16 for the dialogue lines! - "I believe in you."
The aseptic smell infesting the room made her stomach churn. She was sick of it, literally. It'd been almost a month, yet she kept fighting the nausea for him.
Twenty-eight days. Killian Jones, her best friend, the most wonderful person she knew, her love had been in a coma for twenty-eight days.
Emma had only been told what happened, but it was brutal nonetheless. There'd been a shooting, and of course Killian had to play bloody hero, trying to calm down the man with a gun going crazy in the hospital lobby. Eight people had died, three had gotten out of danger only last week, and the best surgeon in the whole city of New York was in a fucking coma.
She knew, oh, how she knew, how much Killian would blame himself.
Saving lives had always been his calling, his love for medicine something Emma never quite understood, not until he came home one night during their first year of being roommates, devastated over the loss of a child. He wasn't even leading the operation, his competences allowing him only to be an assistant, but the loss wretched him nonetheless. It'd been the first time she ever saw him so… helpless. He'd cried all night long in her arms, Emma never once letting him go.
From then on, Emma had cheered for him, encouraging him to go on with his studies and pursue the career in surgery, as he'd always wanted to.
But now… now who was going to save him?
Over the years, Killian had built a well deserved reputation, and even the accident that nearly costed him his hand and career never deterred him. Emma didn't let it happen, not when they'd almost lost-
Emma took a deep breath, squeezing Killian's left hand in hers, fingers absentmindedly tracing the scars over his wrist, wet lips kissing every knuckle, lingering for a few seconds on the ring finger, just where his wedding ring usually rested, now an anchor keeping her with her feet down on earth, hanging from the chain around her neck. Every time she moved, it clinked against the swan pendant he'd gifted her for her first birthday they spent together.
«I miss you,» Emma whispered against her skin, bloodshot yes closed as she uttered those words, voice hoarse from hours spent crying.
Emma Swan had never missed someone, mostly because she never had someone to miss until she met Killian.
They'd met in front of the message board as he was hanging an ad for a roommate whilst she searched for one. She'd snatched it out of his hand, cutting him with the paper. «I like it, I take it,» she'd said, challenging him to tell her no. The look of bewilderment on his face was one she wanted to snap a photo at. Little did she know how her life would soon change.
They worked well together, very well, always a team even in those weeks when they barely caught glimpse of one another. Killian worked odd turns at the hospital while Emma only left the library when someone of the staff reminded her it was around closing hour and she dragged herself home.
Killian lost his first patient almost a year into their cohabitation. That night, many things changed.
Albeit bantering like a true couple, Emma and Killian had become friends first, teasing and supporting each other, sharing heartbreaks and hopes for the future even when they'd never uttered those words aloud. Besides, being wrapped up in his arms was better than being anywhere else.
A shaky smile stretched her lips. «I want to bring Henry to the observatory,» she began, voice trembling. «When you wake up, that is, I don't know a thing about stars or planets, and you know he loves when you are the one doing the storytelling.»
It'd been their first date, and it was a pretty damn good first kiss under the stars. What they did later, the stars didn't witness – until a few years later, when they did risk getting caught just to try the thrill of outdoor sex. Definitely worth it.
Emma took a deep breath. «I think I've collected enough drawings to make a ream. They're all piled on your nightstand, chronologically, of course. Your kid is much like you, and I wouldn't have him any other way.»
More dates – in and out – had followed, and they never actually labelled it: all that mattered was that they knew it wasn't just a fling, that it was more. So much more. They never cared about their friends finding out or judging them, though they couldn't deny how pleased they'd been when everyone gasped at their first kiss in public.
«Henry insists on having fish at least twice a week, and god forbid he doesn't drink grapefruit juice every morning at breakfast – with a pop-tart, of course.» A laugh, probably the first real one in weeks, shook her frame. «He really is the best of us mixed together.»
The wedding hadn't been a big affair, but it was what they both desired, held in a little church not far from the city, Killian dressed in all black and hair on the right side of dishevelled – Emma had strictly forbidden he use gel of any sorts – while she'd worn a simple white a-line dress, hair tumbling over her shoulders and a flower crown on the top of her head. It'd been Killian's only request. Well, aside from the actual request – really romantic, on a beach in Miami at night, in a private beach he'd rented for the entire week – to marry him.
The sand in private places was worth the joy of the moment.
Emma sighed, reaching out to combe her fingers through his too long hair: she loved them a bit long, but not like that, not when she couldn't tease him and see his reaction, see his face flush a deep red and the tips of his ears lighting up like Christmas lights. «He inherited our stubbornness, it seems: he refuses to read a new book without you. Or a new chapter for that matter. We're stuck at when the Pevensies go through the wardrobe. I'm so tempted to go on and read what happens next myself.»
Henry was more a surprise baby rather than a planned one, but no less loved. At first, Emma didn't even realize she was late, and when she did, Killian already knew. Of course he knew. The pregnancy was what made them take a decision about moving out of their old apartment faster, but with their savings and what they earned, finding a bigger apartment wasn't much trouble. Moving, however, had been another matter entirely, creating more tension that had ever existed between the two of them, but, well, make up sex with a pregnant, hormones-driven woman? Heaven on earth.
She traced his eyebrow with her thumb, moving down to the scar on his right cheek. Emma closed her eyes, memories of the incident flashing before her eyelids.
It'd happened when Henry was barely two, a drunk driver hit their car as they came back to New York after a family trip in Maine for Christmas. Killian got the worst of it, almost losing his ability to operate, while Emma and Henry only got hit by glass fragments and made out of it with a few bruises.
Even through hard times, their family made it through without crumbling, probably because they both knew what being alone meant, and even when they wanted to run, they stayed.
«Do you remember what I kept telling you when you didn't think you could be a surgeon ever again? That it didn't matter what you thought, because hell knows if you've been pessimistic over everything concerning you and unbelievably optimistic whenever it came to me, and that what mattered was that I believed in you. And I still do, Killian, I believe in you. I believe that you'll wake up and get back to me, get back to us.» Emma was crying in the earnest now, fat tears falling onto his hospital gown, drenching it. «I need you, my love, I need you to come home. I-I can't-» she chocked on her own tears, pressing her forehead against Killian's. She inhaled deeply, not able to catch his scent, submerged by the hospital room's. «I'm going to pick up Henry, now. He's had his swim lesson, tonight. He's becoming quite the dolphin, but misses your teaching methods.» He misses you.
After delicately pressing a kiss to his too cracked lips, Emma pressed another kiss to his forehead, something they both did absentmindedly, a gesture that meant everything.
The quiet, steady bip Killian's heart followed her through the door, but it was the sound of a gruffy, croaked voice that stopped her dead in her tracks, making her whirl around, blue eyes finally looking at her once more.
«I guess- I guess I'll tell my children that I believe in you, too.»
Of course he knew.
