just another word

by cupid-painted-blind

Like mother, like daughter; exile is exile is exile, whether it's in a forest in a land of castles and magic or in a broken heart in a land of concrete and steel.

Title: just another word
Author: andromeda3116/cupid-painted-blind
Rating: PG for some implications and two cursewords.
Characters/Pairings: just Snow and Emma. Snowing toward the end.
Summary: Like mother, like daughter; exile is exile is exile, whether it's in a forest in a land of magic and castles or in a broken heart in a land of concrete and steel.

A/N: I used to use second-person a lot, and I wanted to play around with it again. I also wanted to write something exploring these two because they're two of my favorites and there's so much of their backstories that's left blank that I want to dig into. So there's a lot of experimentation here, with characterization and style, and I'd love honest feedback of the concrit sort.

The line at the beginning is from "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin (well, written by Kris Kristofferson, but let's be real. Also, that's such a great Emma song.)

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freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

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You tell yourself it's not the worst thing that could have happened. You tell yourself you just want an answer, an explanation, not retribution. You tell yourself you'll be okay if you can just get closure. You tell yourself.

You do some things you know you'll regret, but later, later after you've found him and gotten (revenge) closure closure closure, you won't regret it until you've gotten him out from under your skin. You repeat the word like a prayer to a god you've never believed is real, like if you say it enough maybe it'll magically be true.

(Maybe, you think sometimes, late at night when the bed is cold and the couch is somehow colder, when you let yourself say the other prayer, maybe you won't regret a thing.)

.

You tell yourself this feels good, this is freedom, in a huge forest where you're never alone because at least there's animals, other heartbeats, sometimes settlements. You tell yourself it's enough to eat, to save people from Regina, to sleep with the stars. You tell yourself that maybe you'll be Queen someday, but maybe you won't and if not, well, this isn't such a bad life. You tell yourself.

There's no lingering hate in the back of your mind, no dark anger, no bloodlust, no vengeance, no make her go into exile, make her live like this, make her hurt. You say it like a prayer to the stars, to the trees and the animals, to Mother who always believed you were better than this.

(Maybe, you think sometimes, late at night when there's snow as pure as you used to be on the ground and in the air, when it's dark as that murmur in the back of your mind saying you could just kill her and the forest is empty with winter, maybe the anger is what makes you survive, and maybe refusing to let it win is what makes you Snow White.)

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You spend two years waiting for him even though you knew when you walked into prison he would never be there again. But you're so very desperate for love that you'd swallow his lies if it meant you didn't have to be alone anymore.

But he doesn't surprise you with his love, or even his lies of it, and eventually, in bitterness, you give up and move and the seed of anger he planted in you when he planted that baby in you finally blossoms into venomous hate and you finally kill the little girl who always thought that, if she was good enough and kind enough, she could find someone who would stay.

In Atlanta, you fall in with bad sorts, bad people with bad blood on their hands, and you traffic in information and try to only skim the surface because prison wasn't good on you and you won't go back. But you have an innate skill for finding things no one else can (except that one thing) and they like you. They shower you with gifts, things you've never been able to touch or wear or even imagine, they say you could go places with them.

Their words sound like honey and taste like ash.

You wonder who you're becoming, and then you remember that you're the only one who cares. They don't love you and they never will and you wouldn't want their love anyway but they treat you like you're worth something, so you play along for longer than you'd ever want to admit.

You think he would hate you now, and it makes something in you twist with pain and something in you crow with joy.

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It occurs to you one gray autumn morning hazy with snowflakes, that you can't remember your mother's voice or your father's face anymore, and a black pit opens up inside you, jagged like knives and cold like their bodies, and you hurt, more than you've ever hurt before, more than you hurt when they died.

And you go hunting, a dysphoric agitation propelling you forward.

At first you tell yourself it's deer you're after but then somehow you're close up to the road where the Queen's patrols frequent and deer hardly ever come this close to this place but there's an arrow notched in your bow anyway. At first you pretend you got lost but then three soldiers ride up and your fingers twitch without input from your mind. At first you call it self-defense.

But there are three bodies in the road and three arrows missing from your quiver and three horses running free and riderless back to their cages in the castle stables.

You always hit your mark.

You realize your mother would be disgusted with you if she could see you right now, and you throw up in the roots of an alder tree, and wonder what you've let Regina do to you.

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You deliver a mark to the men with black blood and stand stock-still and cold in the alley next to the building where you hear the scream for help and the gunshot.

You realize your long-lost son would run away from you if he saw you right now, and you throw up into a trash can, and wonder what you've let Neal do to you.

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You bury the men in the hard ground, and mark their graves with their swords and helmets, like they were noble soldiers (even though you know they weren't).

It doesn't help.

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You run from Atlanta in the car you stole from Neal and you run from the shame until maybe you'll be able to look yourself in the mirror again. You don't care where you're going so long as it isn't south, and you find yourself in Louisville, Kentucky and you think maybe you can start over.

You refuse to get involved with the criminal sort this time, and search for a legitimate job until you land yourself a waitress position in a tiny diner, working the graveyard shift because you're the only one with no one waiting for you at home. Your coworkers are nice enough, and Louisville is a big enough place that outsiders aren't unwelcome, but you feel like a blight on them all the same.

You have no idea what you're doing and the customers don't particularly like you. But you're good at dealing with the drunkards that come in after midnight — really good — and so the boss keeps you around in the hope that, hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere and at least you have something even if you kind of suck at this job. It isn't love, and it isn't even like, but it's value and so you'll take it.

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You move to another part of the forest and try to forget and try to wash the blood off your hands that hides under your gloves and under your skin. They weren't the first people you've killed, but they were the first ones you've murdered, and you're smart enough and self-aware enough to stop lying to yourself about the difference.

There are fewer deer in these parts, more birds. But the first time you raise your bow to take down a swan, you can't pull the bowstring back like you need to; instead, you watch it rise up out of the river and take flight, dripping water as it goes, and you recognize it.

It's a beautiful animal, and a free animal, but it doesn't have a flock.

You move away from the river because you'll starve if you stay here.

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The diner hires a bouncer and you feel useless again. They don't fire you, but they don't want you, and you know when you've overstayed your welcome.

You quit without finding a new job first, and the boss gives you some empty words about "we're sorry to see you go" with relief in his eyes and you stand up and walk to the door and smile kindly and say,

"No, you're not," like it's an apology, and you're gone before he can reply.

Louisville didn't fit you anyway.

You run away again, this time from the shame of failing at the easiest job, and you turn twenty-three in a tiny motel somewhere between Springfield and Chicago, and drink almost a whole bottle of whiskey to wash away the cold shiver in your blood.

For the first time in years, you try to imagine what your mother looked like. Blonde like you, you think, with green or maybe blue eyes, and this time — in this mood — you characterize her as a junkie, a Nancy to your father's Sid.

(When you were a kid, you dreamed that she was a princess or at least a rich heiress and you'd been kidnapped, that was why you were found on the road, and she was still looking for you and you'd know her the moment you saw her and she'd cry and pull you into her arms. Now, you've learned a bit too much about abandonment to be so naive.)

The irony of it all is, thinking of her like Nancy is a salve on that old wound, because if she was Nancy then you're better off without her, and she was kind enough to realize it.

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You save a woman from the Queen's men and nurse her back to health in your own shabby hut, and tell her stories of your past because you've been alone for a while now, and no one's ever listened. Dimly, you think that maybe it's a little cruel, to subject this stranger to your woes when she's unable to escape them, but it turns out she's interested in you and it warms you up inside.

You say you'll take her home but then you come across a village two men deep with corpses and it turns out that the woman is just a lie.

But when you raise your bow and she runs, you suddenly think that you gave her a sword and let her walk behind you and yet she never took the easy shot.

The confusion sets in, and with it, an empty exhaustion.

You move closer to the road again.

.

On your twenty-fourth birthday, you fuck a man named Chris, who tells you that you're beautiful, a real jewel, unappreciated, a diamond in the rough, and your heart unclenches for a few hours and you think that maybe…

He's gone when you wake up, and your wallet with him.

On your twenty-fifth birthday, you fuck a man named Travis, who listens to your slurred story of your slurred life and tells you that you're strong, the strongest woman he's ever met, and amazing and beautiful and he'd love to see more of you, to help you.

You laugh at him and leave.

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The trolls do business with you because the trolls are ruthless as you wish you could be, and maybe you steal a little more often than you should, but it keeps you alive and you make sure you're only going after the Queen's lackeys, who you know have more than enough to eat and like to lord it over the peasants.

You take advantage of a trap that's already been set by last week's storm and snatch a bag of jewels from a wide-eyed blonde woman who looks like she's full of air. You know you're being followed, but you haven't counted on the persistence of the one doing the following.

He's the first one to ever catch up to you, and he's honest and even though he uses your wanted poster as a bargaining chip, he isn't afraid of you and clearly doesn't believe you're a murderer.

You don't tell him about the three shallow graves because you don't want him to hate you and because sometimes people deserve better than the truth.

You call him Charming as a joke, but you really think he's much more than that.

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You get a speeding ticket in Charleston and when you go to the police station to pay it, you strike up a conversation with the guy at the desk, a funny older fellow who pokes fun at your beetle and makes you laugh when he tells stories of his own first car, some POS from the seventies. He asks what you do for a living and you say you mostly drift, do jobs as you can, usually waiting tables or answering phones, and he says,

"You ever think of being a bounty hunter? Seems like it'd suit you, if you're not pulling my leg about your way of life."

It really does seem like it'd suit you, you realize, and ask him how you become one.

.

He's such a dorky idealist and such a gallant hero that you can't help but love him.

You cry in your hut the night after he goes back to his castle, and you try to pretend you don't know why.

.

You get your bail bondsman (bondsperson, you tell the instructor, who smirks) license and discover that this is the first thing you've done that you're really, honestly good at. It's a bit empty, and a lot depressing, but it's exhilarating and it makes you feel like you're really worth something this time.

These coworkers like you because they think like you, and they invite you out for coffee and drinks and for the first time in your life, you actually have something close to friends, not just temporary allies.

But you tire of Charleston because it doesn't fit you either, and when you find out your license will transfer through states, you decide to make another move. You're almost twenty-seven now, and your coworkers throw you a combined birthday/going-away party and insist that you keep in touch even though everyone kind of knows you won't. You get merrily drunk and genuinely happy and give the old desk hound a big kiss on the cheek for changing your life.

You think maybe you'll actually keep in touch with him.

More than once, he's let you crash on his couch and his is the only couch you'll crash on, because he's the only man who's genuinely good and genuinely non-threatening and genuinely not interested, in a happy, long-term relationship with the most lovable guy you've ever met, a bartender who makes a hell of a margarita at one of the upscale clubs.

He pulls you aside and tells you, very seriously, to take care of yourself, and that if you ever need anything — anything at all — to call him and he'll do whatever he can to help you.

"You're my little swan," he says, punching you lightly on the arm. "You came here with a broken wing and you're patched up now. I just wanna make sure you're flying okay, you know?"

You swallow the lump in your throat and — even though you never, ever do — hug him tightly.

(You think maybe this is what having a father feels like.)

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You taste love, real love, romance and a roguish smile on a man who's anything but a rogue, and he's got all these dreams about the future and how he's gonna help you get your throne back, and he says it with this glint in his eyes that makes you believe him.

He's the kind of man who'll save any world he touches, and his strength isn't in his swords or his arrows but in his fervent ideals and determination to never, ever, ever give up. You think you could die happy if you could just spend the rest of your life with him.

But Regina always gets in the way.

You take the apple because he's such a bright light that you can't stand to imagine it ever going out and it tastes bitter from the poison and bitter like Regina, but at least you only taste it for a second.

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The man pisses you off for thousands of reasons, and you snap when he asks you what you would know of family, so you slam his head into the steering wheel and don't feel any better.

That night, you make a birthday wish on a wax star that comes true in the worst and the best possible way.

And you finally go home.

.

You wake up to his smile.

And you're finally home.