You Could Have Stayed

Chapter 11

Killian and David stayed eye to eye and toe to toe as Snow backed up, knowing what was about to happen and that she shouldn't try to stop it, not yet anyway.
"You let my daughter believe that you love her and that she can trust you. Let her believe that you've changed from your pirating days.. Then you turn tail and run the second you have any responsibilities. She has been depressed and angry and she started isolating herself from everybody who still loved her. Whatever is wrong with her is your fault pirate!" David's shouting and aggressive pointing was drawing attention from the nearby hospital staff, but they were too afraid of the impressive men to do anything.
"You're the one who bloody let her isolate herself! Your precious wife said she talked to Emma and she sounded upset yet neither of you did anything about it. Did you even notice all the weight she has lost?" Killian fired right back, getting red in the face.
"Don't you dare insult my wife!" David was fuming.
"David, it's really okay he is just worried about Emma he doesn't mean-" Snow tried to defuse the situation but it wasn't working and Charming cut her off.
"Mary Margaret please, stay out of this." He gave his wife a fleeting apologetic look before focusing back on the disheveled and rough man that used to be his son in law. "You were supposed to be her husband, together through sickness and health, for rich or for poor til death to you part. And look how that turned out." He flung his arm out towards the room they had taken Emma too. They stood facing each other, breathing heavily and seething with rage for a few seconds before all hell broke loose.
Killian hurled himself at David, hitting him in the stomach with his fist and knocking him to the ground. David got a good grip on Hook's jacket and pulled him to the ground with him. They rolled around on the ground together, scratching and punching and kicking. David worked to avoid his opponents deadly sharp hook and Killian worked to knock the prince's gun out of its holster so he couldn't shoot him.
"Alright! That is enough!" Mary Margaret shouted as she shoved her hands in the middle of the two men and tried to get the rest of her body in between them as a physical barrier. She barely managed to separate them, they were both bleeding, breathing heavily and would for sure have many bruises in a few hours. "Whatever happened to Emma is nobody's fault and she certainly wouldn't want you to fight about it. Yes, Hook abandoned her but so we did we David. We all know from experience that Emma puts walls up when she is scared and we didn't try hard enough to tear those down, we only did little things like brought her food that she apparently didn't eat and call her about trivial things like movies we watched. So stop the fighting, I am going to get a nurse for each of you because you are so full of testosterone you don't know what to do with yourselves." Her speech stunned the men into silence and she waved two nurses over, they went to grab their kits before coming back to patch the men up.
Barely anybody spoke for the next 2 hours while Dr Whale worked on Emma. They all just sat in the waiting room, including Regina, Zelena, Henry, Red, Granny and surprisingly, Leroy all of whom had been called by Snow and filled in on the situation. Quite a few people had come by and dropped off get well soon gifts and concerned messages. Many people in town were concerned about their sheriff and savior.
When Dr. Whale finally came through the sliding door into the waiting room, everybody jumped up.
"Calm down. She is fine, she was just dehydrated and malnourished. We set her up on an IV and a feeding tube so it should have helped her already but it hasn't."
"What do you mean it hasn't?" Regina demanded.
"Well these things usually work in the first hour, we at least see a little improvement and typically the patient will wake up. But Emma hasn't woken up yet." Whale looked a little afraid that somebody in the room might attack him.
"And the babies?" Henry asked anxiously.
"That's another slightly strange thing. They seem to be in fantastic health, I couldn't see a single thing wrong with them. Since the fetuses just take what they need from their mother, it seems that Emma ate and drank just enough for them without taking in anything for herself." Everybody relaxed just slightly when they heard the news.
"Well when can we see her?" Snow asked.
"I guess you ca-" Whale was cut off by a sudden frantic beeping from the direction they took Emma. He took off in that direction with everybody hot on his heels. Some nurses tried to block them but Regina flicked her wrist and transported hem outside the building. They surged towards the mass of hospital staff surrounding Emma. Her heart rate was through the roof and she was shaking violently, her eyes slightly open and rolled into the back of her head.
"No! You all need to get out and let me work!" Whale demanded.
"Not a chance." David stated as he and everybody else tried to get a clear view. Hook was the first to break through he mass of nurses and grab Emma's hand. The instant their skin touched she stopped shaking, her heart rate returned to normal and her eyes rolled back and closed.
They were left in an eerie silence, everybody staring at Killian and Emma's hand in his. Doctor Whale ripped a freshly printed piece of paper off a nearby machine and flicked his eyes over the reading and back to Emma, then to Hook and their joined hands.
"You stay right there. Do not let go of her." He demanded and ran off back through the door and deeper into the hospital, grumbling something about 'goddamn magic, I'm trying to be a practice medicine here.'
Killian brought Emma's hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on her knuckles, not caring about his audience. "Never again in a billion lifetimes." He whispered.