Baby Boy Swan
Tallahassee spoilers.
Summary: Emma Swan had finally found family, but this one was too broken to repair. Emma and her pregnancy with Henry

It never seemed to be enough. Throughout her whole life she'd found herself facing so many struggles, when family after family rejected her, and now she found herself having to give up on the only family she had. She was worried, of course she was worried, she had been abandoned and left for other's to care for her when she was a baby, so to give up her own child did come with many worries.

Neal had been the only person who ever made her feel like she belonged somewhere, who made her feel a part of something. When he ripped that from under her feet, and threw her in jail because of it, she started questioning if she was meant to have a family, after all. Maybe, she thought, this was the proof that this she would screw the child up. Maybe she was better off alone, maybe this baby was better off somewhere else, with someone much more fit to raise a child. It hurt to think, though. That the only piece of family she had would be far gone, out of her reach.

It had been two months since the police found her, and about a month since she got her sentence of eleven months in prison. It felt harsh, a part of her wanted to scream that it wasn't fair, it wasn't her crime, she didn't do it. But she did, she was going to help him get away with it, she wore it on her. The grief made her unable to grasp anything but the pain inside of her chest, it was the first time she had loved anyone, and she had loved so deeply, and it hurt. How could she let her heart out there again, dangle it in front of someone just so that they can have the power to break it.

That was why she didn't notice until she threw up, and they sent her to the physician to get checked out. The doctor pointed out that she could be pregnant. It wasn't until then she thought of it. No fever, feeling fine, just exhausted but she had attributed that to her heartache. The test told her differently.

Back in her cell, the test still in hand, she got his letter with the keys to the car they both stole. It was when she saw the keys that she realized that she couldn't keep this child. The car was the only connection the child would have to a father, the car was the only thing she would have to her name when she got out. She had nothing, no support, no money, no job, no father. This child would expect a lot of things, and she couldn't give anything. No stability, no clothes, food… she wouldn't know how to love a child when love had only burnt her in the past.

Though, there was a strange connection to her child as he grew inside of her, like he was supposed to be there, like he had a purpose. She tried to keep her heart from swelling when she felt his kicks, and tried to keep her heart together with every hiccup. There was no way her son would find a place in her life, she realized as her belly started growing. She would run her hand over her stomach, trying to see herself as a mother, just eighteen years old.

Many times she cried, knowing what she could not give her son, and hating herself for not even wanting to give it to him.

She worried, she worried a lot about where he would go, what he would see, if he would be loved properly, and if he'd have a mother and a father. She would dream of seeing him five years from now getting taught how to ride a bike by his father as his mother watched, and she'd dream that she was the one teaching him. Some dreams Neal would break in, and he would be holding their newborn son, kissing the top of his head and rocking him to sleep. Those were the dreams that hurt the most, when Neal would show up and be a father to his son.

The months went by achingly slow, and she panicked with every sign that her pregnancy was progressing. The first sign of a bump and fourteen weeks, the small flutter of movement at eighteen weeks, the sudden unmistakably pregnant belly at twenty-two weeks, feeling the first kick from the outside at twenty-four, the hick-ups at twenty-seven, and the lazy movements and harsh kicks towards the last weeks.

There was no doubt, as she held him in her arms, only an hour old, that she loved her son more than anything in the world. She had feared she would resent him for it, but it was the most amazing thing she had ever experienced. Knowing that just the next day she would hand him over to the adoption agency so he would get adopted, and she would go back to her prison cell, broke her more than anything had done before. She had tried to still her sobs as she held him, watching him sleep, so that she wouldn't wake him up. When he cried because he was hungry she wept, wanting nothing more than to be the one who would take care of him.

On his birth certificate she wrote his name, even though she knew his adoptive parents would change it. Why would they want a name they didn't pick, with an emotional baggage they didn't want? She didn't want to know who they were, she wanted him to have a perfect life, with no interference from her. She would ruin him, she knew that.

She named him Cassidy David Swan. Cassidy after his father, and David because for some reason it was a name that made her heart contract with longing. It would suit him. But she never told anyone his name. It was only for her.

I really love it when tv-shows show the background of a character, so I loved this episode. I decided for Emma to give Henry a name because it made sense for her to give him one, and it obviously wouldn't be Henry. Really I wanted to write a longer story about this, but since I'm doing NaNo right now my time is taken, heh. But I hope you like it!