Chapter 25

Regina had the feeling that she had only been asleep for a few minutes when a loud ringing noise startled her again. Somewhat disoriented, she looked around the still dark bedroom in confusion and finally identified Emma's cell phone, which was lying on her nightstand, as the source of the noise.

With a disgruntled grumble, the blonde slowly woke up as well, ran her hand over her face and then reached out for the phone. "Yes?" she mumbled half asleep with her eyes still closed. Emma listened to the caller for a while and finally opened her eyes before sitting up jerkily and staring ahead. The grip on her smartphone tightened and the muscles around her jaw twitched tensely.

"Emma?" Regina whispered immediately, worried and sat up in bed as well. Any tiredness was forgotten and her questioning gaze was fixated on Emma, who was still listening to the caller.

"Right now?" the young woman finally asked, wrapping her free arm around her middle. Her gaze twitched briefly to Regina and then back to nothing. "Okay, I understand. Thanks." As if in a trance, Emma dropped her phone into the bed and pulled her knees to her torso so she could rest her chin on them.

"What happened?", Regina immediately wanted to know and slid closer to her so she could put an arm around her shoulders. She didn't let her fear show, but Emma's behavior worried her beyond belief.

"I... have to go to the hospital," Emma finally uttered, lifting her gaze to Regina, "My kidneys are failing."

"What?!" it escaped Regina more shrilly than intended. "Why is that?"

"Heart said she'd explain later and that I should come right away." Sighing, she ran her fingertips over her throbbing temple and squinted her eyes in pain.

Regina fought down the trembling of her hands and flung aside the bedspread. Hastily she dressed and then came to Emma's side of the bed to help her do the same.

Emma's movements were sluggish and again she felt dizziness and nausea fighting for the upper hand. She was glad that Regina pulled her pants on her and she didn't have to bend over.

"Emma, are you all right?"

It wasn't until the question that she realized she had closed her eyes and was making an effort to breathe in and out calmly. "I feel sick," she replied only quietly, propping her hands behind her in the bed.

"Do you think you can make it to the car? We should call an ambulance," Regina replied excitedly and was about to reach for her cell phone, but Emma held her back.

"No, I can make it if you help me," she stated exhaustedly and forced herself to open her eyes again. Wearily, she grabbed Regina's arm and pulled herself to her shaky feet. "We need to let Henry know."

"I'll leave him a note in the kitchen. Right now, we don't have an explanation for him anyway," Regina decided, slung Emma's precautionary packed hospital bag, which they kept in the closet, over her shoulder, then slowly led her girlfriend to the stairs. "Did Heart really not say anything more?"

Emma only shook her head slowly, as it took her complete strength to descend the stairs. So many things were going through her mind at once that she didn't know what to think. The risks she had been told about had been so numerous that at some point she had hardly paid any attention to them and had simply signed the slips of paper she had been given. She had had no choice anyway, because both treatment and no treatment could mean her end. However, as she thought about it more closely now, kidney damage had definitely been on the list she had skimmed. Emma barely knew how she had gotten to the passenger seat of Regina's car when she suddenly leaned over her to buckle her in.

"I can manage," she whispered exhausted, urging Regina to get into the car herself. "Are you sure you can drive?" she then wanted to know, turning her eyes to her girlfriend. Regina looked at least as excited as she was herself.

"Yes, I'm sure," she replied tersely, pressing her lips together as she started the engine. Even though she was in inner turmoil, helping Emma was her top priority, so she just functioned.

Emma remained silent throughout the drive, staring in disgust at the hospital building that loomed ahead of them at some point. With difficulty, she got out of the car Regina had stopped right at the entrance to the ER and leaned against a lamppost while she waited for Regina to park the car in the parking lot and come back to her. She was cold despite the anorak and neither the dizziness nor the nausea she had felt after waking up had subsided.

"Okay, let's go in," Regina said when she was back with her and slipped an arm around Emma's waist.

Sharply, Emma drew air through her teeth as the touch caused her stomach and flanks to ache, but she just continued to bravely put one foot in front of the other and dragged herself into the hospital.

The nurse at the front desk seemed to have already been notified that they were coming, as she immediately jumped up and came toward them with a wheelchair. "Ms. Swan, Ms. Mills," she greeted them curtly and came to Emma's other side to help her into the wheelchair along with Regina.

"I can walk," Emma muttered, but didn't fight them off and let the nurse place her feet on the footrests without further protest.

"Of course. But it's a little easier for you this way. You shouldn't strain yourself now," the nurse explained gently and began pushing Emma toward one of the exam rooms in the ER.

"Regina," Emma immediately called out anxiously, who turned her head to face her, unwilling to let go of her hand.

"I'll wait outside, I'm here, okay?" the addressed one immediately replied, squeezing Emma's finger briefly.

Emma looked hesitantly into her eyes and finally nodded. Actually, she wanted to tell her to go home, but at that moment fear prevailed over reason and she was glad she was there. Emma maintained eye contact until the door closed between them, locking Regina out.

"Let me help you onto the gurney, Ms. Swan. I'm Nurse Juliet, by the way," the middle-aged woman said in a friendly tone.

"Emma," she replied, smiling wryly. She preferred to be called by her first name, otherwise everything felt even more serious than it already was.

Juliet nodded and spread a blanket over Emma. "Okay, then Emma it is. Dr. Heart will be here any minute. In the meantime, I'd like to check your blood pressure, do an ECG and draw some blood."

"Go ahead, I've done that before," Emma waved it off in an attempt to be funny and shake off her anxiety and held out both arms to her.

While the nurse was still busy, the door opened again and Emma's doctor entered the exam room. "Good morning, Emma," she said as soon as she saw her patient.

"Morning, Doc. I hope you're just exaggerating. However, I'm afraid you're not kicking me out of bed at six-thirty in the morning for no reason," Emma replied, smiling wryly. She tried to mask her nervousness, but she hardly succeeded.

Heart's forehead showed deep worry lines as she eyed Emma for a moment and then lowered her gaze to the papers she held in her hands. "Emma, I'll make it brief: unless we made a sampling error yesterday, your blood work indicates acute renal failure," she said in a firm voice, looking Emma in the eye. "Juliet is drawing blood again now to be sure, but since your symptoms also point to it, we should already assume that we're not mistaken."

"Hmm," Emma made, pressing the swab against the crook of her arm with her free hand when the nurse was done. "So... I have little idea about any of this, but kidney failure sounds like a pretty bad thing, even to my ears. Why is this happening?"

Heart took a seat next to the gurney and took a deep breath. "The biopsy of your bone marrow showed that there are very few cancer cells left."

"That's...good...isn't it?", Emma hesitantly wanted to know.

"Theoretically, yes," Heart nodded. "The only problem is that the cells destroyed by chemotherapy are released through the kidneys, just like any other waste product from the body. But if there's too much at once, the kidneys go on strike. This is called tumor lysis syndrome. You are at great risk for this with your type of cancer, so you have already been given preventive medication for it, but in some cases it does not help enough. Unfortunately, the symptoms typical for this, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dizziness and general weakness are also symptoms of the cancer and side effects of the chemo, so a diagnosis in early stages is almost impossible and can often only be made when seizures and signs of paralysis are already occurring. So looking at it in that way, it was good that you listened to your gut yesterday and came in for a checkup."

Emma's head was buzzing. "Okay... So I have a syndrome that can always happen when you have leukemia. But I'm one of the select few for whom treatment for it has done nothing. Is that correct? My question would be, though, what does that mean for me now?"

"Well, your kidneys are still working a little bit, but to make sure that's going to stay that way, we need to start treatment right away."

"Great, but that doesn't answer my question. What kind of treatment?" Emma continued, who didn't miss the fact that the doctor was dodging her questions, which was usually rather uncharacteristic of her. "Spit it out, you're making me nervous."

"We need to start dialysis immediately," the doctor returned seriously.

"Dialysis," Emma repeated, thunderstruck, staring ahead for a moment. "And for how long?"

Heart again delayed her answer for a moment. "I can't answer that right now."

"But you can tell me what the possibilities are," Emma persisted.

"If we were fast enough and your kidneys are responding well, maybe temporarily for a few days or weeks," she countered.

"And if they don't?"

Heart took a deep breath and put a hand on Emma's arm. "Worst case scenario, your kidneys are already too badly damaged. Then you'll be dependent on dialysis until a transplant is possible."


Emma stared wearily ahead as the dialysis machine beside her bed quietly murmured, clearing her blood of the contaminants that had accumulated in it over the past few days. No sooner had the lab confirmed her blood work than she had been taken to the intensive care unit, where they had hurriedly placed an arterial access and a Shaldon-catheter to permanently be able to monitor her blood pressure and begin washing her blood. All of this had drained her so much that she just lay there wondering if things could get any worse. Even the hesitant knock on the door didn't make her look up.

Slowly Regina stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Her red-rimmed eyes made it obvious that she had been crying, but for one moment she was trying hard to step as composedly as possible to her girlfriend's bedside and take her hand. "Emma," she only whispered at first, stroking her hair as she was obviously not asleep.

"Hey, Regina," Emma replied, closing her eyes. She was so ashamed of worrying her even more now that she didn't manage to meet her gaze.

Regina's hand remained in Emma's hair, soothingly massaging her scalp. "Heart says you'll be better soon with dialysis."

Emma nodded curtly and pressed her lips together until they turned white.

"Why didn't you tell me you were so bad?" she wanted to know with concern. "You should have told me you threw up yesterday."

Emma persistently remained silent.

"Emma...talk to me," Regina pleaded.

"What do you want me to talk about, Regina?" Emma asked, now finally looking at her. "About the fact that now, in addition to leukemia, I have damaged kidneys and will have to go to the hospital almost every day for the rest of my life?"

"We don't even know that yet," Regina immediately countered. "That's just the worst that could happen."

Emma snorted and nodded. "Yes, and since I've been so lucky so far, I'm sure the worst won't happen this time," she answered sarcastically.

Silently Regina took a seat on the edge of the bed and squeezed Emma's cold fingers. "Do I have to get your parents to remind you not to give up on hope?"

Without responding to the joke, Emma closed her eyes again. She just didn't have the strength for that now and just wanted her peace, even if the silence in the hospital room, disturbed only by the sounds of the machines, was even more oppressive.

"I've told Henry about everything. He told me to give you his regards and tell you not to allow it to get you down," Regina finally said.

Emma just nodded and kept her eyes closed. "Thank you. Tell him I love him."

Taking a deep breath, Regina leaned over her girlfriend and gently pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Will you call me when you feel like company?"

Again, Emma nodded and pulled the covers over her shoulders to her chin. Everything inside her screamed as she felt she was treating Regina unfairly, but right now she just needed to rest for a while to come to terms with the new situation herself. "Thank you for waiting so long and staying," she honestly said as she looked at her.

Regina eyed Emma's sad green eyes and nodded. "Of course." Gently, she stroked her cheek briefly. "See you."

"See you." She would have liked to say she loved her, but it seemed more and more unfair the more she mouthed the words. She was tying her down with that admission as much as she would have done with a marriage proposal and she didn't want to put her through any of that. Because of their hasty departure that morning, her girlfriend still had unkempt hair and was not wearing makeup, and Emma knew she would never go out in public like that if she had the choice.

Slowly, Regina left her girlfriend's hospital room and drove to City Hall. She was exhausted from the all-nighter and the morning's events, but she couldn't imagine sitting idly on the sofa or even lying down right now. The only thing that might distract her from Emma's fragile state was work, which she had fallen far behind with anyway. With her laptop still at home, she devoted herself to the files she could only work on at City Hall anyway and was soon completely engrossed in the applications and invoices on her desk.


After three days of dialysis every twelve hours and plenty of sleep, Emma's kidney values were stable enough for her to be transferred to normal ward. Heart still couldn't give the all-clear, but assured her that she was optimistic and with even closer monitoring from now on, it wouldn't come to that again.

Henry had visited her twice so far and told her about school. He knew that nothing exciting had happened, but at least he had been able to distract her somewhat from her condition and he had the feeling that she was becoming at a little more relaxed in the course of the conversations.

Regina, on the other hand, handled the situation completely differently. In the mornings she worked at Town Hall, starting early in the morning, then cooked food for Henry so he would have something warm when he came home from school and cleaned every corner of the house afterwards. Since they didn't have any pets, nor did they have many people coming in and out, soon there was no dust to be found, but she still continued to clean in a completely automated fashion. At visiting time, she finally went to the hospital to see Emma, where they spent most of their time in silence, holding each other in their arms. In the evening, Regina squeezed in some work that she had taken home from City Hall in the morning and then devoted herself to her research and plans concerning Emma's illness. She tirelessly searched the Internet for things that could help Emma and made notes on them. In addition, she had made a kind of timetable that included Emma's examination, chemo and dialysis appointments to which she had to drive her. In between, she had written her own appointments and noted when she would do the work that needed to be done at City Hall. She almost never made it to bed before two in the morning, before her alarm clock was already jolting her out of sleep again at six.

Emma didn't say anything about it when she was with her, but it didn't escape her notice that Regina needed more and more makeup to somehow cover the bags under her eyes and how erratic and shaky her movements were. This was exactly what she had feared most from the beginning: Regina was sacrificing herself so much for her that she was putting her own health at risk. So it was not surprising that Emma could relax more during her parents' visits at the moment than during those of her girlfriend.

"You claim you're better, but you're still just as pale as when we first visited you," Snow stated indignantly as she stroked Emma's head and then pressed a kiss to her hair.

David was still busy hanging their jackets on the coat hooks and rolled his eyes in Emma's direction with a smirk, so Snow couldn't see it.

Emma returned the smirk and then gently stroked her mother's hand. "I really am feeling better, though. I've never had a particularly rosy complexion. It's not even my fault, after all, I'm descended from you, right, Snow White?" she teased her, overemphasizing her name.

"Are you saying I'm to blame for your pale skin?" Snow asked, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"She's saying you should stop being bothered by her complexion. If she says she's better, she is," David said calmly, who placed a hand on his wife's shoulder from behind before sitting down in the second empty chair by Emma's bed.

"That's right," Emma nodded, adjusting her headboard higher so she sat upright in bed. "I'll probably be discharged in the next few days, so things can't be that bad for me then," she tried to reassure her further.

"That's good news," Snow stated, nodding. "How are your kidneys doing in the meantime? Are you going to have to keep going on dialysis?"

"For the time being, yes. Only time will tell how permanently damaged my kidneys are and whether it will be needed permanently," she answered honestly, taking a deep breath. She had had a lot of time to think over the past few days as she lay here. Since she had been given a urinary catheter to monitor her elimination, she hadn't even had to get up to go to the bathroom, so she mostly stared at the ceiling and tried not to worry too much. As it happened, she had by now come to terms at least somewhat with the possibility of being dependent on machines until a transplant, which might never come.

David nodded with a serious expression and put an arm around Snow's shoulders. "What about the chemos? Can they go ahead as planned now?"

"Heart says, yes. I'm on medication to keep the kidney damage from getting worse and I'll have a lot more blood tests than usual," she explained. The fact that the cancer treatment wouldn't do her kidneys much good overall, of course, she concealed. If she stopped the treatment, her kidneys would of course have a better chance of regenerating, but that would do her precious little good if she was then carried off by the leukemia.

"Listen, if you ever need a ride to dialysis or chemo, or someone at home to give you a hand, let me know anytime, okay?"

"Thanks, Dad," Emma nodded, giving him a warm smile. "To be honest, I wish I could just say yes right now and arrange how we're going to do it, but Regina will insist that she's got it all under control and we don't need any help," she then admitted, lowering her eyes dejectedly.

"That's just the way Regina is, sweetheart. Don't worry about it," Snow said in response.

Emma shook her head. "No, Mom. She's wearing herself out and I don't know how much longer she's going to keep it up. I'm afraid for her."

"Should we try to talk to her?" Snow suggested in response.

"That's sweet, but I think if you talk to her too, she'll just back away and try to prove us wrong," Emma admitted cautiously. She was grateful to her mother for the suggestion and didn't want to offend her by rejecting it, but if she put Snow on to Regina, her girlfriend would feel pressured in some way. "We'll see how the first few days I'm back home go and then we'll think about it again," she finally decided, dropping her head against the pillow. She was tired of new disasters paralyzing her body and could only keep doing damage limitation. But at least she was still alive, which, according to Heart, could have quickly been different if they hadn't gotten to the exams early. From that point of view, she had learned to be at least a little grateful that she was as good as could be expected under the circumstances.