#Return to Me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

stubblesandwich · 6 months

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Return To Me - Chapter 4

A/N: It was requested I post this here, as well, so here ya go! (Sorry if I double tagged anyone.) I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thank you endlessly to anyone still following this story. You have all my love.

Summary: Emma Swan is dying. Her last remaining hope is a heart-transplant, and those aren't easy to come by. But, as luck would have it, fate finds her worthy, and on a stormy autumn night, Emma is given a second chance at life.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Boston hospital, Killian Jones has been devastated by the sudden loss of his wife.

Inspired by the 2000 film of the same title with Minnie Driver and David Duchovny. Find on A03 here

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Chapter Four - Don't Get Around Much Anymore

Three Weeks Post-Op

Emma had been called a cynic plenty of times in her life. As it turned out, being pushed through the foster system for a decade and a half hadn’t exactly turned her into a beaming optimist. Like most cynics, she claimed she was actually a realist. She planned for the worst, because things tended to not work out that great for her, and hoped for the best. Sometimes she was pleasantly surprised.

But in the litany of potential outcomes Emma had been preparing herself for, a new heart had never actually made the list. It was akin to winning the lottery, in her mind. Life had not been particularly kind to her. Yet, she had always taken her blows in stride, and she never took handouts. And the prospect of finally making it to the top of the transplant list at the age of twenty-six, after almost a decade of waiting, felt like a handout from life.

Emma Swan had never been one to sit around waiting for handouts.

There were other things she had prepared herself for. Increasing the handful of pills she took each day to keep her body from failing on her any faster. Moving from her full time job and supporting herself completely on her own to working part time, then very part time, to not at all. Getting on a government disability program. Each new punch to the gut from life she took in stride, as best she could.

And through it all, righting her each and every time she stumbled, were David and Mary Margaret. They were some of the best, most genuine and caring people ever to be placed on planet earth. She didn't deserve them—there was a small, cruel voice in the back of her head that affirmed this for her every day. But they just kept showing up for her, and they wouldn’t leave, and they wouldn’t let her quit.

As it turned out, after the first week, getting a whole new vital organ sewn into her chest wasn’t as bad as she had thought it would be. By the third week, the pain was starting to subside, transitioning into a residual soreness, and her biggest struggle currently was not clawing at her incision every time it itched. When the skin itself didn’t feel like an odd mixture of both tight and numb, it felt ablaze with itchiness. It was all she could do not to scratch at it. (Every time she did, Mary Margaret would bark at her to stop it, or David would throw a random item in her direction. Most recently, it had been a box of tissues that had narrowly missed her head, and he threatened to get an extendable fly swatter to swat her with, as needed.)

For the first time in her life, Emma was well and truly doted upon. She had family members who inarguably refused to leave her side. That is, of course, until Mary Margaret was forcibly removed by way of her impending school year start.

She’d had almost a month left of her summer break when Emma had had her operation, and she had been able to push almost all of her classroom prep off until the very last minute. David helped her ready her room when he could, but Emma knew her friend was fraying at the seams from trying to do so much in such a short span of time. Mary Margaret had a handful of vacation days, but she hoarded them like a dragon for true emergencies, and worried constantly that if her students started off the school year with a substitute teacher, they would just end up watching movies all day instead of actually learning something.

This was their last weekend before the new school year started and Mary Margaret went back to working full days. Emma was lounging on the couch, dozing, lidded eyes half focused on the episode of Friends quietly playing on the living room TV. She and Mary Margaret had just finished putting together twenty-five “Welcome back!” folders for her incoming students, as well as a second set for their parents.

“Why couldn't they have been ready for you to have the surgery during the start of summer?” Mary Margaret lamented, as she plopped her last folder down on the pile. “I would have had three months off to be here with you!”

David glanced over at them from the pile of pans he was washing at the kitchen sink and gave his wife an odd look. “You do realize you're wishing the woman whose heart Emma has now had died earlier in the year instead of later, right?”

Mary Margaret looked aghast. “No! Of course I don’t wish that. I didn't... I just meant...”

David raised his eyebrows at her, but by now he was smiling gently at his wife. Mary Margaret huffed. A slightly awkward silence settled between the three of them. The fact that another person was dead and Emma was still alive because of it was something they all knew but typically left unsaid. David had said it out loud, and now the strangeness of that fact settled over them all heavily.

“I wonder what she was like,” Emma murmured from her spot on the couch, puncturing the silence. “They couldn't tell me much. Well, couldn't or wouldn't, not sure which. All they said was that she was older than me, but not by too much, and in great health. Obviously we had to have the same blood type. But they couldn't tell me how she died, just that it didn't affect her heart.”

“Probably head trauma,” David said sagely. Emma winced at the thought, but he was likely right. He had seen enough as an officer to know. Especially working night shifts, when the majority of car accidents took place in the area.

“That sounds awful,” Mary Margaret said quietly.

“I'd never say I was glad someone else died,” David said after a while. “But I'm glad Emma's still with us.” The fact that these things were one in the same went unsaid. Mary Margaret reached over and squeezed Emma’s arm in gentle agreement with her husband. Emma glanced over at her and offered her sister-in-law a small smile, trying to convey to her without having to say it aloud that it was okay.

But in truth, Emma was uncomfortable. It just made her feel so strange, knowing that for every happy moment she now got to have here with her family, someone out there was living new moments, making new memories, without their own loved one to share them with. Someone out there was grieving a tremendous loss—had lost a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife. The woman whose heart Emma now had could have been any one of those things, or all of them at once. She was presumably loved, adored, missed dearly. And Emma just didn’t know what to do with that information, how to carry these feelings with grace and proper gratitude. Often they \manifested in the form of guilt. David and Mary Margaret were quick to talk her out of that whenever it came up. That woman’s death meant something, they assured her. Part of her lives on, and part of her saved a life. That has to mean something to her family, right?

They were right, Emma knew. David saw so much meaningless death in his line of work that she inherently believed him when he told her that it was a gift, her being able to use someone else’s heart. (She didn’t have the courage to ask him how he would feel about any of Mary Margaret’s vital organs going to someone else, if she died.) It was a guilt she carried nonetheless, and she carried it poorly. It was an awkward shape, this guilt, and heavy, and she didn’t know how to carry it well. It all too often made her fumble.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she said Mary Margaret looked over at her sharply, instantly suspicious that Emma was still feeling off from the previous conversation, but Emma was quick to wave away her worry. “I’m fine,” she assured her. “Really. I just feel grimy, and I don’t want to taint the epicness of Last Dinner with my stink.” This was their last evening—Last Dinner—before Mary Margaret returned to work full time, and they were marking the occasion with David’s mother’s famous lasagna recipe, a favorite from David and Emma’s semi-shared childhood (and coincidentally the only meal David really knew how to make, but that was beside the point).

“I second the vote for a shower,” David said, raising his hand in mock vote.

“You would,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes that David didn’t even need to see to know was there. Mary Margaret started to rise with her, as if about to help her to her feet. “Relax, woman,” Emma said, putting her hand on her friend’s shoulder gently to stop her. “I’ve got it. I’m not a complete invalid.”

“Jury’s still out,” came David’s response.

Emma looked at Mary Margaret, half expecting her to admonish her husband, but Mary Margaret just stared up at her with poorly veiled anxiety. “I’m not!” Emma said. “Guys, it’s been almost a month.”

“Three weeks,” Mary Margaret corrected. “Since you got a new heart. Not since you got your tonsils removed.”

“Okay,” Emma said, stretching out her back a bit as she stood there, chasing a kink out between her shoulder blades. “Sure, it was a big surgery.” David scoffed from his place by the sink, and Emma shot him a warning look. “But the doctors even said I have to try to do more on my own. I think it’s safe to say that includes showering.” There was no argument from David on that one. Mary Margaret, on the other hand, looked unconvinced.

“What if you slip and fall?”

“I’ll be sure to have my Life Alert button handy,” Emma retorted wryly. “Seriously, guys, it’s okay. I can handle showering.” Before they could argue any further, Emma slipped away, locking herself in the bathroom.

“Let me know if you need any help, okay?” Mary Margaret called through the door in a singsong voice only a few moments later. Emma swore she heard the doorknob jiggle, like her friend was testing to see if it was locked or not. It was, thankfully. Emma was already halfway undressed, and the last thing she needed was for her brother to get an accidental peep show because his wife thought Emma had already gotten stuck behind the toilet and died or something. “Emma?”

Oh, my God, Emma mouthed to herself. “Thanks,” she called out. “I will!” That seemed to appease Mary Margaret. But the faint squeak of the bar stool at the kitchen island assured Emma she hadn't gone far. It was endearing, how much they worried about her. At least, that's what she told herself in the moments like this, when it was almost impossible to find even just two seconds of privacy. Sometimes, she really did feel like she was a little kid again. Only now, she was re-living a much different version of her childhood. A sweeter, kinder version wherein people actually wanted to take care of her and didn't think of her as a monumental burden.

The tub's faucet squeaked shrilly as she turned on the water. When she’d first gotten home a week ago, just that motion, gripping the handle and giving the antique metal a yank, had left her arm feeling like a limp noodle. She was doing much better now, but she still felt pathetically weak and exceptionally out of shape. At one point, long ago, she had been fairly strong. A thin child, but always scrappy. Now she was a pale waif, muscles atrophied over the years as she'd gotten sicker. She vowed to herself that was going to change. Despite how frail she was, at the same time, she legitimately felt like she could take on the world now, with this new heart. She could finally breathe, take a breath fully in and out, without feeling lightheaded. That alone was a miracle.

Gingerly, she lifted her tank top up over her head. Her scar, where a surgeon had cut into muscle and bone and forcibly ripped open her sternum, stood out, an angry red slash against alabaster skin. For the first few weeks, it had been concealed by gauze. By this point, it was still tender, but her doctor encouraged her to air it out often. She even had some skin mobility exercises she was supposed to be doing daily, to help the layers of tissue beneath the scar not permanently adhere to one another. The scar itself stretched from the top of her chest, dropping down in between her breasts, all the way past her sternum bone. It was a thick, gnarled thing, aesthetically ugly; but she found herself overwhelmingly grateful for it the longer she looked at it. As ugly as it was, this scar meant she was going to live to see her next birthday.

Washing herself was still a slow, cautious process, but much easier than it had been when she’d first gotten out of the hospital. She took the time now to do her full, luxury, self care princess shower routine, something she hadn’t had the strength to do in months. The venting system in the loft's tiny bathroom was terrible, and by the time she stepped out of the shower, steam cloaked the room like a fog. The sheer dampness of the air made her cough when she inhaled. Emma didn't care; she felt amazing. It was easy to underestimate how much better a good shower could make a person feel. She felt human again, instead of the fresh-from-the-hospital, invalid goblin she’d been feeling like for the past few weeks. Humming to herself, she dried off, turbaned her wet hair, and started to dress.

David had the water running at the sink, and the apartment’s ancient radiator had kicked on next to the bathroom; when Emma finally opened the bathroom door, her brother and sister-in-law didn’t hear the faint creak of the old wood on its hinge as it started to open.

“But you love your classroom.” David was saying in a low voice. It was clear he was trying to be fairly quiet, but this felt like intruding in on a conversation that had been going on for several minutes. Possibly the whole time she’d been in the shower.

Emma didn't hear Mary Margaret sigh, but she could tell by the tone of her voice that her words had come on the end of one. “Of course I do,” she said, “And I really do miss my kids. But Emma needs me here. I can't just leave her! She just got a new heart, David. A heart. It's not like she had her wisdom teeth removed and just needs a day or two to get back on her feet.”

The aforementioned heart skipped a beat in Emma's chest. A familiar, sinking feeling of guilt settled low and heavy in Emma's stomach.

“But she will get back on her feet,” David said gently. “You know she will. She just needs time.”

“Exactly! And she needs me here to help her until she does.”

“No, she doesn't.”

“David—”

“Mary Margaret,” David interrupted lovingly. “She's going to be okay. Better than okay. This is the day we've all been waiting for, don't forget. She's getting a second chance at life here.” Unexpected tears welled in Emma's eyes at that. “And Emma knows that,” David continued. “You and I both know she's going to be chomping at the bit to get back out there. It's going to be hard enough keeping her here the six weeks it'll take for her to heal. She's not going to need our help half as much as you think she will.”

Mary Margaret started to respond, but Emma couldn't take it anymore. She took the bathroom's old doorknob in her hand and gave it a good rattle, like she had just started to open it, and the door creaked loudly as she pushed it fully open. David and Mary Margaret grew hush until Mary Margaret piped up with, "Oh, hi Emma!" a little too brightly. David noticeably busied himself with cutting the garlic bread he’d pulled out of the oven moments before. The guilt at having eavesdropped coiled in Emma's chest like a snake ready to spring, and she swallowed around the lump that had grown in her throat. “Hey,” she said, trying her best to sound normal.

“Everything go okay?” Mary Margaret asked. “No dizziness?”

“I didn’t hear the Life Alert alarm go off,” David said dryly, shooting his sister a wink.

“I feel amazing,” Emma said earnestly. “Seriously.” She sidled up to her brother and successfully bumped him out of the way, taking over the cutting of the garlic bread despite his weak protestations.

“Oh, good,” Mary Margaret breathed, and the relief was evident in her voice. She shared a glance with David, which Emma pointedly ignored, and moved to grab the stack of dishes waiting on the island so she could start setting the table.

“I was thinking,” Emma went on, “Maybe I could come help you set up your classroom later today. If you think you need the help. Or I could just come keep you company, get a change of scenery.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” David said, as he watched his wife’s expression.

“That would be great, honestly,” Mary Margaret said, but was quick to add, “As long as you’re feeling up to it.”

“I mean, as long as you don’t have me lugging around twenty-pound carts of Crayons or something,” Emma laughed, “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Do fourth graders still use crayons?” David asked, as he popped open the oven one final time and withdrew the lasagna. The cheese on top was browning and bubbling and a minute away from burnt, just the way his mother had always cooked it, and the whole thing looked wonderful.

“Not really,” Mary Margaret said with a shrug. “But it doesn’t matter. I have a big, handsome deputy to do all my heavy lifting for me.” She batted her eyes at her husband a few times, who grinned back at her.

“All right, lovebirds,” Emma said, as she clicked the salad tongs at them a few times in playful warning. “Let’s eat. I’ve got my appetite back and I’m actually starving.”

“Jeez,” David said, “You’d think she’d gotten a new stomach with the heart. She’s gonna eat us out of house and home now.”

Table set, food out, they took their respective seats. David uncorked a bottle of red wine he’d been saving for a special occasion, which Emma was definitely not allowed to have, but she told Mary Margaret to enjoy it for her.

As Mary Margaret spooned squares of lasagna onto everyone’s plate, Emma took a moment to try to find the right words to say to convey how she was feeling to these people who would seemingly do anything in the world for her. But what she wanted most is for them to get back to living their lives, too. They had put off so much for her sake, and she was more grateful than she knew how to say. But it was time to move on now, to heal, for all of them.

“I know it can suck, having such a huge surgery,” Emma started, pausing to clear her throat. “But this is different.” She glanced up at Mary Margaret, who was watching her closely. “I mean, a month ago, I was dying. I never told you guys this, but it just felt like the end. I was working on drafting a will.”

“Oh, Emma,” Mary Margaret said quietly.

“That’s so morbid,” David said.

“I know it’s stupid.” Emma toyed with the end of her napkin as she stared down at her plate. “I don’t really have anything to will to anyone. I was just going to leave anything I had to you guys.” She cleared her traitorous throat again and took a moment to blink back some tears. She needn’t have bothered; when she glanced up at her family, they were both openly tearing up as they looked at her. “Okay, stop,” she said, pointing her fork at them, “Or I’m going to lose it. Absolutely no crying in baseball.”

“Got it,” Mary Margaret said, her voice watery and absolutely unconvincing.

“Just… Thank you,” Emma said, when she finally got her voice back under control. “I don’t want to think about where I’d be without you both. From the bottom of both my hearts,” she said, with a wry little smile she couldn’t keep at bay, “Thank you.”

David chuckled, wiping at his eyes, and Mary Margaret continued to stare at her, smiling and barely holding back the floodgates. “We love you, sis,” David said, and a moment later he raised his wineglass. “To Emma’s new lease on life.” Mary Margaret’s wine glass followed, and Emma clinked her water glass with theirs.

“And Mary Margaret’s new school year,” Emma added.

“Hear, hear,” Mary Margaret agreed. “I’ll take prayers, good vibes, anything you’ve got.”

“You’re going to do great,” David assured her, as he put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her closer to kiss her cheek. “Those kids are lucky to have you.”

Dinner was splendid, and the company even better. It was the first full meal Emma was able to enjoy without feeling nauseated, which was a win in her book. She literally couldn’t think of the last time that had happened. Mary Margaret did indeed have Emma’s wine, and was perhaps a little tipsy when they later ventured out to put some finishing touches on her classroom, which just made it all the more enjoyable for Emma and David.

And as Emma settled into bed that night, for the first time in a long time, she felt well and truly good. She felt full, warm, strong, and loved. And she knew, felt sure in her bones, that this was the start of one of the best years of her life.

+++++

The funeral went as well as a funeral could--especially considering there was no actual body to bury. Milah had set it up long beforehand that all salvageable organs were to be donated to the nearest hospital at the time of her death, then the rest of her body donated to science. This made planning her funeral and memorial service a unique affair, as there was no body for a wake, no urn of ashes received. That he would receive later, whenever the hospital saw fit. So Killian honored his wife's memory the best way he could.

Everyone who had ever known her in the past few years since she and Killian had moved Stateside was crammed into a small funeral home to celebrate her life and speak well of her. Her parents were long dead, but he had managed to get his hands on some childhood photos from her aunt who still lived across the pond; a small smattering of her extended relatives had sent cards to pay their respects. But the room was filled primarily with her coworkers and friends she’d made in the few years they’d lived in Boston.

Milah had been a truly gifted photographer, both in her work and personal life, evidence of which sat neatly framed and displayed on nearly every available inch of table space in the room. All the best photos Milah had ever taken through her work had been printed and framed and displayed, tucked neatly between bouquets of flowers. One table was so long, it took up the entire back wall.

Killian had almost, almost, completely lost the last tenuous grip he had on his sanity when the wrong flowers had come in that morning. He had distinctly ordered stargazer lilies, his wife’s favorite flower, for the table arrangements. Instead, what had been delivered to him were a rainbow assortment of Gerber daisies, of all things, which he viewed on this particular day as nothing short of an abomination. As it turned out, there had been a mistake with the delivery trucks, and his order had been sent to a birthday party instead. It probably should have embarrassed him, how angry a simple mix up of flowers had made him. But as he had very little pride left, he was literally seeing red, until Robin showed up beside him, placed a hand on his shoulder, and gently steered him out the side door and outside for some fresh air. Will took over, his general belligerence a helpful and actually useful tool that day, and tried to get the flowers sorted out with minimal shouting.

As Killian stood now, gazing down at the myriad of perfect photos his wife had taken over the course of her career, he belatedly realized he had been the star of many of them, unbeknownst to him. His wife had apparently been a ninja behind her viewfinder when he wasn’t paying attention. It should have made him feel awkward, being the focal point of so many of her photographs; the last thing he wanted now was attention. And yet, he couldn’t help but smile at most of them. One of him leaning over the railing of a dock, for instance, staring pensively out at sea, squinting slightly in the light of the sun. Another of him from behind, a shadowed figure standing on the beach with his toes buried in the sand and his hands in the pockets of his shorts, staring out at the red slashed sky of an oncoming storm. He was the blurred, black clad figure in the background or at the helm in several photographs of the ships he and his brother had helped restore.

It was visible, tangible proof of how much she had loved him, how often her camera found itself pointed in his direction, focused on him. And God, if that didn’t make him miss her all the more. His heart was an open wound, and he was never going to be able to staunch the flow from it. Day by day, he felt like he was bleeding out, until soon there would be nothing left of him.

One photo, his favorite, and one that was already framed in his home, stood out prominently. His and his brother, Liam, in front of their first real score for the ship restoration foundation, a beautiful, towering piece of history in the form of a stunning antique merchant vessel. Liam’s arm was thrown over Killian’s shoulders, his face alight with absolute joy (and possibly the buzz from the beers they’d had over lunch). They were both squinting, laughing like fools at having finally pulled it off. Towering behind them, not to be overshadowed, was the ship, herself: the Jewel of the Realm. Milah had been sent by a local paper to get photos of the ship, and her new owners, as a focal point for a story on local maritime history.

Killian felt fortunate he remembered that day so well. It had felt like the best day of his entire life, at the time. Seeing his brother so elated, after everything they had endured together, had been enough to send Killian to the moon. It felt like things were finally, finally going their way. He had taken to Milah instantly, and spent the hour regaling her with the history of the ship. A merchant ship, originally, but thought to have been used for piracy at one point. He leaned heavily into the implications of the latter fact, as he felt—rightly so—that it added intrigue, and Milah had been enamored with the Jewel. He'd joked that day about renaming it the Jolly Roger, much to his brother's chagrin. She’d had other work to get to that day, so she hadn’t stayed long, but she’d given him her business card, which he still carried in his wallet. Liam had been killed shortly after, on one of his last missions with the Royal Navy before his scheduled retirement. Everything had changed, then. But Killian had always felt especially lucky that it had been Milah that day who had come to take their photo. For one short hour, she had been able to meet his brother, before Killian had lost him forever. The stars had aligned, and for one short span of time, the man who had meant the most to him and the woman who would come to mean everything to him had met, briefly. It wasn’t much, in the grand scheme of things, but to Killian, it had to be enough.

And then there were the glorious photos of the rest of the ships he had brought on through the years. He had always marveled at Milah’s skill behind a camera, her ability to find just the right angle, at just the precise time of day, to truly capture the essence of the ships he restored. Through her eyes, even the in-progress pictures never made them look like pieces of floating shit, which some of them very much were at the start of the process. She managed to make them look like hidden treasure, just waiting to be uncovered. Pieces of history waiting to be lovingly restored to their former glory. That’s what he’d felt like, with her. She’d been the one to see past his flaws after the death of his brother, to see something worth loving in him, something worth restoring.

And now what was he, without her?

The frequent looks of sympathy that came his way over the course of the memorial service were one of the worst parts of the day. Each and every concerned glance that flit in Killian's direction was threaded not only with heavy condolences, but something much worse: pity. And he knew he was a pitiable sight, indeed. He was dressed well enough, in a deep black suit Milah had bought for him after his business had another big break. But, his arm with the broken collarbone was still in a sling and had no hand at the end of it. Dark circles cradled his eyes, which seemed to be permanently bloodshot these days. He had given up almost entirely on sleep.

Sleeping felt impossible, an insurmountable task despite its simplicity; the bed was too big, too cold, and too empty when he was the only one in it. He tried—really tried. Each night, he made a valiant attempt to sleep in his own bed. He'd toss, turn, and generally do a lot of staring up at his ceiling. Eventually, he resorted to Netflix. But his “recently watched” list was full of her favorite shows, episodes half finished, series just begun. It was a terrible distraction.

The first week after he arrived home from the hospital, his recliner chair in the living room had been the only place he could comfortably fall asleep with his arm in a sling. It was a lumpy, unsightly thing he had inherited from his brother (it was this reason and this reason alone his wife had allowed him to keep it.) Milah had called it his old man chair. These days, he’d often fall asleep in the chair, wake up with a start an hour later, and make his way to the couch, where he’d try to fall back asleep, but would mostly lie awake, staring into the dark, letting his mind off its leash and letting it wander to dangerous places.

Often these thoughts centered on what he would do if he could track down the driver who had hit them head on, then fled the scene. What he would do when he found him or her varied. Sometimes, he pictured lighting him on fire. The next moment, he'd revel in the thought of running him through with a knife, watching him slowly bleed out on the floor. Or he’d take his hand from him, too. Such thoughts kept him company and carried him through until morning.

Now, with the lack of sleep and the general dissociation he felt, he often didn’t feel cemented in reality. When he looked around the room, taking in the funeral parlor, it felt like this was happening to someone else, and he was merely observing. It didn’t help that he was surrounded by a sea of people who didn't know what to say to him. The moment never came that he was spared the awkward indignity of a conversation with someone who had little else to say other than I'm sorry.

She was a lovely person.

(Each time, he bristled at the use of the past tense.)

She'll be missed.

Pity had overtaken the room, lingering like a dense fog. Everywhere he turned, his friends, her friends, co-workers, even a handful of people he had never seen before in his life, were all wearing the same expression on their faces. It transcended simple pity. It was next-level pity, flashing from their eyes and those slight down-turned corners of their mouths like a brightly-lit billboard in the night that read "YOUR LIFE DEPRESSES ME."

He couldn't blame them. He pitied himself, too, when he wasn't numb, pulled down so deep into his own despair he could no longer think straight.

At least the food was decent—or so he had been overhearing. One quick glance over at Will Scarlet in the back of the room, face stuffed with h'orderves, told him the funeral parlor's appetizers couldn't have been terrible. If there had ever been a time he appreciated his friends more, he couldn't think of it. Of all the people who had shown up to the service, Locks and Scarlet were the only two who didn't make him want to scream. Or run. Or throw a punch. All of it, all at once.

Will and Robin sat apart from the rest, in a pair of wingback armchairs in the corner of the room. Killian hadn't had a chance to speak to either of them, apart from initial hellos and quick hugs when they'd first arrived, and of course the ordeal with the flowers, but somehow, he knew without even asking they intended to stay for the entire affair, likely planning to take him out for a drink when this was all over.

What else do you do for your best friend after his wife's funeral?

All in all, it wasn’t a very hopeful affair, and too often bordered on bleak. Killian had no words in honor of Milah he wanted to share with a roomful of people who didn’t know her very well, and he didn’t trust himself to speak without breaking down. So, people ate, drank, and made a reserved and somber form of merry. They swapped stories back and forth, each offering up little pieces of the woman they had known.

Milah's parents had died years ago, and she had no siblings, so the room was occupied primarily by people she had thought of as friends. That was a nice thought, and in the coming weeks, Killian would be touched by the food, flowers, and cards that continued to arrive on his doorstep in memory of his wife.

But here, in this moment, he couldn't bring himself to find hope in anything.

+++++++

One Year Later

Was a house truly haunted if you didn’t mind the ghost?

It felt like a haunting for months after Milah’s funeral, this limbo state he found himself in, where he couldn’t bring his heart or his brain to fully comprehend that she was gone. They traded shifts in misunderstanding, his heart and brain. There were days where, logically, he understood his wife was dead. And yet, his heart still leaped at the sound of a car door shutting outside, or an imagined creak in the floorboards that sounded like her coming around the corner in the hall. Other days, his heartache was so profound, he could barely muster the strength to get out of bed. All too often, he’d forget, and for a few blissful minutes, reach for his phone to call her and ask her a question. Those were beautiful moments, the forgetting. But the remembering that followed took his breath away.

Then there were the things around the home he couldn’t bring himself to toss. Notes she’d left on the fridge, a grocery list on the table. Leftovers from her favorite meal at their favorite restaurant he couldn’t bring himself to throw away until they were fouling up the whole kitchen. Her phone was recovered from the accident and eventually made its way to him, via the detectives working the hit and run case. He went through her email drafts, texts, anything he could get his hands on that held pieces of Milah. He'd saved every voicemail she'd ever left him, had them memorized, and he'd play them when he missed her most, poking the bruise in his heart over and over until it numbed and didn't hurt so much. It all felt relatively harmless, like doing this to himself couldn’t possibly be a bad thing.

Until he found himself practically sobbing the floor of the shower one morning over a soggy clump of her hair he’d pulled from the drain.

He just couldn’t seem to pull himself together.

How do you bring yourself to purposefully excavate traces of someone from your life, after they’re gone, until it was like they weren’t even there at all, the life you shared existing only in snapshots and memories? How exactly does one get to that place, force yourself to loosen your grip on all you have left of the person you love, the person you’d give anything to see one last time? Killian couldn’t fathom it. He couldn’t picture himself ever ridding himself completely of Milah’s memory.

But he could stop leaving land mines for himself.

He’d always run a tight ship at home, in terms of cleanliness. He had never had much, by way of possessions, and wasn’t sentimental about keeping things. Now he found himself debating whether or not he should keep a note in the bathroom his wife had scrawled out for herself to remind herself to order new contacts. These were the silly, useless things he stared at for minutes on end, debating what to do with. This little scrap of her pretty handwriting he recognized and loved. The thought of it winding up in a landfill somewhere made him ill.

Eventually, he gathered these random scraps and pieces of her he’d found (except the clump of hair from the drain—that one did make it into the waste bin, thankfully) and gently shepherded them into a large Ziploc bag, which he kept in a box on her side of the closet.

Robin and Will called often, texted even more often, and even dropped by now and again. They offered their help constantly, gladly would have helped with menial tasks like this (like throwing away scraps of paper Milah might have touched, God, he was a mess), but he turned them away each time. He just wanted to shut the world out, encase himself in a tomb of his own grief.

He hadn’t even been able to see her, to say goodbye to her, because he hadn’t been bloody conscious for it. He had no memory of Robin telling him of her death; in the week following the accident, he left a slew of traumatized nurses in his wake as people had to tell him again and again for what felt like the first time that his wife was gone.

Milah, bless her ever-loving soul, had signed herself up to be an organ donor. Of course she had. On some level, he knew this. It was marked on her driver’s license, and it was surely something they had talked about at one point. But now he resented it, resented the whole idea of it. He resented anything that didn’t allow him to see his wife one last time. One doctor had had the absolute audacity to tell Killian that he didn’t want to see his wife, anyway; the damage from the accident had been too great, the brunt of which had gone to her head, and that it was a miracle her heart was still beating enough to allow for any organ transplants. Killian, for his part, had an entirely different definition of the word “miracle”.

So he waited to receive her ashes, held a funeral without her body. But he certainly didn’t wait patiently.

He wonders sometimes what she would think of what he's become. No doubt there would be times she'd laugh at how ridiculous he was being, debating on keeping an old, wet clump of her hair like some kind of serial killer, and the subsequent guilt he felt at throwing it away, this gross little piece of her DNA.

And yet, he reminds himself that there is, oddly, more of her DNA out there somewhere. Somewhere, out in the world, a select few of her vital organs are in new bodies, presumably thriving and keeping their hosts alive and well. Presumably, there are people out there who will be forever grateful for these pieces of his wife. Actual, living pieces of her. Killian has no idea how to feel about that, truly. There will come a day, when he is able to pull himself out of this darkness that perpetually feels more crushingly inescapable by the day, that he is able to see the true and abundant beauty in it. Milah, gone, but literal parts of her living on, providing life-giving support to someone else’s body and soul. That's the true miracle, really, and something he’d know she would be proud of.

For now, in the depths of his despair, he feels annoyed, indifferent at best. Her benevolent medical and scientific donation was, for many long months, the thing standing between him and a proper burial for his wife, the thing that stood in the way of closure and him being able to say goodbye to her properly. This is the thing his mind latched onto, chooses as a target for his blame.

Closure arrives on his doorstep one afternoon, boxed and bubble wrapped, in the form of an unassuming black urn. When he finally received her ashes, half a year after her death, he knew what he would do with them, knew immediately what she would want him to do with them. But he can’t yet bring himself to say goodbye, and the urn sat above their fireplace for months. This is the moment it hits him, truly, that she is gone. This is what it takes for it to finally sink in. He spends a long time building up the courage, brick by brick, to do what he needs to do. And as what would be her 37th birthday approaches on a warm July day, he finally gathered the strength to lay his wife to rest and honor her the way she deserved.

What he doesn’t appreciate about the day, however, is the weather, which turns out to be an absolutely perfect New England summer day, which Killian very much resented.

It was almost like it was mocking him. Jabbing a bright, sunshiny finger right into his face and laughing at his grief, which still, even almost a year after the death of his wife, was still a wound that had left him hollowed. When his brother had died, suddenly and with too much life left unlived, he'd felt like the ground itself had been pulled out from under him, and he'd been left in free fall. Now, with Milah gone, it felt as if his heart had been ripped right out of his chest and crushed in front of him.

How did people live like this?

If he were truly honest with himself, Killian wasn't certain what he was doing each day could actually be called living. He was alive, sure. Most days, the only thing that kept that from being true was the unknown lurking behind the veil of death. He had his own theories, his own hopes, for what awaited in a possible afterlife, but of course, no one really knows for sure until their time comes. He couldn't be sure what would happen to him, whether or not he'd see Milah, if he died tomorrow. Hell would be dying and not being reunited with her. And that was a hell whose existence he was not quite ready to test.

The closest thing he had to his wife now was resting in his lap, ashes encased in ceramic. He had taken a small, private sailboat out to sea, sailed until there was no one else in sight, trying to find a good spot to release her ashes to the ocean she had loved so much. It had been close to two hours, now; he knew he was putting off the inevitable. If he didn’t do it now, he feared, with good reason, that he never would.

The best part about giving someone’s ashes to the sea was that there wouldn’t be one particular spot where her body would be laid to rest. The waves would take the dust of her and spread it for him, from shore to shore, just like they had taken his brother’s ashes. There would be no headstone, but the ocean itself would remind him of her, and he could visit her anytime he liked on a sea that had always brought him a sense of serenity.

Killian Jones had never believed in soul mates until he’d met Milah. And he still didn't quite believe in them, in the traditional sense. He didn't believe in a ready-made mate just waiting for him to find her. No, in his experience, life was far from ever that easy or that simple. But things had changed for him when he'd met his wife. Then, with her love, the broken pieces in him, irrevocably shattered the day his brother had died, shifted together into something that could almost be held together again. With her, he’d felt more whole than he could ever remember feeling in his life.

She had been married at the time, when they’d met. Daydreaming of leaving her terrible husband, dreams which grew in intensity with each passing day. And while she hadn't exactly left him for Killian, she may has well have. Everything had changed for her that day, too.

For while Milah had been his partner, they hadn't met each other and been perfectly content. But they had made each other stronger, in all the ways that counted. Now he believed wholeheartedly that soul mates existed. But they weren't found, ready made and prepackaged. They were made, forged through love and hard work working hand in hand.

These were the things he thought, as the gentle salted breeze ruffled his hair and brought stinging tears to his eyes. As he looked down at the urn that held the last physical piece of the woman he’d loved, would always love, was lost and adrift without.

“I love you, Milah,” he whispered to the wind. The tightness in his throat and jaw wouldn’t let him say more, but he knew he didn’t need to. She’d known how much and how fiercely he’d loved her, and he had to think that wherever she was, she still knew the hold she had on him.

He held the urn against his chest with his prosthetic hand, working to unscrew the top. The breeze calmed at just the right moment, and as he leaned over the side of the ship to release Milah to the sea she'd loved, the dust of her settled gently down into the water.

=========

gonna tag a few folks who I think might care this is up (again, sorry if I already tagged you!) @spartanguard @sunbeamsandmoonrays @caprelloidea @kmomof4 @queen-mabs-revenge @ahsagitarius @galadriel26 @t-tamm-

@lavendersoapsuds @its-imperator-furiosa @midnightswans @cigarettes-and-scotch-whisky @withheartfulloflove @captainswan-middlemist @sarahreadsff @princesseslikepirates @winterbaby89 @pirateherokillian @wordslovedreams

@hannah-mic @thecraftyartist @blackwidownat2814 @once-uponacaptain @kylalovesbabeme @swiftmicheles @emmaswanstlk @captainswanslay

@the-tones-of-wallflowers @kday426 @krystalsficpage

#captain swan #cs ff #cs fic #cs fanfic #cs au #captain swan fanfiction #return to me

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imagines-for-the-fangirls-soul · 2 months

Text

Return to Me - Chapter Twenty-Nine and A Half

Chapter Twenty-Nine and a Half: For the Better

A/N: Hello, friends! As always, Return to Me is never far from my thoughts, and I often find myself rereading chapters when I need them. And as always, I want to rewrite everything I've ever written. But, since I've put so much work into the current rewrite, I've decided to fill in some of the gaps that seem to haunt me the most. So voila, I present to you my first add-on chapter.

This chapter will follow both the reader and Poe, in the aftermath of their breakup. As I have reread this story, I feel like the absolute depression that each of them went through wasn't expressed enough, so this needed to be done. This is aggressively inspired by the TikTok edit of Waiting Room x All I Wanted.

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader Word Count: 3.6k Synopsis: Somehow, life goes on after the painful breakup, and Poe and the reader struggle to find their footing in this new world.

Tags: @xeniarocks, @too-many-baes, @idocarealot, @treblebeth, @treestarrrrrrrr, @thescarletknight2014, @cspr-2, @ibikus, @mellow-f1, @mrsdaamneron, @trustme3-13, @ella-solei, @minelskede, @gleigh42, @givemethatgold, @and-claudia, @constantdisgrace, @wordsinwinters, @readingvogueonprivetdrive, @trshbb, @kaitlynw011, @ihave2muchtimeonmyhands, @fairytalesforever, @thanos-jeep, @mixedfandxms,

@pastelbunny1501, @emotionalcal, @danicalifxrnia, @getyourselfaunicorn, @spider-starry, @roserrys, @blushingwueen, @sam-wilsonnn , @commondazy, @throughparisallthroughrome, @ms-dont-care , @bubblegumcat229 , @barnesdameron , @i-hope-the-roof-flies-off , @deliriousgeek , @elisearts, @abzidabzy @lxntsxv

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

You cannot remember the last time you ate. You know you've been drinking water, but only because every hour or so, Nové is there to force it down your throat.

You have never felt this weak before. You have lived on Naboo for most of your life, but every breeze off the lakes chills you to your core. Sitting with your upcoming cabinet nearly knocks you to the ground.

You know eating will help, but you can't seem to muster up the appetite, even when your favorite foods are presented in front of you.

Your mind wanders. You try to stay in the present, listen to the information that you know will be beneficial to your reign, but you can't seem to focus on a single thought.

Well, aside from the memory of the pain on Poe's face. That never, ever leaves your mind.

The only other thought that grasps you is what your father said after you told him it was over. That you and Poe were over.

"Know it's for the better, Y/N."

Compared to the devastation in Poe's eyes, the look in your father's was warm, caring even. You know he truly believes that this is the better course. And that belief haunts your thoughts.

"Y/N?" One of the handmaidens ask. You aren't sure which one, since you just met them all, aside from Nové. You think it might be Loré, the one with the beautiful dark hair.

"Sorry?" you say, trying to shake yourself back to the present.

"Did you decide on what dress you want to wear?" she asks. By her placating tone, you know it's not the first she has asked this.

"The red will be fine for today," you say.

Today, your coronation day, the final brick that will complete the wall between the life you had known for five years, and the one you have to embrace now.

"Excellent choice," Loré says softly, and goes to collect the supplies to prepare your look.

Poe cannot remember the last time he hasn't woken up with a terrible hangover.

In reality, he knows the last time was the last morning he spent with you, when things still made sense. But since that awful day, the rest have become a blur of too many drinks in the quiet of your formerly shared quarters.

The beep of greeting that BB-8 gives him only strains his already growing headache. He mumbles a hello and staggers his way to the bathroom.

Poe splashes cold water on his face, raring himself for the day. Leia informed him last night that she has a mission for Black Squadron, and Poe couldn't have been more relieved.

When he was moving, when he was fighting, when he was doing anything other than sitting in this room, it was easier to ignore the thoughts that clawed at him in the night.

It was easy to forget the absolute gut-wrenching pain of your goodbye. To forget the memory of you walking back up the stairs, towards the life you were leaving him for.

It was easy to forget that he had hardly fought for you.

He dressed in his orange jumpsuit and together he and BB-8 left the room. The least amount of time he could stay in here, the better it was for his mind, heart, and liver.

The makeup is lighter than you had expected.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, the white face paint covers every inch of your skin, but it feels as if nothing is there at all. Loré paints two red dots on your cheeks, and finishes with the lip design, as Nové brings your selected gown in.

The dress takes a few minutes to put on. Sondé pins the the veil into the braided crown of your hair, and there is no more stalling to do.

You are motionless before the standing mirror. It is your reflection you see, but it's not someone you know. Queen Bhavisama looks back at you, her eyes welling with tears just like your own.

Before they can fall and ruin your makeup, you shove those feelings down. The numbing thought, "Know it's for the better," clings in your mind, and you let it wash over you.

Flight check is a reflex to Poe. Without even realizing he has started, he is already done. BB-8 wows something at it, but Poe only recognizes half of it. He hears the word 'general,' and he hops down from the X-Wing as Leia walks up.

"Commander," she says with a sad smile. The only type of smile Poe has received from any of his friends in the last few weeks.

"General."

"Are you ready for today?"

"Of course."

"Didn't have too much to drink last night?" she asks, but her demeanor makes it seem like she already knows the answer.

"I'm fine, Leia," he says softly.

"Are you?"

There is nothing but worry in Leia's face as she asks. She's not asking as his general, but as an old friend, the person who officiated his wedding, the person he's looked up to for years.

He can only bring himself to nod. Somehow, he thinks if he tried to speak the lie, he would falter.

"Be careful, Commander."

He nods to her once more and begins to climb back up the X-Wing, when Leia says, "And may the Force be with you." Not just on this mission, her eyes seem to say.

You have been shaking since Sarsa Broden gave you the responsibility of Naboo. You know there was a parade in your honor, you know that you walked through it, probably smiled and waved at your citizens, but it's all a blur.

Back at Theed Palace there is a party in your honor, yet you are incapable of finding a single reason to celebrate.

When you enter the room, you know there is commotion around you, but you don't hear any of it, until your father's hand is on your arm.

"We are so proud of you," he says, throwing his arms around you. You hardly feel them. His face holds no emotion other than delight, no matter how hard you search.

"Thank you," you mutter, shrugging out of his arms. You need to get out of this room, away from all these people.

You aren't sure you've cried before 9pm in any of the past weeks. Appointments have kept you too unfeeling to have time to. But the coronation ceremony has brought you to your knees, and you need to get out of here before you lose control.

"Ah, your highness," a voice says, and before you can register who it is, they have your arm in theirs. You look up into Sarsa Broden's smiling face. He's an old family friend, and typically the sight of him would have made you nothing but happy, but now, all you can see if him handing over Naboo to you.

"You did well today, my Queen," he says. The title chafes. Suddenly your dress feels much too tight.

"Thank you," you manage to say.

"Ah," he says, as a server walks by with a tray of food. "My favorites. Any for you--"

"No, no thank you," you say. Just the smell of whatever it is makes you nauseous. When was the last time you ate anything?

"I hope that you know you can call on me for anything you should need during your term."

"Of course I do," you say. The temperature in the ball room must have gone up at least ten degrees. It quickly feels hard to breath.

"I'm glad," he says with a smile. He studies your face for a moment and his smile drops. "Your Highness? Are you alright?"

"Perfectly fine, my lord," you pant.

"I know this can all be overwhelming, but I do hope it's all you ever wanted it to be."

You are going to be sick.

"Please excuse me," you say, not giving him enough time to respond before you bolt out the nearest exit.

Workers are a blur as you race past them, struggling not to knock them over.

Know it's for the better.

You hear footsteps behind you and know that it is your security, probably confused as hell about your sudden exit.

All you ever wanted.

At the end of the hall is a door out to the terrace.

Know it's for the better.

Naboo matches the mood of her queen. The temperature has dropped significantly, as heavy rain falls over Theed Palace.

All you ever wanted.

It is the final straw. Here in the downpour in the dark, with only a few streetlights and the glow of the opened door where your guards wait, you break down.

Falling to your knees, tears pour down your face faster than ever. You can feel the face paint slipping down your cheeks, but it doesn't matter. A scream like sob wrenches out of you as you hold onto yourself.

Both your father and Broden's words echo in your mind. Like scorpions they sting and sting, over and over again. You cannot find a way to be free of them.

Warm arms wrap around you, and for a moment you think it's one of your guards, but then you look up into Nove's face. It looks like she's crying, too. You open your mouth to say something but it just comes out in a sob. She clings to you tightly and rocks you gently as you cry.

"All I wanted was him," you weep, clinging to her just as tight.

"I know, I know."

"All I wanted," you say again, and you know you are shouting, but it has to come out. You say it over and over until your throat is scraped raw. Nové just rocks you in her arms and shushes you gently.

"I know."

The bottle of moonshine is empty before Poe realizes. Just like how the mission was over before he knew it.

The bottle was a gift from his dad. He came to visit Poe a few days after he heard the news. All attempts Kes made to get Poe to open up were futile. But when it finally all came out, over a couple glasses of the very same moonshine, Kes held him tightly, crying with him.

He left the bottle with Poe and told him to comm if he needed anything. Poe thought he could use another bottle right now, but knows that's not what his father had meant.

He holds the bottle in his hands, his grip tightening as he reads the label. It's the same brand, his father's brand, that Kes served to you when the two of you had gone to visit. Back when things were good, back when things made sense.

He doesn't realize he is holding the bottle too tight until it shatters in his hands.

"Fuck," Poe yells, trying to shake the shards of glass from his hands. The door to his quarters opens and Snap comes in, eyes wide.

"What the hell?" he asks, stepping over the shards of glass to look at Poe's hand. "What happened?"

"Bottle broke," Poe says through gritted teeth. "I'm fine."

"You're not," Snap says, pulling Poe after him. "You've got shards of glass in your hand."

"I said I'm fine, Snap!" Poe barks.

He has been like this for too long. Every little thing seems to set him on edge. He knows his friends are only trying to help, but each time they reach out, his anger only grows. No one can help him. It's a fate he has readily accepted. Why can't they?

"I know you are. But there's glass in your hand. I just want to get you cleaned up."

Poe keeps protesting as Snap leads him to Med Bay, but Snap ignores him. It isn't until they are sitting in the white, sterile room, his hand devoid of glass and bandaged, that Snap speaks again.

"What did the bottle do to piss you off?" he asks.

Poe's first instinct is to shake his head, but he finds himself saying, "Just brought up a memory."

"A bad one?"

"A Y/N one," he says quietly.

"Ah."

"You know," Poe say after a beat, "I drink to try and forget her, but everything ends up reminding me of her."

"General Organa told you she could find you another room."

"I don't want another room," he says. His voice cracks a little, but he fights to control it. "I don't want any of this, Snap."

"I know, Poe," he says gently.

"Why didn't I fight harder?" he asks, just above a whisper. He has kept these thoughts silent for too long. He wants them to come out, but knows it's pointless, given the state of things.

"What?"

"Why didn't I fight? Why didn't I confront her parents? Why didn't I take her off of Naboo, give her time to think it over? Why didn't I-"

"Poe, you--"

"Why wasn't I enough? Why wasn't our love strong enough?"

"Hey, don't start thinking like that," Snap says, bracing a hand on his shoulder. "You know why she did what she did. And you know it hurts her, too."

"I don't know what I know anymore," he says, dropping his head into his hands. He wrings his fingers through his mess of curls. They've been knotted for weeks, but he can't seem to find the desire to fix them.

"Maybe laying off the moonshine will bring some clarity," Snap says carefully. Poe lets out a tut of laughter and nods noncommittally.

"Thanks for the first aid, Snap," Poe says, and hops off the exam table.

As midnight overtakes Naboo, Nové and the other handmaidens have tucked you into bed. After spending stars know how long holding onto you on the terrace, Nové was eventually able to coax you back inside. Together, Loré, Sondé, and she got you out of the ruined coronation gown and into a warm bath. They brushed out your knotted hair as you sat in silence, and then crawled into bed next to you.

Loré, on your left, distracts you by reading inane articles from gossip nets, ones that sometimes get you to crack a smile. Sondé, on your right, has made a cup of warm tea, that she hands to you now.

Seeing that you are taken care of for the moment, Nové slips out of the room. The halls of Theed Palace are nearly empty as she finds her way into an unoccupied communications room.

She only has to wait a beat before the holographic image of Jess appears. Nové can't help her smile at seeing her, but there is pain there, too. A longing of her own.

"Hi, Supernova," Jess says.

"It's so good to hear your voice," Nové says gently.

"Yours, too."

"How are things?"

"They're alright," Jess says carefully. "Business as usual, but there is a tension that hangs in the air."

"Here too."

"How did the coronation go?" Jess asks.

"The ceremony itself went off without a hitch, but a few minutes into the party, Y/N broke down. She cried in the pouring rain for probably an hour, and all I could do was hold her," she says, feeling again, how helpless she felt then.

"It's good that you were there for her."

"Yeah," Nové says, "I'm just glad to see it finally come out. She's been a ghost these past few weeks. She only cries in the night when everyone else has left, but in the morning there are still red circles under her eyes. And then it's back to a living corpse. She hardly eats." Nové sighs. "I don't know what I can do to help her."

"I don't know that there is anything we can do," Jess says. "We've been trying to figure out how to help Poe over here, but he doesn't want to talk either."

"He's gone silent, too?"

"No, he just brushes us off when we try to. And he's taken to drinking. When it's time for a mission, debrief, he's there and in normal Poe spirit. But the second any of that is over, the tortured look comes back over him, and he disappears to his quarters to drink. He broke a glass bottle in his hands earlier today."

"How are they ever going to . . ." Nové trails off, unable to say it.

"How are they ever going to find each other again?" Jess asks.

"No. How will they ever get past this," Nové says.

"I don't know. Do you think there's a chance, after all of this is done?"

"I don't know," Nové says with a sigh. And she truly doesn't. She can't even imagine how tomorrow will shake out, let alone years from now. "Are you going to tell Poe we spoke?"

"I'm not sure. I'm going to go check in on him afterwards. I think today was particularly worse, because he knew that the coronation was taking place. I'll see if it's something he needs to hear, if it's something he can handle.

"What about Y/N?"

"Not tonight I won't," Nové replies. "We just got her into bed, I won't give her another thought to torture herself with."

"Don't forget to take care of yourself, too, Nové."

"I won't."

"I miss you like crazy."

"I miss you more," Nové says with a sad smile.

"Talk soon?"

"Absolutely. Jess?" Nové asks, before she can end the call. "We both miss you all. If he can handle it, tell him, won't you?"

"Of course. Goodnight, Supernova."

"Goodnight, Jessika."

A knock at his door awakens Poe. He lifts off the bed and notices the chair in the corner is in pieces, a bottle of whiskey lying next to him. He can't remember how it got there, or how the chair broke, but that has been happening more and more.

He has pushed his feelings down for so long, they seem to manifest in bursts of anger. He knows the drinking isn't helping these mood swings, but he can't bring himself to care to stop.

He knows he is drunk when he goes to open the door for Jess and nearly falls as he trips on more scattered junk. Jess walks into the room, and takes in the mess as she does. A bottle rolls away from her foot, rattling as she kicks it.

"Poe," she pleads, "Tell me this isn't all yours."

"What do you want, Jess?" he asks, flopping down at the end of his bed.

"At least say they aren't all from today."

"They aren't all from today."

"We're all worried about you--"

"I don't need your worry," he says, looking at her. "I'm fine."

"I never ever saw you drink this much when Y/N was around."

"Well she's not anymore, is she?" He can feel the fire blazing in his eyes as he says this, the anger forming inside of him.

"I never saw you drink this much before her, either," Jess says quietly.

"I'm fine," he says again, knowing it's a lie. "I'll quit soon, I'm just--"

"Trying to drink your way through the galaxy?"

"Why are you here, Jess?" he asks tiredly. "Come to dig the knife in further? I know you were calling Nové today."

"I did."

"So, how is she?" he asks. Jess knows he's not talking about Nové.

"The same as this," she says.

"Y/N is drinking herself to a stupor?" Poe asks with a pained smile.

"From the way Nové tells it, she can't bring herself to do much of anything. Says she's like a ghost."

A ghost. Poe can hardly imagine you as such. Can hardly imagine the woman he loves, the woman so full of life and laughter, suddenly empty and silent. The only time you were remotely like that, was around your parents, but even then you had venomous words to wield against them.

"She's not fighting anymore," Poe says, understanding, "She's accepted this fate her parents have decided for us."

"Not sure she had much of a choice."

"Yeah, but I did," he says. "I could have fought for her. I should have fucking been there today."

"What could you have done?"

"I could have tried," he says weakly. He stands, turning away from her as the tears he tries so hard to keep at bay threaten to fall. Jess ignores his desire to be alone and wraps him in her arms. It isn't until he's fully embraced that he realizes how much he needs this. He holds her tightly.

"I'm sorry," Jess says, the only thing she can think to say.

"I know," he says, breaking away from her. "I am, too." And that's really all he's been since it happened. Sorry for himself, sorry for you, sorry for the life you would have had, and the one you have now.

"So," he says after a beat, "What's her name?"

"Queen Bhavisama," Jess says quietly.

"Thank you for telling me," Poe says, a gentle dismissal. Jess nods.

Once she is gone, Poe sits back down and reaches for the closest bottle. He brings it to his lips but stops before drinking. His thoughts are on you, same as every day, but he cannot get the haunted image of you out of his mind.

He hates himself just a little bit for sitting here, knowing you are in pain. And he hates himself more because he knows that if he did run to you, it wouldn't change anything.

The bottle in his hand is mostly empty, and before he can take the final swig, he holds it up in toast and says, "To Queen Bhavisama." The liquor burns as it goes down and the bottle crashes onto the floor as Poe sobs into his hands.

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