then, as promised, a nurse comes to get Emma and Henry. Regina's in a bed in her own room in the maternity ward, very clearly not giving birth, and Henry's confused but Emma just lets out this large sigh of relief and kisses Regina's forehead. "I—uh—thought there were contractions? Doesn't that mean… uh, labor?" Henry asks.
Regina nods, holds out her hands for him to go to her. "Real contractions, but we've got some time, so they're prepping for the c-section."
"They're still gonna cut into you?"
"It's the best way for the babies," Regina assures him, combing her fingers through his hair, "and I'll heal."
He looks to Emma, who nods, squeezes his shoulder. "It's gonna be fine, kid."
In the two hours that they wait in the room, Kathryn & Jim, Granny & Ruby, and David & Snow trickle in in rotation, and when Granny hands over a large bag with three pure white woolen blankets with two initials stitched in gold on the corner of each, Regina absolutely loses it and bursts into tears. Emma kicks everyone but Granny out—including Henry—and then, with a look of surprise on her face, is sent out of the room herself. Granny finally opens the door to let Emma and Henry back in, pats Emma's cheek kindly and hugs Henry quickly before announcing that they'll all wait in the cafeteria because Lord knows they don't know how to socialize with each other without food.
Hospital policy allows only one non-medical person in the operating room, so when Dr. Agnes comes to tell Regina they're ready for her, Henry hugs her as hard as he can (but around the shoulders, like he has for months now) and kisses both his mothers before heading down to the cafeteria and smiling, just a little, when Ruby slides a plate of apple pie across the table.
Emma's made to wait outside the OR for a few minutes while Regina's prepped and she lets everyone know that she's only waiting because Dr. Agnes said so. When she's finally let in, she kind of just freezes, because there are a shit ton of people in the room, and they're all milling around Regina who is stark naked and spread open on the operating table and she looks fucking petrified and no one's holding her hand or saying sweet things to her and that's just wrong. It's wrong.
So Emma smiles, as big as she can, and says, "Ready to make some magic?"
"You're an idiot," Regina gets out, but she's starting to smile, and one of the nurses pushes a stool to the side of the table and points Emma to it and she does what she can to wrap Regina up in her arms and her love because it's time.
Dr. Agnes talks to them through the whole thing, explaining what's happening as it happens—IV line, leads, antacid, epidural, cleansing and shaving, first incision—and as soon as the first cut is made, Regina demands that the surgical drape be dropped. "I can barely feel it so I need to see it," she says, and she's gritting her teeth and squeezing Emma's hands. And fuck, the last thing Emma wants to see is Regina being cut open so little alien-babies can be removed from her insides but then Regina says it again, and it makes so much sense that Emma kisses her temple and just clenches her jaw as one of the nurses removes the drape and two others put a surgical masks over Emma's and Regina's mouths.
And holy God, it's just about the grossest thing ever, and she wants to fucking cry, but Regina doesn't flinch for a moment, just stares determinedly while they cut again and then again and then there are hands in her in ways that are not okay, not okay, not okay, and there is a fucking alien coming out of the incision and Dr. Agnes is maybe trying to behead it because there's no way anybody should be squeezing a baby's head that hard and why the fuck is the alien purple-red.
But then there's suddenly give and the whole little alien is in Dr. Agnes's hands and there's a flurry of movement and then Regina holds her breath and the alien isn't purple-red anymore, there is a baby in Dr. Agnes's hands and a crying baby, a loudly crying baby.
It's all happening so fucking fast but then Regina says, "Sofia," in this cracking and wondrous voice and oh.
"Emma," Dr. Agnes calls, and her eyes are crinkly like she's smiling. "We've clamped the cord, and I thought you might like to cut it?"
Oh.
She looks to Regina, who just squeezes her hands harder and nods, and she lets go and crosses over to the lower end of the table and oh. "Hi there," she whispers, and the dude holding a pair of scissors out to her chuckles a little, and she tries to take the scissors but her hands are shaking and she misses, and he puts them into the palm of her hand kindly, nods at her. "Okay, duckie, don't hate me for this, okay?"
"It won't hurt her," the dude says. "No nerves in it."
"Oh," Emma says faintly, and looks over at Regina, who's looking between her own abdomen and Emma and the baby. "Either of them?"
He nods again, and she takes a deep breath and holds it and presses the scissors shut on the long super-gross twisty cord, and then she's kind of crowded out of the way by people whisking the baby away and she kind of just stands there helplessly while strangers clean their first baby girl off. And then Dr. Agnes says, "Back next to your lady, Swan, we've got two more to go."
Oh. Right. She's back on the stool as quickly as possible and then kind of just grinning at Regina because one down, two to go. "So that's Sofia, huh?"
Regina nods and she's going a little blurry-eyed. "She's okay?"
Emma doesn't have a fucking clue, but Sofia's still showing off her lungs so Emma says, "She's announcing her grand entrance, babe, she's perfect," and Regina scoffs.
Dr. Agnes says, "Steady, Regina, we've got to cut again," and it goes even faster than before, and this time Emma tries to see baby baby baby instead of alien alien baby and it almost works, because she sees before Dr. Agnes even says, "Your second girl." This time, her hands don't shake when she cuts the cord and she steps back to let the pediatrician and nurse do their jobs and she's back next to Regina in time for the last cuts.
Right when Dr. Agnes lifts their boy up and over, Emma leans over to whisper against Regina's ear. "Save the Lex for last, huh?" she says, and Regina scowls at her, followed by a tremulous laugh.
When Emma gets up to cut their little boy's cord, she can see the pediatrician with Sofia and she's just plain wiggling and she's pinky-gold and Jesus, the kid's got lungs. They're still cleaning Talia off and the pediatrician holding Alex pinches him and there's just a lot of baby-noise happening and oh.
A lot of baby-noise. Because they have a lot of babies. Real live babies.
Dr. Agnes says that stitching Regina up will take something like forty minutes, and that Emma's welcome to follow the babies to the NICU. And she wants to ask why the NICU and she wants to say I can't leave her and she wants to say like hell I'm letting them out of my sight and she just doesn't know what to do. Regina tells her with one look because whenever Emma falters, Regina is certain, and Emma kisses her temple through the surgical mask before following the three pediatricians out.
Because it's Storybrooke, the NICU is tiny and it's just the triplets—her triplets—and they're clean and swaddled and they look like babies and she wants Regina to see them like this, making small noises to each other and moving their arms and legs around underneath their blankets and—oh. Those are The Blankets. And the staff even matched each blanket to the right baby, because Talia has way more hair on her little tiny head than Sofia and clear, tight dark curls, and Alex is a little smaller than his sisters and Sofia's eyes are big and wide, and Talia's tucked under a TM and Emma can see the edge of the I under Alex's feet and Sofia's got an S on her chest like she's ready to take up the family business.
That's where Henry finds Emma after an hour, just staring at the three newborns and whispering to them. He stays on the other side of the glass because he's nowhere near sterile, and waves at her, and grins big, and one of the nurses comes in to tell her that Regina's ready for them.
Oh.
She looks tired and wan and there's still fear in her eyes but when all three bassinet baskets are wheeled in and lined up next to the bed and Sofia is put in her arms, her smile is just—
Well, there's a reason Emma got her pregnant.
Emma holds Talia while they get Sofia settled into a proper football hold, and then she settles their second girl against Regina's side, and scoops up Alex and his soft white blanket and sits at Regina's feet and just—
Henry takes a picture and then puts his hand over his eyes and Emma can't even tease him because she knows she's crying.
Dr. Agnes comes in later to tell them that all three kids check out and they won't need time in the NICU after all and Regina panics because does that mean they go home without her and Dr. Agnes just laughs and promises her that her kids will stay with her for as long as she can stand them.
Henry's playing messenger between the ward and the cafeteria and running himself a little ragged, but Regina wants to nurse them at least once before everyone comes in and as soon as the nursing nurse—and Emma snickers a little—comes in, Henry backs out of the room with a stuttered "So I'm gonna—not—yeah."
Emma has a lot of feelings about a complete stranger handling Regina's breasts, and from the look on Regina's face she's less than comfortable with it herself, but the woman is all business and talks calmly and quickly about cleaning and moisturizing routines for her nipples, and that with multiples her best bet is to double-feed two and pump for a third and rotate who gets the bottle per feeding. "Make bottles and pumping and maintaining all of that your responsibility," the nurse tells Emma sternly, and Emma nods weakly, "because she's going to be busy."
The entire time she's been talking, the nurse has been repositioning Sofia and also massaging Regina's right breast and when Sofia latches on, Regina gasps, and then just kind of stares at their tiny little girl in surprise, and the nurse smiles. "For right now," she says, "we'll let her feed, and after a bit we'll get the other girl started, and when this one's done, we'll let the boy nurse. And then I'll get you started on pumping."
Sofia's temples are pulsing a little, and Emma can see her little jaw working from the foot of the bed, and she wonders what they gave Henry when he was an hour old and she starts to cry again, and Regina looks up at her and tries to smile and says, "This feels so weird."
And Emma laughs, and kisses Alex's fuzzy head, and is grateful.
FYI, Granny is the first person Regina lets into the recovery room. Because.