SUMMARY: "Any curse can be broken with a true love's kiss…" AU Graham & Emma
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry about the title :P I was listening to "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri while finishing this and at a loss to figure out a proper title, I just ended up calling it this. I changed a little detail in the scene at the station, which I hope you'll understand. I'll explain in the end note, so please just go with anything in this fic.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned Once Upon A Time, Graham wouldn't have been killed. So obviously I don't own anything.
Heart Beats Fast
She can't believe this is happening. Less than twelve hours ago she was in the kitchen with Mary Margaret, denying, trying to convince both herself and her roommate, that she didn't have feelings for Graham. Now… Now she's here. In the Sheriff's station, leaning on the edge of one of the two desks, feeling like her chest is bursting with… something. It feels like her heart is too big for her chest. If that was even possible.
She knows what this means. She's felt like this once before. Over a decade ago. And she never thought it would happen again. Back then she made a promise to herself that she wouldn't let it happen again. Yet here she is, smiling at her boss. Graham. And he's just looking at her confused about why she's looking at him like that.
"What?" He says with a little smirk.
She doesn't do or say anything to answer his question right away. She just stares at him for a good few seconds, wondering whether or not he really doesn't know or if he does and just wants her to say it. This is something she has to do. For Graham and most of all, herself. It's time to break down that wall…
His smirk disappears as he watches her push herself off the desk and makes her way towards him. She's walking ever so slowly towards him, tormenting the guy who has fallen so deeply for her, who wants so badly for her to kiss him. He's pining for the feel of her lips on his.
She takes the small steps to give her time to convince her brain that she's going with her heart this time. She wants to let everything go and just focus on this very moment, on this man. This beautiful man… The first guy to catch her heart since she was 18. So, she smiles the smallest of smiles to reassure herself and tells every part of her that this is going tohappen. And it does…
She takes the last step and glances from his eyes to his lips, his perfectly shaped lips that she can't wait to touch with her own. And it's like in slow motion, but it finally happens and it feels like this is something that was supposed to happen. Like it was destined to be, like they belong together. Not that she's sure that she believes in that stuff, but that's how it feels.
He answers her kiss immediately and it's a slow kiss. It's not needy or filled with desire. It's a testing kiss, but a very sweet one.
She feels one of his hands on her hip and the other making its way up to the side of her neck, cradling her head. His thumb is stroking lightly up and down on her hip as if to soothe her, as if he knows this is hard for her. She responds by lifting both her hands, one landing on his shoulder and the other on his chest.
The kiss deepens easily, but just as she's about to pull him closer he freezes and jerks back. She looks at him. He's got this frightened look on his face and it scares her.
"Graham?" She says, trying to get his attention. "You okay?"
He still looks frightened, but it quickly dissolves into relief and joy. "I remember," he says.
"Graham?" She says again.
She really wants an actual answer from him this time. He's scaring her. She's afraid that what he remembers resembles what David started remembering a couple of days ago, which crushed her friend's heart. She wants more than anything for that not to be the case here, but she's so afraid that it is, that he remembers how he started seeing Regina. She wants Graham, like she's never wanted anything. And somehow her heart is telling her that this… that her wanting him so badly is more important than finding her parents. Not that she will ever stop trying to find them.
"I remember," he just says again, looking determined.
"You remember what?"
He starts walking over to her, determined about something and the closer he gets, the less she knows what he's going to do. Is he going to break her heart? Is he just going to apologize to her for leading her on and then run off to find Regina and make up with her? Is he going to hug her and just forget about what they'd shared less than ten seconds ago?
She's being negative. She knows that. But growing up the way she has there's really not any way to escape becoming a cynic, a negative person. Foster kids dream of their parents finally coming to pick them up and get them out of the system. But once they reach their pre-teen years, reality sets in. The parents are not coming and from then on… negativity rules the minds and lives of abandoned kids.
She keeps looking at him, trying to find any indication of what he's doing, what he's thinking. Suddenly a look of gratitude appears and she hopes this comes in favor for her. A single tear rolls down from one of his two gorgeous blue eyes and he reaches up to her cheeks to cradle her face with his hands. She smiles, but it fades away quickly as she realizes that this doesn't necessarily mean he wants her the same way she wants him.
"Thank you," he then simply says.
He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't say what he's thanking her for. But she smiles again anyway, because even if he's letting go of her, she's still glad that she helped him with whatever he needed help for. But then he leans in and the relief she feels overwhelms her. Her eyes are burning with tears of happiness that are threatening to fall, but she wills them away. She doesn't want to cry now no matter how little she's let herself be guarded tonight.
He touches her lips, kissing her quickly, intending to move in again to deepen the kiss, but he pauses as a small distinctive pain appears in his chest.
She can feel that he's tense, so she puts her hands around his neck and starts rubbing circles gently on the back of his neck, massaging him. And it makes him relax against her again. The faint pain is soon replaced with a tingle that makes him smile. He knows what just happened. She saved him.
And this moment, right here, couldn't get more perfect. Neither one of them have ever felt anything like this before. He hasn't been allowed to feel anything. She has felt, but nothing as strong as this.
Trying to get as much out of this moment as possible, Emma dips her head a bit to catch Graham's with hers again. And he gladly welcomes it, moving his hands around to the back of her neck to pull her closer. As the kiss continues and intensifies, she tightly wraps both her arms around his neck trying to get as close to him as possible, standing on her toes. He grabs a firmer hold of her, wrapping both his arms all the way around her tiny waist, to keep her balance even. As she got what she wanted him to do, she loosens her hold on him and moves her hands to the sides of his neck, before slipping them further down to his collar bones. She starts fumbling with his tie, trying to untie it leaving no doubt in Graham's mind what she's up to and he pulls away.
"Emma…" He says against her lips and kisses her one last time, before pulling away.
She's disappointed, he can tell, and maybe even… insecure? And she's backing away from him. Graham is quick to reassure her though.
"No, it's not like that," he says softly and pulls her back to him, tightening his hold so she can't step away again. He soothes her by stroking her back softly with his fingers just the way she's always liked it and it removes all her willpower. "I just…" He starts, "I was with Regina less than 24 hours ago…" This makes Emma cringe, so he places a kiss on her forehead before continuing, "And I feel like she's still on me? Like she's on my clothes, I…" He pauses, frowning before continuing, "I just want to wait a little while, okay?"
She nods still a bit unsure, so he kisses her again really thoroughly this time, leaving no doubt in her mind that he really wants her.
"Let me take you home," he says against her lips.
Not feeling like saying goodnight to him yet, she agrees with a slight nod of her head. He rubs his hands up and down her arms a couple of times as if to warm them. Then he reaches behind him, picking up her jacket and helps her put it on. She follows him into his office as he goes to get his own and slings it over his arm. As they leave, he puts his hands on Emma's shoulders, rubbing them a couple of times before taking her hand and intertwining their fingers. She smiles up at him. This feels good.
What she doesn't know is that she saved her one true love from a quick, yet horrible death just by kissing him.
"I'm throwing these clothes out tomorrow," he jokes, causing her to chuckle as they leave the Sheriff's station.
At the same time, a mile away, the Mayor of Storybrooke, Maine, is frozen standing still in her hidden vault. She had come down here intending to crush the Huntsman's heart, killing him and his alter ego, Graham. But as she'd held the heart in her hands, about to crush it… It had vanished. What she doesn't know is that this particular heart is connected to another, very important heart.
The heart had magically reappeared in his chest because of a very special kiss…
So, I added a very short kiss between Graham and Emma, so that the second kiss could break his first curse: "not feeling anything." His second curse was to not remember his true identity, obviously.
I'm working on just a small little thing to add to this, so if you're curious to know what will happen in the coming moments after this, click on "follow". I don't know how long it will take, but I hope it will be up soon. Please be patient :) And I hope you will review, even if it's just a short one.
