Greed

As a younger man Jefferson had been a creature whose existence was entirely defined by wealth, fashion, luxury and their acquisition. No amount of money was ever enough to satisfy his desires, and whenever his latest toy was acquired his attention would be snared by the next shiny bauble to pass him by. Jefferson's association with Rumpelstiltskin had fed this flame by constantly keeping him in full and fashionable pockets. But it was never enough, he would do almost anything for more. Growing up an orphan, left to one's own devices and never knowing where or when the next meal came from can do that to a person.

Then along came Grace.

Grace changed everything, she was a beautiful accident that forced Jefferson to accept responsibility for his actions and to grow up quickly in order to provide for his new family. He became the father he wished he had had during his own childhood, but still the greed remained in his heart.

The shock of losing his wife, Grace's mother, made it so that a small house in the forest and a simple life of selling mushrooms was almost ideal. Grace grew up without the fear of losing her remaining parent, and Jefferson could devote all that was left of himself to his daughter. However, when he was unable to fulfill his sweet daughter's wishes whether it was to buy her chocolate, or a new stuffed rabbit, or worse, to fill her rumbling belly during many lean winters the shame he felt at not being able to properly provide for her ate at his heart. With no other skills aside from thievery, confidence schemes and the occasional poor scrap of tailoring, Jefferson had little to sell to earn his bread and it made him sometimes long for the life he had left behind; if only to be able to give beautiful things to his daughter.

It was the promise of this glinting gold that led Jefferson astray and trapped him in Wonderland. The promise of Grace being provided for, for the rest of her days, was too strong to ignore. The tantalizing apple dangled, a taste of his old life returned, was too good to pass up.

Unsurprisingly, the apple was poisoned.

In Storybrooke, Regina had provided him with all the riches he could have ever wanted, all the fine clothes and expensive things. Grace too had everything she could have ever desired waiting for her in a room on the house's second floor. But in Storybrooke there was no Grace. In this world she was called Paige. In this world Jefferson was a stranger, and her father was another.

As Jefferson sat alone in his mansion he concluded that greed was his worst sin, because even though it gave him everything he ever wanted, it had stolen everything he'd ever loved.

Now his greed was focused on something besides his daughter.

Magic was what he needed now. Magic would break the curse, magic would wake everyone up and return his daughter to him.

Magic could only be found within Emma.

He'd tasted her magic the night he'd kidnapped her and it had been intoxicating, like falling off the wagon after a long period of sobriety. Magic… he truly had missed its tingle.

Jefferson started to find excuses just to be around her. "Accidentally" running into her in the supermarket, or in Granny's in the morning as she bought her first cup of coffee. She'd arrested him the first dozen times or so, but as he'd pointed out she couldn't detain him legally without pressing charges, and then that would open up the whole can of worms of why she had been out in the forest in the middle of the night in the first place. So eventually Emma grew used to his pestering, and accepted him as an annoying facet of her life akin to pimples, and mosquito bites.

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Emma made a living out of punishing greedy people.

Emma herself, had never been particularly greedy. During her thieving years, she took what she needed to survive and only ever stole from those she decided could afford it; big chain stores and the like. She did feel guilty about taking from the individual workers who would undoubtedly pay for her actions… but a girl has to eat.

After her stint in jail, Emma had sworn off thieving and gotten a proper job... or at least a paying one; bounty hunter and private detective. Emma excelled at finding people, though she never did find her parents, and then there were some people she just didn't want to find no matter how sweet the revenge could be.

It wasn't until Henry came into her life that greed entered into her emotional vocabulary. After a while, after the initial worry for the kid's sanity had worn off, Emma found she began to crave time spent with Henry. Operation Cobra, though still kinda crazy, became fun because it was time spend with him. It was about that time that Regina's possessiveness became that much more irritating.

(Emma had thought she understood the meaning of the word irritating before she met Jefferson, but then he started stalking her.)

Jefferson's presence in Emma's life had become a source of almost perverse continuity in an environment that constantly shifted and challenged her. If there was one thing she could count on during her day it was Jefferson's intrusion into her routine. She'd come to expect him showing up sometime around the start of her day, usually while she got coffee at Granny's. Then again at lunch he'd wait for her outside the station and accompany her for food. Then once more as she made her final rounds of the day, usually slipping into the sheriff's car while she investigated a disturbance.

Over time he had begun to provide her with a sounding board for her annoyances with Regina and with life in general. Emma complained to Jefferson of Regina's latest efforts to bar her access to Henry or the like, and Jefferson would reply with a story of his own, usually detailing his escapades in the Fairy Tale Land. Granted, Emma didn't believe a word of such stories, but the experience of sharing is what began to bring them together. Soon they found that they liked a lot of the same crappy day-time TV, as well as sharing an affinity for French cuisine, greasy Chinese take-out, and black-and-white movies. Emma began to frequent Storybrooke's lone night club, the Rabbit Hole, which Jefferson owned, and Jefferson began to be seen out in public.

Meanwhile, people around town were noticing that their stern sheriff Emma was smiling more often and more sincerely, and most of them suspected her new friendship with the town's reclusive millionaire was the cause.

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