The Goblin and his Bride

This is a continuation of The Goblin and the Small Town Sheriff (It was getting cumbersomely long so I elected to begin a new story). This is set about six months later.

This will start abit slowly. Hang with me, please, until chapter three when I get the core conflicts going. thx txm

And no, of course, I don't own of these characters, get real.

+ + + + + Awakening

Emma didn't so much as "wake up" as "come to." She was immediately aware that her mouth tasted like she had been eating sand that someone had poured gasoline through. She struggled to open her eyes. It hurt. In a single moment, several things flooded her consciousness. She was in a strange bedroom. She was naked. And she was not alone.

Wait! She'd been here before! She'd awakened from having been drugged with an equally naked and drugged Gold. What was that now? Seven months ago, maybe alittle more. She was married to Gold now. Not always sure this was a good thing. But he had gotten Henry back for her. Turned out he was Henry's father. Good God, how had that happened? Well, he had also gotten her pregnant. Again. OK, not entirely his fault. They'd both been seriously drugged and had engaged in sex without any protection. Despite her best efforts with Plan B, she'd been one of the 15% of the population that found the morning after treatment to be ineffective. Well, that was then.

But where was she now? A big room. A big bed. Yes, and her bed companion was a green skinned goblin.

+ + + + + + Morning

It had been that same dream again when she woke up in bed with the creature. She was no longer in the cavern, but in a beautiful bedroom with luxurious bed linens, silk and velvet. Sometimes she dreamed about herself and the creature. . . well. . . doing it. Sometimes it was wonderful, with gentle, slow love-making with kissing and licking and generous hands just where they needed to be, culminating in really, really, sterling sex, one orgasm after another. But other times, it was violent and painful, with the creature throwing her on his bed, her struggling, him overcoming her struggles and forcing himself onto (into) her. Emma admitted she'd ended up orgasming in these dreams too, since he seemed to know just where her buttons were and how hard and fast he needed to push them.

"Being unfaithful to me in your dreams again, Emma?" her husband asked. He always had a pretty good idea of what happened in these dreams, having explained to her that the green goblin creature was actually himself, in Fairyland, that he somehow existed in both the real world and the fantasy land. Emma still wasn't 100% sure. . . of anything.

As always he was up before she was, immaculately attired, as always, and had fetched her some lightly buttered toast and hot tea, as always. Her killer nausea had finally abetted and she had acquired some of the glow that pregnant women get (although most of the time she still felt tired and icky).

"Not this time, just woke up in the strange bedroom with a bad taste in my mouth, so this first breakfast is perfect." She ate the toast and drank the tea.

"And what is on your agenda today?" he asked, making sure that his very pregnant wife wasn't going to involve herself in running after lowlifes or do any heavy lifting (both of which she'd been known to do, pregnant or not).

"Paperwork catch-up and," she looked at him and grinned, "gonna hire me a new deputy."

"Excellent. You need to have someone trained and in place before you go out on leave." He heartily approved.

+ + + + + A New Deputy

Emma had made it into work, after a second 'real' breakfast of eggs, bacon, more toast (with jelly!), hash browns, and milk, all from the Diner, and was sitting at her laptop at the Sheriff's station. She was moving a little more slowly and desperately trying to catch up on paperwork. So much paperwork. Who would have thought that a small town sheriff's office would generate this much paperwork? Just look at last week's incidents reports:

Somebody had heard a noise.

It turned out to be a cat.

Somebody had seen somebody skulking around the edge of the yard.

It turned out to be a cat.

Somebody complained that teenagers were knocking things off their porch.

It turned out to be a cat.

Leroy had called.

His cat, Mr. Puss Puss Fluffy-Whiskers was missing.

She rolled her eyes. It was hard to keep her mind to the task and she visibly brightened when her new deputy came in.

"David!" she exclaimed. "Don't you look amazing?" She originally hadn't sure about the man's qualifications, but after having him out on the shooting range, she had been blown away by his marksmanship. She'd asked where he had learned to shoot and he had shrugged. No memory of learning to shoot.

They had also done a couple of rounds of hand-to-hand in the gym and Emma felt that he was pretty good at this too. Oddly, they had both called it quits pretty quickly after one of them had landed on the other. It just seemed uncomfortable. Emma figured it was because this was her former roommate's fella. Although in the back of her mind was Henry's theory that this was her father, Prince Charming.

"Let me teach you the ropes," she began enthusiastically. "This is your desk. This is your chair. This is your cell phone. This is your desk phone. When either one of them rings, you answer, 'Storybrooke Police',"

David waited, "And?"

"That's pretty much it. Most things can be handled over the phone. Sometimes you have to get in the squad car and go check stuff out. Usually it's a cat, well, actually it's usually Leroy's cat. He's quite the escape artist and prone to mischief."

David was laughing. He was familiar with Leroy's cat. "How are you getting along?" he asked Emma.

"Great, now the nausea has stopped. A bit tired, but much better than I was."

They sat a moment in silence.

Emma asked, "I haven't seen too much of Mary Margaret. What is she up to?"

"Well, you knew that she hadn't gone back to the classroom; although maybe she will sometime. She's bringing in some money by cleaning up Gold's shop; he suggested she work for him after the whole murder accusation thing. Oh, did you know she started a blog about her experiences?

"No, I'll have to look for it."

"Well, it kinda turned into a Storybrooke Enquirer newsletter, except she calls it The Storybrooke Weekly News. She's selling them in different places around town, right next to the Daily Mirror. She hasn't said, but I think Gold is encouraging her, maybe giving her some funding."

Emma nodded, "That sounds like him. He would have made her promise not to tell anyone or he'd cut his financial support. He does that a lot."

+ + + + + Accident

It was then a call came in. David had joked and asked, "May I?"

Emma nodded, "Sure."

David's face abruptly became very serious. He motioned to Emma to pick up on the extension. There had been a bicycle collision and a couple of kids were hurt. An ambulance was on the way. The accident had occurred nearby so Emma and David both vaulted up and hot-footed it over to the accident site.

She beat the ambulance there and her heart went into her mouth. It was Henry, lying on the ground, his bike bent sideways. The other child, wasn't that Paige? was standing by her own wreck of a bike, crying. She kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Emma checked on her son. He was alert and seemed to be intact. "Mom, I'm ok. I didn't break anything. Paige and I were racing and I hit a bump."

"Has anyone called Paige's parents?" Emma asked, as she dialed Gold to let him know and ask him to let Regina know. She told Gold to take the new cell phone she and Henry had picked out for him, reminding him to how to turn it on and, if it rang, how to swipe the answer bar. If he needed to call her, he needed to scroll over to the screen that had her picture on it and press the picture. Jeez, for an intelligent guy, Gold was remarkably technologically backward.

Some of the bystanders shook their heads. "Paige, honey," Emma called. "Dial your parents. I'll talk with them. You're going to the ER for a check-up too."

Emma talked with Paige's parents, assuring them that Paige seemed just fine, but thought it was a good idea for her to get checked out. Her parents would meet up with Emma and Paige at the hospital. David said he would interview witnesses before they could leave to see if he could get a clear picture of what happened. He promised he would take the bikes back to the Sheriff's station until parents could pick them up.

Emma calmed down the girl. Sitting in the back of the ambulance with Henry and the attendant, she talked with Paige on the way to the hospital. "It was kinda odd that both bikes were damaged when Henry hit a bump," she began.

Paige started crying again. "We were racing and I didn't want to go down the hill and I pulled up, Henry couldn't stop and ran into me. It's my fault he was hurt. All my fault."

Emma reassured the child. "It was an accident, Paige. I'm sure Henry's going to be just fine. "

Regina was not so calm when she came into the hospital. She wanted to know what had happened and whose fault it was. Henry should have been better supervised.

Gold had arrived by then, coming in just behind Regina. "Sounds like the kids were playing and had an accident. Not a big deal. Doesn't seem to be any permanent damage done."

"Have you talked with the doctor? Do you know that for certain?" Regina insisted on knowing.

Dr. Whale came up just then. "He's going to be fine. Some pretty bad bruising along his side and some serious road rash, but nothing broken. Ms. Paige is just fine also. Her parents wanted to thank you, Sheriff Gold." He pointed to the girl's parents.

Emma went over to talk with them. They shook her hand, thanking her in person. She filled them in with what Paige had shared about the accident. "It sounds like Paige is blaming herself and we'll need to work on that. I'm afraid that both bikes look totaled," she told them.

"But both children are fine. " Paige's mom took her aside. "I was so glad to hear Paige start talking about Henry. She's a sweet girl, but has not really had a best friend. Since Henry came to live with you and Mr. Gold, she and Henry seem to be spending more time together."

Emma had not been aware of this. She actually knew Paige as Grace, the beloved daughter of Jefferson, The Mad Hatter, a magician who had been tricked into Wonderland by The Evil Queen, trapped there until he could reproduce the magical hat that had allowed transport from one dimension to another. She knew all this, but not that her son and Paige had become friends.

"That's great! Henry's always been kind of alone too and I'm glad to hear he's made a friend."

Emma invited Paige to think about coming over for supper one evening (Yeah, she'd have to get Gold to cook). She turned away to re-connect with her husband who was in a heated debate with Regina.

"Seems both children are ok. Apparently, he and Paige are friends. I hadn't heard that Henry had any friends." Emma said to both of them.

"He has friends," Regina responded defensively. "And I was more careful when he was under my care."

Gold responded, "You were suffocating the child. Boys are meant to get out in the outdoors and rough house. They occasionally suffer accidents. He's going to be fine," Gold turned on Regina and asked her, "Do you need to get something for your nerves?"

Regina puffed up, irritated but not having anyone else around that she dared to vent her feelings upon. She turned to Henry who was bandaged up and who really seemed pretty happy about it.

"I didn't break anything," he explained to Regina.

Regina leaned forward and kissed Henry's forehead. "Are you sure you'll be ok, Henry?"

"Gee, I'm fine. I'm going to have some bruises and what Dr. Whale called 'road rash',"

Gold and Emma stood back and let the two talk. He pulled her close, "He is ok, isn't he?" he asked quietly.

Emma nodded. "He's fine. The bike's totaled. He's made friends with the girl," she informed her husband.

"So you'd said. I'm glad to hear that. He hadn't really seemed to have any friends."

"I thought it was a good thing too." Emma responded. "Hey, can you give me a lift back to the Sheriff's office? I just picked up and left and rode the ambulance to the hospital."

"Sure, let me have a word with Henry,"

Emma was left waiting and eventually she was joined by Regina. She had seemed so much more subdued since Gold had taken her powers, like somebody who had lost the use of their legs or their vision. Emma tried to reassure her, "I'm sure they'll release him and he'll be fine. Gold is going to take me back to the office and then come back. Why don't you wait with Gold and be sure."

Regina nodded. "I really miss him, you know. This shared custody has been very hard. My house seems so empty so much of the time."

Emma actually felt sorry for Regina, but knew if she shared her feelings with Gold, that he would laugh at her and tell her that Regina was manipulating her. Regina didn't miss Henry. She would have to care for the child for that to happen.

It had almost been six months and the three would soon be going back before the judge. Emma knew that Gold had every intention of pursuing full custody and giving Regina visitation only.

NEXT: Emma blushes,

Emma has a dream,

Emma fails a test