I'm the worst updater ever, I am so so sorry for the lack of updates! I had the worst case of writer's block and although I knew what was going to happen in the chapter I couldn't get it down. I can't apologise enough.
I can't promise that the next chapter will be uploaded quickly, but I'm hoping that it won't take as long as this did! Anyway, enjoy this chapter of feels :)
WHERE WE ARE UP TO IN THE STORY:
Fourteen-year-old Emma had previously been living with her foster father who was an abusive man, until she meets Mary Margaret, and through traumatic events ends up living with her while her foster father is arrested. She receives the story book from Mary Margaret and eventually starts to believe in the curse, but still doesn't quite have the proof to fully believe it yet. Her previous foster father escapes jail (with the help of Regina) and goes to their apartment to get revenge. He shoots at Emma just as Snow gets her memories back, who then runs in the path of the bullet to save Emma. She ends up in the hospital in a coma where Emma is waiting for news on her condition. Emma ends up running into the senior who goes to her school who had bullied her, and she becomes acquainted with him once he apologises to her. She learns his name is Killian Jones.
Chapter 23 - Say Something
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you.
And anywhere I would have followed you.
Say something, I'm giving up on you.
"Emma!"
Emma raised her head just in time to see David jogging down the hallway towards her. She stood up from the bench to greet him and was stunned to find herself wrapped tightly in his arms as soon as he had reached her. She found herself subconsciously relaxing at the comfort that he provided. She inhaled deeply and was surprised to find that he smelled so familiar.
Prince Charming. He was supposed to be her father, after all. The thought filled her with sadness.
Before she could return the gesture however, he pulled back and placed his hands on her shoulders.
"Are you okay? How's Mary Margaret?" He asked, his eyes darting from one of her eyes to the other as though he was trying to search them for answers.
Emma shook her head, feeling a strange sense of loss the second he had let go of her. His eyes were wide and red-rimmed, like he was trying to hold back his tears, and it made Emma feel all that more uneasy. She answered the second of his questions, "I don't know."
"Have the nurses told you anything?"
Emma shook her head again. "I...I don't know anything. It's been hours." Her eyes filled with tears and she angrily brushed them away. "She can't die! I won't ever forgive myself!"
"Hey, hey..." David gently took her arm and sat them both on the bench. "It's going to be alright."
"How do you know?" Emma snapped. She raised an arm up to hold over her eyes to hide the streaming tears.
"I just know it will be. You have to have faith."
David's voice was reassuring and after taking a moment to gather her emotions, Emma lowered her arm and quickly wiped her eyes.
"Sorry," She whispered. "I'm just... really scared."
"I know, kid." David hesitated for a moment before scooting closer to her and wrapping a loose arm around her shoulder. "I am, too."
Time went by very slowly - so slowly that Emma was pretty sure that she had checked the clock in the hallway twenty times, and only half an hour had passed since David had arrived. Killian had left her about fifteen minutes before David had come.
Emma was drawn out of her calculations by the feeling of David leaning forward in his seat. She peered at him inquisitively.
"I'm going to get a cup of coffee," He explained as he rested his hands on his knees. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Do you want anything?"
Emma shook her head, the thought of consuming anything making her feel sick. "No, I'm okay."
David nodded and pushed himself off of the bench. When he was out of sight, Emma sighed in frustration and leaned back in her seat. Why had it been taking so long for a nurse to come and update her about Mary Margaret?
Feeling impatient, she pulled her backpack towards her and pulled the zipper open, looking for something to distract herself with. Maybe she had left a school book in one of the pockets and she could do some homework. Her hand latched onto what she thought was a textbook in her bag and she smiled in relief at the thought of a minor distraction as she pulled it out. Her smile immediately dropped off her face as she gaped at the object she found herself pulling out of her bag.
The book. The book of fairy tales.
Emma pulled it all the way out of her backpack and stared at it. It honestly felt like this damn book was following her. She ran her fingers along the edge of the cover before opening it to the middle of the book. She stared at the illustrated picture she found there of the Evil Queen and shuddered, quickly flicking the book back to the front page. She had sticky-taped the note from her parents back into the empty gap from where it had originally been cut out, and she gazed at it and then the high school's address written underneath it.
She still couldn't believe the book was hers. It was meant for her all of this time.
She flicked open the book once more and came across the story of Snow White. In the picture was the bandit herself, tangled in a net about ten feet off the ground, Prince Charming a short distance away bargaining with her. If Snow White and Prince Charming were indeed her parents and they were under this curse, how had the small note she received from her birth parents even made its way to her? She turned back to the note at the front and studied it for a moment. Even though it was a harmless message she was sure that the Evil Queen wouldn't have allowed it. She supposed that was why she hadn't found the book until now. Or rather, why Mary Margaret hadn't discovered it at her school until then.
Mary Margaret.
Her heart ached once more and she shoved her hands inside of her jean pockets to try and find a tissue for her watery eyes. Her fingers made contact with something smooth and dry and taking a hold of it, she pulled it out and frowned. It was a piece of paper.
No; a note.
Emma felt a shiver run down her spine and a sense of familiarity as she cautiously opened the piece of paper and looked down at it. She relaxed upon seeing the contents. It was the piece of paper that Mary Margaret had written her phone number and address on back on that day so long ago when she had given her a lift to school. Despite the circumstances, she held back a laugh. For some reason she thought she was going to have a similar moment to the day she was sick in bed and discovered that the fairy tale book was hers.
She placed the paper onto the open book and pressed her jacket sleeve up to her face to dry her tears. When she lowered her arm back down the page caught her eye and her eyes dropped to look at it. Why did Mary Margaret's handwriting -?
"What are you looking at?"
Emma jumped and snapped her head up. David was standing in front of her, a curious smile on his face.
"Damn, you scared the hell out of me," Emma swore, not caring about the language coming from her mouth.
David just laughed good-naturedly. "Sorry."
He took a seat beside her and handed her one of the two styrofoam cups in his hands. Emma gingerly took the warm cup from him with both hands and peered at the brown liquid inside for a moment before asking, "What is it?"
"Hot cocoa. I know you normally take cinnamon with it, but this was all the coffee machine could offer."
"That's fine."
And it really was fine. Cinnamon hot chocolate was hers and Mary Margaret's thing. She supposed it was growing to be hers, Mary Margaret's and David's thing, but it didn't feel right when one of them was in a comatose state.
"Oh, it's the fairy tale book," David's voice broke through Emma's thoughts.
Emma nodded. "Yeah. It was in my backpack and somehow made its way here."
David nodded and leaned back in his seat. Emma waited until she saw his body relax and his eyes glaze over as he slipped into a worried daydream before she placed the hot chocolate on the ground next to her seat. She focused her gaze on the three different pieces of writing sitting in the front of the book. There was the high school's address originally written on the page, the note from her parents taped in and now the note written from Mary Margaret sitting next to the other pieces of writing.
And there was something weird about them.
Something oddly familiar.
She drew her hands underneath the book and lifted it up to bring it closer to her face. Her eyes squinted as she studied it closely.
And that's when she saw it.
With a sharp gasp, she dropped the book back down to her lap and slammed it shut with a loud thump.
"No. No. No." Her thoughts were tumbling around wildly. What the hell did this mean?!
"Emma?" She heard David's voice break through the storm in her mind, but she slammed her hands to her forehead and screwed her eyes shut.
'Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit!'
"What's wrong?" David's voice was filled with urgency and she felt a tentative hand on her back.
The hand of her father.
"No!" She shoved the book to the side and tore away from the man. For the second time in one day, she ran. But this time, she ran outside of the hospital, slamming open the doors and leaning back against the wall outside, taking sharp and painful intakes of the crisp air.
There was no mistaking it.
The three notes were all written in the same handwriting.
Emma had no idea how long she had been standing out there for, but she knew it had been long enough when she couldn't feel her fingers and the tips of her ears felt like they were burning from the cold. She pressed her frozen fingertips to her closed eyes and sighed deeply.
Mary Margaret's handwriting was the same as her parents. The note from her parents was the same as the address originally written in the book. If the contents of the book were to be trusted, which the note from her parents seemed to make it so, then the story was true and the curse was real. Mary Margaret was her mother.
She slowly opened her eyes and took a deep breath in.
Time to face the music.
She pushed herself off of the cool brick wall and forced her feet to take a step to go back inside. And then another. And then another until suddenly, she found herself back inside the building.
As she entered the hallway where she and David had been waiting, she was greeted with the sight of the man himself sitting down with his head in his hands, Dr. Whale kneeling in front of him and her heart stopped. She quickened her pace as David lifted up his head.
Her dad.
"Emma," David uttered her name as he saw her, and both he and Dr. Whale stood up. His voice was low and broken, and when she looked up at his face her heart cracked in two as she took in his numb expression.
"What... What's happened?" Emma asked tentatively, already fearing the worst.
"It's Mary Margaret..." David choked out, his eyes rimmed red. "She...she doesn't look good."
Emma's heart stopped and she turned to Dr. Whale for an explanation.
"I'm sorry. We patched up her lung, and she's breathing just fine with the help of a ventilator, but..." He pinched the bridge of his nose before admitting, "We don't know what's wrong with her. Her entire body is failing her while under the coma."
"No..." Emma's body started to shake.
"Emma-"
"No!" Emma interrupted David's quiet plea. "She promised!"
David's body shuddered but he gazed at her through inquisitive eyes. "Promised?"
Emma bit her tongue to prevent herself from talking and David tilted his head to the side before quietly asking Dr. Whale if they could have a minute.
"Emma," David's tear-filled eyes came in her line of sight a moment later. "What did Mary Margaret promise?"
Emma opened her mouth but quickly closed it, shaking her head.
"You can tell me."
"She... she promised that I would never get hurt. She said that nobody would ever hurt me," Emma mumbled, her eyes downcast and she wrapped her arms around her stomach.
"And hasn't she been keeping that promise? She did protect you..."
"No she didn't! She lied when she made that promise. She told me that nothing was going to hurt me," Emma felt rage swelling in her chest and selfishness wash over her. "She broke her promise!"
"But I thought you weren't harmed when your old foster father came back?"
Emma shook her head. "No. He didn't hurt me. She did. I knew that it was a bad idea to live with Mary Margaret to begin with. I knew that he would hurt her. If only I hadn't gone to live with her she would be fine. But she's not! When she jumped in front of that bullet, she broke my heart..."
David's eyes filled up once more at the same time that Emma's did, and as he opened his mouth to reply, Dr. Whale's voice interrupted them as he quickly walked back into the vicinity.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're running out of time..."
Emma's eyes swept over the room as she slowly entered. The white walls, thin wires and smell of antiseptic attacked her senses and she couldn't bear to look at the woman lying on the bed. Her ears were invaded by the intrusive noise that the heart monitor was making, and she held a hand over her own heart to see the difference in the beats.
Mary Margaret's heartbeat was so slow.
She hadn't realised that she had stopped walking until she felt a large hand on her shoulder, urging her forward, and she took another tentative step in to let David inside the room. She heard a choked noise come from his throat and he moved around her to get to his love. Emma could only watch numbly as the man shakily moved Mary Margaret's hand out from the many wires attached to her body to gently hold it within his own.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound that came out was a ragged sob. Emma covered her own mouth with her hand to stop herself from crying out. He tried again, "Mary Margaret..."
Emma forced her feet to move and she sat down at the other side of Mary Margaret's bed.
"Please... please wake up."
Emma hadn't realised that she had said the words out loud until she noticed David's eyes on her. David just gazed at her, his pain evident on his weary face and he turned back to Mary Margaret, tears dripping onto the white mattress.
"Please, Mary Margaret..." David's words were so shaky and distraught that Emma wasn't even sure that this was the same jovial man she had met a few months back. His voice not even his own and his back hunched over, he pressed a lost kiss to Mary Margaret's hand as he whispered over and over again, "Please don't go."
And that was when Emma broke down.
Grabbing Mary Margaret's free hand and bringing it to her cheek, she sobbed, "I'm so sorry! You can't go! We need you! I need you! You're everything to me!"
"And to me," David spoke up from her other side. "I love you, Mary Margaret."
"Come on..." Emma murmured, swiping at her tears with her arm. "Just open your eyes. You're going to be fine."
She peered down at Mary Margaret's face and refused to move a muscle as she waited for a reaction from the woman.
"Please..." She cried. "Just open your eyes! I've never asked for anything from you, but I'm asking you this one thing!"
"Emma..." David's suddenly defeated voice echoed in the resonating silence of the hospital room. "I don't think she's going to wake up, kid."
"No! She has to!" And turning back to Mary Margaret once more, she held the woman's hand tightly in both hands and whimpered, "Say something. You always knew the right thing to say. And now I know what the right thing for you to say is: anything. Just say something!"
"Emma, I don't think-"
"I'm not giving up on her!" Emma wailed, the tears springing from her eyelids with vigour. "She never gave up on me, even when I didn't deserve it!"
Pressing the woman's hand to her cheek once more, she faced Mary Margaret and whispered, "You have to come back because I lo-"
She stopped mid-sentence as she was interrupted by a loud, monotonous, continuous beep coming from the machine attached to Mary Margaret. Emma frowned in confusion for a moment before lifting her eyes to look at the source of the noise. She felt all the air leave her chest in a torturous gasp as she saw the screen of the woman's heart monitor.
A flat line danced tauntingly across the screen.
"No!" She shrieked, and at the moment of her cry, doctors charged in the door and surrounded Mary Margaret. Emma felt someone grab her arm and try to push her out of the room, but she resisted and propelled herself forward.
"Mary Margaret!" She screamed as she tried to get to the woman, but a pair of arms caught her and pulled her away once more.
"Let me go!" Emma yelled in despair. "Mary Margaret!"
"Emma, it's just me, calm down!" David's voice spoke into her ear and she stopped struggling, not wanting to hurt the man.
"David," She gasped and swivelled in his arms to face him. "Please let me get to her. I didn't get to..."
David's eyebrows furrowed in anguish at her unspoken words but he refused to let her go.
"I can save her!"
"Emma, how can she be saved?" He cried out in agony.
"Because... because I'm her daughter!"
David sobbed and his grip loosened on the girl long enough for her to slip out of his grasp
Staggering towards the hospital bed, she stopped a few feet away from the doctors and watched as one of them pulled a sheet over her foster mother's lifeless body.
"No..." She whimpered and although she couldn't hear him, she could still sense David's silent crying behind her, causing her to start shaking in despair.
Everyone had given up. How was she supposed to save Mary Margaret?
She pushed her trembling legs towards the bed and when she reached the end of it, one of the doctors turned to face her and held out a hand to stop her.
"I'm sorry, it's too late."
Emma continued past him without a word and grasped the sheet covering Mary Margaret and pulled it down to uncover her head. Her skin was paler than usual, but still warm when Emma reached a hand down to touch it. Her eyebrows furrowed and lip wobbled as she came to the horrible realisation.
Mary Margaret really was dead.
A loud sob erupted from her chest and she put her head down on Mary Margaret's sheet-covered chest and screamed out in rage.
"It's not fair! I was supposed to save you!" She heard her own voice wail out and her tears soaked straight through the thick material of the sheet, only making her cry harder. "Why wasn't I able to save you?"
"Emma..." She heard a doctor speak her name, but she ignored him once more not ready to leave her foster mother's side just yet.
Trying to regain control of her emotions, she attempted to swallow her sobs and raised her head up to look at Mary Margaret's calm face which only made the pain in her chest and head worse.
"Emma," She heard the doctor say again and she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. "I think it's time for you to say goodbye."
Emma felt her sobs evaporate away and fury take its place as she turned around to face the man, only to see that it was Doctor Whale who had watery eyes and a miserable expression on his face, and her anger melted away back into tears.
She clenched her fists in anguish around the sheet, knowing that she was going to have to say goodbye to the only person who had ever loved her. She swallowed her tears bitterly and ignored the ache coming from her chest as she leaned her head towards the side of the woman's face.
"I..." She began to say, her throat choking up and her heart feeling like it had started to fold in on itself, but she pressed on, needing to get the words out. "I love you, Mom." She slowly pressed a kiss to Mary Margaret's cheek and closed her eyes tightly, trying to escape the awful reality.
A warmth began to grow in her, filling her, soaking her entire body, but she ignored it, thinking it was her heart failing her from her loss. She opened her eyes just in time to see a wave of energy flying out from the spot where her lips were touching her foster mother's cheek. Her eyes widened and she took the smallest step back from the bed as her hair was ruffled from the energy created and she heard everyone in the room take an intake of breath.
She turned around to see everyone looking at each other in shock and wonder. The doctors were all standing in place, not moving, just breathing, taking everything in.
"What's... what's going on?" Emma asked, her throat still full of emotion, uncertainty in her voice.
All of the doctors slowly turned to gaze at her, each with a varying degree of emotion. Doctor Whale opened his mouth with quivering lips. "The curse-"
He was interrupted by a sharp gasp and Emma snapped her head back down at Mary Margaret just in time to see the woman's eyes fly open. Emma's mouth dropped open in shock and joy, her chest feeling like it was going to burst as the woman breathed in and out, and matching green eyes locked onto hers. A spark of recognition flared in the elder's. Tears spilt over in both of theirs.
"Emma...?"