the-lady-of-mishaven and zengoalie are amaazing for beta'ing this. As always, HUGE thanks to o-u-a-timer for being my biggest cheerleader!
This chapter is still presented in both of their point of views, so watch for that. Here is the big reveal for Killian. I hope it lives up to what you had imagined.
Thank you so much for all of the favorites, follows, and reviews! They totally make my day!
DISCLAIMER: I do not own OUAT or its characters.
Three and a Half Months Ago
Two days. Emma stood at the door to their bedroom, hospital paperwork in one hand while the other held an open bottle of wine and a glass. It had only been two days. Nudging the door open with her foot, she walked into the bedroom. Two days since her life, her entire existence, had been changed irrevocably. Sitting on the floor next to their bed, she curled her legs underneath her. Her blonde locks hit her face as she shook her head and poured the wine into the glass. Two days...and Killian still hadn't called her back.
Not that she'd called him again. No, she was done chasing after him, done dropping hints, done. She took a sip of her wine and let it swirl in her mouth. She'd been supporting him for years. It was her that worked when the band was trying to make it, her that made sure their bills got paid. She was the one that toured with him for two years while she finished school, the one whose calls went unanswered when she finally had to stay home because of her career.
She was the one that he forgot.
Setting the wine glass down, she lifted the hospital paperwork with both hands. Tears flooded her vision. This...this was something he should be here for. It was something that affected both of them, affected their family, and still no call from him. No texts, nothing. It had been over a week since she'd last heard from him. Emma huffed and shook her head in disappointment. They hadn't been a family in some time, he hadn't cared in some time. Why would he start now?
Wiping her tears, she looked over to the photo on her bedside table. It was an old one, taken back in college, but it was her favorite. They didn't even know Ruby took the photo until she gave it to Emma. They both sat on a blanket, books spread out everywhere. They had been studying, or rather she had been studying. Killian, as the picture revealed, was too busy admiring her to be studying. Slowly, she trailed her thumb over his face. They had been so wrapped up in each other back then, almost never spending more than a day apart. She was his world, as he was hers, and they both knew it.
How had things changed so drastically? Now, she was lucky if he was home long enough to stop missing him. She opened the drawer to her table, placing the picture inside. She didn't want to look at it, didn't want to be reminded of better days. She didn't want to think about how they had made plans, how they had hopes and dreams, dreams of a family.
She looked down to the hospital paperwork on the floor, face contorting in agony. Dreams that were now gone. She noticed her hand resting over her incision. She could never have children. There, she admitted it. Her eyes shut as more tears began to fall. There were no words to describe what she was feeling, to describe the loss of potential children. Taking the paper, she shoved it into the open drawer of her table and slammed it closed.
It felt like her throat was closing up, like the walls were closing in on her. Wine glass forgotten, she climbed into their bed and curled around herself. Her heart hammered in her chest. She could feel the despair rising and she was helpless to stop it, helpless to save herself. She needed Killian, needed his comforting arms, his soothing voice telling her they would make it through this, and he wouldn't even call her back.
Her body racked with sobs. She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't be this person anymore. His career was important to him and she couldn't ask him to give it up, but she couldn't sit around and wait for him to realize she was a priority.
This was it, this was her breaking point. She'd lost something huge and he didn't care. Well, that was fine, he didn't have to.
She had taken care over herself before and she could do it again. She would do it again.
Besides, she had been alone in this relationship for awhile.
Now, she would just making it official.
Killian's hand ran up his face to rub his eyes before finally pinching the bridge of his nose. To the right of him the divorce papers lie on Emma's bedside table. The divorce papers that she had left for him two days ago. The divorce papers that she had signed. His eyes narrowed the longer he stared at them. He knew what she expected him to do, knew that he was supposed to sign them, but he couldn't.
His elbows dug into his thighs as he rested his head in his hands. Two days ago, he'd woken up with Emma in his arms, his head on her chest. They'd made love the night before. He'd been happy, so very very happy.
His hands curled in his hair and he tugged, hard, but barely felt any pain. No, he just felt numb. It was a feeling he was used to, a feeling he had felt for three months. How the bloody hell did this happen? She was right fucking here and he'd let her slip through his fingers. He let her go. He was a sodding moron. To make matters worse, he still didn't know what was wrong. So he didn't know how to fix it, how to fix them.
He wanted a drink, but he couldn't bring himself to get one. Dave had been right. Rum didn't solve anything. His problems were still here and they were worse than ever before. He shook his head, hands still buried in his hair. Emma hadn't returned any of his calls since she'd left, there was no contact at all. His hands fell limply to his sides. How did he get to this place, this place where his wife wouldn't talk to him, this place where she would rather run from him than to him?
He remembered her face before she walked out on him for the second time, the tears that glistened her cheeks, the pain and anger in her eyes, the way she held her palms up as she backed away from him. His eyes slammed shut, her words swirling in his head. You haven't changed.
Standing stiffy, he paced around the room. It was him, there was no denying that now. She all but confirmed that he was the reason she'd left, the reason she was ready to end their marriage. He just didn't under…. What the fuck did he do? He rubbed his forehead in frustration, still pacing the room. He wanted to fix this. Despite everything that happened over the last three months, he loved his wife and wanted to fix their problems.
He stopped for a moment and stared at the mirror on the wall. Dull, lifeless eyes stared back. He couldn't even recognize himself. His hair was so long it fell into his eyes, the stubble he normally kept on his chin had grown into a full blown beard. There were dark circles under his eyes. He looked defeated and exhausted. He looked a bloody mess.
Not only did he look horrible, he felt horrible. He felt nothing like the Killian Jones he knew he was, felt nothing like the confident man who had won Emma's heart in college. He was weak and uncertain, traits he never would associate with himself before. He'd felt this way since Emma left.
It always came back to Emma. Ever since he met her, she'd tilted his world on its axis and now that she'd left… she took his world with him. It was like he couldn't see or think straight since she's left. But it hadn't always been like this, not too long ago they were happy. They were in love.
He turned from the mirror and strode purposely to Emma's bedside table. There was a time when she was his world and he was hers. His eyes scanned the table. Where was the photo? She always kept it right here, so it could be close to her. He needed it now more than ever, he needed a reminder that they were happy, that for awhile he had everything he ever wanted. His hand ran down the side of the table to make sure it hadn't fallen over. It wasn't there and he felt panic rise in his throat. She took it, just like she took their wedding album. Took it and left her ring.
Legs giving out, he crumpled to the ground. His hands gripped the edge of the bedside table, head rested on the edge. His eyes closed in anguish. Of course she would take her favorite picture, he shouldn't be surprised. His eyes opened slowly and connected with the handle to the drawer. Maybe… his hand slowly opened the drawer. Maybe she'd hidden it away in an attempt to keep it out of sight. If she had, it would be right on top. His eyes searched frantically for the photo, but it wasn't there. His fingers slid across the yellow paper that covered the contents of the drawer. His eyes narrowed. The picture frame hadn't been the last thing she'd placed in the drawer. His hand lifted the single sheet of paper, it was this. His breath hitched as his eyes scanned the paper quickly.
Storybrooke General Hospital
Date: 25 May 2015
Patient Name: Jones, Emma
Patient Age: 28 years
Pulling the paper out, he sits on the carpet next to the bed. HIs heart beats wildly in his chest. Emma was in the hospital? She never gets sick and she never goes to the hospital. She hates hospitals, has since she was little. Why didn't she call him, if she were in the hospital? His eyes scanned the page further.
Patient Symptoms Include: Severe abdominal pain, Fever over 100℉, Nausea, Vomiting.
Patient Admitted at: 4:00 am
Patient Diagnosis: Multiple Ovarian Cysts present on both ovaries. One cyst on each ovary presented highly inflamed. Internal bleeding due to ruptured cysts.
Procedures performed: Abdominal Laparotomy with and emergency Double Oophorectomy (removal of both ovaries).
The paper fell from his hand to land on his outstretched legs, stomach twisted in knots. Removal of both ovaries. How… His hands started to tremble. Removal. of. both. ovaries. He shook his head. No. This….this couldn't be real. It couldn't be happening, not to them. It had to be a mistake. There was no way that something like this could have happened without Emma contacting him, without her calling.
His eyes darted to the date on the paper. May 25. May 25, that was...his mind struggled to remember. Wait, that was three days before she left him. Three days before the bloody interview, three days before he drove home to find her leaving. He remembered sitting in his car in the parking lot of the radio station trying to figure out if her leaving was a joke, trying to remember when….
His eyes widened, mouth dropping open. Fuck. His head fell back to hit the bed, eyes slamming shut. He remembered the day she left with perfect clarity, remembered being in the car trying to think of the last time he'd talked to her. Remembered thinking that it had been seven days since they talked, but only three since the had tried to call him. Three bloody days.
She had called. She had called him three times. Three fucking times. He'd been too busy doing whatever it was that he was doing, too busy to answer his wife, too busy to call her back. His hands fisted in his hair again. He wasn't a moron, he was a bloody fool. He knew in that moment that there was no mistake, that the paper wasn't lying. He ran his hand through his hair. Emma couldn't have children. He could feel his face flush in anger. He would never have a child with the woman he loved. He would never sing their child to sleep at night as Emma watched from the doorway. Tears formed in his eyes. He'd wanted to write lullabies for his child, wanted to teach it to play guitar, to read music. None of that would ever happen.
He slammed his palm into the floor. What had they done to deserve such a loss, to deserve having something so precious stolen from them? His chest heaved while his heart thumped rapidly. Nothing. They didn't deserve any of this. His shoulders sagged. He would never have a family with Emma, never have a child that was half him and half her. He would never be a father to Emma's child...and Emma would never be a mother.
Suddenly, all of the anger fled his body and he felt numb. Emma. He had lost so so much, but Emma had lost everything. He knew she wanted children, knew she wanted to be a mother, but that could never happen. He should've been there. All this time, all these months and she'd been alone in her pain, alone in her agony.
It was his job to protect her, to be there when she needed him, and he wasn't. His head lifted as he realized with a startling clarity that he never was there. He spent weeks in LA without talking to her. His mind flooded with every phone call he ignored, every voicemail where Emma said she missed him, every time she'd asked him to stay just a little bit longer. His hands curled into fists, knuckles white. How many times had she mentioned he was gone too much, mentioned that she wished he could write from home, mentioned that she wished she could go with him?
His fists slammed into his legs. He'd ignored her every bloody time because she wasn't mad, because she'd said it so casually, because he loved what he did. But that was how Emma was...she didn't beg. She would never ask him to give it up because it made him happy. He wasn't a fool either. No, he was a failure.
He'd failed her, he'd failed as a husband, he'd failed. She couldn't have children and he'd ignored her, he'd ignored her when she needed him the most. That thought alone ripped his heart into two. All of the fight went out of him. It all made sense now. Why she was leaving him, why she left two days ago. This was all his fault and he refused to see it. He refused to see the bigger issues between them. He'd been blind for so long.
No more. He shoved his hand in his pocket, pulling out his cell phone. David's voice from the other day rang out in his mind. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets. He was prepared to fight with everything he had. He just hoped she would listen, hoped she would give him a chance. He deserved everything Emma was doing, every single thing, and if at the end their discussion she still wanted to leave… he wouldn't stop her. He owed her that much.
But he was getting ahead of himself. First, he needed to get Emma to talk to him.
He needed to call Jefferson, he needed to call his lawyer.
Sighing, Emma placed the folded shirt at the top of the pile. She needed to start thinking about getting her own place. She'd been putting it off since the beginning, holding onto the hope that somehow someway her and Killian would be able to work everything out. She'd hoped that they would be happy again.
The irony wasn't lost on her. She was well aware that it was she who'd left him, both times. Just as she was very much aware that if she would just go to the house and talk to him, he'd take her back without a moment's hesitation. But nothing would have changed and that, that was the problem.
If their night together proved anything, it was that Killian still had no grasp over what was ailing their marriage. He had no idea that she was unhappy, despite the many times she'd mentioned it it him. He thought their issues were so small, so meaningless that they could be solved just by simply being in each other's arms again. But they couldn't, just as she couldn't be held responsible for explaining all of this to Killian.
Running her hand through her hair, Emma reached for the next shirt in the pile to fold. She'd spent the last three years trying to make their issues known to him, trying to make him see their problems. All of her efforts fell on deaf ears, on forehead kisses and promises of talking later, on phone calls never returned and half-assed apologies. It was the same cycle over and over again, a cycle that she couldn't live in anymore.
His words the other morning solidified that for her. It was like an awakening that she never really wanted, but received nonetheless. She had been upset then, upset and a little disappointed. Waking up with his body wrapped around hers had been a lot of things. It was refreshing, fulfilling, but mostly it felt like coming home. His words of moving back in scared her, but she had been willing to try. As soon as he mentioned working on the album, mentioned having a child but only after all of these other more important things, she knew. She knew that he would continue not making their relationship a priority. Like she said, same cycle over and over.
She grabbed the pile of folded clothes and walked to the dresser to put them away. They hadn't even talked about her inability to have children and how that would affect their family, how it had affected her. He didn't know that there was this emptiness inside her, this feeling of being a failure, that threatened to overtake her daily. He had no idea that she cried herself to sleep nightly, that she kept picturing the potential children that she'd never have, or that she wondered if she would ever feel whole again. He knew nothing and now, now he would never know.
Her cellphone ringing from the living room drew her from her dark thoughts. Abandoning the clothes on the dresser, she turned to walk down the hallway into the living room. Checking the number, Killian had taken up calling over and over again, and realizing it was her lawyer, she answered the phone.
"Hello." She cradled the phone between her head and shoulder before lifting a blanket off the couch to fold it.
"Mrs. Jones? It's Leroy Grouch. I have a matter of some importance to discuss with you."
"Okay. What's going on? I left the papers for Killian to sign two days ago. Did he turn them in?" She placed the folded blanket on the back of the couch and reached to pick up the empty popcorn bowl from the table.
"That is actually why I am calling. I've just hung up with Mr. Jones' lawyer and well, he said he'd sign the papers on one condition...that you meet with him. He doesn't care where or when, you name the place. He also said that if you wanted, both of your lawyers could be present." The air rushed out of her lungs, bowl falling back to the table. Numbly, she sat on the couch.
"How… I mean, can he do that?" Her voice shook as she talked, indicating her disbelief.
"That's the issue, ma'am. By law he cannot force you to see him, but on the same token we cannot force him to sign." His voice was matter of fact and left no room for discussion.
"So what are my options then?" She ran her hand through her hair.
"There are a couple of things we can do. We can file a petition with the judge to have the divorce to proceed in default, but we cannot do that until thirty days after he has been served." Thirty days. She'd already waited three months to give him the damn papers. "We can wait him out and hope he changes his mind." She shook her head, lips forming a thin line. That wasn't going to happen. "Or you can meet with him."
Frustrated tears formed in the corner of her eyes. "So really, my options are to meet with him or wait another month?"
Over the line she could hear Leroy sigh. "Yes. Those are your options."
The weight of his words fell over her. Why was Killian doing this? What did it matter if they saw each other again? It wasn't like their last meeting went so amazingly, with her running out on him again. What did he hope to accomplish? Her eyes hardened. It didn't matter, her mind was made up either way. There was nothing he could say to change it.
She ran her hand over her face in exasperation. "Okay. Tell him I will meet with him. Tomorrow, the sooner the better, say around noon. At the bench by the pond. He'll know what I am talking about."
"Okay and would you like me present?"
Emma toyed with the idea for a moment before rejecting it. She wasn't in any danger. Killian would never hurt her. She was a big girl, she could face her husband one last time. This needed to be left between her and Killian.
"No, Leroy. Thank you, but I better do this on my own." She leaned back on the couch until her back hit the cushions.
"Okay, Mrs. Jones. Please keep me informed."
"Thank you and I will." She hung up the phone and threw it on the couch next to her.
She just wanted this finished and if meeting with Killian was what it took, well then that is what she would do.
Like she said, it wasn't like he could say anything to change her mind anyway.
His phone was ringing. He could hear it from his place in the bathroom. His face was covered in shaving cream as he attempted to tame the monster that he'd allowed to grow on his chin and cheeks. His chest was still warm from the shower he'd just finished, the shower that he'd sorely needed.
He turned quickly, dashing into their bedroom to answer the call. It could be any number of people, but he hoped that it was the call he'd been waiting on, the one that his future rested on. Without checking the number, he pulled the phone to his ear.
"Ello." His voice was breathless as he spoke the word.
"Killian? Why does it sound like you've been running, mate?" Killian rolled his eyes at the sound of Jefferson's voice over the line.
Jefferson Hatter had been his lawyer since the band had made it big. The man was one of the best lawyers money could buy and a great friend. A little weird sometimes, but still a great friend.
"Perhaps because I ran to get the phone. Any news?" He didn't have it in him to wait for Jefferson to get the point, especially when it could take all night.
"I talked to her lawyer, the Leroy Grouch person you spoke of. Let him know your conditions. He said he would call Emma and get back with me..."
"That's it?" He interrupted. "Why did you even bother calling, mate? You could've texted me that much." His hand gripped the phone tightly as he sat on their bed.
"If you'd let me speak, Killian, I could explain that she agreed to meet with you. Tomorrow in fact."
He threw himself backwards to land on the bed. She'd said yes. Good. That was great. This is what he'd wanted. It meant there was hope for them, for him. She was open to hearing what he had to say. This...this was a good sign.
"Where? When?" His words scrambled out of his mouth.
"Calm down, Killian. Noon. She said a bench by the pond? Said you'd know where she was talking about."
He knew exactly where that was. It was the same place they'd spent countless hours at while still in school, the place they'd walked to on their first date, the first place he'd kissed her. Why would she pick that place? Hope fluttered in his chest, maybe he really did have a shot at fixing things.
"Thanks, Jefferson. I'll let you know how it goes." He hung up the phone without hearing Jefferson's answer.
His hand swiped through his still wet locks. He couldn't believe that she'd agreed so quickly, he thought there would at least be some delay, something. Especially now that he knew why she'd left him in the first place. He'd hurt her, hurt her in a way she never deserved, in a way he'd never wanted. He took the most important person in his life and forgot her. He let his fame, his loyalty to the band, his sodding manager dictate how he'd lead his life and in the process he'd almost lost her.
He stared at the photo on Emma's bedside table, the one that he finally found under the hospital paperwork. They were so happy then, so in love. He yearned to have that feeling back and he was willing to do whatever it took to get it back. Emma may have left him. He may have been alone all these months trying to figure out her reasons, but she had been alone for years. That was his fault and his alone. It was his fault he wasn't there to hold her when she found out she couldn't have children. He shook his head. No, not she...they. When she found out that they couldn't have children.
His hands clenched around the comforter. He should've been there, should've helped her through it. That was his job, he was her bloody husband and he let her go through that alone. He deserved more than her leaving him, so so much more. She deserved so much more than a man who'd lost sight of what was important, who'd continuously did not make his family a priority. But he loved her and he wanted to fix this, to show her that he could change, that he could be the man she deserved. He wanted to be the man she fell in love with, to be the man who fought for what mattered to him.
He would meet with Emma and tell her he knew, knew about everything. He would tell her that he was sorry, that he'd let their marriage take a backseat, that he knew his own actions had caused this.
He wanted to make things work, he wanted to make the necessary changes for her. Perhaps, they could try counseling to work on their problems. She had been through something horrible and, he knew, she was bottling it up inside. It's what she always did. Yes, a counselor would do them both some good. If he could get her to agree.
He was going to lay it all out on the line and hope she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her, but if she didn't…. his stomach turned at the thought. If she didn't, he would walk away and give her what she wanted. He'd messed this up royally and deserved to lose her if that was what she wanted.
But he hoped it didn't come to that. He hoped he still had a shot at fixing the mess he'd created.
His hands rubbed his eyes. Tomorrow, he would meet with Emma. Tomorrow he would fight with everything he had.
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