For the first time in a long time, he doesn't dream.
When he wakes, it's to a fuzzy head, the familiar scent of disinfectant (a distinctive smell he'd be able to pick out from a line-up of thousands) and the scratch of a worn blanket against his cheek.
Sitting up on the camp bed tucked into the break room, he scrubs his hands through his hair, then presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, feeling worse than he did before he succumbed to the temptation of a short nap. He suspects there's a word to accurately describe the kind of muddle-headed exhaustion he's feeling, but right now he can't quite summon the brain power.
He tosses aside the blanket, seeing from his watch that his shift officially finished fifteen minutes ago. Technically, Ruby should have woken him for handover rather than shoulder the responsibility alone, but there's always been a world of difference between what Ruby Lucas should do and what Ruby Lucas actually does. He clambers to his feet, his sleep-blurred thoughts suddenly narrowing down to focus on a single word.
Emma.
He encounters Ruby as he exits the break room, the spring in his colleague's step at odds with the weariness in her dark eyes. "Early shift's on board. Time to blow this popsicle stand."
It's odd, but he can't seem to make his feet move in the right direction. "I just wanted to check on-"
Ruby gives him a look which is part exasperation, part amusement. "She's sleeping, which is what you should be doing." Her scathing glance at his undoubtedly dishevelled state is softened by the warmth in her tone. "Home time, Jones."
He hesitates, the urge to check on Emma before he leaves niggling at his chest like a grappling hook, but how to explain that without sounding like an idiot?
Thankfully, Ruby saves him the trouble. "You'll see our new girl soon enough." Her shoulder bumps against his as he reluctantly turns his back on the room where Emma is sleeping, as if she's trying to herd him in the right direction. "They're keeping her in for at least for another night."
Yielding to the inevitable, he falls into step beside her, doing his best to stifle the yawn that threatens to crack his jaw. "Did she drink the coffee?"
"Almost finished the whole thing, pretty impressive given the circumstances." Digging in her pocket, Ruby twirls her locker keys around her index finger. "I might have even remembered to tell her it was from you."
"Thanks." He snorts tiredly under his breath, but the thought of Emma Swan enjoying his carefully chosen coffee improves his mood greatly. "I doubt she'll get any special treatment from Nurse Ratched."
Ruby flashes him a wide grin at his use of the 'completely-against HR policy' nickname for the less-than-amiable colleague who's just commandeered the nurses' station. "That friend of hers called while you were sleeping, Mary something," she informs him through a wide yawn. "They're coming back to see her as soon as visiting hours start, so at least she won't have to deal with Ratched by herself for long."
Feeling he's already overstepped more than one professional boundary tonight, he bites back the impulse to ask more about Emma's friends. "Good."
They part company outside the change rooms, with Ruby giving him one last piece of unsolicited advice. "Be careful cycling home." She smooths back her perfectly braided merlot-coloured hair with a pointed flick of her wrist. "You look like death warmed up."
Quite sure he looks ten kinds of hell, he wearily decides to take her words as a compliment. "Always the charmer, Nurse Lucas."
Blinking as he steps out into the outside world, he slowly makes his way towards the bicycle racks. As always, he feels a muted sense of relief to find his bicycle exactly where he'd left it at the start of his shift last night. Thankfully he has once again been spared from the machinations of the bicycle thieves who haunt this area on a worrying regular basis.
On autopilot, he tugs on his helmet and zips up his windbreaker, a wide yawn stretching his jaw as he unlocks the bike chain. The early morning sun hasn't yet graced the pavements with its presence, and the ten minute bike ride to his apartment through the early morning chill is the usual bracing experience.
At least Ruby seems to have finally stopped asking him when he's going to start driving a car again like a 'normal' person, he muses, then he scowls as he crouches lower over the handlebars, leaning into the cold breeze, concentrating on the road ahead. He knows she's only trying to help, but they both know why he hasn't driven a car for the last three years.
Three years this coming Sunday to be precise, he thinks with a sour jolt of realisation as he reaches the front of his apartment building. Odd how every year he's managed to forget the anniversary of the accident until it's almost upon him. As he starts to wheel his bike through the foyer to the elevator, he realises something else. This year, this coming Sunday also happens to be Valentine's Day.
Wonderful.
His jaw tightening, Killian stabs at the elevator button with an impatient finger, grimly pushing his bike into the empty lift a few seconds later. Carefully avoiding looking at his reflection in the age-dimmed mirrored wall of the elevator, he flexes his aching left hand, moving it in a slow circle to ease the stiffness in the tendons. Nursing might not require the steady hands of a surgeon, but it's still tough on a thirty-something body.
Once in his apartment, his bike stowed carelessly against the bookcase, he draws the blackout curtains in his bedroom and briefly considers simply falling onto his bed and sleeping like the dead, crumpled scrubs and all. However, his post-nightshift routine is far too engrained to be derailed, even by dark thoughts of an anniversary he has no wish to celebrate. On auto-pilot once more, he has the hottest shower he can stand, scrubbing away the smell of the hospital before taking a long moment to let the hot water run over his left wrist.
And so this Sunday is Valentine's Day, he muses grimly as he shuts off the hot water and reaches for a towel that's definitely seen better days. The day for lovers and those brave enough to confess their secret longings, all wrapped up in a Hallmark cliché of happy endings and true love.
The irony might strike him as amusing if it didn't feel like a knife thrust into his gut.
He towels his hair more roughly than usual, uncaring that he no doubt resembles a mad scientist once he's done, then finally heads for his bed. The room is cool and dark, just how he likes it after he's staggered home from night shift, and normally he'd been dead to the world as soon as his head touched the pillow. This morning, though, the ghosts of the past are nipping at his heels (and his thoughts), and sleep seems painfully elusive.
Over the last three years, he's mastered the art of not thinking about the night his life was turned upside down. No good can come of dwelling on the unchangeable, and all it does is fill his head with thoughts of his brother and how the silent wall between them is still far wider than the distance between London and Boston.
Bloody hell.
Screwing his eyes shut, Killian thumps his pillow before rolling onto his side and willing his body to relax enough to coax his brain to follow suit. He knows from long experience that every damned time he's foolish enough to think of Liam and everything they haven't said to each other for the last three years, he'll need to find something else to occupy his thoughts, at least long enough to let him fall asleep.
For once, thankfully, he actually has that something else. Someone else, to be more precise.
To be perfectly honest, though, he's not sure indulging in thoughts of Emma Swan will help him sleep. She's an attractive female patient in his care, and that means he's not supposed to be entertaining anything other than strictly professional musings. That means he had no business noticing the supple figure beneath the staid hospital bedclothes or the golden sheen of her hair. He definitely has no business thinking of those incredible eyes now, the charming dimple in her chin or the fact that not even bruising or stitches could diminish the arresting beauty of that heart-shaped face.
Emma Swan was beyond lovely, but the pull he'd felt towards her had been about more than that. At the risk of sounding like a nauseatingly trite wordsmith, there had been a fire in her, a fierce sparkle that not even the pain medication had been able to dull.
Then there had been the small matter of finding himself wanting to drive his fist into the nose of whichever miscreant had caused her injuries, whether it was the disreputable Walsh or the unnamed 'skip' she'd been chasing.
Of course, she'd thought he was the doctor rather than the nurse, but he can't find it in his heart to mark that down as a strike against her. Her apology had been beyond charming, after all.
He flips onto his back, staring up into the darkness. He's encountered many attractive female patients over the years, but he's never once wanted to sit by their bedside and listen to them talk about themselves for as long as humanly possible. As someone who deliberately does night duty as often as possible in order to keep human interaction to a minimum, he's not quite sure what to do with this revelation.
Rolling onto his side once more, he closes his eyes, heaving a relieved sigh as he feels his weary body finally starting to win out over his restless mind. A sensible man might hope that Ruby was mistaken and Emma Swan will have been discharged by the time he starts his shift tonight. His life is complicated enough, and he certainly doesn't need the added intrigue of an infatuation with a patient.
Then again, he thinks fuzzily as he slides towards blissful oblivion, he's never claimed to be a particularly sensible man.
Emma Swan never knew her real parents.
It's times like this, though, opening her eyes to see her two best friends looking as though they're both choking back tears, she thinks maybe she's had the next best thing for the last four years.
Not that she's going to tell them that, she decides as they edge closer They'll have her bundled up and moved into their spare room before she can sayteenage tantrum.
"Morning, sleepyhead." As David paces restlessly at the foot of the narrow hospital bed, Mary Margaret squeezes her hand with a gentle tenderness that makes Emma's own eyes blur. "How did you sleep?"
She's tempted to tell them she knows now why Killian called it bed restrather than sleep, but Emma decides not to add to the guilt already written all over both their faces. "Great."
(She also decides not to mention that, as well as dealing with the never-ending hospital noises and bright lights, her head had been filled with thoughts of a ridiculously attractive male nurse. She's allowed one little secret, surely?)
Her friend's smile is a shrewd one. "Liar."
"Guilty as charged," Emma croaks out through a dry mouth, and instantly David is there too, holding up her water glass complete with straw, his face like the proverbial thundercloud. "Thanks."
"I'm gonna kill him," her boss announces in a tight voice, making Emma blink in confused alarm. She quickly realises he's talking about her errant skip (why would he be talking about Killian, you idiot?) and she exchanges a knowing glance with the boss' wife.
"You'll have to find him first," Emma mutters, wincing as she tries to find a more comfortable position in the raised bed. "I have the feeling that sucker islong gone."
David scowls and returns to his restless pacing, Mary Margaret gently touches Emma's stitched eyebrow. "Does it hurt?"
The brush of her friend's fingertips is comforting, and Emma tries not to think of how Killian's touch on the same bruised skin had made her shiver. "Not much."
They fire off a round of well-meaning questions about her aches and pains, David making a show of going cross-eyed trying to make sense of the chart hanging at the foot of her bed.
She does her best to keep up, but her heart isn't really in it.
She keeps thinking of Killian and the odd emotion that had flashed in his eyes when she'd mistaken him for a doctor. If she hadn't been mesmerised by those crazily blue eyes, she might have missed it. But she had seen it, and while her head knows it's inappropriate to pry into a carer's personal life, it seems her heart didn't get that particular memo.
At the sound of soft-soled shoes approaching the door, Emma's heart lurches. She may have completely lost track of time, but surely it's too early for Killian to be back on duty -
It is too early, because the nurse who sails into the room is definitely notKillian Jones. It's a tall, lean woman in her fifties, with an unsmiling mouth and not a hair out of place. "I do hope you're not overexciting the patient," she announces though thin, peach-coloured lips as she checks the chart at the foot of the bed. "She should be resting."
Emma can almost see Mary Margaret's hackles rising, and she has to press her bruised lips together to keep herself from grinning. "We're Ms Swan's next-of-kin," her friend informs the nurse in a tone she usually keeps for her unruly sixth grade students. "I believe we're allowed to visit as long as shewishes us to do so."
The nurse says nothing, but Emma had no idea someone could straighten a bedside trolley with such disapproval. After a moment of truly awkward silence, she smooths her hands down the front of her own pristine white tunic, then turns on her heel. "The doctor will be doing his rounds in an hour," she tells them over her shoulder, then she's gone.
When she vanishes into the corridor, Emma has the sense of all three of them breathing a sigh of relief in unison. As usual, David just can't help himself. "Well, she is just delightful."
"She most definitely is not," his wife mutters, settling back beside Emma's bed and motioning for David to drag the other spare chair closer. "You heard her talking on the telephone this morning as well as I did."
Happy for anything that might take her mind off her aching bones and the fact that she really wants a hot shower, Emma gives her friend a curious glance. "Wait, what happened this morning?"
"When we got here, that woman was talking to someone on the phone at the nurses station." Mary Margaret's usually serene expression is pinched with annoyance. "Gossiping very loudly about one of the nurses who worked the night shift last night, and all I can say is that she must have been talking to someone as ignorant as she is."
Her friend rarely says a bad word against anyone, and Emma finds herself leaning forward in the bed, intrigued enough to ignore the painful twinge in her reset shoulder. "Why, what was she saying?"
"Apparently the night shift nurse is gay and Nurse Nasty out there doesn't approve." Mary Margaret rolls her eyes with obvious irritation. "I was tempted to give her a piece of my mind there and then, but I didn't want to cause a scene in front of the other visitors."
Emma's head might still be a little fuzzy, but she manages to put the pieces of the puzzle together easily enough. Nurse. Night shift. Gay.
Well, shit.
Both her friends keep up a steady stream of chatter across her bed - Leroy can help with the skip caseload until Emma's fit for work, she can stay with them until she's back on her feet - and thankfully neither of them seem to notice that Emma isn't contributing much beyond a few grateful nods of her head.
It's stupid, she knows, but the revelation Killian the Nurse is gay has sent her heart well and truly sinking down to her toes.
She's fine. It's fine.
It's just that -
Damn it.
She smiles mechanically at something cheerful David is saying about their dinner plans for Valentine's Day this coming Sunday (nothing like rubbing salt into the wounds of a newly single woman, thank you, boss) and tries to convince herself that she's not disappointed.
Oh, but she is disappointed. The pain medication must have messed with her brain more than she'd realised last night, because she could have swornthere had been a spark there, something firing between them like a livewire every time Killian's eyes had met hers.
She must have imagined it. After all, she'd thought he was Walsh and had accused him of cheating on her, hadn't she?
"Hey, you okay?" Mary Margaret's hand is light on her forearm. "You look like you checked out for a moment there."
Emma gives herself a mental shake. "I'm okay, but speaking of checking out-" She looks at them both hopefully in turn, but David just gives her an understanding smile.
"At least one more night in the big house, I'm afraid."
"Ugh." It's an effort to pout with her swollen bottom lip, but she must manage just fine, because Mary Margaret simply chuckles as she smooths a maternal hand over the curve of Emma's head, carefully avoiding the bump on her temple.
"You banged up your knee and shoulder pretty bad, Emma, not to mention the knock to your noggin." Her friend's clear green gaze is unwavering. "There's no shame in admitting you're not made of steel, okay?"
Emma grins at the other woman's use of the word noggin then immediately regrets it, her split bottom lip making itself known. "Okay, that stings."
Mary Margaret darts a worried glance over her shoulder at the door. "Should I get the nurse?"
Emma and David answer as one. "No."
Mary Margaret's dimples flash as she settles back in her chair. "Just checking." Bending down, she pulls an unfamiliar overnight bag onto her lap and unzips it. "I hope you don't mind but we used our spare key to your apartment to bring you a few things we thought you might need," her friend confides as she rummages daintily through the contents. "Let's see. Clean underwear, your favourite sweatpants. Oh, I picked up some of that dry shampoo you like-"
If her mouth didn't feel like she's just come off a three day bender in Vegas, it might just water at the thought of the dry shampoo. "Please tell me there's a toothbrush in there?"
Beside her, David chuckles. "Have you forgotten who you're dealing with?" He casts a loving gaze across the bed at his wife. (Emma's chest tightens a little at the sight of such unabashed adoration, just as it always does.) "Do you think she'd forget a new toothbrush or your favourite toothpaste?"
"One thing about an elementary school teacher, you definitely learn all about being prepared." Mary Margaret's face glows in response to her husband's compliment, but she smilingly brushes it off. "Oh, and David found the gas and water bills you'd left out on your kitchen counter with your check book."
Emma sighs. "Damn it." She'd planned to do a heap of things on Sunday night once she'd finished work, and taking care of her bills had been one of them.
Before she can ask if they'd thought to bring her check book with them, Mary Margaret goes on. "He noticed they were both due today, so we took care of that for you."
"You guys are the best." Emma's eyes blur hotly with tears, the words catching in her throat. She must still have the dregs of the pain meds in her system, she thinks, because she cannot seriously be crying over a toothbrush and a goddamned bill. "I'll pay you back."
"Already thought of that, don't worry." David grins and gives her a bright blue wink. "It's coming out of your next pay check."
"Hush, David." Mary Margaret smiles at her, her grip on Emma's hand gently reassuring. "Why don't you go find some real coffee and save us all from the nasty hospital blend?"
"I think there's a place on the ground floor," Emma volunteers hopefully, and David's on his feet in a heartbeat, clicking his heels together with a flourish that would be dorky if it wasn't so charming.
"Your collective wish is my command."
(Maybe it was still a little dorky.)
As David sweeps dramatically from the room, Emma smiles at the memory of Killian bribing her into eating some breakfast with the promise of a fancy coffee. Too bad her sexual tension radar had been way off the charts, she thinks ruefully. Her expression obviously gives her away, because her friend is quick to notice. "Well, that's a wistful smile if ever I saw one. Something you want to share with the rest of the class?"
Emma hesitates, then decides she owes Mary Margaret after all she and David have done for her over the last few days. "Remember that time I had a root canal and told the dentist that he looked like Grandpa Munster?"
The other woman grins. "How can I forget? We all had to switch to another dentist because he was so offended."
Emma snorts. "Someone that sensitive has no business being a dentist."
Reaching out, her friend pats her arm. "You were saying?"
Emma looks at the ceiling, feeling a blush of heat creep up the back of her neck. "While I was buzzed on pain meds last night, I may have thought the night shift nurse was Walsh and given him a piece of my mind."
Mary Margaret's eyes widen, her hand coming up to cover her grin. "You didn't."
Emma feels her own mouth start to twitch. "I did."
"Oh, Emma."
Even without knowing the finer details, it makes her cringe just to think of it. "He was nice enough not to tell me exactly what I'd said, but I had the feeling I didn't hold back."
"That poor man," Mary Margaret shakes her head, still smiling, then she looks at Emma. "Oh, is he the one Nurse Nasty was talking about on the phone this morning?"
Emma shrugs, hoping the gesture is way more blasé than her private thoughts on the subject in question. "I don't know, maybe."
Her friend pauses, her gaze far too intuitive for Emma's liking as it sweeps over her face, then she nods. "I'm glad you've had at least one nice nurse looking after you."
"Me too." A yawn blossoms in the back of Emma's throat, saving her from answering in any real detail. There was something else she was going to say, something about nice nurses, but it's gone like a smoke wisp vanishing into the breeze.
The other woman changes the subject then, much to Emma's relief, asking about the skip job gone wrong and if she needs David to water her plants and take out her trash. They're easy, breezy topics of conversation that have nothing to do with a man who is apparently out of bounds on more than one level as far as Emma's concerned, and, by the time David returns with a cardboard tray loaded with takeout coffee and a bag big enough for several bear claw donuts tucked under his arm, she feels almost like herself.
"I bring exotic pastries and hot brown liquid from a faraway land," David announces with a ridiculously cheesy accent, at which Emma rolls her eyes and Mary Margaret looks at him as though he's all her teenaged dreams come to life.
Dropping the eye-rolling, Emma gives him the widest smile she can manage under the split-lip circumstances, because he really is an amazing boss. "Our hero."
He carefully slides the tray of coffee onto Emma's side table, then leans down over the bed, surprising her by planting a faintly awkward kiss on the top of her head. "Well, you know how it is," he jokes as he straightens and slips his arm around Mary Margaret's shoulders. "I have such overly competent damsels in my life. It's an honour to be able to help out every now and then."
"You'll always be my Prince Charming." His wife gives him a lingering kiss on the cheek that has him blushing, and Emma hastily busies herself by opening the paper bag of bear claws and inspecting the contents. She loves them both but God, when it comes to witnessing their PDAs, they're a littletoo like parents.
As promised, the doctor makes a fleeting appearance an hour or so later. He's younger than Emma expected (what happened to all the kindly older doctors she's always seen on TV?). His bedside manner is dismissive, to say the least, and his pale blue eyes and shock of bleached, spiky hair just adds to Emma's wariness. Oh, and his name is Dr Whale, so there's that.
He rattles off her progress to an attentive Mary Margaret and David, uses worrying phrases like 'take it easy for at least six weeks' and 'daily exercises for that knee', then announces she's being kept in for another night at least. When he's done, he raises his eyebrows at their discarded takeout coffee containers. "Shall I have the nurse come and collect those for you?"
"No, thanks!"
He doesn't bat an eyelid at the trio of voices that refuse his suggestion, but Mary Margaret still adds a hasty, "We wouldn't want to bother her."
A tiny smirk lifts the corner of his mouth, making him look human for the first time since he stepped foot in the room. "Quite."
When he's stalked out of the room to continue on his rounds, David looks at his wife, then at Emma. "I don't know how to say this, Emma, but I think you may have just ended up in the weirdest hospital in Boston."
As Mary Margaret laughs, Emma lifts one hand to the knot of hair she'd piled on top of her head on Sunday morning, scratching at her scalp with her fingernails. She knows there's no point in primping herself for the benefit of her handsome and probably unattainable nurse, but if she has to be in this place for another night, she may as well be as comfortable as possible. "In the meantime, there's no weird situation a can of quality dry shampoo can't make better."
Mary Margaret leaps to her feet as David gives them both a knowing grin. "I guess that's my cue to check out how Leroy's managing at the office." He kisses his wife, then gives Emma a quick salute before collecting their empty takeout containers. "I'll be back in a few hours. Need me to bring anything?"
Mary Margaret is already raising the bed to the optimum position and rummaging in the overnight back for the brush and dry shampoo, but she spares David a loving smile. "If we think of anything, we'll let you know."
When the two women are alone, Mary Margaret gently undoes Emma's messy bun, eventually dropping the threadbare elastic band and four bobby pins onto the white hospital sheet. She perches on the edge of Emma's bed, obviously making herself comfortable. "So, are you going to tell me exactly what did happen with Walsh, or is that a secret you're only willing to share with nice male nurses working the night shift?"
"Talk about a captive audience," Emma mutters, doing her best to sound annoyed, but there's suddenly a brush detangling her hair with strong, steady strokes, and all she wants to do is close her eyes and pretend she's five years old again. She doesn't want to talk about Walsh. Not now. Maybe not ever. Funny, but despite her spaced out tirade mistakenly directed at Killian last night, she hasn't thought of Walsh since she woke up in this bed. "Actually, I'm a bit tired. Can I tell you later?"
It's a poor attempt at evasion, but Mary Margaret just laughs, her voice as soft and calming as the strokes of the brush she's wielding. "Sure."
Closing her eyes, Emma lets herself drift, feeling strangely as though she's just had another dose of pain meds. She's still not used to being - well -pampered like this. David and Mary Margaret are serial huggers, but Emma is still learning the ropes, and she'd forgotten the touch of someone who cares about you could be so soothing.
She's vaguely aware of Mary Margaret spraying the roots of her hair - the mist is cool - then the feel of nimble fingers fluffing and stroking her scalp. Emma sinks down onto the pillows, almost melting into the hospital mattress as the other woman tugs gently at her hair, pulling it this way and that. She hears herself say something about her friend becoming a hairdresser instead of a teacher, and the last thing she remembers before sleep claims her is the smell of cinnamon and the comforting warmth of a motherly kiss on her forehead.
