Firstly, I am in no way a medical expert. What I have written here is based on hours of extensive research, but I'm happy to be corrected if any of it is wrong.
WARNING - This chapter does deal with the loss of a child, and the emotional fallout of that. If this is something you're not comfortable reading but you still wish to read the chapter, I've marked where each mention begins and ends with this CSCSCSCSCS There are 2 sections in total that deal with this aspect of the story. If you wish to skip over this update completely I would fully understand that. Please make your choices based on what is best for you personally.
When Ruby pushed her way back into the waiting room all eyes inside of it swung round to face her, before everyone went back to staring at the walls and floor as they had been doing before. The wait with no information was the worst kind of torture imaginable, and while they had each tried telling themselves that no news was good news, they all knew that the longer Emma was in surgery for, the more serious her injuries must have been.
"Did you manage to get hold of him?" David whispered softly, not wanting to disturb the others who each seemed lost in their own thoughts.
"Yeah. He's gonna catch the next flight over."
David nodded to show that he'd heard what she had said, but he didn't say anything else.
About an hour later the door to the small room opened once more, and everyone turned again towards the entrance, hoping for some answers. But instead of seeing a medical professional in the entrance, Leroy; Archie and Mr. Clarke filed into the room, taking seats opposite the ones Granny; Ruby and the Nolans had been occupying.
"What are you guys doing here?" Ruby wondered.
"We heard about the Sheriff," Archie explained. "Has there been any news?"
"Not yet."
Leroy cast his eyes around the space, narrowing them slightly when they landed on Neal and his father, sat in the far corner of the room.
"What's he doing here?" he demanded loudly.
"I'm Emma's emergency contact," Neal spat back. "What are you doing here?"
"I care about the Sheriff. I'd say that gives me more right to be here than you have."
Neal rose quickly from his seat, his father's hand coming up to rest gently on his forearm as a silent warning, while David moved to stand a little closer to Leroy. The last thing they needed that afternoon was for the two men to start a fight which could result in hospital security throwing them all out, before they got any answers.
"Is this really necessary?" Archie asked with a sigh. "We all care or we wouldn't be here. We should be focusing on what's important right now, and that's Emma. Not whatever petty differences we may have."
"As long as he stays over there, we've got no problems," Leroy told Archie, keeping his eyes locked on Gold and his son as he spoke.
Neal glared back for the longest moment before finally sitting back down beside his father, and David quickly followed suit.
Another ninety minutes had passed before the nurse that had brought David his first cup of coffee made her way into the room, this time dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, instead of her scrubs. She was balancing a tray loaded with cheap, plastic cups full of steaming beverages in her arms, and Archie sprung up from his seat to help her with the door.
"I thought you guys could use this," she explained, as she passed them round the room. "Sorry it's not as good as Granny's."
"Thanks, Janet," Archie whispered, and David filed her name away for future use. "Has there been any news?"
"No, sorry," she replied sadly, as she made her way over to the two men in the corner of the room. Neal took one of the remaining drinks from her with a slight nod of appreciation, but Gold was the only person to decline her offer, wrinkling his nose up at the smell of the cheap coffee. It didn't seem to faze Janet, though.
"The last I heard, she was just entering surgery."
"Just?" David asked incredulously, "I thought she was going straight there."
Janet took one of the free seats in the room and the last remaining cup of coffee, as she stood the tray down on another chair. She looked like she'd rather be at home, spending time with her family, instead of breaking the news she had to the people who loved the Sheriff the most. But she also knew how difficult it could be for the people who often sat in that room. Knowing nothing was usually far worse than the truth could ever be.
"Emma crashed not long after she arrived here, I'm afraid. The trauma team had to work hard to resuscitate and stabilize her, before they could even think of getting her scanned and x-rayed to see just how much damage had been done. Doctor Whale wanted to give her body some time to recover from the trauma of that incident, before he was forced into the OR. Surgery puts a great deal of stress on a person's body, no matter how small it is."
Mary-Margret and Ruby's tears had started once more at the news of just how close they'd come to losing their friend, and David had to bite down hard on his lip to stop his own from falling. After what he'd seen in the forest, he had known that things were bad. But hearing that there had been a moment where Emma's heart had stopped beating filled him with dread.
Things were far worse than even he had imagined.
"I'm sorry I don't have any better news for you," Janet continued. "Doctor Whale has asked for complete silence down in the OR, so that he can offer the Sheriff his full and undivided attention. I'm sure that when he has some news for you, he'll be up to deliver it in person."
"Thank you, Janet." Archie reached over to squeeze her hand softly, before the nurse rose slowly to her feet.
"I need to get back home to my girls," she told them. "But I'll be back here later tonight for my next shift, so I'll be sure to keep you guys up to date where I can."
The small group of people in the room nodded their thanks her way, before Janet took her leave. Mary-Margret lasted just long enough for the door to click shut behind her, before she crumpled into her husband's arms to sob softly again.
"I thought you said you'd called this new boyfriend of hers," Neal sneered, from the other end of the room. His voice broke through the whispered conversations that he and his father had been excluded from, eliciting silence once more.
"I did," was all Ruby said in reply.
She really didn't want to get into things with him right then. She knew that Killian would have caught the first flight out to Boston, and if he'd taken the one she had found online, he would have touched down a little over an hour ago. But she also knew he still had a four hour drive ahead of him to get to Storybrooke.
And she couldn't even begin to imagine what the guy was going through in that moment.
While they'd had absolutely no updates on Emma's condition since Janet had left, being as close to her as they could possibly get was reassuring. She felt like she was where she needed to be, and was doing all she could to support her friend as she fought this battle to survive.
Ruby knew Killian well enough to know that he wouldn't feel like he was where he needed to be, until he saw Emma for himself. And until he got to the hospital, she was pretty sure he'd be beating himself up for being so far away from the woman he loved, when she needed him most.
"Some boyfriend," Neal scoffed. "What's he doing that's so important it takes him over four hours to get the hospital where his girlfriend's lying on an operating table?"
"Flying," Ruby replied simply.
Mary-Margret tilted her head a little as her own curiosity piqued, and Ruby explained to her more gently, "He lives in Vancouver. He'll have been on the first flight to Boston. Trust me."
"How did they meet?" she asked quietly, hoping that the story would keep herself distracted from the worry of what Emma was currently going through.
Ruby could tell that the rest of the room were listening in, but she knew it wouldn't matter too much. If Mary-Margret recognised Killian when he arrived that evening they'd cross that bridge at the time. If she didn't, then they'd cross it at a later date, when their friend was out of surgery. Because Ruby had a feeling that Emma's move to Canada would be expedited when she was released from the hospital.
"They met in a hotel in Boston," she told her friends. "When we were there for the first Fairytales convention. I don't know all of the details, but I do know that they clicked fast. He could barely keep his eyes off her all weekend. They didn't make things official until we went to Vegas together, though."
"So this is the guy she cheated on me with?" Neal threw in, as he leaned forward in his seat to clasp his hands together between his legs.
"Emma never cheated on you," Ruby snapped back. "She told Killian she was engaged to you after he kissed her. She wasn't out there putting it around the way you were."
"That doesn't make it any better. She shouldn't have put herself into a position to allow another man to kiss her, while she was still engaged to me."
"Oh, please," Ruby scoffed. "Why is it okay for you to fuck anything with a pair of tits, but not okay for her to kiss another man while she was engaged to you? Do you think Emma's proud of how things with Killian began? Because I can assure you that she's not. She can't control the fact that she fell in love with him anymore than you can't control the fact that you're a complete asshole who doesn't deserve to breath the same air as she does."
Neal opened his mouth to reply, but either couldn't think of anything to say, or chose not to. Instead, he rose to his feet and stormed out of the room, muttering something about needing air, as his father followed him out.
Granny disappeared at dinner time and returned half an hour later, with food for everyone in the small room. She encouraged the people around her to eat, telling them that they would need their strength, if they wanted to continue supporting Emma. But even she found herself picking more at the bread on her sandwich than she actually ate.
Neal and his father returned not long after, taking their seats once more. They stubbornly ignored the rest of the room as they did so, preferring to sit in silence while they waited on news of Emma's condition.
As the evening turned to night, Ruby's patience was reaching its limits. Janet had stopped by when her shift began to say hello, but nobody else had been in to give them any updates. And she could tell that everyone else in the room was beginning to think the same things she was.
Emma was in more danger than any of them could ever hope to understand. Something must have gone drastically wrong for her to still be in the OR.
When the door to the small room finally opened again, everyone's eyes swung round to face the newcomer making their way through it, as they prayed that they would finally get some answers about their friend.
But it wasn't a doctor that was stood in the doorway.
"Killian," Ruby declared, pushing herself up to her feet to throw herself into his arms, as the door swung shut behind him. "Thank God you're here."
She couldn't explain why, but just having him in that room with the rest of Emma's friends made her feel better than she had been feeling all day.
Killian dropped the small rucksack he was carrying to the floor as his arms came up to wrap around her tighter than they ever had before, squeezing briefly before she pulled herself out of his embrace.
"How is she?" he asked, bringing a hand up to massage the bridge of his nose in the hope that it would help with the pounding headache that had formed the moment he had ended that call with Ruby all those hours before.
Ruby had never seen the guy look as awful as he did that night. His hair was a complete mess, likely from being worried constantly on his journey to Storybrooke. His eyeliner was smudged beneath his blood-shot eyes, and the shirt he was wearing was crumpled and creased. He'd clearly left work in a hurry, just as she had.
"We don't know," she replied softly. "Janet um… Janet told us earlier that she had crashed when she first arrived here, and had to be resuscitated before they could take her down for scans and x-rays. But nobody's told us anything since."
"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
Killian slid his hand up to massage his forehead with the heel of his palm, before tugging violently at his hair. He'd thought he'd feel better being back in Storybrooke, and close to Emma. But knowing that it had been hours since Ruby's call, and that Emma's friends had learned very little about her condition during that time, wasn't reassuring him at all.
When he pulled his hand away his eyes darted around the room, taking in the faces that had gathered because of their shared love for Emma. Leroy nodded up at him with a small smile, and Granny offered him a slightly larger one. Killian recognised David and Mary-Margret from the pictures that had been on the deputy's desk at the Sheriff's station, but nobody else was familiar to him. That didn't stop his heart from warming at the sight of them all, though. Emma might not have had any biological family to speak of, but she was certainly surrounded by people who loved her.
"Um… Killian, this is David and Mary-Margret." Ruby pointed to the couple sat on their side of the room, before she turned her attention to the other small group sat opposite them. "I believe you already know Leroy, and this is Archie and Mr. Clarke. Archie is our local therapist, and Mr. Clarke runs the pharmacy in town."
"The high school ritual, right?" he asked, remembering Emma's account of how she'd been called out to deal with teenagers caught stealing from the pharmacy, when he'd last been in town.
"That's right," she chuckled. "I forgot you were here just after that." Her laughter died down instantly when Ruby remembered who was missing from the room, that had been present in that memory. Everyone else's expressions fell with hers, as their thoughts seemed to drift to the same place.
Killian turned back to face the others and noticed that Emma's deputy was on his feet, with a hand extended in his direction.
"David Nolan," he introduced. "I guess I have you to thank for the new coffee machine at the station?"
Killian found himself barking out a sharp laugh despite the circumstances at the guy's words. "Emma said that you were getting more use out of it than she was. I'll confess, I ordered that machine for purely selfish reasons. I was pretty sure the old one was gonna rot away the lining of my stomach, if I had to force down any more of that coffee. I'm glad it's getting plenty of use."
"It wasn't that bad," David defended lamely, as both his wife and Ruby shot him looks that clearly stated they didn't agree with him.
Killian took pity on the guy and took his offered hand, giving it a firm shake as he finally introduced himself. "Killian Jones."
Mary-Margret's gasp from behind her husband was overly-loud in the quietness of the small room, and she sprung up from her seat to get a better look at the newcomer to their group.
"Holy shit, you are," she pointed out, completely unnecessarily. "How?"
Killian's smile was bittersweet as she looked between himself and Ruby, searching for some kind of answer.
"I told you," Ruby deflected, "They met in a hotel in Boston."
There was a small noise from the other end of the room and Killian's eyes snapped up to see the two men sat together, clearly separate from the rest of Emma's friends.
"Is that who I think it is?" he whispered harshly to Ruby.
"Yeah. Emma must have forgotten to change her emergency contact details when she kicked him out."
Killian's eyes locked with Neal's for a moment. There was so much he wanted to say to the guy who had taken advantage of the woman he loved for so long. But he knew it was neither the time nor the place for that conversation to happen. It would have to wait until his girlfriend was back in his arms once more.
"Come and sit down," Ruby encouraged gently. "Before you fall down."
"I've been sitting for the last seven hours," Killian protested, but he still allowed Ruby to guide him over to a free chair beside her own, and pull him down into it.
"When was the last time you ate?" Granny asked from her other side, that motherly streak in her still present, even under the dire circumstances they'd found themselves in.
"Fuck if I know," he sighed, as he dropped his head back to the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm not hungry, though. Surely there has to be someone we can ask for some information?"
"Janet said that Victor had asked for complete silence in the OR, so that he could offer Emma his undivided attention. I doubt we'll hear anything until she's out." Ruby reached out to rest her hand over Killian's left one, as she squeezed it gently in solidarity.
Neither one of them would be able to fully relax until they knew what was happening. But at least they had each other to lean on for support, while they waited.
It was another forty-three agonizing minutes before the door to the small waiting room opened once more, to reveal Doctor Whale stood in the entrance. Ruby sprung to her feet and practically ran across the room as she threw herself into her boyfriend's arms. The two of them whispered something between themselves that the others couldn't hear, before she detangled herself and took a couple of steps back, to allow him to enter the room and close the door softly behind himself.
Killian and David had also risen to their feet at the sight of a medical professional amongst them at last, but the others had remained in their seats.
"I'm sorry you've all been here so long without any news," he began softly, taking a seat at the head of the room. He waited until the other men had followed his lead, before he continued speaking. "I asked for no distractions in the OR, so that I could offer Emma my full attention."
The others nodded their understanding. As much as it had killed them not to have any updates, they all appreciated how seriously he had taken Emma's treatment.
"I'll start from the beginning. When we arrived at the hospital, Emma was taken to the trauma unit so that we could assess the damage that had been caused. Her heart stopped for a moment during those preliminary examinations, and we had to work hard to restart it."
Ruby's tears started flowing freely once more, as Killian reached over for her hand and squeezed it tightly in between his own.
"When we got a rhythm back we began a blood transfusion and a strong course of antibiotics, to fight off any infection that could have worked its way into her body and potentially compromise her immune system further. We made the decision to wait until that first transfusion had been completed until we took her down to x-ray to find where those bullets were, but once we had the results, we had to move fast."
He paused for a moment as he looked down to where his hands were hanging between his knees. Victor knew all but one of the people sat in that room personally. And he knew how much they loved Emma. Delivering this news to them was far more difficult than he had ever imagined it would be.
"The first bullet that entered her body broke the fourth rib on the left side of her chest, which in itself wasn't the worst of her injuries. But unfortunately, during our attempts to resuscitate her, it was jostled and punctured her lung. I made the decision to get her down into surgery immediately to repair the damage it had caused before anything more severe could become of it. The wound was far too large for the tissue to repair itself, and I fitted a titanium plate to stabilize the bone, so that should she have to undergo any more procedures, we wouldn't need to worry about the risk of that broken rib reopening the wound. While I was in there, I was also able to remove that bullet from her body. We've placed her into a medically induced coma, and fitted a ventilator to help with her breathing while she recovers. We don't want to add to the stress her body is currently under, while she's healing."
Whale gave everyone a moment just to come to terms with the severity of the information he had delivered, before he moved on to the next of Emma's injuries.
"The wound to her shoulder was actually the least of our worries. The bullet's damage was confined to the soft tissue, so we had to make some repairs to the muscle there. Emma will most certainly need physical therapy when she wakes, so that we can help her regain as much motion in the area as is possible. But I'm afraid it's likely she'll never have a full range of motion in that arm again."
"Oh God," Mary-Margret whispered. Because this was far worse than any of them ever could have imagined, and Whale wasn't finished yet.
"The last wound was to her abdominal area and it caused us quite a lot of concern, I'm afraid." His eyes rose briefly to meet Killian's, conveying something the actor didn't quite understand, before they flicked back down to his hands. "An x-ray of the area showed us that it had fractured Emma's pelvis on impact, and that the bullet had lodged itself close to her spine. We needed to get that removed as soon as possible, before it could travel and do any kind of serious damage to the spinal cord. Emma will need to be transported to Boston to see a specialist Orthopaedic surgeon when she is stable, so that the damage to her pelvis can be fixed. But until then, we've done all we can to make sure that there are minimal complications from her injuries."
Killian hadn't realised that his eyes were filled with tears until he tried to blink them away. Whoever had set out to hurt his Emma had certainly achieved their goal. Because from what Doctor Whale had just explained to them all, it sounded like she was lucky to still be alive.
"When um… when can we get her to Boston?" he asked.
"I'll make sure transportation is arranged as soon as she's stable. At the moment, I don't want to risk moving her too far. She crashed on my table twice more while my team were working on her. It's just far too risky to move her right now, I'm afraid."
Killian brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, as he dropped his head back to the wall behind him. He wanted to scream at someone and hit something hard to release all of his fear and frustrations. But he knew he couldn't do either of those while he was in a hospital waiting room.
"The nurses tell me you're Emma's fiancé," Whale said, startling his attention back to the front of the room.
"No he's not," Neal scoffed, as both Killian and Ruby replied with a firm, "Yes."
"Would you mind coming with me for a moment?" Whale rose again to indicate that they should leave the room, and Killian didn't hesitate to follow the guy out, even as he heard the argument between Emma's ex and her best friend breakout behind him. "Don't worry too much, Ruby can handle herself," Whale assured him, having sensed where Killian's thoughts had gone.
"No offence, Mate, but I'm not sure I can handle worrying about another woman in my life right now."
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Whale nodded his head sympathetically as he flicked on the light in an empty room, and gestured for Killian to enter ahead of him. As he closed the door softly behind the two of them, he told the other man to take a seat.
"I'm good with standing."
"Take a seat," Whale instructed a little firmer. He'd delivered enough bad news in his life to know that the guy stood opposite him was going to need to be sitting, when he heard what the doctor had to say.
"Okay," he began softly, "Can I assume that you've been engaged in an intimate relationship with the Sheriff?" he asked.
"What the hell has that got to do with anything?" Killian snapped back.
"The reason I've asked to speak with you in private is because that final bullet did more damage that I conveyed to the others. I wasn't sure if the two of you would want that information revealing to everyone so publicly, so I thought it best to deliver it to you alone."
"Okay." Killian honestly wasn't sure what the doctor was trying to hint at, but he knew that whatever was coming couldn't have been good news.
"The fracture to her pelvis caused extensive damage to Emma's womb. I'm afraid I wasn't able to save your child."
For a moment, the last word of Whale's sentence hung heavily in the air between the two men, as Killian replayed it in his mind a few times over.
"Child?" he finally croaked out. "Emma was pregnant?"
"You didn't know." It was a statement, not a question. Whale could tell from the way the guy had gone deathly pale that he hadn't been aware of Emma's situation. Which meant that the chances were high that Emma hadn't been aware of her condition either. "Fuck me."
"How um… how long?" he asked, as his brain tried desperately to process the overload of information he was being presented with.
"My best estimate is around nine weeks," Whale replied softly. "I'm so sorry for your loss."
"It's okay," Killian forced out, because he honestly didn't know what else to say.
"Is there um… can we uh… is there a body?" he asked awkwardly, because how the fuck was he supposed to put into words what he was feeling in that moment? He didn't even know what a baby looked like nine weeks into a pregnancy, but he knew that if it were at all possible, he'd want a chance to say goodbye to that child properly. A child that had been made from their love, that was a little part of Emma and a little part of himself.
"Yes," Whale replied softly. "While rare, it's not unheard of to bury or cremate a child's remains at that stage. I'll make sure you both get the time you need to make that decision."
"Thank you."
Whale gave Killian a moment just to come to terms with everything he had heard so far, before he continued. The poor guy looked drained and defeated, and in that moment, the doctor had never hated his job the way he currently did.
"There's more, I'm afraid," he eventually said. He waited until Killian had lifted his head to meet his eyes before he spoke again. "I opted to repair the damage to Emma's womb instead of removing it completely. That way, she will have a choice in what happens to her body when she wakes. But I have to be completely honest with you and say that in my medical opinion, Emma will struggle to carry a child to term after the damage that she has suffered."
Killian wasn't sure how to feel about that news. He was still trying to process the idea of knowing that he had conceived and lost a child in the space of such a short period of time. Hearing that they might not get a second chance to conceive again crushed his soul just that tiny bit more.
"Anything else?" he asked, because he honestly couldn't imagine much more that could go wrong for the woman he loved so much.
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"That's the worst of it," Whale assured him. "There's a lot of cuts and bruising, but those are all superficial, and will heal given time."
"When can I see her?" he asked. Because after everything he'd just been told, Killian needed to see the woman he loved, just to know that she was still hanging in there, and fighting her way back to him.
"Soon." Whale pushed himself back to his feet and reached out to gently squeeze Killian's shoulder. "We're just getting her settled into the ICU, and then I'll have someone come and take you up to her. I'll also need you to sign some forms for me, if that's okay?"
"That's fine," Killian agreed easily.
"I'll give you some time alone to process everything. Don't hesitate to ask for me if you have any more questions."
Killian forced himself to his feet with great difficulty, as he extended a shaky hand for the doctor to take. "Thank you. For saving her life."
"Of course."
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After Whale had left the room, Killian found himself aimlessly wandering the halls of the hospital, as he tried to process everything the doctor had said.
One of Emma's injuries alone would be cause for concern. All of them at once terrified him, and he wasn't at all ashamed to admit that. When he was finally allowed to see her, Killian wasn't sure he'd ever leave her alone again, until he knew that she was fully recovered.
It wasn't until he found himself in the small gift shop, staring at a wall full of stuffed animals and little onesies in cream, and pink, and blue that the biggest loss of the day finally hit him.
He could have been stood in that hospital for an entirely different reason, seven months from then. He could have been buying one of those cute little onesies to wrap their child up in to bring home with them. Or grabbing a soft toy to help their baby sleep at night. Instead, when Emma finally woke up they would need to discuss possible caskets to bury their child in.
Killian wondered if the baby would have been a beautiful little girl, with green eyes and blonde hair, just like her mother. Or perhaps a handsome little boy, who maybe looked a little like his father, but had his own blue eyes. He wondered what name they would have eventually settled on, and if Emma would want to name the child they had lost.
He wondered if she would even want to try for another baby sometime in their future, or if she would rather spare herself the potential heartache of losing another, and opt to forgo having children of her own.
But most of all, Killian wondered if the woman he loved would ever wake from the coma she was in, to make those decisions with him.
Without a second thought, he picked up one of the small, cream coloured stuffed bears from the display and took it to the girl working behind the counter at the other end of the store. She gave him a slightly odd look as he paid for the toy, before hurrying from the space to find the nearest restroom.
With the door firmly locked behind himself, Killian pulled down the lid on the toilet and sank down onto it, as he yelled his frustrations into the fur of that tiny little bear. He cried for the child he'd lost that day, a child he already loved, even if he hadn't known of the baby's existence until it was too late. And he cried for the woman he loved, who had a long and painful road to recovery ahead of herself.
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"Hey, are you okay?" Ruby asked softly, as she watched him slip back into the waiting room over an hour later. Killian was still clutching that small bear tightly, and he knew that his eyes were bright red from all of his tears.
But he didn't care how he looked.
In that moment, all that mattered to him was seeing the woman he loved.
"I'll be better when I can see her," he assured Ruby.
She eyed the small bear in his hands but didn't say anything about it, and Killian was grateful for that. He wanted nothing more than to tell her everything, so he would have someone to share that burden with. But he didn't want Emma's best friend to know about the loss of their child before she did.
So he simply took his seat once more.
The atmosphere in the room hadn't changed much with news of Emma's condition. While the unknown had been terrifying to them all, knowing what she was currently going through wasn't much better. And Killian could tell that every single person in the room knew that she had one hell of a fight ahead of her, before they could relax once more.
But things became even worse when a nurse that Killian didn't recognise made her way into the room, with a file of paperwork in her hands.
"Mr. Jones?" she asked, looking down at him with a soft, sympathetic smile. "Doctor Whale has asked me to bring you these to sign."
"Of course," he agreed, taking the folder from her hand to flick through the documents inside of it. "I can um… I can cover any costs her insurance company won't meet," he muttered distractedly. "I don't care how minor it is, if it'll help in any way, make sure she gets it."
"Wait just a minute," a voice piped up from the other end of the room. "As my son is Miss Swan's emergency contact, shouldn't he be the one filling out those forms?"
"If you think I'm letting your good-for-nothing son make any kind of decisions about Emma's care you're severely mistaken," Killian snapped back, as he sat the bear aside to begin signing his way through the documents.
"I don't care what you believe, Mr. Jones. The proper way to handle this matter is to allow Emma's emergency contact to take care of this. After all, that is what an emergency contact is for, is it not?"
"She's my fiancée," Killian yelled, jumping to his feet as all of that suppressed rage began bubbling away inside of him, itching for an outlet. From the corner of his eye he watched as the nurse took a small step back, and David stepped forward to take her place, with Leroy just behind him. "I get that you're pissed I stole your girlfriend, but maybe if you had actually treated her with the kind of love and respect she deserved, you'd still have her in your life."
"Oh, please," Neal scoffed. "You have no idea what our relationship was like. And if you honestly think she's gonna marry you then you're delusional. Emma has commitment issues. That's why she left me."
"I don't think I'm the delusional one in this room," Killian snorted. "You're the one stood here when it's obvious that nobody else wants you around. I mean, what were you expecting to happen? That Emma would wake up, completely forget I ever existed and suddenly fall back into your arms?"
The red tinge that crept up Neal's neck and into his cheeks told Killian far more than any words ever could.
"Oh my God. You did," he declared to the room. "You actually thought there might be a chance that this could cause some kind of amnesia, and then when Emma woke up you'd be able to worm your way back into her life through it. What the hell kind of person does that?"
"Don't you dare stand there and judge me," Neal snapped back. "You're the one who kissed another man's fiancée."
"Yeah. I am. And I'm also the kinda guy who would fight for the person I love, so if you think I'm letting you anywhere near Emma you're insane. She's better off without you."
"You know what," Neal declared suddenly, as he whipped his jacket off the back of his chair. His own temper was rising and he knew that if he didn't get out of that room as soon as possible, he'd say or do something he'd come to regret. "You're welcome to her. After all… you know what they say. Once a whore, always a whore."
His triumphant smirk of victory fell the moment he noticed Killian's expression harden, and David couldn't move fast enough to stop the resounding crack that sounded throughout the room, as Killian's fist connected with Neal's face.
"You fucker. You broke my nose."
"Say it again and see what I break next," Killian challenged darkly, as he took a menacing step forward.
"Are you just gonna stand there, Deputy Nolan?" Gold demanded, outrage seeping into his tone. He turned his son to face him, gently assessing the damage Killian had done to Neal's face, before he snapped, "I want that man arrested."
"Why?" David asked, as he moved to stand beside the guy Emma was currently dating. "If he hadn't of hit him, I would have."
"It's assault," Gold protested loudly. "I want him arrested and charged."
"I dunno what you're talking about," Leroy cut in. "I didn't see anything."
"Me either," Granny added, as her eyes narrowed in the direction of the two men causing all of the trouble.
There was a murmur of agreement from everyone else in the room, and Gold's face fell when he realized that he was both outnumbered and outsmarted.
"You'll be hearing from my lawyer," he sneered, as he grabbed his son's arm to pull him out of the room.
"Oh, Neal," Killian called out, just as he was about to step through the open door. "Do you remember the night Emma kicked you out, and how you told her that her favourite actor from her favourite show would never be interested in someone like her?" He waited a moment to let the statement hang between them, floating around the rest of the people in the room as their own curiosity grew. "If I were you, I'd Google me when you get home so you know exactly who you're dealing with."
Neal's face fell as realisation slowly dawned over him, but Ruby slammed the door to the waiting room shut in his face before he could say anything else.
When a nurse returned moments later to declare that Emma had been settled into a private room in the intensive care unit, the atmosphere shifted once more. The hospital's policy was that no more than two visitors could be in a patient's room at any one time, and Killian was expecting a battle over who could see her first, and for how long.
He was surprised when Ruby spoke up to say, "You should be with her. We can wait."
"You guys have been waiting longer than me," he protested, even though every bone in his body was aching to run for her bedside.
"Emma would want you there," she whispered softly.
All of his protests died on his tongue as David and Mary-Margret nodded their agreement, and he found himself giving his own. Killian followed nurse Janet out of the room and along the corridors towards the ICU, as she explained the procedure for visiting what the hospital classed as high-risk patients.
"We're gonna ask you to put on a gown and wash your hand thoroughly, before you go in," she told him, stopping them outside of a small changing room. "Emma's body's been through a lot, so we want to make sure she's not exposed to anything else."
"Of course." Killian would have agreed to wear anything in that moment, as long as it meant that he would finally get to see the woman he loved once more.
Janet handed him what he would need for his visit before excusing herself while he dressed. But she didn't go too far, as she was waiting just outside of the door when he emerged once more with a pair of little blue booties covering his shoes, and a matching gown wrapped around his body.
"When you come to visit help yourself to those, and then make sure that you use the hand sanitizing gel before you enter the ICU. On your way out, drop everything down this shoot." She pulled on a metal flap built into the wall opposite the room he'd changed inside of, before she swiped her badge over the sensor on the wall, and held the door open for Killian to step through.
The ICU was a terrifying place to visit. The silence of the ward was only broken by the rhythmic beeps of the machines that were being used to keep the patients there alive. The atmosphere inside of it was tense and suffocating, and Killian hated it.
He followed Janet as she made her way to the far end of the space, and a private room that was located there. But she paused with her hand on the doorknob, before turning back to face him.
"It looks scary," she warned. "I know that. Believe me, I do. But don't let it overwhelm you too much. Emma's body has been through one hell of a trauma in the last twenty-four hours, and the fact that she's in here… fighting… that tells us that she's a lot stronger than she currently looks. Okay?"
Killian didn't trust his voice to speak in that moment, so he simply nodded his understanding as Janet finally pulled down on the handle, and pushed the door open for him to enter through.
"I'll give you some time alone with her," she explained. "But I'll be at the nurse's station just over there if you need me." She pointed to the large desk they had walked past on their way in, and he nodded his understanding once more, before he watched her leave.
He took a deep breath in to steel himself for what was about to come, before heading in through the open door and closing it softly behind himself.
The sight that greeted Killian had him crumpling to the floor beneath him as his knees gave out. His entire body shook violently while he attempted to smother the anguished sobs that were leaving his mouth involuntarily, with the back of his arm.
Emma was lying deadly still on a bed in the middle of the room. The only noises were coming from the mechanical hiss of the ventilator that was breathing for her, and the steady beep of her heartrate on the monitor.
She looked so broken that Killian wasn't sure his heart would ever fully recover from the sight of her in that bed.
Thank you for reading. I know this one was incredibly heavy, but after watching a close friend struggle through this herself for the last decade, it's something I wanted to represent as accurately as I possibly could. I truly hope I've begun to do that justice here.