Heads up: Princess Bride references ahead. Consider ye warned.


Crap just kept getting pile on top of more crap. Emma was a little terrified at what Jefferson had told her. Special? Here to save us all? More to come? With the way her day was going, all of it was going to be true, and all of it was going to suck. But Jefferson was just... odd - okay no, screw the three dots followed by the adjective - he was just insane. That was it. He was not a herald; she was not a hero. He had mental issues; she had tired feet. The end. But part of Emma knew that if Jefferson was right about one thing, it was that it wasn't the end. Because he would make it not be the end. And that little part of her made her afraid. There wasn't any lethal weapons in his car that time, but what would happen if next time there were? What would happen if she didn't do as he asked and she didn't 'save' everyone - whatever that was supposed to mean. But Emma couldn't think about that right now. There was food just within her reach, and she was starving, and thinking about different way she could potentially be murdered by someone whom she had just shared a car ride with wasn't beneficial to her appetite. Oh. And then there was the matter of her extremely overrunning her curfew. It was 7:15 pm on the dot and she was supposed to be home, like, three and half hours ago. In her defense, most of that was Penny's fault for taking the car and leaving her foster daughter with no means of transportation. But Emma was almost certain Penny had forgotten that detail as of now. And then there was the Jefferson detour. And now there was going to be the Granny's detour.

Just screw it. Penny could wait, even though what she was doing was most likely the precise opposite. No way they were letting dinner go cold if she didn't grace them with her presence with an appropriate window of time.

Emma pushed open the door to Granny's Diner, the atmosphere immediately warming her, although there were still chills running deep in her veins from Jefferson's threatening message (well, he hadn't actually threatened her at all. He simply stated that she was the savior of a small town she was a stranger in, called himself a catalyst or some shit, and went on about due time or whatever. But there had to be some implication of a threat in there somewhere, right?). The point being, although her level of food enjoyment was at stake, Jefferson in his freaky purple hat and eyeliner just couldn't be bothered to exit out of her thoughts.

Head still in a whirl as she took her first step into the pleasantly noisy restaurant, Emma hardly noticed where she was going. Cue accidentally bumping into someone. Cue coffee spilling all over her. Cue... incredibly hot guy? His eyes were wide and he was talking in a frenzy, (with an even hotter accent?) apologizing profusely for the spill. He dashed over to the counter, grabbing a handful of napkins. It was only then when Emma finally bothered to look down at her shirt. It was dripping. And scalding hot, now that she noticed. All over her chest. The Royal Spiller of the Coffee was about to clean it. Off her boobs.

"Whoa!" Emma's brain finally caught up with what was going on. "This is not an excuse to cop a feel!" she accused, placing her hand in between him. He froze, napkin-filled hand still outstretched. People in the background were snickering. Then he started rambling about how sorry he was, and how he didn't mean it that way.

"Yeah, I guess its just common male instinct to grab a girl's boobs whenever the opportunity presents itself. I excuse your autopilot," she quipped sarcastically, turning around to walk away.

"Wait!" he called after her. Bastard had some nerve telling her to wait. "Let me buy you something. It's the least I can do." He looked exasperated.

"Trying to buy my forgiveness? Who says chivalry is dead?" Emma just really wanted him to go away. First Killian Jones, now him? Was this town just full of assholes? Attractive assholes, no less, but still...

"Don't twist my words," he barked. Another command, nice. She should have gone off on him about women's rights, but she surprised herself and shut-up. "I really am sorry," he began apologizing for the thousandth time.

"Look," Emma interrupted, having had enough, "your sorry. I get that. But-"

"No," he cut her off just as she had done to him. "Let me finish." She grew quiet again. "I wasn't watching where I was going. And I just wanted to make up for what I'd done by helping you, but you threw it back in my face and assumed I was trying to sexually harass you-" That accent really was a turn-on - stop, Emma, stop, - and those eyes - pull yourself together! "I think we've humiliated each other enough, alright? Let me buy you a coffee, and we'll call it square."

"I only drink hot chocolate," she blurted without thinking. Dammit.

"Hot chocolate it is then," he smiled, relieved. "I'm Graham," he introduced. He didn't ask her to shake his hand, thank God. Emma had a feeling he knew she was reluctant, but was still going through with it for the chance to redeem himself.

"Emma," she replied shakily. She just couldn't get a break today could she? Graham let her lead them to the counter to drink. A booth would feel too... date-ish. And the last thing she wanted was someone there to think she was with him, with him. Disgusting. Okay, so maybe not disgusting - how could you say something like that about the caliber of meat? A blind person could tell he was gorgeous, for heaven's sake - but so... not true, was the best way she could put it. She didn't want anyone in there to think she was into guys who liked to feel girls up after he'd doused them in hot coffee. But wait - she didn't care what anyone thought, she reminded herself.

The mismatched pair sat down a seat apart from each other, and Graham had just finished ordering her hot chocolate and another coffee for himself - how people could drink that stuff, she would never know.

"And a burger for me as well, please," Emma smiled as politely as she could at the elderly woman - Granny most likely Ruby's grandmother - taking their orders. She'd worked part-time as a waitress before, so she knew a small gesture of understanding could go a long way.

"Let me pay for that too," Graham insisted as Granny headed towards the kitchen to prepare their orders.

Emma shook her head. "You said you'd buy me one thing."

"Well now I'm saying two," he persisted.

"No!" Emma scoffed. "That isn't the way it works! You don't get to change the rules on me; that isn't fair." She crossed her arms, daring the curly-haired Calvin Klein model to challenge her.

"Life isn't fair, highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something."

"Nice Princess Bride reference, Dread Pirate Roberts," the blonde rolled her eyes trying to hide her amusement. The accent was really uncanny. All he needed was a mask and a ponytail, and he would be identical to the 1987 version of Cary Elwes.

Graham's lips quirked up in an impressed smirk. "I was hoping you'd catch that," he said.

"What can I say? I'm an extremely cultured individual?" she replied wittily, bordering on flirtatious. Oh hell no. She stopped right there. She was not doing that dance with a guy who'd already been proven an asshole by attempting field day with the girls after he'd spilled coffee on them. Quite a charmer really. Not. But he kind of was. Shut up, Swan.

"You seem more like a Humperdinck, though," she distanced herself. If there was anything that said 'back down', it was calling someone out on being a Humperdinck. But so many guys were egotistical maniacs with six-fingered besties (okay, sidekicks with an abnormal amount of appendages wasn't a consistent trait, but there had to be some cases that validated that claim). The point is: Humperdinck = major, total, and all out suckage.

"That doesn't make any sense," Graham pouted. "I was just Roberts a second ago."

"I'm female..." Emma concluded. "We change our minds..." a beat "Not that you had any trouble noticing that, did you?" She shot him a wistful glare.

"And here I thought you were warming up to me," Graham was still in a playful mood. "I might just have to buy you that cheeseburger for it... tsk, tsk..."

"You are not pulling out the blackmail card," Emma objected.

"Oh, but I do believe I am," Graham snarled, grinning sardonically. He stared her down, stifling a smile with a small, very smug smirk. Emma leaned on her elbows and returned the favor with just as much determination. God she hated losing. But before long she realized he only had to wait her out until it was time to pay - then it would be all over.

She slammed her hands on the counter. "Fine, fine - you win. I'll let you slide into the role of Inigo," she consented.

"Westley, Fezzik, Vizzini? No?"

"Absolutely friggin' not!" Emma exclaimed. "Fezzik's too loveable, and Westley didn't grab for Buttercup's boobs after saying 'As you wish'."

"And what about Vizzini?" Graham retorted.

"You can't fill the role of my favorite character. I won't stand for that." Great. She should just give him a list of ways to annoy her. It would be much easier than dragging it out of her.

"The thought of performing such a dastardly deed would be absolutely inconceivable," he stated mockingly. Emma had the suspicion he only agreed with her so he could make another witty reference.

"Is this flirting I see?" Both of their heads shot up from the counter see Ruby walking up behind him. It was strange. Ruby had been jittery about talking to a science nerd, but now she was getting friendly with arguably one of the hottest guys on the plant. Odd. (Not the Jefferson kind of odd, heaven forbid.)

"Shhhh! Ruby!" Graham fake whispered. "You can't say these things in close vicinity to the wild Emma. She might attack. Her species is prone to Princess Bride references and indulges in hot chocolate, unlike the rest of her kind, who normally feast on coffee." They seemed like quite the pair, those two.

Emma crossed her arms over her chest. "He spilled his coffee on me. It's his fault I'm traumatized."

"Yeah, well Graham is to blame for a lot of things," Ruby shrugged. "Most of it happens because of his panty-dropping accent." she smirked.

"I keep telling you, Ruby: I'm not the one with the accent everyone else is," he shook his head in overdramatic disdain.

"Really?" Ruby challenged. "Do you want an American accent?"

"God no!" he replied incredulously.

"Yet all of us Yankees want European ones. Interesting," Ruby continued. "And I suppose that when you see a girl with an American accent, you just about shit yourself at how perfect that accent sounds." She cocked an eyebrow and inserted herself in the seat between Emma and Graham. She waited a second and once she felt confidant enough in her argument she left a smug, Cheshire cat-like smile spread across her face. "That's what I thought."

"Well," he drawled, "if you find it attractive, we could always reach some verbal arrangement. I find I am quite... inventive with my phrasing."

"Graham, sweetie, as much as I'm sure every other girl in this diner beside me and Emma want to rip your clothes off, it's a little illegal and incestuous. Second cousins and all." Ruby gave Emma a knowing look.

Now this all made sense. How come she hadn't seen it before? They had and same eyes, paired with identical wolfish grins.

"Exactly. Second cousins. It's legal to get with your second cousin," Graham pointed out, if a little disturbingly.

Ruby rolled her eyes at her cousin - excuse me second, available, and legal to have sex with cousin - and turned to Emma. "He lives here and isn't even a citizen, for Christ's sake, and refuses to learn any of the rules - he says he doesn't want to become too Americanized or some shit - but yet he's managed to pick up that he can legally fuck me. Bravo, Humbert," - Emma could only guess that was his last name. Frankly, she liked Graham better - "bravo." Ruby's words were absolutely drenched in sarcasm and you've-got-be-effing-kidding-me was written across her forehead.

"Please,' Graham huffed, "you'd be all over me if it weren't for Vic Whale standing in my way. How can I compare?" Ruby's faced turned the color of, well, rubies, as she stared down her prey: namely, one delicious Graham Humbert. Emma knew this is where her new friend's (could she call her a friend?) weak spot was. It made her quite expendable. Even Mary Margaret had been able to exploit her earlier at lunch.

"Would you use the same trick on her like you did with me?" Emma cocked an eyebrow, naturally defending anything with estrogen. "Spill coffee over her boobs, try to get some action, and end up trying to buy her forgiveness by drowning her in cocoa?"

Ruby's eyes widened and she whirled around to face her cousin. "Oh my God you seriously did that?"

Graham looked sheepish - no scratch that - he looked goddamn terrified. Apparently the wrath of Ruby Lucas was something best known in only a legend. "I'll be going..." Graham awkwardly excused himself, stumbling out of the stool and tripping on the doormat as he left the diner.

"I knew he wouldn't pay for my burger," Emma muttered, not knowing whether to feel offended or triumphant. She'd declined anyway, right? And he paid for her hot chocolate as promised. But she couldn't help but wish he'd fought against her and done the gentlemanly thing.

"What can I say?" Ruby cracked her knuckles in self-satisfaction. "Terror Ruby makes everyone want to run and hide. Graham's seen it plenty to know when a speedy exit is needed." a beat "And if Terror Ruby hadn't butted in he would have paid," she smiled reassuringly.

"Well thank I have to thank you, Terror Ruby," Emma bowed in jedi-like form.

"I see we have ourselves a feminist," Ruby observed. "I'm all for it, but I like the notion flowers and chocolates and cheesy romance and that happily ever after stuff way too much for mw to be considered a legit suffragette."

All of those things seemed childish to Emma now. She'd already had her whirlwind romance with roses and see's candy and walks along the beaches of Tallahassee. Dreams of ever finding that sort of thing again had long since shattered by the time she'd gotten to Storybrooke. And to quote the wonderful words of William Goldman's The Princess Bride: "Her heart was a secret garden, and the walls were very high."

"Hey," Ruby perked up, pulling Emma out of her reverie. "You have an embarrassing guy story to tell now." She winked and hopped off the stool, going to help her grandmother in the kitchen. "Just wait until we tell Mary Margaret tomorrow," she said over her shoulder, flashing that wolfish smiles that twinned Graham's

A few little things: a) she lied, because b) this isn't her first embarrassing guy story, but c) they'd said 'we', which d) meant together, which e) meant she had a lunch date - at least for tomorrow. And for the record, f) none of that meant she cared, of course, and g) how come Killian Jones had been simmering in the ever present back burner of her mind through this entire list she was making? And finally h): Why did she itch for something to say to him when she saw him the next day. That's right: when. Whether either of them liked it, she was going to get Killian mother-fucking Jones out of her system and drilled into a pulp before V-Day. She might just enjoy the rest of her senior year.

Killian Jones could be another embarrassing guy story, was her last thought (and it was regretted) before Emma mother-fucking Swan bit into her burger.


So we're finally almost done with Emma's first day of school! Don't worry, all of this has just been used as a set-up for the meat of the story. We've got some plot for Emma, Killian, Gold, David, Mary Margaret, Ruby, Graham, Jefferson, Belle, and Mel now. We'll be meeting Vic Whale soon-ish too, but Frankenwolf isn't going to be a huge factor in this story, I don't think. But I love to keep you all on your toes, so we'll see what happens. And earlier I hint-hinted at Aurora and Ella, so sooner rather than later we'll get to see some sisterly love... or hate. And we've been missing Killian action for like, three chapters! We'll have to remedy that *wink, wink*

Tootles!

- C.J.