Captain Swan - Tangled Up In Blue

New Beginnings

Three months ago...

Emma sat on the toilet seat in a bathroom stall of the bar after her shift had ended. She was in her little red waitress uniform, her hand tightly clutching onto the white stick that would decide her fate. She couldn't even begin to know what she was going to do if she was pregnant. How on earth was she going to take care of a baby?

It seemed like an eternity as she waited. Her plan of escaping was slowly becoming out of her reach. How was she going to raise a baby when she was planning on starting from scratch again? And there was no way Neal was going anywhere near this baby if she were pregnant.

She may have let him violate her, but she would take her last breath before she let him put his hands on her baby.

Emma sat in torturous anticipation. She knew she was going to be late coming home and she would surely pay for it, but she had to know. From the moment she realized her period was late, she had been freaking out internally, wondering if she was pregnant. She went to the drugstore that morning and somehow managed to get through the day without going completely mad from not knowing.

When the tiny screen on her pregnancy test showed two pink lines, she froze completely. Her whole world came crashing down in that very second. All of her plans of escaping and starting a new life had fallen out of her grasp, she was sure of it. Utterly stunned, she managed to slide off the toilet seat and onto the floor, her arms collapsing beside her.

All of a sudden, the entire weight of emotions she felt started crashing over her. Fear, anger, hatred, unbelievable sadness. She sat there crying, knees curled up as she rested her forehead on her knees. Her entire body was shaking as the sounds of her sobs filled the restroom. How in the hell could she bring a baby into this world? No one deserved the life Emma had. No one, especially some innocent baby.

The worse part of this was not the fact that Neal was the father, but how he got her pregnant to begin with. If there was one moment in Emma's life that she could take back, it was the one when she met Neal.

~~~

Present Day

Emma woke up at six a.m. and got ready for work, putting on her waitress uniform, which consisted of a light blue dress that fell just below her thighs. She wrapped her white apron around her waist and left her room to start her first day at the diner after her training.

She was a little nervous at first, but as she waited on the early morning crowd, everyone was very nice and friendly. A half an hour into her shift, the front door chimed as she was waiting on an elderly couple. Her back was facing the entrance as she heard hearty laughter coming from that direction.

When she finished taking her table's order, she turned around and immediately stopped in her tracks when she saw her doctor and Liam being led to a booth. She should have prepared herself for this, seeing as she saw him there yesterday. It turned out he was regular at the Diner. But then again, how could she really be prepared for someone that attractive? Especially when he was off limits, seeing that he was her doctor and most likely married. She hadn't noticed a ring during her doctor visit, but that could have been because she was too busy making a fool of herself by crying in front of him.

Emma straightened her back, taking a deep breath before walking over to his table. As she approached, two sets of sea-blue eyes were drawn to her, smiles curving their lips.

"Good morning, lass," Liam greeted her.

"Morning... very early morning," she teased with a warm smile.