Someone had to have poured boiling lava directly down her throat, scraped sandpaper against her lungs and given her a cup of broken glass to chase it all down with. It's the only thing that made sense given how terrible Emma feels when she wakes up. Her head is pounding, her hands and feet are too cold and the only thing that helps ease the pain in her throat is not breathing at all. It's going to be hell to actually sit up and get ready for work, she thinks to herself, and even that hurts a little.
Emma calls out for Henry, and she can barely hear the raspy syllables of his name escaping her before a round of dry coughs force their way up out of her throat. It does the job well enough — he's calling her from down the hall within a minute, his voice sending thrums of pressure vibrating through her skull. "Mom? Are you okay?"
A head of messy brown hair pokes through her doorway, and Emma hastily nods. She starts to tell him it feels like a normal flu, but the words don't make it out of her mouth. She tries again, pressing her fingers against the base of her throat in a vain attempt to make a sound.
"Your voice is gone." He quirks his head to the side, giving her a look that reminds her a little too much of Dr. Whale for her taste. "I'll go get the box."
"I'll be fine," she grates out, trying and failing to get her voice above a ragged whisper. He shakes his head and jogs out of her line of sight, toward the hall closet and the small box that holds all the medicine and bandages in the house. Emma lets herself fall back against her pillows and rubs at the column of her neck, silently cursing whatever brought this upon her. She's supposed to be the one taking care of him, not the other way around. If she thinks about it (and she hates to) she's never even had the opportunity, not like this. It's not fair that both of them missed out on that.
Henry takes an awfully long time to find the bottle she needs, and he's suspiciously quiet about it. Emma gathers herself up off the bed, wearing her comforter like robe and somehow managing not to topple over from the heaviness in her own head, and makes her way out into the blinding light of the hallway. Henry isn't anywhere near the hall closet, she discovers. He's standing with his hand resting against the open front door, talking to someone she can't see, and she knows who it is before she ever sees him.
"Trust me, you showing up is great. She needs someone to watch her and make her rest, and I have to go to school. She's not gonna mind if you —" Henry turns as she makes her way toward the door and grins brightly up at her, ignoring the accusatory look on her face. "Look who's here, Mom!" He swings the door wider, revealing a very conflicted-looking Killian in its place.
"Morning, Swan." He looks her over a little more worriedly than she'd been prepared for, and Emma raises a blanket-covered hand up to her face, wondering if she looks half as bad as she feels. If he's looking at her like that, something must be off. "Henry says you can't talk."
She nods again and lets her hand fall from her cheek, biting back the urge to try to answer him anyway. Henry lets him inside and starts ticking off her symptoms with a little too much enthusiasm, grabbing his assortment of school supplies from the kitchen island and shoving them into his backpack as he speaks. Before she can try to tell him otherwise, Henry's running out the door like this is a completely normal morning for the three of them. Great.
Killian's still staring at the door after it shuts, like he's waiting to see whether Henry will come back the way she knows she wants him to. Emma can't help but crave her bed, even though she's more than awake now, because she doesn't know what to do now that she's alone with a man who looks like he just walked off the docks in an L.L. Bean ad in the middle of her living room. She tenses when he turns to look at her immediately after the thought crosses her mind, and for a second she's worried she spoke out loud.
"You're about to fall asleep where you stand," Killian points out, mercifully ignoring the panic look on her face. She sighs (or at least tries to) before leading the way to the living room, blankets bunching up beneath her knees as she tucks herself into the corner seat of her leather couch. He leans down and settles on the edge a chair next to her and she notices his eyes are still puffy from sleep, like he came here straight after waking up. She wants to know why he's here at all and that's what makes her think of it, the idea so obvious she'd missed it before.
Emma leaves her blankets where they are and runs for her night stand, already typing furiously on her phone when she comes back into the room.
Why were you on my doorstep this morning? Did Henry call you?
She puts the phone in his hands and turns it around so he can read, watching him urgently as he reads the text. She can tell he's a little confused about the phone in his hands and it makes her smile when she looks back up at him. She feels just as sick as she did when she woke up, but that doesn't mean she can't feel a little proud of her early morning resourcefulness, either.
"Not exactly," he explains, scratching behind his ear in a way she's come to understand as him being nervous. Maybe the flu's getting to her, but the gesture seems more endearing than she remembered. "I was walking into town as he passed by the door and he practically yanked me onto your porch." He puts the phone back in her blanket-covered hand when she reaches for it, already wishing there was a faster way to do this. Talking to him is usually effortless — seeing her words in front of her makes everything she's trying to say seem cheesy and forced
It's a phone. You can send messages to people and talk to them when you're far away. I thought Henry maybe used his to get a hold of you somehow.
This time he smiles as he finishes reading and she tries to imagine him carrying a phone in his pocket, accidentally taking pictures as he walked and butt-dialing David while he was asleep. She's about to reach for the phone and tell him about it when he answers her, fingers grazing across the buttons in a way that's almost too gentle.
"He told me you needed rest," he answers her, and it's clear from the smile on his face that he's thinking about Henry's caring nature. Her son, the eleven-going-on-thirty year old. "I was given specific instructions to watch over you in case you needed anything."
He hands the phone back so she can reply, but Emma's fingers pause on the keys. She's not sure if he's just being nice, if she's pulling him away from something he'd rather be doing with his day.
You don't have to stay, she finally manages. It's not the first time I've been sick and home alone.
Killian takes so long reading the message that she worries autocorrect has messed something up, spelling out something illegible and embarrassing her entirely. She lifts herself up off the couch and leans forward in an attempt to double-check but he stops her hand before it can tug the phone away.
"I'm not staying here because Henry asked me to," he starts and something Emma's heart deflates, but he's not done speaking yet. His fingers squeeze hers, drawing her eyes back to his. "I'm staying because I want to, if you'll allow it."
The corner of her mouth lifts up and Emma smiles at him, even though it makes her temple pulse worse than before. She nods and leans forward, her comforter following like a giant, ridiculous cape. The TV remote is within reach and she pulls Netflix open without even bothering to try and type out an explanation to him. She lets him read descriptions of movie after movie and before long they've developed a silent shorthand that Emma suspects was there all along. She smirks when she sees the Disney section coming but forgets it completely as his eyes perk up. He wants to watch Gladiator of all things and his eager smile is all it takes for Emma to hit play.
They're twenty minutes into the movie and Killian's grabbing the phone off the table. He's typing a message out to her even though he can still talk and Emma admits to herself that yes, it's ridiculously charming.
Do you need anything for your throat? is the message he's been working on, and Emma can't help the surprise that crosses her face. Her instinct is to shake her head and suffer in silence (it's what she always does, there's usually no choice involved, no one there to ask) but something about the earnest look on his face makes her nod. She gives him instructions on how to make tea in the coffee maker in her kitchen and tells him to hurry because she knows the emperor is about to die.
He misses it, along with the rest of Maximus' family and the combat training, which is a bummer because Emma thought he'd like those scenes most of all. She's just about to get up and make sure he hasn't electrocuted himself when he returns with two mugs of tea, balancing them carefully on a plate so he can carry both at once.
"I picked the first one labeled 'tea' in the box. I hope it tastes all right," he explains, setting his makeshift tray down in front of her and sitting down on a corner of her blanket. Emma knows there's no way for him to mess up instant tea and latches onto the mug immediately, downing a large sip of it despite the heat. She tugs at the blanket without really realizing what she's doing and he immediately pulls himself off the corner seat of the couch, apologizing and headed straight for the chair he'd vacated before.
Or he tries. She catches his arm before he can and opens the blanket more fully, wordlessly asking him to sit back down beside her.
He only pauses for a moment before settling himself against the cushions in the corner of the couch. Emma's sure he's as surprised as she is even if his face doesn't show it, but he's warm and he's here and he wants to make her feel better. Nobody's ever cared for her like this in her entire life, so when his hand carefully pulls the blanket higher up around her neck she doesn't hesitate to lean into his side. His arm snakes around her shoulders and pulls her into him and this is so much better than tea, Emma thinks to herself. Maximus is fighting off tigers in the arena as Killian's thumb is sweeping back and forth across her shoulder, momentarily stilling each time a loud clash of metal bursts out of the screen. She wants to ask him how he likes it, whether they made a good choice, and all she really has to do to check is lift her head away from his shoulder to peer in his eyes. The moment she does, his eyes are on hers, waiting for a question she can't physically voice.
Emma smiles up at him and his lips turn up in reply. He leans over and presses a soft kiss to her forehead as if he's done it a thousand times, as if he always comes over on weekday mornings, as if she isn't sick at all. His lips are soft and warm as they answer her and Emma only feels a little embarrassed when she sighs in response.
"Does that mean your tea's working?" He murmurs, shifting so she can rest her head more comfortably against his chest. "Because I drank all of mine and I don't think I could move from this spot if I tried."
Emma laughs and only coughs a little at the end of it, a good sign if she's ever seen one. He runs his hand back and forth between her shoulder blades and it seems to help, making it that much easier to lean into him again and settle her head right above his heart. His heartbeat is steady and calming like he always is and she can't help but wonder what it'll be like to fall asleep and then wake up in his arms. Emma lifts her chin to glance up at him one last time, thanking him wordlessly for everything he's doing for her, and when his drowsy eyes find hers she knows he understands perfectly.
Henry comes home from school several hours later to find them curled up in the blankets on the couch, Netflix's menu screen glowing just as bright as the afternoon sun. He makes his way into the kitchen as quiet as he can, taking the empty mugs of tea with him and making sure to save his knowing smile for later when Emma's feeling better. He passes them again as he walks to his room, his mom's hair fanning out across her comforter and the side of the couch, and Henry can't remember a time when he's seen her more peaceful. About time, he thinks, ascending the stairs.