Emma's back slides against the cold wall with difficulty until she is nothing but an ungraceful heap on the hospital floor. Everything has been happening with difficulty in the last few hours – moving, talking, listening to the medics, following the ambulance-
Isn't an ambulance supposed to move fast, for fuck's sake?!
- finding her way around the hospital, nodding to the jumble of words coming out of David's mouth, breathing in and out. Waiting. Waiting is the hardest of it all.
She feels like she has been counting her breaths since the moment she felt the floor on set come up to meet her (and him). She thinks they are quite irregular.
Her one coherent thought is the silent prayer that he is taking each one with her.
Emma is completely unfamiliar with this, has never been in this position before. And she is utterly, terribly unprepared for it. The hospital waiting room, the people rushing past her, the feeling of being tied to a place by somebody, the feeling of having somebody.
Having somebody.
She snorts mirthlessly, almost manically. She doesn't have shit. She is half-lying on a dirty floor in a crowded hospital, her limbs shaking with the combination of emotional exhaustion and almost physical horror, because of somebody she refused to even have coffee with.
David is in front of her again and words are coming out of his mouth again. Can't he just realize already how pointless talking is?
/
White is such a startling colour.
This is the first thought, disconnected from Killian, that flashes through her mind.
She thinks that might be why doctors wear it. For authority. To get your attention, to draw you out of your shock and misery – at least for the few minutes they need that attention focused on them.
They couldn't do anything for his hand but he was stable now. There is talk about blood loss and nerve endings but she doesn't get any of that over the words stuck on an endless loop in her head.
He is stable. He is stable. Stable. Stable.
Stable is probably the one thing Killian has never been.
She is probably the only person in the world more frazzled than him.
/
She hasn't seen Ruby since that pivotal Saturday.
Funny word. Pivotal.
For most it was probably a Saturday like any other. Maybe one where the hangover was a bit harder to shake or the one-night stand a bit more difficult to get rid of but an ordinary Saturday nonetheless.
For her it is the night that Killian Jones became irreversibly entwined with her very being. She is pretty sure there must be something seriously messed up with her that she needed to see him at his worst to fully realize how much she wanted more than just his best.
To realize she wanted everything.
Ruby has been talking to the doctor and she looks calm in a way that Emma cannot even attempt to fake. Then again, if she isn't completely mistaken, Ruby has been preparing for this moment for years and in her eyes the fact that Killian is in the ICU and not in the morgue is probably all that matters.
It takes a few seconds but Emma realizes it is all that matters to her too.
"I'm sorry."
Emma's mind is too scattered to piece together a more adequate reply than 'Huh?'
"I'm sorry for yelling at you at the bar. And thanks. For going after him. I haven't seen the blasted bike since."
Probably because I still have the keys.
"How did- I mean, the doctor told me what's going on but how-" Ruby's words get stuck in her throat and her composure is close to breaking.
Emma hurries to reply before that happens. She doesn't think she will be able to take Ruby breaking as well.
"I don't know. I- " her voice sounds rough and she realizes this is the most she has spoken in too many dehydrated hours. "It shouldn't have. It shouldn't have happened… these things… the-the wheels… the…"
Her hand is shaking as it passes through her hair and Emma grits her teeth, trying to get a hold of herself for a damn minute.
"There wasn't supposed to be anything dangerous in there… I don't… that fucking set has been a walking mine field. I think…"
She has been feeling cold for so long that the fire that suddenly flares up inside her nearly knocks her off her feet.
Somebody did this.
She knows it like she knew something didn't feel right the second they started filming. She knows it in her blood and it is burning.
"Emma?"
She looks up to see that Ruby has taken a step back from her and she is hardly surprised. She can feel the aggression and anger vibrating in the air around her.
"Somebody did this," it passes through her teeth on a hiss that visibly makes Ruby shiver even as her eyes harden in an imitation of Emma's.
"If this was planned…"
Emma wholeheartedly approves of the brunette's tone.
"Filming will be stopped. The police will dig through everything and everyone," she sure as hell hopes they do or she will shove their faces into the mess herself. "We will find out."
And then what?
Right now, knowing somebody did this, prepared and executed a plan to have Killian maimed, probably killed… putting them in jail is the last thing on her mind.
But then another gurney passes her by and the cold seeps back in and she just can't find it in herself to think about anybody but the man lying in the ICU and fighting his way through another of fate's fucked up jokes.
/
She has been in the hospital somewhere between four and seven hours now.
Somewhere between those four or seven hours Emma Swan has realized that she is a lot more than half way in love with her dashing idiot of a co-star.
As it turns out one more near-death experience was enough to push her over the age. It just wasn't her near-death that did it.
/
She is glad Ruby is the only one allowed to see him at first. Even as her skin prickles with the need to see him and touch him and make surethat there is still a him, she is aware that she is too torn apart to be what he needs right now.
'Selfish' is the word you are looking for, Emma.
Because she doesn't want to see his face when he remembers what happened, when he realizes he will never be standing on his hands as if it's child's play again. He will never be doing anything with two hands again.
She wants to be there for him and she can't just yet and for that she hates herself more than she ever has before.
/
By the time they are actually allowed to see him, there is a momentary lull in the hospital's buzzing and Ruby has managed to convince David and Mary-Margaret to go home, get some sleep, some food, take a shower and come back whenever they can, she has also completely failed at convincing Emma to do the same.
She does however manage to force a plastic cup of water into the blonde's hand, trying to crack a smile and point out that Emma probably looks worse than the guy that came out of surgery only hours ago.
She's not entirely wrong.
Killian's make up has been cleaned off and except for the fact that he is whiter than she has ever seen him before he looks like he is in the hospital just to catch some shut eye and get fawned over by the nurses. And then there's the bulging bandage at the end of his left wrist that twists her insides and makes her wanna throw things around like a five-year-old that just doesn't understand why the world works the way it does.
Scratch that. 28 fucking years and I still don't get it.
She has drifted near his bed almost unconsciously and her hand reaches out, basically steady compared to how it was trembling an hour ago, her fingers making contact with the mess that is his hair.
The man has ridiculously soft hair that literally begs you to run your fingers through it so Emma feels only a twinge of embarrassment at how often she has imagined doing this. The circumstances though were never even close to what they find themselves in right now and her fingers start shaking harder again even as she bites the inside of her cheek, trying to reign in her emotions.
Killian's eyes flutter open before she is ready.
As if I will ever be.
His face might be untouched but his eyes are not and Emma feels her already shaky breath back into her throat at the dull pain in his gaze. She thinks it's the dull part that gets to her the most, the missing flicker of mischief, the way his irises seem a tone less vibrant somehow.
"Hey, handsome."
Her voice cracks experimentally and she twists her lips into what she hopes represents a reassuring smile.
Killian's grimace is probably a good mirror for her attempt but his gaze softens with appreciation for her efforts.
"I'm afraid I might need to take a rain check on that steamy scene we had coming up, Swan."
He sounds the almost same but quieter and she feels like glaring at the machines all around him for being so damn loud.
"I have time," she whispers back and focuses her gaze on the way her thumb and forefinger seem to be testing the texture of a strand of his hair.
Killian seems somewhat oblivious to the physical contact and more or less unsure of the tangibility of the whole moment.
"It would've been a real good thing right about now, if you were a blood and scars kinda girl," he cracks weakly.
"Never said I wasn't," she shoots back immediately, the memory of their silliness mere hours ago tugging hard at something beneath her breast even as she smiles genuinely for the first time since she stumbled into the hospital.
Killian huffs and there's a stubborn sort of dismissal in the sound that makes her frown.
"Emma?"
Ruby's head pokes into the room before she can say another word and both actors fix their gazes on the obviously flushed brunette.
"Sorry but I would reeeeally appreciate some help dealing with the reporters that have magically appeared outside and look like they are getting ready to storm a fortress."
Emma's immediate annoyance turns into full-blown fury when she sees Killian cringe slightly out of the corner of her eye.
Nosey assholes.
The very idea that the fucking media is now dropping its weight on his shoulders makes her see red and she stalks towards the door, pausing only long enough to tell Killian that they can handle this (she has a very clear idea exactly how she wants to handle it).
Yes, a very clear, very violent idea.
/
Almost two hours, innumerable glares and short clipped replies later, after Ruby has had to physically restrain her from punching a journalist in the face (twice!) and then had nearly punched one herself, Emma has officially made up her mind.
She is stealing Killian Jones and hiding him from this damn, stupid, fucked-up world.
This is quickly becoming one of my favourite writing endeavours and I sincerely hope I manage to touch you with it. Thanks for reading!