Subject/Email Header: The Mountain Man Contest
Title: Any Given Day
Summary: Emmett knows the meaning of pain but carries forward because the world continues spinning and life keeps going even after pain and suffering have taken it's tole. Even after tragedy is all you know. Because beauty can be found on any given day. And on some of those days, the future can be found too.
Pairing: Emmett/Rosalie (vague mention) and Emmett/Kate (vague allusion)
Rating: T
Word Count: 3795
Disclaimer: Twilight and its inclusive material is copyright to Stephenie Meyer. Original creation, including but not limited to plot and characters, is copyright to the respective authors of each story. No copyright infringement is intended.
Any Given Day
Emmett had grown up at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains in Gatlinburg, and was the only son of Henry and Vera McCarty. He'd gone bear hunting for the first time with his dad when he was only ten, and as soon as he got into junior high he played soccer every summer, football every fall, basketball every winter, and baseball every spring. By the time he graduated high school, he was offered a full ride scholarship for both baseball and football.
In the end, he'd chosen his greater love of baseball. It was supposed to be his future and his whole life on a platter. He'd never wanted anything other than to be able to play baseball on any given day. At least, as a teenage boy, that's what he thought. It turned out, there was something he'd want a lot more. And that something disappeared from his life just as quickly as it appeared.
Because Emmett had lost his only daughter to leukemia when she was eight. Of course, that was eight years after he'd lost his one-time girlfriend, Rosalie. He hadn't even known she was pregnant when he'd gone off to college on his baseball scholarship.
Rosalie had been a year younger than him and so when he'd gone off to college, they'd decided it was best to call things off... actually, she'd decided unilaterally to end it and he'd let her. They'd gone their separate ways, and – though Emmett had secretly hoped she'd end up at the same college as he was going to – he'd never expected to hear from her again.
It hadn't been until he'd gotten the call five months later from her parents, Carlisle and Esme Hale, telling him she'd passed in a car wreck but the baby had survived that he'd found out about her pregnancy.
Even as the floor had fallen out from under him, he'd dropped everything and moved back home to Tennessee to take care of the little girl. His daughter, Sencar, became his whole world. When she was barely old enough to understand what baseball was she encouraged him to go back to the game.
By the time she was six, he was a pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. He took her with him to every game, until they'd found out she was sick. Unlike some kids, who showed signs of cancer from early on, her Leukemia was already in stage IV by the time they had discovered it. She'd never even had a chance to fight back.
It took her far too soon after it had been found, but she'd made him promise not to give up his career, and so he'd continued even after he lost everything that mattered, though he often hadn't wanted to. In fact, more than once in his life he'd contemplated giving up, but it had been his little girl's last wish and no matter how much part of him wished the pain would end, he couldn't give up. He wasn't the type to disrespect her last desire.
He'd finally retired from the game after he'd turned thirty-seven, four years ago.
And now, on any given day he could be found at a hospital volunteering in the children's wing.
He'd gifted dozens of pets, signed hundreds of casts, and given out thousands of toys. None of it was ever enough to fill the hole that hadn't healed in the fifteen years since the girl who had held his whole world in the palm of her little hands had passed.
Today, he was at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, where one of his two sisters worked as a nurse. Alice, almost ten years younger than him, had insisted he come to the hospital he hated the most – claiming they needed his smiling face and strong muscle.
Like he really wanted to be back at the hospital that hadn't been able to do anything for his Sencar.
Alice met him outside when he arrived.
"Hey pipsqueak," he said as he lifted her in a giant hug.
"It's not my fault that you and Charlotte took my height genes."
Their other sibling, Charlotte, was two inches taller that his six foot five height, as well as two years older. She also was married with three kids.
He chuckled in spite of himself as he sat her down. "I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way, Ali."
"It does if I say it does." She scowled and turned on her heel and walked back towards the hospital. "Come on, we have some special pups for you to meet so we can take them to their new owners." She looked back over her shoulder at him. "Well, they're not really pups, but... you know how this works."
He did, he'd done it enough over the last few years, though it would be a first at this hospital.
He followed her inside, down a hall off the right, and straight into what appeared to be some sort of conference room.
Inside were four dogs of different breed and size, though he knew the one was a poodle.
"This is Noella, she's a Portuguese Water Dog and is for a very sick little boy by the name of Fred. He has Osteogenic Sarcoma," she said as she rubbed the back of a super curly haired black dog before turning to the dark brown poodle. "And this is Julie, a Klein Poodle. She's for a little girl named Bree with Beta Thalassemia."
Before his daughter had ended up in this hospital, he wouldn't have known what either of those diseases were. At least not by the medical names, but in the three short months after she'd been diagnosed, he'd unfortunately learned a lot about the numerous illnesses out there. So he knew she was talking about bone cancer and a blood disorder, respectively.
She moved over to the smallest dog. It was pure white and super fluffy. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew the type of breed, but the only thing he could think of was 'pillow dog.'
"This is Bianca and she's a Bichon Frise, she's going to a little boy by the name Riley with Hemophilia. And the final dog here is Bella." She pointed to the tall, thin, sandy-brown, long-haired dog which had a similar build to a greyhound. "She's an Afghan Hound, and she's for a sweet girl by the name of Marie." She bent down and scratched behind the dog's ears.
Emmett was immediately suspicious of his little sister when she didn't tell him what Marie's illness was the way she had with the other three.
"And what does Marie have?"
"It started out as Medulloblastoma about four months ago, but it's spread extremely rapidly." Alice sighed. "I was honestly worried that Make A Wish wouldn't get Bella to us on time. The good news is she's here now, though how long Marie will get to enjoy her..."
Emmett swallowed and looked away. "Dammit, Ali." Since he'd started helping out at hospitals, he'd met a fair share of kids who'd passed after meeting them, even sat down and spoken with a few parents after they lost their children in a similar fashion to him, but it never got any less painful.
"Aside from the nurses and a few of the doctors here, she has no one. She's going to die here. Perhaps this dog will help. At least then she'll have someone."
The painful and pointed reminder left him curling his hands into fists. "It wasn't my choice. I was doing what Sencar wanted."
Because she'd been in the very hospital he was at now by herself on the day she'd died. It hadn't been what he'd wanted, but his daughter had stubbornly fought with him when he'd wanted to break his contract so he could stay with her. And so, on October 21st, 2004, the same day he helped his team to win National League Pennant, was the day his daughter had passed. If she'd only held on a few more hours than he'd have been able to see her one last time. Instead, as Alice's pointed jab insinuated, Sencar had died alone – with the exception of the nurses and doctors.
Alice looked away this time, not replying to him. He knew how she felt, it was the same way his parents and Charlotte felt. In many ways, it was the same way he felt about it. But they didn't get it. He'd been doing what she wanted for him. Yes, she'd been a little girl who should have been too young to know – too young to understand – but she had. She'd understood it all, she'd understood it before he had, before the first doctor had told him she'd be lucky to survive three months... and before the second, as well as the third.
If it had been up to him, he'd have taken her halfway around the world in a search for a cure. The thing was, it hadn't been up to him. It hadn't been his choice. Instead, it had been his little girl's choice.
Sencar had been as headstrong as her mom, Rosalie, and she'd gotten her way in the same fashion that Rosalie had when he'd gone off to college. Of course, had he known she was pregnant... Well, while he'd like to think he'd have won the argument, he was honest enough to admit he'd always been a pushover when it came to the females in his life.
If he wasn't, he wouldn't be here at Alice's beck and call.
He shook his head. "Well, let's get this show on the road. I have kids to say hi to." Even though it had been four years since he'd played, his face was still well known. He'd been featured on the covers of Wheaties twice since his retirement and had been on more than a dozen different ads. Kids, like the ones who would be here and had been at many of the other hospitals he'd visited, usually weren't able to do much. But the one constant was televisions; in waiting rooms, hospital rooms, and often times even in the rooms where things like chemo were done.
So kids knew his face. Boys tended to know who exactly he really was more than the girls did, but no matter what, they all knew his face. They probably saw him at least a few times every single day.
Alice bent down and picked up the 'pillow dog,' turning around and promptly handing her to him. "We'll stop by Riley's room first, then we'll visit Marie's and finally the other two," she said as she attached a leash to the collar around the dog now in his arms, before getting the other three dogs ready.
He noticed immediately as he followed Alice out of the room and into the hall that, while Noella and Julie were both well behaved and walking next to Alice, Bella was trying to pull her forward.
He quickly stepped forward and grabbed the leash as his little sister almost tripped, still holding Bianca in his other arm. "Not very well trained, is she?"
"They're not that common of a breed and it's what Marie wished for. I'm not complaining," Alice stated.
She didn't speak again until they got into the elevator. "Jasper said you should visit more often."
"How is he doing?" Emmett asked.
"He has good days and bad days. You know how it is."
He did, though not in the same capacity as what Jasper did. Anyone who knew about Emmett's daughter instantly assumed it was her death that had driven Alice into the medical field, but it hadn't been. His little sister and Jasper had been in each other's lives practically from her first day of preschool. He was two years older than her and shortly after he'd graduated from high school, he'd gone off to serve. While he'd still been in basic training, he lost his leg to a flesh-eating bacteria, thus abruptly cutting his service short. And it was for Jasper that Alice had gone into the medical field.
"And you?" he asked. He'd watched his now brother-in-law struggle with phantom pain for years, and sometimes he worried for his little sister's sanity as a result.
"Good days and bad days. They tend to go right along with his." She smiled slightly as she spoke.
When the elevator stopped, he followed her to a door just down the hall. She took Bella's leash back from him. "This is your first stop. Riley is nine and he's been looking forward to getting that dog in your arms. By the way, Riley is a big boy and he'll tell you as much if you even try to insinuate that he's little."
Emmett chuckled before he went in the room. On the bed was a skinny boy with roguish blonde hair who appeared to be extremely pale. Alice had told him that he had Hemophilia, but the fact that Riley had an oxygen tube attached to his nose made him wonder if she'd left something.
"It's Big Emmy!"
Emmett barely managed to repress the grimace. It was why he'd made the Wheaties cereal boxes twice though, the first time there had been a printing error when they'd printed and instead of having his name, Emmett McCarty, they'd had Emmy McCarty. A year later, the next grouping had his name as being Big Emmett. How the 'Big' from the second printing and the 'Emmy' from the first had been combined, he didn't know, but Riley was hardly the first to call him it.
"Hey kiddo, I have a special delivery just for you," he said as he came over to the bed. "Her name's Bianca."
Riley immediately reached out for the dog in his arms and though she'd been fairly docile until that point, it was as if she somehow knew the kid was her owner because she jumped out of Emmett's arms and onto the boy's bed before he could stop her. He gave the kid the leash and sneaked back to the door – knowing he'd been upstaged by the dog, which didn't happen very often.
Once he was back in the hall, he took Bella's leash from Alice.
"Is there something else wrong with him?" he asked, as he jerked his head toward the door.
She started heading down the hall. "Not really anymore, but a couple of the nurses are trying to play it up for as long as possible – trying to keep him safe as long as possible. We both know how beautiful and precious kids are. They're innocent and everything this world needs, but sometimes some parents just don't seem to get it. He's been back here four times in the last six months. He was brought in last month with five broken ribs, one of which pierced his lung. He's been here since. Honestly, he's lucky he survived."
"Why was he brought here?" St. Jude didn't have an ER, Emmett knew that.
"He wasn't, originally. He was taken to a local hospital where he lives, but his doctor is here because of his disease, and given his history his doctor requested he be transferred."
He didn't bother asking why it hadn't been stopped.
They walked a few more feet before Alice halted. "This is Bella's stop."
He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath before squaring his shoulders and heading into the room. The room had over a dozen machines in it and he instantly felt claustrophobic. The little girl in the bed had no hair, but she scooted up slightly when she saw him and the dog. Her slight body suggested to him that she probably only five or six, but the way she looked at him with her bright blue eyes suggested she was older.
"You're Emmett McCarty," the girl spoke softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"That's right. And this Bella. She's here to help you get better." It was a lie. He could tell by the room even if he hadn't heard what Alice had said earlier that the girl in front of him probably only had days left.
The girl gave him a small smile. "There's no getting better for me. But she'll keep me company." She paused, practically looking through him for a moment. "I wish my mom was here. She knows you. She used to talk about you, before I got sick."
His brow furrowed. The truth was, given his career, he'd met thousands of people, but not many people actually knew him. Now whether the kid knew the difference between knew and met... "Who's your mom?"
The little girl, Marie, didn't answer him immediately. "If I asked you to promise something to do for me, would you?"
He knew not to, making promises with kids was never a good idea, but his mouth didn't agree with conscious thought. "Sure, kid, what do you need?"
"My mommy lost her niece several years before I was born and no one was there for her when it happened. She can't be alone again, not through losing me too. Can you take care of her? Oh, and Bella too."
He supposed he could talk to her after the girl in front of him passed – it wouldn't be the first time – and it would be relatively easy to find a loving family for Bella. "Okay, kid." He'd get the details about girl's mom from Alice later as Marie didn't seem to want to tell him.
He headed closer to the bed, but before he could reach it so he could give the girl Bella's leash, she darted forward so suddenly that the leash jerked from his hand just before the dog jumped on the bed. The girl giggled as he grunted.
"Untrained mutt," he muttered under his breath.
Marie wrapped her arms around the dog as it pushed as close as possible to her. He watched for a moment at how happy the dog made the girl, but he knew he'd once again been upstaged so he exited the room.
He followed Alice and she led him first to Fred's room and then Bree's, spending more time with both of them that he had with the first two. They were both older than Marie and Riley had been. Fred had been twelve and Bree was sixteen, so they'd both recognized him as more than just a guy in ads but as a baseball player as well.
After he'd been in Bree's room for about fifteen minutes, Alice had come in and sat down in one of the chairs.
He was just about done talking with Bree when Alice's cell phone beeped. He knew the word beep meant it was her work cell. When she pulled it out of her pocket and looked at the screen she jumped out of her chair faster than he could blink. She was out of the room before he was able to get up and follow her. He ran to catch up to her.
"What's going on?"
She didn't slow down as she raced down the corridor to the stairs. "It's Marie."
He stopped cold for a moment and closed his eyes, because he knew by Alice's dash that it was bad. He was tempted to turn around and walk back to Bree's room, but... he'd promised that little girl he'd take care of Bella. He swallowed and opened his eyes, following Alice.
When they reached Marie's room two floors below two nurses were coming out of the room shaking their head. His blood ran cold. He knew exactly what their expressions meant, even before it was confirmed.
"She's gone," the older of the two said when she saw Alice.
"Dammit!"
"We all knew it was only a matter of time."
"You don't have to be so cruel about it, Aleca. She only just got her wish," Alice snarled angrily.
"And the dog gave her the peace she needed to finally stop fighting and waiting for a mother who hasn't even checked on her once," the older woman said gently.
"Where is Bella, the dog," Emmett finally found his voice, still reeling over the fact that Marie was already gone. "I promised Marie I'd take care of the dog."
"Down the hall. An orderly had to take her out of the room."
He nodded and headed in the direction the older nurse pointed, finding the dog tied to a metal handle just around the corner. He quickly unknotted the leash and she immediately dashed toward the hall the instant the leash had a little give.
He held on tight to the leash to prevent her from going down the hall before kneeling down and pulling on the leash until she came back over to him. Emmett rubbed her to try and calm her.
"She can be a good girl after all," Alice said softly as she came around the corner. Then she sighed. "I need to head down to the first floor and make a notification call."
"Marie's mother?"
"Yeah." Alice looked down.
"Who is she? Marie wanted me to contact her."
Alice snorted, completely shocking him. "Of course Marie wouldn't tell you herself."
"What does that mean?" he demanded, instantly on guard.
"Marie is, or was, Sencar's cousin, Emmett."
He stood, taking a step back, because there was only one person's child it could be, as if he'd needed anymore shock. "I didn't know Kate had any kids." He hadn't spoken to Rosalie's little sister since Sencar's funeral – except for once about a decade prior when she'd shown up at one of his games.
Alice sighed, biting her lip, clearly debating about telling him something.
He shook his head after she'd opened her lips twice only to shut them again without saying anything. "Does she still live at her old address?"
After a moment Alice nodded.
"She made me promise to take care of Bella. So I'll take her to Kate," he said softly.
"That's a good idea," Alice agreed.
He frowned slightly in confusion but followed when Alice turned and headed to the elevator, as he entered it so he could get downstairs it felt strangely as if things were soon going to head in a different direction soon, even though he knew he'd be dealing with grief once the shock wore off.
After all, the winds could change on any given day.