As always I appreciate the reviews. The more feedback, the better I can get at tweaking the story and getting ideas for where to go. For those of you who have been asking about fairytale land counterparts there is a small Kate hint if you look closely. Enjoy!
"You look awfully chipper this morning." Mary Margaret grinned ruefully as she handed Emma a cup of coffee early Saturday morning.
"Well this is my idea of an ideal Saturday morning." Emma said dryly as she sipped the coffee.
"You do sort of have yourself to blame for this." Mary Margaret pointed out.
"Thanks for the support." Emma's eyes narrowed.
"How long do you have to be there?" Mary Margaret asked.
"I have absolutely no clue." Emma said. "Kate's meeting me here any minute now and we're going to just go get it over with. Allow Graham to torture us at the mayor's will."
"You really think Regina is the one pulling the strings on this community service?" Mary Margaret raised an eyebrow.
"You don't?" Emma countered.
"Well Regina is, intense…" Mary Margaret admitted. "But I don't think she's out to get you."
"You saw her demand that Graham punish us properly." Emma held up her cup of coffee.
"Yes that's true." Mary Margaret agreed.
"Is she always that rude to everyone?" Emma asked. "Or just me."
Mary Margaret smiled. "Well she's not exactly the worlds nicest person, or the easiest person to get along with. But she does seem to have a certain mean streak when it comes to you. She's not exactly my biggest fan either for some unknown reason, so that could be affecting you."
"Or it could have to do with the fact that her son has feelings for me." Emma stared pointedly at Mary Margaret.
Mary Margaret nodded slowly as she took a sip of her coffee, keeping her eyes trained on Emma. "So you found out."
"You knew?" It wasn't really a question.
"Of course I knew." Mary Margaret shrugged. "It's a small town Emma, you've said it yourself. Everyone knows everything."
"You couldn't have been bothered to tell me?" Emma didn't seem all that angry. She knew it wasn't Mary Margaret's fault. She could tell Mary Margaret was trying to give Emma space and not push her too hard. Emma couldn't really fault Mary Margaret for giving her what she wanted.
"I thought it was something you needed to hear from him." Mary Margaret explained.
"Well I didn't exactly hear it from him." Emma stared into her cup. "Someone else had to tell me that I was making an idiot out of myself."
"Emma you weren't making an idiot out of yourself." Mary Margaret said supportively. "How did the confrontation go? Where are the two of you?"
Emma sighed. "I don't know. I'm frustrated obviously. I feel lied too, but Connor made some good points in explaining why he didn't say anything. I just don't know how to move forward from here. Trust doesn't exactly come easy for me."
"You clearly care about him." Mary Margaret said softly.
"What?" Emma looked up.
"You just said trust doesn't come easy to you." Mary Margaret explained. "If you didn't care about him, you wouldn't be confused about this, you wouldn't even be considering giving him a second chance."
"That's ridiculous." Emma refused to believe she had grown an attachment to anyone in the short time she had been in Storybrooke.
"Emma that wall of yours, it may keep out pain, and rejection." Mary Margaret shrugged. "But it also may keep out something more."
Emma didn't know what to say. There was a knock at the door and Emma breathed an internal sigh of relief, thankful for the escape. The conversation had gotten a bit to personal for her. "That's Kate." She put her mug in the sink and grabbed her bag. "I'll see you later Mary Margaret."
"Have fun." Mary Margaret called, a smirk on her face.
"Yea, fun." Emma rolled her eyes, a smirk playing on her lips. "Because that's the first word that comes to mind."
She pulled open the door and nodded at Kate. "Ready to go have the best Saturday ever?"
"Well you get to spend it with me." Kate raised her eyebrows. "So I know it will be the best Saturday you've ever had."
"Shut up." Emma laughed.
"Hey it could be worse." Kate said as they walked down the stairs. "At least we get to do our community service with Graham. He's such a hottie. Ava, Jules, and Isabelle got stuck helping old Mr. Andrews sort out second hand donations."
"Sounds thrilling." Emma said flatly.
"Right?" Kate agreed. "And the boys are at the mercy of Mr. Gold, which would be terrifying."
"Mr. Gold?" Emma seemed surprised.
"The owner of the pawn shop." Kate elaborated.
"Yea, I know." Emma waved her hand. "I'm just surprised they got assigned to help him work."
"It is a little strange." Kate agreed. "But apparently they're doing a bunch of heavy lifting organizing his shop."
"I'm surprised Connor didn't get out of this punishment." Emma said
"I heard you had found out about that." Kate looked over at Emma.
"Why did no one tell me?" Emma asked.
"What was I supposed to say? Hi my name's Kate, oh by the way my friend Connor's mom, she's the psycho mayor of this town."
Emma let out a small laugh. "Fair enough. That would be kind of weird."
"Good morning ladies." Graham straightened up from his post outside the station. "You're on time."
"Did you expect us to be late?" Kate raised an eyebrow.
"Well considering the upstanding citizens you all have proven yourselves to be…" Graham countered.
"You're too kind." Kate said dryly. "Can we get this over with?"
"You're charming attitudes will make this day so much fun for you." Graham Gestured through the door. Kate and Emma walked through the door unenthusiastically. "I have a lot of filing and rearranging set up for you two today." Graham pointed to the boxes on the table. "You can start with those. I need them all alphabetized and ordered by year."
"You're letting us look at case files?" Kate's eyebrows shot up. "How is that even legal?"
"They're all closed cases." Graham shrugged. "Mainly domestic disputes or complaints about cats in trees or teenagers doing stupid things." He looked pointedly at Kate and Emma. "Get started."
"Well this will be a fun way to introduce you to everyone in the town." Kate held up the files. She opened the top one to examine it. "Hmm, oh here we go." Kate slid a file over so Emma could see. "The Widow Lucas locked her granddaughter out because she was coming back too late and Ruby got in trouble for loitering in the park that night. Wow and I thought my mom was strict about locking me up."
"Who's the Widow Lucas?" Emma sifted through her own file.
"She's the one who owns Granny's and the inn." Kate explained.
"Oh Ruby." It clicked for Emma. "Should have pieced that together."
"Ruby carried her teenage rebellion into her twenties." Kate grinned.
"That much is obvious." Emma agreed. "And the way she dresses?"
"My dad says it's a cry for attention." Kate smirked. "She's an awesome person, not at all like what you would assume based on looks. She could be so pretty if she respected herself enough to dress less..."
"Like she's willing to sleep with whoever?" Emma raised an eyebrow.
"Exactly. Like half of these files have to do with Gold." Kate flipped through her stack. "Him filing against people for breaking rent agreements, breaking in, complaints against him."
"This is one drama filled little town." Emma mused.
"Oh you have no idea." Kate let out a laugh. "It's kind of comical sometimes."
"Why is Mr. Gold involved in so many of these?" Emma glanced through the G's.
"Well he pisses off a lot of people. Everyone's scared of him." Kate explained.
"Why doesn't anyone do anything about it?" Emma asked.
"He owns the town, there's not a whole lot we can do about it." Kate shrugged.
"How does someone own a town?" Emma looked up. "I asked him about it and he gave me this weird answer about how seductive power can be."
"You talked to him?" Kate looked surprised.
"Yea." Emma shrugged like it was no big deal, to her it wasn't.
"Well you own most of the land and buildings that everyone lives and works in." Kate looked up. "He doesn't just run a pawn shop Emma. He terrorizes his clients, extorts money out of them. Threatens to evict them if they don't do what he says. Luckily my father worked very hard to make sure he owned his own land, so his business, our house, it's free from Gold."
"What does your dad do?" Emma was unsure of how to work this whole friendly conversation thing.
"He's owns the bank." Kate rolled her eyes. "He makes bring your daughter to work day a blast."
Emma let out a small laugh. "I can imagine."
A few hours later Kate and Emma were nearing the end of Graham's many boxes. Kate's cellphone started vibrating incessantly. Kate picked it up and read the display, sighing heavily. She turned to Graham. "It's my dad, can I answer it or will it be a violation of my parole?"
"Charming Kate." Graham nodded at the hallway "Take it." Kate gave a fake smile before escaping into the hallway. "You haven't said much today." He looked at Emma.
"I figured it be easy to keep my head down and my mouth closed and just get his over with." Emma looked up. "Contrary to Regina's belief, which seems to be yours as well, this is the first time I've ever had a brush with the law."
"Look." Graham let his arms fall from his chest. "I'm sorry about this. Usually I wouldn't punish on the first offense but your friends clearly aren't responding to warnings and I had to punish the whole group to be fair."
"Right," Emma rolled her eyes before she could stop herself.
"You seem to have something to say." Graham said.
"I'm good at telling when people are lying, and you are." Emma turned to Graham. "You never intended to punish us, you didn't even want to, but when Regina says jump… Tell me Graham, how does it feel to be Regina's lap dog."
Graham's eyes darkened. "I am not Regina's lap dog."
"Really?" Emma raised her eyebrows. "Because from where I'm standing, you seem to take orders from her pretty easily. How did you get so far inside her pocket?"
"Emma." Graham warned.
"You know I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I've never known cops to be reliable. I mean they've never been there for me my entire life. No matter what I said, or how obvious the truth was, they never did anything to help me. It was always about what was most convenient, or what was best for them. I used to think the police were supposed to protect innocent people, but I found out that was a fantasy pretty quickly. I'm glad to know the corruption is uniform though, not just localized to Augusta. I've never really been able to rely on anyone, at least I'm prepared for that to stay the same." Emma couldn't stop herself, as much as she wanted to stop speaking, she couldn't.
Graham stared at her in a stunned silence. A look of regret passed over his face. Whether it was due to his sorrow for what she was confessing, or his shame at the accuracy of Emma's accusations, it made Emma highly uncomfortable.
"Look we're basically done, can I go?" Emma shoved her hands in her pocket, wishing she could take back everything she just said. Graham nodded stoically. Emma turned and grabbed her coat as Kate walked back in. "We're done."
"Finally." Kate gave a small cheer. "Em's you wanna get lunch? There's this great sandwich place that's only open for lunch.
Emma hesitated, she wasn't sure she really wanted to go have idle conversation with Kate after what had just happened, but she didn't want to think about it either. Kate had a way of taking her mind of whatever she was worrying about and it might be nice to be with a friend. "Sure."
"Sweet." Kate draped her arm around Emma as the two left the station. Emma could feel Graham's eyes on her as she walked away but she shook it off, hoping he would forget what had just happened.
