DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own any of the characters from ADJL. They belong to Disney. I do however own Rose and Jake's adopted daughter, Emily, along with the angel Joy and anyone else you don't recognize. If anyone would like to use any of these OC's, please ask my permission first.
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Enjoy!

"One Rose, Too Many Thorns"

Chapter 5-Accidents and Hurtful Words

As they continued to kiss, Rose started getting an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. It was one only a mother could feel for the safety of her child.

"Jake, wait." Rose said, pulling away slightly. "Something's wrong."

"What?" Jake asked, his concern for Rose growing. "Are you okay? Are you feeling sick?"

Rose shook her head.

"No. I'm fine for now. IT's not me. I..I better go check on Em. I have a really bad feeling about Emily."

Jake shook his head.

"Emily's fine. She's probably coloring. That's what she was doing when we left, right?"

Rose nodded.

"Yeah. But I just have a really bad feeling."

"Rose, it's okay. I'm sure she's fine." Jake said, trying to reassure Rose. To be truthful, Jake was getting the same feeling, but another part of him knew that Emily would be fine. She knew how to occupy her time without getting into too much trouble.

Rose finally gave in and let Jake kiss her again. She knew Emily better than anyone else. If something was wrong, she, Emily, would come and get either Jake or herself. Emily was very good at that. She knew that Rose and Jake were there for her and if she needed anything, she could always come to them.

But little did Rose and Jake know that their worry was warrented. And if only they had obeyed their parental instincts, they could have prevented the very thing they had both been feeling from happening…

Meanwhile, downstairs, Emily was just finishing up a picture for Rose. As she colored in the kitten's face brown, she heard the stove make the noise that meant the food was done. She got up and went to get her parents. She went to the top of the stairs and knocked on the door. It was opened a crack, but Emily always knocked first. Her Aunt Haley was teaching her how to do that.

"Mommy? Mommy?"

There was no answer. Emily tried one more time. When she received no answer, she peeked in. She saw her parents napping together. (And that's all they were doing.) Jake had his arm around Rose and she was laying her head against Jake's shoulder.

Not wanting to wake her parents, Emily did what any other four year old would do. She decided to help them. She tiptoed downstairs, leaving the door open and went for the kitchen. She began to search the cabinets for her prize. She found it a few minutes later. She had seen her Mommy and Daddy, along with her Grandma use one whenever they picked up hot things, so she followed their example.

Emily managed to get the pot holder around the handle of the pot just fine. She was very proud of herself for remembering the rule and proceeded to lift the pot off the stove one handed. But as she started to lift it, she found that it was too heavy. She set it back down on the burner and decided to try it with both hands. She put an oven mit on and attempted again, but her happiness was short lived.

As she lifted the pot off the stove once again, her right hand, with which she was using to support the pot, slipped out of the mit, due to the mits size.

As the mit fell to the floor, Emily made the mistake of holding the pot close to her body like she had seen her parents do to prevent it from spilling. Unfortunately, Emily realized too late how much of a mistake that was.

As Emily's bare hand came in contact with the hot container, she screamed in fright and pain. In her fear and surprise, she dropped the pot, causing its contents to splash everywhere, including on her face and upper body!

Emily let out a painful wail that could have been heard in the next county!

As the scream left her mouth, Emily dropped to her knees and began to cry and hard.

Rose and Jake ran downstairs, having heard their daughter's cry of distress.

Rose got to her first and scooped Emily up.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, sweetheart. You're okay. It's all right." She soothed, trying to calm Emily down.

Jake meanwhile was trying to find the source of Emily's tears. As he gazed down at the fallen pot, his eyes widened and he grabbed Emily from Rose.

Rose was about to protest, when she realized what had happened. She followed Jake upstairs. She followed him into the bathroom and watched him place Emily in a tub of cold water.

Emily's painful sobs were breaking Rose's heart and she wanted nothing more than to take her screaming child into her arms and take her pain away.

"Emily, Em, it's okay, honey. It's all right. We're here, sweetehart. Mommy and Daddy are both here." Rose assured her frightened daughter. She started stroking Emily's hair, trying to bring her daughter some sort of comfort.

After ten minutes in the bathtub, Jake realized that this wasn't working. They needed medical help and fast.

Jake took Emily out of the tub and transformed faster than Rose had ever seen him do it before. Rose didn't need any prompting and climbed onto his back, holding Emily securely in her arms.

The flight to the hospital seemed like it had taken forever, when in reality, it had only taken ten minutes.

When they arrived, Rose jumped off Jake's back and he transformed back into his Human form. They both ran into the hospital, Rose holding Emily.

Tony was working at the desk, as usual. He was about to greet the couple like he usually did, but when he heard Emily's cries, he realized something was wrong.

"Tony, we need a doctor, quick!" Jake announced his face full of worry for Emily.

Tony nodded and paged Susan to the scene. Susan and Anna were the only doctors on call right now. Lucy and Arielle had gone to lunch.

"What happened!" Susan asked, her tone one of urgency. She practically had to yell over Emily's tearful screams of pain.

Rose shook her head as Susan took Emily from her and carried the child to a nearby trauma room. She motioned for Rose and Jake to follow, which they did.

Emily cried harder, not recognizing who had taken her from Rose. She was hurt and all she wanted was her Mommy.

"No!" Emily cried, trying to struggle out of Susan's grasp. "No! I want my Mommy! I wanna stay with my Mommy! I want Mommy! I want…" Emily's voice trailed off as she started choking on her sobs. She let out a sob and without warning, vomited all over Susan.

Susan wasn't mad in the least. She understood Emily's fear and pain. She merely laid her down before getting her a basin and going to change her scrubs.

"It's all right, sweetie," Susan assured the scared little girl. "It's all right. You're going to be okay. Your Mommy's right there. She's not going to leave you. It's okay."

"I'm here, honey," Rose assured her crying daughter. "Mommy's right here. And so is Daddy." But as Rose looked around, she noticed that Jake wasn't there. She asumed he had gone to call his mother to tell her what was going on.

Just then, a doctor with red hair and green eyes poked her head in the room.

"Do you need my help?"

Susan nodded as she proceeded to start an IV.

"When did you get back?" Susan asked, as Dr. Arielle Larson came up beside her and tried to see what their next course of action was.

"A few minutes ago. Tony told me what was going on." She then turned to Rose and asked, "Rose, right?"

Rose nodded, her attention still on Emily.

"Do you know what happened?"

Rose shook her head.

"No. Jake and I had left the room to talk and Emily was coloring at the dining room table. We fell asleep and the next thing I knew, we heard her scream. We raced downstairs and found her burned. Please say you can help her! Please!" Rose was practically in hysterics, even though she was trying to stay strong for her daughter.

Arielle could tell from looking into Rose's eyes that she was not the cause of her daughter's distress. Arielle knew Jake well too and knew he wouldn't hurt anyone.

"All right, we need to do a debriefing and get her into a cool bath."

"We tried that," Jake said, coming into the room. "it didn't' work."

Arielle gave him a reassuring look.

"Trust me when I say, this time, it will." She then turned to Rose. "You can come with her if you like. But only one person is allowed back there with her. Once she is assigned her room, you both can be with her."

Rose nodded and gave Jake an apologetic look.

"You don't mind, do you?" She asked, her eyes pleading with him not to be upset.

Jake shook his head.

"I want to be with Emily too, but if only one person can go with her at this point, I know she would want you there more."

Rose nodded and gave Jake a kiss before squeezing his hand and taking a hold of Emily's right hand. The left one was occupied by an IV.

"What can we give her for the pain?" Arielle asked, turning to Susan. It wasn't that Arielle didn't' know what she was doing, far from it. It was just that Susan was the attending in charge and Arielle valued her friend's opinion.

"Let's give her four of morphine and then we'll go from there." Susan suggested, seeing how much pain Emily was in. She didn't want to overmedicate the child and she also wanted to see if the treatment they were going to do would bring Emily some relief.

As Rose went with Emily, Susan turned back to Jake. She needed to know what had taken place.

"What happened?" Susan asked, sitting down near Jake.

Jake sighed as he recounted the events for Susan.

"I was cooking dinner and then Rose and I went upstairs to talk. We left Emily downstairs, coloring in the dining room. We fell asleep and the next thing we knew, we heard Emily let out a scream. We ran downstairs and Rose picked her up. I then saw the pot on the floor and realized what had happened."

"What?" Susan asked, although she had a feeling she already knew.

"I think Emily tried to help us with dinner. I think she was trying to carry the pot to the table for me. I saw a pot holder on the pot and an oven mit laying near it, so I know she remembered the rule."

Susan nodded and let a little smile cross her lips. She was thinking along the same lines as Jake. They had one very helpful and smart little girl on their hands. But Susan had to get back to treating her.

"All right, I need to get back to Emily. I'll let you know what's going on when I know. And as for staying with Emily, we only allow one person to stay overnight, but I'll make an acception this time. Emily needs both of you."

Jake gave Susan a grateful smile.

"Thank you," he said, his face showing his grattitude.

Susan nodded as she went back to see how Arielle was doing treating Emily.

When Susan arrived back in the trauma room, she found that Arielle had been joined by Lucy and Lucy's medical student, Samantha Kendall. Samantha was good at comforting kids as well as doing her job, so Susan knew that Emily would be safe in her hands.

"Okay, it's all right, honey," Lucy assured a sobbing Emily. "it's going to be okay. Your Mommy's right there and she's not going anywhere."

Rose nodded and patted Emily's shoulder before putting a comforting hand through her long blond hair.

"Dr. Chasity's right, sweetheart. I'm not going anywhere." Rose confirmed, planting a gentle kiss on Emily's cheek.

"It hurts!" Emily cried, breaking Rose as well as Dr. Larson and Dr. Chasity's hearts. Susan felt bad for the little girl as well.

"I know it does, sweetie, I know." Rose said, trying to fight back tears herself. "You're going to be okay. I promise you that. And I'm not going anywhere and niether is Daddy. As soon as you go to your room, Daddy will be there waiting for us."

Rose prayed that she was telling Emily the truth. At the moment, Rose didn't know where Jake was. She guessed he was still waiting for them, but she couldn't be sure.

Jake may have gone to take a walk, just to clear his head. Rose knew that was something Jake often did if a situation got too bad and right now, this situation was getting as bad as it could possibly be.

Rose tried to comfort Emily as best she could as Dr. Larson prepared to wrap her upper body in sav bandages. This process was very painful and Rose could do nothing but try and reassure Emily through touch and words that it was going to be okay and that she was there with her.

After Dr. Larson was done doing her part, Susan gave Emily more pain killers and proceeded to take her up to her room. The child was in for a week long stay, maybe two.

After Rose was sure that Emily was asleep, which took a little over an hour, she went in search of Jake. She had a bone to pick with him. She was blaming herself for what had happened, but now her anger and protection for Emily was directed at the person who was really to blame. At least in Rose's eyes. And as far as Rose was concerned, Jake was in for a lecture that surpassed ANYTHING she had ever done to him physically as Huntsgirl back when they were enemies.

Rose found Jake sitting on the hospital rooftop. This roof was a flat one and very safe to sit down upon. She could tell Jake was either thinking or praying, so she gave him the respect he deserved and waited for him to be done.

As soon as Rose saw Jake open his eyes, she wasted no time. She tapped his shoulder and planted her hands on her hips.

"We need to talk, now." Rose said, the tone in her voice making shivers run up Jake's spine. He knew that tone and it didn't' comfort him one bit. He knew he was in for it, verbally speaking. And as Jake turned to face Rose, the glare in her eyes confirmed his thoughts.

Before Rose had a chance to speak, Jake beat her to it. He had a feeling it was going to cause him to be in more hot water, but he didn't care right now. He needed to get this out.

"Rose, I'm sorry. I didn't know that was going to happen. I should have listened to you. I should have gone and checked on her when you said you had a bad feeling. Maybe if I did, then this wouldn't…" His voice trailed off as he saw the glare in Rose's eyes.

"Save it, Jake." Rose shot back, her tone matching her facial expression. "I don't want to hear it. Emily asked for you and I Told her you would be waiting for her when she got to her room, but you weren't. Where were you?" The question was more of an accusatory statement than anything else.

"I went to call my Mom, then I went for a walk. But when I got out here, I decided to sit up here instead. I needed to think."

"We were in the burn treatment room for well over an hour. It doesn't take you an hour to clear your head."

It was Jake's turn to glare now.

"How do you know? You don't know anything about how I deal with traumatic situations. Then again, you left for the last month and a half and didn't look back. So I wouldn't expect you to know how much you hurt me or what I did to deal with it. But you didn't' care. You never cared about me or how I felt for you. All you cared about was fixing the mistake that you made."

"What mistake was that?" Rose challenged, her tone one of Huntsgirl and there was no humor in it this time whatsoever.

Jake shook his head. He was so confused right now. He was worried for Emily and also he was feeling guilty. So instead of doing the mature thing, he did the immature thing.

"The only mistake you made was coming back." A second after the words left his mouth, he regretted saying them. HE could see Rose was trying to fight back tears and Jake was truly sorry for what he had just said.

Rose gave him a glare and left the rooftop. She had a sick daughter to attend to.

As she got to the door, she turned back to Jake

"I know you didn't' mean what you said. So when you're ready to apologize and want to work this out, you know where to find me." With that, Rose left Jake sitting there, just staring at the half sun risen sky. He had a lot of thinking to do.

Rose returned to Emily's room to find her fast asleep. Rose sighed as she stroked Emily's hair and gave her a kiss.

"I love you, Em. I love you so much and I'm so sorry that this happened to you. Mommy's here, honey. I'm here." With that, Rose sat down beside Emily's bed, watching her daughter sleep. She put a hand on her stomach absently and rubbed it gently. She couldn't wait for the baby to be born and she really loved being a mother. She loved Emily with all her heart and she couldn't wait to shower love and affection on another little one.

As Rose sat there, she ended up falling asleep. She wasn't sure how long she had been out, but she didn't fight it. It had been a long day and her body needed the rest…