@shady-swan-jones I am your very late CS Secret Santa. This is not your only present, but I’m not going to keep you waiting any longer and wrote this little post 7×02 canon based fic so I could get something up. So sorry for the delay!
Emma finds that peppermint helps with the nausea – morning sickness is a bit of a misnomer, she’s queasy all day at times – and she steals candy canes off the Christmas tree to suck on and settle her stomach. Killian notices (of course he does, he notices everything when it comes to her) and he brings home another box from the drugstore along with a stuffed penguin toy in a scarf and a Santa hat. The baby’s not due until April, but there are presents piled high in the living room already, from her parents, from Archie, from Marco and Granny and the dwarves. A package arrives in the mail from August, travelling across South America for the winter, and even one from Ruby, still somewhere over the rainbow in Oz. They have a new stocking too, hung up next to Henry’s on the mantle.
They both know her son (their son) won’t be home for Christmas, but Emma puts it up with hers and Killian’s and runs her fingers over the letters written on the felt.
Nothing helps with the heartache, not really, but Killian lights a fire while it snows outside and they cuddle together in front of it with mugs of hot chocolate, rereading Henry’s last letter and imagining the adventures he’s having while his half-sibling turns lazy somersaults and Emma thinks he or she is listening too. They’ve decided not to find out the sex, choosing to wait and let it be a surprise. But she dreams of a daughter, at night with Killian’s arm slung protectively around her middle and his warmth pressed to her back. A little princess, like the book she read once when she was a child.
“Come to bed, love.”
She falls asleep at the drop of a hat now, she’s not seventeen this time and pregnancy is flat-out exhausting. Killian lifts her up and she wants to protest, she feels like a rum barrel now, round, and far too heavy for him to carry, but carry her he does, leaving behind half-drunk hot chocolate and the ends of a candy cane, and the gifts for their children, both present and not. He leaves on her socks – her feet get cold without them, even when the rest of her is too hot – and tucks her into bed with a hand lingering on the swell of her stomach.
“We love you.”
He smiles at that, she manages to open her eyes enough to see the turn of his lips before he climbs in behind her and pulls the blankets over them both. She doesn’t just mean her and the baby, she means them all, Henry, her parents and brother. Emma knows he still has doubts at times (so does she, old habits, and all that) of his place in their lives, even after all this time. It’s been a long and winding road but it’s lead them here, and she laces their fingers together under the blanket and feels their wedding rings touch.
This is the true gift, one they give to each other. A new tale, like Henry and his Cinderella, the Evil Queen choosing to be just Regina, and Snow White and Prince Charming trading a castle and a carriage for a farm and a pickup truck.
Once upon a time he was Captain Hook and she was the Saviour, and they still are, but it’s not just his story anymore, or hers,
It All Starts With a Dance 