I am so sorry this has taken so long to update. I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

Maison Rouge

Chapter Ten

It was lunchtime in the theatre, and Granny was serving up a vast pot of lamb stew to the gathered ensemble in the kitchen when Astrid's voice and clattering footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs towards the apartment.

"Leroy! The computer's making funny noises at me and I think it's going to blow up!"

She burst into the kitchen, her curly hair in complete disarray, and when she saw that Leroy was not amongst the cast and crew who had congregated for lunch, her face fell.

"Where's Leroy?" she asked.

Jefferson shrugged. "Well, he's not here. Why don't you sit down, Astrid, and have some of this excellent stew to calm your nerves? The computer is not going to blow up."

"It keeps making funny noises," Astrid said mournfully, sinking into the last empty place at the table and accepting the bowl of stew that Granny passed to her.

"What kind of noises?" Emma asked.

"It keeps beeping at me and telling me nothing's recognised and that the ticket database is corrupt, and when I try to do anything, it whirs at me. Aggressively."

Jefferson raised an eyebrow,

"Well, that does sound serious," he said, "but I don't think that violent conflagrations are imminent. Can you shed any light on the situation, Mr Gold?"

"Certainly, which of my many torches would you like?" Gold muttered. "Jefferson, you know that I don't know one end of a computer from the other. I have enough trouble with a cordless phone. If it's electrics I can do it; computers are a wizardry I have yet to master."

Emma, who had been listening to the banter and Astrid's forlorn explanation carefully, thought that she might know what the problem was. Or at least, how to stop the computer making strange noises and putting the fear of explosions in the box office staff.

"Would you like me to take a look?" she asked Astrid. "I think I know how to fix it."

"You do?" Astrid turned to Emma and her face lit up, as if the younger woman was the answer to all of her prayers. "Please help!"

Emma finished her last mouthful of stew and followed Astrid, who was still eating hers, out of the kitchen and down the two flights of stairs to the box office. The computer did look to be a rather sorry state – the thing must have been over fifteen years old for a start – and it was showing a stark grey error message about corrupted files. Emma sat down and began typing. It was a while since she'd had access to a computer and she only now realised how much she had missed it.

"The ticket database, right?" she asked. Astrid nodded mournfully around a mouthful of stew.

"All the reservations are in there," she said once she'd swallowed. "All the people who've booked tickets and are going to pick them up tonight before the show starts, their details are in there. It could be potentially disastrous if I lose it."

"Is it a live database?" Emma asked.

Astrid gave her a blank look. "A what?"

"A live database, an Internet-based one that updates in real time every time someone buys a ticket."

Astrid shook her head.

"I can honestly say that I have no idea what you're talking about, but no-one buys tickets over the Internet, only via phone and in person here at the box office. We don't have a website."

"Really?" Emma closed the error message and set about trying to find the option to restore the file to a previous version. "That surprises me. I would have thought you'd advertise online. You'd reach a lot more people."

Astrid perched on the desk beside her. "I guess that the thought just didn't occur to Granny," she said. "This has been her baby since before the dawn of the Internet. She's only ever done telephone and in-person booking, and it's always worked for her. She's kind of traditional in that sense."

Granny was not at all traditional as far as Emma was concerned. In Emma's admittedly limited experience of grannies, they were generally all doddery elderly women who knitted in arm chairs and drank cocoa and complained about the younger generation. Whilst Granny did an awful lot of knitting and drank cocoa, she absolutely adored the younger generation. There was also the small matter of her running a theatre, which none of Emma's other experiences of grannies had ever taught her to believe was traditional. She didn't mention anything to Astrid regarding it and continued to try and save the database.

"Ok, I can fix it, but you'll lose anything that was updated after three o'clock yesterday afternoon," she said.

"That's fine, anything is better than nothing. I thought I'd lost the whole thing. Leroy's always telling me to back the thing up but I've got no idea how. I'm the person who hits it with a shoe when it doesn't work."

Emma made a mental note to ask someone to source a memory stick and get the computer backed up in case something like this happened again. She let the program run and then the database opened without any problems. "Tada."

Astrid looked up at her with awe. "Stay forever," she murmured. "I don't care what Ruby says, I'm stealing you from the bar and bringing you to work down here. Thank you so much." She threw her arms around Emma in a tight hug, then sprung back, looking down at her belly. "Oops, sorry, are you all right? And are you all right in there?" she asked Emma's tummy.

Emma laughed. "We're both fine, thanks."

She turned back to the computer, clicking around to see if there were any other damaged files before setting the rather old and in dire need of updating anti-virus program to work, just in case. She'd only fallen into working in the bar by accident really, but this was something she could do, something she was good at. Granny and Ruby had said that she would find her niche, and she had. At least, she thought she had.

"Thank you," Astrid repeated.

"I'm happy to help. And I'm happy to stay if you want me to."

Astrid nodded eagerly. "How do you know so much about computers anyway?" she asked before taking a final mouthful of stew.

"It was always my best subject at school," Emma said. "I had a really good teacher, he taught us how to fix things that were broken before he let us loose on the school computers, so that if we accidentally broke anything, we could fix it ourselves. I skipped a lot of school, but I never missed IT if I could help it. There's a lot of stuff I've forgotten but some of it stuck."

Astrid sucked on her spoon contemplatively.

"Could you make us a website?" she asked eventually.

Emma made a face. She had a very battered and water-stained web design book in her backpack upstairs in Ruby's room. It was her most treasured possession, and it was one of very few things that she had come into ownership of that she hadn't stolen. The library had been getting rid of battered old books and she'd actually got this one legitimately. In and out of care throughout her teens, it was always in her bag, always ready to go whenever she needed to.

"Yes," she said eventually, even if she did not feel as confident as she sounded. "Yes, I could,"

Well, she could try at least, and no-one could blame her for trying even if she failed.

"Because I think it would make sense." For all that she was scatterbrained and something of a bad luck charm when it came to technology, Astrid seemed to have a head for business. "Most of our custom comes locally – we advertise in the local papers – or from word of mouth. If we have a website then the entire world can know about us. Theoretically." She sighed. "Sorry, the Moral Crusaders have been rather vocal recently, and we keep asking ourselves what we can do to beat them back. I'm sure Granny wouldn't mind updating a little if it means we get more custom and get to stay open. This place… It's a lifeline for so many of us. I mean, you can see it in your case, and in Gold's, and Belle's, and Jeff's. This place is your home, it's your life. But its reach extends far beyond these walls." She paused. "Would you believe me if I told you I used to be a nun?"

Emma was unable to stop her jaw dropping open.

"No."

"Well, I was. Sister Astrid. You know how Leroy calls everyone sister? I got so confused the first time he did that to me; I hadn't told anyone other than Granny that I'd come from the convent and I wondered how on earth he had found out. I had a crisis of faith, decided that the religious life wasn't for me anymore. So I looked for a job, and I found one here, in the theatre with Granny. And I've made so many wonderful friendships; I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Maison Rouge."

Emma smiled. It was easy to forget about the rest of the theatre family sometimes, since she did not see them anywhere near as often as those who resided under the roof with her, but they were just as important to the theatre and just as dependent on it as any others – and they were just as much a part of the family as Granny and Ruby and Gold were.

"And you met Leroy," she pointed out.

"I what? Yes, erm, yes, I suppose I did meet Leroy… what's that got to do with anything?"

Astrid's voice had become a rather high-pitched squeak.

"He likes you," Emma pointed out. "He likes you a lot. He blushes all over his head when you talk to him."

"He does?" Astrid's voice was almost into ultrasonic now.

"Surely you've noticed it?"

"Erm…" The poor woman looked like she was panicking. "Erm… right, erm…"

Emma just watched her floundering for a moment. It was really quite endearing. Luckily, Astrid was saved from any further embarrassment by the appearance of Granny's face around the door to the box office.

"Crisis averted?" she asked.

Astrid nodded and brought her hands down on Emma's shoulders. "Can I keep her? Please?"

"Emma's not a puppy, Astrid." Granny laughed. "I suppose it's up to her. Do you want to see how the box office takes your fancy?" she asked Emma.

Emma nodded. "Yeah, as long as Ruby doesn't mind."

"Oh, Ruby won't mind. She'd far rather that you were doing something that you enjoyed."

Granny came into the office fully and took Astrid's empty bowl, holding out a hand for the licked-clean spoon that the other woman was still holding, waving it about like some kind of self-defence mechanism in the face of her fluster at Emma's comments about Leroy. Emma just smiled. If it worked for Ruby and Archie, perhaps it could work for Leroy and Astrid too, and maybe Jefferson wouldn't need to resort to locking them in a broom cupboard together.

Just then, the phone rang in the box office, and all three women looked at each other, each expecting one of the others to pick it up. Finally Astrid took the initiative.

"Hello, Maison Rouge box office, Astrid speaking, how may I help you?"

Emma got out of the chair in front of the computer to let Astrid sit down and look at the database. The other woman listened to the caller for a few moments before pausing in her scrolling through the lists of booked seats and speaking a single word.

"Oh."

She held out the phone to Granny without another word.

"It's the captain," she hissed.

Granny raised one eyebrow. "The captain? Which captain?"

"Captain Jones."

"Ah, that captain." She took the phone and indicated for Astrid and Emma to leave the room. "Hello, Captain Jones," she began, but Emma could hear no more.

"What was that about?" Emma asked.

"Ship coming in," Astrid muttered. "There's going to be a ship coming in. Sailors all over the town. I hate sailors."

Emma didn't think that she'd ever known the usually mild-mannered Astrid so vehement about anything before, and she decided that it would be best not to push the point. There were no secrets amongst the theatre folk, or very few at least, and she had no doubt that Granny would tell them anything they needed to know in due course. She and Astrid made their way up to the apartment again; the others had finished their lunch and departed to go about their daily tasks. Only Belle and Gold were left, doing the washing up.

"We saved you some pie," Belle said, flapping her tea-towel in the direction of the thing on the kitchen table that had once been a lemon meringue pie. It was looking rather demolished and worse for wear now, which was probably understandable given that it had just had about eight people attack it with spoons and knives and serving slicers, but Emma had no doubt that it still tasted good. She and Astrid collected clean spoons and got stuck in, not bothering with bowls since there was so little left.

"You didn't save us very much pie," Astrid pointed out.

"Well, there would have been more but Gold kept going back for seconds."

"I did nothing of the sort! I had a smaller piece than everyone else to begin with!"

"That's a barefaced lie, Raymond Gold!"

Gold retaliated by flicking washing up water at Belle, who then responded in kind. Emma was on the verge of thinking that they were going to flood the kitchen, then Belle darted in to peck a kiss to Gold's cheek, leaving him momentarily dazed and speechless and undeniably giving her the victory. Emma smiled; they were not often very overt in their affections towards each other and it was sweet to watch them so relaxed and loving and happy, knowing as she did some of the things that they'd had to come through in order to get to this stage. Emma wondered about Belle. She knew Gold's story now, but Belle was still something of a mystery. That she had come from an abusive relationship was a given, and Emma dreaded to think what she'd had to endure before finding her happiness here with Gold.

The washing up continued as if the war of the suds had not occurred and by the time Emma and Astrid were finished with the pie, Belle was getting ready to leave the kitchen.

"I'm going into town Emma, I need to pick up some prescriptions from the chemist. Want to come?"

Emma nodded. It would be good to get out of the theatre; she had not really had much opportunity to do so since her thankfully aborted attempt to run away earlier in the week, and it would be good to get some fresh air and exercise. Thinking about running away brought her full circle, back to the newspaper article that had started it all.

"Belle…" she began, as they walked down the theatre driveway. The other woman turned to her, politely questioning. "Did you read the article about me in the Mirror on Monday?"

Belle nodded slowly. "Yes, I did."

"I…" Emma didn't quite know what to say next. What did you think? I promise not all of it's true, but most of it is?

"Emma, we all know, in this town, that Sidney Glass is a thoroughly nasty piece of work and we all take his words with a pinch of salt," Belle said kindly. "I know Jefferson spoke to you about it, surely that should put your mind at ease given his history."

Emma nodded. "I know, and it did. I was just thinking, you know."

Belle smiled. "It can be a dangerous pastime, sometimes, thinking. Especially about the past. It's very easy to get caught up in your fears, and cringe at things you did ten years ago that don't matter now." Suddenly Belle looked away, her eyes sad and downcast.

"Belle?"

"I got married ten years ago," Belle said quietly. "Ten years and four months ago. I'd forgotten how long it had been." She gave a harsh bark of laughter. "How do you forget something like that?"

"Because you want to?" Emma suggested. "Sometimes I wish I could forget the last year."

Belle gave a weak smile. "I suppose in the end it doesn't matter, what happened ten years ago. Because we're here now, and that's what matters. We're here, and everything is going to get better."

"It can hardly get much worse than it was," Emma agreed.

The two women laughed and continued to make their way down towards the town. Once they reached the chemist, Belle went up to the dispensing counter with all theatre's various prescriptions, and Emma was left to look around the rest of the shop. She was drawn to the baby section, looking at nappies and creams and baby shampoos, and the small rack of little sleepsuits. She pressed a hand over her stomach, feeling the slight curve there, just on the verge of showing through her clothes, but still small enough to be put down to bloating or sudden weight gain. She hadn't got anything ready for the baby, a small part of her telling her that she had plenty of time yet, and the rest of her snidely remarking that she was only saying that because she was scared, and procrastination would only make it worse.

She picked up one of the little sleepsuits in newborn size, green with cream stripes and a smiling teddy bear's face on the left side of the chest. Green was a good colour. Emma was certain that she was having a boy, but best not force gender roles on him just yet.

"That's a lovely one," someone said over her shoulder. Emma turned sharply to see a woman smiling benignly at her. She looked to be about Alice's age, and her uniform showed that she worked in the chemist but was not a pharmacist herself. "It's our best seller. Is it for you, or a friend?"

"Well, it's hardly likely to fit me," Emma said with a laugh.

The other woman didn't laugh, and Emma saw now that her smile did not quite reach her eyes. The expression unnerved her slightly.

"Can I help you?" she asked the older woman.

"I just wanted to offer my support for your situation," she replied, voice honey-sweet but with a hard edge to it that put Emma's hackles up. She looked at the name badge. Fae Blue. "You're so young, after all, and the theatre is hardly a place to bring up a child. It's bad enough to have one poor girl living there, but to raise a baby?"

"What are you insinuating?" Emma asked.

The woman took the sleepsuit from Emma's hands and put it back on the rail. "I just think that perhaps it would be best not to get too attached."

Her meaning was immediately made abundantly clear, and Emma snapped.

Perhaps before, she would have taken Fae's words to heart; she would have let them fester and rot away in her mind. Perhaps before, they would have scared her enough to make her move on, to run away like she had done so many times from so many things, the constant spectre of her fears always over her shoulder.

But Emma had been living at Maison Rouge for almost a month now, and she knew that there were people there who would stick up for her no matter what. There were people there who would fight for her, and help her make the right choices, and would help to stop her making the wrong choices. She knew that she had, dare she even think it, a family, who would protect her from the things that scared her and banish those terrible ghosts.

So whilst a month ago, Fae's words would have made her run, now they did not. A month ago, they would have made her weak, but now they strengthened her resolve.

She calmly took the little sleepsuit off the rail again.

"I do not appreciate being threatened," she said. "And if you so much as think about getting my baby taken away from me, you will have a lot of very angry people to answer to. You have no right to think you know what's best for me, none. Now if you don't mind, I would like to pay."

Fae pursed her lips and made her way over to the cash register, brusquely counting out Emma's change and shoving the little green sleepsuit into a carrier bag. Emma took it with a tight-lipped smile and made it out of the chemist before she began to shake uncontrollably.

She was not going to run. She was not going to be scared.

But it was very hard.

"Are you ok, Emma?"

Belle had come out of the chemist behind her, an arm full of prescription packets.

"Stupid cashier," Emma muttered.

"Yeah, Fae's a piece of work. Second in command of the moral crusade after Regina. Easy to the spot the type. The privileged think they know best for everyone. Ignore her." Belle's eyes were earnest. "She likes to get people's backs up. Jefferson's come close to a physical altercation more than once. I think her motto is 'but think of the children!' Grace loathes her." The older woman sighed. "She's the worst kind of nasty because on the surface she seems so nice. At least you can respect Madam Mayor for being overtly horrible."

Emma gave a snort of laughter.

"Please don't run again," Belle said softly as they began to make their way back up the hill towards the theatre. "I know you nearly ran on Monday. Please stay with us. We might not be much, but we want you to be safe, and happy, no matter what happens, no matter what people like Regina and Fae might say."

Emma stopped. She was not a tactile person, but in that moment, she found herself asking:

"Can I hug you?"

Belle laughed. "If you want."

Emma threw her arms around Belle and buried her face in the tiny woman's shoulder.

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"You're welcome. Now, what did you buy for the baby? I can't wait to see it!"

Emma smiled and showed Belle the sleepsuit.

"Aw, it's perfect! He'll be cute as a button in that. I can't wait to see him in it."

Emma couldn't, either.