A.N: First OUAT time fic; let me know if I should continue, please. Happy holidays! :D It will get more focused on canon characters after this.

Disclaimer: Not mine, OUAT & "Family Tree" (song) belong to their rightful owners.

Family Tree

You are Loved

(1983)

Beep. Beeep. Beeeeep.

"Ugh" he groaned as he picked up his pace, throwing away his barely sipped coffee. He was twenty some minutes away from the end of his shift, not that - that ever really marked the end of work.

Walking up to the nurse station he saw the usual deflated look. Once visiting hours ended and the darkness of the night took over, the pediatric ward of a hospital was the last place to be. It only marked some of the worst sides to humanity, mostly when a group home was relatively close.

He opened the glass doors leading to the row of rooms each housing new admins, seeing some of his colleagues caring for the little patients and many anxious parents but what caught his eyes were the police officers at the end of the aisle.

His stomach fell, as it had too many times before. Something happened.

"Officers." He greeted softly walking towards them. "Dr. Swan, Pediatrics. What seems to be the problem?"

The officers turned to see a tall, brown haired, light completion doctor walking towards them. He didn't look too old, perhaps late thirties, but he carried himself with confidence, he was wearing dark blue scrubs and a white coat over it.

"Hello, well we were driving down the freeway and… and well we saw this kid just trotting along the 95 carrying a bundle in his arms."

"We found two kids on the side of the road, some low lives just threw their kids out." The second officer said interrupting.

Dr. Swan felt as if someone slapped him in the face. No matter how long someone does a job like his, it's almost impossible not to feel winded when something like that is heard. He moved past the officer not trusting his voice to ask further questions.

As he walked in the rather large room and saw a two nurses already inside caring for a red headed boy wearing bright red pants, a green vest and a long sleeved shirt. Definitely not what many would consider "normal" attire. And to the side was a small child, maybe days old but probably only hours, who was crying non stop.

Noting the lack of communication from the boy, as he ignored his nurse, Dr. Swan signaled her to leave. "Hi buddy, my name is Dr. Andrew Swan, what's your name?" He asked deciding on sitting alongside the boy who's eyes were transfixed on the child and seemed to be ignoring the nurse attending him. He didn't even seem to notice that Dr. Swan sat next to him, let alone spoke.

"Is she your sister?" Nothing.

"Buddy, is there anybody we can call?" Nothing.

"Mom or dad?" Nothing.

"Listen buddy, I know how scary this must be, but I promise you can trust me." Nothing.

"He's been like that since we got here. Officers said he wasn't answering their questions either only said 'no' when they tried to take Emma from him." The remaining nurse said turning to face the little boy.

"Emma?" Dr. Swan asked.

"Yeah this little one," she said cooing at the still wailing baby, "her name was on that embroidered blanket," she said pointing at a pearl colored blanket with purple lettering.

He turned to the blanket, hand knitted and obviously made with love, yet here these kids were alone and scared. How could someone not even bother to take these kids to a safer place? "Can you check up on the rooms?" Swan asked refusing to voice any of his inquires while the boy next to him still looked so terrified.

He walked over to the little pink wailing girl. "Shhh shhh, baby girl, it's okay. I got you. Emma huh? What a pretty name, very fitting for a pretty little girl like you." As soon as Emma was in his arms it was as if her tiny fists belonged wrapped around his scrubs and her head nestled on his shoulder. She was home.

He sighed as he realized she was calming down. As a pediatric doctor, he was used to carrying small wailing children and many took to him quite fast and he too, to an extent, but this little girl felt different. He felt something, he felt the need to wrap her up in her blanket and protect her, to not ever let anybody throw her away again.

"How'd you do that?" The little boy finally spoke, his voice sounding raspy from his crying. It startled Dr. Swan out of his thoughts, making him realize just how ridiculous the attachment he felt was.

"I have no idea. Sometimes babies just love me." Swan responded with a chuckle at the baby who seemed to begin to fall asleep. "I think she was just tired of screaming."

"She was doing that since…" the little boy said trailing off.

Taking note that Emma had indeed fallen asleep on his shoulder after a few minutes he gently put her back down and silently waited to see if the wailing would resume, luckily it didn't. For a moment he couldn't tear his eyes away from her, she seemed to finally realize she was safe.

"So her name is Emma, what about yours?" Dr. Swan asked as he finally pried himself away and sat back down next to the little boy.

"Pinocchio." He answered softly.

Well, he wasn't expecting that. He was used to children sometimes being scared and making up stories about themselves but the little boy said it with an undeniable conviction. "Pinocchio huh? Well, in that case can I be Prince Charming?" Dr. Swan asked chuckling. But the little boy turned his face abruptly and looked stunned.

"No! That's the kings name. He's Emma's dad. And the queen is her mom, Queen Snow White, she is really nice and my dad he says…"

"Whoah hold up bud," Swan said interrupting the little boy. "I want to hear all these stories. But first I need to make sure Emma and you are okay. So I have to ask boring questions first." The boy nodded slowly. "Okay how about you tell me your real name, not Pinocchio?"

In that moment the little boy realized the man in front of him was kind, as Doc or any other doctor but he didn't know, and he didn't believe him. This was a land without magic and that didn't just mean that there would be no villains, but that stories like his were not believed. He couldn't be Pinocchio anymore. He looked around the room as calmly as he could and that's when he saw a paper hanging with a picture of puppies above it, it was labeled AUGUST and had numbers aligned.

"August, my name is August and no she isn't my sister I just found her."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-

A few hours later Dr. Swan closed the door to a patient room where August slept. Emma had been taken down with the other new borns, much to August's dismay. It had definitely not been a routine night. As Dr. Swan walked down the he couldn't stop thinking about the kids. Many kids had crossed his care and many had made him question a lot but none as much as these two kids.

August had gone on to tell him, how he had no mother and how his father had been elderly and couldn't care for him so he had no one. And while he walked through the 95 freeway he heard the small wails of Emma and he knew he couldn't leave her behind.

It broke his heart. How many children would go out of their way and take care of a child they didn't know? How many even knew how to be on their own?

He had spoken to a CPS worker and she had promised him that in the morning they would be taking the kids the group home. As their doctor he had asked that they spend the night in the hospital under observation, it was a cold night, and he rather them not struggle. But in all honesty he might have just asked that, in hopes that they wouldn't take them. Not that he knew what that would accomplish.

He had a wife back home, Sarah, she was beautiful, smart and strong. They had met at Brown as undergrads, she was an English major and he an Organic Chemistry major who had no idea how to write. They'd been married for 15 years. His career choices dictated too much in their relationship but about 5 years back they decided to finally have a family. Unfortunately it's not as easy as it sounds. They had finally managed to conceive their only child Roger who was now 2 years old, but he knew both he and Sarah shared the dream of having the house filled with kids.

No, he was crazy, he reminded himself.

But was he really? Sarah had tried to broach the subject of adoption multiple times, and he shot her down. He always felt like it was choosing, choosing who to care for and who not to, and that felt like an atrocity. But August and Emma were different, he wasn't choosing them, it was as if fate had chosen them for him. He could have gone home early, he could have past the case to a colleague, but he didn't, he calmed Emma down and he got August to open up. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't choosing he wasn't abandoning all the rest, but rather rescuing those he could.

He had arrived, he saw all the small bundles of wrinkly small humans. And it didn't take long to see her, she was on the right near the glass window. Emma, so small and so alone, it broke his heart to think that.

He walked in and headed towards her, she seemed to be awake. Oh was she awake. As he began to pick her up, her eyes looked at him. For a moment it was as if she was evaluating him and then she softly gurgled and smiled.

Swan didn't even notice as he mirrored a smile back. "Why hello again, lovely girl, don't you worry, I got you. I promise you little one, I got you." He didn't choose her fate did and boy was he happy about that.

"CAUSE YOU'RE MY CHILD

YOU'RE MY CHOSEN

YOU ARE LOVED

YOU ARE LOVED"

(Mathew West - Family Tree)