Absence of the Heart,
Written by WickedSong.
Disclaimer/Note : I do not own OUAT, it belongs to its respective owners. This is a way for me to vent the Gremma and Graham feelings that still linger in my heart long after his tragic death in the show and is loosely inspired by 'Losing Your Memory' by Ryan Star, as I have been listening to it constantly these last couple of days and especially when I wrote this.
She cradles his lifeless form for what seems like hours after he initially collapses. His heart has stopped beating, she's tried to resucitate him every way she knows possible but nothing works. Now she's in a state of shock. She's Emma Swan, she's witnessed and been through a lot in her twenty-eight years, a lot of it bad but just when she thought things were looking up for her, when she thought she may have been-
She looks down at him, gently cups his cheek, grazes her hand over the stubble on his chin, tries to remember his voice, his laugh. Tries to remember? Why is she trying to hold onto it? Shouldn't she try to suppress it to the recesses of her mind for now, forever? She can't quite process the word yet. He's dead. Dead? Dead? She makes one last ditch attempt, shaking his shoulders but it's futile and her eyes are full of fresh tears streaming down her face freely.
"Graham..."
Her plea of his name comes out strained and choked but it doesn't matter. He won't ever hear her again, she won't ever hear him again. She was just starting to-
She takes a quick glance at the clock and finds that it's only been about twenty minutes since they arrived back at the station. She doesn't believe the clock for one moment. It's impossible to think that one minute he's alive, the next he's dead. She tries to test the word on her tongue but it doesn't come out, she can't bring herself to say it.
Laying his body down she reluctantly moves away from him and dials the number for the hospital on the phone, her hands shaky. She doesn't trust herself and she has to stay strong, trying desperately not to cry down the phone, partially because they won't know if she does (maybe that will make it less real) and partially because she doesn't want anyone to see her as weak, especially not now.
Once she hangs up she remains by Graham's side, still holding him in her arms because she's losing him forever in a matter of moments. This guy who had no right to barge into her life in the first place but did with his corny jokes and the offer of setting down some roots. She's made friends in Storybrooke and she was surprised the first time that she had counted the man she viewed as Regina's personal lapdog among them. Of course after tonight's events she thinks much more of him and she knows that thought would comfort him. More than friends maybe, she found herself-
When the ambulance come, to take him away for the autopsy, she finally realises that she has to stand up and let them take him away in a body bag, that his body will be obscured forever now, he will no longer walk around the town, or walk into the office with fresh donougts.
"Deputy Swan, we'll need you to stand please?"
It doesn't register with her. A world where she doesn't hear his out of place accent again, a world where the two kisses they shared before are the only times she'll ever feel his lips on hers or his touch, a world where she can't act on her-
"Emma, Emma, you have to let them do their job."
She's clutching tighter at Graham now. She's not ready, not ready to say goodbye but there's someone gently touching her shoulder and then taking her hand. She lets them, as she's pulled away, realising it's Mary Margaret, who's there for whatever reason. When she realises she keeps walking but not before turning around and getting one last glimpse of his face before it's out of sight.
She wakes up the next morning feeling hazy and disjointed and like she's had a lack of sleep. She feels like nightmares clouded her vision all night but for the life of her she can't remember why. Looking at the alarm clock she's startled to find the time is almost one in the afternoon. She has work and she's late, as if Regina wasn't already busting her ass. Graham would be wondering-
It's when she's halfway to putting on her shirt for the day that his name crosses her mind and she realises why she's like this.
"I thought I heard you awake," Mary Margaret says, poking her head in the door, a sad smile gracing her face.
"He's gone," Emma says, "Gone."
A mug of hot cocoa (with cinnamon) is placed into her hands but the revelation she's just had has made her nauseous and she could never stomach it right now.
Gone.
Graham.
Dead.
Last night.
"You have a heart. I'll prove it."
"I remember."
She touches her lips but the third kiss they never had will never be one she'll have to remember. She closes her eyes and is silent and stoic, resolving not to cry in front of her friend and roommate.
Henry first talks to her, following Graham's heart attack as the autopsy had revealed, just before the service at the church in Storybrooke, following which Graham will be buried in the cemetery where he finally freed himself from Regina's grasp. She's been numb in the week following his death, she's went to work, did her usual routine but with that piece missing. She hadn't realised what a part of her life he had become until his absence was a permanent hole staring her in the face - something she can't fix.
The kid's eyes are full of unshed tears and Emma, despite the fact Regina is glaring from where she talks with Mr. Gold and Sydney, wraps her arms around her son as he gently cries. She rubs his back soothingly but before she can say anything to him of comfort Regina is in front of her.
"Come, Henry," she says in a clipped tone causing her son to step back from his biological mother hesitantly and stand by her.
"It's okay to cry," are the words he says before he's walking with Regina into the church.
Emma stares up at the building. She's never believed in a God but she hopes that if there is one, if there's a Heaven that Graham's there now.
She sits beside Mary Margaret and Archie during the service near the back of the church. She doesn't shed one tear until Regina's euology. She may dislike the woman speaking with a burning intensity but nothing she is saying is false. Graham was a good man, who was devoted to the town, who will be missed by everyone, no one had a bad word against him and the town will never recover from such a tragic and sudden loss.
Emma contemplates, as she stands, at again a distance, in the cemetery and Graham's coffin is being lowered into the ground, whether she will ever truly recover but she can offer herself no answer.
So she tries to remember something else, anything else and she comes up with the last words he said to her.
"Thank you."
She hopes he can hear her saying them back to him.
Comments, thoughts, feelings? Leave them in a review please?
WickedSong x