SORRY FOR THE DELAY IN GETTING THIS CHAPTER UP. I WAS ON VACATION WITH MY FAMILY.

I DON'T OWN ONCE UPON A TIME OR ITS CHARACTERS.

"Owwww." Emma moaned into the pillow that was currently covering her face. Graham stroked her hand and Snow fought the urge to remove the pillow, fearing for her daughter's breathing.

"Doing okay, Em?" Graham asked.

"Just peachy." The blonde answered, her voice muffled by the pillow. Though it was Emma's way of saying 'no, I'm not fine', and Graham wasn't happy about the fact that she wasn't, it at least eased his nerves a little bit. If she was still joking and being sarcastic, she was okay. Maybe she wasn't fine, but she was okay, and that was enough for him at the moment. James walked in, having returned with coffee for him, Snow, and Graham.

"Why does she have a pillow on her head?" He whispered, in case his daughter was sleeping.

"Because she wanted to." Snow answered with a shrug.

"She has a name." For the moment, Snow and James ignored her, knowing Graham would keep her entertained, while Snow studied her husband's face. Snow mouthed, 'are you okay'. Knowing he couldn't lie to her, James simply tilted his head to the hallway. Snow nodded and followed him out.

"What's wrong?" Snow asked, concern etched on her features.

"Worried about Emma." He blew air out of his mouth, like he was deflating, and leaned against the wall. She took his hands in hers and squeezed them.

"She'll be fine, and so will the baby." She said firmly.

"Did you see her in there, just laying there? She's miserable, Snow. I don't know how you're able to stay in that room with her like that."

"Let me tell you something about Emma." A small smile graced Snow's lips. "She can be the biggest whiner bird about absolutely nothing. I remember, back in Storybrooke, when I came home from school. It was a half day, so it was early. I found her sprawled out on the couch with a tub of Ben and Jerry's nearly gone on the table next to her. She looked like she wanted to curl up in a hole and die. I asked her what happened, and she said a sore throat. She was a pain in my ass for the rest of the day because she refused to move. She whined and moaned and complained. And you know what? All it was was allergies. It went away the next day, and she was fine. A week later, I was sitting at the breakfast bar reading, and she comes barreling through the door. She looked like Hell, James." Snow felt the same pain for Emma now that she had felt three years ago. "One of her eyes was swollen and already turning purple, she had a cut on her lip, and her left wrist was swollen, too. It was sprained. I tried to tend to it, you know, wrap it in an Ace bandage or put ice on it or something, but she shooed me away. She never complained once about it." Realizing she was digressing a little bit, getting lost in telling a story about their daughter, she shook her head to focus. "The point is is that right now, I promise you Emma's not miserable. She'll whine about it and groan, but the second she starts staying quiet is when she's not okay." James smiled at her for a moment, absorbing the information. His anxiety had lessened ever so slightly. With a smirk, he said,

"Remind me to stay away from her if I ever get the flu. She'll be annoying all of us if she gets it."

"Where does it hurt, Emma?" Doc asked from the foot of the bed, clipboard in hand.

"Right now? Nowhere." The blonde said from under her pillow. Clearly, she wasn't in the mood to have the baby and was acting like a teenager. Fighting the urge to sigh, Doc clarified:

"When you are having contractions, where does it hurt?"

"My stomach. Thankfully not my back."

"Yes, thankfully." Graham nodded in agreement. "When she was pressing on Emma's sciatic or whatever nerve, our favorite princess didn't shut up about it." This finally got Emma to remove the pillow, and she sent a glare to her husband.

"What would you rate the pain on a scale from one to ten, with ten being the worst?" Doc decided to put an end to the banter before it got out of hand and he never got an answer.

"Three."

"She's underrating–"

"Am not–"

"Emma, you're in labor, of course it's–"

"Have you ever been in labor?"

"No, but–"

"So shut up and let me answer the questions he's asking me."

"Oh dear." Doc sighed, watching the two with mild amusement.

"Everything okay in here?" Snow asked. "We heard some loud noises and we got worried." James trailed in behind her.

"The loud noises would be Emma and Graham having a mild dispute." Doc explained.

"Over a name?" Snow asked hopefully. Emma rolled her eyes at her mother's antics, still trying to find out the name.

"No. Actually, I'm almost having déjà vu." Doc smiled to himself. "Emma rates her pain at a three, Graham says it's a four due to her royal highness underrating."

"The same thing happened to us!" the brunette exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with the memory. She turned to James. "You were ready to kill me."

"Until I almost passed out." He added with a laugh. The rest of the room erupted into laughter a moment before Henry came in. He looked confused, but a smile did form because if his family was laughing, then he should be laughing, too.

"Grumpy knows and is spreading the word." The teenager informed them. "And what's so funny?"

"Your grandfather." Emma answered.

"So, is it a three or a four?" Doc asked, pen poised.

"Three." Emma said, while Graham said,

"Four." With another sigh, Doc turned to Snow. She smirked, shaking her head.

"When people say that mothers know their children best… well, I do know Emma a lot." She didn't say best for James' sake, considering that for them, it was actually true. After a brief moment of thought, she said, "Four." Shaking his head, Doc said,

"You five are going to be the death of me."

"Six." Emma helpfully interjected, pointing to her stomach.

"And if you add a seventh," Grumpy said from the doorway with Henry's head peeking in from behind him, "Emma and Graham won't be able to have another one because there won't be enough of us dwarves to babysit all of you."

"That would only make three babies and Henry doesn't need a babysitter." Emma said with confusion clouding her eyes.

"He doesn't mean it so literally." Snow laughed, and James smiled. "They once made a joke, after the potion I drank to forget your father wore off, that I needed to be babysat. Something about me being moody when I don't love him."

"And then I said she needs to be babysat all the time after a few of Regina's leftover knights cornered her a few weeks after our wedding –mind you, this was also after the poisoned apple thing."

"I was handling it."

"I'm sure you were, Darling."

"Needless to say," Snow said with an eye roll, "the only times Charming would let me out of his sight were when I was in the bathroom and when I was with Red or the dwarves or one of our knights."

"Really?" Henry piped up, having not read about it in his book.

"If you're wondering why it wasn't in your book, it's probably because it only lasted a week before Sam, a knight, got hurt. It was the night after I found out I was pregnant, and I went down the hall to visit what I knew would be your mom's nursery. It was well past midnight, and Sam, following James' direct orders from the day before to never let me out of sight, followed me. Unfortunately for him, between the lack of light and the newly acquired maternal instincts, I ended up giving him a concussion."

"What did you do, hit him with a frying pan like in Scooby Doo?" Emma asked. Though the contraction that currently had her in its jaws made her squirm, she was far too distracted by the story to notice the pain.

"No." James smiled. "She flipped him after punching him in the throat. When I heard Sam hit the ground, I came running out. I felt bad for him, too." He shook his head at the memory, though he was still clearly amused by it.

"You wouldn't have had to have felt bad if you'd just listened to me about being perfectly capable of–"

"You can't possibly blame me for worrying. That's like the time you sent the dwarves on a wild goose chase for my dead body after I went on a riding and fishing trip with Thomas."

"And you can't blame me for that, either!" By then, the two were fully engrossed in their argument. "The last time you and Thomas did that he came back with a broken leg and you nearly fell off a cliff. I swear, he gets you into more trouble…"

"All I can say is thank God this one isn't a boy." Emma said. "I can't even begin to imagine the havoc she and Henry would've wreaked."

"Girls can still cause plenty of trouble." James shot a look at Snow. "This one's a trouble maker." At that, Snow giggled. Watching his family, Henry sighed happily as he lowered himself into one of the chairs. He was sure it was going to be a long night, but he was also sure it would be an entertaining and, given how much children in the family ended up like their parents, his sister would be just fine.

*three and a half hours later*

When Regina and Daniel walked into the room, she had no idea what she had been expecting. But what she did see made her very happy she had opted to adopt Henry. As the latest contraction eased, Emma let go of Graham's hand.

"Oh, hi Regina." She blew a lock of blonde hair out of her sweaty face and smiled. What the Hell, Regina thought, she's in labor she shouldn't be smiling. "I'm glad you got the message. I mean, I knew you'd get the memo that she's coming, but I didn't know if Snow's bird was able to communicate that we want you here."

"Yeah, well, I recognized it and it pulled on my shirt until I left my house, and I didn't think you'd mind if I brought Daniel."

"No, not at all." Snow assured her stepmother as she pulled her in for a hug that Regina gladly reciprocated.

"So, uh…" Regina said after a moment of silence, "it's been about four hours, right?"

"Yes, we can safely assume the royal baby will be here in less than twenty hours."

"Would you like to make a bet?" Daniel asked James in an effort to strike up a conversation.

"You are not betting on my daughter!" Emma already knew where that was going, and her protests fell upon death ears.

"Thomas and I did the same thing with Emma, but neither of us won. So yes, I would like to. Today's what, August 19th?"

"And it's already 1:00 pm, so let's see… she should be born before 9:00 am tomorrow. And I'm going with tomorrow, August 20th, being the royal princess's birthday."

"Is this really happening?" Emma groaned, and Graham simply shrugged in response.

"And I say it'll be tonight." James stuck his hand out confidently, which Daniel shook. As another minute of idle chatter ended, Emma felt the familiar tightening in her abdomen that slowly started to build into pain. Graham had left after the bet to use the bathroom, Snow, Regina, and James were catching up, and Henry was half paying attention to their conversation, half playing with his Gameboy, one of the things he managed to find after being transported to Fairytale Land. As the pain increased, so did Emma's urge to groan, but she didn't want to break up the happiness and fun the others were so obviously having. So she picked a spot on the wall and focused intently on it, riding the wave of pain. In fact, she was so focused on it, she didn't even notice Snow had come to the side of her bed until she found her hand entwined with Snow's. She tore her gaze away from the wall and looked up at her mother's eyes.

"Just breathe, Em." Snow said quietly, her other hand stroking the blonde's forehead. Emma did just that for the next thirty seconds until the contraction was over.

"I didn't realize my daughter would be born into a party." She joked, gesturing around the room.

"She has a lot of people that love her." Snow said. Regina came over with a wet facecloth and placed it on Emma's forehead.

"This made Henry feel better whenever he didn't feel good." She explained. "I know you're not sick, but you can't possibly be feeling a hundred percent." In that moment it occurred to Emma, yet again, that Regina was very much a mother, too, and not just to Henry, but to Snow. Well, when she wasn't trying to kill her.

As the day dragged on, five o'clock slowly rolled around, and Henry declared that he was hungry. Since Emma was biting back expletives and fighting tears every time a contraction hit, which was every two minutes and lasting forty five seconds, Regina offered to go to the kitchen with Henry and Daniel, knowing Snow, James, and graham wouldn't leave Emma's side, and Henry was clearly shaken up, though he'd been denying it for the past fifteen minutes. When Emma released her death grip on Graham's hand, she said,

"I've been in labor for eight hours already. Doc said she'd be faster than Henry."

"At eight hours, was it this bad last time?" Snow asked gently, trying to get her to see that she was progressing much faster than she had with Henry.

"No." She sighed, seeing her mother's point. "I get it, I get it." She looked at the clock. One hundred and five seconds till the next one. "I'm worried about Henry."

"Oh, Sweetie, you can't be. Regina's taking care of him right now, and he's not a child anymore. He's here because it's what he wants. And then he left because he got hungry. Never get between a boy and his food."

"Or an Emma and her food." Graham said with a toothy grin, quite proud of himself.

"'An Emma'?" The blonde quirked an eyebrow.

"Well, she said 'a boy', so I thought 'an Emma'… it was a joke."

"Good for our tourism, bad for our local signage!" Emma exclaimed, a grin on her face.

"You… you still remember that?" Graham, too, smiled.

"I remember everything about us before you died… And then came back." She added as an afterthought. Her two minutes was up, and her hand instantly shot out to Graham's. She gasped, "This one's worse than the last one."

"The last one was a six." Snow shared a worried look with James, who was equally as concerned. "I'll go get Doc." She hurried out of the room to go over to the next one, which was where Doc was prepping the incubator. A moment later the two barreled in.

"After this contraction's over, I'll see how dilated you are, okay, Emma?" In response, she weakly nodded.

"I'd say this one's at least an eight." James said, running over what Snow had said to him earlier, realizing that Emma was no longer moaning. Emma relaxed as the contraction eased, and Doc put the sheet back up over her. After a few moments, he stood up to his full height again.

"You're ten centimeters, My Dear. It's time to start pushing."