Previously, on Once Upon a Time:
"This isn't an ending, Emma. There's more to come."
"But we don't know for sure. What if I don't get a second chance?"
"It's going to be okay."
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A blanket of freshly fallen snow paints everything beyond the porch white, but the overcast January sky ensures it's a dull kind of white. Cold. Bleak. Barren. Emma gives a plaintive sigh as she nurses her morning coffee and sits curled up on the end of the built-in seat that borders the bay window, her legs pulled up under her on the dark green cushion and her spine settled into a large throw pillow which is propped up between her and the side of the low, adjoining bookcase. She stares blankly out the window through the slightly withdrawn curtain, the scene a gauzy blur to her unfocused eyes, and clutches her mug with both hands like a lifeline, in desperate need of even the small amount of comfort she draws from the press of the warm ceramic against her skin.
Outside, the occasional passersby catch her attention: Grandma Hubbard with her faithful retriever. A couple of former Vikings out to shovel snow for hire. Ashley and Sean walking with Alex and bow-legged little Gus while Sean wears their newest baby sister, Ellie, snug against his chest. The baby's wiggling limbs are clad in the fluffy pink fabric of her bunting, and the white poof of her hat is just visible over the edge of her carrier. Emma blinks and glances away, a lump forming in her throat. Maybe she should have huddled in Killian's chair by the fireplace instead.
What little is left of the coffee is tepid by the time a familiar black car comes up the street and pulls into the vacant spot behind the Bug, and she waits numbly while Killian comes through the front gate and carefully crunches his way up the icy steps, having returned from his early morning jaunt to the harbor to check on the Jolly.
The front door opens, and he puffs a little as he enters, as though trying to expel the frigid air from his lungs.
Emma's lips part a fraction of an inch, and she tips her head a couple degrees in a poor attempt to aim her voice over her shoulder. "Hey."
She doesn't have to turn around to register the sunny grin in his voice. "'Morning, love."
She listens to him abandon his shoes to the drip tray and unzip his thick coat before stowing it in the armoire beside the door. Then there's the creak of a floorboard and a quiet rustle as he moves toward her in sock feet, and his cold hand lands on her shoulder. She turns her head reflexively so he can plant a quick kiss on her mouth.
Killian pauses as soon as he sees her weak attempt at a smile, a wrinkle slicing across his brow. "What's wrong?" She doesn't have to answer before his concerned eyes light with understanding. He licks his lips. "Another negative test?" His words are soft.
Open book. Emma glances away and nods numbly. Her lashes flutter shut, and the heat of tears begins to burn her nose and mouth with almost no warning. It's as though the anguish that's been building, simmering, in the depths of her soul for months – for years – is suddenly determined to breach the surface again, and she begins to shudder and sniffle while strong fingers gently pry her cup from her grasp and her favorite pair of arms slips behind her back and beneath her knees in order to scoop her off the window seat. She clutches blindly at him, indifferent to the chill that lingers on his skin and clothes, the shiver that runs through her instead a response to the sad rumble in his chest.
"I know, Swan," Killian murmurs in her ear, his voice strained more from emotion than from physical effort as he hauls her over to the sitting area by the fireplace. "I know."
She begins to sob when he settles them on the sofa, no longer concerned with trying to maintain any appearance of strength or any of the stoicism she's learned to layer over her heart as time has marched on. It's been nearly five years since she and Killian were married, nearly five years since they decided to try to start a family of their own.
Five years of disappointment.
Five years of "maybe next month."
Five years of "not yet."
Five years of failure.
And she's tired. Tired of wishing and wanting and waiting and digging deep to find just a little more hope. Tired of silently pleading and bargaining with Zeus and whatever other powers that be to bless them with a child. Tired of smiling politely and trying to be happy for every glowing mother-to-be and every new baby in this town while secretly wishing they weren't around every damn corner. Tired of pretending it doesn't bother her. Tired of feeling it somehow must be her fault, like her body must be broken.
Part of her wishes they would give up trying just so she wouldn't have any more expectations. But she knows, deep down, she can't give up – she won't. Because as much as Killian tries to assure her it'll be alright either way, she can't turn her back on the possibility of having a child with him, of building the family they've both craved for so long. And time is a cruel mistress who steals a little more of her youth and a little more of her chance of conceiving with every passing day. She's almost forty now, and Henry reached adulthood and left home in search of his own destiny almost three years ago. There's no time to take a break. So instead she condemns herself to counting days and peeing on sticks and taking prenatal vitamins that began to feel superfluous a long time ago while she watches the weeks go by with the steady tick of a biological clock as foreboding as any dark prophecy.
Emma cries. And she cries and cries. And Killian settles them on the sofa and rocks her while her shoulders shake and she comes undone in her accumulated grief. She wondered once whether she could really call it grief – this mourning for something she never had in the first place. But every time she cries like this, she knows that's what it is. Grief. Despair. Heartbreak. Not as acute or consuming as other kinds of heartbreak, of course – she'll never forget what it was like to watch the light fade from Killian's eyes and to feel his dead weight in her arms or what it was like to try to choke out a final goodbye when they closed the lid of his coffin – but this is a kind of heartbreak nonetheless.
She's not sure how long they sit there with her legs across his lap, her head beneath his collar bone and her fingers wound into the front of his shirt while he keeps his arm around her and wisely withholds any words of encouragement. She's heard enough hope speeches from her mother on the matter to make her stomach turn, but Killian knows better, understands how important it is to allow her pain a voice rather than suppressing it with platitudes and promises no one can keep. He's known enough of his own pain to understand. Gods, could she love him any more?
The house is silent save for the sound of her whimpers and stuttering breaths and the occasional loud sniffle, and his shirt is damp with her tears when she finally manages to regain control, her misery retreating back into the numb spot that's become chronically wedged in the center of her chest. Emma rubs away the moisture on her cheek with the heel of her hand. "Sorry."
He hums. "Don't apologize."
A deep sigh escapes her lips, and she shakes her head against him. "I just… I don't think it's going to happen."
He's still for a moment before he presses his lips to her temple and uses the curve of his hook to nudge her hand over until it rests above his heart. It's something she's taken to doing ever since his return to the living – reaching to feel the beat of life that's been restored beneath his ribs, reassuring herself that he's back and not going anywhere. "Do you remember when we said goodbye in the Underworld?" he asks quietly, his tone thoughtful. "Did you think then that I'd ever be here with you again?"
She chuffs. Of course Killian knows what to say. He always does. She shakes her head again.
His chest rises and falls beneath her like the soothing buoy of the sea. "I don't know what the future holds, Swan, but we both know what it's like to feel hopeless before the story is really over." He swipes a stray blond lock out of the way and hunches forward to rest his forehead against hers. "Maybe our story includes a child, and maybe it doesn't. But I'm not afraid of how it ends so long as I get to play it out with you." The corner of his mouth quirks soberly. "You're still my happy ending."
A softer, more pleasant surge of tears threatens to crack her open once again, but Emma bites her lip and wills it down, smoothing her palm back and forth over his chest and giving a little nod. This. Her life with him. As much as she hopes for more, she realizes, this is still more than enough, more than she ever dreamed she'd have once upon a time. As impossible as it seems, perhaps she'd forgotten that. "I love you," she murmurs, closing her eyes and listening to the air fill his lungs.
"And I you, darling." He straightens a little in order to bury his nose in her hair, hugging her close before letting his shoulders fall with a sigh. "And I you."
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She stops counting the days, stops monitoring her cycles and obsessing over the calendar about what days she's supposedly more likely to conceive. Coupling with Killian becomes more about them again and less about them trying to achieve something, and as the next few months pass, Emma gradually relearns how to live in the here-and-now, how to stop spending every waking moment with her eyes pinned on the horizon waiting for something else to come – how to just be. The constant ache that's increasingly filled her chest for the past several years begins to ebb in increments. And on the morning at Granny's when a sudden wave of nausea sends her scrambling toward the rear of the diner for the ladies' room, she chalks it up to the same stomach virus that kept her brother and half the children in his class out of school the week before.
"Are you alright, Swan?" Killian asks when she returns to the table, his face a mask of worry.
Emma impatiently swipes a stray hair away from her face, feeling grumpy and slightly embarrassed. "Yeah." Her answer comes hastily, and she slumps back into her seat in the booth with a little groan. "This is what I get for babysitting Neal last week."
The sound he makes in his throat is grim. "Sorry, love." His brow wrinkles with sympathy. "Shall we have Granny box up your plate for later?"
She eyes what remains of her scrambled eggs, and another churn of her stomach causes her to blanch. "Um, no." She swallows hard and pushes the rest of her breakfast away, trying to appear satisfied. "No, I'm good."
It's an irritating next few days as her nausea continues to come and go, subsiding long enough to let her think the virus has abated only to rear its ugly head again the following day. It's near the end of the week when Killian suggests she consult with Dr. Whale, and after her latest round of heaving what had been lunch into the toilet, she pulls out her phone.
It's a couple of hours and another episode of vomiting later when Whale returns her call. "It's got you too, huh?" he asks when she croaks her hello.
"Yeah, I think so." She holds the phone away from her a second so she can finish rinsing out her mouth, hurriedly drying her face with a hand towel and clearing her throat. The early March sun floods their bedroom with brilliant light and gentle warmth as Emma absently runs a hand over her tortured stomach and crosses the threshold of the master bath to perch herself on the foot of the bed. "It's been going around, right? I know Neal and a lot of his friends had it."
"It's still cold and flu season," he agrees. "Everyone's got something. Are you having any other symptoms? Fever? Cough? Aches?"
Emma glances out the window to watch the wind disturb the naked boughs of the tree that towers in the corner of the front yard. "Uh, no. No, everything else is okay."
"Eat anything strange or undercooked lately?"
"Not unless Granny has it out for me."
"Probably just gastroenteritis then," he says, sounding cheerful. "I'm happy to call you in a prescription for nausea medication. You're not pregnant, are you?"
She blinks at the all-too-familiar twinge she suddenly feels in her chest and bows her head, her eyes focusing on the thick pile of the rug beneath her feet while she does her best to sound unruffled. "Um, no. No, I don't think so. Why?"
"Oh, I always have to ask. Some nausea meds aren't safe in pregnancy," Whale explains breezily. He pauses. "Have you checked recently?"
The question prompts her to think, and her brow furrows. "Uh, no? I don't think so."
"Is there a chance you might be?" he asks, and the increasing interest in his voice makes Emma's shoulders stiffen. "I mean, are you and Killian using –"
"No!" She cuts him off a little more abruptly than she means to, and her face grows warm as she clears her throat again. "No, we're… we don't."
He hums thoughtfully in her ear. "Well, do me a favor – check a pregnancy test and get back to me so I know what medication to order for you, okay? Better safe than sorry."
Emma bites her lip. "Uh, right. Yeah. Okay. I'll call you back." She hangs up the phone and tosses it aside on the mattress with a heavy sigh, letting her eyes fall shut. Fine, she thinks. Fine.
Three minutes later she's leaning forward on her bathroom counter and staring, dumbfounded, at the two pink lines in the oval window of the home pregnancy test in front of her.
Two lines.
But…
"Killian?" Her voice comes out as a squeak, and, despite her shock, she has enough wherewithal to realize there's no way he'll have heard her. "Killian?" she bellows raggedly, feeling the burn of tears. "Killian!"
"Emma?" The sound of pounding feet is immediate, and he's up the stairs and by her side in mere moments, brow creased and jaw tensed as though he's prepared to face down whatever magical threat may have suddenly appeared in their bathroom. His flashing eyes dart this way and that in search of danger before they fall on her. "Swan? What's wrong?" His hand finds her shoulder, and he carefully turns her to face him, his perplexed gaze raking over her for a clue as to what the trouble is.
She covers her mouth with one hand now, her shoulders shaking with happy sobs, and wordlessly hands him the little plastic stick before her other hand settles over her belly.
Killian takes the test from her and blinks down at it. She can see the cogs whirling in his head for half a second before his eyes light with hesitant recognition. "Is this…?" He gapes up at her, incredulous, and seems almost afraid to say the words. "Does this mean...?"
Emma manages a frantic little nod.
The test clatters to the counter, and he steps closer, reverence written across his features. "You're with child?" he asks, now edging on a whisper.
Her breath catches in her throat and erupts as a little barking gasp when she nods again and winds her arms around his neck, closing her eyes and savoring the strength of his embrace and the comfort of having his shoulder beneath her cheek. "I… I thought it was the stomach flu," she says with a weak chuckle.
His rich laugh echoes off the tiles, and Killian cards his fingers through her hair and rocks them back and forth while she clings to him for all she's worth.
Gods, it's happening. It might actually be happening.
She freezes and pulls back a little. "Wait. What if it's wrong?" she asks with huge eyes, doubt suddenly flooding her chest and threatening to suffocate her joy so fast it makes her tremulous. "I mean, these things aren't always right. What if –" She gnaws on the corner of her lip. "What if it's not true?"
"Hey." Killian slides his hand forward to cup her jaw, his thumb sweeping across the tear tracks marring her skin. There's the faintest reflection of her anxiety in his earnest blue stare, but his voice is calm. "Hey. It's alright. Do you want to check again?"
Emma's heart rises in her throat at the prospect. "Yes. No." She whimpers. Could she bear to lay eyes upon another negative pregnancy test after this sudden injection of hope? She's not so sure.
His arms tighten around her when she leans forward and returns her head to his shoulder. "I'm right here, love. Whatever you want to do, I'm here."
She closes her eyes for a moment and tries to focus on how solid he is. On how solid they are. The subtle scent of his soap fills her nose when she summons her courage and sucks in a deep breath. "I'll need some water."
Killian chuckles and gives her another encouraging squeeze and a kiss on the forehead before he escorts her downstairs. She chugs eight ounces in record time, and she's never been so grateful for a distraction when her phone suddenly rings, even when it proves to be an irate Leroy. Their friend is in rare form today, ignoring the pleasantries and launching into a twenty-five minute tirade about the rowdy teenagers who've left empty beer bottles and cigarette butts and other evidence of their late-night delinquency all over the dwarves' break area at the entrance to the mines yet again, and Emma hums and otherwise acknowledges his complaints at the appropriate intervals, so well-versed in the art of placating the excitable little man that she could do it in her sleep. The comical face Killian makes when she rolls her eyes at the fifteen-minute mark makes her fold her lips to suppress a giggle, and her mood is slightly less dour by the time she hangs up the phone.
"I take it we're making another trip to the mines?" he asks dryly, one brow arched.
"Apparently." She massages her forehead with a pair of fingers and flashes him a feeble grin. Her gaze alights on the clock, and she heaves a sigh. "Guess we should get this over with before we go, huh?"
Five minutes later, she opens the door to their bathroom and her wet eyes lock with Killian's.
She doesn't have to say anything. He knows.
His brows jump to his hairline, and it's as though the sun itself rises in his expression. He licks his lips and pushes himself up off the edge of the mattress. "Two lines?" he asks carefully, and the width of Emma's smile is only limited by the fact that she's starting to tremble and cry again; big, fat, grateful tears dripping from her lashes and skidding down her cheeks.
She rushes into his arms, the test still in hand, and gives a relieved laugh when they collide with enough force to send them stumbling, their legs a jumble as they nearly fall backwards on to the bed. "Two lines," she mumbles into his chest with a loud sniffle.
His hand comes up to cradle the back of her head, and she's a little surprised when his voice turns thick and he, too, appears to be a little overwhelmed with emotion. As calm as he's been all these years, as resolved as he's been that everything would be alright, it was easy for her to forget that he desperately wanted this too. But he did. He does. And here they are, laughing and crying and wrapped up in one another and reveling in the swell of their blinding happiness. They've had a lot of amazing moments together, but this rivals them all, and for the first time in a long time, Emma is sure that there are even more moments like these yet to come.