Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon A Time; that universe belongs to Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Nor do I own This American Life, the radio series from WBEZ Chicago, distributed by Public Radio International, and hosted by Ira Glass.

Author's Note: Why do I keep getting inspired by This American Life? This is a homage to Gloria Harrison and her story "Let's See How Fast This Baby Will Go", a touching tale of the son she gave up for adoption and the car which helped her, told in the episode "Hit the Road".

Summary: "You kept it," he uttered, surprise and something like delight in his voice as a smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I didn't think you would..."

Just A Car

"You kept it," he uttered, surprise and something like delight in his voice as a smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I didn't think you would..."

"It's just a car, Neal," Emma briskly stated, daring him to press the matter as he ran a hand almost lovingly over the hood.

She hadn't exactly been hiding the Bug, though she hadn't made a show of driving it either since her return from Manhattan. And she'd known he would get the wrong impression. Like the key chain. He would make it all about him. Or them. Whatever. Smirk at her like he was now, as though it amused him, this assumption that she carried a torch for him displayed in momentos of their time together, now long passed. Dead and buried.

There was no torch.

But it wasn't just a car.

Of course, it wasn't.

She wasn't aware of it when she got the keys, as she'd sat in her cell looking at that pregnancy test that she would need something to hold onto, some kind of anchor in place to keep her from drifting away after the child she birthed had fought his way out of her body and into the cruel world which had so many times forsaken her.

She was then not yet aware that after he was taken away, spirited off beyond the prison walls that would yet keep her two months more, she'd transfer all of her maternal love - love she never even knew she had - onto this car with it's broken 8-Track deck and a clutch that stuck when the weather was cold.

This broke-ass stolen Volkswagen Bug would literally help her run away from all the shit she'd been through since coming into the world on the side of a freeway and was going through in a prison infirmary with only an underpaid doctor and overworked nurse to see her through the agony of childbirth.

She didn't know it yet, as she'd screamed for hours, cursing the name of the man who'd stolen it first and yet crying out for him in her weakest moments when the pain was the worst, but the freedom this car would bring her would help put 130,000 miles of distance between the reckless yet hopeful teenage girl that she'd been and the cautious and distrustful woman that she would become.

She hadn't known it yet as her water had broken in the dark of night, but in the morning the nurse would hold out her newborn son and she would look down at him, aching to hold him, but knowing that if she did her resolve would break. She would remind herself that she wasn't ready to be a mother and tell him she was so very sorry that she couldn't keep him, but that she was giving him his best chance, and it wasn't with her.

She would tell the cooing infant that had her nose and dark tufts of his father's hair that she loved him, that she would always love him.

She also didn't know yet, seven months before when she'd set that pregnancy test on the shelf beside the Bug's keys, hating the situation she was in, angry at the innocent life she hadn't wanted - not like this - that when it was over she would stare at that child so long that her nipples would start tingling. She would have an almost crippling need to pick up her newborn son and cradle him to her breast, letting him suckle. Just for five minutes, she'd tell myself, I will be his mom.

But the moment she started to reach out, the exact moment, the woman from the adoption agency would be walking in with the final paperwork and a car seat carrier. So instead of picking her son up to nurse him, she would watch as he was handed to a stranger who had promised to give her child to someone who would love him as much as she did, but who wasn't such a mess and could give him everything she'd never had and probably never would.

He would cry as he was taken from the room and she would only then allow herself to dissolve into inconsolable tears that would not truly abate until two months later when she was finally free.

The car would be waiting for her, in at an impound lot, covered in a thick layer of filth left over from the dust storms she had watched roll into the valley, the surreal and massive clouds of dirt and sand swallowing up the whole of Phoenix on scorching summer evenings.

She would slip behind the wheel, ignoring the burn of the leather against the backs of her thighs and cry some more, because it still smelled like him. And because he had left all of her possessions neatly packed in the bonnet, including her old baby blanket, which she would clutch for a moment, imagining another child wrapped up in the soft white wool.

And then- then she would begin driving, letting the parched air of the desert dry her tears.

But she couldn't tell Neal any of that. And so Emma looked away from his smiling brown eyes and repeated in her most casual tone, "It's just a car."

~ fin ~

Hope you all enjoyed! I lived in Phoenix for a few years and sometimes I miss it still. The curse magic on OUAT always makes me think of the summer dust storms, which are truly a site to behold... and always ripped asunder everything on my patio like the Flynn's campsite!