A/N: Updating this in the hopes that we'll be given more canon Mad Swan to work with soon. Also, if you like my writing, please take a minute to check out my novel, Tendence and Cavile, at Leeftail Press!


Part Eight: Shorn

The ghost girl shifts, lifts her arms to stretch them above her head. She smiles in Jefferson's direction, possibly even specifically at him. The still-steaming cup floats in midair, forgotten. "Aren't you going to say hello?"

He doesn't feel the motion of his steps, of his feet gliding over rough stone floors to approach the ghost girl by the flickering dead fire. All he's aware of, really aware of, is the lurch of his body when it stops at last, when it holds him still, some three or four feet away from her.

His voice is tangled in gibbous strands in his throat; it crawls up from the depths, lapsing, necrotic.

"No point," he manages. "You're not real."

The ghost pouts a little. "That's quite rude, you know. You always were, though. The first time we met," she calls to Emma— he's more or less forgotten about Emma, at this point— "he forewent introducing himself to tell me I should get my hair cut instead. He is the very soul of politeness, I don't think."

Emma moves forward a step and he can feel her reaching out to him a split second before her fingers close around his elbow.

"Are you sure?" she asks him, quietly. She's probably faking a smile at the ghost girl. She does that kind of thing. He won't even bother to look behind him and find out for sure, because she's so predictable it isn't worth it.

Jefferson leaves off gritting his teeth long enough to answer. "Of course I'm sure."

"How do you know? Jefferson, she looks real."

"A believer again, instead of a doubter. I don't mind role-play, Emma Swan, but would you pick one and stick with it?" This isn't true, though, her voice is full of doubt: doubt of him, of his doubt, not of the sweetly smiling ghost. He can't stand a moment more of this. He surges forward, two steps, three, and his hand only falters a little as he reaches out. His fingers find the edge of the ghost's sleeve, and it's the edge of nothing. His hand passes through. No resistance. The ghost girl sits and looks at him. He can feel his anger cooling at the edges, beginning to fade into regret, self-doubt. "I told you. Nothing here is real, not now. It's all there."

"But," says Emma, and she looks from him to the ghost, and her eyes and her heart are full, and she can think of nothing to say, to finish the sentence she's started. Jefferson crouches beside the chair, looks up into the ghost's face.

"Hi," he says, breathless but kindly.

"There you are," says the ghost of his wife. "Such a relief, to have you back again. Just in time for tea."

Jefferson clutches at his heart, fist clenched.

"I always make it, don't I?"

"Scraping by," says his wife dreamily.

Jefferson leans forward, the weight of his hatless head too much for him all of a sudden, and he rests his forehead on the broad smooth arm of the chair. He can feel the space that she does not take up, the ghosting of ghost fingers as his unwife smooths a hand over his unruly hair.

"You took your own advice," she says. "Shorn. Short."

Emma is no doubt standing behind him, wordless and waiting. No doubt wondering who this is, who she is to Jefferson, no doubt she's vibrating with impatience and pent-up anger, she wants to go home, she can't go without him or she would, she would, and he could stay here, stay behind, and paint the walls of his, oh, it was—

"How could I forget?" He's mumbling into his hand, and Emma clears her throat. He lifts his head and turns to look at her, opening his mouth. Closes it again without speaking: there's no anger to be found, no impatience. There is nothing but compassion in her eyes, and he's not sure what to do about that. Or if anything should be done about it. Or when. Or why.

He looks away from her and swallows.

"I know whose castle this is," he says. He flinches away from his own words. "Mine. It used to be mine, before— before Regina." He gives a short little shake of the head. "How can I have forgotten?"

"Maybe you're cursed," says Emma, Emma the doubter and skeptic, but she's being kind, not sarcastic, and her eyes flicker from the ghost girl and settle on him. They stay there. "We'll— we'll figure it out."

"I'm not crying," he says fiercely.

"I didn't say you were."

He half-laughs and swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Maybe I'm allergic."

"Can you leave her?" says Emma, when what she means is Can you stand it? Jefferson studies the stone floor beneath his knees.

"It's not her," he says, "not really. She's long gone. So yes. I can."

He's still on his knees at the side of the ornate chair. His vision clears, clarifies, and he realizes the blurred shape in front of him is Emma's hand, palm up, waiting.

He feels bruises, coming on, covering his kneecaps.

He takes her hand, and she helps him. Helps him up. Helps him. He takes one glance back at the ghost girl, smiling into empty air, and moves on without hesitating.