Saint Mary's Hospice, Toronto, Saturday Midday

[thismaskiwear]

Because there hadn't been enough frustration in her week, today was the first day Katchoo had actually gotten to see Emma; first there'd been the fact that the only flight she could wrangle had a connection in Tampa (Baltimore to Tampa to Toronto, what the hell) and then getting booted from the overbooked connection and waiting a day and a half in a terminal without a damn open outlet to charge her dead phone, to fly standby the rest of the way. She'd finally shown up here at the hospice, where the sisters had been expecting her, but they'd taken one look at her and escorted her straight to a room where she'd collapsed into a long unconscious sleep and only just now woken up.

Under most circumstances Katchoo wasn't much for religion at all, and she had especially little patience for the pomp and circumstance of Catholicism, but this place -- just outside the Toronto city limits -- really was peaceful. It was a good place to go, if you could choose where to die.

"She took a turn for the worse right after you left three months ago," said Sister Jordan as she led Katchoo down the hall to Emma's room. "Slowly at first, but lately much more pronounced, and I'm afraid there's just nothing more we can do for her." Katchoo nodded, eyes fixed firmly on the floor several feet in front of her shoes. "Is she in pain? Are you giving her morphine?" "Yes. But I'm afraid it doesn't do much good any more. She won't let us increase the dosage." Sister Jordan sighed. "She keeps asking for you." They reached the door to the room and Katchoo stopped, turning to look at her. "Thank you. I know Emma's been in good hands here. I'll pay for any additional expenses." Somehow. Maybe she could angle for a raise with someone. "Don't worry about it, dear. You've given us . . ." The pause was as diplomatic as it could be, but Katchoo still felt bad that her meager paychecks hadn't and wouldn't cover everything. If she could get to that damn $850,000 in Switzerland . . . hell, she might spontaneously develop superpowers first. "You've given us all you can." Sister Jordan put a gentle hand on Katchoo's shoulder, and she didn't shrug it off. "Let us know if we can get you anything." As unobtrusively as possible, she turned and drifted off down the hall, leaving Katchoo to pause with her hand on the doorknob and collect herself before entering. She thought she'd done an adequate job of it. She hadn't.

It wasn't snowing, of course; she didn't have to look out the window to know that. But she turned toward it and smiled anyway. You wanted to know when lying is okay, Skywalker? I got one good reason slipping away right in front of me. "I see it," she said, voice as gentle as she could make it. Emma turned her face toward the window, and Katchoo wondered if she could even really see any more. "Yeah . . . innit beautiful? But it stopped yesterday. I wish . . ." What she said next gave Katchoo the answer she hadn't really wanted. "I wish I could see it again." "It looks like that candy . . . divinity?" Katchoo could play along. Emma had helped her perfect the art, and it only seemed fitting to put it to use now. "A divinity forest."

***

"How you doin', Chewie?" Emma continued. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Emmie," she answered. Still playing along. "Looking forward to seeing Canada with you when you get out of here."

"Then you better grow wings."

Katchoo swallowed past the lump in her throat and leaned over Emma's bedside, all gentleness and concern and if people back in Fandom could see her now . . . "Shhh. Don't talk like that," she said futilely, knowing it was pointless as soon as she spoke.

"Really." Emma turned to face her with those unfocused eyes. "It's okay. I'm not afraid; I talked to God. I'm worried about you, Chewie."

"Me?"

"So much . . . anger. It'll eat away at you 'til there's nothing left. You need to let somebody . . ." She took their clasped hands, pressed them against Katchoo's heart. "In here."

Katchoo lifted Emma's hand to her cheek, brushing her lips against -- god, they were protruding so badly -- her knuckles. "You're there, Emmie . . . you're there."

Emma shook her head even if it was obvious how much effort it took, and her voice had gotten even fainter when she spoke again. "I mean someone who'll stay with you."

"Okay," Katchoo said slowly. Francine was the first person who came to mind, of course, but talking to Emma about that seemed awkward somehow, especially in light of the screaming match they'd had the night before she left. Thinking of Arthur and how he'd gotten her off the hook for that stupid bar fight gave her a less uncomfortable segue, and she began, "There's this guy --"

"I knew it!" Emma's laugh was more of a wheeze. "I knew you'd end up with a guy."

And it didn't have anything to do with squirrels. "Emmie, no," Katchoo protested with a fragile laugh of her own. "It's not like that at all, geez! He's just . . . I guess you could say a friend."

"Nothin' wrong with friends, Chewie. Tell me all about him."

"Okay, okay . . . it's Arthur Pendragon."

Emma's eyebrows twitched. "Named after that Arthur?"

"No, he is that Arthur, believe it or not," Katchoo replied. "That school you sent me to is something else, Emmie. Merlin's there too. Nothing like you imagined, but a good guy." And it didn't seem right to mention him, the earnest little doof, and not mention Francine, so -- "And my best friend, you remember, I told you all about her? I found her again, Emmie. She's there . . ."

She lost track of how many hours they talked, about everything from the nurses at the hospice to Wednesday's genderswap (Katchoo wasn't going to begrudge Emma's amusement at her expense) but after a while Emma's voice wouldn't hold up any more and she fell silent, her expression pensive. She'd listen to Katchoo talk and occasionally nod or twitch her fingers, and maybe doze off for a few minutes at a time.

***

"Whatcha thinking about?" Katchoo asked eventually. Emma's lips moved, but no audible sound came out and her eyelids only twitched briefly before fluttering shut again, so Katchoo leaned closer, her ear near Emma's mouth. "What, Emmie? What?" The whispered answer made her smile wistfully. "Baby June? The song? What made you think of that?" She reached up a hand to brush Emma's hair back from her cooling forehead. "I remember when you wrote that. We were staying in that little house in Hana, remember? We were so brown."

Baby June had been her nickname back when she and Emma were working as high-society escorts; it was what Griffin Silver had known her as, and why she'd tried to punch him out in Caritas that night at Rock Con. The memory wasn't one of her fondest, but Emma, with that musical gift of hers, had found a way to take some of the sting out of it. Katchoo leaned closer, wrapped her arms around Emma, and started to sing in her hoarse rasp: "I know you know the tale of Baby June . . . you know the way she could deliver a tune. She was a killer in a petticoat, a little bit of everyone you adore." A soft, rattling whisper of breath passed Emma's lips, and Katchoo tried one more time to keep the winter wonderland fantasy going. "Oh, Emmie, look -- it's snowing!" No response, not even a smile. Just the sudden realization that Emma's cheek was getting cold against her hand, and as if to add insult to injury the tears running down her own face were hot. With a choked sob, Katchoo gathered Emma's body back into her arms and, not knowing what else to do, kept singing.

[OOC: NFI, NFB, OOC and Kleenex welcome. Dialogue taken and adapted (with some additions by me) from Strangers in Paradise Volume 2, Issue 3, "Echoes of Home," as are the comic panels. Sorry for the image-heavy but narrative text just doesn't do the artwork in this scene justice.]