Notes: I'm sorry this took so long to come back. Turns out I needed to actually meet Lana Parrilla to get my muse for this back. I've condensed some things, and I thought I'd focus on the birth of Emma and Regina's baby because that makes a nice ending. Emma and Regina both have some stuff to work through before they meet their baby but it'll be healing for everyone.

Thanks for your patience. Hopefully the ending (two more chapters) will be up before the end of May.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped me work through my demons with this. Wapwani, Shinewithalltheuntold, Racethewind10, and others...I've had so much support and it's been wonderful.

Her mother's hands ran over her neck, pulling back her hair. Lily's had a whole series of jobs that dictated what she do with her hair. Mostly food service, making coffee, waiting tables. This would be different. She probably didn't even have to pull her hair back, things were different when you were a magical doctor not a medical one. It seemed right.

And wrong, because she wasn't a doctor, she hadn't been to medical school. She'd read, more than she thought she could read and take in, but her dragon brain had a seemingly endless capacity. She had barely passed biology in high school, and now she could draw a perfectly accurate diagram of the ventricles of the heart. If that would help. She wouldn't have to do surgery, not with her hands, but knowledge did make her magic work better. She'd healed a broken ankle last week and knowing how the bones fit together, being able to picture them coming back into place, that had helped.

It was ludicrous really. One did not rise to the position of doctor simply because she had the genes for it, being half-dragon and half of the formerly evil queen, but normal towns didn't have dragons changing their streetlights and repaving the sidewalk. Regina tolerated Mal's improvements, and the way they looked at each other sometimes... Regina often reminded her that she was conceived in love, perhaps not the best understood or acted upon kind of love, but love nonetheless. Lily saw it when they talked, when Mom fussed over Regina, or when Regina let her do things that no one else really got away with.

Sometimes she waited for Emma's jealousy, or for Emma to snap at Mom for something, because Mom was sometimes still more dragon than human, but it didn't happen. There were moments where she wondered, because Mom and Regina were close, and Mom was affectionate with Emma, especially while Emma recovered from the fight with Reul Ghorm. Her life wasn't that weird, was it?

She was already surrounded by magic, and women with magic, and the whole town was magic. So why deny it? Use it. Finish medical school in a few months and call herself doctor because the town needed one. (Doctor still felt weird, healer was easier to deal with). Lily had tried to ask Mom to take it on instead, because Mom had a knack for healing magic, but Mom couldn't be the healer every day. She had the town line to patrol and a whole bunch of administrative responsibilities because Mom and Regina ran a town together well. Mom would always help her, but the position had to be hers.

She'd always wanted to be useful, and this was needed, necessary and terrifying. So maybe this bizarre new job wasn't about faith in her, but her mothers and what they represented to the town.

Now that she was no longer the menace of Storybrooke under Rhuel Gorm's control Maleficent was respected in a way she'd never been in the old world. She had been feared before, avoided, spoken of in whispers back in the Enchanted Forest. She'd nearly been the instrument of their destruction here, but now, kids ran up to her in the street, begging for fire tricks, or flights around town. Regina had made her promise not to take any kids up without their parents going with them, but the kids asked. The most innocent residents did not fear their dragon, but loved her. Somehow, her dragon mother had become a hero. Maleficent never would have defined herself as such, even when Regina and Emma but rolled their eyes and smirked when mom tried to insist she was not part of the heroes.

Emma said the saving the whole town thing felt less weird with time. Lily wasn't sure if being nearly killed by her mother as she saved her, was ever going to be less weird. Yet, here they were, standing in front of mirror while Maleficent finished fussing with her hair.

It was up. That was good enough. Lily had not inherited the knowledge or desire to be fashionable, but this was her swearing in. She could wear one of mom's suits today. Just today.

When mom dragged her to the mirror, Lily barely recognized herself with her dark hair elaborately swept up on her head. Ponytails or maybe a braid would have to do for every day, but today, she almost looked the part. The suit Mom had found for her fit well, making her look taller, more elegant. Kind of like a doctor who worked in a fancy clinic. Not the self-taught, mostly magic reliant only option for a healer they had.

Calling her doctor was a formality, a way to transition from the life that was, to the life that would be. They'd gained many things from the curse, vaccinations, plumbing, electricity and the internet, but there were ideas worth keeping from the old world. No one would pay Lily to heal them. She wouldn't have to collect their insurance, or make deals for their second-born child. She would just make them better, to the best of her ability.

"You look beautiful," Mom said, stroking her cheek. She patted her shoulders and then pulled back, rubbing her eyes. "I'm so proud of you."

Lily turned and hugged her, because that was pretty much the only way to get her to stop crying once she started. (Who knew dragons were so emotional?) "It's just work, I've already been doing this job for what, a month?"

"And I've been proud of you all month, and before that," Mom muttered into her neck. Lily stroked the scar on the back of her hand that she'd become so familiar with. Thin silver scars covered both of them, and Lily's shoulder would always carry a round set of teeth. Swimsuits had been weird to wear for a while, but now, it was part of her. A weird sort of reminder that her mother loved her enough to break a curse.

And cry into her neck.

"We'll be late," Lily reminded her. "We're not even driving and will still be late."

"Regina's not going to believe her eyes."

"Yeah, I really don't look much like-" Lily sighed. "Me, do I?"

Mom touched her cheek again then sniffed, pulling herself together. Not that she'd care if she cried through the whole ceremony. "I love how you look." She stopped, correcting herself. "Except that thing. That terrible thing."

"The hoodie."

"It's ridiculous, why don't you just wear a cape?"

"We don't wear capes here."

"Regina has several."

Lily smirked, grabbing her thick coat and tugging her hat on carefully over her hair. "Well, she put her cursed town in Maine."

"I don't think she chose Maine, this frigid wasteland is part of the curse." Mom wiped her eyes once more and pulled on her coat. "All right, I'm ready." She waited, making Lily sigh because she'd have to teleport them. Mom could do it, of course, but she'd wait until Lily did.

For the practice. Maybe she just liked watching, enjoyed sharing the experience. Lily's magic, new green like the plants it seemed they'd never see again, swept them away.

The clinic where they arrived was much smaller than the hospital had been. Instead of the harsh whites of the hospital, the new building was full of the warm golds of hard wood and softer blues. Like many other parts of the reinvigorated Storybrooke, the clinic, her clinic, was an architectural hybrid of what they'd left behind and what the curse had given them.

Due to their just barely timely arrival, everyone stood waiting for them in the lobby. Emma, Regina, and Henry Lily had expected, but the others: Snow, David, Mulan, Ruby, Belle, Granny and the crowd behind them surprised her. Lily hadn't wanted any ceremony, she had done anything. It wasn't like she'd actually studied medicine. They were the crazy ones, this little town of people willing to put their lives in her care simply because she had enough magic and time to look after them. Yet there they stood, smiling as she took a step towards Regina.

Lily had expected, even heavily pregnant, that her other mother would graceful. The roundness of Regina's belly suited her, as did the softness of her face. Her dark hair fell from her hat unto her shoulders in gentle curls, and as always, she was the kind of beautiful that lived in stories. Emma stood behind her, one hand on her back, and she grinned, and at least that was less intimidating. Emma's just Emma. Maybe someday the sheer presence of her mothers will be less overwhelming, maybe she'll feel worthy of their affection.

Nearly whole town stared at her, so Lily smiled back. It would only be a short ceremony. She could do this. Knowing Storybrooke, someone would need her help soon and she would just be able to go to work. She had a concussion and two sprained ankles to heal yesterday at the ice skating rink. That part of the job was easiest, taking pain away, helping flesh knit back together. That came easier than teleporting, and fireballs, which she could still only do if someone pointed something dangerous in her direction.

No one was asking her to defend them. Her mothers and Emma would do that. She'd did what she had to and killed Ruel Ghorm, and as awful as she'd been, her death clung to Lily's hands. She'd killed, and her mothers forgave her instantly, without her even asking. Healing the town was how she'd pay it back. How she'd make things right, because she'd crossed that line, and couldn't come back.

Regina folded her hands over her belly. "Well, doctor, good of you to come."

"Sorry," Lily muttered.

Mom chuckled, because she was always comfortable no matter how many people stared at her. "My fault, I assure you."

"It's no trouble," Regina said, and her little smile was all mom before she pulled herself up, and became mayor. "Now, it is my great pleasure to swear in the first healer of the new Storybrooke clinic, Doctor-"

"Wait," Lily interrupted, staring at the floor until she had her courage. "Please."

Regina closed the distance between them, her expression full of concern. She dropped her voice to a whisper. "What is it? Do you not want the position? You said this was what you wanted."

"No, no, I want it. I just- Page was my old name," she stammered. "From my old life. I'm here, now, and I'm not that person. I never was that person. Mom and I talked about it, and she doesn't have a last name. If you're going to call me Doctor, I want to be Doctor Mills."

Mom's grin grew so bright that it lit her face, and Emma nudged her, almost beaming. Maybe she should have talked to Emma first, made sure Regina would be okay with-

Then Regina hugged her, holding her so tight that Lily felt the baby shift. Her half-sister kicked while Regina held her.

"That's what you want?" she asked, releasing Lily to look at her eyes.

"I'm your daughter, and I was theirs, but they're gone. In this world, I'm yours." She glanced back at Mom, who beamed with pride. "And Mom only has one name."

"I've only ever needed one."

"I know." Lily shuffled her feet, hating her heels. Why had she agreed to wear them? She couldn't tell what Regina was thinking, or if she was upset. "Is that okay?"

"Okay?" Regina repeated. Her voice caught in her throat.

Dammit, was she going to cry too? Mom was bad enough. She couldn't handle both of them.

"Yes, that's okay," Regina finished, swallowing hard. She didn't cry, though her eyes shone with tears. Maybe she should have asked before, asked her in private.

Regina took a moment, centering herself, then she turned to the crowd. "As I was saying, you will be the first healer, magical and otherwise, of the new Storybrooke clinic," Regina finished, and her smile came slower than Maleficent's, and was more tentative, but it lit her face all the same. "And my daughter, so I couldn't be more proud." Regina held up her hand, gesturing for Lily to do the same. "Now, in this world, healers take an oath. So, repeat after me."

She'd learned the Hippocratic Oath that morning, reading it over with breakfast while Mom had burned the bacon. Regina would have had to memorize it like a human, and she had, for her, for this. So they could repeat the words together that bound Lily to this community.

To her home.

Regina's eyes shone with unshed tears, and Lily's own began to sting as she readed the end.

"May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help," she finished, staring into the deep brown eyes of her mother. "Thank you," she added, softening her voice so that was for Regina.

"Citizens of Storybrooke," Regina continued, but her voice caught. She smiled, forcing her tears away. allow me to present, Doctor Lily Mills." Her voice caught and Lily wanted to run and hug her, forget about all the ceremony, because her mother was proud to give her a name. Her name.

Henry had a plaque, because of course, there had to be something. The brass shone bright against the dark wood, and thankfully the clapping didn't go on that long. The hugging was much easier. The plaque was going to drive her crazy for the first few weeks, but one wave of Regina's hand meant it said Lily Mills, and maybe that, she could stand to look at.

Emma pulled her aside as the crowd retreated to cars for the inevitable celebratory drink at Granny's. "That was a nice thing to do. It meant a lot for Regina."

"It meant more to me that she was willing to share. I should have asked in advance, gave her time to think about it, to say no, if she wanted to."

"She didn't, she wouldn't, she's your mom," Emma insisted. She leaned against the wall, watching Henry help Regina with her coat. "And that's important to her."

"It's still hard to believe, isn't it? We're part of this, we have family, people who'd miss us, people who want us to be around."

"We belong," Emma added, shaking her head. "Doesn't seem real."

"Says the savior."

"To the half-dragon bitch who saved us all."

"Don't I get a plaque for that?"

Emma laughed, turning her smile towards Regina and Henry. "You do, it's just in city hall, we keep having to add more names. Town's kind of unlucky that way."

Mom handed Regina her scarf, and made some kind of joke to Henry. He laughed, and Regina smirked. The three of them headed for Emma and Lily, making their family whole.

"I think we're lucky," Lily said, keeping her voice low enough just for Emma to hear.

Regina slipped into Emma's arm, and Mom flipped Henry's scarf around his neck.

"Henry wants to drive," Mom announced, smiling at him. Of course, she thought it was funny, she dove off cliffs for fun in dragon form.

"Not until next year," Regina said, and Emma and Henry shared a look behind her. "Definitely not in the snow."

Mom tilted her head. "What makes driving different in the snow? It's not like you're flying through it."

Emma and Lily shared the all too common, 'do you want to take this or should I?' glance and then Emma patiently explained how traction on ice and snow was different. The explanation carried them all the way to Regina's new, though for some reason still seemingly from the early eighties, Mercedes. The impending arrival of the new baby meant that Emma's bug and Regina's Mercedes needed back up.

Mom still can't drive, and perhaps she'll agree to learn by the time Lily's half-sister is ready to teach her, decades from now. Lily climbed into the back seat, with Henry and Mom, even though they could teleport. The car ride seemed to be an important part of the journey, and Mom was mid conversation with Regina about running patrols of the frozen beach, even though they make her sleepy.

"I can't believe being cold makes you sleepy like the Iguana we have at school," Henry whispered.

"We're reptiles, I guess," Lily replied with a shrug. "Magic, flaming reptiles."

"What kind of sleepy is it? Like you've stayed up too late watching TV or you're going to finish that level anyway, regardless of what happens?"

"More like the first one, it's easily dismissed, but you have to think about it. Mom gets it worse, and she can't stop yawning. It's pretty funny." Lily leaned back against the seat, listening to the conversation move all around her.

She looked at Henry, watching him follow the conversation.

"Why did you build your castle in the snowy mountains?" Henry asked when the conversation paused. "You could have built it anywhere, down in the desert where it was warm."

Mal chuckled, so did Regina. They knew. Lily and Henry looked at each other, and the back of Emma's head as she drove.

"I have no idea, kid," Emma offered.

"To be as undesirable to other dragons as possible," Regina answered, turning in her seat. "You've always been a hermit."

"Why build something they'd want to take away? I'd have to defend it all the time. The snow was like a protection spell all on its own."

"And you're lazy," Regina teased.

"I prefer to think of it as efficient." Mal replied.

Emma mentioned that Mal's 'efficiency' still did not extend to an understanding of the dishwasher, or the microwave, and the three of them dissolved into a kind of friendly bickering that reminded her of the good days with her adoptive parents. They'd be happy knowing she had a family, that she was loved and finally at peace with who she was. Not crazy or in need of a different kind of medication, but loved. Lily shut her eyes for a moment, thankful for the time she'd had with them, and what she had now. She'd been so lost, so miserable, and they'd tried, they'd loved her, helped hold her together so that she could make it here and finally be home.

They'd like Regina's cooking, Mom's sense of style and the strange way she viewed the world. Most of all, they'd love how this family loved her. She was safe at last, finally doing something she was good at that helped people. She hadn't thought this feeling even existed for her, that she could be warm this way.

Henry met her eyes, and his smile grew while her mothers and Emma continued to debate something with an underlying emotion Lily wasn't sure the three of them fully understood. Their joking held no tension, no jealousy, and that she was profoundly grateful for. She suspected sometimes that what was and what is blurred for her mothers, especially as Regina's pregnancy progressed and Mom fussed over her. Mom had a deep affection for Emma too, as they worked with magic and shared stories, Mom often came home with a question about something from Emma's past, or the horrors of the world without magic and the time Lily and Emma both had been running.

Mom had been alone so much of her life by choice, and that only made her more sympathetic to the abandonment Emma and Lily had both gone through. There were stories that made her growl, and then she'd hug Emma all the tighter the next time they were together and Emma never quite got it, but that was Emma.

Love was weird, having it was stranger and being overwhelmed with it was something neither of them felt they deserved.

Emma met her eyes as they got out of the car, then grinned, that playful, brilliant Emma, grin. "So, Doctor, does that mean you're buying?"

"Like either Mom would let me."

Chuckling, Emma beamed. "Good point."

Maleficent yawned again, hiding her mouth behind her hand. She slowly smiled, shaking her head. "It's the cold," she explained.

"It's not cold in here," Regina said. To be fair, she was perpetually warm now. Perhaps it was cool in her office. Emma was always colder than she was, but Mal was often just more aware of the temperature, and she wore a heavy wool blazer.

Mal's smile grew, lighting her face. She shifted in her chair, studying Regina behind the desk. "I never thought I'd see the day when you were warmer than I."

"Me either." She'd complained at length about the dreariness of Maleficent's old castle. The fireplaces were never adequate and Mal hadn't updated them, or cleaned them more than once a century. The baby turned within her, pressing down heavy in her hips and Regina sighed. She couldn't waste time reminiscing. She had a list of things to accomplish before she could let Maleficent return to her classes and they'd already spoken about snow removal and making sure the forest was patrolled regularly, just in case the brutal Maine winter brought out some ice demons, or hungry trolls, or something else to make their life more difficult.

Regina nearly checked those items off and tried not to wince when baby's foot collided with her rib.

"Not a fish anymore, is she?"

"No," Regina said, a hand over the sore spot. She frowned a little, because the end of her pregnancy had its own list of concerns. "It's nearly over."

Mal's eyebrow rose. "More contractions?" Her hand dropped to the desk, moving closer and Regina stared at her fingers before she put down her pen.

Wrapping Mal's warm fingers in her own took away some of the tension. Regina looked at the desk before she met her eyes. "No real ones," she said, "but they're more intense than they've been." Nothing even seemed to trigger these early contractions. They came of their own accord, without rhythm, made her world tighten along with the muscles of her belly, and left. Sometimes they came in in little groups, distracting her for twenty minutes, even twenty, but they were not a beginning, not yet.

"Takes your breath away don't they?"

"Yes," Regina said, leaning back in her chair. Mal shifted closer, her expression softening further."I think I frightened Emma yesterday."

"Startled?"

Taking a breath helped Regina think, but it didn't make it any easier to speak. "Afraid."

Mal reached for her other hand, taking that one as well and warmth runs through her. "You said Henry's birth was difficult."

She looked away, studying the familiar black and white wall. She hadn't meant to grab Emma's hand that hard, or let so much of her own surprise and pain into her reaction, but it suddenly hurt, sharp and tight. Emma's eyes had been so wide, so very white.

"They chained her to the bed," she said. Mal's fingers tightened around hers. "I don't know all of it, she gets so distant when we talk about it."

"In any world, prison is barbaric," Mal said. She kept her gaze on Regina's, her blue eyes warm and steady. "The world without magic is as brutal as ours was, if not more so, because there's not much hope out there. The stories Lily tells-" she paused, shaking her head. "But they're here now, both of them, and we can protect them. Make them safe enough to tell us what happened, how they were hurt."

"I-" And it crept up on her, the gradual tightening that sometimes turned to pain. Her whole uterus clamped down, closing around the baby, preparing her to be born. Mal dropped her hands, circled the desk and then was just there, beside her, taking her hands again.

"Breathe."

Regina shuddered; this time it hurt, rolling through her, turning her nerves to red hot wires. "I'm fine."

"Of course." Mal held her arm, then found her hands again. "Of course you're fine." She leaned on the desk, hands still wrapped around Regina's. "Did you make that little noise with Emma?"

"I didn't-"

Mal clucked her tongue. "You must have, and you're too tense. It hurts because you're tense."

"Thank you."

"I'm serious, the more you try to hold it in, the worse it is." Mal leaned closer, then kissed her hair. "I tried to fight it for a day when Lily was born, maybe longer. Cruella made me realize that I was making it worse. Pain draws her like lightning. Makes her an interesting companion when you're having a baby."

Her chest tightened then, shifting her attention from her belly. Mal told the story so easily, without trying to protect her. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't tell you. You couldn't have known." She drew their hands onto her thighs, holding Regina close. "Things would have been different, but we wouldn't have Henry, or Emma, or this odd, yet pleasant, little town if I'd begged you to come to my side. Pain passes, and I made it through."

"You always do," Regina said, letting her head drop for the moment. She'd failed them both back in the Enchanted Forest. She'd lost so much without even knowing of its existence. Maybe, worst of all, she wouldn't even have cared then, her heart was so dark that having a child wouldn't have mattered. Now though, everything was different. This baby needed her, and Emma, and she had no idea how to make that work or make sure she made it safely into the wider world. Emma's fear hid so close beneath the surface that it was palpable, a living thing that gnawed at her, that Regina couldn't help her banish.

"It'll be all right," Mal promised, still full of hope. "Emma will conquer her demons, she always does, and if you need to grab someone's hand and be totally fine, my hands are at your disposal."

Breath filled her chest, and for a moment, memory of that pain lingering, promising to return, in force, stronger than she'd experienced since Greg Mendel-

She would not think of that. Those memories could stay buried. That had been death rising for her, clawing at her, and this was life. This had a point.

"What is it?" Mal reached for her cheek, brushing her skin with warm fingers. "What are your demons?"

"It's not important," Regina said. That had been more of a year ago. He was dead. She had no reason to think of him now, but he crept in, almost as if the memories of Mendel and his machine had been dredged up by the pain.

"It is," Mal insisted, holding their hands against her own chest. "You don't have to tell me now. Someday, soon, you might feel better if you got it off of your chest. In my experience, having a baby, that kind of uncontrollable pain, brought back other times I had hoped I'd forgotten."

Mal's clear blue eyes didn't hide her vulnerability, they never had, and it was almost envious how easily she spoke of her weakness.

"When you're ready," Mal repeated, squeezing Regina's hands before she released them. "So, shall I speak to Emma?"

"Please, it might be easier if she talks to you." The muscles in her belly relaxed slowly, refusing to give up their preparation. At least part of her was ready, even if her mind was most certainly not.

"She may not wish to tell me either."

"But you will try."

"Of course." Mal nodded, circling back around the desk, back to her paperwork. "Now, how about you finish telling me what I need to do to keep the supply wagons."

Regina had to grin. "Trucks."

"Trucks," Mal repeated, smiling a little at the foreign word, "arriving on time."