AN: I initially wrote this a couple years ago for English class, of all things. It's going to be completed, exactly as the original left off. I purposely didn't edit for typos, of which I am certain there are a few, as I wanted to publish this in its entire original form, flaws and all. I might be persuaded to write a sequel if that is something people are interested in. This is entirely AU - no curse, and as it was written for school, no smut.
Regina tapped her foot anxiously. She was beginning to question her decision to bring out her Toshiba Portégé 3010CT laptop out to the park to type up her report. She needed sunshine, she thought. She needed fresh air. The one teeny little problem? Babies.
There were babies everywhere. In strollers, on the playground, in their parents' arms. Silent babies, loud babies, sleeping babies, playing babies, crying babies. Babies, babies, babies. The worst part was that she wasn't even annoyed at their presence. No, the worst part was that with each baby she saw, her biological clock made another tick.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Regina was pushing 30 and remained childless. With every year that passed, it would make her yet another year older when her prospective child turned 18. Even if she miraculously managed to have one before her 30th birthday, that would put her at turning 47 the year her child turned 18.
"I can't find my mommy," she heard a sad little voice say.
She looked away from the report she was no longer focused on to see a small African American girl, probably no older than three, standing right by the bench she was sitting at. She slowly closed her laptop. "You can't find your mommy?"
The young girl shook her head, rubbing a fist against a teary eye.
"Alright," Regina replied kindly. "How about you come sit by me and you can tell me what she looks like?"
The young girl hopped up onto the bench and Regina looked around for anyone who looked like they were missing a child, assuming the mother was also African American.
"She's pwetty," the girl spoke.
"Yeah?" Regina continued looking.
"And she got wed hair."
"Angelica!"
The girl hopped off the bench. "Mommy!"
The woman that approached and swept the young girl up was definitely a pretty redhead, but not African American. She was very white.
"You're her mother?" Regina questioned curiously.
"In all ways but blood," the woman answered with some sort of Scottish or Irish accent mixed into a common New York dialect. She pressed kisses to young Angelica's cheeks and the girl clung to her like a koala. "I'm used to people's confusion by now. Adoption is the legal term, but it doesn't make her any less mine."
Regina smiled. "Well, she is one lucky little girl. I'm glad you found her."
The woman thanked her and left with her daughter. Regina watched them go, gears spinning in her head. She pulled out her Ericsson R380 cell phone. "Hello, Sidney? I have a question that I'm hoping you'll have an answer to, since you're a paralegal and all."
"Uh oh, do I need to be worried about my best financial executive assistant friend's career?"
Regina laughed. "I'm your only financial executive assistant friend. And no, the bank is not heading toward bankruptcy, if that's what you're thinking. I have a question about the adoption process, specifically, how long it takes."
"Hearing those tell-tale ticks, huh?"
"Oh, shut up! Answer the question, please." It really sucked being the only person in her friend circle without children. The teasing was evil.
"Well, the process depends on quite a few things. It should go faster than average for you because you are clearly a responsible and financially stable human being. High status has its perks in the adoption world. But there are other factors that affect the timing. There's the age you're looking for, whether you're open to all ethnicities or not, if you're willing to adopt siblings, whether it's an open or closed adoption…"
"What's the difference between open and closed?" Regina asked.
"When it's open you meet the biological parent or parents and have access to medical history and contact info. The biological parents can choose to stay in the life of their child in some way although they're surrendering custodial rights. It can be pictures and letters, or scheduled supervised visits with the child with the adoptive parent or parents present. They could also choose to remain essentially strangers. With a closed adoption, they do remain strangers. The adoptive family has no access to contact information of any kind or the biological family's medical history. Not even the birth certificate is available, all records are sealed. You won't know them and they won't know you."
"I see…" Regina chewed on her lip thoughtfully. "Could you give me a ballpark timeframe if I were to give certain parameters?"
"If you're specific enough, I probably could."
"Only child, newborn, any ethnicity, status as either open or closed is fine, either gender."
"Assuming that's just within the states, that could take anywhere from six months to two years for you."
"Yes, I was thinking just within the states," Regina confirmed.
"Were you just curious, or are you seriously considering adopting?"
"Both," Regina found herself answering.
"Well, I can get an application to you, and if you chicken out you don't have to do anything with it."
"Gee, thanks. It's great to know I have friends that are so confident in me."
"For what it's worth, you'd be a rockstar in the mothering department."
"Thank you. Well, I better get back to that report I'm busy not writing."
Sidney laughed. "Okay, I'll let you go. Best of luck, Regina."
Emma was heartbroken. She had been a foster child her entire life and had never been adopted, so she gave up hope and ran away once she turned 16. She had met this wonderful young man while attempting to steal a car of all things, for shelter more than transportation. She had gotten in easily enough, but he popped up out of the backseat, startling the hell out of her. Turned out he'd already done the stealing for her. She couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculousness that she had stolen a stolen car.
The young man's name was Neal, and he was only three years older than her. They became partners in petty crime, stealing just what they needed to get by, always looking out for each other and never getting caught. They never stayed in one place for very long, and whoever owned the car they had stolen apparently didn't care enough about it to report it.
It didn't take long for the two to fall for each other, and a few months after Emma's 17th birthday, she ended up pregnant. It scared the hell out of her, but Neal eased her fears. They could and would do this together. They would be a real family. He would take the first job he could find, even if payment was under the table, and the petty crime would stop. He'd take care of her and the baby.
It is amazing how much a baby on the way can motivate a person. Neal got a good job in no time, using his powers for good and taking his car knowledge to become a mechanic. Within a couple weeks he had enough money to rent a small apartment, and a couple weeks later he surprised Emma with a ring. If they were going to be a real family, they had to make it official. Emma had never felt so wanted in her entire life or so close to being a part of a family. They made plans to marry late into her pregnancy, soon after her 18th birthday in April the following year.
Unfortunately, Emma's hopes of being part of a family as a wife came crashing to a halt just three days before Christmas. It was the mark of her 18th week when she got the most devastating phone call of her life. Neal had been working beneath a car when a wheel slipped off a jack, pinning him down. They had called an ambulance and gotten him out from underneath the car as quickly as they could, but when the paramedics arrived, there was nothing that could be done. His boss offered to send his last earned paycheck in her name with a couple extra hundred thrown into it, saying he could rarely get Neal to shut up about how excited he was to get married and be a father.
Emma wasn't about to turn down the money, but it would only be a small cushion. She was already frantically calculating the cost of rent in her head with how much Neal typically brought home in paychecks, and even with the extra couple hundred she would maybe squeak through the next month and a half before finding somewhere else to go.
She had no idea how to raise a baby and now she was going to have to do it alone. She looked down at the ring on her finger, knowing she couldn't even sell it because it wasn't fully paid off. When she could bear to part with it, she would simply have to return it to the jewellry store Neal had got it from, and she doubted she would get any sort of refund from it.
Emma spent the holidays that were filled with joy and cheer for most other people heartbroken, grieving, alone, and stressed. The only reason she even ate was for the baby, she couldn't bear anything happening to him as well. The gender hadn't been revealed, but she just knew it was going to be a him.
The more time passed and the closer the due date loomed, Emma realized she had a very difficult decision ahead of her. Would she raise her baby as an 18 year old single mother who had dropped out of high school and had no job and likely end up in poverty and homeless or resorting to living in shelters, or would she give her baby away for adoption and hope with every fiber of her soul he didn't slip through the cracks the same way she had? It wasn't an easy decision to make, and she struggled with it from the moment she realized what her options were. She changed her mind a lot over the last leg of the pregnancy, on her birthday she refused to even think about it, even though she knew she likely had less than a month to go.
When her water broke and she went into labor, she still had no idea what her game plan was, and when labor hit, there was no room for any thoughts besides getting to a damn hospital. Every minute felt like an hour, sometimes her contractions were as painful as the movies made it look, and sometimes she didn't even feel them. All sense of time was lost as she tried to keep up with instructions she found to be very contradicting, not to push, push, take deep breaths, take shallow breaths, take my hand if you need to…
She had no idea when she went in or how long she was there anymore, she was so exhausted she could barely remember her own name. All she knew was that on May 15, 2001 at 8:15 AM her baby -
"It's a boy, Emma!"
All she knew was that on May 15, 2001 at 8:15 AM her baby boy was born.
The doctor snipped the cord, got the baby all cleaned up and checked out. "You have a very beautiful and healthy 6 pounds 8 ounces baby boy." She smiled. "Do you want to hold him?"
Emma nodded and tried to sit up a bit, but the doctor shook her head and pushed a button to raise head half of the bed instead. Then she handed him to her.
"Oh my goodness," Emma whispered, eyes tearing up right away at the sight of him. He really was beautiful. And those eyes...those were Neal's eyes, she was sure of it. "Hello, there." She smiled at him and very lightly caressed his soft little cheek with the tip of her finger.
"Do you have a name for him?" the doctor asked.
Emma felt like a stone dropped in her stomach, her decision coming to her without warning. She had nothing prepared for a baby. No diapers, no crib, no clothes...nothing. She couldn't raise him, not alone, not the way he deserved. "I...can't." She looked up at her, a tear rolling down her cheek. She shook her head sadly. "I can't be a mother. Someone needs to contact an adoption agency."
"Are you sure, Emma?"
Emma nodded. "It's what's best for him. His father died and I just turned 18 not even a month ago. I have no other family. He deserves a better life than I will ever be able to give him."
"Well, you won't be able to leave for a few days and we like to keep newborns overnight a couple nights anyway, so you can have a couple days with him while we contact an agency and get him placed in a home. Do you want an open or closed adoption?"
"What's the difference?" Emma asked.
"An open adoption allows you to meet the adoptive family and stay in contact with the child on whatever level and terms you agree upon. A closed adoption means you don't meet them or know who they are, and they don't know anything about you either. All records are sealed."
"I can't risk him not being given a proper home because people judge me, think I'm too young, or am some sort of street rat or something… He should be chosen for him, it should have nothing to do with me."
"Closed adoption, then?"
Emma nodded.
"I will look into it. And you can always change your mind until you sign your custodial rights away."
"Thank you." Emma looked down at her son again, knowing it wouldn't be hard for anyone to fall in love with him if they gave him a chance. "You'll be better off without me, little one," she whispered before pressing a lingering kiss to his forehead.