"Okay Mary Margaret you're doing great! You're almost there," Emma Swan tried to say soothingly over the sound of people ringing in the New Year just outside the window. Mary Margaret Nolan nodded and groaned as she pushed with all her might. "Good good! The baby's head is born, you're nearly there!" The contraction passed and Mary Margaret relaxed as much as she could, trying to regain some strength before the next contraction hit.

"This baby's certainly taking its sweet time," she said between deep breaths.

"Believe it or not, but this isn't the longest labor I've seen. There was one woman who was in labor for 24 hours," Emma soothed.

"Oh dear Lord, that must have been awful," Mary Margaret grimaced. Emma noticed Mary Margaret's breathing begin to speed up again and the furrow set in her brow.

"That's good Mrs. Nolan, just keep panting like that!" Emma watched as one shoulder than the other came through and with one last push the rest of the baby came. His little limbs waved back and forth, his little foot kicked Mary Margaret in the thigh. Mary Margaret collapsed back on to the pillows of her bed exhausted, her brow shining with sweat. Church bells began to ring followed by many shouts and whoops of joy as the new year was announced.

"Is the baby okay?" Mary Margaret asked, once she caught her breath. Emma wrapped the newborn boy in a blanket, rubbing gently on his chest to get him to cry. The boy fussed and let out a loud wail, alerting his mother and possibly the whole block that he was here, Mary Margaret smiled and pushed herself up onto her elbows, a wide smile on her face. Emma cut the cord and gathered him in her arms, taking the pink and squealing infant into her arms.

"He's fine, ten fingers and ten toes and what sounds like a very good set of lungs. He might just be the first baby of 1958," Emma smiled and weighed and measured the baby and re-swaddled him before handing him to Mary Margaret, "Do you and your husband have a name picked out?"

"Leo, for my father," Mary Margaret responded, looking at her son with nothing but love in her eyes, "Thank you so much Nurse Swan."

"It's my job," Emma smiled at her, "Would you like me to go tell the father to come in and meet his son?" Mary Margaret nodded excitedly, her eyes never leaving her son. Emma opened the door, expecting to find the husband, David, downstairs in the kitchen or out on the stoop smoking a cigarette with a friend or two and enjoying the celebrations, she did not expect him to be waiting right outside the door in the hallway.

"Are they okay? Can I see them?" he asked, his voice anxious as he tried to look over Emma's head and into the bedroom.

"They're both fine, come in and see," Emma stepped aside as he rushed to his wife's side, kissing her on her temple. Emma looked on as both parents looked down at their son with nothing but absolute adoration in their eyes and she knew that he would be living a life much more filled with love than she ever had. She began repacking her midwifery bag, making sure she remembered to grab everything lest Sister Edith reprimand her for losing a vial or funnel. She replaced the dark pink hat that was part of her uniform on her head and a thick knitted scarf around her neck and turned to the new parents.

"All right, my work here for tonight is done, I'll be coming by tomorrow to make sure everything is going well and see how mother and baby are settling in," she said closing her bag.

"Nurse Swan, we really want to thank you again for helping us along through this whole process," Mary Margaret said looking up at her.

"Yeah we really could not have done this without you," David added, gently caressing Leo's head.

"It's no problem at all, every baby should get a good and fair start at life," Emma smiled at the happy little family and showed herself out. She found her yellow bicycle right where she had left it chained to the railing of the stoop and put her bag in the basket. She adjusted her coat over her powder blue dress so that she wouldn't reveal herself (silently cursing the fact that they couldn't wear trousers as part of their midwife uniform) as she got on the bike, when a voice shouted over the noise of people laughing and shouting and toasting to each other..

"Oi nurse! Wait!" A voice with a thick Irish brogue called out. Emma turned to see a tall man with black hair and brilliantly blue eyes running towards her. He stopped and tried to catch his breath, Emma took a tentative step back from him.

"Do you need any help?" she asked apprehensively.

"No no, I'm fine. I just heard that Mary Margaret went into labor and I needed to see if she was all right, she and the baby," he panted heavily.

"Both mother and baby are doing fine," Emma assured him, keeping her distance from him.

"Oh thank god!" he leaned against the building and smiled widely at her, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Emma answered before climbing onto her bike and riding back towards Antioch House where she and the other midwives lived. As she weaved through the many people that filled the street, she looked back for a moment to see the strange man hurrying into the Nolan's home with a large smile on his face.

"So Ruby, what odd new food are you going to try to force me to eat tonight?" Sister Edith asked as the nuns and midwives sat in the sitting room of the convent, ringing in the new year together.

"Nothing new Granny, just the usual fare for tonight," Ruby smirked and passed a tray of biscuits to the older nun.

"Oh happy day," Granny deadpanned, dipping a biscuit into her tea, "And how many times do I have to tell you, I'm not your grandmother so stop calling me that!" Emma smirked at Ruby across the room, the fiery brunette had always had a way of pushing Sister Edith's buttons.

"So Nurse Swan, I hear you delivered the Nolan baby this evening?" Sister Ingrid asked, her soft voice making all the other women quiet down.

"Oh a New Year's baby, that's a sign of good luck you know," Sister Nova said excitedly

"That's probably why it was a surprisingly easy birth for a first time mother, both the baby and Mary Margaret appear to be quite healthy. There was something weird that happened as I was leaving though," Emma frowned, "Well odder than can be expected on New Years."

"Oh? What happened?" Elsa asked, setting down her fork.

"Well, as I was leaving, this man ran up to me and started asking about the mother and the baby; he seemed almost afraid that something bad had happened to them," Emma explained.

"Did he have an Irish accent? And blue eyes? Like, the bluest eyes you've ever seen?" Ruby asked.

"Um yes? Is that an important detail?" Emma furrowed her brow in confusion.

"That has to be Killian Jones!" Belle exclaimed, "It would make sense for him to be so worried I suppose."

"Why?"

"Well he and Mary Margaret are cousins, distant by blood but close in bond," Sister Ingrid explained. Emma saw the looks that Belle, Ruby, and Elsa exchanged and she knew there had to be more to the story.

"That's not it, is it?" she asked looking over at Granny, who had been a midwife in the small hamlet of Storybrooke the longest.

The older woman looked down at her plate and swallowed thickly, "He's a widower, his wife died giving birth to their boy, placental abruption and she hemorrhaged. We did everything we could to save her, we even transferred her to hospital, but she hemorrhaged again on the operating table. I will never forget the look on that poor boy's face as he held his new baby boy when I told him his wife was gone. She had been a lively and spirited girl, only 19 years old. It still breaks my heart to think of what he's had to go through on his own."

"Where's the boy now?" Emma asked, worried that he had to be taken away.

"He's with Mr. Jones, turned out to be an excellent father and Mary Margaret helped him out when needed. You'll never see a happier child than Liam Jones," Sister Nova assured Emma.

"I agree, I always see them together at the library picking out books and he seems like a very happy child, quite plucky actually," Belle smiled. Emma felt a wash of relief flood over her as she picked at the rest of her dinner until she and the other midwives retired to their rooms and the nuns went to evening prayer.

"About the Jones boys; Liam really is a great kid. He's just joined my Cub Scouts troop and he's keeping up with the other boys brilliantly. Now that Killian Jones though," Ruby said falling into step with Emma, "He's quite attractive isn't he?"

"What?"

"Oh come on Emma, I know you're not blind. I've seen him plenty of times at Tuesday clinic and he's a real dish if you ask me," Ruby waggled her eyebrows at Emma.

"Well I didn't," Emma snapped and quickened her pace to catch up with Elsa.

"You know she's just teasing and being a flirt," Elsa sighed.

"I know, I'm just not interested in meeting a man right now," Emma reasoned as they entered their room. Emma stripped off her uniform and got into pajamas, Elsa was blissfully quiet as if knowing that Emma didn't want to talk. They got into their beds and Emma turned to Elsa who was turning out the light.

"I'll apologize to her in the morning," she sighed, she could practically see Elsa's smile in the darkness.

"Good," she whispered and settled onto her back, "You know Emma, if you do ever want to meet a man Mr. Jones wouldn't be a bad choice. He's kind and funny and he cares deeply for his son. And he really is quite attractive, I mean have you ever seen blue eyes like his?"

"No I don't think I have," Emma admitted, "But it's going to take more than a pair of blue eyes and an accent to distract me from work. I suspect that we'll be up to our ears in babies in about nine months."

"Whatever you say Emma," Elsa sighed and turned over in her bed. Emma punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape and tried to get to sleep but couldn't seem to get blue eyes and that wide, relieved smile out of her head.