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jarienn972 · 7 years ago

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The Right Place - Chapter Eight

Okay, I’m slowly getting caught up on chapter posting here on Tumblr. Trying to keep up with 2 WIP fics has been a bit of a challenge and I got a little bit behind on this particular story. All 9 completed chapters can be found on AO3 and FF.net and I’ll get the 9th one up here very soon. I just don’t want to post too many chapter updates all at once.

Here are the links to the earlier chapters if anyone would like a refresher:

Prologue/Chap 1 Chap 2 Chap 3 Chap 4 Chap 5 Chap 6 Chap 7

Early Wednesday morning, Portland Medical Center

According to the clock on the wall opposite him, it was now just after midnight as Killian awoke to a somewhat familiar voice engaged in conversation with his wife. Still irritated from the breathing tube, his throat had reached annoying levels of scratchiness. The mask he was instructed to wear wasn't helping either, only making his parched lips even drier. He promptly tugged it away, letting it hang about his neck by the elastic strap while gradually opening one eye and then the other, allowing his vision to adapt to the dim light of the room. As the surroundings came into focus once again, he spied Emma and the deputy he'd been introduced to earlier standing near the doorway talking in hushed voices. He couldn't make out the majority of what they were saying but he assumed that Emma's eagle eyes would have noticed him removing the mask but she didn't appear to have spotted his stirring.

"Emma?" he managed to croak out her name in little more than a whimper, surprising him with the degree of difficulty he had uttering that one single word. What the devil had that nurse injected into his veins earlier? Thankfully, his wife had heard his weak plea, immediately halting her conversation with the deputy to attend to him.

"Killian," she smiled sweetly as she moved closer but the expression barely concealed a new veil of concern hiding behind her green eyes. He could easily read it in the way she was looking at him. "I've been a little worried about you…" Why was she fretting about him yet again? And why did he feel noticeably weaker than he had earlier when he'd given over to sleep? "You've been running a pretty nasty fever," Emma explained as though she'd read his mind yet again.

"Ah…," he replied as his mental query was answered. Fever would most certainly explain why he was feeling worse. He'd experienced more than a few feverous days and nights during his many years at sea, recalling a particularly memorable bout with scarlet fever while in Neverland. Had a certain perky fairy not found him passed out in the jungle, he might not have survived that malady but four members of his crew hadn't been as lucky as he. But fever be damned right now. He craved a swig of rum but doubted he'd be permitted even the faintest sip of any libation. He just needed something to relieve the discomfort in his throat. "Just thirsty…"

"Oh…of course… Hang on," she told him, reaching for the handle of a beige plastic pitcher on the nightstand beside him. She poured just a small amount into a paper cup and thought about handing it to him, but then changed her mind and brought the cup to his lips. She tipped it slowly so he could take small sips, drinking nearly all of it before raising his hand to push her arm away. "The nurse brought you a container of ice chips too. They might feel better on your throat…"

"Not now," he responded with a shake of his head, his eyes falling closed again as he felt a pang of nausea building, worried his stomach wouldn't be able to handle anything more.

"Its okay. We can get more anytime if these ones melt." Her statement struck him as odd – not due to the subject, but rather her delivery. Was she disappointed that he'd refused?

"Later then," he promised, replying with the best cheeky grin he could muster and however ridiculous he may have looked, his effort did provide the desired effect of lightening her spirits.

"Now that you're awake, do you think you feel up to looking at some photos that Deputy McCallen put together? He'd like to try and narrow down the description of the boat you were on." Killian nodded and nearly responded with an 'Aye' but stopped himself, reminding himself that in this land, he wasn't known as a pirate captain. Here he was officially Deputy Sheriff Killian Jones, colleague to this young man who was working diligently to locate those who'd left a fellow deputy to perish.

"There are just a few here," McCallen jumped into the conversation. "I pulled up some that that most closely matched the brief description you gave us earlier." The deputy withdrew his phone from his pant pocket and tapped the screen a few times to open the slideshow file he'd created and uploaded before catching a few hours of sleep. "I'll swipe through them one at a time. Stop me if you need me to go back for another look or if you spot one that's a match."

Killian nodded his response once again while Emma took a seat on the bed next to him both to provide emotional support and to ensure that he didn't attempt to push himself. McCallen opened up the first image and turned the electronic screen toward Killian, a photograph of a standard fishing trawler displayed. He had previously indicated that the vessel wasn't a trawler but the deputy decided to use that craft to establish a baseline for comparison. The pirate immediately shook his head no which wasn't a surprise so McCallen flicked that photo away with his index finger. The next image that came up was one of a fancier cabin cruiser but again Killian signaled that it wasn't quite right, nor were the two following images. The fifth image though raised the pirate's eyebrow with instant recognition.

"That one," Killian stated, ignoring the irritation in the back of his throat to provide the deputy with as much as he could remember. "Of all the images, that one is the most similar - right down to those poles mounted at the stern." McCallen rotated his wrist to confirm which image Killian had identified, seeing that it was the sport fishing boat which had the elevated pilot cabin that had been described as well as a lower berthing area – presumably where the third man had been hiding when they'd departed Portland harbor. "I can't recall the entire moniker painted on the stern but it began with the letters D and O or maybe zero and ended with a number – 12 I believe…"

"Thank you," the deputy replied, tucking the phone away into his pocket before retrieving his trusty little notepad to add this latest piece of information to his evidence notes. "I'll update the harbormaster first thing in the morning and try to match that partial name to sport fishing boats that were in the harbor Sunday morning. It could be a long shot since it's a really popular type of boat, but we'll see where all this leads."

McCallen closed the cover on his notepad and was just about to put it away before returning to his post outside the door when Emma was reminded of the potential motive Killian told her about before the pain medication had knocked him out for approximately five hours.

"Don't put that away just yet," she advised the deputy who glanced over at her curiously. "Killian remembered something else earlier that I'd almost forgotten about until now. It was something that the man who stabbed him said to one of the others…"

"You remembered some more details about the attack?" McCallen directed his question to Killian who signaled an affirmative.

"Don't think it was ever a robbery," the pirate stated, noting a mix of confusion and confirmation on the young deputy's furrowed brow. "They wanted the shopkeeper…" He wanted to say more but since he was already pushing his feverish body to its limits, it was becoming quite an effort just summoning the energy to keep his drooping eyelids open. Sleep reclaimed him before he could complete the statement.

"What did your husband mean by that?" McCallen wondered as Emma moved off of the bed so she wouldn't disturb Killian, joining McCallen near the door.

"He had a bit of a nightmare earlier," she whispered. "His mind keeps replaying the events and while I obviously don't know all of what he experienced, I listened while he talked about it. He said that while he was still partially conscious, he overheard the man who stabbed him scolding the other two for not bringing Ms. Scott out there. He thinks they were trying to frighten her which makes it pretty likely that robbery was never the motive. Something else is going on behind this."

"I think we'll be needing to talk to Jean Scott again in the morning. Why don't you try to get some sleep like your son over there?" McCallen gestured toward Henry who was sleeping almost as soundly as his stepfather on a narrow cot that an orderly had brought in nearly an hour ago. Emma wasn't sure why it had been placed in the room, but they fully intended to make use of it. "We can't do much at this hour," the deputy continued as he scribbled a few last words onto the notepad before it was returned to the safety of his shirt pocket along with his ballpoint pen. "I'll be right outside the door if you need me, and don't worry – I've already spoken to both of the nurses on duty tonight so I can assure you that no one who isn't authorized to enter this room will bother you."

"So, you were the reason that they brought that cot in here? I don't know what it took to convince them to let Henry and me stay here tonight but I certainly appreciate it. Thank you."

"I'm not going to say that they were especially happy about it, but I explained very politely that you and your husband were both members of the law enforcement community and since this is still an open attempted murder case, having you and your family all here under our protection is far easier for all of us. I can be a hard nose too when I need to be."

"Well, it does take a huge burden off of me for tonight at least. One of our family members is going to drive down later this morning to pick up my son and take him back home. I don't want him to miss too much school and it's looking like Killian will be here for at least a few more days. I know he'd rather be here, but…" Her thought trailed off as she glanced over at her son.

"He seems like a pretty good kid," McCallen smiled. "This has got to be a lot to deal with for him…"

"He's definitely a good kid, but he's as stubborn as I am sometimes. Yes, it has been a little difficult for him to deal with but at times it feels like just another day at the office…" Emma sighed which inevitably led to a wide-mouthed yawn that she couldn't stop.

"I think I really need to visit this Storybrooke of yours," McCallen laughed, "but I'll be sure to make my travel plans after you've gotten some sleep, Sheriff. I'm gonna head back to my post now. See you in a few hours."

It wasn't quite sunrise when Emma opened her eyes but there was enough light poking through and around the drawn vertical blinds on the nearly floor to ceiling window that she could easily make out the still soundly sleeping form of her son on the cot to her right. She couldn't see the position of the hands on the wall clock so she glanced over at her phone resting on the nightstand to learn that it was currently 5:14am. Grimacing as she stretched and pulled herself out of the cloud of slumber, she couldn't help but snicker at the position she'd managed to get herself into. At some point during the night, she'd apparently rotated the chair enough to lean back and prop her feet up on the side of Killian's bed which must have seemed like a good idea to her at the time. Her back now crackled in protest to any attempt to straighten her spine.

As she lowered her sock covered feet to the floor, she tried not to disturb her husband, but she jostled the mattress just enough to jar him awake. She could see his semi-lucid mind struggling to remember where he was for a few seconds as his eyelids parted. Emma noticed that he was stirring and pushed through her own temporary aches to lean closer to him, running her fingers through his dark matted hair as she tried to persuade him to go back to sleep.

"It's really early," she whispered into his right ear as she toyed with a stray tendril that curled across his temple. "Regina won't be here for hours so just try to get some more sleep."

"It's alright, Love," he replied as the fogginess gradually cleared, reminding him that he was now beginning day four in a Portland hospital room. "Just takes a moment for my head to clear and I'll be fine…" As he became increasingly coherent, he realized that the cumbersome mask no longer hung from its elastic straps around his neck, replaced instead with a thin transparent plastic tube resting against his face which was delivering oxygen directly into his nostrils. But even without the annoyance of the mask, he found the aggravation of his irritated and parched throat persisting. He knew he could ask for his wife's assistance to reach the cup of water setting atop the rolling table that stretched above his legs but he'd grown weary of feeling like a helpless invalid. He needed to do this for himself.

She felt him lean forward, initially believing that he was shifting to a more comfortable position, but as his gaze locked onto the paper cup just inches in front of him, she started to open her mouth to offer her help. No words managed to come out though when his body shuddered abruptly into a fit of coughing spasms. His hand, still outstretched toward the cup of water, slammed against the table instead which upended it causing the contents to spill across the tabletop and drip onto the bed. Emma swiftly pushed the table away and moved over to sit next to him on the bed, holding him tightly as the coughing evolved into dry heaves. She didn't release her embrace until the spasms subsided while imploring him to try to take deep breaths. He tried to comply, but the uncomfortable burning in his chest was a constant warning that even the seemingly simple act of breathing was still an agonizing task.

"Bloody hell…," he wheezed, taking in rapid, shallow gasps of air until he could relax once again.

"I would have gotten that for you, you know…," she admonished his stubborn streak as she retrieved her own bottle of water from the nightstand and removed the cap. "Here – take some of mine until we get this cleaned up." His hand still shaking too much to hold onto the plastic bottle himself, she brought it to his lips for him, allowing him to take a few swallows to appease the fire in his throat.

"Thank you…," he sighed as his weary body shrank back against the mattress and pillows. "I was hoping to manage such a simple task by myself, but clearly I'm too clumsy for that yet…"

"Killian, you've barely been conscious for twelve hours. You've got to give yourself some time to heal and let us help you. No one is going to think anything less of you for asking and besides, what just happened had nothing to do with you being clumsy. Your body involuntarily started a fit of coughing that you couldn't control. You've got to stop being so hard on yourself… None of this is your fault."

"It's just that the sooner I can do these simple tasks for myself, the sooner I can get out of here…"

"And that time will come soon enough," she assured him. "There's no need to rush things. My dad is taking care of the station. Regina is coming to get Henry and I'll be right here with you until you're strong enough to make the trip home and then if you want me to, I can heal all of those lingering injuries for you."

"I guess right now I'll just have to settle for holding you?" He scooted his hips slightly to his left, then patted the narrow open space on the mattress as invitation for her to slide closer. "You've looked so uncomfortable in that chair…"

"And you think that squeezing both of us onto this tiny bed is better?" she giggled, glad to see his playful side emerging again.

"I'm willing to try…" And there was the smile she couldn't resist – the sly, sexy, sweet and genuine Killian Jones unencumbered by his own defensive walls and suddenly she found herself ridiculously blushing at the mere thought of sharing a bed with her own damned husband. It didn't matter that he still had a long way to go to fully recover, he had her grinning like a fool again and that was all that mattered.

#cs ff #cs fanfic #cs fan fiction #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfiction #the right place

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