Coffee To Go: Chapter Seven

I don't own Once Upon A Time.

Please enjoy. (This one is dedicated to those reviewers who made me eep with glee upon reading their comments. It was you. Yes, you, who encouraged me to put down that book I desperately need to read to pass my university course and to pause in writing that essay I need to write and to do this instead.) (Also, please visit me on tumblr – tumblr is fun and certainly will not absorb every moment of your every day. My username is elizadownunder.)

Today is going to be a good day. I mean, damn it is going to be amazing. How could it not be? I woke up in the most amazing mood, after a great dream that I can't for the life of me recall, stretched, stopped stretching, stretched again, and reached my arms out to the sides of my bed to stretch a third time only to find a little body curled up next to me.

The second my hand touched him, Henry scrunched his face up and started moving. He wriggled his way on top of me, yawning until his nose crinkled, and then, apparently uncomfortable, burrowed underneath me. He clutched to my pyjama shirt and groaned unhappily when I rose to my knees. Somehow, I ended up on all fours with my little son curled into a little ball beneath me. I stifled a laugh as one hand reluctantly moved away from my shirt and clutched the blankets instead, dragging them over his head.

"Henry," I murmured. He groaned. "Henry."

"Wha?"

"It's time to get up."

"Mmno," he whispered, reaching a little hand up out of the sheets to find my face and pat it softly. "Sleepy."

"Henry," I said again. "We can do this the easy way, kid, or the hard way." That seemed to grab his attention and he pulled the blanket down so his eyes peeked up at me. "What's it gonna be, kid?"

"Does the easy way have candy?" I shook my head no. "Does the hard way have candy?" I shook my head again. "I don't wanna."

"Well, you gotta," I retorted, poking my son in the belly. "Come on. Shower, dress, breakfast, school."

He waited for a long time and stared up at me before he smiled. He lifted his arms and yelped happily when I sighed, rolled off the bed, and scooped him up into my arms.

"You know, kid, one day you're going to be too big for me to do this." He laughed when I dipped him low. His hand trailed on the carpet before I pulled him up.

"Again!" Down; up. Down; up. I had him so thoroughly entertained that he didn't even noticed that I'd brought us both into the shower. Quick as a flash, I deposited him in the tub, turned on the shower, and laughed at his squeal. "Mamma! You got my jammies all wet!"

I tried. I really did try not to laugh again but I opened my eyes and looked at my son all sopping wet, hair plastered to his forehead, with the most adorable little pouting scowl and I howled with laughter. "Oh kid." I reached out to ruffle his hair and he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the shower. It was my turn to yelp as the water cascaded over my shoulder. "Oh you're in big trouble now mister." Cue water fight.


Henry got to school on time today and I managed to get into Granny's before the morning rush forced me to yell over the un-caffeinated hordes. I smiled at the waitress I was slowly coming to consider a friend. Well, someone I didn't hate, at the very least.

"Hey Emma!" She sashayed her way over. It didn't mean anything, the sashaying I mean. I think that's just the way she walks. "What can I get for you this morning? The usual?"

"Actually, can I have two bearclaws as well? And I need Michael's coffee and Graham's as well."

"Got it – four coffees and two bearclaws coming right up." She shoved a mug across the counter to me, topped with cream and cinnamon. At my no doubt shocked expression, she just smiled. "I saw you walking down the road. Thought you might like something." She shrugged and shook her head when I pulled out my wallet. "Nah, on the house." She paused in her coffee making and I hummed around the delicious liquid. I tilted my head to the side.

"What's up, Ruby?"

"Nothing." She shrugged. "Well, nothing's wrong. I was just wondering, I mean, if you want to tell me, who was that adorable kid you were walking to school?"

I froze for a moment. I relaxed very, very slowly as I watched her. Somehow, I don't know. It's hard to explain. I recognised her. Well, I recognised her behaviour. There was something in the way that she held herself, the lines of her body, and the careful but strangely challenging way she met my eyes. It was sort of like looking into a mirror. She was daring me to reject her, and nervous that I would be offended. I can't count the number of times I've felt just like that.

"His name is Henry," I offered. She nodded. The hard lines began to soften and the corners of her eyes crinkled in her immediate smile.

"He's so cute," she gushed.

I opened my mouth to say something. What? Thank you? "He's my son," I said instead, very quietly. It wasn't that I thought she would hurt me or Henry but I'd had a number of people do the thing. Lots of people. The thing where they gape or they press their lips closed together; they are shocked or they are not surprised because, really, what else would they expect from someone like me; they retreat or they come closer, closer; they judge me with their silent up-and-down looks or they bray with harsh laughter and snort knowingly as their eyes flicker down my body; they count my age; they count his age; they open the door and leave every time.

"I thought so," she said. "I mean, I could tell cause of the way he looked up at you." She leant her elbows on the bench and smiled at me. I could see it – the smile, I mean – even though I stared down, deep down, into my mug. Why wasn't she leaving? "Sorry," she murmured and retreated. I looked up quickly. What had I done?

"Ruby," I bit out quickly. She looked up. I shrugged. I didn't really have anything to say. I just didn't want her to be offended or think I didn't appreciate that she thought my kid was cute. "I, um, thanks." She smiled and I glanced down at the unexpected mug of cocoa. It gave me the courage to look up at her again. "I was thinking we could come in for pancakes? On Sunday?"

She beamed brightly and nodded, eager to meet Henry. I mean, who wouldn't be? Kid was cute. And then she handed me my coffees and that was all. For the moment, I suppose. But it wasn't. Not really. I had left the diner, yes, and I had left Ruby behind couped up in her little accepted prison of waiting and serving and smiling but, somehow, she had followed me out here as well into the air and the sunshine. Her voice was in my head, her bright eyes, her questions. And it brought me down.

I thought a walk might do me good and I actually felt marginally better when, a couple of minutes later, I burst into the sheriff's office. Still not quite as amazing as I'd felt this morning when Henry had tackled me almost to the ground to say goodbye. But maybe Graham's cheery face would perk me right up again.

"Graham!" I called out. "I brought you coffee. Also, I'm going shopping later because you've run out of food and I can't rock the hungry look – mac and cheese sound all right for dinner?"

"Perfect. Why are you yelling?"

"Because the louder I yell, I more I love," I told him, distracted. At his confused 'what?' I laughed. "Henry told me that a little while ago. I'd lost him at the shopping mall and god, I must have yelled at him for an hour." Guilt suffused me for a second. "But Henry told me, you know, after I stopped crying, that it was okay because if I yell at him really loudly it's because I love him too much for him to get hurt."

"Huh. Makes sense I guess."

"You guess correctly," I said as I moved into his office, leaving the box of bearclaws and the coffee on my desk. I started rifling through his papers.

"Do you want to maybe ask me before you go through my papers? So I can tell you where whatever you're looking for is?"

"Nah it's fine. I'm just looking to see if you need anything signed by the Mayor. Do you?" I looked up from the papers to see Graham looking at me with a carefully blank expression.

Oh no. I knew what that look meant. It meant that he wanted to talk to me about something and if he didn't go about it in exactly the right way I was probably going to injure him.

"What?" He said nothing. "Graham, what?"

"It's nothing." Okay. Looks like he's not quite sure how to say it yet.

"It's not nothing. You're giving me that look."

"What look?"

"That thing your face does when you try not to upset me. It makes you look gassy, Graham."

"I'll keep that in mind, thanks," he said dryly and rolled his eyes.

"Okay good. Now tell me why you look gassy." He remained stubbornly quiet. "Gray, I'm more mellow than last time you did this stupid should-I-tell-her-should-I-not. I mean, since we lived together I've become a lot less vindictive."

"How do I know that this isn't some kind of trick?"

"I have a five-year-old who pouts at me when I'm slightly mad. It's hard to be cruel when he uses that pout against you."

"I'm not convinced." He crossed his arms like a petulant child and lent back against the filing cabinet. I sighed, only slightly aggravated.

"Tell me Graham or don't but I gotta go and meet up with the mayor." There. There it was. If I hadn't been watching him so carefully I would have missed it. A brief shadow crossed his face at the mention of Regina. "That's what's wrong? The mayor?"

"How did you –?" He cut himself off, remembering how good I'd always been at reading people. Well, not always. Just after a few of the more unsavoury foster homes.

"Something you want to say, Graham?" I asked him gently, though I wanted to be a little cranky because he was wasting my time, because he is my best friend and so far he's always had the best of intentions at heart.

"I just…" he sighed, defeated. "I don't want you to rush into anything."

"Ah. No, you don't want me to rush into anything with Regina. If it were David or Ruby or Michael you wouldn't have a problem with it." I folded my arms and lowered my eyebrows, demanding answers.

Graham scrunched up his nose a little. "Well, actually, David's married so—"

"Graham!"

"Okay, fine. Yes. It's because it's Regina. But I look at you and I see what you're doing and I'm worried."

"It's just paperwork," I said. But we both knew that it wasn't. We both knew that paperwork led to other stuff. Like talking. Like seeing the other person. "I want a friend, Graham. I'm so sick of having no one to talk to. And, I mean, yeah I know it's my fault but it still sucks. I just want to change that."

"You have me," he offered, tilting his head to the side. I think it's adorable when he does that. He's like a little puppy. (Speaking of, Puppy is doing very well. Graham took to him instantly and he has a little kennel inside the house.)

I shook my head. "I want a girl to talk to. It's different. You're like a brother and I love you but there are some things that I don't want to talk to you about." We smiled and I felt a rush of success. I had kept our conversation light-hearted, even though I could feel the weight that pulled at the edges of Graham's words.

"Is that all Regina is to you?" I hesitated and Graham shook his head, pushing up and away from the filing cabinet. "Emma,"

"No, okay? I like her. I feel like an idiot around her and when I look at her sometimes, most of the time, my brain goes a little fuzzy. But if it's all the same with you, I'd kind of like to figure out what she is to me by myself, okay?"

His eyes were crinkled. Not in the good way. "Emma." No. No. There was that warning tone. I dropped the papers onto the desk and slammed my hands onto the tabletop.

"Stop it, Graham! Why can't you be happy for me? Why can't you be happy that I've found someone that I'm not immediately wary of, scared of? Someone who makes me nervous in a good way. Someone who, who," I began to pace. "She's, I don't know Graham. She's funny."

"I just want you to be careful."

"No, you want me to lock my heart in a box and never let it out."

"Can you blame me?" he snapped. "After what happened last time?"

"Don't."

"I am scared."

I glared at him and strode across the room so that I could shove him. Lightly, but I did. I didn't let myself feel guilty about it and I didn't let myself ignore the words – unplanned, uncensored – that I wanted to say.

"You? Scared? Why do you get to be scared?" Shove. "It's not your heart, Graham, and it's not your body." Another shove. "It's not you waking up in the middle of the night and it's not you having to be careful about who you talk to. I don't get to be scared so you have no right—"

"I have every right," he shouted. "I have every right to be scared for you. You don't even understand, Emma." He pushed me back. Not with his hands, just…stood taller. Over me. I stepped back a little and his face fell, stained with, with something. Pain, I supposed in some small corner of my mind, the rest of me overrun with righteous denial. "You think you are so guarded, so strong. You come into people's lives like a whirlwind and you barely let anything settle before you're gone again. But you can't be strong all the time. And now that you have Henry you can't run anymore. And I," he said, stepping forward but not touching me, "I am scared because your walls don't protect you from people that bulldoze their way in." Like Regina, my mind supplied. Like him. "And I'm scared," he continued more quietly, "because I remember what happened last time. I was there last time."

I nodded. I remembered. "I know."

"Emma." He reached out to take my hand but I shifted away. "I'm sorry. I just don't want you to get hurt again."

"I know." I offered him a small smile. 'But that's not up to you, Gray. I like Regina. I think you have the wrong idea about her. She's not evil, just lonely. And I refuse to stop enjoying myself because of him. I won't let him ruin my life."

"I'm sorry." Perhaps he was suddenly attuned to my anger, quiet and seething as it was, because he was watching me warily. "But she's not just lonely, Emma. She's mean too."

"So what? I'm mean and lonely and you're not going out of your way to warn people away from me."

"That's different."

"How? Because I'm your weak little sister? Because you're scared of the mayor? Because what?"

"You're not weak, Emma. You're the strongest and the best person I know. "

I sighed and sat against the edge of the desk. "Then let me move on. I'm tired of being reminded of him and it was nice to just let things be. You know, with Regina."

"With Regina. Right. Look, Emma, I really think that you need to start thinking about Henry here." I frowned at the sudden change in topic. Why the hell bring up my son?

"Henry is the first person I think about. Everyday. When I wake up, when I go to sleep. Every second of every day."

"And what – you think he's going to be okay with this?"

"With what? He wouldn't begrudge me happiness."

"And when you get your heartbroken by the bitch?" All of his anger was back again. "What happens when Henry is confused and sad because you're sitting around and crying? What then?"

"Then I will do what I have always done. I will make sure that my son is safe and happy."

"It's going to hurt him. You're being selfish, Emma."

Selfish. I felt my muscles tense at the accusation and breathed out very slowly. "I have a son and he means more to me than anything else but that doesn't mean that I don't get to be a person too."

I stood, snatching the papers off the desk behind me. I started marching out of the office when I stopped and turned. Graham paused, looking a little fearful, and waited for me to speak. "Don't you ever accuse me of being selfish ever again." He nodded. "And if you ever bring him up again, I will shoot you in the leg. Understood?"

"Yes," he whispered.

"Good. I'm going to take these to Regina. I'll see you tonight."


So apparently a day can go from amazing to relatively atrocious in under two hours. Who would have guessed it? I walked slowly to the Mayor's office, hopeful that the exercise and the sunshine would perk me right up like it had from Granny's to my office. It didn't. I knew it wouldn't – the day was too far gone down the drain for that – but a girl can hope, right? Right.

The second I walked through the door, I knew I looked terrible. Michael pressed his lips together, obviously not wanting to offend me, but his eyes roamed over my face and he made a sympathetic, mildly pitying, smile.

"Hey Emma. How are you today?"

"Peachy," I grunted and handed him his coffee. "It's cold. You'll have to nuke it. Sorry." For some reason—the reason probably being my face—he just nodded and took the cup with a smile.

I jerked my thumb toward Regina's door and he held up his index finger – one moment. I waited.

"Madame Mayor, you have a visitor."

"Send the deputy in, please, Michael."

"Yes ma'am."

I frowned. "What's that all about? You've never done that before."

"Mayor Mills said that ever since her office was, er, vandalised, certain people weren't to be trusted in her office unless they had her express say so." He shrugged. "I have to check with her now."

"Huh. Okay." And then I pushed my way into her office. I stopped only a single pace into the room and sucked in a deep breath. I was off my game. I mean, I already felt low and lousy from this stellar (sarcasm) morning. I wasn't sure that looking at Regina wouldn't make me collapse or something equally embarrassing, just to complete my day. So I kept my eyes on the floor and shuffled my way to the large table to the left where she was sitting.

"Good morning, ma'am," I greeted her politely.

She paused before answering. "Good morning, deputy." She gestured to the seat opposite her and I slid into it, placing the box of pastries to the side. I looked at the papers I had brought. Then at the box. Then at my papers. I shoved the box a little towards Regina.

"Uh, these are for you. Because I said I'd bring them." I bit my tongue before I could say anything more, knowing if I did I was likely to embarrass myself.

She reached out slowly and lifted the lid. Closed it again. "Thank you. That is…kind of you." Yeah right. As if. My morose thoughts continued along that path. More like childish and immature. It was stupid. I tamped down that little negative voice and also my hunger and focused on the little dancing spots of ink on the page that had the audacity to call themselves letters.

She must have been watching me closely, I supposed. Because, you see, it took me a long time to relax. My shoulders did finally relax from their stiff position, I lost some of the grinding tension in my jaw, and the pressure across my forehead slowly dissipated. And it was in that exact moment that the pounding behind my eyes lessened to a manageable level that Regina spoke.

"Are you quite all right, deputy?"

I glanced up and lost myself in her stunning coffee eyes, distracted by the handsome slope of her jaw. Then: Be careful, Emma. Graham's voice. Clear as any of my own thoughts in my head. And I blinked my distraction away, eyes cutting down again to the table.

I managed to smile at the papers. "Just fine, thank you ma'am." The silence that followed was itchy and her voice, when she spoke, was disbelieving.

"I see."

I glanced up and smiled again. "Just tired." She nodded to her own papers but I caught her disbelief. I let it go. Nothing I could do about it – except, you know, telling her the entirety of my messed up past. And that's nothing I wanted to talk about especially with Regina.

The scratching of her beautiful pen kept me company for the next however long. That and the occasional glance over at Regina, making sure she was still, well, her and not this monster Graham seemed to see. We only paused when my stomach began to grumble embarrassingly loudly. I jumped up and was halfway to the door when she spoke.

"Where are you going?"

"To, um. To food," I mumbled.

"To food," she repeated. "Interesting. But I believe that I am in possession of…now how did you say it? God's pastry creation? The greatest food that exists?"

"The delicious pastry that God fashioned," I said.

"Ah yes. Thank you."

"Anyway, I got them for you. My poor deprived mayor," I joked, feeling a little of my previous weightlessness return, the heaviness in my heart stripped away somewhat by her interest.

"I assure you that I have no desire to eat both of these pastries, no matter how delicious. Please," she gestured to my seat again, urging me to return. "Sit."

She took her time examining the pastries before taking the one closest to her. Her fingers wrapped about it daintily and she lifted it to her mouth with all the elegance in the world. I shifted, uncomfortable. I know I looked like a pig with my table manners. I almost didn't want to take one but she offered and I was hungry and, well, you know. It's a bearclaw. I took a cautious bite, taking care not to spill crumbs. I was far out of my league here.

So focused was I on not looking like a pig, I almost missed the surprised sound Regina made when she tasted the bearclaw and the way she closed her eyes to savour the taste.

"God, get a room you two," I teased. Her eyes snapped open and I almost regretted teasing her. Almost, because she smiled a little and I know that she didn't mind. Plus, I got to see those beautiful eyes of hers.

"Are you on call, deputy?" she asked me, glancing at my phone that I'd laid on the table.

"Sort of," I managed after chewing and swallowing. I flushed a little under her scrutiny. I didn't really want to tell her that I needed two jobs.

"Would it not be more prudent of you to return to the office? Perhaps the sheriff has other work for you."

I blinked at her. Then smiled and shook my head. "It's my day off so Graham will call me if he needs me desperately. I'm just waiting for a text." I frowned when a thought crossed my mind. "I can go, though, if you want. I mean, if that was a dismissal. I'm sorry if I'm distracting you, I didn't really think about it because I was kind of enjoying this but I'm really sorry if I was a bother. I should have just left the bearclaws and gone. I'm sorry—"

"Deputy Swan," she cut off my ramblings with her cool, calm voice. "It was not a dismissal. I was merely concerned that you were neglecting your work." I suddenly felt stupid – not a foreign concept by away stretch of the imagination – and the back of my neck itched with a blush. "Would you care to sit again, deputy?"

I looked down at the awkward handful of papers and precarious clutching of coffee that I had scooped up at some point in my stupid rant and settled everything on the table. I sat.

I'm sorry it took so long. I've been so busy with university and ugh – just, you know, all the things. I have most of the next two chapters planned out so hopefully they won't take so long. I hope you liked it. Please let me know with reviews. I love reviews. Follow me on tumblr? My url is elizadownunder. Happy reading, readers :)