"What do you mean, you want Emma?" Mary Margaret asked, her heart racing.
"What does it sound like?"
"Regina, when I told you I was pregnant, you absolutely did not care. You wanted nothing to do with me or the baby. Why the sudden change of heart?"
Regina shrugged. "Quite simple, really. The next mayoral election is coming up and my challenger is turning out to be more of a problem than I thought. My stepdaughter having a baby so young and then leaving will be terrible press for the election. On the other hand, me raising my poor teenage stepdaughter's baby? That will be the perfect story to ensure my election victory."
"You're disgusting," Mary Margaret said, mouth agape. "You want to use my baby as a political prop?"
"Pretty much."
"Well, that's not going to happen. You can't have her, she is ours."
"Do you really want to enter a custody battle with me, Mary Margaret?"
"How will fighting her for custody help your image?" David asked. He had moved so he was standing between Regina and the hospital bed.
She shrugged. "My teenage stepdaughter thinks she can take care of a baby, but the courts determine that I am a more stable and loving home for a child."
Mary Margaret snorted. "You're not stable, Regina, and you sure as hell aren't loving. Emma will be much better off with us, which is why we will never give her to you."
"Whatever you say, dear. I'm going to go speak to one of the nurses about something, and when I'm back, I'll be taking this little girl off of your hands." She walked out of the room.
"David, what do we do?" Mary Margaret asked, horrified.
"We tell someone," said David. "Stop her from taking Emma."
"But she was right, she would totally win a custody battle over us. We're just a couple of teenagers, and she's the mayor!"
"We'll figure it out, Mary Margaret. Maybe Robert can help. He's a lawyer."
"A business lawyer, not a custody one."
"It'll be okay. We'll keep Emma. She won't get anywhere near Regina."
"One of those things is true," Mary Margaret said, tears springing to her eyes as the only plan she could think of formed.
"What do you mean?"
"I know how to save her from Regina, David."
"How?"
She explained her plan.
"Mary, that's crazy."
"Tell me you have a better way to make sure that Regina never gets her hands on our daughter."
David sighed. "I don't, Mary Margaret, I don't have a better way."
"Then get a nurse."
Five minutes later, a nurse was in the room. "Are you sure about this?" the nurse asked.
Mary Margaret nodded, tears in her eyes. "Yes. We talked it over, and we realized that we're too young to be parents."
"Alright," said the nurse. She looked vaguely upset. She handed David a piece of paper. "Just sign these adoption papers."
They both signed.
"Anything you'd like to say before we take her?" the nurse asked.
Mary Margaret nodded, looking down at the beautiful little girl in her arms and crying. She gave her daughter one last kiss on the head. "Goodbye, Emma," she whispered.
She handed the baby to David, who gave her another kiss, then handed her over to the nurse.
The nurse took her out of the room, and Mary Margaret started sobbing.
Not a minute later, Regina was back. "Where is she?!" she practically shouted. "Where is the child?"
"Dead," said Mary Margaret. "Just after you left, she had a breathing failure, and they took her to the NICU, and she died."
Regina stood there for a moment, looking at her. Then she snorted, turned on her heel, and left the room.
"She'll figure out that you lied," David said.
"I know. But by that point, Emma will hopefully be out of here."
The girls all looked at Mary Margaret with horror in their eyes.
"Oh my god," Ruby said.
The others simply nodded.
"I didn't have a choice," Mary Margaret said.
"You don't have to explain yourself," said Aurora.
They all just sat there, in silence, for a little while longer. Mary Margaret pulled out her phone, which had the picture that a nurse had taken just after the birth. Her, David, and Emma. Probably the only picture of the three of them there would ever be. But maybe not. Maybe someday, Emma would find them again. She would like to believe that. For now, though...
"Goodbye, Emma," she whispered again, to the picture.
AN: I know, I know, I take forever to finish it and then this is how I leave it, you all hate me. But see, every other chapter was pretty flexible, this was the one thing I had planned from the beginning. So I hope you enjoyed the story, please check out my other stories if it suits you, and review and stuff. Thanks for reading!