For you I'd bleed myself dry

1.

You're not alone, together we stand,
I'll be by your side you know I'll take your hand
When it gets cold, and it feels like the end
There's no place to go you know I won't give in…

[Keep holding on – Avril Lavigne]

They were sitting aboard of his ship, just staring at the beautiful and yet melancholic sunset in front of them. Both were silent, they just let her unexpected words sank into the ocean they were floating on. He didn't completely understand the meaning of the news she had told him, but it had sounded anyway out of tune.

"So… What does this leukemia mean?" the captain finally asked frowning "Is it something like… How do you call it? Flu?"

The seriousness of his tone, as he tried to recall the name of the viral disease he had heard about in Storybrooke, made her instinctively smile, though there was nothing to smile about, actually. Because leukemia was nothing like flu, it wasn't something that you can nurse with antibiotics continuing the everyday life; instead, since the first moment Dr Whale let her know the results of her analysis, Regina understood that that illness was going to revolutionize everything, even likely leading her to death.

It was one of the most hard battle she had ever faced and she wasn't ready at all to fight, not this time.

She had already lost everything, and yet she wasn't ready to let go like that.

She shook her head and was somehow taken back to the moment she was living; Hook in front of her was waiting for an answer and that sight made her smile again, though it was a smile full of irony and sadness.

"It's quite more than that… It can be defined as a blood cancer and I don't know if I have discovered it in time…"

He couldn't help but widen his eyes, staring at her with no emotion, except for an evident astonishment. He didn't know much of cancer, but he knew that it was very bad and that the therapy they used was long and painful.

"When… When will you be fine again?" he attempted to ask, trying to control the inevitable hesitation in his voice.

"Probably I won't"

Her calm resignation, added to the bitter confidence in her smile, almost scared him, probably more than what he had just found out. He wanted to say something, anything, but still he remained in silence, trying to give a sense to his thoughts; she was always so strong, powerful and now that side of her was revealing itself to be just an appearance: she was weak, fragile, human.

"Look" she started after a while, calling his attention "I'm telling you that because I need someone to help me covering my conditions when it will become difficult to hide them… I don't want anyone to know about –"

Hook found himself nodding at those words and then, he suddenly realized the whole situation and just raised his hand up, interrupting her.

"You can stay here on my ship" he simply offered.

"Hook, I didn't mean for you to do something like that" she immediately replied, shaking her head.

"Oh but I did, love… Let me help you"

Regina looked at him surprised by the proposal and even more by the look on his face. She considered it for a moment and then slowly accepted it with a slight nod. Could she really trust him? She didn't know, but it was no time to refuse any help given.

"Thank you, then"

The pirate hinted a smile, but quickly his expression turned into a thoughtful one. There still was a question on his mind, something that fell outside of the awful news, but referred to the reasons behind it.

"Why have you told me that, anyway?"

"I already said why" she answered, shrugging "I needed someone that could help hiding it"

"Yeah, but why me, of all people? Why me?"

That doubt was just, they were nothing more than simple acquaintances, sometimes allies, sometimes enemies. Despite the long conversations they had become used to have together or the secrets they have little by little discovered about each other, they weren't friends.

"I didn't want anyone to get worry about it"

It was the simple revelation of what she was thinking; she hadn't wanted to scare Henry, Tinkerbell or the Charmings indeed. And yet, as soon as that sentence escaped her mouth and she faced his deep blue eyes, filled with an unknown and unexpected sorrow, she realized that for that exact reason, she had probably made the wrongest choice.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

The words came out sharper than she meant, but after all they reflected her thoughts. She had spent almost two hours getting physically and most of all psychologically ready for the start of the therapy, not considering at all the sleepless night alone in the huge empty mansion. And then, just when she was about to go, a loud knock on the door introduced the pirate into the picture of that day.

"I was just passing by…" he answered, tried to sound convincing.

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms to the chest, starting to get a bit annoyed.

"That's fine… " he said again, surrounding to the evidence of the failure of his attempt "I wanted to know if you needed something… Maybe I could come with you to the hospital"

Now she raised both her eyebrows, clearly taken by surprise, but the irritation was completely disappeared from her face.

"It isn't necessary, captain"

"Okay"

"Anyway, what made you think that I wanted the company of a filthy pirate?" she joked, moving her eyes to the inside of the house.

Regina took her purse and controlled to have taken everything, and then locked the door, but in the meanwhile she didn't receive the usual reply to the provocation she had made to him. Instead, another simple "okay" was all that she get and, slightly confused, she let that okay echo in her mind for a moment, looking up to him. It was then that she noticed that his eyes hadn't actually met hers yet and that what she had in front of her wasn't the impudent, playful Hook she was used to. Realization suddenly hit her and, guessing the reason behind that behavior, a heavy bitterness filled her heart.

"Hey, don't do this" she said, approaching him a bit more and forcing him to look at her "Don't treat me any different… I would have asked help to Snow White, if I had wanted pity… Damn it, we are supposed to be the villains!"

Killian stared at her for a while, without saying a word. He could have told her that it wasn't pity, he wanted to tell her that being villains didn't mean nothing at all when it came to those things and that she had any right to show vulnerability, if she wanted to. But the problem was exactly that she didn't want to, and if what she really needed was him to pretend to ignore everything, then he would have tried to do that.

"It's a pity that you don't want me there, love…" he finally managed to say, forcing a smile " I had come with something to drink"

Regina smiled too. That was way better.

"You know I don't do rum"

He nodded at that protest and immediately took his famous flask from his jacket, winking at her.

"That's why I've filled it with wine"

Hi to everyone! This is a story in three chapters, written for a request I received... Leslie I hope you like it:)

I don't know how I handled this situation, because it's been a while since I wrote something this sad... So let me know what you think about this beginning!

I hope to update soon:)