Come Back to Me: a grintson au!fic [part 5]
Title: Come Back to Me
Author: C.
Pairing: Rupert/Emma
Summary: Expecting the absolute worst when she saw a few members of the staff crowded around his bedside blocking him from her view, she hastened to the other side, only to be met with a ghastly sight and have all her fears confirmed.
A/N: So as kind of a mirror reflection of the second chapter, this penultimate one is set in only the present. Hope you like!
Philadelphia, 1865
Emma chewed on her lower lip in indecision as she stood outside the entry to the hospital.
It had been two days since her last disastrous visit, and even though she was still a bit angry with Rupert for what he’d said, after a few days of nothing but her own thoughts to plague her, she had slowly come to understand how he might have felt pressured by her constant presence and reminders of a past he may never regain. What she couldn’t do was go any longer without checking up on him.
Hesitating only a few feet away from the towering white gate, she was once again reminded of the look on his face during his outburst. The mental image made her cringe, and she considered-not for the first time in the past fifteen minutes- that maybe she should have sent Louise to find out for her. Deciding that was probably best, she turned to leave-this time for real. As she walked down the short dirt path and tried to think of how to persuade Louise to come without revealing the awkward details of her last ‘conversation’ with Rupert, she was suddenly jerked out of her musings by a loud, irritated voice.
“Well?” the driver growled out at her from his perch on the hackney, “Are yeh stayin’ or going, missy? I’ve got better things to do than wait around for you to make up yer mind.” Emma automatically bristled at his rude tone and was about to calmly remind him that that was precisely what she was paying him for, when she found that her ill-humor had elected to make her respond in a much more childish fashion instead.
The man let out an indignant yelp and leaned precariously in his seat when she flung his payment over his head and into the nearby bushes.
“Hey!”
“There,” she said through gritted teeth, “You’re free to go now!” The man glared at her retreating back as he scrambled down to look for the discarded coin, and Emma chuckled quietly to herself at the sound of rustling leaves and muffled cursing behind her.
Suddenly feeling her mood turn in a much more positive direction, she headed back towards the building entrance with a fresh sense of determination giving her the confidence to sail past the sentry at the gate and head down the long corridor.
The closer she came to Rupert’s ward, though, the more her bravado gradually started to wear off. Her purposeful strides of just a few minutes ago slowed to short, uncertain steps as his hall came into view. All of her misgivings from before rushed to the forefront of her mind and she wondered if it was too late to just turn around and go back home, unnoticed.
“Miss Watson!” a voice called out behind her.
Apparently it was.
Turning to see the young nurse that worked regularly in Rupert’s ward laden with a stack of fresh towels, she let out a weak smile.
“Lottie, how nice to see you. Do you need any help with that?” she asked kindly, gesturing toward the tall burden she was carrying. The girl waved away the offer and gave her a sympathetic smile.
“We were all wondering when you’d come back. I’ll bet Mr. Grint is pleased. I’m sure he’ll improve much faster now with you here.” Emma grinned ruefully, thinking nothing was probably further from the truth with the way she had left things with him.
“I’m sure he’ll be-” she stopped mid-sentence when she picked up on something the young girl said. “Wait, what do you mean ‘now’? When I saw him on Monday he was perfectly fine.” Her stomach twisted nervously at the thought of his recovery regressing like so many of the other patients. “Has something happened?”
Lottie’s eyes widened at the question.
“You haven’t been to see him yet?” she asked timidly, looking very much like the reluctant bearer of bad news. Emma’s head started to pound with all the horrible scenarios that invaded her mind and she hurriedly excused herself as she rushed through the doorway. Moving as fast as her cumbersome skirts would allow, she raced towards the back of the ward where his bed was. Expecting the absolute worst when she saw a few members of the staff crowded around his bedside blocking him from her view, she hastened to the other side, only to be met with a ghastly sight and have all her fears confirmed.
At first she couldn’t seem to focus on anything past all the crimson stained sheets. After getting over the initial shock of the sight of so much blood, she tightened her hands into fists and mentally steeled herself against the nausea as she tried to discern what exactly was happening. Dr. Harmon appeared to be flooding some liquid solution into the wound on Rupert’s side with a syringe, flushing out what seemed to be endless streams of blood. Two nurses had been tasked with keeping Rupert held down, but after a few minutes of the Doctor’s ministrations, there seemed to be no fight left in him as he passed in and out of consciousness, moaning weakly in pain.
As much as the sight of Rupert bloodied, pale and too weak to even protest made her want to run in the other direction, she stayed where she was, wondering at how things seemed to have gone so wrong in such a short period of time. She kept to the side, loathe to get in their way and alert them to the fact that she probably shouldn’t be there at the moment; the only thing worse than witnessing this whole procedure being the prospect of waiting outside while it happened.
Finally, the bleeding seemed to ebb, and Dr. Harmon pressed some clean batting against the swelling sore and quickly wrapped a bandage around Rupert’s side while the nurses helped maneuver his torso upwards. Seeing that he was in no condition to mess up the bandage and undo all their work, they started to clean away the mess with an efficiency borne of endless practice.
Just as the nurses started clearing out, Dr. Harmon seemed to finally notice her silent hovering presence.
“Miss? I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time. Corporal Grint is in no condition to visit today. Perhaps in a few days-” he broke off at the fierce glare she suddenly pinned on him, and unconsciously leaned away from her.
“I’m not leaving him again,” she ground out decisively. The doctor made to argue, but stopped himself when he saw the grim, resolute line of her mouth. A good soldier knew when to surrender.
He was a good soldier.
Letting out a resigned sigh, he walked over to the wash basin near where she was standing and rinsed his hands clean of the residual blood smears.
“What happened, Doctor?” she asked him in a hushed tone, relaxing her uncompromising posture once she realized he wasn’t going to send her away. “I was here only a few days ago and he was fine when I left. How could something have gone wrong in that time?” The older man shook his head tiredly, knowing all too well that a few days was plenty of time for things to go utterly wrong.
“The infection spread from the wound in his side,” he explained calmly. “He’s been in a fever for the past forty-eight hours. If he was fine when you left two days ago, he probably succumbed very shortly afterwards.”
Emma tried to take a deep, fortifying breath, but the ache in her chest seemed to constrict her lungs at the thought of Rupert becoming bedridden so shortly after she left on such bad terms. What if she had given into her earlier misgivings and come back much later? How could she live with herself, or at all, if the last words between them had been in anger and frustration? The countless what-ifs tormented her, wracking her body with wave after wave of guilt. Seeming to sense the troubled turn of her thoughts, Dr. Harmon decided to offer her some distraction.
“If you really plan to stay, there are perhaps a few things you could do for him. If you wouldn’t mind?”
Coming to attention quickly at the prospect of being even remotely useful, she agreed immediately.
“Yes, yes of course. I’ll do whatever I can.” He nodded in approval and ushered her around the bedside, describing to her how to help keep him cool with a dampened cloth and to make sure his bandages kept in place. Once she understood what was expected, he left to check up on the other patients, leaving her alone with only an all-consuming focus on the task at hand to keep her company.
***
Rupert wasn’t sure of the exact moment he felt the stirrings of wakefulness, only that he hoped the cool sensations that were slowly easing him out of his raging fever would never stop. A feeling of relief like none he’d ever known swept through him, helping to alleviate the tension knotted deep within the muscles of his body.
With his eyes still closed, he became aware that the soothing motions were someone’s hands on his forehead, the other pressing a damp cloth to his throat. Some nurse, he assumed in his mind. Probably that blonde one that seemed to always be at his side, he thought tiredly. Not that she hadn’t been anything other than friendly and attentive, if a bit too much at times, but a nagging voice in his head had already apparently compared her to some indistinct figure and found her lacking. It was hard to even feign interest when something in his whole being rejected the notion.
He felt an itch in his side and made to move the tightly wrapped bandage when a gentle but firm grasp stopped him, a familiar voice breaking the silence.
“Oh, don’t do that.”
His eyes snapped open in surprise, and he was thoroughly shocked to see Emma sitting there next to him, pushing his hands away and checking the wrappings around his waist. He could see now that it was sometime in the middle of the night, one of the few candles that were lit at his bed stand and the snores of the other patients filling the ward. The soft glow of the light flickered across her down-turned face, throwing her features into sharp relief. He could see the worried crease in her brow as she looked over his injury, and wondered if this was just another fever-induced dream.
There was, after all, no other explanation for why she would be here caring for him into the late hours of the night after the way he’d treated her. He hadn’t seen her in days, and was just now coming to appreciate how much he had missed seeing her face. Settling back into his previous position, he stared up at her, hardly daring to blink lest he wake up without her there.
“What are you doing here?” he finally managed to ask, his voice low and rough with disuse of the past few days. She looked up at him, an uncertain look on her face.
“What do you mean? Where else should I be?” He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, a bitter taste permeating throughout his mouth as he remembered with vivid detail the last time he’d seen her.
“After what I said, I didn’t think I’d see you again.” Amazingly, she smiled at him, the tentative curve of her mouth making his heart pound with a reckless longing for something he couldn't remember, but desperately wanted to. She took up the cloth again, dipping it into the basin and wringing it out before pressing it carefully to his brow.
“It’ll take more than that to get rid of me, I assure you,” she said nonchalantly, a teasing hint in her tone. Rupert’s gut twisted painfully at her forgiving attitude, almost wishing she would yell at him or make him pay for being so horrible. Why wasn't she furious with him? Unless this was just all a dream? Rationalizing that that made much more sense, he visibly relaxed and focused on just savoring her presence for however long it lasted.
They sank into a comfortable silence while she continued to carefully press the damp cloth against his neck and upper chest, the calming strokes lulling him into a restful stillness.
"I don't deserve you," he remarked quietly after a few minutes of her ministrations. He saw her hand falter for a moment, and the start of a frown make its way across her mouth.
"Don't say that," she said firmly. "It's not at all true. Now hush." Far from keeping quiet, he continued onward, unsure if it was the idea that this was all a dream making him weak enough to confess, or the desperate hope that it wasn't making him brave enough to say what he was really feeling.
"It is true," he insisted stubbornly, "I never should have said those things to you. I’m sorrier than I can ever say."
"I'm sorry too," she said after a moment, her voice thick with emotion. "I should have been helping you heal, not pressuring you all that time." He swallowed hard.
"I just don’t want to disappoint you. I don’t think I could bear it." Emma looked genuinely surprised at his words.
"What?"
"I don't want you to waste your time on me," he explained. "I don't know if I'll ever be ‘him’ again, and if you don't cut your losses now, I'm afraid you'll just hate me later on." The reference to some other version of himself felt strange to say, but the catharsis of finally telling her what he was scared of more than outweighed the awkwardness of it.
"Rupert, I-" she broke off and swallowed nervously. It wasn't anything she hadn't considered herself, and yet hearing him say it out loud made her realize how impossible that very notion of it was. She could never hate him. He may not remember what their lives had been like before, but he was still Rupert deep down, and she was coming to realize that regardless of his amnesia, their lives would never go on to be the same anyways.
She had once made a promise on a crowded dock a long time ago, and she had no intention or desire to break it.
Instead of continuing what she was going to say, she set aside the cloth, slowly slipping her hand underneath the opening of his shirt to spread her palm over his heart. His breath hitched slightly at the contact, and she let it rest there for a moment, relishing the feel of his warm skin and taking comfort in the steady heartbeat. Looking him in the eye, she attempted to reassure him as well as herself.
"None of the important things have changed," she insisted softly, and he could feel the warmth of her breath brush against his cheek fleetingly.
"How can you be so sure?" he asked anxiously, the uncertainty of his future a much more frightening concept than a forgotten past. She pressed down lightly over where her palm lay.
"You still have the same heart as you did before, don't you? Everything else is just details." She could see the worry gradually fade from his expression, replaced with some other emotion she couldn't quite name.
"Emma-" he began feelingly before she interrupted him.
"Shh, just rest for now. We'll talk again tomorrow."
"You'll be here?"
"I promise," she replied solemnly, giving him a comforting smile.
The candlelight seemed to grow dimmer by the second and he was about to suggest she light another one when he realized it wasn't the candle, but his own slow descent into slumber. Before he was completely encompassed by the darkness, though, he felt a pair of soft lips brush briefly across his own, a few whispered words he couldn't quite make out carrying him over the final step back into unconsciousness.
***
It was mid morning by the time Rupert awoke to a feeling of warmth. Unlike the feverish daze he'd been in before, the source of it wasn't internal, but from the sunlight that poured through the open windows above him.
Stretching his arms gingerly, he was attempting to avoid disrupting the bandage when he suddenly jerked upright at the memory of last night. Recollections of Emma’s presence and what was said between them distracted him enough from noticing that his efforts to carefully preserve the wrappings were wasted due to his now impatient movements.
He looked around for any sign of her, but eventually gave up when he couldn’t find one. He flopped back onto his pillow, letting out a dejected groan as he shut his eyes closed. Of course she wasn’t there, he mentally berated himself. It had been a dream. Things that were too good to be true usually were. He threw his arm over his eyes, the comforting sunlight of just a moment ago now an unwelcome reminder that another day had passed without her.
The sounds of other patients and staff carrying on with their day made him want to bury his head in a pillow to block off the noise. The fact that everyone else seemed perfectly fine when he was so miserable made him unaccountably irritable. He let out an aggravated sigh.
“Always so cranky in the morning, ‘e is.” Rupert opened one eye at being addressed and immediately sat up at seeing one of the younger nurses standing with Emma at the foot of his bed. They were both carrying various items and giving him identical smirks.
“It seems you’re much more agreeable when you’re under a debilitating fever,” Emma added lightly as she set her array of things on the side table and pulled up a chair to sit next to him. Her allusion to the night before put his frazzled mind at ease, feeling confident that it had in fact happened, and not just in his mind. She gestured for him to lie back and helped him undo the buttons on his shirt so she could see the state of his bandages.
“Probably makes you wonder why you’d want me to get well at all, then,” he replied sardonically after the other nurse had moved on to another bed and Emma worked on undoing the bindings around his wound. She grinned, but didn’t look away from her task.
“Well, it’s hardly sporting to have a proper argument with a man while he’s bedridden.”
“That’s what I have to look forward to when I’m better?” he asked doubtfully, a teasing smile gracing his lips.
“Among other things,” she laughed as she pulled away the last stretch of his old dressings. Although the words were spoken in the most circumspect manner, when her fingers brushed against the sensitive bare skin of his side at the same time, he felt a shock of awareness pass through him with alarming force.
As if also realizing the provocative implication of her words, she pulled her hand away quickly and looked up at him, eyes wide. A dark flush crept up her face as she stumbled over her next few words.
"I... I mean... that is to say..."
She was saved any further embarassment as the other nurse she had come in with came back over towards the bed, interrupting their conversation.
"How is everything?" she asked brightly, setting down a few folded linens onto the bed. Emma cleared her throat awkwardly and managed to respond somewhat normally, but the younger woman's brows furrowed anyways as she took in Emma's flushed cheeks and Rupert's unnaturally tense posture. Sensing the underlying currents, she grinned knowingly and quickly made up an excuse to leave them alone.
"Miss Watson, I was just about to go fetch Corporal Grint's breakfast. Can I bring you something too? Coffee? Or some tea perhaps?"
Emma opened her mouth to decline, never having grown accustomed to the bitter taste of either one, but surprisingly Rupert answered for her.
"Actually, she prefers hot chocolate," he commented casually. A devious grin broke out across the nurse's face at that tidbit.
"Ah, a sweet tooth I see. For something other than redheads." Emma let out a mortified gasp of protest, but Lottie bounced away with a cheeky wink before she could say anything.
If possible, she blushed even harder and busied herself with unwinding a fresh roll of bandages. Trying desperately to find something to break the silence, a question suddenly dawned on her and it took every ounce of self-control for her not to bombard him with a barrage of inquiries.
"How..." she trailed off a bit as he looked up at her hesitant tone and she tried to force herself to stay relatively calm. "How did you know that?" He looked confused.
"Know what?"
"That I prefer hot chocolate? I've never mentioned it before." He looked taken aback, and her mind started racing through all the times that she might have mentioned it, rushing to try and place at what point his memory might possibly be coming back. Her excitement dimmed somewhat as she thought harder and harder to when it might have ever come up. When had they ever discussed breakfast habits before? They'd never shared proper meals together when they were back in England due to the hidden nature of their relationship, and during the six-week voyage across the Atlantic when they had, rations had only allowed for passengers to have water. After a long moment, she realized that she hadn't just failed to mention it after his accident, but... ever.
She noticed then that Rupert's ears had reddened considerably, and he was now sporting an uncharacteristically embarassed grin. She gave him an expectant look, and he cleared his throat nervously.
"Uhm... Well it was when I first woke up and you kissed me," he explained in a rush. "I could taste it on your lips." Emma stared at him blankly for a moment, the most curious revelation coming over her. In all the time that she'd known him, all the time they'd been together, she had never kissed him in the morning after drinking her customary cup of hot chocolate like she had the morning he'd first woken up from his coma.
It struck her that this small part of her everyday life was something she'd never shared with the old Rupert, and although she expected that thought to sadden her, she could only feel a fluttering of hope unfurl in her chest at the fact that this Rupert had discovered something new about her for himself.
Her heartbeat fell into a heavy pounding rhythm, a pace she had come to associate over the years with being near Rupert, and smiled up at him.
She'd been right. Nothing important had changed.