Chapter Text
“Care to dance, captain?”
Killian had been staring at his wife, not bothering to hide the adoring expression on his face. She'd noticed. For her part, Milah found it sweet. His eyes crinkled when he smiled, crow's feet well-earned throughout the seven years they had been together, and nothing made her heart leap quite like the smile that reached all the way to her husband's eyes.
He rose, gave a slight bow, and extended a hand to her. “It would be my honor, m'lady,” he said, and she laughed, shaking her head at his theatrics. She took his hand, letting him lead her to the dance floor, where a dozen couples were already swaying serenely along to an old, sweet love song.
The Boston marina had been decorated exquisitely, hardly an expense spared, for the gala that evening. Museum heads, entrepreneurs and business executives alike had all been invited to the black-tie event, whether they had donated in the past or potentially would in the future, in hopes of raising both funds and awareness for the ship restoration program Killian manned. It was his passion, and this gala was the highlight of the decade, as far as his career was concerned. If he could pull this off, it would mean everything. Every risk, every sacrifice he and his brother had made to make this business a reality would have been worth it.
He needed it to be worth it.
In the month leading up to this event, the pressure of making it happen had fueled Killian, the anxiety of it all driving him past his normal breaking point as he poured too much of himself into perfecting his vision. And now that the evening had come, and it was an apparent success, as he sat surrounded by employees and donors and every rich potential donor he had wooed into being there, he couldn't help but sit back like the cat that ate the canary. His eyes flit around the room, trying to make out the faces scattered throughout the immense ballroom. The turnout had been phenomenal. Which was fortunate, as most of the funding for the grandiose event had come out of Killian and Milah's own pockets. But, by the looks of things, it had been well worth it. A swell of pride rose up in Killian's chest, and he didn't bother trying to tamp it down.
The marina, as expected, held a pristine view of the harbor and sea. The wall facing the ocean was nearly all window, from floor to ceiling, and as night had fallen, the effect was absolutely mesmerizing. A lighthouse in the distance flashed, and the moon cast its white light over the water, the dark waves nearly as beautiful as the stars looming over it.
Most of the lights had dimmed after dinner, once the dancing began. Only the grand, ornate hanging chandeliers spread throughout the ballroom were lit now, casting a warm glow over the guests as the dance floor began to fill.
Milah was a sucker for this sort of music, those crooning, golden voices that seemed to capture an entire era and take their listeners back to a simpler time. It made her melt, and Killian was fully aware of this. The song playing faded into one they both knew well, and Milah couldn't help the happy little sigh that escaped her as Killian began to sing along softly for only her to hear. He hadn't seen much of her this past month, as he lost himself in making this night happen. He planned on making that up to her now, and every day thereafter.
She wrapped her arms over his shoulders, hands coming to rest at the back of his neck. Her fingers immediately found the hair that flipped out just a touch over his collar and began to toy with it gently.
“Have I ever told you how much I love you?” he asked.
Milah feigned thoughtfulness for a moment. “You know, I don't think you have. Not in a few hours, at least.”
A devilish look came onto his face. “Then allow me to show you.” He leaned in slowly, sweetly, and took her mouth in a kiss. The world around them melted away, fading into soft light and a slow, swaying song.
Usually, she wore her hair down, letting it do whatever the thick, unruly curls were going to do that day, and he loved it. He loved the wildness of her hair, found it to be a small, beautiful glimpse into her spirit. It had been one of the first things he'd been drawn to when he'd met her. Next, her eyes. He was lost in them then, as they moved over the dance floor. The twinkling white lights around the room made her blue eyes shine brilliantly, even with the main lights dimmed.
On this night, she had gone all out, especially with her usually untamable hair. The curls he loved were twisted and tucked delicately into an elegant up-do, similar to the style she had worn for their wedding day. Of course, managing this feat hadn't come without its qualms. After several frustrating attempts to figure out a style for herself in the days leading up to Killian's fundraiser, she had eventually given up and made an appointment with her hairdresser the day of the event. It was, in Killian's opinion, well worth it. She looked stunning.
A tea-length navy dress—one of his favorites—hugged her shape, accentuating all the right curves, and he couldn't seem to keep his hands to himself. Not that she minded. She certainly understood the sentiment, as her eyes had hardly strayed from him all night, glued to he tailored, blue-black suit he'd worn just for her.
“If you're trying to get laid tonight,” she'd said cheekily that afternoon, as they were both getting ready and she finally got eyes on his suit, “You're off to a great start.” He'd waggled his eyebrows at that and kissed the lipstick right off her mouth, despite her laughing protests.
They were, undoubtedly, the most beautiful couple in the room, made only more alluring by the way they danced, and how they looked at each other.
Eventually, the man of the hour was called to the microphone. With a swift kiss to his wife's cheek, Killian left her and made his way to the front of the room, where one of his event organizers was standing with a microphone. “Thanks, mate,” he told him, clapping him on the shoulder before he took the mic in hand. The lights had been raised, and he took a moment to find Milah in the large crowd. Once he did, he shot her a wink.
Killian cleared his throat, testing the volume of the microphone. “Thank you all for coming tonight,” he began. “None of this would have been possible without my event coordinators, who secured this marina for us. I think we can all agree it's absolutely lovely.” There were murmurs and a few claps of agreement.
He didn't have much more to add than gracious thanks and grateful compliments to his team. The affair was extravagant, but its purpose was fairly simple. Donors who had given money to the ship restoration company in the past were profusely thanked and honored, potential donors were further wooed. Killian promised them all they would be able to see the fruits of their donations first hand, as some of the organization's more prestigious restoration projects—a gorgeous antique yacht, an old sailing ship circa 1800, and a small historical battle ship halfway through its restoration process—would be docked outside in the front of the marina within the next hour. This drew a few whoops of excitement and a raucous round of clapping. Killian beamed and found Milah's smiling face in the crowd again.
“Lastly, I wouldn't be standing here today,” Killian went on as the applause began to die down, “Without the constant love and support of my beautiful wife, Milah, to whom I owe never ending thanks. Darling, you are the wind in my sails.” Her smile grew, stretching so wide across her face it threatened to split it in half, and he wore one to match.
When he returned to her, he took her hand in his, issued it a kiss, and they danced the rest of the night.
+++
Emma lay nearly as still as death, face ashen, staring up at her hospital room's ceiling. It had been painted with that horrible “popcorn paint” that had been so popular in the 90s. Something about it made her smile. Her heart monitor sped up just a touch, its high pitched chirping picking up tempo.
“What is it?” Mary Margaret asked, leaning in. She had been firmly planted by Emma's side since the moment she and David had brought her in a few days ago. She held her hand, stroking the back of Emma's with her thumb every now and then. Each brush of her fingers sent warmth spilling through Emma's terrible, useless heart.
Emma's voice was hardly above a whisper when she spoke, raspy and rattling and weak. She hated it. “Remember...” she laughed, stopping to catch her breath. Mary Margaret smiled patiently. “... That time we—” A cough overtook her, and Mary Margaret squeezed her hand as she fought through it. “.. Tried to get that... stupid popcorn paint..”
“Off my ceiling!” Mary Margaret finished for her, and Emma gave her a grateful, albeit weak, smile. “Yes! What a horrible weekend that was!”
Emma chuckled as Mary Margaret sat back down in her chair, releasing her hand as she scooted it closer to Emma's bed. “Your worst idea,” Emma murmured, and Mary Margaret put her hands up in mock surrender.
“All right,” she said, “I'll give you that. But how was I supposed to know the popcorn stuff was only painted on to cover that terrible salmon color?”
“Who paints their ceiling... pink?” Emma asked in a whisper.
“Crazy people,” Mary Margaret said, leaning back in her chair. "Lunatics."
They settled into a comfortable silence. The sound of Emma's monitors were oddly soothing, a rhythmic symphony of chirps and beeps helping to keep her alive. She had been listening to them for so long, attuned to the sounds each individual machine made in a day, that it was hard to remember what normal life sounded like without them.
It was a simple room, with outdated wallpaper and a sparse amount of pictures on the wall. The closest frame to Emma was an Anne Geddes original of a baby poking its head out of a giant tulip. The first time she had seen it, she'd found it creepy. Mary Margaret had loved it, naturally. After almost a week, it had grown on Emma, too.
Everything had grown on her. The hospital staff, with their infinitely perky attitudes, had been insufferable in the beginning. The room was drab, but after a few days, she had softened to its old-fashioned charms. The hospital itself was apparently one of the top in the city of Boston for cardiac issues. Naturally, with a heart that was practically useless, it was where she wanted to be. Mary Margaret had suggested, quite rightly, that if the hospital was going to put their money anywhere, it should be in its doctors and technology, instead of updating its interior decorating. Emma agreed.
While she tried not to make complaining an unbecoming habit, internally it was a hard ritual to break. Life hadn't always been kind to Emma swan. Its knocks had turned her into something of a cynic. She had been born with a heart defect, a bleak prognosis looming over her life, a laughing villain threatening to come for her one day and take it all.
Eventually, she was told, her heart would give out on her. She'd had frequent checkups in her life, most of which she had attended. Some foster parents were better than others about getting her to her necessary appointments. Others took the extra funding they were allotted for taking on a terminally ill child and kept it for themselves.
She never found out what had happened to her birth parents, if they had given her up when they had found out about her condition, as so many would-be parents had done in the history of the human race, or if they had known from her conception they weren't going to keep her. Eventually, she stopped wondering. Knowing wouldn't change anything.
For all the horror stories she had accumulated throughout her time in the foster system, she had a few good stories to go along with them. If she hadn't liked a place, she ran. Her heart condition hadn't truly manifested itself until her late teenage years, wherein running away from group homes was far less manageable.
Life had picked up a bit, though, when she was sixteen, and had been introduced to Ruth Nolan. It was her last home in the foster care system, and for everything she had endured throughout her life, she at least ended her time in the system on a good note.
With Ruth came David, her son. Ruth had been the mother of twins, David and his slightly older brother, James. Tragically, James had died as a young child, and the hole he left had never been filled in Ruth's heart. She doted on David, a sweet, hard-working boy who returned her affection ounce for ounce. When Mr. Nolan passed years later, Ruth opened her heart to foster care. She had a few children come and go, offering them a sanctuary in the only way she could, and Emma had been the last to come to her.
David was only two years older than Emma, but he eagerly took on the role of her older brother. She spent two years with the Nolans, and they became the closest thing to family she had ever known. David went off to college, returning a few years later engaged to a woman he had met in one of his childhood development classes, Mary Margaret Blanchard. They were sickeningly sweet together.
Emma had stayed in touch with both of them. But for all the support they had given her, she needed to go her own way. The pendulum swung, and with the good in her life inevitably followed the bad. She met a man she thought she loved, fell hard, and was let down even harder.
As it turned out, most young men weren't interested in a woman with a death sentence.
Where Emma had begun to withdraw, David and his new wife, Mary Margaret, predictably sought her out all the more. They had both moved into Mary Margaret's apartment, a spacious loft just outside Boston she had been previously sharing with her college roommates, and promptly began begging Emma to come visit them. Eventually, they wore her down. When her heart condition began to worsen to the point where she could no longer hide it from them, they were there for her, fussing like a pair of mother hens.
In time, she moved in with them. She was reluctant at first, but one night, as she was pouring herself her third glass of wine, Mary Margaret had let slip that she was terrified something would happen to Emma and they wouldn't find out about it until it was too late. Suddenly, their frequent check-in texts and daily calls weren't so vexing.
+++
Eventually, her doctor sent them all home.
The past week had proved a frightful scare. Emma's face, taut with constant, thrumming pain, pallid as a corpse, was enough cause for worry.
But, most alarmingly, was what had happened while she had been on a ride-along with David earlier in the week. They had just swung through a drive-through for coffee, and as David turned to his foster sister to get her order, Emma had gone into convulsions. With a flick of a switch, his sirens were on, and he got her to the hospital in record time.
In the days she had spent under the hospital's care, they had made her comfortable. She would be sent home with a handful of new prescriptions she couldn't pronounce, some for the mounting pain, some for other things. There wasn't much else they could do; they told her as much. Most helpfully, her position on the heart transplant list had been moved to top priority.
While her doctor framed this as a good thing, it did little to assuage Emma's unease. She had just skipped over multiple others on the list, and it felt like cutting in line. The idea of getting a new heart more quickly was terrifying, in itself, and the fact that this jump in priority level was necessary in the first place was something she didn't care to think about.
Mary Margaret, as expected, was thrilled at the news, clearly only honing in on the single detail that Emma could potentially be getting a new heart sooner, should the new donor arise.
Never mind the fact that they had essentially issued her a death sentence. Make sure she's comfortable, were the unspoken words. She hasn't got much time left.
She's dying.
The wind whipped her hair as the hospital's automatic doors slid open, as air burst through the entrance like a reaper, its cold grip making Emma shiver violently. Tendrils of blonde hair kept sliding over her face, and she paused to tug a few pieces out of her mouth. David squeezed her shoulder gently.
"I'll get the truck and pull it around."
He jogged off, disappearing into the inky darkness enshrouding the parking lot.
The nurses had insisted Emma be escorted out in a wheelchair. Mary Margaret stood just behind it, huddled into her tweed coat, chin tucked into her scarf. "I feel really sorry for anyone who has to be out in this tonight," she murmured. "There's supposed to be a pretty bad storm coming in from over the water."
Emma squeezed the arms of the wheelchair anxiously, fingernails digging into the fake leather. They waited in silence for David to return, listening to the wind whistle around the building. After a few minutes, a pair of headlights came into view in the drop-off area, and David flashed his brights at them.
Mary Margaret nudged the wheelchair forward a bit, prodding the automatic doors to slide open. She offered an arm and helped Emma stand. David had come running up, clearly ready to help. Once she rose, Emma waved them both away.
"Guys, I got it. Thank you," she added, "But I got it. Let's just go home."
+++
"Keys, please."
Milah was watching him fondly, holding out her hand. Killian dug around in the pocket of his suit for a moment, fumbling a bit, before he looked up at her with wide, adorably panicked eyes. She scoffed playfully and reached into his other pocket, pulling out the keys to their car.
"Thanks, love." Killian said, with only a hint of a slur to his words. He put his arm around her shoulders as they walked, and she reached up to hold his hand.
She hummed. "You haven't had that much to drink in a long time."
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Was a good party."
"Seemed like half the room wanted to buy you a drink."
A slow smile worked its way over his features, stretching languidly like a cat. She was absolutely right. His event had been a huge success, one likely to keep his chest puffed with pride for the rest of the week. Old donors were impressed, promising to keep their monthly donations to the program coming in steadily, and would-be donors were thoroughly wooed. Several had come up to him after he had unveiled some of their finished projects, pressing a drink into one of his hands and a check into the other.
The old ships stirred up something wonderful in people. Killian's love and passion for the projects was tangible, infectious. He spoke of them the way some men talked about women, their beauty unparalleled, potential untapped, taking people back centuries as he painted mental pictures of the ships in their prime. Even those who knew nothing about antique naval vessels and sailing ships wanted to see them brought back to their former glory.
"He would have been so proud," Killian whispered, his words almost lost to the sound of their footsteps as they made their way back to their car in the dark.
Milah had heard him. "Liam would be proud of you, Killian," she clarified. He only grunted in response.
Thunder rolled in overhead, low and ominous. They felt the first few droplets of rain as they slipped into their car. By the time Milah pulled out of the parking lot, it was pouring.
+++
The three of them settled back into the loft quietly, their only conversation a murmured, half-hearted debate about who would use the bathroom first. Emma won.
She was tired, could feel it all the way to her bones. When she caught sight of her face in the bathroom mirror, she gaped. There were dark circles cradling her eyes, her skin ghostly white over a gaunt face.
Mummy, she thought in horror, I look like a mummy. The medicine cabinet door creaked as she jerked it open, and as its door swung out and away from her, so did the mirror attached to the other side of it.
An array of orange pill bottles met her eyes, seeming to stare her down, and she looked at them dejectedly, knowing she had more rattling around in her purse, fresh from her recent hospital stay, to add to her collection.
Pills for the invalid, given out like candy by doctors with pitying eyes and tight-lipped smiles.
The purple pills would keep her heart beating as long as it was meant to, the white ones would manage the pain, the round pink ones would keep the purple ones from thinning her blood too much, the long yellow ones would manage the nausea from the round ones, and so it went, in a diverse color wheel of prescriptions refilled at the end of each month.
This past week had been a scare, to be sure. The worst week of her life, in fact, as far as pain went. She could feel it getting worse, each beat of her crap heart thumping sluggishly and with more strain each day. There wasn't much they could do for her now, apart from sewing someone else's heart into her chest.
She took down a few of the bottles, uncapping them and setting aside the pills she was supposed to take before going to sleep. She brushed her teeth quickly, skipping the less vital parts of her night routine in favor of the soft bed she knew was waiting for her.
Mary Margaret shot her a sympathetic smile as she exited the bathroom. Emma didn't have the energy to return it. Mary Margaret had lit a candle, and its lavender scent wafted up and intertwined with the smell of chamomile as David steeped his tea. He worked nights most weeks, doing his time on third shift as a night officer before he could move up to first. It would be a while before he was ready to sleep, despite the late hour.
"Tea?" David asked, holding up an empty mug.
Emma shook her head, unsuccessfully trying to stifle a yawn with the back of her hand. "No, thanks. I'd be asleep before it could even cool down enough to drink." Mary Margaret stepped up to hug her, and Emma reciprocated, leaning into her for a moment.
"Thanks for being there," Emma murmured, and Mary Margaret nodded vigorously. When Emma pulled away, she could see tears shining in her friend's warm brown eyes. "None of that," Emma said, pointing a finger at her in playful warning. "Crying isn't allowed."
Mary Margaret gave a watery laugh and nodded. "No crying in baseball."
Emma smiled back at her, as she always did when they quoted one of their favorite movies. "Goodnight, guys."
"Night, Emma."
She made her way up the open staircase slowly, taking advantage of the railing, trying to keep her steps as steady as possible, because her brother and his wife were definitely watching her. As Emma tucked herself into her bed, she could hear the distinct sound of Mary Margaret's quiet crying.
+++
It was still dark when she awoke. Someone was shaking her gently, and it took her eyes a few moments to adjust.
"Emma. Hey. Wake up, sis."
David. She squinted against the onslaught of white light as he turned on his cell phone's flashlight. It was better than cruelly turning on her bedroom light when she wasn't prepared for it, but only marginally.
Emma groaned and leaned back into her pillow, throwing her arm over her face to shield her eyes. "What," she croaked, "Where the hell's the fire?"
David's voice shook when he spoke next, and it grabbed her attention by the horns, forcing her to pull back her arm and look at him. "No fire, just listen. The hospital just called. You're getting a new heart, Em. They have one for you, right now."
Emma gaped at him, mouth hanging open like a fish. "Who... what? Heart?"
David laughed and put his hands on her shoulders, shaking her lightly again. "Yes! A heart! There's a heart waiting for you, Emma!"
She felt her mouth go instantly dry, and her stomach did a jerking little flip inside her. "I... oh, shit."