A/N: not exactly a re-write but an adjustment. Still pretty much the same.
"Graham!" Emma Swan sobbed as she knelt beside Graham's lifeless body. Mere moments ago they had been kissing. She had let her walls down for a fraction of a second and look what it had done. It had killed a man. He'd collapsed in her arms; dead in an instant.
"NO!" She shouted, her voice echoing off the empty walls of the police station. What was she to do now? Call 9-1-1? They were 9-1-1.
Call the hospital directly. You're just the police, you're not responsible for every crisis. Get your head on straight, Emma. A man is dead, this is no time for you to be emotional. Call the hospital. Now! A voice in Emma's head shouted at her. Of course, why hadn't she done that already. She wasn't thinking clearly.
Hands numb and eyes bloodshot with tears she scrambled up from the floor in search of the phone. Finding it, her fingers fumbled around poking at the numbers that would connect her to the hospital. She could hear it ringing. She waited, dread filling her the longer she waited. She wasn't sure why, they wouldn't be able to help anyway. Graham was already dead. She'd checked his pulse. There was nothing to be done for him now.
"Hello, Storybrooke General, this is Candice. How may I help you?" How can you help me? You smug bitch. Don't you know a man has just died. How can you sit there so calm an polite?the irrational, angry side of Emma was rearing its ugly head.
Cool it, Emma, how's she supposed to know what's going on? For Christ's sake, get it together, her rational side pleaded.
"This is Emma Swan," she said, breath hitching as she tried to control her emotions. "I'm at the police station. Sheriff Graham collapsed. He's dead. I think he had a heart attack. Send some now! Please!" Her voice broke at the end and she was unable to hold back one final sob before she slammed the phone down on the table.
She didn't hang it up or say anything else to the woman on the other end of the line but it didn't matter. She'd gotten her message across. She knew they would be sending someone and knew they'd be there soon.
Emma fought the urge to crash down to the ground beside Graham's corpse once again. Instead she paced the length of the station pausing every so often to crane her head and listen for the telltale signs of the approaching ambulance; the wailing of the siren, the flash and red of blue stark against the dark night sky. She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging at it hard in frustration.
She was so frustrated. Frustrated that she had let someone in. Frustrated that like all other times she'd let someone in, they gone and left her alone. Frustrated that she was frustrated with a dead man for dying. But most of all frustrated with Regina. Emma didn't know how but this had to be Regina's fault. Could it be someone's fault that a man had a heart attack? No. But she blamed Regina anyway. It made her feel better that way.
"Ms. Swan," an EMT said as he stepped into the station. Another EMT followed behind her, both wheeling a gurney into the room. "I'm going to have to ask you to move out of the way." The woman's voice was clam but authoritative. It held a note of sympathy. Emma didn't like it. She hated sympathy. Sympathy was something weak, emotional people needed. She'd made a vow to herself long ago to never be one of those people again. What a swell job she had done.
Emma was barely aware of her own body as she stepped off to the side to allow the EMTs to collect Graham's body. She watched in a strange mix of horror and fascination as they picked him up and placed him on the gurney. He looked as though he might be asleep. She knew better though. He was dead, never to wake again.
"Ma'am?" The other EMT asked, looking at Emma.
She just looked at him, nodding absently to let him know she had heard and was listening.
"Would you like to ride in the ambulance with him?" His tone was sympathetic too and almost pitying. She could see it in the man's eyes that he knew there was no saving Graham now; that there was really no reason to ride in the ambulance with the body; no reason to mutter prayers at a corpses side.
"No," she chocked out in reply. "I'll follow behind though."
Emma wanted to go to the hospital. She wanted to know that his body was going to be taken care of, wanted to know for sure how he had died, hoping they'd be able to know right away. For some reason she thought that if she knew and heard with finality that he was dead and why from a medical professional her guilt and grief may lift.
It was an absurd notion really. Grief couldn't be cured, it could only lessen or be forgotten temporarily by way of an outside source, like alcohol perhaps or something else. Alcohol or something else sounded good right about now.
She followed aimlessly behind the EMTs until she made it to her bug in the parking spot labeled "deputy". Deputy. The notion was somehow laughable to her now. What kind of deputy was she? A man died in her arms. She was a really shit deputy.
Her eyes dried as she drove to the hospital. When she arrived though hit tears of anger crept back into her eyes at the sight of the mayor's car in the lot.
What the fuck does she want, that evil bitch. She doesn't deserve to be here. She was nothing to Graham. He hated her and how he treated him. I'll kill her.
Emma stormed through the front doors of the hospital as the EMTs wheeled Graham's body down the hall. Her limbs were shaking with fury. She spun around wildly looking for the mayor. Maybe that something else she'd been thinking about before could be beating the shit out of Regina. That might make her forget her grief for a moment and it would feel oh so good. Even better, it wouldn't cause her to have a hangover the next morning.
"You!" She shouted, finally spotting Regina pacing a nearby corridor. "What the hell do you think you're you doing here?!" Emma rushed over to her in the hallway and slammed her against the wall.
"I'm his emergency contact!" Regina shouted back at her, trying to fight her way out of Emma's grasp. "And I'd appreciate it if you lowered your voice when talking to me, Ms. Swan," she commanded in an almost menacing tone.
Emma wasn't afraid of her though. She'd hit her once already; she would do it again with glee. Against her better judgment, Emma stepped away from Regina and let her off the wall. "You have no right being here! You killed him, you son of a bitch!"
"Killed him?" Regina responded, feigning confusion and hurt at the accusation. "According to you he died of a heart attack. For all I know, you're the one who killed him. You were the one who was with him last." Her tone was almost gleeful.
"How dare you!" Emma shouted, a vein in her forehead throbbing in anger.
"Please, ma'am clam down, this is a hospital." A nurse had wandered up to them to put a stop to their shouting.
"Shut up!" Emma shouted back at the nurse. The nurse halted in shock. Emma shouldn't have yelled at her like that. The nurse hasn't done anything wrong, Emma was just angry.
"Ms. Swan?" Dr. Whale called to her as he walked up to join the nurse. He patted the nurse lightly on the back and instructed her to return to her desk. He would take care of the bickering women.
"Doctor!" It appeared Emma couldn't lower her voice no matter what. It made her feel better to shout.
"I'm so sorry but Graham is dead. It appears to be just as you surmised. He died of a heart attack. It's rare in a man so young, but these things happen sometimes. I'm sorry. We're going to perform an official autopsy but we are fairly certain of the cause of death. Sorry for your loss," he finished rather lamely placing a hand lightly on her arm in what Emma was sure he thought was a comforting gesture. It wasn't. Not to her anyway.
A soft, murmured "thank you" was all Emma could say. It was done; it was official. Graham was dead.
She glanced at Regina. She shouldn't have. All it did was make her angry. Regina glared back at her. She looked so smug, so pleased with herself. Graham was a good man. He didn't deserve to die. Regardless of what the doctor said, Emma was going to continue to believe that Regina was somehow responsible for his death.
Numbly, Emma headed back toward the entrance of the hospital. She couldn't stand to be there any longer. She had always hated hospitals and this experience did not lessen that distaste in the slightest. She had to leave. Now.
As she approached her bug, her hands fumbled around her keys. Her hands were still shaking. Out of anger or grief, she couldn't be sure, quite possibly both.
She sighed when she heard the sound of the lock click. Pulling the door open slowly she slid into her seat. Her shoulders hunched as she sagged into it. She was only vaguely aware of where she was driving, both surprised and not to find herself back at the station.
It hadn't been her plan to go back to where Graham had died but she knew she didn't want to go back to her apartment either. Mary Margaret would be there. Mary Margaret was her friend, sure, but she didn't need a sympathetic friend patting her back and telling her everything was going to be all right. What she needed was a distraction, something to take her mind off the evenings events.
Emma stood in the doorway of Graham's office. Her body was still shaking lightly from the shock of the evening. She started when the phone in her pocket rang.
"Hello?" She spoke into the phone.
"Emma?" It was Mary Margaret. Of course.
"Yeah..."
"I heard what happened. A nurse friend of mine just called. Are you okay? Where are you? Are you coming home soon?" She rambled the questions off one after the other, barely taking a breath between them and certainly not leaving enough time for Emma to answer them.
Emma decided to completely ignore the first question. What kind of question was that anyway? Was she okay?Of course she wasn't okay. What a fucking ridiculous question. Emma didn't have time for questions like that.
"I'm at the station and no, I won't be home soon."
"Emma..." Mary Margaret began to plead.
"No. I can't come home right now. I just can't. I'm sorry. Okay?"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Ok...well I'm here if you need me, okay."
"Yeah," Emma replied then hung up the phone without even saying goodbye.
She didn't need Mary Margaret right now. Mary Margaret would sit next to her, pat her on the back and whisper empty promises about a brighter tomorrow. She would make Emma talk about her feelings and cry and other emotional shit like that. Emma was already more emotional than she ever liked to be she didn't want to get in touch with her feelings.Unlike how the reason Graham had come to her and kissed her to feel something, she didn't want to feelanything. Well, not anything emotional anyway.
Emma sat at Graham's desk wondering what he could do to just not feel anything anymore. What could she do to forget her grief if only for a moment?
The answer came to her when she thought about how Graham had come to her to feel something emotional, a real connection with a person instead of how he had been sleeping with Regina and not feeling a thing.
Maybe that's what she needed right now, to sleep with someone without any emotional connection, with out any feelings at all just pure carnal desire. There was only one problem of course; Emma didn't know a whole lot of men in Storybrooke. Not to mention she didn't find any of the men she knew very attractive and even if she did none of them seemed like the kind of man who would be okay with what she wanted.
That's not entirely true Emma. There is one man you know you find attractive whether you want to admit it or not and he'd have no qualms about slamming you against a wall and taking you without feeling, without emotion and not feel guilty about taking advantage of a grieving woman, a voice in Emma's mind pointed out.
It was right too, there was one man Emma could think of who would do want she wanted.
Gold,Emma thought. She probably never would've considered it had she been in her right mind regardless of the fact that she was in fact attracted to him. But she wasn't in her right mind. She was drunk with grief and the longer she sat there thinking about it the more it seemed like a good idea.
Mind made up, Emma began to furiously search Graham's office for some sort of town directory or phone book or something, some way to look up Gold's address. She found what she was looking for in the bottom right drawer of the desk. She flipped the town directory open, thumbing through the pages until she reached the "G's".
Gold, Gold, Gold,she thought as her index finger trailed down the page searching for his name. There!Quickly she grabbed a sticky note off the desk and copied down the address. She fished her keys out of her coat pocket and headed back out to her car with surprising urgency.
In the instant she arrived outside of Gold's house, parked at the curbside, she was thankful there was no police force to speak of aside from her; she'd driven well above the speed limit to get there. Though the clock had just struck two o'clock a.m., Emma could see lights on in Mr. Gold's house. For some reason, this fact didn't surprise her at all. Somehow Gold seemed the kind of man who was up until the wee hours of the morning doing god knows what. In any other context that would bother her or creep her out, make her curious what he was up to but right now she couldn't care less.
Right now she was just grateful that he was up and about. She wasn't sure what she would've done if she'd showed up at his house only to find it completely silent. Emma had made up her mind about what she wanted to do to distract her from her grief and it would've been a crushing blow if she were unable to satiate her desires that evening. Likely she would've resorted to alcohol and that was really just not even close to feeling as good as sex. It would be a distraction and make her forget for the night but it was nothing compared to a night of unadulterated sex.
Emma turned off the car and stepped out, shutting the door behind her and strutted up to Gold's front door with intense purpose. She was on a mission now. There was no time to be timid, shy or to feel any shame for what she was planning to do. Her boots made loud thuds against the wood of the steps of Gold's porch. If it was quiet inside, Gold was likely alerted to the presence of someone at his home. Approaching the door, Emma rapped her knuckles hard on it three times.
Inside, Gold stood in his dinning room, the sounds of knocking reverberating off the walls in his quiet home. He'd been having a drink when he heard footsteps outside his door and stood up to take a peek at who could be visiting him at this hour. He set his glass down lightly on the table. He'd only just poured his second glass when the knock came.
He walked to his front door and peered through the stained glass window to see who was there. In the darkness he could not tell who it was, the dark colors from the glass distorting the visitors features. Smoothly he opened the door just enough to peek out. He was more than a little shocked to find Emma Swan standing outside his door. Tentatively he opened it the rest of the way to get a good look at her. She looked decidedly disheveled, eyes puffy and cheeks visibly tear-stained.
"Ms. Swan?"
Emma was again not surprised by what she saw when he opened the door. He was still dressed up like he always was. He'd done away with the suit jacket and vest but was still wearing his dress shirt. It was blood red and tucked in tightly to his black dress pants. And oddly, Emma noted, he was barefoot, though somehow it didn't look weird at all. He looked cool, calm and collected just as he always did. Emma found that somehow reassuring.
She didn't say anything to him in greeting or anything to explain what she was doing there at such a strange hour. All she did was step swiftly through the threshold forcing Gold to fumble backwards lest she forcibly run him down. She slammed the door closed behind her. Emma was oddly satisfied when she glimpsed the surprise in Gold's eyes.
You haven't seen nothin' yet, Gold. Just you wait,Emma thought as she grabbed him by his shoulders. She turned him around and threw his body into the front door. He hit the door hard, pain shooting up his back at the contact and his cane crashed to the floor beside them.
Gold was absolutely speechless for the first time in his life. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. He couldn't recall having done anything to piss Emma off so much that she would track him to his house to attack him.
He didn't know about Graham dying so he could only assume that Emma was there to hurt him. The alternative didn't occur to him in the slightest. Well until she skulked up to him forcing one of her legs between his and reaching to wrap her arms around his neck that is.
Her lips came crashing into his with alarming force and urgency. It was not sweet; it was not soft; it was not romantic; it wasn't even lustful, it was feral. Her tongue snaked out and forced its way into Gold's mouth.
Gold was only vaguely aware of what was happening and that he was returning the kiss with surprising vigor. His own arms wound themselves around her body. His right arm, up high around her back just under her neck the other down around her waist pulling her closer.
As Emma kissed him sloppily she was pleased to feel him respond as he wrapped his thin yet strong arms around her. Already she could feel a stir from between Gold's legs. She moved the leg she had placed between his and could easily feel the growing hardness there. It excited her how quickly she was able to arouse him.
As Emma's leg brushed against his erection, his senses came flooding back to him as though he had just been roused from sleep by a bucket of ice-cold water.
"Ms. Swan, wait. What are you doing?" He asked panting and pushing her away from him by her shoulders. She tried to fight back against him to close the distance between them once more but Mr. Gold's grip on her was strong and firm, keeping her in place.
"Come on, Gold. Are you the kind of guy I think you are or not?"
It was only as Gold collapsed beside her, completely spent that he realized how much he had been sweating. His hair was clinging to his face and as he glanced at Emma next to him he noticed she had been sweating as well.
Gold lay beside her in bed as their breathing returned to normal one arm bent behind his head, the other resting on his belly. In that moment he had an urge to wrap and arm around Emma's waist but he refrained. That was too intimate, too familiar.
He must not forget what this was. It was a one-time thing. One emotionless, pleasure filled evening to help her forget her troubles, nothing more. So he kept his hands to himself as he drifted off to sleep and Emma did the same as she turned away from him onto her side and fell asleep, all thoughts of Graham completely gone from her mind. Even as she slept, not once did thoughts of Graham surface even in her subconscious. She had gotten what she came for.