Complete The Incomplete | CS AU

8. The Opposite

"Want help?"

A week had passed with many visits to google and youtube whenever a doubt would come that none of them knew the answer. The other option was really calling Mary Margaret who sounded like she had eaten all the baby books there were to read. She felt horrible comparing herself to her, and that's why whenever Henry was asleep and she found herself looking for something to do, she'd just read blogs about parenting.

Everything looked okay from what Killian could tell until the weekend. The only two days of the week that he didn't go to work and though he didn't sleep at night, because too many days used to it didn't allow him to, he stayed at home.

So far he had never spent a night with them, always coming home around 5am and managing to sleep before waking up with Henry around 10 most of the time, some times at 7 - which was painful - and then going back to sleep again.

But on that Saturday night, around 2 in the morning already, while he was watching TV on his bed, he heard an angry Henry crying and, one minute after, Emma's footsteps to his bedroom.

But the crying never ended.

He got up and walked to his nursery, finding Emma holding him, swaying him in her arms, desperate for silence and peace.

"I'm fine, he'll shut up soon." she said when she noticed him.

But he wasn't crying anymore, he was screaming, and it sounded like it was becoming even louder. Fortunately, there weren't neighbors to complain.

"Is he like this every night?" he asked, worried something unnatural could be happening.

"Yes." she sighed.

"Do you want me to hold him?"

"There's no difference between you and me. I'm holding him. His diaper is clean. He has his pacifier.. He's not hungry. I'm just holding him now, okay?"

"Okay, calm down. Walk with him. Sing him something."

"I'm not gonna sing." She said it like he was crazy. "I'll give him some fresh air."

She walked out, leaving him still standing at Henry's nursery's doorway to go to her bedroom, Henry still sobbing in her arms.

She wrapped him tightly in his blanket - she had read that it made them feel safe and comfortable - and held him in her arms, walking to the corner of her bedroom to open her windows.

"Henry! Please! Ugh!" frustrated because he wouldn't stop, she lay him down on her bed, letting him keep crying. "Please help me in this." She started pacing from side to side in front of him, bringing her hands to her hair in desperation. "Stop, please." she mumbled and sighed in defeat, sitting down on the floor and resting her forehead against her bed.

It didn't take her much longer to have tears rolling down her face.

"What am I doing wrong? Tell me." her voice broke and she just held herself as he kept crying.

She had thought she could do this. But it's barely been a week, and she's already feeling the worst person in the world. Her heart always hurt, a constant reminder of the humiliation she was to her adoptive father, a burden to Killian, the loner that worked at a diner and the worst mother in the world.

She pretended to be strong, raised back, serious face, tears yet to fall, but behind all that, there was a broken Emma. One that she seriously doubted could ever be fixed.

"I thought I could do this." she sobbed, holding his small hand with hers. "I'm so sorry, baby." she cried.

And then, he stopped crying, the room suddenly too silent. She looked at him in confusion.

"I'm so sorry." she breathed again and his tiny fingers clenched around her index finger. A really strong grip for a 2-weeks-old.

"I'm so sorry, baby." she had said many, many times as she broke down. She'd said it on her first prenatal visit, when she turned her face around to not see her own son on the sonogram, when she pretended to feel nothing hearing his heartbeat or when the first trimester - when most miscarriages occur - ended and she cried because he was still alive.

Researchers have found that newborns react differently to words and sounds that were repeated daily throughout pregnancy compared to those they never heard.

"You remember." she said in disbelief. She sniffed and went to grab him in her arms, chin on top of her shoulder, one of her hands holding under his bootie and her other holding the back of his neck against her. "I love you, Henry. We'll go through this together, baby."

---

Things changed after that night. He knew she was avoiding him as much as possible, using Henry as an excuse to run away and always placing him between them two.

Killian never gave up on trying. He'd become closer to the little lad, loving every bit of him, and singing him to sleep.
With Emma, he'd sometimes over dinner comment about the scene he was reading in their book but after she had told him she had already read it all, she hadn't said much more, just nodding and smiling.

He knew he surprised her when one day when he noticed how exhausted she was - even though one would think otherwise because she wasn't working - and told her to go take a nap, that he'd take care of Henry and dinner. She had protested but then gave in and woke up with him bringing her dinner to her bed.
But whenever he got into her, touched her or surprised her, she'd back off even more.

And that's how 6 weeks passed and she was going back to work at the diner and Henry was being welcomed to his new babysitter.

On her first day back at work, he offered her to have lunch together because he hadn't gone to Granny's since the old days and he'd really like to go see how things were - a good excuse to have lunch with her and not lose total contact with her now that she worked during the day and he during the night.

And when she kept avoiding him and pushing him away whenever he talked to her while they ate, he suddenly found himself looking at the new waitress Rose who kept sneaking looks at him and hearing Jefferson's words "Look, it's just to speed up things. You wanna know if she still feels something for you, right? Get a girl and do it loudly. You live in the same damn house!".

He was getting to know this new Emma. She pushed him away whenever he made her feel happy, important, loved. Maybe if she gets the opposite, she'll pull him back.

MHUAHAHAHAHHHA

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