tumblr prompt: Anonymous asked: Miscarriage
Author's Note: TRIGGER WARNING. Character death. All readers, this one will cause sobbing.
Miscarriage
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Emma woke with pain radiating through her lower back. A moan instantly brought relief from her bedmate who rolled tight knuckles over and over again against the knotting tensioned muscles. When she could uncurl her toes and straighten in relief from the pain, arms slipped around her rotund form and a warm, soothing and soft form fitted itself around her protruding belly. Hands dedicated to her comfort continued massaging neck and shoulders and tucked Emma's blond head into a welcoming shoulder.
"Better?" asked a voice deep and soft.
"Mmmm…" Emma replied, already returning to slumber. "Thanks…"
"Anytime, dear," the low voice whispered in her ear before soft lips pursed against her cheek.
The pain returned repeatedly, tightening like bands around Emma's abdomen. They were strong but far apart, so she awoke with each, but hands stroking the place where their baby restively moved eventually let her return to sleep.
Day broke and so did Emma's water. She was sitting down gingerly to relieve herself after a massage and shower to start the day when she thought she had somehow missed the toilet and wet her sock-covered feet.
But the fluid spreading across the Italian tiled floor between her legs was more than her bladder held these days.
Her shout was answered instantly. "What is it?"
"Time to go to the hospital," Emma reported. "My water just broke."
Regina made to snap her fingers, transporting them both as instantly as she had arrived to the bathroom doorway.
Emma reached out and squeezed the hand in time with a contraction that felt like someone was using giant hands to rip her guts out from the middle. She gasped out the words around the breath-stealing pain. "No. Whale said there was no telling the effects of magic on the baby here."
Regina nodded, dropping her hands and instead helping Emma walk across their bedroom to where the overnight case had been packed and waiting for the better part of the last six months, as soon as the two women had learned Emma was expecting their child.
Regina had insisted on every preparation, and a properly prepped and waiting overnight bag had been among the first things she handled. There'd been no due date, magical babies having been out of Dr. Whale's field of expertise. The Blue Fairy had been singularly unhelpful, able to tell them only that Regina was indeed the baby's other parent. There had never been a question of asking Rumpelstiltskin since the Dark One had become persona non grata when he had tried to suffocate Henry and make it look like an accident. Regina had to be restrained from ripping his heart out and crushing it when she learned of the man's actions.
"It's a good thing we have my Mercedes," Regina said. "Speed is of the essence."
Emma groaned as another powerful contraction made her attempt to double over, wrapping her arms around her belly. Normally she would roll her eyes at Regina's mention of her cherished coupe and unspoken swipe at Emma's yellow bug. But they'd given the car to Neal who had returned to his life in New York City following their return to Storybrooke.
"Yeah, yeah," she assured. "Now just go get it." A contraction hit just as she was finishing speaking and its power stole her breath such that her last words were barely audible.
Regina snapped her fingers and vanished with the bag. Emma struggled to move to the bedroom door, down the corridor and down the main staircase. Regina was already coming in the front door, keys in her hand, as Emma reached the middle step and another contraction buckled her knees. Emma screamed.
Regina was holding her up before she fell more than a couple inches. The latest pain had felt like she was being shredded.
"God, Emma," Regina gasped, struggling to hold up her pregnant partner. "Are you sure this is right?"
Emma shook her head, unable to speak. She didn't know what to say in any case. Henry's birth had been rough. She'd been 18 and alone after all, but she didn't recall anywhere in the ten hours of labor feeling anything like this. Tears leaked out of the corner of her eyes as she leaned on Regina.
"Hospital," she begged as another contraction began. The urge to push had been growing with each one, and she was blowing out the desire to obey her body's demands. "Now."
Thank god Regina had the ability to enhance her strength. Emma was barely able to walk, so the brunette created a cushion of air and floated her to the car. Once Emma was inside and belted into the seat, she snapped her fingers and placed herself behind the wheel.
Emma's moans were near-constant now and her agony evident in every gasp. Regina drove as speedily and safely as possible, finally pulling up to the hospital entrance. She yelled for assistance and was helping Emma out of the car when a nurse arrived with the wheelchair. Emma was spread legged on the pavement, already bearing down as her entire body, from the very roots of her golden princess hair follicles, seemed to demand.
Regina helped her sit. The trio rushed into the ER, met by Whale who directed them, not to maternity but instead to an ER bed. "She won't make it down the hall much less to the second floor," he assessed.
Emma screamed and yanked over a tray table of instruments as the pain wrenched through her abdomen. "Don't care. Let's do this!" she demanded.
Gripping Emma's hand, Regina held her head and shoulders with her other arm assisting Emma in her determination to push. Whale was bent over to examine the dilation when he exclaimed, "No!"
"What?" Regina was the only one of them able to speak as Emma's eyes were squeezed shut and she was panting with tears running down her face.
Whale reached beneath the sheet draped over Emma. Regina couldn't see, but she definitely heard Emma's scream and the sudden jolt her body made. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
The doctor's voice was different when he responded and Regina's heart squeezed in her chest at the sudden shift. "It's. OK. Let's just. Hold. Relax, Emma. Shhh. You can stop pushing."
Regina hadn't seen or heard the child yet and Emma was panting against her chest or she would have moved forward to press the doctor for information physically.
"Regina?" Emma's voice was weak, exhausted. "What… Is… The baby?"
"Doctor," Regina said firmly, her tone almost the familiar one of her mayoral days. He was back under the sheet; Emma jolted again and then her head lolled into Regina's shoulder. The blond had been given a powerful sedative.
"Nurse," Whale ordered, "blanket."
"Yes, doctor." The nurse instantly complied.
"Whale," Regina demanded again, her tone a clear warning she was about to fry something or someone if she didn't get answers. Now. "Tell me. What. Is. Wrong. Why did you sedate Emma?"
"There's no need for her to strain any more."
Before Regina could form her next question, Whale stood upright. A blanket filled his arms. He lifted his gaze from the bundle and met Regina's eyes. He swallowed and shook his head.
"I'm sorry." He held out the blankets. Regina's body shook as she eased herself away from Emma, gently laying the blond down.
"No."
Her voice was firm, full throated. She took a step closer. Pale dust-brown peeked from among the white blanket folds. No, not dust-brown. Rust. Blood. Her gaze squinted, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Her throat squeezed as her brain made connections.
"No," Regina's voice faltered. "N…" Her face screwed up with the force of trying to hold the pain at bay. "No, no, no…. Oh god, no."
A tiny head covered in pale brown hair was also streaked with blood. Regina lifted a shaking hand to ease away the blanket, get a look at the tiny face she had seen once, three months earlier on a sonogram. Just as then the eyes were closed, paper thin, veined skin hiding eyes that should be opening and squeezing with the rhythmic squalling of the newly born.
"No, oh, no." Her voice was a mere whisper now, fainted as much as her heart, stunned by the dawning knowledge.
Emma's eyes flitted open and she groaned. Regina turned to her.
"Re…gi…na?" Emma's voice, too, was barely registering with sound. "Oh," the blond whispered, noticing the bundle. "She's…so…quiet. How content… she's… with you."
Regina looked down into the face which Emma still could not see. She shook her head and tears splashed from her cheeks onto the blue veined, porcelain pale skin. "She… No, she's… not. Emma, she…she's…" Regina looked over her shoulder to Whale. Emma's gaze followed hers to the doctor. Regina moved to her side and Emma reached toward Regina's arm cradling their child in her blanket.
Dr. Whale's entire face looked ancient, filled with crags and creases that rightfully belonged on a much older man. "I'm sorry, Emma. Something must have gone wrong. She… It was… She…she's dead."
Regina felt Emma's nails dig into her forearm as the words slammed into them both. Emma grabbed the bundle from her arms and Regina cried out. Then she froze.
"No!" Emma pulled aside the blanket, baring the baby's body. A tiny perfect baby girl lay on Emma's chest. Ten perfect tiny fingers — for Emma counted them — and ten tiny toes — Emma brushed her fingers over those too. Their baby girl was perfect in every way, eyes closed, save for the fact that she did not draw breath. Emma pressed her mouth to the infant's. Tears streamed down her face soaking the blanket, the baby's cheeks and throat.
Dr. Whale made a sound of protest. Regina's glare silenced him. Emma's cheeks puffed out then pulled in as she tried to push air into the unmoving chest.
Again. The woman's actions became jerkier. Regina bent over Emma's head, gaze seeking their baby's face hidden behind Emma's golden fall of hair. "Em," Regina murmured. "Em, please."
"I love you," Emma said. "I love you." She punctuated each statement with a forceful breath directed hopefully into tiny lungs. "I want to be a mother. I want to be your mother," she begged. And breathed. And begged. And breathed.
"Em, Em," Regina repeated over and over, wrapping her arms awkwardly around Emma's upper body, trying to cradle babe and mother together. She willed her magic to find Emma's. Together, she thought, together we can do this. They had done so much after all. Saved a town. Saved Henry. Ended the eternal threat of Pan. Transported six people back to Storybrooke. Surely a single tiny babe, their tiny baby, would be saved just as they had so often saved one another.
Emma's pledges continued between her breaths. No magic wave crashed through the room. No movement came from the tiny chest.
And none ever would.
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