terribly sorry, officer (baelfiery) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-05-09 18:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !partner thread, emma swan, neal cassidy (baelfire) |
Who: Swanfire (with NPC!Henry)
What: Braxton-Hicks contractions and uncomfortable roly-poly Emma
When: Today!
Where: Their house, then to a clinic
Rating/Warnings: Talk of placentas and the ~miracle of life~
Status: Complete
Honestly, Neal’s hands looked like he’d stuck them into a sink full of razors. Mostly, it was both palms - one gash to open the portal that led to the Underworld, one long jagged gash on the opposite palm that was their means of getting out. Apparently the blood of the Dark One could do that, and Neal wasn’t too surprised - but since he’d hosted the essence for a little while here in Orange County, shared a mind and body with a version of his father that was powerful and insane (not to mention that Baelfire was his son and they also shared DNA), that made him the key to leaving Under County, CA. Once a deal had been struck with Hades, of course. And that? It wasn’t easy. Everything about that fucker gave Neal the heebie jeebies but that was probably because he was the actual King of the Dead. But all was well. He’d wrapped his hands with gauze and everyone was back where they should be, one heart now split in two and shared between Killian and his sister. It was better than exchanging a soul for a soul, to allow the pirate to leave - really, things had turned out better than Neal anticipated and he was glad for it. They had their lives in the Land of the Living to tend to, after all. A nursery to finish up, a belated baby shower to attend, Henry to take to places, a household to maintain, pets to care for. It was a lot, they were all busy, but it was a welcomed daily grind. Emma having about eight weeks to go in the pregnancy meant that there was an extra layer of frazzled to everything. When the false contractions started, or whatever they were called (the body’s way of preparing for childbirth weeks before it happened, completely normal according to medical experts on WebMD), Henry of course had to elevate the situation to an Emergency Def-Con 5. He’d been with Emma taking the dogs for a walk when all of a sudden he burst back into the house, shouting, “Dad! Mom’s going into labor! Just like it is on TV!” It scared the shit out of Neal because what the hell, she wasn’t at thirty-seven weeks yet, this was bad. But after some more Google-fu and panicking, the clueless men of the house realized that this tightening in the uterus was normal. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to hover, though. Because Google-fu meant looking for ways to ease the discomfort and get the contractions to stop. “The internet says you’re supposed to lie down. Are you lying down, Em? Or take a bath. You want me to run a bath? What about warm milk, it says to drink that too.” Okay, so he was definitely a little frantic as he browsed on his laptop. Sue him. With all the excitement going on; Dark Ones, magic flares, seances, trips to the underworld, it was all systems go and had been for the last few weeks. Emma hadn’t really been expecting her body to go into dress rehearsal mode, and honestly she could’ve done without it while she had been out with the dogs, but one strained walk back down the street -thankfully not that far away- with Henry going straight to the big guns, and Emma was ready to just say fuck it and push the kid out already. But it wasn’t time, and it was normal and they’d read up on this before anyway. It was just that she hadn’t really been expecting it now. “Sitting, I’m sitting.” She could probably recline a little more if she tried but she really didn’t want to try to get in and out of a bath right then either. “I’m okay, it’s okay just…” It was just really tight, and a little uncomfortable, and a lot to just get through. But this was nothing compared to actual labour, right? Jesus, this was going to be repeated. “Actually, warm milk would be good, it’d be great.” Emma knew it was futile, but rubbing along the side of her bump, trying to coax the little bub into just calming down felt like it might help. Even if it was her uterus that was doing this to her rather than the baby. “That’s so weird,” was Henry’s observation as he watched the entertaining show that was Emma’s baby bump - because from here he could see the kicks of tiny feet. Not only that, but his brother flipping and rolling around, trying to find the right position in his comfy waterbed. Nikolas was a little restless right now, and very active, which could lead to those contractions - and as the kiddo stated, it was just so weird to see. “He looks like an alien in there. Hey, Niko - “ Henry placed his cheek on Emma’s belly, like he could communicate this way - a game of telephone, maybe? “Go to sleep.” Neal went to the kitchen to get busy preparing the warm milk (such an old lady drink, but if it’d help...) as requested. “Try shifting position maybe? Maybe it’ll get them to ease up?” he called, but that was what he’d read. Not like he knew firsthand or anything. The tightening and uncomfortableness was also supposedly worse with the second pregnancy, and felt more than it was in the first. Well, shit. Having been the one feeling Nikolas move around all the time, Emma was past the ‘weird’ stage and into the ‘okay I get it’ stage. “I’m just glad he’s not playing space-hopper on my bladder right now.” She didn’t need to be feeling the urge to go pee as well as these little pains every now and then. Thankfully they didn’t last long, and Emma just had to stroke her hand over Henry’s head before giving his ear a playful pat and he was around helping her to stand up to change position a little bit. First time around, Emma’d felt them, just a little. She’d just dismissed it as Henry moving in awkward positions or just kicking and elbowing her weirdly. She’d learned later that those were probably her trial contractions and it was normal. This time it felt a little more intense, maybe because her uterus had been through this before and was gearing up for that performance again. “These are all the little things we forget about.” The heartburn, discomfort, cold feet, weird movements. They sort of got overshadowed by the end of things. Stretching out her back, Emma just winced a little, but the stabby pains were at least lessening. “I think he knows to listen to his big brother.” Shhhhyeah. Henry was ready to be a big brother - mostly to teach the ways of the world, and also blackmail. The age gap between them meant that he really couldn’t have the option of pinning his crimes on Nikolas as Henry entered those teenage years (a toddler wasn’t going to drive off in the car without telling anyone, for example) but there was still potential to be had. Lots of potential. “It’s like he’s going to just burst right out of your stomach,” the Truest Believer stated, in awe. “I saw this TV show where the lady didn’t even know she was pregnant and then she just went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet and it just like, popped out all of a sudden I guess?” “Henry,” Neal rolled his eyes, having heard that from where he was stirring the milk in a saucepan. “That doesn’t happen. Niko isn’t just going to fall out when your mom stands up.” Well. Maybe it happened - if magical onion rings to speed up gestation happened, why not giving birth when you thought you just went to take a whiz? The warm milk hit the mug with a splash, Neal pouring it in carefully. Then he took the finished product into the other room. “She just needs to relax a little,” he said, bending to kiss Emma’s forehead. “It’s been stressful lately.” To say the least. “If he wants to just fall out, I’m not going to complain.” At first that had been a fear, but that was mostly just Emma’s hormone addled mind coming up with so many strange ‘what if’ scenarios that really didn’t make much sense; they were illogical and probably medically impossible too. But pregnant lady brain didn’t always make sense. Although she could’ve done without the image of the alien baby birth from sci-fi of old. With the settling of the pain for now, Emma was largely content to just settle into the cushions and sip some milk (warm milk was finally starting to grow on her since it helped the heartburn) and try to stop Henry from thinking of weird methods of his brother being born. “However, it’s still a little early for him, and I don’t think the situations are the same.” This wasn’t ‘16 and pregnant’ after all, they were a good decade late for that. Stressful was putting it mildly though. “I don’t think all this is what they mean when they say pregnancy might be stressful either, I think I skipped the normal stressful stuff.” And plopped right into the crazy OC stressful stuff. “Our versions of stressful are slightly skewed anyway,” Neal pointed out, with a grin. “Not just anyone stresses about bringing back dead pirates.” Took some guts though, both here and in Underbrooke - maybe Neal hadn’t agreed with the reasons there, and his spirit self tried to warn Emma off the adventure, but anyone had to concur that she was a brave person for doing what she did. In this life? Neal wanted Nikolas to actually have a godfather. Killian was family; this just proved it tenfold. He settled near Emma in an effort to not just hover like he tended to do, in his hovercopter way. “Are they still coming? Is it...you’ll let me know if we need to take a trip to the doctor?” And maybe it wouldn’t be necessary (and the warm milk would be a cure-all, as Indian midwives tended to believe), because this sort of thing happened frequently for moms-to-be, but he just rather would err on the side of caution. Shuffling a little over, Emma was into more of a sprawl, moving until her head was near enough to Neal’s shoulder and her legs could be thrown up onto the sofa, it was almost a stretch out, letting a little pressure off her back while she sipped at the milk. “We don’t like to do anything by half, do we?” All or nothing, entirely into things or nothing at all. That was the extent of it all. But the fact was that yes, Killian was part of the family, and having him around was just as important to them all. Besides, it was important to Regina too. “It’s okay just now. They seem to come along every couple of minutes.” Which made sense, them mimicking contractions as they were. “I think… I think if they keep up we’re supposed to call someone, but if it settles?” The number of books they’d been nosying through, Emma’d been swapping her baby books and magic books around every now and then lately. Although she’d been more immersed in magic ones while they were gearing up for potential opposition from Hades. “I think it’ll be fine if he just calms down and settles and stops kicking.” Henry settled on the other side of Emma - or actually, by her feet, letting her sprawl and stretch out as she wanted to. He was a little worried also, protective big brother and everything; it was also the first time he’d had a parent go through this. Until his adoptive mom and dad passed away, he’d been an only child. “I still can’t believe you took me to the Underworld in the other universe but I didn’t get to go here,” he pouted. Nevermind that taking him in the first place was kind of a bad parenting decision, but. They just wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes. “It wasn’t the best place for live adults, let alone kids,” Neal said, slipping his arm around Emma while she let the soothing warmth of the milk-in-a-mug relax her and hopefully Nicky (he had a multitude of variations on his name by this point). “But I was thinking...I know we talked about adding another middle name. If we’re going with family tributes, maybe Liam? It’s just - “ He tried to think of how to explain this, “...he helped us, in the Underworld. Saved us, really. And then he passed on but it’d be a way to repay him for that help, kind of.” Emma still had no idea why they’d even contemplated that whole plan, she could understand going for Killian, maybe her and David, or Regina and her. But all of them? Plus Henry? It was ridiculous really, but that absolutely seemed to be how things worked in Storybrooke; the insanity was part of the day. “We have more sense here,” Emma side-eyed her son, she’d been anxious about Neal going, accepting that they’d need him to open the ways to and from the Underworld was one thing, but accepting that he needed to be there was a bit of a hard pill to swallow at the same time. “We’re very lucky that they’ve all come back, safe and sound, and possibly only needing a little bit of therapy.” No way would she, Neal or Regina just let Henry down there. “Besides, kid, someone had to stay with me.” And not let her worry too much. Of course, Neal’s suggestion wasn’t lost on her now. She’d never really given a lot of thought to Niko’s middle name, they knew they wanted something else, something to pop in there, but she’d been coming blank on things to go with Nikolas. “Liam, huh?” Emma was mostly just glad that everyone was getting along. And it was far more tasteful in its honouring of the dead. “I like it.” Especially if he’d been a part of getting Neal back home in one piece. It had been an emotional, touching moment - they’d all got a little misty-eyed, okay, and Neal wasn’t too proud to say so. But a reunion between the three siblings was probably overdue (and it wasn’t like Kenzi even thought she’d get to meet Liam anyway), they got to say what needed to be said, and then the unfinished business was closed. Another lost soul moved on, much to the annoyance of Hades, though at least they also managed to strike a deal so he basically kicked them out rather than keep letting them help people find closure. “I like it too. Niko does also,” Neal added, his hand resting on Emma’s belly - and that kid had calmed down, it seemed, so he was glad. “He likes it so much he really did go to sleep.” “Two middle names, that’s kind of hipster,” Henry stated (what did hipster even mean, Neal wondered), sitting up a bit with interest. “Are you all better, mom?” He’d worry if Emma had to go to the doctor. Because Nikolas wasn’t supposed to come out yet, he was waaaaaaay too tiny. It was probably even more hipster because Nolan was one of those middle names, but Emma didn’t bother mentioning that. “Well, we’re honoring people we know by spitting out a little parasite that likes to keep me up at night,” she was mostly jesting. Pregnancy definitely wasn’t a walk in the part, but it wasn’t terrible. Less so with a doting partner and a kid that liked to read out medical mysteries to her, or tell her about creepy sci-fi births in his comics. “But yeah, kid I’m--” Emma’s sentence was cut off with a sharp intake of breath, her back tensing as she tried to breathe through the sudden clench of pain. “Oh, ow, okay, no.” Apparently, even if Niko was calming, her uterus wasn’t. The sharp pain of a contraction around her underbelly clenching tightly. “Jesus, this is ridiculous.” Shifting to drop her feet from Henry’s knees where they perched, Emma pressed her mug-free hand to the curve under her bump, gritting her teeth a little. “False sense of security there I think.” It didn’t exactly look good. In fact, it looked like Emma was in some real pain that had crossed to that threshold over from ‘uncomfortableness.’ Neal, of course, was prone to overreactions in that case. But he couldn’t help it. And like, that was more than four contractions in an hour, right? Wasn’t that when they were supposed to call the doctor? “Come on, let’s take a trip there - just in case. If it’s nothing, it’s nothing, but at least the doc can check,” he encouraged, and shifted to be able to help Emma up. He didn’t feel like he was bothering anyone - shit, they were probably used to paranoid fathers who were prone to spazzing out since they hadn’t been through this before. Henry bopped up from the couch. “Can I drive??” Oh, geez. “Yeah, don’t think so, kiddo. Here, help her to the car and I’ll call and make sure they’ve got an open spot at the clinic.” It was probably better safe than sorry, right? And it would be just her luck that all this stress and chaos would trigger something. Emma would rather take a trip to the doctor than not and regret it really. “Kid we wanna lower my stress levels, not sky rocket them.” David taught Henry in the dreams, during the memory wipes they went through after Zelena, but no one was teaching thirteen-year-old Henry how to drive right now, least of all on the way to the hospital with a pregnant lady. Getting to her feet, with a lot of help, Emma started her waddling. “Henry, can you grab my jacket,” she’d be a minute or two to get to the door, so the kid had time to grab her jacket from the hall and meet her while Neal called up. He was even a total gem and helped her get it on before scooting himself under her arm to help her out to the car. The pain was definitely less while she was upright, but it was still there. Now that they were being expected at the doctor’s office, Neal felt a bit better knowing that Emma was going to be tended to by an actual medical professional. Though it was always a little awkward with the baby belly and a seatbelt, in the car, but pretty much everything was awkward with the baby belly at this point - or at least, Neal assumed as much about the mother of his children. He just was guilty about the fact that, biologically, he could do nothing to help besides bust a nut in her. Really, this was all his fault when you thought about it. They didn’t have to sit very long once arriving, and since Henry brought some hand-held game console he was fine with being in the actual waiting room to entertain himself while his parents went back and had the doctor take a look at Emma. There were some fetal monitoring tests done, to check the contractions, and also to test the baby’s heartbeat - which sounded good and strong, as it always did. Everything looked fine though - even if Neal kind of head tilted at the talk of how the contractions encouraged flow of blood to the placenta, uhhhh. But it was a good thing? “Do you hate me?” he asked, with a chuckle, after the doctor had set Emma up in a comfy cot with some heat packs and given her water to drink, to rehydrate her and get those contractions to stop. Rest had also been prescribed for when she got back home, since being too active meant they’d just start up again. “For doing this to you?” She always felt a little awkward; walking, sitting, standing, moving in any which direction. She wasn’t overly top heavy at the best of times, but the additional baby weight she’d eventually gotten use to still made a lot of the basic navigations awkward at times. Even more so when people were fussing around her. Emma had only just started to get used to attention again when suddenly everyone was lavishing it. Growing a baby did that it seemed. “Hate is a very strong word.” Naturally, she was teasing. She knew she wouldn’t swap this for anything in the world, not even the restless nights, the kicking and shuffling, the heartburn and crazy food needs, the achy back or swollen ankles or the way she waddled everywhere instead of walking. “I’m going to get revenge soon, but sometimes I definitely plot your messy end.” The heat and the water, it all helped somewhat. Heat packs had always helped sooth Emma’s cramps, the muscles unclenching steadily and she could just burrow into the warmth. For now it seemed to help ease off on the constant stabby of the uterus doing it’s little dance. Since Niko was definitely fine and in absolutely no rush to leave his watery cocoon, it was just a case of bearing with it for now. “Just wait until he’s onto bottled feeding and nappy changing. Then, I shall have my revenge.” She was annoyingly sleepy, petting at her own tummy while the last of the false contractions stopped and eased out. Neal was kind of petting Emma too, stroking her hair as he sat beside her - rest was really a good thing, and probably what was best. They could hang out here a bit longer before leaving - then he’d probably tuck her into bed at home and wait on her hand and foot. “If it makes you feel better, you’re the most beautiful expectant mom-to-be, baking a baby?” he offered, knowing that sounded weird. Baking a baby in the baby oven - yeah, definitely weird. Still, it made him grin a bit. “I’ll gladly change all the diapers. Stay up late bottle feeding. I’m just...really happy.” Also happy that they’d picked a full, final name - Nikolas Liam Nolan Cassidy. Sounded good, and like it’d fit well in a storybook somewhere. He knew the littlest Cassidy would have a damn interesting story to tell, living here. “That does make me feel better, yes,” who didn’t feel better when their partner told them that despite the bloating, awkward waddling and constant shifting at night, they were still beautiful to them? Emma didn’t like falling into that whole ‘so long as he still finds me attractive’ niche, but honestly, so long as Neal was still there, 100% in it, Emma didn’t care. And if she could occasionally use the whole ‘I carried him for nine months, you get to bottle him tonight’ thing, she’d use it. That was if she could be pried away from the baby too. “Me too,” she just gave Neal the soppiest, probably tiredest grins she could, still petting at her belly happily, “we’re all together, no one is trapped in other realms, we’ve got both our kids.” It was all starting to finally fall together, wasn’t it? “Hopefully we didn’t just jinx it,” Neal quipped, but hell, he thought they were due a little bit of a reprieve after everything that had gone down recently. Death and dying, being brought back to the land of the living, all that pain and suffering and triumph - it seemed to be pretty par the course for Orange County, however. They made the choice to stay. This was their life now, and you know what? Neal sort of couldn’t imagine it any other way. |