fic idea: emma + killian taking care of hope when she gets ill 😊💕

dani-ellie03:

Aww! This is so precious. 🙂

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“No drops!” Hope cried, ducking out of Emma’s reach while clamping her hand over her ear.

“I know it hurts, baby, but the drops will make your ear feel better,” Emma insisted.

Tears leaked out of Hope’s eyes. “No drops.”

Though there was now less fire in her baby’s voice, Emma didn’t consider it a victory.

Four-year-old Hope had been diagnosed the day before with an ear infection and was utterly miserable. She was running a fever and the pain in her ear was so intense that she’d spent the better part of the morning crying. So far, Hope had no problem taking the antibiotics – apparently the medicine tasted like bubble gum – but she absolutely detested the numbing drops she’d also been prescribed.

Oh, the drops worked like a dream. The problem was the initial contact with Hope’s painful ear in order to get the drops in.

“Hope, you know the drops make your ear feel better,” Emma tried again.

“No drops.”

She sounded defeated now, sniffling as her tantrum wound down. A helpless and conflicted Emma looked up at Killian. She hated seeing her daughter so defeated, even though her defeat came from doing what was best for her.

When Killian nodded at her, Emma set the bottle of drops down on the end table. Apparently a little subterfuge was in order. “How about if Daddy tells us a story?”

Hope looked from her mother to her father as if trying to determine what the catch was. “Really?”

“Of course, little love,” Killian said as he scooped his little girl into his arms. “You and your mom can get comfortable on the couch for story time.”

The three of them settled on the sofa, Hope squeezed in between her mother and her father. “Once upon a time, there lived a pirate and a princess …”

And so Killian told Hope’s favorite story, the one of how she came to be. It was a story filled with adventure and monsters, of darkness and of light, of True Love and of faith, and it always ended with hope, both figurative and literal.

This time Hope’s illness was working against her. She was fast asleep before the pirate tracked down the lost princess in the far-off land of New York City. With her baby now comfortably resting against her, Emma squeezed a couple of drops into Hope’s little ear and tucked a tuft of cotton in after to hold the drops in place.

“She’s so miserable,” Emma murmured as she brushed a lock of Hope’s blonde hair out of her eyes. “I have all this magic but I can’t take away her pain with anything but these drops that she hates. I hate seeing her like this, Killian.”

“Aye, love,” Killian agreed, “I do, too. But the medicine will work its magic and she’ll be her typical rambunctious self in no time at all.”

Emma finally gave a little smile. “I know. And in the meantime, we take care of her and let her know that she’s loved.”

Killian leaned over and pressed a kiss to his wife’s temple. With the childhoods they led, they knew better than most how important love and comfort were to a sick child. “Always.”