This is a oneshot inspired by a flawless edit by eaasybugboy tumblr, extremely sad (even by my standards), something you would be better off not reading. If you want to blame anyone for it blame her; I tried to resist but I just couldn't. CBTM will be updated tomorrow, so you can look forward to that after this breaks you.
She gets the call at 7:30 p.m., the dispatcher telling her in a calm voice that there's been an accident near the town line, and that the ambulance will be on the way to the scene as soon as they drop their current patient at the hospital. Emma curses under her breath and then feels guilty, glancing at Henry who's resting his chin on the counter and watching her intently.
"Do you have to go?"
Emma is torn because as the sheriff, she should, but she doesn't want to leave him alone. She dials Snow's number and breaths a quick sigh of relief when she picks up after just two rings.
"Where are you?" Emma demands, and Snow tells her she's having dinner with Charming at Granny's. "Stay there. I'm bringing Henry to you."
"Mum! I can stay home alone, I'm not a baby!" Henry objects, but Emma doesn't have time to argue. Somebody could be dying out there, and she knows how slowly Hank drives that ambulance. There's never been a real rush in this town, but she's got a bad feeling that tonight that won't be the case.
"Jacket", Emma says when Henry is almost out the door with her, and he spins around, grabs the closest one from the hanger and follows her downstairs. He seems to be sensing her urgency, and Emma is grateful that he doesn't do anything to slow her down.
It takes them about three minutes to reach Granny's and Emma stops only long enough for him to exit the car and go inside, and then she's tearing out of there, the siren blaring, the lights flashing.
"Where's the ambulance now, over", she asks the dispatcher, and waits, keeping her eyes on the road because she's going way too fast.
"They left the hospital. They'll be there in 5 minutes, over", the dispatcher tells her, and Emma takes a turn and heads toward the town line.
"Tell them to haul ass. Over and out."
The two minute ride feels like two hours, and she tells herself to get a grip, fighting the wave of panic that makes her wrap her fingers around the steering wheel as tight as she can. It's completely irrational because she knows everybody she cares about is okay, but she can't shake the feeling that she needs to hurry.
She stops the car at the side of the road to leave room for the ambulance and races toward the figure lying in the middle of the road, ignoring the car parked half on the grass and half on the road she passes by. There's no lights at this part of the road and she squints, trying to see who it was that got hit, some guy she'd never seen before surprising her when he steps around the car and grabs her forearm, spinning her around and halting her progress.
"He came out of nowhere! I didn't have time to stop, please, you've got to believe me." The red and blue lights paint his face in shadow and light and he looks a bit insane. Emma struggles to pull her arm out of his grip and looks back over her shoulder, her insides doing a flip when she realizes the figure on the ground is somehow familiar.
"Let go of me and get your car out of the way", Emma says to the stranger, but his fingers only dig in deeper.
"It wasn't my fault!"
A soft moan rises from the victim and Emma doesn't waste time arguing. She punches the stranger, pushes him around the car and into the driver's seat and tells him to move the car before she adds first degree murder to his charges. He seems to get a grip of himself but Emma doesn't wait to see what's he going to do. She can finally hear the ambulance siren as she kneels beside the person who'd been hit, gently rolling him all the way to his back. The second she touches his shoulder, the second her fingers meet the soft leather of his coat and feel the solid muscle underneath, she knows who it is.
Lying in front of her is Hook, blood dripping into his eyes from the deep gash on his forehead, his legs at awkward angles to his body, one boot missing. Another moan escapes his lips, his hand clawing at the asphalt as if he's trying to grasp for purchase and get up. Emma grasps it on an instinct, a part of her certain that this is just some twisted nightmare. He's supposed to be in the fairytale land, he's supposed to be where he belongs, not laying broken in the middle of the road in her world.
"Can you hear me? Killian?" Emma says softly, not even realizing she's crying, her voice breaking when she says his name for the first time. She's supposed to be this tough savior, but right now she feels scared and so very helpless.
His long eyelashes flutter but his eyes don't open, his breath coming out in short gasps, and Emma looks down the road, the siren piercing the night but the ambulance still nowhere in sight.
"Emma", he chokes on her name, and she tears her eyes back to his face, everything she has ever learned about first aid flying out of her head. "Help me", he says, his chest heaving, her heart squeezing painfully because she can't stand to watch him being in this much pain.
"Shhh, it's okay. Help is on the way, and you're going to be fine", she whispers, her fingers ghosting over his cheek on the side that's not bruised.
As if on cue, the ambulance finally arrives, stopping a few feet from them, paramedics dropping on their knees on the other side of him, opening the cases with their gear. Emma wipes her eyes, her hand never letting go of his, trying to send him hope and warmth and healing, a voice screaming in her head, repeating please over and over again.
"Sheriff? Are you okay?" One of the paramedics asks her, but she doesn't even look at him. She can't tear her eyes from Hook, as if he's going to stop breathing the second she stops looking at him.
"Just help him", she says, her voice not sounding like her own. Seeing him like this is tearing her heart out of her chest and she can't even understand why. She tries to tell herself she doesn't know him, that he's just an evil pirate she never liked that much, that he was the reason she almost got trapped in fairytale land, but nothing works. Seeing him suffer is the most horrible thing that's ever happened to her, and she can't do a thing about it.
After locking the guy responsible for Hook's state in jail, Emma drives to the hospital, feeling a bit calmer now, thinking that he's in good hands, and that maybe he wasn't as badly hurt as it had seemed at first. Now that she's not close to him, she's ashamed of her emotional reaction and hopes the paramedics won't talk about it all over town, because she can't afford being seen as weak, not with everything that's been going on.
The hallways of the hospital are mostly deserted so late, and she's directed up to the waiting room next to the OR. Nobody can tell her anything about Hook's condition, except that he was alive when they brought him in. She sits in an uncomfortable chair, wondering how the hell did he get to this world in the first place, dread filling her at the thought that Cora may have come with him.
Snow calls three times before Emma finally picks up, only because she has to tell her that she won't be coming home for hours, not until she hears if Hook's going to be okay.
"It's Hook, Emma. Why would you care what happens to him?" Snow asks her, her voice not ungentle, even if her words are.
"I don't care. I just need to see this through. Tell Henry I said 'good night', and that I'll be home to make him breakfast before school."
Snow doesn't press the issue further, but it's clear she doesn't think Emma is being completely honest with her, but that's fine, since she's not completely honest with herself either. She just doesn't want to think about the real reason she's staying in this claustrophobic room, waiting to hear about Hook's fate.
Doctor Whale comes out of the OR six hours later, and Emma jumps to her feet. He just walks past the waiting room and she races after him, skidding to a halt when he turns.
"Emma? What are you doing here?" He looks surprised and exhausted, and it's clear she's the last person he had expected to see.
"Is he okay?" She blurts out, impatient for answers. When she gets them, she wishes she hadn't asked. She wishes she'd gone home and slept, and then came back in the morning after she spent some time with Henry before she walked him to the bus.
"No, Emma, he's not. When they brought him in he had a punctured spleen, a collapsed lung, he flatlined twice on the way here, not to mention both legs broken in several places, broken hip and arm, along with a severe concussion. Frankly, it's a miracle he's still alive, with the amount of shock to his system…" Doctor Whale keeps talking, and Emma just stands there motionless, the very floor moving under her feet, her ears ringing with the blood rushing in her veins. She tries to tell herself that it's Hook, that she shouldn't feel like this, but it doesn't do her any good, just like it hadn't when she first found him.
"But he's going to be okay eventually", she cuts Whale off, trying to smile, trying to will him to tell her that everything's going to be alright.
"Emma, who is that guy? I've never seen him around", Whale asks her, making her sit down in a chair and laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. She must look awful to make him so concerned.
"His name is Killian Jones, but you probably know him as Captain Hook", Emma tells him, remembering how she had tied him to a tree because she knew from the second she saw him that he was going to be trouble.
"Listen, Emma. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you he'll be fine, even though I can tell that it's what you want to hear. I did everything I could, and now we need to wait and see. You should go home, get some rest."
"Can I see him first?" Emma asks, swallowing the lump in her throat and telling herself she's not going to cry.
Whale looks like he wants to tell that she can't, but he changes his mind and leads her toward ICU, Emma's stomach feeling more like a giant void the closer they get to it.
When they enter the ward, Emma feels about ready to turn and run away, but she's too stubborn to give in to that impulse. They won't let her into his room because of the fear of infection, so she stares at him through a glass window, barely recognizing him like this, frail, vulnerable and so very pale against the sheets. She realizes there's no point in her being here, so she casts one last look at him and goes home, thinking about that day on the beanstalk, admitting to herself that when she left him there, she had expected to see him again, just as she had expected him to find a way to come to Storybrooke. Once he did, they were supposed to start over, and she can't believe that after everything, this is how their story is supposed to go; him fighting for his life and her heartbroken before he even tried to take her heart, before she even gave it to him.
It's been four days, and Hook still hasn't woken up. Doctor Whale tells her that it's a good thing at this point, because his body doesn't have to focus on anything else except healing. Since she still can't be in the room with him, Emma doesn't stick around for long, just talks to the doctor and stands there for a few minutes looking at him, trying to understand where does this strange urge to take care of him comes from.
Snow corners her as soon as she walks through the door, thrusting cocoa in her hand and steering her toward the table.
"Where's Henry?" Emma asks, taking off her jacket and licking the whipped cream from her finger.
"David took him to the library", Snow says, sipping her cocoa and looking at Emma carefully. "What's going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"Emma", Snow says gently, giving her a pointed look.
"What?" Emma says stubbornly, because she doesn't want Snow to tell her that she's acting crazy. She knows that already.
"Why do you keep going to the hospital to see if Hook is better?" Snow says, and Emma drops her forehead on the table, silently cursing the mechanics of small towns, where everybody knows everything about everyone.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Doctor Whale told me. He asked me if you were involved with Hook." Emma realizes Snow had been wondering the same thing.
"You were with us the entire time", Emma exclaims, realizing her mistake when Snow lifts her eyebrows.
"I wasn't when you two climbed that beanstalk", she says, rushing to continue when Emma manages to look horrified. "I've seen the way he looked at you, and I can understand if you felt the same-"
"I was trying to get the compass and get us back; we were fighting a giant and looking through a ridiculous amount of gold, nothing else!" Emma tries to look offended, but memories assault her and she remembers how good it had felt when she pulled him close to stop him from tripping that wire. When she pushed him away, it was because she couldn't afford leaving Henry for the second time, and it took every ounce of her strength.
"Then why do you keep going back?"
"I don't know!" Emma yells, and Snow sloshes cocoa over her hand. "Sorry", Emma says sheepishly, getting up to give her the paper napkin.
"Did you like him? Was that the reason you left him up there? Because you liked him too much too soon?" Snow asks gently, and she sounds like she knows what's she talking about.
"He's a pirate and he worked with Cora. I'm not supposed to like him", Emma says, and Snow's eyebrows go up again.
"So you do like him", Snow says, and Emma realizes what she had said.
"Believe me, I don't understand it either. Every day I go to the hospital, I watch him lay there and tell myself it's the last time, but the next day I go back because every minute I postpone it feels like I'm jinxing him, somehow making him worse. You don't have to tell me it's crazy", Emma says when she sees Snow's expression.
"I wasn't going to say that", Snow says, her voice breaking, her eyes suddenly full of tears.
"Hey… Why are you crying?" Emma asks her, laying her hand on Snow's.
"When Charming was in a coma, I felt exactly the same way. I saw him the first day I started volunteering, and I kept coming back, stealing a glance at him every time I was doing my rounds. I hope I'm wrong, but I think Hook was supposed to be your Charming", Snow tells her, and everything clicks. Emma doesn't know how she knows that Snow is right, but she's never been more certain of anything in her life.
She keeps going to the hospital and after a week they finally let her into Hook's room. He still hasn't woken up and Emma sits in a chair next to his bed, her eyes caressing his face; the bruise on his cheek, the beard, the shadow of his dark eyelashes, the straight line of his nose.
"Wake up", she whispers, threading her fingers through his and squeezing gently, careful of the clip on his index finger. At that moment she would give anything for him to turn his head and look at her. At that moment, she would make any deal no matter the consequences because she can't stand to think that she's got the right man for her laying in a coma from which he may never wake up. What hurts the most is that if the accident had never happened, she would have given him hell if he even tried to pursue her.
Emma dozes off and wakes up to someone calling her name. She opens her eyes and waits for them to adjust to the darkness of the room, the only light coming from the hallway through the half-opened door. When they do, the first thing she sees is Hook looking back at her.
"You're awake", Emma says, leaning closer to him. There's confusion and pain in his blue eyes, but she can't focus on that; the relief that he's finally woken up is too great.
"What happened?" He asks her, his fingers tightening on hers. "Where am I?"
"You had an accident, but you're going to be okay, I promise", Emma says, getting up to call the doctor, but he doesn't let her pull her hand out of his.
"Don't go", he says, his eyes pleading with her, and Emma smiles reassuringly.
"I'm just going to go out in the hall to call the doctor", she says, but he shakes his head, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
"Can you do me a favor first?" He asks, his voice so soft she has to sit down and lean in to hear him.
"Okay", Emma agrees, ready to do anything.
"Kiss me", he says, and Emma tilts her head to the side, her eyes dancing with good humor.
"You should at least buy me dinner first", she says, and the corner of his mouth lifts in a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.
"Please", he says, and Emma blinks, a sudden chill running down her spine.
"Maybe I should get you a doctor first", she says, but she can tell he won't let her go without a fight, and the last thing she wants is to wrestle her hand out of his grip and risk hurting him. She looks at his lips, then back at his eyes, and then she's kissing him, such warmth filling her from the inside she thinks they both may be on fire. He kisses her like he expects to never kiss her again, like she's only doing this because he's hurt and she can't tell him no, and instead of telling him he's wrong, she pours everything she feels into that one kiss. She only pulls away because he seems breathless, but in all honesty she could keep kissing him forever.
"Thank you", he says, running his thumb over the back of her hand a few times before releasing her.
"Don't mention it", Emma says and goes out of the room to get the doctor, casting one last look at him over her shoulder. He winks at her and she chuckles, turning around and walking into the hallway that is too bright after the dim lighting in his room.
When she returns with the doctor, the room is filled with the insistent beeping of his heart monitor, showing a flat line instead of a steady heart rhythm.
"No, no, no, no", Emma cries out, her voice rising in pitch with each word as two nurses run into the room and the doctor starts giving him CPR. She leans against the wall because her knees are too weak to hold her up, and she stays like that as the doctor shocks him a few times, that line staying stubbornly flat.
"I'm sorry, sheriff", he tells her, and Emma slides down the wall, resting her head against it and looking up at Hook's face, his eyes closed as if he's only sleeping. She wishes for just one moment more with him, to kiss him again and feel the rush of his skin under her fingers.
When Snow arrives to take her home, Emma's still in the same position. They took Hook away and left her alone, and they hadn't even bothered to turn off the lights.
"Emma?" Snow says cautiously, as if she's talking to a wounded animal, and not her own daughter.
"He's dead", Emma says, the words barely passing her lips before she falls apart. She knew it would happen as soon as she said it out loud; it's the reason she stayed where she was, silent and motionless, existing in a bubble, cut off from reality.
"I know", Snow says gently, sitting down next to Emma and pushing her hair away from her face. Emma turns and buries her head in her mother's shoulder, sobbing so hard it makes her physically sick.
She can still taste him on her lips.
Hook's funeral is on a sunny Saturday, Emma's family and his crew surrounding her as she stands next to his grave, the warmth of the day doing nothing to help her shake the cold. Henry puts his small hand in hers and Emma holds on, finding small comfort in his presence.
Everybody is so silent, all the faces grim as they slowly trickle out of the graveyard, leaving her alone with her pain. She takes his hook out of her pocket and puts it on top of the headstone. Her eyes caress over his name as she kneels down and trails her finger over the words written under it: sailing to another adventure.
Emma hangs her head and weeps, and even though no one in this world has the power to rip her heart out of her chest, she knows how it would feel if they could.
Review?