No spoilers.
Warnings - One mild expletive.
Set - Before Mary Margaret and David's relationship has been discovered.
Nothing makes Emma laugh. No belly laughs, nothing...or so they thought.
One cold day in Storybrooke, Maine
She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed like this. She was breathless and, damn it, her chest hurt.
"Stop!" she cried, or rather, choked out.
The string of events wouldn't cease going around in her mind's eye. She'd always been a sucker for physical comedy. She used to love watching Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes as a kid.
She put a hand to her face to stop the tears leaking out. The fact was, Mary Margaret's laugh was contagious, and she kept on laughing.
Emma couldn't even stand straight. All her weight rested on her bug. Her face hurt.
"Would you guys stop?" David said.
His face wouldn't quit looking like an idiot as he lay on the sidewalk.
"Could you look a little less like…" Mary gestured at him and couldn't finish. Emma and Mary Margaret collapsed into a fresh bout of giggling.
"How can you laugh when I've just took a nasty fall!" cried David.
Just a minute earlier. Mary Margaret had opened the passenger door, not realized that there was somebody passing on the sidewalk. Emma had looked up to see David complete a dance around the door, trip on the curb, then fall.
Emma's laugh had sliced into the silence unstoppable. Mary had stared at her aghast. Perhaps because of her friends unusual show of mirth, or perhaps because her forbidden love had been lain flat-out.
David had groaned. Emma had laughed. The whole of Storybrooke stopped and stared. Tears of mirth actually had come to Emma's eyes. Then, Mary had joined in.
"I…I'm sorry. David," she sputtered. She slipped out of the car and helped him to his feet. "Are you okay?" Meanwhile, Emma got out and proceeded to laugh up her lungs.
He rubbed his head. "Yeah. You could've been more careful though."
Mary managed to look decently sorry. Emma bent double. She straightened up again to see Mary hiding her eyes, and David looking at funnily.
"What's so funny?" he said.
Mary sniffed and choked on laughter. "It was your face," she cried.
Emma couldn't stop. She bent again, holding her stomach. It ached. David's fall replayed over and over again.
"It was the way you fell," said Mary Margaret. Emma leant against her car.
"And the way your feet…and…your expression…"
Oh heavens above! Curious faces peeked out of store windows. Go ahead and by nosey thought Emma, wiping her eyes with a hand.
"Phew," she said, and sniffed. Her face was leaking big time.
"Are you okay…Emma?" asked Mary, wiping away at her own flushed face. David looked a little crabby. The man was practically tapping his foot for goodness sake. That image set her off in another frenzy of giggles.
"Alright, David. Just go away," she said. "I can't take it any longer."
David opened his mouth, spread his fingers and held his palms up.
"What've I done now?"
Snow bit her lip, red-faced, bright-eyed.
"It doesn't matter, just go," Emma choked out.
He raised his eyebrows. Mary patted Emma on the back. "Alright, alright, I'm going," said David. He hesitated before walking away and looked for a bit longer than necessary into Mary Margaret's face. "I'll see you later," he said.
Emma sighed. Laughing was therapeutic. She felt, surprisingly, really good.
"A jolly heart doeth good like a medicine," quipped Mary when David had gone.
"Yeah, but it hasn't done my reputation much good," said Emma and when Mary scoffed added, "Hey. I'm the tough nut Sheriff. I work hard at it you know."
Mary Margaret rolled her eyes. "I know. A little too hard perhaps."
Emma shrugged, then shivered. "Brrr. It's cold."
Mary Margaret closed the car door she had left open and all of a sudden, slipped on the icy sidewalk. A startled cry escaped her. She caught the street lamp next to her and did a very similar dance to the one David had done, her feet sliding on the ice.
Emma slapped her knee in mirth, bent, laughter pulling at her aching stomach muscles. She saw through teary eyes Mary glaring at her whilst she clutched the pole for dear life.
"That wasn't funny Emma," Mary snapped at her.
"It was," Emma gasped, a grin splitting her face. Straightening up, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay… Okay. It wasn't that funny…calm down."
Mary stood tentatively. She escaped the patch of thin ice, handbag clutched in her hands. "Are you finished?" she asked Emma who was trying to gather herself together.
"Yeah." Emma locked her car and followed. "You did look…"
"Be quiet."
"But it was…"
"Not another word...and would you just stop giggling!"
Author's note - Emma never laughs unashamedly and out right in the series, but everybody needs to laugh :) Felt like tackling something short to start off with. I hope it made you laugh a little.
Thanks for reading!