title: chaos of stars. (2/3)
rating: t
summary: Some souls, no matter how you twist and turn the hands of fate and time, in a hundred lifetimes, in any version of reality, will always destined to be together, to find one another, to choose one another, to love. Emmaxkillian, Captain Swan through space and time - includes Coffee Shop AU and Red Band Society AU, and also one canon compliant piece.
a/n: part II of III for my CSSS, tallahasseee. inspired by your love of red band society. All I learned about this show I learned through Wikipedia, so it may not be 100%.
part I here or read from the start at ao3.
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Seven fifteen.
“I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its solitude. I will be the desert.”
He comes in a whirl of flashing machines and beeps waking everyone up at the ungodly hour of seven fifteen in the morning, his left hand swollen like nothing Emma’s ever seen before in her lifetime of being in and out of the hospital. He’s got a fever, they say, and a severe sugar crash from malnutrition, and so he becomes the instant curiosity of every other ‘resident’ in the ward.
They try for a month to save his hand (and life), and in that time Emma becomes his friend, like all the other kids there - they commiserate about their shitty genetics and over protective caretakers and how it sucks that they can’t do normal things like date and kiss and go to the mall without worry of some kind of medical emergency.
On the 15th of July, Killian loses his left hand to osteosarcoma. They tell him to be grateful, that it could have been his entire arm, he could be in a wheelchair if it had spread to his spine, that it’s contained for now, but the blue eyed British boy remains surly and unresponsive to all but Emma and his brother, Liam.
“So what now?” Emma asks a month later, when Killian ends up making the new nurse, Brittany, cry.
“What?” he asks defensively, but Emma can see the guilt in his features, in the way his shoulders hunch and the way his eyes dim.
“You going to continue being a jerk face to everyone here just because you lost your hand?”
Killian opens his mouth to retort, but Emma cuts him off.
“You think you have it bad? What about Charlie who hasn’t woken for three years? Or Kara who made one mistake and now no one will take a chance on her? Or what about Jordi who will die if they can’t get him to respond to his treatment? The fact that their lives suck more than yours doesn’t negate your pain, Killian, but it does not excuse you from your shitty behavior either.”
“She’s right, little brother,” Liam’s voice cuts in, making them both jump.
“Younger,” Killian corrects automatically.
“Based on Nurse Jackson’s description of today, definitely little, Killian,” Liam admonishes him.
“Fuck you,” Killian mutters, which earns him a swift thump on the side of the head.
“Don’t be rude. Especially not in front of a lady.”
Killian snorts at that, looking over to Emma who glares indignantly back, even if she does swear more than he ever does.
Liam sighs, ruffling Killian’s hair before turning to Emma.
“And how are you feeling, m’dear?”
“Same old, same old,” she says breezily, waving her hand with the IV attached.
“What cocktail of drugs do they have you on today?” he wonders.
“Ah, antibiotic mojitos, with a dash of painkillers, dripped not stirred, and a new immunodrug that’s all the rage in clubs.”
Both Killian and Liam laugh at that, making the ward lighter.
“Have the tutors come in yet?”
“No,” Emma yawns, looking around. ”Kara is in dialysis, I don’t know where Jordi is but they wheeled him out this morning. It’s just the four of us.”
“Well then, how about a good Christmas movie?”
“It’s August!”
“Swan, it’s always time for Christmas movies,” Killian tells her, his face regaining a little of the light that had all but vanished during his physical therapy.
“That’s settled then, the only Christmas movie worth watching.”
“Love Actually,” Killian answers, before Emma can ask.
“Budge up Emma, let’s get everyone nice and cosy.”
They’re all grinning at Sam, who is running through the airport in rush of his love, when Nurse Jackson comes in, leveling Liam with a look at that ‘really? You’re supposed to be the adult here’, holding a rapid test kit that has Emma sitting up in alarm because she’s done this drill before. Beside her, Killian stiffens, and even Liam looks unsettled by the array of needles they’re wheeling in.
“This isn’t for you, Emma,” Nurse Jackson says, looking at Killian sadly, and she feels her stomach drop.
“What’s wrong with Killian?” she asks in panic, (ignoring Killian’s sarcastic “Oh, nothing but bone cancer, Swan”) but Nurse Jackson bypasses them all together to stop at Charlie’s bed, the comatose boy her apparent destination.
“What’s wrong with Charlie? Not the liveliest resident, but he’s nice enough,” Killian remarks, eyeing the other two nurses who have appeared to help Nurse Jackson.
“We just need to get some diagnostics done, don’t you worry,” Nurse Kendra says sweetly, and Emma thinks she’s such a condescending bitch (even if she’s been nothing but nice).
Once they leave, the three of them continue with the movie, but it feels like the air has been sucked from the room, because as Killian and her share looks, they know what the other is thinking – Charlie’s never going to wake up. And even if they’ve never spoken a word, don’t know him at all, truly, he still feels like a friend, like part of the little peds family.
Somewhere in between these silent conversations, Emma falls asleep nestled into Killian’s side – a hazard of sharing the small hospital bed to watch movies. She is drifting in and out of consciousness when she hears her mother’s voice, and it’s her scolding words that bring Emma out of sleep.
“… has SCID don’t you, what were you thinking letting them snuggle like that.”
“I’m sorry Mary Margaret, but to my understanding, by constantly being around the other kids in the ward, Emma should already be in tune with them immunologically.”
“It’s still an unnecessary risk, Liam,” she continues, not letting go.
“Sweetheart…” her father’s voice interrupts gently, and Emma can almost see the hand he’d lay on her arm, trying to soothe Mary Margaret’s temper. Emma loves her mother, but by God has this whole disease thing made her so smothering – she knows she means well, knows she is loved, but what kind of life is this, to live in constant fear of the next infection?
“Besides, don’t they look adorable?” Liam says, and Emma grimaces, because okay, she’s kinda maybe has a crush on Killian, but they’re all going to die anyway and while she’s all for trying new physical experiences, the idea of tying her heart to someone else’s only for one of them to die and leave the other heartbroken is not in her agenda. Especially after what happened to Hazel, one of the thyroid cancer patients who passed last year, after falling for another cancer boy. She doesn’t know the story exactly, except Nurse Jackson saying she’d died as much of a broken heart as she had of the cancer that had spread to her lungs – so yeah, no thank you.
Emma Swan has enough problems of her own than to fall in love with a boy. Even if she really wants to know what it’s like (though she knows better – the sun cannot hurt the desert, and so a lonely heart cannot be heart by love, right?). Even if sometimes she thinks Killian tolerates her more than he does anyone else. And when she looks forward to his appearances in the ward yet hopes its sporadic, because it means he’s getting better, but then feeling happy when he does come in because she misses him and he’s the closest thing to a best friend she’s ever had.
How confusing.
“Emma?” her father touches her arm gently, and she turns, from her position nuzzled into Killian’s shirt to look up blearily at the man whom she shares her hair and nose with.
“Hi dad.”
“Hey sweetheart. How you feeling today?”
“Today’s a good day,” she says, eyes darting to Liam’s, whose lips quirk up in a smile.
“That’s good, sweetie,” her mother says, pressing a light kiss to her forehead, taking her temperature with her palm in the habitual way she does.
“We brought you some gluten-free hot chocolate, shall I make some?”
“Yeah!” she grins, brightened by the prospect of chocolate, jolting Killian with her movements.
“Can you make one for Killian too?” she asks, watching him stir from the corner of her eyes.
Her mother eyes the boy in question, but simply answers with a cheery “Sure, honey.”
* * *
A week later, she is woken by hushed, angry conversations from the bed beside hers, divided by a curtain.
“You need to tell her, Killian.”
“Shut up, it’s none of your business.”
“You don’t think she cares?”
“Of course she cares, she’s my friend, isn’t she?”
“I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”
“Don’t be daft Liam, Emma Swan is a teenage goddess wrapped in IV, and I’m an amputee with a bad temper and worse disposition. Also, I look like the back end of a lorry.”
Emma can almost hear Liam’s eyeroll. She moves silently, trying to get closer to the curtain to hear.
“Now you’re being daft. Just tell her, Killy. What do you have to lose?”
“My heart.”
“Killian, stop being melodramatic.”
“Christ, you think this is a joke? I may be young, Liam Radcliffe Jones, but this? This is love. I love her, okay? I hate hospitals, hate being the sick one, but then it means getting to see her face, make her smile, and I think, well there’s a lot worse I could do for myself, yeah? She’s everything, and I’m arse over tits in love with her, but I know Emma. If I breathe a word of my feelings, I’ll lose her. She’s too scared to … do whatever this is, because it means getting hurt, especially when we’re all going to die anyway.”
“Killian,” Liam says seriously, and Emma takes the moment to furiously brush away the tears running down her cheeks, because he is right, every word so true it makes her angry and sad and just… sad.
“I want you to listen to me carefully, because I didn’t think I’d tell you this at such a young age, (“I’m seventeen,” Killian protests) but mother once told me this.”
Emma can almost see, in her mind’s eyes, Killian sitting up with rapt attention, ready to greedily drink in every word because his mother died of the same disease that afflicts him, and she’s known him for such a short time and yet also, forever, and knows this is important. So she too, listens.
“Love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? Fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find her? Forget your head and listen to your heart. If your heart says Emma Swan, then fight for it. A man who does not fight for what he wants, Killian, deserves nothing he gets. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love - well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived. And if so, then what are you doing, trying to treat your cancer if you won’t take the blessing of life to live?”
Well, shit, Emma thinks. If that’s not the realest, raw-est thing she’s ever heard, she doesn’t know what is. And god, he’s right, isn’t he? She’s so scared of running a broken heart, still bitter about the fact that her ‘boyfriend’ had run the moment she’d gotten worse, too damn chicken to stay around because ‘he didn’t want her sickness’ as if SCID is something you can pass to someone like a common cold.
Fuck Neal Cassidy, for making her think she’s not worth it.
Fuck this stupid disease for making her this weak, compromised girl, for taking so much of her life and time and her parent’s money.
Fuck Killian Jones for making her fall in love with him, even though she did not want to, with his kind smiles and dry humor and gentleness he reserved only for her.
Fuck, fuck, fuck it all.
Just. It’s so hard. She’s lived her whole life in this bubble – “You can’t play with those kids Emma, you don’t know if they’ve been vaccinated” or “It’s too dangerous, who knows what kind of bacteria are on those coaster rides?” or “School is too dangerous for you, tutors are a better idea” and loving someone is a disease not easily curable by antibiotics.
But fuck it, if she isn’t already a little in love with that stupid boy. Goddamn.
The whoosh of the glass doors of the ward opening and accompanying footsteps that descend into silence tells her that Liam has left, and next to her, she hears Killian let out a long, drawn out sigh.
You only live once, isn’t that the saying that’s all the rage right now?
And yet, when Killian calls out her name softly, tentatively, she simply turns and closes her eyes, pretending to be asleep.
She hears him get up and open the curtains slowly, placing something on her side table as he lets out another sigh, fingers ghosting against the tresses of her hard earned hair, the blonde locks finally reaching to her shoulders after years of short hair.
“Emma?” he calls again, rubbing the apple of her cheeks gently.
“Hmmm?” she mumbles, blinking blearily, turning around and yawning.
“Hey,” he says, smiling down so softly at her that her heart stutters in its cavity.
“Hi,” she whispers back, voice catching at the look on his face, tenderness and sadness ebbing through his gaze. She moves on instinct, freeing up the left side of the bed for him, which he climbs up onto without fanfare.
He nuzzles the side of her head with his nose, and she lets him, something shifting in the air around them, as he asks quietly, “How much did you hear?”
“I…”
“Don’t lie to me, Emma Swan. Pretty sure the git wanted to be heard.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“Liam’s left for an overseas posting,” Killian begins, voice pained at the imminent separation, and immediately she can tell that this is different – his brother had been forced to join the Marines as the only means of securing enough funding to treat Killian’s mounting bills (a fact she knows he feels terribly guilty for), “and he’s going to be gone for a year.”
“Oh,” she says, hands immediately finding the fingers of his right hand, holding tightly.
He squeezes back and then takes a deep breath, “And because of the insurance coverage policy, the moment I turn 18 only 50% of my bills will be covered…”
“What about your stock portfolio and Forex?”
He nods, thumb brushing against hers, “Yeah, that helps, but only if I have no more relapses.”
She knows better than to promise a full recovery, so she asks, “And if you do?”
“The next spread would be the spine anyway… so one last surgery, and a DNR and AND.”
“AND?”
“Allow Natural Death plus a organ donor allowance for everything will have them harvesting me before my brain actually dies, I reckon.”
“You’re giving up?”
“I’m letting Liam live his life.”
“By forfeiting yours,” she says bitterly, even if she understands completely where he is coming from.
“What would you have me do, Emma?”
“Fight. Don’t give up on physical therapy just because it’s hard. Don’t let those drugs rob you of your spirit. Fight, Killian.” She sighs, unsure if she’s angry with him, or disappointed.
“And in any case, Liam has already chosen to serve, you might as well make the last three years worth it.”
“There is that, I suppose.”
“You think? God, I’ve had this all my life, so maybe I don’t know what its like to be normal and then have that ripped like you do, but I do know that I’m going to fight because if I had the nerve to die now after everything I’ve put my parents through… you know, sometimes I wish they had had another child, a normal one, but then I know I’d have felt abandoned too, like they have a new shiny working kid so why would they want this broken one, and…,” she sighs, heavily, “just don’t give up, okay? Especially after that one-heck-of-a speech Liam gave you.”
“Oh, that,” he says, suddenly remembering whatever it is that had sparked the conversation, “the first, is that after 18, I won’t be able to afford this place, so I have at most, another 7 months here, and two, is that I really, really, really, like you.”
He says it so simply, two huge revelations, but after the words leave his mouth she feels his entire body tense, fingers slack against hers as if she’s going to rip them away and shove him off her bed.
She’s sorely tempted, to be honest.
But then, she’d miss him and that’s what does it, really, because fuck it, if they’re going to die anyway, if she’s going to get her heart broken, it might as well be for him.
She turns, finally looking at him in the eye for the first time since their conversation begun, and it’s the way he is burning a path straight into her that drives her forward, lips catching his in an uncoordinated kiss.
His reaction is instantaneous, angling his head to deepen it, lips slanting at just the right angle that Emma lets out a small moan, because if she thought she knew what kissing was like before, they need a new word for this.
She wants to continue kissing him, but there’s something important she needs to say (needs to know), so she compromises by pulling back just enough that she can breathe the words across his lips.
“You’ll come visit?”
“I won’t leave your sight,” he promises, “I’ll find a way.”
“Just promise me you’ll fight for yourself,” she says seriously.
His deep blue eyes darken imperceptibly, “I promise,” he whispers against her lips, sealing it with a kiss.
* * *
“It’s ironic,” he says, as he does every year, on the 31st of October, “that I’m here, another year in, and you’re there, dust and bone, probably ghouling it up with the rest of the spirits.”
“Who would have thought, we’d outlive you, hmm, Liam?” Emma chimes, placing the lilies on the marker that reads, ‘Marine, Soldier, Brother.’ and in tiny font underneath, ‘Here lies Liam Jones, who believed that a hero’s journey was the only worthy cause and died proving it.’
He takes his offering out from his coat pocket, placing the mini Reese’s cup on top of the marker, Liam’s favorite candy and total weak spot (Killian and Emma have both exploited this to their best advantage), before taking his hand in hers, drawing his body close to hers.
“Only to be soon reborn again as my son, who’s the little one now, hmm?”
She rolls her eyes, shaking her head in amusement. The man’s brother might be dead for ten years now, but he still manages to pick sibling fights like Liam never left.
Killian brings their entwined fingers to caress the rather large bump she’s sporting, feeling little Liam kick as he does.
“I wish you were here,” her husband says softly, “and I wish you didn’t have to die so I could live, but it’s hard to stay mad when the life you gave me led me to Emma, and this family I now have, so thank you, Liam Radcliffe Jones. See you next year.”
And with that, they turn, and walk back to the car, back home, to family, warmth, health and love.
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a/n II – first, is that this is a bit of a depart from my usual style because I was trying to channel an angry-fighter of a teenager who yearns to live but is scared by what that means. Think Hazel Grace with jalapeños. Two, a few things for the science people: SCID is an autoimmune disease that affects a child from birth, it’s also known as the bubble boy syndrome, where the immune system doesn’t make T-cells and thus can’t fight any infection. Recently, (as in 2014) gene therapy has cured 12 kids with SCID with no known side effects, and so for the purpose of this story Emma is on gene therapy but developed HA-MRSA – hence the prolonged hospital stays and such. Later on, she gets cured when they develop one, though immunologically speaking she’s not the strongest, but she lives a normal life. Killian’s cancer goes into remission indefinitely, and so, to put it simply, though it happens rarely, they lived happily ever after.
I know you wanted fluffy, tallahasseee but this kinda just spun out of control – blame Emma and Killian.
