"You ready for this?"
"God no"
"You're in good company, here hold my hand".
Emma brings Neal to her next appointment. And tries not to laugh too hard at him when he passes out seeing the ultrasound image.
It's nearly four weeks before Emma gets the documents in the mail. It only took about twelve hundred phone calls, a million faxes, and far more soft voiced pleading than she's comfortable with.
But it comes in the mail, a big fat envelope with an official seal from the state of Maine and everything.
When she reads the papers she lets out such a horrible, squealy yell that Neal looks at her like she's gone insane.
"Em, are you OK?"
She clutches the papers in front of her, bouncing on the couch beside him.
"I'm clean."
"Clean? As in..." Neal asks, even though his eyes tell her he gets it.
"My entire juvenile record, sealed tight, like it never happened. The lady at the courthouse even said they sometimes destroy old sealed records after five years."
She pets the top of her belly. "You hear that kid? You're no longer the child of a common criminal. No more theft, no more assault, no more drunk and disorderly, no more malicious destruction of property"
"Malicious? What did the property ever do to you?"
She smacks him with the envelope.
"First guy I ever made out with at a party when I was fourteen. I really liked him, then he laughed in my face when I tried to talk to him in front of his friends the next day. So I slashed his tires in the parking lot. God I can't even remember his name..."
"How'd you get caught?"
"One of his friends saw me leaving with a knife. The little red folding knife I keep in my boot? I probably wouldn't have gotten in trouble if I hadn't have kept it on me. But our school was pretty strict about the no weapons thing, so they called the police and I got arrested. It was my first."
"Sounds better than mine. I just got picked up for vagrancy. Cops were nice until they realized I couldn't tell them where I lived. So I got tossed in with all the other guys coming out of juvie in the group home."
Emma rests her head on his shoulder. She'd lied through her teeth. Bobby Henderson, she remembered his name, and his laugh, in perfect detail. Slashing his tires had been an impulsive decision. All she could hear was his mocking laugh, the laugh that she had used to love, and it enraged her. She'd allowed herself to be vulnerable, to act like any other teenage girl at a party, slightly drunk and happy, and it had just found a way to come back around and bite her. To humiliate her. To make that powerful happiness seem like a frivolous sin.
It had been that day that she had refused to ever let another man have that kind of power over her.
She'd mostly succeeded.
It's a good thing she has the happy moments to cling to, because work is starting to put Emma down so hard she wonders if she'll ever get up.
The summer barbecue season apparently means full time cashiers working twelve hour shifts every weekend. By the middle of July, Emma's already showing significantly. The long hours are murder. She's never been more tired, achy, sweat and uncomfortable in her life. The kid is playing kickball with her bladder, and the constant need for bathroom breaks are not met with kindness from either customers or management.
She's so exhausted one night that she falls asleep on the bench by her locker, only to be awoken two hours later by Judy and Neal who practically have to lift her to get her to stand and walk.
She almost cries on the way home because she has no idea how she could handle this all if it weren't for Neal.
Even on her days off, it's the dog days of summer in Florida. Sweltering heat and unending humidity. The windows are open 24/7 with only the thin patched screens protecting them from the biting, stinging insects.
And since Emma has truly, popped, she also has to face up to an unpleasant truth. Most of her clothes don't fit, and maternity clothes are expensive and mostly not suited to the Florida climate, or to her. She found a pair of jean shorts that someone had cut and sewed the waist of a pair of sweatpants into in a thrift store that are comfortable, even if she finds them horribly embarrassing to wear.
A couple of her looser dresses do still fit, but she hasn't been able to wear her jackets or boots or tights for months. She feels naked, vulnerable, with so much skin exposed to the world, and she's already got a face full of freckles and a couple of epic sunburns to show for it.
(she unzips her work pants and wears them low with her extra baggy shirt covering the waist and a string binding her belt loops so they won't slip. No one to impress there.)
It's gotten to the point that the only comfortable spot in the apartment is the tiled kitchen floor. One day, Neal has finally had it and moves the kitchen table by the coffee table so they could have more room.
This is also complicated by one side effect of pregnancy that Emma had never really heard about.
She's horny as fuck. Almost all the time.
Neal learned not to stand too close to the stove after the first time she got home and tackled him straight to the floor, nearly dragging the pan of frying eggs off the stove.
It's as though she's an addict, she can't seem to get enough of him. His skin, his scent, his touch. Every little taste leaves her wanting more.
It's come with complications, heavy expanding stomach shaped complications, but they find ways around it.
Emma pants and shuts her eyes as she comes down. The side of her face is pressed against the floor. She reaches out one hand and touches the cool tile.
"I really love this floor".
Neal chuckles from behind her as he pulls out and lets his hand drop her thigh. He pulls up her ponytail and lays a soft kiss on the back of her neck that makes her shiver.
"All the times in my life that I've bemoaned sleeping on the ground and I fall for the girl who likes it".
Emma rolls onto her back and slips one of her hands into his hair.
"This floor's way better than the ground. And think of all the other stuff you didn't have then. TV, somewhere to sleep at night, regular showers. I think a girlfriend who likes having sex on the floor is a fair trade off".
Neal slips down her body, pressing a kiss to the nest of curls surrounding her vulva, and smiling at her in that way that both terrifies her and warms her from head to toe.
"More than fair? I'd say I made out like a bandit."
Emma shakes her head, she still can't believe that Neal acts like he's the lucky one.
Then he slithers his tongue through her still wet and swollen folds and Emma stops thinking at all.
The next clinic visit is a whirl of tests and warnings and everything that could go wrong.
Blood and needles and another ultrasound. Words that neither Neal or Emma understand.
And Neal knows that if the huge needles and big words are scaring him, that it must be so much worse for Emma. She may know more about this world's medicine, but she's the one its actually happening to.
It ends with a list of "oks" from most of the tests, and a lecture for Emma to take it easy at work because her blood pressure is a little high, and a reminder that she needs to eat more because the baby needs the extra nutrition.
The doctor barely speaks to Neal at all. He gets the sense, and Emma confirms on the way home, that the staff doesn't get many couples that come in together.
"It's really the kind of place where you go when you can't go anywhere better. You can't afford it or you're scared or you don't want anyone to know. That's why they don't have many people working or anything that's new because nobody thinks the women who come here are worth it."
It's probably the truth, but Neal wishes it didn't make him feel even more helpless than before. It's bad enough seeing how hard Emma works, when he can only earn them any money sporadically.
The shopping trips they've gone on have only made it worse. There's so many things to buy for babies and they all seem to cost so much. He doesn't remember anything like it back home even though everyone there had far less money. Women in his village usually relied on relatives or other women in the area for most of the supplies, and they had far fewer of them.
They have good luck with the second hand stores. Lots of baby clothes that look like they were worn once or twice. A mobile with a moon and stars that looked as though it were made by hand. There's a little mobile crib that would fit perfectly in the corner of their bedroom until the baby got bigger. It's brand new. Neal doesn't want to think about why it would have ended up in a thrift store in that condition. The doctor's visits had been scary enough.
Emma insisted they buy the car seat new though, and make sure it's a good one, so he knows that she thinks about those kind of things too.
"One of the babies in the same home as me when I was seven or so had been in a car accident riding on her mom's lap. She hit the windshield and nearly died. She was hurt so badly that her parents abandoned her and she was basically passed around to any home that would take her because she was so sick. Tubes everywhere, she couldn't eat or breathe on her own. I think they eventually sent her to a hospital to live with other kids like her, instead of an actual home. That won't happen to my kid if I have anything to do with it. I couldn't take it."
There's a rage in Emma's words that Neal's never heard before.
"Who would do something like that? Leave a kid so helpless and suffering to complete strangers?"
Emma hoists her side of the car seat's box into the trunk and grunts, before responding, brusquely.
"Someone who probably should have never been allowed to have kids at all".
Neal agrees. And he reads every book on infant health and safety the library has. He goes around the apartment, inventing substitutes for the usual baby proofing. Duct tape covers the outlets neatly. Little sticky pads from the hardware store hold the cabinets shut.
Even though he still wonders if the child's biggest danger will be from it's own father. Father. Neal had never truly thought he would have children. He figured himself for a life of wandering and surviving, never belonging. He hasn't thought of his own father for more than a fleeting moment or two in years.
Because looking at Emma, and the ultrasound pictures he keeps around almost all the time, he thinks he might understand him a little. Even at his most wretched, Rumpelstiltskin had always been about protecting him. And Neal feels that he would do absolutely anything to keep Emma and their child safe from anything any world could throw at them.
But despite the fear, and uncertainty, there are happy moments between.
In late August, during one evening that the heat has relented enough that lying on the couch isn't torture, they're stretched out watching a movie.
"I can't believe you've never seen an Indiana Jones movie". Emma says, flat on her back with her head tilted away from him. "They were practically required viewing when I was growing up. Also that tickles".
Neal had grabbed a felt tipped pen and started doodling on her skin. She was a great canvas. He was currently trying to add vines and details to her flower tattoo, which unfortunately for her is located on very sensitive skin. He presses the pen down harder.
"You never told me how you got this."
She laughs. "My foster sister Gina had a boyfriend who wanted to be a tattoo artist, and he did it at a party. He pierced my ears too. I'm lucky I didn't get Hepatitis or something from it. I actually wanted a rose, but he ah... wasn't really the greatest artist."
Neal finishes shading lines into the last petal. "Well I can't make it into a rose, but I can make it into something."
They watch the movie mostly quietly. It is pretty good, even if Neal doesn't quite understand the historical stuff.
He asks a little later, "have you thought about what we should name him?"
Emma shifts a bit before answering. "Little bit. Nothing really seems right."
A few minutes later, regarding the movie. "Henry's a good name, we could name him that".
Neal laughs. "Sure he just won't take the dog's name instead?"
"Well we'd have to have a dog first".
"True...so Henry? At least if we don't think of anything else?"
"Yeah."
Neal drops the pen and reaches to rub Emma's stomach. Henry.
Neal never tells Emma about the postcards.
The first one had come scarcely a week after they'd moved in. A plain photograph of Kansas, all written on the other side was the singular word, "destiny". He'd thrown it away immediately.
Maybe a half dozen more in the later months. Neal throws them away mostly without looking, but sometimes he can't help it.
The latest one is a sepia toned photo of a family by a car during the Great Depression, all their worldly possessions in bags. The bright blue "Oklahoma" does nothing to cheer. The words on the other side,
"Do you really think this is what she wants?"
Rather than throw this one away, Neal carefully tears it up and puts it in a ceramic bowl. Then he lights a match and watches the pieces smolder.
The seasons finally turn a bit, though it's still warmer than Emma would have ever expected for October.
It's just a regular day when it happens.
"Do you want first or second lunch?" Judy asks before closing her lane.
"You go ahead, I'm not really hungry". Emma replies. It's true, her stomach's been hurting most of the morning.
When Judy leaves the area, Emma feels the first twinge.
By the time she returns, Emma's slumped against register, sweating. The pain is worse.
"Emma?"
When Judy reaches for her arm and Emma tries to move a step, she doubles over.
Something is wrong.