The Recreant - Part Four
Here’s the latest installment of my story which is going to delve deeper into the mystery and possible motive behind the attack - including the first little clue to the suspect.
From the beginning on Tumblr: Part One Part Two Part Three
Tuesday, 7:31am
After finding herself spending the night in an uncomfortable wooden armchair with no back support and little or no padding under her tailbone, Emma really hadn’t slept. She’d dozed off a couple of times out of sheer exhaustion, but every time either noise or a bustle of activity would stir her from her semi-conscious sleep state. It wasn’t that she was unappreciative of the fact Whale had allowed her to remain at Killian’s bedside (even if she had threatened him with bodily harm if he hadn’t. Well, not exactly…). Thankfully, the doctor had been rather understanding and even a bit more cooperative than she’d expected so she hadn’t needed to resort to threats – not that the thought wouldn’t have crossed her mind. In truth, she’d simply spent most of the night just watching her husband. Watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. Watching for any little flutter of his eyelids or twitch of a finger.
She hadn’t really expected anything since it had been less than twenty four hours since he was attacked. She knew that he’d wake when he was ready. Considering his history, this almost certainly wasn’t his first concussion and probably not his first skull fracture either. Hell, she’d even contributed to the toll a couple of times – a compass to the temple back in the Enchanted Forest and whatever object she’d struck him with in New York City. She couldn’t really remember what she’d picked up back then to strike him when he’d made his attempt to kill Rumplestiltskin in the lobby of Neal’s apartment building. Of course, back then he’d been a very different person and someone had to smack the smugness out of him. Well, at least his color looked somewhat better today – with the notable exception of the darkening bruises peeking from beneath the bandages on his face, but it had been a difficult road getting to this point.
There had been a few occasions during the night where his blood pressure would either spike or plummet to dangerous levels setting off a plethora of alarms on the machines that surrounded him, making his heart race or slow nearly to a stop. According to Whale, these nerve-wracking events weren’t unexpected and more occurrences would likely happen as his body fought through the trauma. He still had a long way to go to recover and there really wasn’t any way to judge how difficult that journey was going to be until he woke. Would he suffer any amnesia or lose motor function? Would he still be able to communicate? Whale had sent him for CT scans every three to four hours, but so far, he hadn’t appeared overly concerned with any of the test results or with the pattern of wavy lines that was being generated by the machine monitoring Killian’s brain activity.
And there had been some positive developments too. Thanks to Emma healing his fractured rib cage and damaged lung, he was able to breathe on his own again, so they’d removed the ventilator tube as well as the chest tube that had been protruding from his side to help restore his damaged lung. She wasn’t really sure how that would’ve worked, but she was pleased to see far less tubes and wires this morning than the previous night. Since she’d also healed the surgical incision and there was no longer a dressing to attend to on his torso, the nurses had dressed him in a more modest standard hospital gown on his last trip to Radiology – not that Killian would have been the least bit concerned about modesty. His poor face was still just a battered, bloody, black and blue mess though which disturbed her more each time she stared at it, but for now she’d leave it alone and see how it healed.
One development that she hadn’t expected though was to spot her mother and her teenaged son stepping out of the elevator on this early morning. Visiting hours in ICU didn’t start until 10am and were strictly limited to one person at a time so the perturbed expression on the duty nurse’s face was understandable and duly justified. Before there was a confrontation, Emma quickly stood up and hurried out into the corridor to intercept them, whispering a brief “It’s okay” to the nurse as she strode past the desk.
“What are you two doing here at this hour?” Emma demanded, looking straight into her mother’s face as she asked the question.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? How could it be?!?!