James knows from the second she walks in the room.
Snow and Henry are too distracted by the appearance of a weakened Regina, but all that James can see, all that he's aware of, is Emma. His daughter.
Maybe it's because she's his daughter or because he himself once had the same injury, but his eyes are trained on the side of Emma's jacket, the spot that's a far darker red than the rest of the material. So while Henry races for his mother and Snow follows him frantic that Regina will do something, James moves directly to Emma, whose eyes - though slightly glassy - are focused on the reunion Henry and Regina are currently having.
When he gets to her, he reaches out to touch her, to move the jacket aside and look at the wound, but Emma shakes her head. She's as stubborn as her mother.
"How long?" he asks instead, keeping his voice low. The other occupants of the throne room haven't noticed them yet and he can tell that she wants it that way.
"Two days." He feels pride explode within him at the way her voice doesn't shake at all as she answers. "Maybe three. It all blends together when you're running through forests for your life."
He hates the fact that she's learned that lesson, one that he wishes he could've spared her from. His eyes flick back to where Regina is still clinging to Henry with Snow watching warily. "She doesn't know." It isn't a question.
"She would've wanted to stop - to try and heal me. She wouldn't have survived it."
And now you won't survive it, he doesn't say, even as the knowledge rises up inside him. He wants to ask if it was worth it, to save Regina only to die, but he already knows what her answer would be – it would be the same as his. She is his daughter after all.
"I'm sorry." She breathes and he realizes that she's swaying on her feet. Without any thought, he scoops her up in his arms, finally feeling complete in a way he hasn't since he laid her in a wardrobe after kissing her goodbye.
"Please." She whispers and before the word is even out of her mouth, he's moving.
Guards surge forward at the sight of the king carrying the princess down the long corridor, but one look from him is enough to send them back to their posts.
"I'm sorry." Emma murmurs again and his eyes meet hers. She knows, he realizes. She knows that she waited too long, that she lost too much blood, allowed too much dirt into the wound.
"Shh." He whispers, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. He imagines her as a little girl with riotous blonde curls and a skinned knee that only he can kiss and make better. He wishes a kiss could make this boo-boo better too. "Shh."
It's only as the door comes in sight that he realizes he's been carrying her to the nursery. The memory hits him so hard it feels like his own side is bleeding again - the pain and the fear and the knowledge that he had to keep going, he had to get her to the wardrobe, he had to save her.
He'd carried her, bundled in her baby blanket, as he slowly bled to death, so that he could save her and Snow. And now he's carrying her as she slowly bleeds to death from a wound she got while saving Regina for Henry - and other reasons, he knows.
Only this time there isn't a magic wardrobe at the end of the journey. There's no magic at all. There's nothing to save her. And he understands Regina now, in a way he never did before, because he'd rip this life to shreds if it meant he could save her - and himself - from this pain.
There's no where to put her, he realizes as the door closes, because there's only the crib and she's not a baby anymore. She's all grown up and she's better and stronger and more real than he ever imagined she could be.
He tugs down a blanket and lays her on it, moving the jacket aside. She hisses in pain and protest and he hates himself for causing her any pain.
The white tank top is drenched with blood and he knows that it will stick to the wound. It isn't worth the agony it will put her through to try and take it off and clean the wound.
"Sword?" He asks as he gently probes the still bleed wound. It's deep and gaping and he feels that surge of pride again that she's survived this long without alerting anyone to her injury. He knows many men who would've succumbed long ago.
"Dagger." She grits her teeth. "Gold didn't want to let her go without a fight."
"Well," he says, running his fingers through blonde hair and trying to memorize every detail, "it looks like you gave him one."
She gives him a smile - look, Daddy, no hands- and he has to fight back the tears. "I used the sword. Right through his throat. Regina used her magic to deal with the rest of the guards."
James swallows back the sobs that are rising in his throat. This is what it feels like to be a father, he knows then. To feel so much pride and so much anguish all at the same time. He wants to shake her angrily and shout at her for hurting herself, while at the same time he just wants to gather her in his arms and hug her until he can't any more for being so damn brave. "Sounds like you two made quite the team."
Emma's hand grabs him and it's barely a grip at all, but he can sense her urgency. "Henry needs her. And she needs him. Please, David."
"Shh." He soothes again. She's so much like him, he realizes at that moment. She's so very much like him and he knows that he has to understand her in a way that his own "father" never did.
"Regina will be safe. No harm will come to her from anyone. I'll see to it." It's the only promise he has left to give her.
Her eyes slip shut then – possibly with relief - and he thinks of Snow and an apple and a glass coffin and a wardrobe and how he can't possibly lose Emma again, not after everything else he's lost only to gain it back.
"I'm sorry." She whispers.
"Emma," he says her name, forcing it past his lips in a sob, "I am so, so proud of you, baby."
Her eyes open at his words and she meets his gaze. There's something in the way that he's looking at her now, something that she's been searching for her whole life. Love and pride and understanding.
"Will you tell them?"
"Of course, I will." He confirms, knowing without asking who and what she means. "Of course."
Blackness dances on the edge of her vision and she tries to smile one more time, although all she really wants to do is curl up and cry. But she knows she has to be brave, even now. Daddy's little princess has to be Daddy's white knight.
"Daddy." She whispers, needing to tell him, and she watches his face light up even as the darkness overtakes her. "I love you."
He opens his mouth to call her back, to beg her not to leave, but someone else beats him to it.
"Emma!"
He can hear the desperation in Regina's voice, even as his wife rebukes her. "I'm sure she's fine. She probably went off with James to tell him about what happened."
"No." Regina knows now, what he and Emma have already accepted. "Something is wrong. She wouldn't leave."
The 'me' is unspoken but James knows it's there and moreso that it's true. Emma had asked him to take her away because she didn't want anyone else to know. But even as she lay dying, she'd thought of Regina above all.
The doors to the nursery fly open and Regina skids to a halt at the sight before her. Snow slams into her back, before a startled gasp rips from her throat. It's a horrible kind of déjà vu that they all experience then, in this room where too many dark and painful memories still swirl.
"Emma!" Regina falls to the ground beside him and then he knows for sure what he only suspected before. Emma's feelings aren't one sided.
"Get away from her!" Snow hisses, but James shakes his head at his wife.
"Wh-when did this happen?" Regina asks and James ignores the hitch in her voice as he answers.
"Two or three days ago."
Realization sets in her eyes and he notices her pale just a bit. "Gold." At James' nod, she finds herself explaining, something she never thought she'd do with this man, "I was dealing with the guards. She told me she took care of him. She never mentioned –"
"And you couldn't tell she was injured?" Snow asks angrily, even as her body shakes from the memories and the fear.
Regina blanches further, but James reaches out and squeezes her arm. "I expect that she couldn't tell any more than you could, Snow. Emma didn't want anyone to know."
"I could have healed her." The words are so quiet, James barely hears them. He knows that Snow doesn't.
"Emma knew that you couldn't afford to stop. And that you're weakened." He keeps his voice low too.
Angry tears spring to Regina's eyes and he watches as the exhausted looking woman from a moment ago disappears as the queen fights her way through. "She had no right to make that decision for me."
And then Regina's hands are on Emma's wound and the tiniest moan of protest slips from his daughter's lips. It's the best sound he thinks he's ever heard.
"I hope it hurts, damn you. You are an idiot, Emma Swan. Two days with that wound and you didn't say a damn word. I should just let you die of your stupidity." Regina hisses, but James is well aware that she doesn't truly mean it, most especially because of the tears that are coursing their way down her cheeks. "But you aren't going to die for me, god damn it. You aren't."
And then Regina is muttering under her breath and a red glow begins to shine out from the wound where Regina's hands are. It's soft at first – he could almost believe that he imagined it – but then it glows brighter and brighter as Regina's lips move faster and faster.
Emma was right, he thinks as he watches Regina work on healing her. The former queen is expending what appears to be all the energy she has left on trying to save Emma. The wound is closing up and color is returning to Emma's cheeks, even as it drains from Regina's.
His promise to Emma flashes through his mind - Regina will be safe. No harm will come to her from anyone. I'll see to it. – and he reaches out, pulling Regina's hands from Emma's wound just as dark eyes roll back in Regina's head.
"Go get Doc and some of the other healers." James says to Snow, even as he catches Regina's falling body, so that he's precariously cradling both women in his arms.
Snow looks ready to protest, but stops at another look from James. Holding both of them in his arms with sheer determination on his face, he looks more like a king and a father than she's ever seen. She turns and moves quickly from the room.
He gently lays them down side by side, his eyes sweeping over both of them. Emma's wound is now just a small cut thanks to Regina's magic and he's sure that Doc and the other healers will be able to tend to it with little problem. It's Regina he's most concerned about now, because if Emma wakes up and Regina isn't there, he doesn't want to think about what might happen. He made a promise to his daughter and he damn well intends to keep it.
So when the doors open and the people begin to bustle in, shocked at seeing the former queen lying next to their princess, he quickly takes charge, demanding that Regina be cared for just as the princess would be. He will suffer no fools in this matter, that much is obvious, and so everyone nods and sets about working. He is well aware that he will have explaining to do, most especially to his wife, but he will do that later, when Emma and Regina are both awake.
For now, he will be the king he was always meant to be and – more importantly – the father that Emma has always needed him to be. It's his turn to save her.