Heart and soul in the stars:
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Chapter 1: No Air.
David sat on the staircase lacing up his sneakers, waiting for Jake to bound down the stairs, inevitably telling David to hurry up as though the child had been the one waiting.
He stood up as he heard feet descending the staircase, but when he turned around and looked up he realised that it wasn’t just Jake coming down the stairs, but Emma too. She would often wake up early, nowadays, but she would normally watch cartoons or play with some toys (which she didn’t admit to doing) or she’d go and wake Snow or Ben to keep her company. But it was unusual for her to be dressed to do any of those things, let alone in shorts and a tshirt hoodie along with sneakers she had obviously slipped on in a hurry as they were still undone. He reached his arms out to catch her as she nearly fell down the stairs.
“I’m coming running too.” She announced to him with a big smile.
David’s eyebrows flickered down into a frown for a half a second, he glanced to Jake who shrugged clearly he had nothing to do with it, he looked back at his daughter giving her a sympathetic smile. “Em, sweetie, why don’t you stay here, it’s early and Jakey and I run a really far way, if you still want to run later I’ll take you and Benny to the beach, okay?”
“No!” Emma whined her foot colliding with stair, her dad gave her a look but she was too frustrated to be ashamed or embarrassed. Instead she just looked at her father imploringly. “I wanna go with you and Jakey.”
“Emma.” David sighed deeply. He looked over at Jake.
“I don’t mind Em coming too.”
David wished Jake had insisted on having this time with just him, Emma had been sick a month ago and while she had made a full recovery the memory of her unconscious in a hospital bed would haunt him forever. But Jake acted like an older brother to Emma since she showed up, helping her adjust to the changes in the town, year, and her life, and he was just a kind big brother to her than he was to Ben. But right now David wished that Jake was a bit more selfish, if only to appease David’s own worries about his daughter. He sighed again. “Okay, but we’re not going to be running as far or as fast. Jake go grab us all a granola bar to have before our run, we can have breakfast laster.” He watched Jake dash off and stopped Emma from following him. “Sit down.” She did as she was told and he knelt in front of her, doing up her laces.
“Thanks Daddy.”
“No problem sunshine.” He helped her stand back up. “You need to take it easy, no going too fast, it wasn’t that long ago you were sick, if you need to take a break or a drink you let me know, okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“ Emma? ”
“Okay.” She agreed.
She and Jake wolfed down their granola bar and David led them out of the house, leaving a note for Snow to let him know that he had two of the three kids with him.
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He led his kids down the trail from their house which led into the forest, it was the route he and Jake often went on, but David was going to cut it in half for Emma’s sake, he knew that she was always full of energy, and perhaps this run would help, but he was taking it easy her first time out.
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He found himself chuckling as he jogged beside his kids, Jake kept pace, he was a swimmer and jogged in the same steady way he swam warm up lengths, Emma reminding David of a bee, she kept darting ahead and falling back, before darting ahead or behind once more.
David chatted to Jake as they jogged together, the boy was chattering about school, books he was desperate to buy, his friends, and his upcoming swim meet, and David happily asked him questions, he loved being able to be so involved with his sons’ lives, his father had never bothered to be in his before he had died, and he had missed out on so much of Emma’s that he was determined to play an active role in his sons, and his daughter’s now that she was back.
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“Can we still go to the beach later?”Jake asked his father, sending him a grin; for the most part Jake was like his mother, but he had inherited his eyes, his protective nature, and his smile from his father. “Me and Ben and Emma can have a sandcastle building competition.”
There were few things he loved more than the fact that his kids got along with each other so well. “I don’t see why not. What do you think Em, you wanna-” he turned back to look at Emma but his smile dropped when he realised that Emma was a little way back, stood still, but hunched other. “EMMA!” He quickly turned direction and shot back as fast as he could, Jake hot on his heels.
“Emmy!” Jakes eyes were on his sister as their father tried to get her to look at him. He could see Emma’s entire body moving as she panted. “Dad she can’t breathe!”
He knew that Jake was correct but he didn’t know why. “Were we going too fast? Did you get winded?”
Emma shook her head but that was all she could do, she was trying to suck in air through her mouth but she couldn’t get enough, her chest felt like it had a hundred elastic bands wrapped around it, squeezing it tight.
“O-Okay.” David frowned he didn’t understand. He pulled his backpack off and handed it to Jake. “Jakey find a drink in there for your sister for me.” He carefully took hold of Emma and helped her to the ground. She tried to slump down but he placed his hand on her back. “Keep sat up straight Emma.” He told her firmly, he still had no idea what was happening but he had been around men and women on battlefields who couldn’t breathe, he had a vague idea of how to help, but it was only a vague idea . “You’re going to copy my breathing, okay, nice and slow, just copy me.” He made sure that his own breathing was slow and steady, as calm as possible but exaggerated so that Emma could see him doing so, as he did he told her when to breathe in and out.
Jake passed the bottle of juice to his father, he bit his lip as he watched his sister sip the juice but it was clear that she was struggling to breathe. “D-Dad…?”
“Yeah bud?” David asked but he kept his eyes on Emma. “Hey, slower breathing, Em, just a bit slower.”
“We, me and Ben, we found an inhaler in her bag when she moved in, like Nick in my class has… is she having an asthma attack?”
David’s head snapped up to look at his son before looking looking back at his daughter wearily. “Emma Ruth, do you have asthma?”
Emma looked away from him, giving him an answer. She shrank in on herself when he practically growled her name, out of frustration, she had never really thought about tell them, and hadn’t planned on unless she needed to… apparently that had been a bad plan.
Asthma, why hadn’t he thought about asthma before? Why had Emma never told him she had it? Had she told Snow when his wife was cursed? He was so mad at her keeping this to herself, she must know how dangerous it was was. He couldn’t think about that right now. “Okay, okay,” He reassured both himself and his kids, “okay, Jakey get my phone out of my backpack, I need you to ring 911, tell them where we are, say that your sister’s having an asthma attack, Emma I need you to stay nice and calm, we’re going to try and breathe slow again, in through your nose, and out through your mouth. Just copy me, kiddo.”
As David tried his best to keep his head and to keep his breathing steady and helping Emma to try and control her breathing. He could also hear that Jake was worrying, on the phone 911, he reached over to squeeze his hand, trying to comfort both of his kids at the same time.
It wasn’t long before the ambulance was so close that David could hear it. He finally took his eyes off of Emma. “Jakey, you remember your way back home from here, don’t you?”
“Yeah, it’s just straight back down the trail.”
“Good boy, I need you to run back home, if mom’s not up then wake her up and tell her what’s happened with your sister, that I’m going to the hospital with her. Can you do that for me?”
“I can do that.” Jake agreed quickly, he wasn’t really one to kick up a fuss anyway, but he could tell how scared his sister was, and he had a feeling that his dad was pretty scared too. “Feel better Emmy.” He offered to his sister, he handed back his father’s backpack to him, before taking off at full speed back down the path which led to their family home.
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The ambulance ride had passed in a blur for Emma, she felt exhausted, despite having been running for about 10 minutes and having woken up feeling fine. In the ambulance she tried her best to stay awake but only because she kept being told to do so by the paramedic. There was a oxygen mask over her face obstructing her view every time her eyes blinked shut she opened them fast to try and tried taking her mask off to find her father, she kept being stopped from doing it and David’s voice would reassure her that he was there.
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The oxygen helped a lot, she was already feeling better by the time she got to the hospital but the mask was kept on as tests were performed on her. Her dad kept soothing her but other than that he was quiet, not quite his usual self, not that Emma was alert enough to realise this.
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“I’m looking for my daughter, Emma, she came in with my husband-.”
“Snow!”
Snow’s head snapped away from the nurses’ station to her husband who was walking towards her. She smiled at the nurse she had been about to asked then allowed herself to show her true worried face to her husband. “How is she?”
“She’s a lot better, they gave her oxygen in the ambulance and a nebuliser here to help her with her breathing, as well as some steroids which she nearly threw up taking. When you were cursed, the first time when you were living in the lost with Em, did she mention having asthma?”
Snow’s lips set in a thin line as they always did when she was truly angry. “No. The first I heard of it was when Jake ran home and told me about it.”
“If he hadn’t known about her old inhaler…” He shook his head in frustration. “I would have still brought her here but not so quickly, anything could have happened in that time. I can’t believe she’d be so, so stupid.”
“Me neither.” She shook her own head as she tried not to storm over, to the curtained area David had come from, and read her daughter the riot act.
David took her hand and gently squeezed it as he looked down at her. “Trust me, I’m beyond mad at her too, but let’s wait to talk to her about it until she’s fully better, it’s not like she’ll be leaving our sights for a while anyway, she’ll be safe.”
“I agree. We’ll stress how dangerous her not telling us was and how we’re disappointed.”
David nodded his head. He let out a sigh. “I was just hoping that she was finally over this sort of thing. She’s been doing so well recently. It’s like two steps forward, one step back.”
Snow squeezed his hand. “That’s still one step forward.”
The corners of David’s lips tugged up into a small smile. He had been married to his wife for nearly 20 years yet her hope and positive attitude still took him by surprise every now and again. “You’re right. We should get back over to her before she takes it upon herself to find us. I think she’ll be sent home soon, the medicine worked, they were just waiting for the treatment to finish and a doctor to check her over. We’re over here.” He tilted his head towards the closed curtains then led his wife in the same direction.
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As soon as Snow saw Emma her anger melted away, temporarily at least, she wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her as tight as she dared. They stayed like that until the doctor came over to unhook her from the mask and check her over.
“Can I go home now?”
Her begging the second the mask came off made David and Snow laugh a little, they were relieved that she was still in fairly good spirits, even if she wasn’t yet completely back to her old self.
“You’re not moving from here until the doctor tells us you can, baby, so hush so we can hear what she has to say.”
The doctor bit back a smile. “Well by the looks of it Emma is ready to go home, I’ll prescribe new inhalers for you and steroid tablets, eight twice a day for two weeks, once you’ve finished them it’s important you come back for a checkup, we need to make sure that your asthma is well managed so that this doesn’t occur again.”
“Thank you so much.”
“You’re grounded to the couch until you’re completely better.” David wrapped his arm around his daughter cuddling her into his side.
“By our standards better.” Snow added signing one of Emma’s forms to discharge her.
“That means I’m never getting off the couch.”
David shrugged. “Shame.” He smirked then dropped a kiss onto her head.
“You can watch movies.” Snow suggested, Emma being on the couch forever sounded good to her right about then, at least Snow would know where she was and that she was safe.
Emma was about to mumble about them being overprotective, or hover-parents, but she remembered how David looked and sounded when he found out about her asthma, she decided to stay quiet and just cuddle into his side.