Henry succumbed to the exhaustion that tore through is growing body halfway through the film, the dried remnants of ice cream fixed themselves to the corners of his mouth and the bottom of his chin. His legs were stretched out in front of him, his feet on Emma's lap, and his sweaty head rested against one of the finely embroidered pillows. They'd just gotten to the part where the Fantastic Four teamed up with the government when Henry's periodic nodding off stopped being so… periodic. His entire being turned to mush as he relinquished control to the dream world that seemed to be calling to him.
Soundlessly, the women moved about the room and completed different tasks. Regina flipped the television off, glad to be rid of the awful film. Meanwhile, Emma slid out from beneath the boy's ankles, nearly falling to the floor in the process. Luckily, she caught herself before she landed bum-first onto the carpet. Without crinkling the packaging, she cleared away the treats she'd brought with her and tossed them into the proper receptacles, or so she thought; Regina had to transfer the cardboard carton from the trash into the recycling bin, but she did so without complaining.
With Henry napping restfully, the friends sat opposite one another at the dining room table as they so often had over the last few years. As they'd only been apart from each other for less than a day, there were few updates to be shared. Except for Emma— she had a rather intriguing bit of information she thought Regina might like to hear. Before revealing all, though, she made extra certain that Henry was asleep; he didn't need to know this particular tidbit.
"Gold tried to bribe me this morning," she whispered as she leaned over the table with folded arms. Her long, thin twists fell over her chest, the tips swaying against her abs. Emma muttered something to herself so quiet, even Regina couldn't pick up on it. It was as if she was further shaming her boss for his actions earlier that day, more so for her own benefit.
"He did what?" Regina asked, her dark brow furrowed and her voice kept to a murmur.
Cracking her knuckles, the blonde then tapped the top of the table nervously. "Ok, it wasn't a bribe exactly since I already said I'd do it, but he left a shit-ton of money in my mailbox."
"Did you take it?"
Genuinely offended that Regina would even consider such a possibility, Emma scowled at the brunette. Though, to be fair, for a split second, she had thought of keeping it. When she saw the pile of green bills crammed together in that small envelope, a part of her wanted to hold onto the cash. She was briefly reminded of the period in her life when she could barely afford a McDonald's meal, how humiliating that had been. "Hell no!" she rebuffed, still keeping her volume to a minimum. "I gave it back and told him where he could shove it."
Impressed by Emma's integrity, although embarrassed that she was, Regina expressed approval in the best way she could. "Well, I'm glad to see you've matured. I can remember a time when you would have jumped at such an offer without any thought to the consequences." Any other person would have been insulted at the comments. Hell, if Emma was thinking straight, she might have been too. However, under the circumstances, she had to agree with Regina. Anyone who knew her might have said the same thing, or something along the lines of it.
Rising slightly and peeking over at the comatose pre-teen, Emma frowned at how poorly he looked. His chest rose and fell in uneven rhythms and his face scrunched up the way it did when he pouted. If she didn't know any better, she would've said he was even paler than before. "I hate seeing him sick," she lamented as she sat back down. There was a familiar, yet alarming layer tinted over her words, one both she and Regina recognized. When she was having an off-day, or when she was distracted, it slipped out of Emma before she could stop it.
Rubbing her hands together, Regina sighed heavily. "It never gets easier. You'd think it would as he gets older, but it doesn't. It's just as hard now as when he was a baby."
"I wish I could, like, absorb his pain you know? Like, take the cold from him. Does that even make any sense?"
Regina understood that feeling perfectly. Every parent experienced that— every parent wanted to do that for their child. When she can't do it, when Regina couldn't take away Henry's misery— be it from bullying or from being sick— she doubted her ability as a mother. This wasn't the first time Emma had expressed such a longing towards Henry, but it'd been quite a while since the last. "He's a happy boy, Emma," Regina said soberly.
"I know that, Regina." Emma had her back to her friend, afraid that if she looked her in the eye, she'd see exactly what didn't want to: guilt. They both carried their fair share of it, but for the two ladies, it was for different reasons.
Although she hated speaking to Emma's hair, the brunette didn't outwardly complain. It was hard enough just saying it out loud, she didn't need to see the impact of her words just yet. She wanted to get it over with, set the record straight once and for all. "Em," she rarely referred to her like that, "if you tell your boss the truth, that doesn't just affect him. It would affect Henry as well. What if this Mr. Gold wants to meet him? What do we tell Henry?" Playing with the silver chain around her neck, Emma pressed her thumb into the engraved image until it imprinted into her own skin. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do. God knows you're too independent for your own good. I just want you to keep that into consideration." Regina's ears started to ring as she anxiously awaited for Emma to respond, either verbally or physically. She didn't care if the woman walked out or stomped her feet, she just had to know Emma had heard her. She had to know they were on the same page.
"I should go," the guest finally said, after staying silent for almost two minutes. Those were the longest two minutes of her entire life. Standing up to her full height, she pushed the chair under the table and searched for her jacket, which she'd tossed onto the back of the couch. She could hear Regina following her; Emma knew she was holding her breath, waiting to exhale. To put her out of her torment, Emma decided to leave Regina with one last proposition. "You know, some day, he's gonna find out the truth. Wouldn't you rather it be on our terms than someone else's?" She could see the way that question hit her friend, the way Regina's jaw twitched as she clenched it. Emma had found her weak spot. Bending forward, she pressed a kiss onto Henry's forehead— her goodbye for now. As soon as her lips touched his skin, though, she cringed away violently as though an electric shock just awakened her system. She held the back of her hand against Henry's face again and the sheer heat of his flesh caused her to recoil as if she'd just been burned. "Gina, he's really hot."
Rushing to the young man's side, Regina touched his cheeks and his chin, his nose and his ears. He didn't just have a temperature; he was on fire. "Henry, sweetie," she said gently, trying to wake him up. He was out cold. "Henry," she said again with more force.
"Should— should we call an ambulance or something?" Emma asked frantically. She fumbled in her pocket for her cellphone, hardly prepared to call 911.
"No, but we do have to get him to a doctor. If you'd just call the number on the fridge—"
"Screw that," Emma huffed impatiently. "Kid?" she grunted sharply, shaking his shoulder. His eyes fluttered open before closing again. She held her ear over his mouth and listened to his slow breathing. Something wasn't right. "We're taking him to the hospital," she decided. Thrusting her arms out, she scooped him up in one swift maneuver. With her knees bent slightly, she carried the ill child all through the apartment, right on Regina's heels. When Regina turned a corner, Emma all but slammed into it as she raced onward. Henry needed help. And they needed to give it to him.
As soon as they arrived to urgent care, Henry was swept away on a gurney by two nurses and a doctor in a white lab coat. They didn't even bother checking him into the system; instead, the front desk bombarded Regina with 100 questions as Emma badgered any staff member who would listen to let her and "the Kid's mom" see him. Her hard work was wasted on busy bees racing up and down the halls.
Once all the necessary information was typed into the computer, all Regina and Emma could do was sit and wait. For almost an hour, they were stuck between people with concussions and bleeding legs, twisted wrists and blurry vision in one eye. Folks in wheelchairs and folks with casts were sent to the waiting room, as they were at full capacity. Stacks of old Newsweek and TIME magazines were sprawled on the round tables, most likely infested with germs. The televisions were all turned to various news stations, each reporting a crime or a car accident; the subtitles were activated, but the some of the words were missing. Every single cove in that room wreaked of bleach and hand sanitizer, both of which Emma hated most about hospitals. It wasn't the shots or the morgue that bothered her, but the scent. Everyone else around her seemed too distracted to care, though, as they all battled their own ailments.
Eventually, Emma gave up sitting and starting walking up and down the short aisle, silently pleading for some news. She watched Regina shy away from all of the sick and injured patients, not out of disgust, but out of fear. Henry was now one of those patients… and they had no idea what was going on.
Exactly 117 minutes after Henry was taken away, the same doctor appeared through the double-doors, her jacket gone, struggling to maintain a stoic expression. This was the most troubling aspect of her profession: delivering bad news. Even when it wasn't awful, it wasn't good. Several years into her residency, and she was still learning. The doctor scanned the messy-arrangement of chairs until she spotted the women who had brought the boy in. From afar, she could feel their panic, their desire for answers. It radiated from them like an earthquake, causing the ground to grumble beneath them. The blonde looked like she was pumping up for a fight, opening and closing her fists, cracking her neck; the brunette was obviously the level-headed one. She sat with her legs crossed, her hands in her lap. But the torment written across her face was something a blind person could see.
With the metal clipboard tucked under her armpit, the ER physician pulled her scrubs up by her laces and approached them with great caution. She knew the slightest bit of alarm in her own physicality would set off a chain of events she didn't have the means to clean up. "Ladies?" she greeted timidly. It was as if that single word, her gentle voice in a sea of dozens, had tugged at their leashes and grabbed a hold of them. "I'm Veronica Whale, I'm the pediatrician who examined Henry."
"How is he?" Regina asked in a clipped tone, all of her anxiety concentrated into that one question. Emma stood not two inches behind her, hands on her hips, one knee bent outward. She directed all of her energy into keeping still, though she desperately wanted to continue her pacing.
Her thin eyebrows knit together, Veronica shifted her body thirty degrees and motioned to the double-doors. "Maybe we can talk in a more private setting," she suggested. "Follow me?" Seeing no other option, and hating the fact that something was clearly too horrible say in front of others, Regina and Emma shuffled after the doctor— past patients in hospital gowns and IV tubes taped to their forearms, past children younger than Henry with shaven heads and Elmo dolls, and past a room full of parents cradling each other. Emma and Regina realized at the exact same moment where they were being taken.
Eventually, they ended up in a small conference room with a view of the city skyline. Funny how, at night when it's most beautiful, neither of the women dared take their eyes off of the somber doctor. Not even the full moon hanging in the night's sky was enough to lighten the mood. Setting the chart where forks would go beside a plate, Dr. Whale made sure to remember her training. "Before we get started, can I ask, which one of you is Henry's mother?"
All things considered, Regina managed to handle the situation diplomatically, and to Emma's surprise, honestly. "Emma is his mother, but I'm Henry's mom," she clarified. Because they would be, she assumed, discussing medical problems, Regina though it important to be transparent.
"I see," Dr. Whale nodded, fully comprehending the short explanation. "Henry is asleep right now, but he's stable. We're giving him intravenous fluids, monitoring his heart rate, and we've fitted him with an oxygen mask until his own breathing is regular again. All of that is simple protocol."
"All of that for a cold?" Emma pushed, unconvinced. As she sat in a cushy leather chair, nothing about it was comfortable. Her back arched slightly, she'd never had better posture in her life. She didn't slump forward and her shoulders were squared. If there was ever a time she was her most professional, it was now.
Unable to clear the images of the people they'd walked by from her mind, Regina's heart sank to her stomach. "It isn't a cold… is it?"
Flipping through the pages of her clipboard, Dr. Whale kept on track. "Henry's nose, was that a recent injury?"
"A few days, I suppose. Someone opened a locker without realizing he was there," said Regina. The room around her suddenly felt much smaller and for a moment, she was seeing two doctors. "Please, if it's not a cold, what is it? What's wrong with Henry?" From underneath the wooden table, a firm hand clamped down on Regina's knee and fingernails dug into her skin. Emma was as white as chalk, as she too put the pieces together.
Sensing the vulnerability and the sheer fear racing through the women, Dr. Whale pushed aside the notes on her patient and spoke to them as another mother— not as a doctor. "Henry has acute lymphoblastic leukemia," she informed delicately. To clarify, she added regretfully, "It's cancer."
And just like that, the world around Emma and Regina came crashing down before their very eyes. The lives they'd built, the hell they'd survived, and the families they'd found were nothing more than dust particles on an empty bookshelf. Nothing existed right then, no one else mattered. The two words every parent prays to avoid were being shot at them like bullets from a sniper. The shards of metal pierced through their flesh and lodged themselves in their chest cavities, making it hard to breath. The hand on Regina's knee migrated upward until it reached the brunette's hand; both of their knuckles turned as white as Emma's face.
"That— that doesn't— no," Emma sputtered as she shook her head fiercely. "That doesn't make sense. He was just coughing and sweating before. How can it be canc—" she couldn't bring herself to say it, not when describing her son.
"Are you sure?" Regina asked, her words as hallow as the rest of her body. She was slowly becoming a lump of mass, nothing more and nothing less. Everything that made her human was evaporating by the second.
Biting her tongue until she tasted blood, Dr. Whale tucked a loose strand of fiery-red hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry," she murmured.
"No. No!" Emma shot out of her seat and nearly kicked it over, letting go of Regina, much to her friend's displeasure. Emma's hand had been the only thing keeping her grounded, without it, she felt as if she were floating away.
"I know how this sounds, believe me, but in Henry's case, it was detected early. Yes, it may have started out as a cold, but that virus seems to have exacerbated other symptoms— symptoms that may not have made themselves known for a while. If he hadn't gotten sick when he did, it might've been too late." Dr. Whale tried to sound as reassuring as possible, but it was a skill that skipped over a generation. Her mother was much better at making others feel better; even her own daughter had inherited that trait. And here she was, 34 years-old, unable to assuage someone younger than her. "As soon as he wakes up, we can discuss treatment options. Like I said, we caught it soon enough that there's a wider range to choose from, and given his young age, there's a higher chance of fighting it." She careful to stay way from anything along the lines of "beating it."
Spinning around promptly, Emma's grimace was menacing enough to scare away Frankenstein. "Yanno, I'm hearing alotta 'seems' and 'mights,' and not enough 'definitelys.' Way too much damn guessing going on."
"Emma—"
"No, if she's gonna spew this crap, it'd better be true. Because I swear to God if there's even a chance she's wrong—"
"We're not," Dr. Whale intervened calmly. "My team and I ran the tests three times. I personally oversaw the second and third run. We haven't don't a bone marrow biopsy yet because we need signed consent from a legal guardian. But, I'm sure it'll confirm my diagnosis."
While Emma processed the doctor's speech, Regina compressed her emotions into a tiny package and stored it away for later. She couldn't afford to lose it, not now. Emma was bad enough, but the both of them? She had no intention of starting World War III. Instead, she swallowed hard and addressed Dr. Whale meekly. "Can we see him?"
"Of course, but as I mentioned before, he's still asleep. When he wakes up, he'll be pretty disoriented. He had a dangerously high fever." Gathering her materials, Veronica prepared for another trip through the children's cancer ward. Before leaving, though, she turned and said, "You two seem like great parents, whatever your situation is. I know it can be hard, but you have to be strong around Henry— for Henry. It's not our place to tell him, so we didn't and we won't. But until he knows, try to treat him like you've always done. He's still the same child you know and love." Regina nodded tersely, while Emma made no effort to signal that she'd heard anything. She was too far away, too lost in her own thoughts. With that, Dr. Whale took them to see their boy.
Henry had been in the hospital before. At five years-old, he'd fallen off of his bike and cut the back of his calf, requiring seven stitches. The scar still hadn't faded completely. When he was eight, he had his appendix removed after two days of excruciating pain. They'd gone in through his belly-button, which he found quite fascinating two years later. Neither of those experiences, though, had prepared either Emma or Regina for this. Nothing in the world could have ever done that.
The ten-year old child laid underneath beige blankets in a gown designed specifically for little boys: basketballs, soccer balls, baseballs, and footballs were stamped all over the garb, binary it may be. His brown hair stuck to his forehead as if it were glued to his skin, large puddles of sweat on his pillow. A line protruded from the back of his hand and was connected to a bag of clear liquids. Red, yellow, and brown wires were taped to his torso, and a beak-like mask was wrapped around his nose and mouth. Henry's eyes fluttered every now and then, but for the most part, they remained closed as he continued to sleep. Not even the beeping at his bedside could wake him up.
"Jesus Christ," Emma choked when the curtain was pulled aside.
Tapping on one of the nurses shoulders, Dr. Whale said, "We'll give you some time."
As she disappeared, along with the pediatric nurse in pink scrubs, Regina practically fell on the rolling stool next to her son. She hesitantly reached for his limp hand, still fighting the tears that had built up over the last few minutes. His fever had gone down, but his color still hadn't returned. "Henry," she whispered, "it's me, it's Mom. We're both here with you."
"Kid?" the blonde asked with the curiosity of a toddler. She was too afraid to get any closer. Even the foot of the bed was too close for her. In truth, she was frozen. It was as if her feet were encased in cement blocks; she was stuck, once-again trapped in the hell that was her reality. She was a bystander; all she could do was watch.
"You're going to be all right, Henry," Regina said, pressing her cheek against his palm. "Do you hear me? Everything is going to be all right." She rose up from her rolling-chair and kissed Henry's forehead like Emma had done back at the apartment. With her eyes closed, the mother wished with every fiber of her being that a kiss was enough— enough to fix this, to rewind time, to make everything ok again. She wished she had the power to heal Henry with only her love. If only it were that simple.
A/N - Welcome back, dearies! I'm sorry it's been so long. I really wanted to finish "Here's Looking at You, Dear" because, as I mentioned before, balancing three stories was a bit overly-ambitious of me. Realistically, I'm only going to be able to add one chapter a week, either to this or "Back in the Game;" on a good week, maybe to both. I hope you all enjoyed this, or at least, didn't hate it. I am not a doctor, as I've stated before. However, I will do my best to make this as factual as I can (I didn't see anything about cold's and underlying symptoms). And speaking of doctor's, are you all cool that I wrote Whale as a woman? A non-creepy woman? If you haven't figure it out now, this is going to be a heavy story. I won't tell you too much, except, buckle up! Until next time, friends!
