Royally Kissed | ✓

57; the violent ends

"Cain," Lola called in a rather hurried manner. "Have you phoned Arthur, yet?"

"He won't be out in ten," he said, now standing up behind Paige.

"Well, tell him to hurry."

"I'm on it. Hang on," replied Cain, tapping on his touchscreen busily and so fast, it looked like he was just flourishing a spell on it. They turned silent as Cain pinned his mobile against his ear before stepping a few meters off. "He's on his way," he told them after the call.

Out of stark dread, Paige pressed a kiss against Jude's hand, her eyes tightly closed to hold back her tears. "Just hold tight." These days, Jude had already turned unresponsive, so when she felt a slight pressure on her hand seconds later, she opened up her eyes in surprise. "Jude...hey."

He pulled her slightly so that she would lean closer, and he tried to whisper, "What you seek...has always been there in your heart. Even though...I won't be there to" – he paused as he evened his raspy breathing – "to witness it, I can rest easy...knowing that your prince has arrived."

Paige leaned back as his words ricocheted her back to the day she first met Jude, the part where he'd told her that she deserved to be swept off of her feet by a prince someday. She was about to say that he truly did come, and that his name's Owen Callaghan.

And the door flew open, revealing a grief-stricken Arthur, clothed in a white tee that was smudged with red sauce and whatnot, a clear indication that he had wasted no second to come all the way from work and hadn't bothered to change.

He was dead still by the door first the second he saw her, and she held her breath as she stared back at him with her heart racing wildly in her chest.

When the spell wore off, specifically his confusion and surprise from seeing her, Arthur rushed to her side of the bed; she almost grimaced when Lola's mouth twitched rather shrewdly.

Instincts kicked her out of the seat, then Arthur responsively occupied that so that now his hands were resting atop Jude's forearm. "Dad, I'm here now."

Jude gave off a weak smile and, even with his frail condition, he'd managed to envelope his son close to his chest. He seemed to have whispered something in Arthur's ear, too, as he angled his head in a way that would allow his mouth to be closer to Arthur's ear, his lips moving slightly.
That effectively tugged her heartstrings as she felt like crossing a line by just looking at them; and so she turned away and tried to dry out the tears that was threatening to spill from her eyes.

Cain gingerly wrapped a half-hug around her. She didn't fight it off as she buried her cheek in his chest. And suddenly, Arthur let out a strangled weep, making Cain pivot into the scene; Paige's shoulders jolted when she joined her love in the middle of the unbearable pain, his agony clearly evident to everyone's eyes.

His shoulders were shaking, his voice muffled between the linens of his father's bed. The room had promptly descended into the fatal and inescapable truth – that Jude would never wake up again to see another day.

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Pretty much everyone who'd been in the room when Jude took his last breath had gone outside, save for Arthur, so he could mourn his dad alone. Robin and Aoife had arrived minutes later then.

While the little girl might not had been in her best state for days on end, she didn't seem too shocked about the news. It was like she had come prepared; expected the way things would end in the long run. Better among any of them.

They were all seated on the chairs by the waiting area in the hall that was fronting the door. Paige watched as Robin trod towards the room and had left the door opened. She sniffed, craning her neck to see how Arthur was doing.