Summary: She could feel him along every inch of her skin, like tiny needles. How they had gotten to this point almost didn't matter. Almost. Her hands wedged themselves either side of the chair, trying to keep a grip on reality... Mad Swan-shot, post 2x09
A wishful thinking fic, written in a rush before episode 2x10 airs and the canon changes. A homage to the amazing potential (and scorching-hot chemistry) of Emma/Jefferson in 'Hat Trick', and why these two will always be my OTP, no matter how much the show tries to force Captain Swan on me.
I'm taking it slow
Feeding my flame
Shuffling the cards of your game
And just in time
In the right place
Suddenly I will play my ace
I won't soothe your pain
I won't ease your strain
You'll be waiting in vain
I got nothing for you to gain
BLUE FOUNDATION - EYES ON FIRE
we all go a little mad sometimes
It's more like an electric shock than anything else, that white-hot brush of his mouth on hers, the insistent nip of his teeth on her lower lip – too hard to be playful, not quite hard enough to be cruel. She doesn't push him away, even though her mind – hardened, cynical, disillusioned – tells her to resist, urges her to throw herself into the bare-fisted fight she's been craving ever since this top-hatted, grinning lunatic drugged and kidnapped her.
She tightens her jaw, willing herself not to make a sound as he runs his hands up and down her sides, tracing her shape through the thin tank top that serves as no barrier to the uneven caresses that send light tremors shivering across her skin, a delicious frisson of tension. Close enough to inhale the dangerous gunmetal smell of him that lingers beneath the hedonistic scent of cologne. Just body chemistry, she tells herself. God knows, she's dated enough losers to know that attraction has no basis in common sense. Easier to believe this is something purely physical that can be dismissed as a bizarre hormonal glitch. Any other alternative is impossible. She can't trust him, won't open herself up enough to allow it, still clinging to that last shred of lonely independence. It's a vulnerability, letting someone in, but she's been doing that a lot recently, though not like this, not since Graham…
The thought shatters when Jefferson uncoils his cravat, letting it slide away carelessly, the indigo silk fluttering to the floor, and she is eye level with the scar on his throat, and it reminds her just how dangerous he can be (off with his head, he had said manically, placing the top hat on his head and levelling the gun at her terrified gaze…)
...
The first thing she became aware of was the dull, insistent pounding in the back of her skull, a low pain that throbbed in time with the beating of blood in her ears. Emma groaned softly, opening her eyes a fraction. Deep white neon lights streamed down illumination from overhead. Steel-grey and white cabinets, hyper-real lighting, bizarrely patterned wallpaper that made her feel like she was in a house of cards or a hall of mirrors… A tiny frown marred her brow, a sense of unease creeping along her skin, because she knew this room…
A whisper of air, like the slow release of tightly-held breath, drifted over the back of her neck, making her instinctively square her shoulders. There was the close susurration of silk against her skin, and then leather followed, brushing against her side, drawing an involuntary shiver from her. A low chuckle of faint amusement reached her ears. Her spine tingled, and Emma placed her booted feet on the floor in an attempt to steady herself. It was only then she realised she was sitting down.
She glanced down. Her hands were bound with – she blinked a little to clear her vision, hating this uncharacteristic helplessness – an indigo silk scarf, intricately embroidered and soft against her wrists despite the tightness of the knots…
Somewhere, in the fogged depths of her mind, understanding began to stir faintly. She shook her head, trying to dispel the mist, her senses slowly regaining focus…
A blurring movement caught her attention. In the dim, artificial light she could see the silhouette of a man hovering over her. The glint of metal. Leather trousers, a dark grey waistcoat, charcoal shirt beneath, the flash of a grin, white and startling in the gloom…
"Jefferson," she muttered.
Her body reacted faster than her mind and jumped into action immediately, jerking against the restraints. The hows and whys ceased to matter, would be returned to later, as years of honing her survival instincts kicked in. Her wrists writhed, slick inside the knots that, frustratingly, did not give. She twisted her slim, muscled frame, feeling the blood rush to her head as she tried to get up –
"Don't do that." The press of cold metal against her brow stilled her to stone because she knew even without looking that she was facing the barrel of a gun. Emma exhaled, slow and shaky, every nerve in her body keyed to a fever pitch. Her blood thrummed with adrenaline. Every emotion tense, heightened. Shock. Anger. And yes – a hint of fear. Immobile, she waited, anticipating the next move in whatever kind of messed-up game he was playing with her –
She sensed rather than saw him standing over her. His face gradually came into clearer focus, the distorted lines and angles, grey-green eyes like shards of broken glass, a shock of tow-coloured hair. In the dark, she heard him swallow. The gun pressing cold into her forehead trembled slightly. Emma grimly braced herself, expecting him to kill her, expecting him to –
Expecting him to do anything but kneel in front of her.
His body folded down with threatening grace and he settled back on his heels, watching her. His arms were braced either side of the chair, not quite touching her thighs, but close enough for her to be magnetically aware of him. He was impeccably tailored but as always there was something slightly off about his appearance – the top button of his shirt was open, one of the cuffs had come undone, even his face that would have been handsome were it not for that ironic, slanted, asymmetrical quality to the sideways tilt of his head as he regarded her thoughtfully –
"I expected more of a fight," he said musingly.
"You want a fight?" And this time, she was relieved to hear her voice come out ringing and sure – challenging –
Before he could have time to consider her words, Emma hurled herself forward, her body colliding hard against his, sending them both crashing to the floor.
...
"This is crazy," she says bluntly.
He draws back slightly, and she can see his throat shift as he breathes in, swallows, the thin scar appearing startling red against the unhealthy pallor of his skin. He strokes a strand of golden hair away from her face, his thumb dragging across her parted lips. His eyes are endless mirrors reflecting back into infinity. Regarding her with that familiar, casual impatience. "You know what your problem is, Emma?" he mumbles, lips working a heated path down the line of her jaw, his kisses slow and drugging as the tea that had incapacitated her, "You think too much. Always trying to rationalise, to compartmentalise things according to your own narrow little experiences. You ask questions, even when you already know the answers. You can never accept, never just let things… be."
She opens her mouth – some sharp retort about the irony of being psycho-analysed by the Mad Hatter on the tip of her tongue – when he stifles any chance of a response, his mouth pressing to hers with searing abruptness. Now slow and lazy, now urgent and frenzied, always unpredictable.
He rapidly backs her against the wall, never stopping that moment of heated contact, one hand tangling in her long hair between fevered kisses. His hips are flush against hers, pushing her back into the wall. She remembers how easily he had overpowered her the night they met and it should give her pause, but at the same time there's something oddly comforting in it – after being lauded the Saviour and holding the fate of worlds, both real and fairy-tale on her shoulders, there's a kind of relief in letting someone else take control for once. In a world gone mad, it seems a strangely sane option.
...
Her bound hands and knees caught the brunt of the fall, still jarring enough to knock the breath from her body. She rolled over and over on the plush carpet, catching a blurred glimpse of monochrome lighting and crimson patterned wallpaper, desperately hoping this crazy, distorted maze of a house had some semblance of an exit –
She wasn't thinking rationally, all she knew was that this man had kidnapped and threatened her, and she certainly wasn't going to quietly wait around until someone in Storybrooke finally noticed she was missing. Panting wildly, she glanced around for a door – or better still, his gun – when Jefferson caught her leg, hooking his hand behind her knee and pulling her roughly towards him. Resisting, her elbows dragged on the carpet, the abrasive friction making her wince.
Before he could overpower her entirely, she lifted her lithe arms and her bound fists caught him square in the chest, eliciting a satisfying grunt of pain from him. She took advantage of the momentary release, lunging again, taking him down in a wild tackle. They hit the floor together, Emma gripping a handful of his satin shirt, a darkly vicious burst of satisfaction flaring inside her. There was something grimly cathartic in a fierce, bare-knuckled fight that set her blood racing.
She could feel the rigid tension in his arms as he grappled with her, teeth pressing hard into his lower lip, the expression on his face half-wild. He was unnervingly strong, and she felt her initial rush of exhilaration sharpen to icy fear. She was no weakling and able to handle herself in a fight, but he was dangerous and unpredictable. His hand tightened on the back of her neck, slowly forcing her body down. She twisted violently in an attempt to throw him off, and a feral yell burst from her chest as he abruptly rolled her over. Nothing but overhead white lights and a cabinet filled with hats before his face swam into her vision again. He was breathing hard, ragged at the edges. Trapping her bound hands above her head in an uncompromising grip.
"Impressive manners," Jefferson deadpanned.
"Thanks," she returned breathlessly, and kicked him viciously in the shins. His face darkened slightly, his body shifting over her, pinning her legs down with his knees.
Too close. Much too close. Emma clenched her jaw, infuriated by her weak position. He was looking down at her with malice on the edge of affection, like a knife in the back just before a kiss. The pulse was hammering in her ears. She found herself on the verge of panic. What was she doing, messing around with a deranged man like this? He was little more than a lunatic – just because he had been right about the curse didn't make him any less insane or dangerous. It just meant there was reason behind his madness.
His closeness made her chest tight, made her gasp for a breath of air. His throat arched above her, and that was when she saw it clearly. A raw, ragged line bisecting the pale skin of his neck with no break in sight. Her eyes widened and she momentarily stopped fighting. "Your scar," she whispered, staring.
Jefferson swallowed. "Decapitation," he said shortly.
Something in his dark expression warned her not to question him any further.
Her head fell back on the carpet as she willed the racing of her heart to slow, tried to still the rapid rise and fall of her chest. The insanity of her position was not lost on her. How had she gotten herself into such a horridly ridiculous situation?
The laughable thing was, she had thought herself safe – despite discovering that magic was real, that a dragon had been living under Storybrooke and that Regina's mother was somehow more dangerous, more psychotic than the Evil Queen herself – she had thought an iced tea in Granny's just to take half an hour off wasn't too much to ask –
But apparently, Saviours didn't get down time.
She hadn't expected, certainly hadn't wanted to see him there when she threw herself tiredly into a seat, her mouth tight with displeasure, staring fixedly into her drink to avoid any kind of communication (also wondering in the back of her mind why she wasn't arresting him). Uncertain, thinking she was just trusting her instincts, she had distanced herself from him; acting as though she was unaware of him sitting alone, his leather-gloved fingers tracing idle, bored patterns on the diner table, choosing solitude rather than the company of all those he could have if he simply picked himself up and tried.
She remembered thinking how strange it had been, seeing him there, so incongruously out of place, darkly-dressed and seated in the corner, recalled the fractional, almost dismissive wave of his gloved hand as he seemed to barely acknowledge her, though an ironic smile had been playing around the corners of his mouth as she took a sip of –
The tea. Of course. How could she have been so easily blindsided? Once was a mistake. Twice was just embarrassing. Heat flushed through her, equal parts anger and humiliation as she raised her gaze to his accusingly.
"You drugged me. Again."
"Going to arrest me, Sherriff… oh, but you're not Sherriff anymore, are you?" Jefferson paused, smiling softly, a faintly sardonic light appearing in his slate eyes. He leaned closer. His voice, low and rasping, ghosted down her exposed throat as he added with mock concern, "It looks like Daddy stole your job."
She wrenched her head away from him, glaring, an intuitive feeling of defiance rising in the face of his mordant apathy. She was jittery, wound up, her body unsatisfied with the brief scuffle that she hadn't won. If it hadn't been for the throbbing in her damn head, she might have been able to overpower him. As it was, she was lying here flat on her back, defeated. Her skin felt too tight, like she wanted to burst out of it. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and heat flushed her cheeks, this defenceless waiting more than her tightly-strung nerves could stand.
To her relief, he eased himself off her, giving her room to breathe. He moved with that slow, deceptively lethargic quality that she knew from experience could turn to wild and frenzied within moments. The brief thought of running crossed her mind, but she saw he had retrieved the gun, pointing it vaguely in her direction, though not direct enough to be immediately threatening.
Slowly, Emma picked herself up, rotating a tense shoulder as she watched him warily. "What do you want?"
"We need to talk." That drawling familiarity in his voice sent her nerve endings up.
Talk? She continued to regard him suspiciously, eyes narrowed. "And why does that have to involve me being tied up?"
The glint in his eyes took on a sinister light. His voice silver-soft, like mercury. "We both know how good you are at running."
She heard the loud click of the gun sound as he swung it towards her. "Sit down."
...
His expensive waistcoat creases beneath her fingers, her nails scoring the seams, though judging from his muffled groan into her neck, she doubts he would care if she tore it to shreds. A leather-clad knee insinuates its way between her thighs. Lust flares up her body, an electric jolt, and she wonders dimly how long it's been, then pushes the thought away when she realises it's probably been even longer for him… not that she's contemplating – not that she ever would –
She dimly realises that she's gripping him tightly by his shirt collar, her knee hooking over his hip (her body is certainly less confused about this than her mind, at any rate). Jefferson pulls her up, pinning her arms above her head – she suddenly recalls her hands being bound with his cravat earlier and instinctively tenses, enough to make him pause. His mouth is damp and flushed, eyelids low and his pupils blown wide, yet there is something dark and sharp in the fixed intensity of his gaze. Then he sighs deep in his throat, his forehead pushing against hers, his uncoiffed hair brushing her brow. "Remember what I said about trust?"
Emma draws a shuddering breath. She feels herself falling out of reality, and perhaps, after all, this is only a crazy fantasy dreamed up by her stress-wrought mind, still reeling from the revelation of magic, from exhaustion, from travelling between worlds…maybe just for once, she can throw herself into sensation, and to hell with consequences…
...
Uncharacteristically, she complied, dropping resentfully into the chair. Her legs were trembling with the aftermath of adrenaline and probably still weak from whatever concoction he had spiked her tea with. Emma shivered slightly, her bared shoulders prickling with cold. She noticed her leather jacket had been draped over the back of one of the chairs, and the sudden realisation that he must have taken it off made her pulse pound with (indignation? anger?) The blood flared hotly in her cheeks while Jefferson gazed back cold, eyes unapologetic.
He was leaning back, so casually. The gun hung idly from his hand. Laconic and bored, he seemed startlingly normal, dressed like the wealthy bachelor he was. She recalled that at times he could appear disturbingly rational and sane – as he had appeared the night they first met before drugging and kidnapping became part of the plan. There was the faintest chance he could be reasoned with. Perhaps some uneasy alliance could come out of this, or at the very least, could buy her some time before David (she still couldn't think of him as Dad) hauled the Mad Hatter's crazy self into a nice padded cell. She drew a steadying breath, rubbing her bound hands tiredly against her forehead as she tried her utmost to keep her tone civil.
"Look… Jefferson. I know we kind of got off on the wrong foot –"
He stared at her, impassive. "You mean when you chose to disbelieve everything I told you about Storybrooke."
"Just because you were right, it doesn't make you any less crazy." She mentally cursed herself for the acid reply. So much for tact.
"What's crazier than refusing to believe what's right in front of you?"
She already hated that drawling, condescending quality he displayed, as though she was a particularly dense child that needed everything explained. Emma exhaled sharply, fingers clenching beneath the silken length of fabric as she bit down the flash of temper that too frequently got the better of her these days. Her head was pounding and she was in no mood to rationalise against his insane logic.
"Okay, I get it, I was wrong."
Jefferson drew back slightly, heavy brows raised with a show of exaggerated surprise. "Was that an apology?"
"Yes," she snapped, with a little too much passion. "Sure, whatever. Now can you please just let me go?"
He moved behind her. Emma's shoulders stiffened, her back tensing at the unnerving proximity. She should have fought it more strongly, this invasion of her personal space that she knew coming from any other man would be downright lascivious – but this was just one of Jefferson's quirks. At least, she fervently hoped so (was she just kidding herself?) His chin rested on her hair and she could have sworn he inhaled. He moved his mouth against her ear, murmuring, "I need your help."
"Yeah? Well, the polite thing to do is ask," she growled, still struggling against the bonds, ignoring the prickling, not-entirely unpleasant warmth creeping down her neck. She hated that – her reacting to him – again, something beyond her control. His hand slid down to her elbow, holding her rigid in place.
"Look," he whispered thickly into her hair.
The glass-topped table was strewn with scraps of material; satins and silks and velvets. And that hat – that damn hat that had sent her to the Enchanted Forest, or what was left of it – sat in front of her. Battered and torn, but she would have recognised it anywhere. All her energy seemed to drain away and her body slumped back in the chair, a horrible sense of déjà vu creeping over her. "Please don't tell me that's what I think it is."
Jefferson was toying idly with a pair of scissors, watching with detached kind of interest as the light glanced off the sharpened blade. "It got a little… incinerated. I rescued what I could from the fire. Maybe some of the magic remains." His sombre eyes burned into her. "You can supply the rest. When it's fixed."
A strangled, disbelieving laugh escaped her in an unsteady rush. He really was crazy. "You want me to… fix your hat?" Again.
He continued to gaze at her, unsmiling. "We both know you can."
She shook her head in vague disbelief, long strands of blonde hair falling forward over her shoulders. "You're kidding, right?"
"Don't play stupid. You got it to work with Regina. You can do it again."
"How did you –"
He snapped the scissors shut, the steel blade dropping like a guillotine. It sounded startlingly loud in the intense quiet of the room, enough to make her jump, and Emma inwardly cursed herself for being so tense – wasn't she supposed to be the Sherriff, cool and in control of every situation? Ignoring the inherent threat of violence and madness that lurked beneath the action – she was not going to let him intimidate her – she stubbornly persevered.
"Why do you need the hat?"
"Is it possible, after all this time, you're still being wilfully ignorant? The hat is a portal." His voice was low and flat, punctuating every syllable. "Work. It. Out."
"You're trying to get back."
"Of course I am. Don't you ever long for home?"
She thought suddenly of Tallahassee and pain knifed through her heart, making it swell like an old bruise. She had sworn never to think of those days again. That wound was still raw, causing her shoulders to stiffen as the barriers which that bitter experience had erected came up with steel-like rigidity.
"I don't have a home," she said, flat and harsh. None that I remember, anyway. Storybrooke was the closest place she had to a home, despite Mary Margaret insisting the Enchanted Forest was where she belonged.
Perhaps there was a degree of intuitiveness somewhere in the insanity, as Jefferson did not push the point. To her relief, he had put the scissors down. The tightly-honed tension in the room eased slightly, lifting some of the suffocating pressure off her shoulders. Emma found she could breathe again.
"The Enchanted Forest still exists," he stated calmly.
"Yeah, sure," she said, with a dismissive shrug of her shoulders. "Parts of it."
"Well, that's where I want you to get us."
Us?
For a moment she didn't understand, but then he smiled a little impatiently at her and comprehension showed itself in her face.
"Your daughter," she breathed, realising. "You found her."
"Grace," he said, staring fixedly down at the mirrored surface of the table, "Her name is Grace."
Emma's expression softened slightly, a flicker of sympathy awakening in spite of herself – sympathy which she forcefully shoved down when she sternly reminded herself that this man had kidnapped her and Mary Margaret, drugged her, deceived her and threatened her with a gun. Just because he might be a loving father did not make him a good person. She clenched her jaw. Perhaps, somewhere in her subconscious, she was aware of having been let down too many times, and that tightly-suppressed pain was guiding her every action, instinctively raising her guard, making her hostile. She was not going to be made a fool of. She would never let a stranger weaken her defences. Never.
So, imbuing her tone with the weary scepticism that until recently had been a part of her almost constantly since coming to Storybrooke, Emma asked, "Where is she?"
The jutting line of his jaw betrayed his thinning patience. "Stop – asking questions. Start working."
Emma's mouth tightened. Clearly, he wasn't aware that she didn't respond well to threats. So more for the sake of deliberately defying him than any other reason, she shot him an angry look. "I can't do anything. You tied me up, remember?"
"Oh," he drawled. A flash of wry amusement momentarily seemed to animate his pale features. "That."
His head tilted to one side, holding her under that unnerving scrutiny. Pupils dilated, lids drooping slightly. "Can I trust you not to run?"
"Trust goes both ways," Emma returned, without compromise. She straightened her back and met his gaze challengingly. She would have crossed her arms if her hands weren't tied. "And you're not giving me much to work with."
"True," he agreed. "But you did knock me out with a telescope."
She hid a grin at the memory, knowing that laughing at him would not be the best way to get her out of this bizarre situation. "Okay," she sighed, deciding that one of them needed to be the bigger person here. Otherwise she could spend all night arguing semantics with a lunatic. "No more fighting. From either of us. Deal?"
...
Warily, tentatively, she places her hands on his shoulders. She feels the muscles at the back of his neck tense, and for the first time, he looks nervous. But his scar is the least of her reservations when it comes to Jefferson. She's never been shy around men, never been coy when it comes to expressing her desires (physical desires, at least) and she leans into his neck and kisses the pulse that beats under her lips with frenzied rapidity, her tongue darting out to taste him where the ugly red welt parts his skin. She hears the catch of breath in his throat as his eyes flutter half-shut. The convulsive clench of his fingers around her hips shows just how little self-restraint he has, jerking her so close she can feel every inch of him pressed against her. The buttons of his vest dig into her chest. His heartbeat is pulsating wildly through the layer of satin, and the thought of the sardonic, drawling, indifferent Jefferson coming completely undone by her evokes a wicked, delicious thrill. She's not a Good Girl, not by any stretch of the imagination, and nice boys never appealed to her much, anyway...
Down the rabbit hole, she thinks wildly, and pulls him down to her.
...
A moment of hesitation in which she could hear the blood beating in her ears. Then he nodded, a sharp jerk of the head.
Cautiously, she held out her hands, watching him sharply beneath lowered lashes. He moved in closer, radiating heat beneath sleek satin. She kept her spine straight, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth tingling through her at his nearness. The pulse throbbed in her wrists. His mouth coming down at one side with concentration, Jefferson slid the razor-sharp blade of the scissors beneath the tightly knotted fabric, gradually easing it loose. The long length of silk fell away, sliding over the sensitive skin of her wrists, cool and soft, a soothing relief to the near-painful knots that had bound them together. She resisted the urge to rub her hands that were tingling with the restored flow of blood.
"Thanks," she said, a little unsteadily.
Jefferson began to tie the cravat around his own neck with elaborate care, and she wasn't sure she liked that – it seemed uncomfortably intimate. She was beginning to feel more than a little edgy. He was impossible to predict and that made him dangerous, as she couldn't get him. She wasn't able to trust her instincts and it unnerved her. He was a bizarre, walking contradiction of a man, knocking the grim surety from under her. She never knew what he was going to do next. One of the overhead lights flickered, cutting the hat-stacked cabinet into eerie shapes, his silhouette a tall shadow. He turned away and she heard the clinking of glass. While his back was turned, Emma swiftly plucked one of the hatpins from the rigid material, slipping it into the pocket of her black jeans. Just in case.
She watched him out of the corners of her vision as he set a decanter on the table, extricating the crystal stopper. Clearly, her brain was still muddled from whatever he had slipped into her drink earlier because surely, surely this could not be happening. He stepped around the table, placing a filled glass down in front of her. Emma stared at him coldly; dark blonde eyebrows raised a fraction as though to ask, seriously?
"First you drug me, now you're trying to get me drunk?"
"Emma," he explained, quite reasonably, "Just because I kidnapped you, it doesn't mean I can't be hospitable." He folded his body into a chair with complete apathy, long legs resting on the table, staring at her moodily. "Drink. It's on me."
She inhaled curiously, the tang of alcohol hitting her senses. Bourbon. She swirled the liquid around in the frosted glass, watching it splash against the ice. No doubt it was of the highest quality, just like everything else in this mansion… She hesitated momentarily, but then decided on reflection that even Jefferson wasn't crazy enough to drug her twice in twenty-four hours. She gave a careless little shrug, that reckless thirst for danger awakening inside her. Why the hell not? "Well… cheers, I guess."
She knocked back the liquid in one go; it burned down her throat like an inferno and made her choke slightly. Jefferson's mouth twitched, clearly amused, which made Emma's fingers tingle with irritation. She hated being laughed at.
As a means of occupying her liberated hands, she began toying with what remained of the tattered hat. After climbing beanstalks, battling a giant, rescuing hearts and jumping into portals, imbuing magic into a top hat was actually one of the less demanding things that had been asked of her recently. You killed a dragon last week, she reminded herself. You can make a hat. The kidnapping and gun-wielding aside, Jefferson's request wasn't entirely unreasonable, given that she did have some kind of magic inside her, be it True Love or something else entirely. She was still trying to get her head around it all, frustrated and confused, because none of this was making sense –
"Why me?" she asked bluntly. "Why not talk to Gold? Isn't this his whole department?"
"There'll be a price," he muttered. "There is always a price. And he won't help. Not if there's a risk of Cora coming through."
She set her glass down on the table with a sharp clink. One name she would have been happy never to hear again. "Wait, how do you know Cora?"
Jefferson looked up at her from where he sat across the glass table, eyes following the white light that ricocheted from facet to facet, crystalline reflections making his colourless eyes glow. "When I was a prisoner in Wonderland, who do you think kept me there?"
"Hang on, hang on… time out for a second… are you telling me that Regina's Mom is the Queen of Hearts?" Her head was starting to hurt again. She wasn't sure how many more revelations she could take. "I guess insanity runs in the family."
Again, another burst of energy – his swift changes of mood were starting to exhaust her – and he leapt up from his reclining position, stalking towards her. He leaned over her; bizarrely, she caught the scent of cologne, lightly spiced and unsettlingly pervasive. He pressed his forehead to hers and she could feel the burning heat of his skin. His hair, messy and already beginning to curl out of control, brushed her upturned face. "See how everything fits," he exhaled in a ragged whisper, "Once you start to believe."
His familiarity was disconcerting, and for a brief, alarming instant Emma was sure he was going to kiss her – her body tensed, tightened – and she rapidly debated whether to recoil or attack (fight or flight), when he slid away with that strange, catlike fluidity.
Emma opened her mouth, but then another thought came to mind, turning her cold. "Wait," she said slowly. "What did you mean that Cora might come through?"
...
Her hand slides along his jaw that is slightly rough with the beginnings of stubble, fingers tracing the cool skin that burns beneath the surface. A dizzying sense of euphoria is clouding those irritating, persistent doubts. She wants to fall into him and lose herself in the madness; it's been too long since someone held her like this. His hands are electrifying every part of her, each purple kiss sending a shuddering through her entire body. Her arms fall around his shoulders, trusting him to hold her up, barely aware of her own panting breaths, conscious only of the ragged friction of his hips against hers. Desperate, she captures his mouth in hers, trying to steal away his breath, what last vestiges remain of his sanity. A violent shudder passes through him, and he clamps a hand on her waist, as though unable to bear the thought of letting her go.
Her head falls willingly to one side, blonde hair cascading messily over her shoulder as he licks up the hollow of her throat. A choking sound escapes her when he bites her ear, just a hint of wicked playfulness in the gesture. And yet she senses the frightening disregard for limits beneath, the inherent fact that isn't just any guy she's dealing with. Her heart begins to pound faster and faster. She is playing with a force she doesn't understand. Something tells her that if she succumbs to this, she might not come out the other side alive.
Jefferson steps back momentarily; gaze fixed on her, lambent and hooded, flicking open the buttons of his waistcoat. His hair is messed up, his formal, tailored clothes a state and then all she cares about is getting him out of them. With that in mind, she surges forward, fumbling with his belt, pulling the shirt free, her fingers sliding around his waist –
Until they close around the cool cylinder of metal in his back pocket.
...
She stiffened as he slowly, eerily turned his face towards her. "Magic is unpredictable. Especially here. If a portal opens, she might be waiting on the other side."
"Oh no." The scraps of fabric dropped from her nerveless hands. "No way am I risking her getting to Storybrooke –"
"Why? She and Regina will destroy each other." Jefferson's shoulders rolled into a shrug, his lip curling with contempt. "Seems a fair trade to me."
"Except for the rest of us she'll go after as well!" She leaned across the table, her body humming on the edge of violence, muscles strained, already instinctively preparing for a fight. And this time, not one she was going to lose. She was not about to back down. Family was more important than anything, but she also had a life here, a duty. She was still the Sheriff, it was still her job to uphold justice and protect the citizens of Storybrooke. "I have family here. Friends. Think how many lives could get ruined –"
"Could get ruined?" he returned, voice heavy with cynicism. "My life is already ruined."
"Okay, so Regina screwed you over. The rest of us haven't exactly gotten off lightly, either. She's messed with everyone in this town, me included."
"Yes," he murmured, looking at her contemplatively through the line of his lashes. "She has, hasn't she?" Emma shifted uneasily under that strange, tightly-focused intensity. Then it went just as quickly, and he was regarding her with a dreary kind of apathy, the abrupt transition of emotion that was only possible in the truly mad. "But this is personal," he finished in a low voice, almost to himself.
Ire flashed within her, quick and sudden as lightning. "Well whatever issues you and Regina have, you can deal with them yourself. I'm not doing your dirty work." She began to rise.
His hand descended heavily on her shoulder, thrusting her back into the chair so abruptly that the breath left her body in a rush.
"Wrong," he said. "It has to be you. And you're going to help me." The metallic grin of the raised gun flashed at her. That old madness lit his eyes again with an unhealthy glow. "After all, a dead saviour isn't much good to anyone –"
"You're not going to kill me," she retorted with a note of biting impatience, but her voice cracked all the same. "You know the whole town's going to be searching for me."
"Oh yes, that's right… your friends."
Hot indignation flared up her spine, something which would have made her laugh a couple of months ago. "Hey, I earned my place in this town. Which is clearly more than I can say for you."
Jefferson's eyes narrowed to slits and he went dangerously still. "I had the thing I loved most torn from me, forced to live in the knowledge that my daughter not only didn't love me, but didn't even remember me, so no, Sherriff, I didn't take the time to settle in, as you so comfortably did."
Again, that irritating flash of sympathy, as she recalled his lonely figure sat in Granny's… right before he spiked your drink and abducted you. Get a grip, Emma.
But still. She had been there. Felt the helplessness of a parent unable to intervene for their child. Wanting nothing more than to keep Henry safe. She sighed, her head tilted slightly as she regarded him with more understanding than she felt he probably deserved. "You don't need to do this. You have your daughter now. That changes everything –"
"It changes nothing. We're still stuck here. Trapped. In a world where we don't belong."
"But you're together. Trust me, I've been separated from my kid twice, and I would have given up everything for the chance to be with him, whatever world it was –"
"It's – not – enough – " he gritted, and he actually ground his teeth. "I'm sick of this – holding realities in my head." His whole body shook with spasms of terrible laughter. "Did you know, this curse almost made me believe I was mad?"
The silence sharpened when she didn't answer. Jefferson's eyes, dark and hollow, met hers.
"We endured in this dull, cursed little town until you came…" he grinned lopsidedly, "So sceptical yet so naive. You foolishly made Regina your enemy. You started time again. You broke the curse. There is something in you, Emma. Something stronger than magic. Like a spark, and it burns. Not even Cora could withstand it. If you could only channel that power – "
"And what about the innocent people caught in the crossfire?"
Bitter mirth twisted his mouth into a grimace. "No one is innocent."
Before she realised it, Emma was on her feet, hands clenched into fists, trembling on the edge of anger and – startlingly – tears. A rush of powerful emotion flared within her, the same blind conviction that had filled her the moment Henry had eaten the poisoned apple turnover. That fierce burning will to protect the people she cared for (loved?) "Maybe not. But I spent twenty-eight years seeing the worst in people, and you know what? I care for this town and I care for these people, and if you're prepared to risk their lives, then you're no better than Regina –"
She broke off, breathing hard, her throat raw at the outburst. Jefferson's intense gaze was lucid, for once without a trace of mocking or irony. He looked almost…admiring. "You've become quite the hero, haven't you?"
Because I have something to fight for. What the hell do you have?
The way he held himself was jaded, braced. A sparse, eclectic figure of a man under the translucent lights. Someone on the edge of sanity. Memory slid like a knife's blade between her ribs (off with his head), stopping her breath, narrowing her eyes. Jefferson had disappeared and it was the Hatter who faced her, dark and mercurial and twisted, caring for nothing except what he wanted –
"You're a selfish bastard, you know that?"
"Selfish? Do you think I would care about being stuck in this miserable town if it wasn't for her? She remembers, Emma. All of it. Where we come from, who we are. And I'm going to take her home. Somewhere she'll be happy, where she can grow up and have the life that she deserves, and I want that, for her –"
"And risking the lives of everyone here in Storybrooke is worth it?"
The look he gave her was almost pitying. "Come on, Emma. Do you even need to ask that?"
"No," she said stubbornly. "No. Not like this."
He began pacing, that restless, feverish energy unable to be contained for any great length of time. "If you had the chance," he was saying insistently, "To take your Henry away from all this, to where he could be safe – wouldn't you do it?"
She felt her throat constrict. Her hard exterior faltered slightly. That primal part of her, that grim and hardened iconoclast who understood only survival, silently agreed with him. Even now, it was the easier, safer option – to put herself and her wants first, not allowing herself to become too close to anyone that could compromise that ruthless streak of self-reliance that had kept her going, kept her alive for twenty-eight years. Had she been glad of that strange, lonely freedom? No, she had been empty, unsatisfied with her solitude.
She saw it in his face, that stubborn, selfish determination to keep his distance from everyone, wanting to take his daughter where no one could harm them or hurt them. It was unnerving to see a reflection of herself in those jagged, asymmetrical eyes. Both of them were solitary loners, used to operating in isolation, refusing to let anyone else in. It was a troubling realisation, to think she might have something in common with this disturbed, broken man. Someone else who knew what it was to have loved and lost a child and had felt the pain that came with it, more raw and real than life itself.
She would die for Henry in a heartbeat, without question. But was she prepared to let anyone else die for him?
No, she wasn't so ruthless as all that. She could not detach herself enough to be capable of such single-minded cruelty.
Yet was it cruelty? The selfish, clinging obsession with which Jefferson coveted his daughter was almost pitiful. She hadn't forgotten what he had done to her, that resentment still burned within her, but less than she would have liked. Frustrating as it was, she couldn't hate him. He was too pathetic. She was too weak.
"I get it." She gave a tired, choking laugh, resting her temples on her hand. "Believe me, I do. I almost took Henry out of town a few weeks ago." She saw Jefferson's gaze sharpen slightly at the admission. Seeing she had his avid attention, she pushed on. "And I know what it's like, wanting to protect your kid, but I also knew what I was doing was wrong. And this is wrong, Jefferson. I know you love your daughter. But this isn't the way."
"There is no other way," he whispered stubbornly, his gaze heavy and dark. His cheeks were hollow, purple half-moons etched beneath his eyes, skin tinged with a greyish pallor, and she realised, he really believes this. Believed it fervently, desperately, to the extent that he was physically sick with longing to get home.
"We can help you," Emma said, surprising even herself. Kind wasn't exactly the word people would use to describe her. "We'll think of something. I'm sure –"
"You know I'm not lying. Go on. Use your special power."
Emma glanced at him sharply. There was a twist of irony in his mouth, the jagged line of his teeth. So that was how he responded to her reaching out. She could feel her cheeks burning, aware of a sense of anger and hurt. He had been playing her false from the very first. She should have known not to trust any show of sincerity. This was all just some game to him, a game he had to win.
"It's more of an internal bullshit detector, really," she said carelessly, with a show of indifference that was almost convincing.
She wouldn't let him past her defences, wouldn't allow herself to trust whatever twisted logic came out his mouth. Lips pressed tightly together, she inwardly withdrew; locking herself away in a cool place where he wouldn't be able to touch her anymore, where she would be safe. In the cold. She knew well how to distance herself. The way she had done with every man in her life since Neal…
...
The moment her hand touches the gun, she feels the cold, hard grip of reality. It cuts through her like a knife. Forceful images, reminders of what brought her here, who she is dealing with. Her mind wrenches, torn with momentary indecision. She squeezes her eyes shut, bracing herself for what she is about to do. Later, she will tell herself this was part of the plan all along. Deny the arousal that shows itself flush in her cheeks, in the harsh sound of her breathing. Tears pricking the corners of her eyes, she slides the gun from his pocket.
Time slows to a halt at the sharp, metallic click. The room stops its spinning.
Trembling, Emma points the gun at him with both hands.
...
He exhaled with a rush of soft breath, and it touched her like ghostly fingers all the way across the room. He sounded so hopeless, and Emma wondered whether maybe, just maybe, this wasn't a game after all. She looked away so she didn't have to see the burning desperation in his eyes, far too raw and intense for her to face. His unrelenting focus on her was something tangible in the air, alive. Bright and brilliant as a slashing blade.
He moved towards her with feline grace, blending in seamlessly with the metallic greys and blacks of the room. Emma held herself deliberately still, refusing to recoil, not prepared to let him intimidate her. She didn't trust him (didn't want to trust him), but oddly, she wasn't afraid of him either. Whether because of pride, self-confidence or pure visceral instinct – she didn't know. Her body was humming with tension that had nothing to do with fear.
"Even now," he murmured, "You refuse to believe."
Her stubborn resolve to not move faltered. His intense proximity was too much to stand. In her personal space, in her headspace, always too close. He slowly walked her backwards until her lower spine gently knocked into the edge of the table. The breath remained trapped in her lungs. His electrifying presence was seared across her retinas; looking away was impossible.
"Find out what you're truly capable of. Isn't it about time?"
She knew they were too close when she felt the brush of his waistcoat, velvet and luxury, indicative of more money than she could ever dream of. And he couldn't care less about it. There was something almost admirable about that sheer single-mindedness that disregarded everything, even sanity, for the sake of fulfilling one intense, all-consuming purpose.
His fingers dug into her shoulders. Burning like a high-voltage wire. An invisible ripple of heat undulating over her flesh. Again, that scent of cologne wrapped around her, like silken sheets. Like a drug it unconsciously attracted her, and she found herself dangerously forgetting to draw back.
"Trust," he said. "Not in them – believe in yourself."
"Why do you care so much?" she demanded, though to her annoyance her tone came out less interrogative than genuinely curious.
She could feel him along every inch of her skin, like tiny needles. How they had gotten to this point almost didn't matter. Almost. Her hands wedged themselves either side of the chair, trying to keep a grip on reality. Tension pressed inside her lungs, tight enough to crack her bones. She threw the door a longing look, but her eyes clouded over and it blurred away, might as well have been another world, because all she could see was him. He was so close she could feel his pulse thudding through her own veins, too frenzied, too fast.
His fingers slid through her curtain of blonde hair, tightening suddenly, and he tugged her head to his sharply.
The breath caught in her throat, something near to panic (but so very far from panic) rising in her chest. "What the hell are you doing?"
For a moment, he didn't answer, hesitating, as though he himself was unsure. Emma looked into his eyes and saw nothing but endless grey darkness, a great whirlpool pulling her down. There was an expression of rigid concentration on his set face. Staring at her hard, the quicksilver outline of his mouth pulled taut. "You have to help me," his whispered, hoarse and jagged. "I need you."
"Need?" she breathed unsteadily, unsure she wanted to know the answer. "Or want?"
Jefferson sighed, with just a hint of exasperation threaded in his voice. "I thought I told you to stop asking questions."
And he closed the space between them.
...
He goes very still, shards of chrome light at his back, his face like an unfolding bruise. He stares at her, hair dishevelled, eyes wide and glassy. Fractured. Utterly hopeless with betrayal.
It's only fair, she tells herself grimly. Fair game. Something splinters inside her, but she hardens her voice, hardens her heart, her hand and gaze never faltering.
"Now get me the hell out of here."
.
.
.
Author's note: I know it's a flailing, incoherent mess, but it seemed oddly appropriate for Jefferson... oh, what the hell. Just review anyway. I want some fellow Mad Swan shippers to party with.