"Try this one." Emma pulled out one of her dresses from the rack. This was the second she had suggested. Emma showed me a burgundy shift dress with shoulder length sleeves. "It's loose, so you can eat loads without getting a food baby."
"I'll wear this." I smiled. I thanked Emma and took the dress.
"I have some little ankle boots that look really nice with that dress." Emma said, rooting around the bottom of the cupboard. "Here." She handed them to me before I left the room.
The dress fit me nicely and ended a few inches above my knee. I put on some ankle socks before pulling the boots over my feet. The chunky boots were a dark brown shade and had a a thick sole.
"Ta-Da." I said, re-entering Emma's bedroom. She was struggling to zip up the back of her dress, but managed to do it before I could offer to help.
"You look like such a mini-me." Emma looked me up and down proudly.
"Well, I'll take that as a compliment, seeing as you look gorgeous." I hadn't seen Emma in anything other than jeans, but it was a nice change seeing her in more formal attire. She didn't have much of a baby bump to hide yet, but her dress was flow-y anyway. Her dark grey A-line dress stopped at her knee. Towards the top it was tighter and had thin straps.
"Do you have any eyeliner?" Emma asked.
"I think I do." I said hesitantly as I searched my little makeup bag. "Here."
"You can use whatever you want from my makeup bag." Emma told me, reaching out for the eyeliner.
I took a seat infront of the long mirror next to Emma and began to apply my makeup. I was having a good skin day, so I didn't have it thick. Once I'd done the basics, I applied winged eyeliner, filled in my eyebrows with a dark brown, and put on a pink lipstick.
"Are you any good at eyeliner?" Emma asked before turning her head to face me.
"I suppose I'm okay." I shrugged.
"You're being modest. Can you do mine?" Emma asked after seeing my eyeliner.
"Sure." I smiled. I wasn't used to doing other people's makeup, so I was extra careful not to hurt Emma with my heavy hands. "Is that okay?" I asked once I was finished. They didn't look 100% symmetrical to me, but that was probably because I was prone to overthinking.
"I love it, thank you." Emma smiled.
"You're welcome."
We continued to get ready together, complimenting each other's outfits and makeup.
"Phoebe?" Emma sounded slighly concerned.
"Yeah?" I inquired.
"We haven't had time to talk about me being pregnant, just me and you." Emma brought up. "Can you be really, really honest and just tell me what you're thinking?" I could tell from her tone that my thoughts and feelings meant a lot to Emma.
"Well, at first I was suprised. I didn't know you wanted a third child-" I began.
"You do know this wasn't planned." Emma reminded me.
"I know." I continued. "I wondered where I would end up staying, seeing as the new baby would be having the nursery."
"You never have to worry about not having a place to stay. You can stay at home until you're fifty for all I care." Emma comforted me. "The new baby will be moving into the little spare room across the hall."
"Well, other than that I was happy for you. You deserve a chance to raise a child." I answered the original question.
"I feared you'd feel replaced. You've been here for less than 2 months and I didn't want you to think a new baby would mean I'd lost interest in you, or anything like that." Emma explained, pausing every so often to plan how she was going to word the sentence. "You're irreplaceable. You're my first daughter and Killian and I will always love you, Phoebe." Emma brushed a piece of loose hair from my face. I looked over at her, and her eyes seemed to be glassy.
"I love you, mom." I smiled and leant my head on her shoulder. It felt strange to have the word 'mom' fall from my tongue.
"I swear to god, if my mascara runs I'm blaming it on you." Emma said, lightly laughing.
"I'm sorry, mom." I felt like Annie from the 'The Parent Trap' when she was overusing the word 'Dad'. Now all I needed was an identical twin.
"So you're okay about the baby? Emma asked, wanting to be completely sure.
"I'm excited." I confirmed.
Emma carefully dried her eyes and touched up her makeup around her tear ducts and waterline. My mom looked beautiful. She hadn't been properly crying, so she didn't have to worry about her eyes being noticeable red or puffy.
"Are you almost ready?" Killian shouted up from the bottom of the stairs.
"Almost." Emma called back. Emma walked to her closet and returned with two jackets, one for her and one for me. I thanked her before following her down the stairs.
"Look at my princesses!" Killian beamed, wrapping an arm around each of us. He had his left arm around my shoulders and was very careful not to hurt me with his hook. It was only after hearing him call us princess I realised that it wasn't just a compliment; we were actual princesses. I had known it before, but it sounded almost funny out loud.
I looked over at Henry who was standing a metre or two away. He was leaning against the wall with his phone in his hand, focused on whatever was on the iPhone screen. He wore black jeans, but still managed to look smart enough for a classy restraint. He had dark brisk lace up shoes and a neat navy shirt on. A black jacket was folded over his elbow, and I expected he would be bringing it in case if got cold later on. Killian, being the pirate he was, managed to look well dressed in leather trousers and a leather jacket. Under his jacket was a dark green button up shirt.
"Let's get a selfie." I said, opening the camera app on my phone. There was nobody here to take a photo is us while we all looked pretty, and I couldn't be bothered finding somewhere to rest my phone and put it on a timer.
Henry came to join us, poking his head into the space between Emma and I. The first picture I took was a picture of happy smiles. My lips were a similar shape to Emma's, but I noticed my smile was a lot like Killian's. The second selfie was of Emma and I pouting. The third was similar, only Henry and Killian photo bombed, mocking our girly pouts.
"Okay, we can go now." Emma said. She wasn't laughing out loud, but you could tell the sight of her husband and son posing like girly girls has amused her.
"Alright, Swan." Killian said, linking her arm. Henry and I followed the couple to the car, climbing into the back seats.
• • •
"Jones." Killian had reserved a table in his name, so we didn't have to be seated.
"Here are your menus, I'll come to take your orders shortly." The waiter smiled, handing out four booklets.
We spent a few minutes toing and froing between options. In the end, I ordered the risotto, Henry ordered spaghetti bolognese, Killian ordered a seafood dish, and Emma ordered lasagne.
Emma was about to order a glass of red wine, but stopped when she remembered she couldn't. We all ended up getting a glass of orange juice and a jug of water to put in the centre of the table. We sipped our drinks and chatted while we waited for our meals to arrive. We had skipped starters, all agreeing that we wanted to go straight to the best part.
When our food finally arrived, we spent the first few minutes how most people spend the first few minutes of eating food in a restaurant; complimenting the food. We went into a discussion on who's meal was the best, each of us on opposing sides of the debate.
"Seafood will always be the best food." Killian states.
"It's clearly not the best smelling food." Henry smirked.
"I could say the same about you." Killian teased.
"We're in public," Emma reminded the boys. "You can save your squabbling until we get home."
"Well, my food tastes like heaven." I attempted to outdo everyone at the table.
"Well, I've technically been to heaven, and I say it doesn't." Killian argued.
"You've not even tried it." I smiled.
Killian leant reached across the table and took a forkful of my rice. Before I could react, the fork was in his mouth. "You were right." He admitted.
The food was died down and we moved on to other topics, none of which being particularly exciting. It didn't matter to us, though. We were happy to be a family.
As we were coming to the end of our meal, Emma caught my eye and gave me a startled look. She slowly stood up from her chair, not saying a word, and pulled my arm. She dashed towards the ladies' bathroom and I followed, increasingly concerned about Emma.
"Be right back." I turned to tell Killian and Henry before continuing to jog towards where Emma was.
I swung the door open, and when I arrived Emma was already locked into a cubicle.
"Emma? Are you okay?" I asked. The only cubicle door closed was Emma's, so I knew we were alone.
The door slowly opened, creaking as it did. Emma was leaning against the cubicle wall. Her dress was a dark colour, so didn't clearly show stains. There was only one reason I knew there was something physically wrong. Emma was holding handfuls of tissues and her arms were held across her stomach. She looked to be in some sort of pain. The paper trailing from her fingers that had come into contact with her dress was slowly turning a shade of dark red. I looked down to see more of what I presumed was blood slowly sleeping through the black material. It took a lot of strength to hide the look of horror from showing on my face. I stayed strong for my mother.
"Can you get Killian?" Emma asked, her voice breaking. A couple of fat tears were now rolling down her cheeks. Her mascara had run, but this time it wasn't my fault.