On The Nature of Lady Justice
"Justice shall not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." – Benjamin Franklin
Part Three
Today, Emma says to herself, she is a woman on a mission. Today, she takes on Regina, and she's roping in the entire town to help her if necessary. Not that she's going to tell them what she's doing, of course. If she stated her plans, they'd simply wish her well and begin pondering messages to put on her gravestone. No, she's learned from the master of deception; as much as it goes against her nature, she'll use Gold's underhand tactics if she has to. She's done it before, although the results were questionable – she cannot help think of breaking into Regina's office with Sidney and the fallout from that. Henry says that good can never win because good has to fight fair. Emma's sick of fighting fair. She's gunning for Regina; she won't go down without an almighty battle.
Because Emma's been thinking, and Emma has a plan. A plan that might involve exploiting some loopholes in what constitutes fair play. Not playing dirty completely, because, as she warned herself last night, she cannot afford to make Regina into the victim. But Emma's got a few tricks up her sleeve that might help her outwit the mayor, now she knows and fully appreciates what she's up against.
Firstly, as insular as it is, she must trust no-one with her ultimate plan. Parts of the plan, certainly; she'll never be able to pull the entire thing off on her own, she'll need back up. But not the whole plan. Ironically, the only person she trusts in this matter is Gold, a man she wouldn't trust with anything else as far as she could spit. He is the only person Emma knows to want to bring down Regina as much as she does, and the only person she's fairly certain will not let slip anything accidently. He is not the type to be coerced into divulging information, she knows it only too well. She's still not planning on telling anyone her agenda though. If no-one knows her plans but her, perhaps Regina won't get wind of them and be able to pre-empt her every move as she seems to have been able to do so far. Emma is used to being a loner. This shouldn't be too difficult.
Secondly, she's going to have to go about this subtly but forcefully, subtly enough not to arouse too much suspicion, but forcefully enough to get the answers she needs with no arguments.
Finally, she can allow no time for second guessing herself. Every thought, every idea, must be followed up immediately lest Regina get there first. Today will be one long, hectic game of cat and mouse, but Emma hopes it will be worth it.
Her first port of call is Granny's, for three coffees. Mary Margaret has promised to be her wing woman without asking too many questions. She knows that Emma's investigating the cataclysmic events of yesterday, but thankfully, she doesn't want to know the details. She'll be on hand to run any little errands that Emma might need, as long as they won't throw up too many awkward interrogations. (It'll be nice to have someone to pick up some lunch, if nothing else, after all, Emma's trying to investigate a serious incident single-handedly, she'd need some kind of back-up even if she wasn't trying to bring down Regina at the same time.) As much as she knows she has to spearhead this alone, she can't be in two places at once, and she can't keep an eye on Regina all the time. Who knows where the woman might show up? Without knowing it, Mary Margaret is becoming a second pair of eyes and ears today.
Mary Margaret stays in the diner a little while to talk to Ruby and Granny, to be welcomed back into society as a free woman before she returns to the safety of the apartment. Emma has said to ring the moment Regina shows up, even if it's just a silent phone call or she hangs up after three rings. The mayor will be trying to muddy the waters again today, and Emma doesn't want to take any chances.
Emma takes the two other coffees to her ultimate destination – the hospital. Sure enough, Gold is still sitting by Belle's bedside. As much as she would like to enlist his active help in the fight against Regina, she doesn't trust him enough to have him in any situation where he's alone with the mayor in case he does the woman some damage.
She knocks on the door softly and enters. Gold rouses from the doze he's fallen into in the uncomfortable chair beside the bed, and accepts the coffee gratefully.
It's time to put part one of her master plan into action. She's got to find out if there are any potential relatives who could come to claim Belle, or who Regina could find somewhere and bring in. As the only person so far who knows her, Gold should be able to shed some light on the matter.
"Does she have any family?" Emma asks, not bothering with the usual morning pleasantries; there's no need with Gold, the awkwardness would be screaming. Far better to cut the chase. "Parents, siblings, significant others aside from yourself? They'll need to be told."
Gold huffs. "Much good her family did her when she was locked up for however many years."
"Gold…" Emma tries to be patient. He's been through the wringer and he's out of his comfort zone. "Please. Trying to keep this from them will not help matters."
Gold looks up at her, a little blearily, and surveys her through the steam from the coffee cup.
"I don't know," he says, and it's the truth. "I don't believe she has any family in Storybrooke."
Again, like last night, his words are measured, careful, speaking the truth but succinctly, giving her the bare bones of the story only. It's always the embellishments that mark a lie, Emma knows from experience, they're what make the words ring hollow.
If Belle has family, Emma wants to find them before Regina does.
"What's her surname?"
If she's being honest with herself, Emma has a suspicion. She has always wondered at the identity of the mystery woman who links Gold and Moe French, a woman of whom Gold had refused to speak and of whom Moe denied all knowledge. But then again, Gold did say she had no family in Storybrooke…
Gold sighs. "I don't know."
Emma narrows her eyes.
"She worked for you, Gold. You paid her wages. You must know her name."
"And I'm telling you, I don't." His voice would be dangerous if it wasn't so drained, but above everything, it's frustrated. He's angry with himself. "It was cash in hand, I never signed a payslip."
Emma lets him be. She's got enough to be getting on with. Her next stop is the records office, to see if she can find Belle's family for herself. She doesn't want anything to come back to bite her and Gold if she's not careful.
X
Gold sighs and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. He's in too deep now, he was in too deep the moment he'd lost control with Moe and crossed that irreparable line between this world and the last, the line that marked him as Rumpelstiltskin to the Queen. The sheriff is asking the simplest questions in the world, but they're ones he cannot answer. Theoretically, Belle's surname should be French, but it's not, because in this world, Belle doesn't exist. Moe French has no daughter. Gerard Chevalier, his useless assistant who had once been a rose which had once been a fiancé, has never met the sweet girl with the chestnut curls and the love of books. He himself has no false memories of Belle; they never knew each other in this world. The only memories he has are of their old world, which is why he can say so little of use to Emma.
He'd love to tell her the whole tale, but she'd never believe it.
Regina was unimaginative in that aspect. She could have given him false memories of Belle, of a pretty housekeeper he drove away. She could have given Moe a daughter dead at Gold's hand and given the two men real reason to loathe each other, each blaming the other for an act that never even happened. But she didn't, because she never felt the need to. Wasted effort, really. Her goal was always Snow and Charming; everyone else fell by the wayside, unimportant.
Perhaps, now that he thinks about it, forgoing Belle's existence in this world was actually canny on Regina's part, a safety valve of her own in case he remembered. Mr Gold and Moe French will meet at some point in town, and Regina can watch the fallout, and know, just as she did when the fallout inevitably came, that Rumpelstiltskin remembers.
He pushes all thoughts of Regina to the back of his mind and focuses on Belle. A miracle has brought her back to him, the precious soul he thought lost, but although he is sitting right beside her and holding her pale, thin hand in his, she is still so very far away, she is still so very hurt, and he could lose her in a moment.
The only noises are the beeping of the monitors and the soft hiss of the ventilator. His brave, bold, beautiful Belle, always so strong, cannot even breathe on her own. Scared out of her mind, she ran into the path of a moving vehicle and stared there, frozen in fear, literally a rabbit in the headlights. Belle does not exist in this world, not the Belle he knew, and it breaks his heart, because not only do the people of Storybrooke not know her, she does not know herself. It's almost as if Regina forgot about her, the curse wiping her memories but the Queen not seeing fit to provide her with any new ones.
Yes, he's definitely in too deep now. If he'd held his tongue when Belle had been brought in, feigned ignorance…
But he's lost her once, and he won't do so again. Never. He's in too deep but there's no going back, and if he's going to hell in a hand basket then so be it. He'll never regret it.
Minutes become hours, the noises drone on until he can no longer hear them, and Emma returns. She knocks before she comes in, which he feels is a nice touch. She folds her arms and raises one eyebrow at him when she gets inside, which he feels isn't.
"You haven't been home since last night, have you?" She shakes her head. "Seriously, Gold… Go home, have a shower and a shave and some breakfast."
Well, there's a problem there. He doesn't want to let Belle out of his sight lest Regina spirit her away again. So he matches Emma's expression, and neither one of them is going to give an inch. Unfortunately, Emma's right. He hasn't eaten since yesterday lunchtime, he's uncomfortable, and his knee is fast becoming unforgiving.
"I won't leave her alone," he says simply. "Not with Regina on the prowl."
Emma smiles weakly, and slumps against the door, her expression already tired despite the comparatively early hour.
"You don't want to let her out of your sight," she says. "I understand. But you can't stay here indefinitely."
Gold just looks at her.
"Will you stay with her, then?" he asks plainly. "I will not leave her alone."
He hopes that his voice conveys that there is to be absolutely no negotiating this point.
Emma looks out of the door; she's visibly torn.
"I can't, I have to get this mess sorted out," she says. "But what about someone else; someone trustworthy?"
Gold snorts, because he knows more than most just who and who isn't trustworthy in this town.
"We're in the ICU, Sheriff," he points out. "They don't let just anyone in. I'm here because everyone's scared of me and I'm the nearest thing to family that Belle has at the moment. You're here because you're the sheriff and you're investigating what's happened. We'd need a damn good excuse for another random stranger turning up unannounced."
Emma nods her agreement, then smiles as if she's had a brainwave before leaving the room and disappearing off down the corridor.
Roughly twenty minutes later she returns, with, of all people, Mary Margaret Blanchard timidly following in her footsteps. There's a young ICU nurse with them, the one Emma spoke to the previous evening. Her name badge reads Tara Castle but in the back of his mind, Gold recognises her as Rapunzel, the girl in the tower.
He was not the only one to trade in infants in their old lives. At least he always found his good homes and never locked them in towers.
Gold gives a minute nod of approval; yes, he trusts Miss Blanchard and Nurse Castle to take care of things in his absence. Emma is smoothing things along quite nicely; he likes to think that he taught her well how to bend the truth just enough for it not to be a lie. Mary Margaret is allowed in to see Belle; she did save her life after all, keeping her heart beating until the ambulance arrived. Gold owes her no small debt, and he tells her as much as they pass in the doorway. The teacher manages a small smile.
"I was only doing what any decent person would do in the circumstances, Mr Gold."
That's the thing with inherently good people. They don't see life as a system of checks and balances, deals and favours, as he has done for longer than he cares to remember. Good Snow White is quite willing to do what must be done and expect nothing in return.
Still, Gold feels indebted, but as much as he hates the feeling, he would far rather live with it and have Belle by his side than the other way around. He's about to leave, but he turns back and limps the few steps back to Belle's bedside. He wants to kiss her forehead, but he feels that to do so in front of three witnesses might cause a few too many questions about exactly what the relationship is between them, and Gold has had enough of awkward questions. He touches her hand and murmurs a promise that he'll be back soon. It's not a promise he intends to break.
X
Now that Gold has gone, Emma can put the next stage of her rather drawn-out plan into action, and she calls on help from an unlikely source. She's asked Moe French to come to the hospital and see if he recognises Belle.
Emma's ninety per cent certain that he won't, but there's something in the back of her mind that won't let it go until she's got the proof to go with it. Her trip to the town archives proved utterly useless. There is no record of a Belle or any other variation thereof, no Bellas, Isabelles, Annabelles, Arabellas. There is no record of Moe French having a daughter. But records can be incomplete, or missing in the mayor's clutches, ready to be produced with a flourish at the most inappropriate of moments; so Emma's going to do it the old-fashioned way, which is why she needed Gold to be absent. If, by some strange coincidence, Moe does recognise Belle, then it'll be far better if Gold isn't there at the time. She doesn't need a repeat of Valentine's Day.
The florist comes up to her and Emma indicates the comatose young woman through the glass door. He looks, hard, but shakes his head.
"She's familiar… Vaguely… But she's not family, Sheriff. I couldn't say who she is. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful."
"That's all right," Emma says brightly, perhaps a little too brightly, as one worry lifts off her chest, one loose end neatly sewn up. Not that it really helps much in the grander scheme of things, but if it means one less puppet that Regina can call upon to do her bidding, then so be it. Her mind is at ease for the most part.
"If you don't mind me asking, Sheriff… Why me?"
Emma can't really answer that one, so she gives the barest minimum of the truth, like she has become accustomed to hearing from Gold. As annoying as the man's reticence is, she'd rather have small amounts of truth than an awful lot of lies.
"Just following up on a couple of lines of enquiry. It's no matter."
Moe nods and then shrugs.
"Well, if there's anything else I can do to help, Sheriff."
"Actually, there is." Emma gives the line that she has been giving out to everyone she meets; she told it to the record-keeper too. "If Regina pays you a visit, let me know."
"Sure." Thankfully, he doesn't ask why. Slowly, ever surely, she is building up her little resistance, involving people in her fight against Regina without them really knowing it. Moe goes to leave the hospital and Emma gives Mary Margaret a quick reassuring wave through door before leaving for another destination within the building. The security office. If anywhere has blueprints of the hospital, it'll be there.
Walter is snoring when she knocks and enters, as is to be expected. Emma gives a small sigh of despair; there's no wonder that Regina could get away with keeping people locked in the basement if this is the man in charge of watching over the place.
"Walter. Walter!"
He jerks awake and the motion sends him flying from where he had been precariously balanced with his feet on the desk. He lands in an ungainly heap on the floor and Emma rolls her eyes before stretching out a hand to help him up.
"Erm, hi Sheriff," Walter begins, and tries to stifle a yawn. "I was just resting my eyes for a minute. How can I help you?"
"Have you got a map?" Emma asks. Best to be blunt with it in Walter's case, she feels. "A map of the hospital, I mean."
"Yeah, somewhere round here…" Walter peers around the office and finally locates the floorplans under a box of old CCTV tapes. "Here we are."
Emma spreads them out on the desk, mentally mapping the hospital as she locates the different wards, the doors that lead in and out.
"Where's the basement?" she asks.
"Pardon?" Walter seems utterly perplexed by her question.
"The basement," Emma repeats. "Where's the basement? It's not on here."
"Well, it's just the boiler room," Walter says. "It wouldn't be on the plans."
Hmm. Emma doesn't like the sound of this. She knows the hospital has a basement; she has seen the ground level windows covered with safety mesh outside – she made a point of looking for them when she first came to the hospital this morning. The fact there seems to be no architectural record of it and it is so blithely passed off as a boiler room is not the least suspicious of circumstances.
"Where is it?" she asks again. "Where's the access?"
"It would be…" Walter peers down at the map. "Here." He pinpoints a wall at one end of the emergency room.
"Great." Emma rolls up the map and tucks it under one arm for safekeeping. "Wish me luck."
"Wait, Sheriff…" Walter rushes out of the room after her as she wends her way in the direction of the emergency department. It's the most awake that Emma's ever seen him. "Why do you want the basement?" he asks, still obviously confused by this rather unexpected turn of events.
"I have a feeling that it might be where Kathryn was held hostage," Emma explains succinctly. She doesn't voice her suspicions as to precisely who kept her there. Walter accepts this theory, but still pads after her. They reach the door, marked 'EXIT' and locked with a keypad.
The evidence so far is not at all encouraging. Emma tries punching in a few random numbers, but nothing works.
"Sister, what are you doing?"
Leroy has come over to see what his friend and the sheriff are up to, trying to break into the basement.
"We're trying to get through this door, Leroy," Emma says patiently. "What does it look like we're doing?"
"Well, you'll never get through it like that," he says. "Here, let me."
He pushes past both sheriff and security guard and punches in a set of numbers. The door releases with an electrical clink and Leroy shrugs.
"You know the code?" Emma asks incredulously. Maybe the basement is just a boiler room after all. She can't imagine Regina letting just anyone know the code to her secret hostage holding room. "How come?"
"I'm the janitor, I know all the codes in here," Leroy says, completely matter-of-fact. "Even the morgue."
"Have you ever been down there?" Emma asks. Leroy shakes his head.
"It's just the boiler room," he says. "Never had any reason to."
Emma pushes open the door before it has a chance to lock itself again, and she begins down the steps into the basement. Perhaps misinformation has been Regina's game all along. Maybe, just as she hid Kathryn practically in plain sight, she just spreads boring information to keep people away. No-one is likely to go into a room they have access to if they don't think that there is anything useful or interesting in it. A door that one is forbidden to go through and no-one has access to, on the other hand, would engender far more unwanted attention.
She hears Leroy and Walter's footsteps on the stairs behind her; perhaps they're worried that their sheriff has gone totally round the bend and they want to keep an eye on her.
But when they reach the foot of the stairs, however, Emma feels herself fully justified in her theory.
"Woah." Leroy gives voice to Emma's exact thoughts. "This sure as hell ain't a boiler room."
It's a ward. That much is obvious. Another ward in the hospital that isn't on any of the plans.
Strike one against Regina. But then again, she can always deny knowledge of this room. Never mind, this is only the beginning of the investigation. There's still plenty of time, and it's best to get priorities sorted first. The front desk is unmanned, and it looks like the usual occupant deserted it in a hurry. There's a half-drunk cup of tea, now stone-cold, on the table, notes and pens still strewn everywhere it. A single red rose, wilted now and past its prime, sits in a jug of water. And, there, in pride of place, too obvious to be anything but noticed, is the beginning of Emma's tangible proof.
A honeycrisp apple. There is only one such tree in Storybrooke, and everyone knows where it is…
She leaves the desk and moves further into the ward, round the rabbit warren of cold stone walls, exactly as Kathryn described.
The ward, Emma realises with a little jolt, is obviously the mental ward. Whatever it is, it should still be on the floorplans, marked on the maps of the hospital. That it does not exist, just as Belle seems not to exist, is too coincidental, and Emma does not believe in coincidences. She looks through the little panels in each of the doors, checking to see if there are any other poor, unfortunate souls locked away down here, but there are none. Each little cell is empty.
Two of the doors swing open under her touch. They're opposite each other, and Emma begins to wonder if this was where Kathryn and Belle were held.
Time for more investigation. It's just an idea, and a long-shot, much like Moe had been. But it's still an idea, and Emma already knows that she has to act on her ideas sooner rather than later today. She rushes back towards the front desk and the two men she left there, gawping at the place they never knew existed under their place of work.
"Don't move," she tells them. "Don't let anyone in here, Sheriff's orders."
Walter and Leroy nod their mute assent and Emma sprints back to the squad car, retrieving all the items she could possibly need and some that she probably won't.
The first thing that she does upon her return is cordon the area off in crime scene tape. It's silly, but a little part of Emma still feels a thrill at being able to do that. She relieves Walter and Leroy of their watch, but they elect to stay down in the basement with her, watching her work and offering any assistance they might be able to give. Storybrooke was a quiet town before Emma Swan drove her little yellow Volkswagen into it, and now they have had adultery, murder, kidnap, frame-up… It makes sense for some of the residents to be morbidly fascinated by these new and wholly unexpected goings-on.
Sufficiently cordoned off – ok, maybe she overdid the tape a bit – Emma begins to dust for prints. It's all very well confronting the mayor with an apple and claiming it as proof that she knows about the existence of an illegal asylum under the hospital, but it would never stand up to scrutiny.
Fingerprints, on the other hand…
She takes dabs from as many surfaces as she can find, determining to run them through the system later. Perhaps she can also glean the identity of Regina's mysterious accomplice, the muttering man in the greatcoat that Kathryn described to her.
Grudgingly, Walter and Leroy leave her to return to their day jobs. Emma casually mentions that perhaps they oughtn't make this place public knowledge just yet, but she's not quite as worried in that respect. An entire mental ward would be a lot harder to make disappear than some files.
Speaking of files… Emma packs up her fingerprint kit and steps behind the front desk, carefully sifting through some of the papers there to see if there is anything of use.
She's just opened the first file when she hears raised voices above her.
"Where's the sheriff?" asks someone whom Emma recognises, with a horrible jolt, as Tara, the little nurse she'd seconded into keeping watch over Belle and keeping an eye out for Regina.
"She's down in the basement," she hears Leroy reply, and then Tara's footsteps running down the stairs towards her. Simultaneously, Emma's phone begins to ring in her pocket. She looks at the caller ID; it's Mary Margaret.
"Sheriff!" Tara bursts into the ward from the stairs, not batting an eyelid at her strange surroundings.
Emma's blood is already running cold as Tara continues.
"The mayor's here."
