Angel, sweet angel of my youth
Where have you gone? You flew away too soon
This brick I built, now builds a higher wall
See it crumble, hear me fall
There hangs the fool, who once had it all
Flogging Molly, Tomorrow Comes a Day Too Soon
It's amazing how everything can change in an instant. One moment she had this person—this life—growing inside of her, and the next she's laying cold and alone, chained to an uncomfortable bed in the prison's infirmary.
The nurses whisked her baby away as soon as he was born. Emma remembered the months she spent begging and pleading to keep him, but in the end everybody was right—she wasn't ready. She would probably never be ready.
Emma Swan had been alone since before she could remember; ever since she was an infant left abandoned and unwanted on the side of a highway. She rarely let herself believe that might ever change, because you always, always got burned in the end. She should have known better than to think she would have had any chance with this child.
She had refused to even hold him, worried that she might not be able to let him go. But she knew she needed to. Unlike her, her child had a family waiting for him; one that would adopt him, take care of him, and love him in a way that Emma never had been.
She hoped he'd understand; she was 18 years old, in prison, and had no place to go once she left. What did she think she was going to do, raise a baby in a car? No, everybody was right. She needed to do this. She needed to give her child his best chance, and as much as she wanted it to be, that was never going to be with her.
Even knowing this, even understanding it, even choosing it, none of this changed the fact that Emma Swan had never felt more alone in her entire life. It was a physical ache that has nothing to do with the hours she had just spent in labor. She wished she could just feel numbness. She settled for sleep.
In the morning she would begin healing, and serving out the rest of her sentence. By the time she leaves, the only reminders she'll have of ever having a baby will be the fading stretch marks, and memories made in her beat up yellow bug.
A/N: This is the shortest chapter in this series. It's pretty depressing, but the next chapter isn't any better. But really, if anybody deserves to throw themselves a pity party at this point it's Emma.
Sorry if the lyrics at the beginning of the chapter throw you off. They'll all be from Flogging Molly. I have a Flogging Molly/Me First and the Gimme Gimmes mix I've been playing non-stop that fills me with OUAT feels. I thought the lyrics were a good way to set the tone for each chapter.