Doc and Wale practically lived in our apartment the past few days. They managed to stabilize her days ago, but since her surgery she hadn't woken up. We spent nearly every hour watching her stats, hoping and praying she would just open her eyes and give us the relief we have needed for weeks. But it was the fourth day and her heart was still erratic and there were still no signs of alertness. All we could do was wait.
David took to pacing until there was a clear discoloration in the floorboards. He wrung his hands so much that he turned his own hands raw. We were falling apart at the seams. Wale tried to convince us to sleep, but there was no way we were going to take an eye off Emma willingly. A few times I caught David falling asleep in the chair, and a few times he's caught me dozing against the wall. But we weren't going to willingly slumber when she was forced into a deep sleep.
Every morning Doc would come and relieve Wale from his duties, check her stats, check for awareness, listen to her breathing, check her wounds, and pump her with pain medicine. Every morning David would make the three of us coffee and we would share the paper. This morning Doc came up, washed his hands, and started listening to her chest and filling out her chart as we all sipped a hot, strong cup of coffee. A knock on the door shook up our morning routine. We all looked at one another, kind of stunned that something out of the ordinary could happen. David got up and opened the door.
"Marco, August…Did we know you were coming?"
I stood up to greet our unexpected guests. Marco took his hat off when he spoke to us. It was a sign of respect he had always paid me in our land and in this one. I smiled, nodded and held hands with Charming as they made small talk.
"I apologize for stopping by unannounced. We were walking by and just wanted to check on Miss Emma. How is she?" Marco asked, nodding towards the bedroom.
"We're waiting…" David responded, taking in a long deep breath and holding my hand a little tighter.
"Is there anything we can do?" Marco asked.
August had walked around his father and stood in the corner, staring longingly at Emma. As David and Marco talked, the only sound I could hear was August's heavy breathing. All I could see were the small tears forming in the corner of his eyes. He was desperate. He wanted to reach out to her, to touch her hand, to hear her voice. He wanted what we all wanted. My hand reached out to his shoulder. At my touch he flinched and quickly brushed away the evidence from his face.
"She's going to get through this." I reassured him.
David interrupted our tender moment with a question I think everyone in this town had been wondering, "August, how did you know where to find Emma?"
I stepped back and watched as his face traveled through many emotions. He was struck with panic at first, then fear, followed by confusion and topped with stupidity. It was very strange how everything transpired. One moment I'm walking in the alley, hit by August, and the next he is walking my bloodied daughter down the road. It was all just too coincidental.
"We never really got a chance to talk once everything happened. We don't even know where you found her. Archie said he heard you found her near the well?"
"Uh, yeah…" He pushed his hands as far in his pockets as the fabric would allow. His eyes were practically glued to his feet in every effort to avoid our eye contact.
"August, is everything okay?" I asked.
Even Marco grew rather suspicious of his behavior. Of course no one likes being put on the spot, but even the squirmiest of people managed to maintain their composure. August was melting under the pressure which led all of us to believe he had a rather deep secret he was hiding.
"She told me I would find her near the well." He muttered nervously, practically stuttering.
"Who told you? Emma?" David asked.
"No…" He began, but couldn't finish.
A string of inaudible mumbles came from the bedroom. David and I dropped everything to be by her side.
Her eyes began to flutter open as she continued muttering something. David held her hand and I kissed the side of her face as Doc watched her stats. Finally those piercing blue eyes made their appearance and struck my heart so hard that it took my breath away for a moment. Doc was furiously examining her. We had no idea what to expect when she woke up. She may have sustained serious brain trauma, or suffered blunt trauma to any part of her body. All we had to go off of was hope.
"Emma, sweetheart…You're okay." I said to her when her eyes finally met mine.
There was only a short moment of peace. When she realized where she was it was almost instant that she became frantic. She started pulling all of the wires from her fingers and chest and threw off the sheets of the bed. David and I watched in shock and utter confusion as she rummaged through the bedroom in search of her clothes.
David tried grabbing her hands. He forced her to stop what she was doing. Her eyes were filled with tears.
"I have to go. Let me go!" She said repeatedly. David tried calming her. I tried talking to her, but she just kept repeating those words until she was screaming it.
"Emma you are hurt. You need to rest." David began putting her back to bed, but she refused with all of her might and strength. Her beautiful blue eyes were filled with terror and anguish. They were wild. She searched from Marco, to August and to Doc for help, but no one could.
Eventually we got her to sit down and take a few deep breaths. I kneeled before her, took her hands in mine and did everything I could to comfort her. She was so terrified and desperate that any mother would worry about what happened to get her this way. It took her seconds before her breathing was controlled and even longer before she realized it was me.
"Emma, look at me…" She was panting hard and her eyes were darting all around. "Emma, look at me sweetie." Finally, she did. "Hi." I said sweetly and with a smile when I could tell I had her. Immediately she fell forward into my embrace. Tears ran down her sweet cheeks and dampened my shoulder.
In the corner of my eye I could see David ushering Marco and August out of the apartment so we could handle this situation without an audience. Doc continued pushing meds into her IV. He told David he was going to give her a light sedation that would calm her down and hopefully keep her in bed. When I started to feel her get limp against my body I slowly laid her back in bed. David pulled the covers back up while I reattached all of her wires.
"I need to help him. I can't leave him." She mumbled.
"You've helped enough. Let us help you." David whispered as he brushed her hair from her face. He so tenderly kissed her forehead.
"But-"She tried to push herself back up, but I was able to coax her back down by lying with her in bed and wrapping her up in my arms.
"Come here…it's okay." I kissed the side of her head over and over again until finally she curled into my body.
A few minutes had gone by and I assumed she had fallen asleep. David was getting me a glass of water from the kitchen when Emma's hand laid on top of mine. She adjusted her head to on my chest. I could feel her warm breath against my skin. This moment was just as I imagined it would have been like with only her being a baby, not a teenager. She was the only one who knew beat of my heart from inside.
"It's over?" She asked.
"It's all over." I reassured her.
"It's over." With that being said she had finally gone to sleep.
The rest of the day Doc, David and I discussed over hushed tones of how to deal with this. It's obvious she wasn't going to be a relaxed patient. We were going to need to restrain her and sedate her until she could completely heal. David took the time that she was asleep to get us food from Granny's. We got the most work accomplished when she was asleep. David got us food, picked up the house, and grabbed some more bandages at the store. Doc continued to clean her wounds and set up another IV. I used this time to appreciate this rare moment. Every time she drew in a breath her little hot breath tickled my skin. It was the first time I felt her skin against mine. It was her little cheeks and her arms that gave me butterflies.
I heard David's keys jingling against the door, but he didn't appear for a few moments. When he stepped in the door he wasn't just holding a bag of Granny's take out. He was holding up a dirty, weathered backpack at arm's length. It took me a moment to process it, but I recognized it instantly.
"Where did you find that?" I said as loud as I could without waking up the slumbering girl on my chest.
"It was sitting outside our door. What is it?" He placed our food on the table and came towards me with the bag.
She had carried that on her back the whole time in the Forest. David placed it on the chair beside the bed. Without moving too much, I was able to touch it. I could feel the adventures, heartache and disasters this back has been through. David examined it thoroughly before unzipping it. His eyes widened when its contents were revealed. One by one he began to pull out things. First it was just a canteen we had found at the castle. Another was an apple. She had a compass in the front pocket, along with a hand written map. He pulled out a fairly large stone that neither one of us could really figure out. Then he carefully placed the golden locket on the bed. The very locket we had used to connect with her from another world away. Finally, he pulled out a scroll of paper. All of these misfit items didn't add up to anything, but they must have been significant to her. He started to put everything back in, so I grabbed the scroll and unraveled it slightly to see if it was something important.
As I pulled it down further a myriad of colors were revealed, almost like a picture. Finally, David grabbed one end as I held the other and we stretched it to its end. Both of us stared with our mouths hanging open. It was a portrait. A perfect and beautiful portrait. It was an oil painting. A portrait that I've only seen created in our land in our time. Staring back in this picture was Snow White, Charming and their young – probably ten year old – daughter, Emma. This was a portrait of a family we had only dreamed of. Where would she have gotten this?
"Is that-." David started.
"Us…" I finished.
It was mesmerizing. As hard as I tried, I could not stop staring at the family that should have been. It was just so perfect. The three of us looked so happy. It was the picture I had carried in my mind, but never got to see play out. Eventually we had to put it back. David started rolling it up, but it left our minds racing with questions.
"Where do you think she got this?"
"I don't know. We didn't have anything like this in our house."
"Who would have had this picture? Who knew what Emma even looked like before she was born?" David asked dumbfounded.
We continued guessing and searching for answers, but there was no validity behind any of it. Emma was the only one who could quench our thirst for answers. Through the night we stirred in our controlled chaos. My mind couldn't stop jumping from one conclusion to another. Nothing made sense.
The only thing that did make sense, though, was the little girl lying in this bed. She was the only thing that we were certain of. She was beautiful, strong, intelligent, and perfect. She was the child we had always prayed she would become. Now that she was home and safe, all we had left to do is love her the way she deserved to be loved.
At one point, all three of us had fallen asleep together. It was the sudden reclaiming of hot air on my chest that woke me. Emma was sitting up in bed, looking around and at us. I pulled myself together and sat up beside her, holding her hand in mine to make her feel grounded.
"Emma?" I asked as I placed my hand on her back softly.
"It hurts. It hurts so much." She said through quiet sobs.
"What hurts?" I asked, willing to spring into action and find any medicine that could cure her.
She placed her hand on her chest, just above her heart and finally looked in my eyes. She turned her head into my shoulder and sobbed. Her cries were gut wrenching and guttural. They were coming from deep inside of her, further then her lowest point. I held her as she mourned her first heart break. This was something I could relate to. It was something I've experienced myself. I was not going to allow her to sink to the depression I found myself in.
All I could do right now is hold her, kiss her and promise her it'll get better. David awoke and watched as our daughter cried herself to sleep. He ached for her just as much as me. For the rest of the night we stayed up watching her sleep. Her eyes were still red and puffy, her face still stained with tears. But she looked so peaceful, and that's what we were going to fight for.