Title: I Know This Room, I've Walked This Floor
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or its characters.
Summary: Emma had forgotten the station, but she remembers everything. David is there to help.
Note: Written in response to the tweet by Jennifer Morrison, explaining her reasoning for wearing the shoelace and the fact that Graham's boots are still at the station. "Extremely significant." Set in the beginning of 3B, with some daddy!Charming to balance the angst.
"Jesus, this place is just the same," Emma mutters, kicking against the edge of her old desk as she enters the office. The barest rain of dust swipes off the edge, catching the fading sunlight as they swirl in the disturbance. Her chest feels tight as she side-eyes the familiar set-up.
She remembers everything about this room.
She doesn't remember it at all.
The torrent of two lives stuck in her head gnaws at her temples, a constant migraine that tears at her skull. Deep inside, it feels raw and unnerving, like she has been peeled back to that insecure child that never felt stable. She had been established, successful, happy. Now … now what is she? What will Henry be?
David steps alongside her, cautiously brushing his hand against her sleeve. Since the hug when they first saw each other, he has been cautious. She enjoys the distance he puts, that unobtrusive presence that never seems to falter. He understands that she needs the time to collect herself, before she can be a daughter again. Before she can become a sibling.
But he's still there.
She sighs, yanking the cord on the desk lamp. The filtered light engulfs the small corner, and a shiver creeps up her spine. The low light brings another slew of memories that are not so welcome. Hands at her cheeks, slackened grip, sickening thud ….
Abruptly, she shakes her head. "So, what are we looking for?"
David gives a shrug. "We need a flashlight, any hiking gear, and an extra sidearm would be nice. Anything you can think of?"
Emma looks across the station with a squint. "I think there's some old maps of the surrounding forest around here. I'll see if I can dig some up," she replies. She crosses to the file cabinet, flicking through the hand-written files. She brushes a single finger over the scrawled words, recalling every time she had done it before in the weeks before the election.
"Found a flashlight," David says, his voice distant, muffled.
Emma nods distractedly, even if she knows he can't see it. "Still looking," she counters. Faster, her fingers sort through an organization she never understood. She remembers the maps being in a tan folder, padded thickly. She remembers the flash of teeth as he told her she might need it when she didn't have the benefit of his expertise.
"Oh, and there's some hiking gear! Looks like a rain slicker and some other things."
She ignores it, huffing as she racks her brain to recall where it had been.
Steps sound back into the main room. "These would be perfect, but we'd have to stop by Clark's to pick up some new laces. Don't know where the other went."
Her head turns swiftly. She swallows hard as she sees the boots dangling in David's hand, hanging loosely in a nonchalant grip. Before she can stop herself, she darts out, snatching the shoes from his hands and curling them into her arms. "These aren't for borrowing," she says stiffly.
Determinedly, she marches back to the storeroom, back to the racks of miscellaneous items chucked into nondescript boxes. She stands on tip toes to push the boots back onto their shelf, high above everything else.
David lingers behind her, confusion marring his features.
Emma offers no explanation. An itch begins at her pulse, circumventing the length of the braided lace on her wrist.
"Is that where your bracelet comes from?" David asks quietly.
Emma looks down, only now noticing how her nails had pierced into her flesh, fingertips tight along the ridges of the leather. "Yes," she replies tersely.
There is silence. It stretches a long, tense moment as Emma refuses to lift her gaze.
Finally, David turns. He picks a box off an old wooden chair, and then scrapes it and its twin to her. Numbly, she takes the offered seat.
"It was Graham's," she says quietly. It doesn't rip into her so much as dig into the open wound, twisting hard as she admits it. There's pain that isn't just for remembering him. Instead, it is remembering that she had forgotten him. Her stomach churns at the thought, that she could forget him, and her hands slam down on her knees as she braces herself.
A timid hand rests beside her left one. "The sheriff before you," he says knowledgeably.
She nods, a jerky action, and her hair curtains her face. "He—he was a good man," she chokes out. She tries not to think about it too much; not about gentle smile or knowing eyes or brush of calloused fingers or weight of lips. If she thinks objectively, clinically, then it skims the edges of okay. "Good man" means many things; it's distant but true, nothing and everything.
David nods. "He was. Here and before," he says, his tone deep and soothing. It's warm, like an embrace, and as close as she can get to one right now.
Her eyes squeeze shut, seeing the picture of a man half-hidden by a dagger flash across her memories. It was a chapter she'd skipped as soon as the curse broke, flying past pages in order to bury any feeling down. She's tried not to care, but he was never insignificant to her. Somehow, he clings to her even now, even before, like he has been imprinted within her.
"We never got to thank him," David murmurs.
Her eyes snap up. They feel annoyingly wet as she catches her father's gaze. "For?"
David makes a smile that seems half-hearted. "For saving your mother. For saving me. For not asking a thing back from us." He pauses, eyes shading. "Forgotten soldiers."
"Not forgotten," Emma automatically says. And here it is, that pain in her heart that she hates for making her feel so weak. She releases a tremulous breath and rises, her legs shaking as she attempts to leave the cramped, stifling room.
But David's hand on her shoulder stops her. "Not forgotten," he agrees, his hand brushing down to rest against her wrist.
She shudders, finally feeling the last effort to stay composed erode under the weight of his words, tears slipping down her face. He tugs her into an embrace that she only struggles against a moment before collapsing against his shoulder.
She manages to get a rein on her outburst almost as soon as she releases it, burying it back down behind the wall of indifference that she fights to maintain. She hides the glimmer of realization that always manages to glare upon her, the knowledge of something she wants to keep under cement and limestone never to be remembered again.
Not with him gone.
"You keep a lot of his things, I noticed. And you kept this through The Year. Never forgotten," David breathes into her hair. His palm rubs slow circles on her upper back, the other cradling her head.
Her chest tightens, and that light peeks through the cracks, the soft caress of something more, before she swallows it back. "Never forgotten," she echoes.
Never again, and never really. He perches in her soul just the same; it's just now she understands the reason the lace felt so weighty.