AN: I'm hot garbage, and I never update.

Sammichbatch is still the absolute shit, and she coaches me through all of my insecurities and I appreciate her SO much. Good god. All the props to that woman.

But good news for all of you who might still care about this random, glorified, public word document, I'm going through a breakup and need to funnel my energy into LITERALLY anything other than thinking about that. I've been working on this chapter forever and now, sitting all alone in my messy apartment, I have finished and am here to share. You're lovely. Thank you for reading.

You're loved. Feel it. Revel in it.


Henry's crutches sank in the dirt with every other step on the way back to the car from Nick's burial, and the sweat breaking out on his forehead didn't go unnoticed to anyone but Emmet who still wanted to try and hold Henry's hand.

Ava hugged him for a second after the crowd had cleared, but neither of them looked like they wanted to be near the other.

Regina broke away from their little troop and nodded to the parking lot. "I'll go pull the car around."

"No." Henry said.

They all stared while the sounds of their slowed footsteps padded on the ground.

"Honey, I parked-"

He just shook his head. "I can walk."

Emma frowned. "Your mom is just trying to help, kid."

"I said," He looked at them, stopping for a moment and almost stumbling. "I can walk."

Even Emmet stayed quiet the rest of the way back to the car.


"Bug went down okay." Emma said. She slumped against the counter next to Regina, who nodded and continued prepping grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.

Each set of cheese and bread in their own little plastic baggie, and all of the ingredients were set out in pristine order. Like the other half of her brain, Emma got out tupperware to fill with ranch dip and baby carrots in silence.

"Do you want coffee?"

Emma nodded. She finished up putting lids on everything and setting them in the fridge before she sat down on the other side of the island.

And by the time Regina came to sit next to her, she found the strength to offer her just a hint of a smile to thank her.

"I've been thinking." Regina started, eyes watching her coffee ripple in her mug. "You've stayed with us every night anyway… and we've needed the extra help." She bit her lip and put one of her hands on Emma's knee before looking up at her. "And I feel better with you here. Like things aren't as heavy as I imagine them."

Emma put her hand over Regina's and squeezed. "Good."

"So, I was wondering.. if you would move in with us after all?"

"Yeah." Emma said without hesitation.

Regina kissed her then, just for a moment, and gave a long sigh afterward. "It can't be all at once. I don't want it to seem like a new event to catalogue, just with everything that's happened. We still need to put our focus into the kids and keep everything as normal as possible." She shrugged and looked at their fingers. "For some reason I imagined it in the summer, so we could invite everyone to help and have a potluck. By then we would have been together together long enough." Regina huffed like it should have been a laugh.

"Then we'll wait until summer." Emma smiled.

"No, I don't wa-"

"I'll still be here every night. I'll help with whatever you need." She pushed a piece of Regina's hair behind her ear. "But you wanted to celebrate it, right? So we'll just wait to make anything official until then."

"Okay."

"Come on." Emma hopped off the stool and took Regina's hand.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Just come with me."

They meandered back to the study, which was just the slightest bit untidy for the first time in Emma's memory. But she looked through the bottom shelf of the book case carefully, running her finger across titles and soundtracks.

"Which one were you watching the other night? It's the musical – the sad one."

Regina tried to laugh. "Most of them are sad."

"Yeah, but it was the weird one with all of the pop songs and Obi Wan-"

"Moulin Rouge." Regina over French-pronounced, then came over and picked out the CD case with little effort.

Emma took it and put it in the computer, which happened to be the only thing close to a stereo in the room. She clicked on one in particular, but frowned when the music came rattling from the small speakers. "This sounds different."

She wandered closer and nodded as Emma got up and put her arms around her waist, and in turn Regina moved her hair so she could clasp her hands around the Sheriff's shoulders.

"Than the movie, I mean."

"Yeah." Regina turned her head. "I still like it, though."

Emma kissed her cheek and pulled the smaller woman to her as the music grew from the tiny speakers. "Me too."

They just swayed together for a while. The song ended and started again and Regina actually did laugh then, and turned to rest her head on Emma's shoulder entirely. She hummed along with the 'storm clouds may gather and storms may collide' and Emma promised to steal the CD when she had the chance so she could learn it.

"Thank you." Regina whispered.

Emma didn't move her lips from Regina's hair. "For what?"

"For letting me trust you. And for loving me… for making a family with me when I almost stopped believing in it."

"Oh, that." Emma shrugged. "Yeah, you're welcome, I guess."

Regina grinned and turned her head inward, so her nose was right against Emma's neck.


She sat with her fingers hovering over the handle that will make that awful creaking sound, opening the drivers side door to her beat up, old truck. She just sat there. It had to have been an hour by now, maybe more? The yellow bug had become a blur in the shifting tears in her eyes and when she calmed herself down, the horrid anxiety.

Mary Margret imagined every outcome of this too many times to count.

Since the moment Henry said 'birthday' and 'Emma' in the same sentence to her.

Her face was hot - all the way to her eyes and back down, wrapping around her gums and her shoulders. Because the impossible was absolutely possible now. It was probable. And it was certain in her heart.

Every time she looked at Emma and saw that jaw - David's jaw - she knew. Her own cheeks, bubbling over at Regina's babies, like some mirror made only to haunt her.

"Come on." She growled at herself.

Her hand closed over the thick aluminum, now chipped and worn down to the hard plastic underneath in most spots.

As soon as her sneakers hit the asphalt, her heart began clambering around her chest for a place to grasp on to, for comfort or stability, but no foothold was found.

Her feet carried her quickly, past the wrought iron fence, up the walkway, drawing breath like it was all she could do anymore. And her hand only hesitated for a second before sending three large knocks beside the 108 plaque stated so proudly on the door.

"Oh, God..." she breathed.

There were noises, indistinguishable, behind the door. Then Regina's face appeared.

"Hello." Her voice was a forced sort of cheerful, while her brow bunched together in an instant. "Ms. Blanchard, I wasn't expecting you here, today."

"Neither was I?" She grinned, the lines around her eyes stretching down the perimeter of the apples of her cheeks.

"What can I do for you?"

Mary Margret flinched at herself. Her own will - the audacity it took to stand here and do what she had planned to do for weeks now.

She inhaled, listened to her spine pop as her lungs stretched her back and raised her chin the smallest bit. "I was hoping I could talk with Emma for a minute?"

A new kind of mild shock ran over Regina's features, her eyebrows raised for a moment, but she nodded.

Before the Mayor had time to answer, Emmet ran over with bare feet slapping against the hardwood. "Ahmma is in the kitchen." He said. His little fingers dug into his mother's thigh.

Mary Margret smiled while Regina moved him back inside with a gentle hand.

"Sure-" she said, still paying attention to her youngest. "Would you like to come inside?"

The older woman shook her head. "No, it's alright. I don't think we'll be.. too long?" Her shoulders rose and fell in her lie.

Regina just nodded before retreating into the house, the door knob clicking after she disappeared.

And there she was again. It wasn't too late to run - get back in her truck and pretend there was some emergency... anything to avoid this. This, the moment she'd dreamed of for over thirty years. The thing that terrified her more than the idea that she would grow old alone and unhappy.

Suddenly, she's there, blonde down past her shoulders, a straight line in place of a smile, and a "Hey-" thrown out into the brisk, afternoon air, instead of any proper greeting you might receive from her girlfriend.

"Hi." Mary Margret grinned. Though she didn't feel like grinning. She felt like hiding.

Now it was officially too late.

"Sorry," Emma started. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. "I didn't get to thank you for... ya know, talking me down from the cliff - that night at the hospital."

The brunette waved a hand in dismissal. "Don't. Honestly. I was happy to."

Emma nodded at the ground. "Right. But, thanks anyway. I needed it."

Mary Margret gulped hard, trying (and failing) to clear the knot from her esophagus. "How are you?"

Emma huffed, almost like a laugh with no smile. "This whole thing doesn't seem real yet." She said. "Like it's all some really awful prank that got way out of hand... and this rock down in my gut won't move."

"Like the prank won't end." She reinforced.

"Yeah," Emma stretched her legs out, rolling her ankles one at a time. "I feel like I'm just waiting for it to get worse, and still trying to make the best of what we have left at the same time?"

"That's life."

That's depressing." Emma actually chuckled a bit.

She stared at her then, the dark circles under her eyes, tension in her jaw.

"Anyway. I'm sorry - I haven't been at the apartment very much, but I still live there. If you had to come over here second, I mean. I've had a lot to help with over here."

"I understand." Mary Margret nodded.

Emma made the next moves too quickly for her to do anything but follow.

She pointed at the stairs, walked over and sat on the top step, folding her hands over her knees, and leaned against one of the large, alabaster pillars framing the porch. "So, what's up?"

"Well," the teacher grimaced at her own lap. "There are a few things."

"If Ruby's making too much noise, I can kick her out. I'm pretty sure her and her boyfriend are going to move in together soon, anyway."

Emma shrugged.

"No, no - nothing like that." She had the courage to smile, then it faded all too quickly. "I wanted to... just talk to you, about-" the air escaped her, finally. But it left her chest feeling empty, ready to cave in on itself without any support there to keep it up. "I was worried about you. You deserve to vent a little if you need to."

Emma's eyes shifted to her thumbs. "It's been hard." She admitted, much faster than Mary Margret would have ever imagined. There's a pause after, where Emma looks like she's sorting through all of the things clogging her mind like chess pieces. "Regina says Henry's mourning is going to take time, and we have to be really careful about how much space and independence we give him."

She stared at the younger woman.

"And Emmet is confused. About Nick not.." Her voice caught for a second, but several gulps later, she found her voice. "Nick, and Henry's leg both confuse him a lot. So... we're just trying to deal with everything slowly."

Her knuckles gripped tightly to each other to try and keep herself from reaching over and putting a hand on Emma's arm. "You two love those kids a lot. I think that's what'll make all the difference here."

"Well it can't hurt, right?" the attempt at a joke died on Emma's lips, she herself wasn't even able to smile.

"Emma."

She looked up, those eyes she didn't want to know as well as she did.

Mary Margret pulled her legs up and hunched over them, leaning toward the younger woman. "All of this - these past few weeks - it's just forced me to realize how precious family is. How important it should be, and how they should hold priority in your life."

The blonde nodded microscopically. "Yeah."

"And how... how people should take the time that they have. Be honest.

Lay all of their cards on the table." Her toes tingled in her neon sneakers.

"I owe you more honesty than I've given you."

"Hey," Emma interrupted. She had opened up just a little bit, each of her hands on her knees, her shoulders just a bit straighter. And she shook her head.

"No-"

But Emma didn't let her finish. "I know what you're thinking, and it's impossible." Her tone was sincere and gentle. "Ruby told me about some rumors that went around about you, and if it's true, I'm sorry. I know how hard it is to give up a baby, but I'm over thirty y-"

"Emma, I was sixteen."

Emma frowned, still in a disbelieving, pitying sort of way.

"I gave birth on October first, to a little girl that I-"

Emma shook her head. "Okay but Mary Margret.. the odds of that baby being me-"

Her pulse thumped in her ears and ran right behind her eyes. "We have the same blood type - we both donated for Henry that day. And you-"

"It's not that rare. These are all bits and pieces you're using to jump to the craziest possible conclusion! It's insane, really, you have-"

"I wrapped you in a blanket I made for you."

Everything stopped. Emma stood still, mouth open, staring at her.

It hit a nerve, but Mary Margret sat there, staring up at her for a few moments while a breeze bit at her elbows and sent a chill from her ankles to her neck.

"Wh-" Emma coughed, growled to clear her throat and blinked intentionally. "What kind of blanket?"

"I crocheted it. White wool. And it had a pink ribbon around the border and that spelled out your name on it." It sounded like pleading. Even to her own ears.

But something broke through, though perhaps not in the best way.

Something darkened in Emma's face, and her hands started to grab at her chest. Her feet planted themselves on the lowest step before she paced the length of the walkway, then back again. Her eyes were wide and unforgiving.

"Emma-"

"You left me on the side of the road."

"No, I-" Mary Margret stood.

"I almost died." Emma yelled. She brushed her hair back between her fingers, teeth bared in an awful sneer.

"My parents sent me-"

"Stop! Fucking quit. Now."

"I don't... I know it's upsetting, but you don't know how long I've wanted to let you know-"

"I said TO QUIT! GOD DAMN IT!"

Mary Margret saw the lack of tears, the redness gradually coloring her face. Her throat started squeezing itself shut, but she knew her eyes couldn't betray her.

"How old are you?" Emma squared her shoulders.

"Forty-eight."

Her eyes rolled in the back of her head for a moment.

"I never wanted to-"

"You fucking left me on the side of the road." She shook her head.

Behind her, Mary Margret heard the door knob jiggle and the seal at the bottom of the door slide like an icy breath against the hard wood.

"I wasn't given a choice, but if I were, Emma I swear I would ha-"

"Yes or no?"

"Emma?"

She looked behind her and Regina was inching from the doorway, all of the concern that had every right to live on her face (this reads like an incomplete sentence).

It took her a moment, but the teacher nodded, stepped off the first step, holding her hands out like she had the option to accept anything, but

Emma wasn't offering.

"Please," Mary Margret, pleaded. "It was never my choice to g-"

Before she had a second to process what was happening, Emma had already come up and slapped her across the face. All she could get a handle on was that her cheek felt like it was on fire and she stumbled back a few feet before she did it again. This time she saw Emma's hand swing back the other way with tears swelling on her lashes.

"FUCK. YOU." Emma bellowed. "I don't give a shit what you think you owe me, I don't want to speak to you. I don't want you to come near me. Ever."

It looked like there wasn't enough room in Emma's chest for all of the air she was trying to inhale, and she didn't have the power to push it out either.

Regina was there without a beat of hesitation. Her hands on Emma's shoulders, turning her gently.

But the blonde wouldn't be moved. She lunged for the older woman again, getting in Mary Margret's face. The only difference was Regina holding her back from the teachers stinging cheek.

"I waited for you! I prayed until I was nine years old that you would come and find me, and make all of the bullshit around me stop. And then this guy who was banging my foster mom behind her husband's back said that there was a reason no one wanted me - because I was worthless, and I believed him." Emma was almost screaming.

Regina was speaking in hushed tones, trying to guide her back toward the house.

But Emma wasn't having any of it.

"Do you know how many times I thought about just ending it? Because you threw me away, and no one ever tried to keep me for more than a year?" Emma asked, leaning over Regina's arms. "No one wanted me, unless they wanted to use me. Do you know how many other kids hit me?" She snarled.

Mary Margret felt the very core of her start to tremble.

Emma's chin dimpled beneath a trembling bottom lip. "Or how many grown men touched me? When they were the ones who were supposed to protect me - men with families, who pulled a little girl in a back room o-or a basement and told me they cared about me before they put their hands on me?"

Regina's eyes shifted, and Mary Margret's followed.

Henry on his crutches stood in the open doorway. Emmet clutched a folded leg of his jeans behind him.

Regina shook her head, saying something about going inside, in an unusually calm way. It made Emma take a deep breath, one that reached the bottom of her lungs and calmed her in the smallest way.

Mary Margret opened her mouth to speak but Emma waved her words away with splayed fingers.

"I don't want to hear anything, okay? I don't care about anything you have to say. I was barely a year older than you when I had a baby and I put him up for adoption the second he was born so he didn't have to go through what I went through." She pointed right in Mary Margret's face. "You're a shit human being. You can pass it off on whoever else you want to, but you had choices, just like I did. Hard ones, but I had it harder and I did the right thing - you left a newborn to die and you should feel sick to your fucking stomach! Every day."

"Emma, please come inside." Regina grabbed at her arm and put a hand

on her waist.

But the blonde put her face down, rubbing at cheeks hard. A few sobs marched their way over the Sheriff's clenched teeth.

"Honey, come on." Regina whispered.

Emma nodded and got behind Regina, taking one of her hands and shaking her head at Mary Margret.

Just short of the door, she turned back to the teacher.

She just stood, speechless, tears dropping and rolling down her cheeks. Her frame was folded forward the slightest bit, hugging herself around the middle, an unconscious effort to cease the pain tugging at her belly.

"What you owe me," Emma mocked, "Is to not talk to me again. Don't talk to me, or my kids, or my family. You stay the fuck away. You owe me not to ruin anything else."