THE STAIRCASE
By Red Charcoal
Warnings: Non-consensual sex references. This is dark. It's my first fic. So for themes and novice errors, you have been warned.
CHAPTER 21: THE CLOCK'S HANDS SHIFT
18 MONTHS LATER
Emma Swan shoved her fists into the pockets of her favourite red leather jacket, noting it was getting a bit worn now but she couldn't quite bring herself to get a new one. Too many memories invested in it. Some of the fondest involved a certain mayor's derisive scowl which never quite reached her eyes. She had long suspected the prickly brunette protested a little too much about her hatred for this particular article of clothing.
At the thought of the mayor she tried to repress the inevitable pangs of regret and sadness, a little less acute now at least after 18 months, as she trudged up four flights of stairs in the dingy brick office block. Faded once-white paint peeled off the interior walls, and the steep stairs looked like they hadn't been washed since the war. The Civil War.
She didn't need to contemplate yet again all that she had given up. All that she missed so keenly that for the first six months all she could do was hold her ribs in a tiny flea-bitten hotel bed and wheeze, trying to hold back the sobs. Trying to forget all of it. All of them. Her.
Besides, life was, for the most part, acceptable enough now. She watched her black knee-high boots rhythmically pound up the stairs as she considered what had happened since.
It's not like she had cut off all contact with Storybrooke. She exchanged occasional emails with Mary Margaret, Ruby and the kid from time to time. She was careful never to give an actual address and was always vague about where she lived now. The last thing she needed was a Storybrooke posse making an appearance in her life and weakening what little resolve she had to honour her promise to leave the town for good.
After a year, Henry's emails had even stopped pleading with her to return in short, angry words containing all capital letters. And he was also no longer sending blatantly manipulative appeals to her heart that she had become an expert at ignoring with the help of a certain Uncle Jim Beam at the local dive.
Finally it seemed he - all of them really - had accepted his birth mother was never returning to their town. Ever.
One thing they all knew to do was never mention Regina. The pain had been so acute she had begged them for no news at all under pain of her disappearing forever if they disobeyed. And each had dutifully honoured her request.
Until a few months ago.
That's when she received The Email. The one Emma had read so many times she now knew it word for word. From Henry. Of course he would be the one to break the vow to spare her from Regina updates.
Even now she could still see the Arial 10pt characters swirling in her mind. Word for word.
Emma had stared at the email for almost an hour, trying and failing to quash the emotions that suddenly swamped her. When she felt the wet splashes she realised she had been crying all over her keyboard.
It all came crashing back to her, everything she thought she had been able to repress. The good as well as the bad. But especially the bad.
Like those horrible goodbyes.
Not again, she pleaded to herself. No way she was going to relive that again. She'd seen enough of seedy bars and icy rattles in spirit glasses to last a lifetime when she first left Storybrooke.
A flash of anguished Mary Margaret's face as she was clinging to her in a farewell hug hit her. She felt the grasp of Henry's tight little arms around her waist begging her "Don't go, don't go, I don't care what you promised her, I need you. You have to stay".
And the sight of a familiar, predatory black car, tinted windows firmly up, by the corner, stopped. Its occupant watching from afar. As Emma drove away, seeing dozens of Storybrooke residents waving her off in the rear-vision mirror, from a concerned, frowning Archie Hopper to an unravelling, sniffling Granny, she saw the car stayed there the whole time, unmoving. Her very own 'fuck-you Emma' farewell sentinel.
Making sure she was really gone, probably, Emma thought.
She'd tried to talk to her. Within an hour after she got the text, after Mary Margaret calmed her down and urged her to talk to Regina, she had raced around to see her. The door was slammed viciously hard in her face. All she had seen before the white door and a "108" filled her vision was a glimpse of fear behind anguished brown eyes moments before.
What was she afraid of? It made no sense.
Emma grimaced. She could still remember how Storybrooke had smelt that last day, and taste the slight saltiness and iron in the air. Only later she realised she had bitten her lip to try not to react to the wall of emotions crashing on her and people confessing love and sadness over her. Her - Emma Swan! It was so uncomfortable and strange.
She forced herself to not think of the past. Again. Henry's small betrayed eyes, filled with tears, slowly dissolved before her mind's eye just as she reached the top of the stairs.
A frosted glass door was in front of her with the words 'Bail Bondsperson' and she couldn't help but smirk. She had an actual office. She, Emma Swan, mistress of the open road, had rented office space. OK so it was more one star than five star, but still.
It was still hard to get used to at times. Something had changed her in Storybrooke, something fundamental to who she was. She tried not to think about that too hard, either.
She opened the door, slipping her freezing hands back into her jacket, as she gently closed it with her shapely boot.
"Mandy," she said with an easy grin at the portly woman she employed as a casual secretary whenever her bounty-hunting work started piling up.
"Hey boss," the 30-something redhead said with an impish grin and a saucy smack of chewing gum. "Nice of you to join us. You were 'sposed to be back in Boston last week."
Emma was instantly hit by the woman's lavender scent which Mandy seemed to almost bathe herself in. For all she knew, she did. Woman was into all sorts of New Age stuff if the crystals and runes scattered about the desk were anything to go by. Part of her charm, Emma supposed, trying to block out the overpowering smell with a twitch of outraged nostrils.
"Got held up," the blonde answered with a shrug, trying not to think of the size of the thug who had been doing the holding. Literally.
He had been a brute of a man, off his face on god knows what illicit substances, and did not take too kindly to being told there was a warrant out for his arrest. And then his even larger friends had come to see what the fuss was about. That had been messy.
She winced as she remembered all the bruises and scrapes that little encounter had earned her. She'd needed to rest her badly twisted ankle for a week after that, which left her unable to drive back to Boston.
Emma slid one jean-clad thigh onto the side of the desk and eyed her part-time secretary. The girl's sweet, plump features and good nature were a vastly pleasing sight after six weeks on the road and meeting leering, drunken bastards at truck stops asking her "how much" by way of greasy introduction. She eyed Mandy's bent head as the redhead efficiently sorted through a tray of paperwork.
"OK, your messages - Boston PD wants to talk to you about Nigel Whitman, that deceased-estate thief you caught two months ago. Say they need to know exactly which brothel you tracked him down in. Apparently it's to do with evidence in his case. Could be crucial to nailing him on some other charges."
She passed a letter across to Emma who thought back to the smarmy shit who felt her up while she was posing as a brothel hooker.
"Anything to put that creep away," she said with a shudder as she remembered some of the things he'd hissed in her ear. "Tell them it was Rosie's on the coastal road. What else?"
"Shania down the hall at the legal office wants to know if you're free for dinner when you get back," she said with a suggestive eyebrow waggle. "She seems to think your first date ended 'far too early' last time."
Emma grunted. "Well it will do that when one of us starts flirting with the waitress before first course even arrives."
"That was her who did that, right?" Mandy clarified cluelessly. "Shame, she did seem like your sort. Brunette, power suit, great legs..."
Emma rolled her eyes, not dignifying her unerring accuracy with a response. She wondered how she had gotten so domestic to even have someone like this tease her. Mandy did remind her of a Ruby in a way. Her eyes glazed over affectionately. She did miss Ruby's playful charms.
She caught herself. Why did everything have to come back to Storybrooke?
"Oh that reminds me, you have a visitor. In your office. Claims to be an old friend."
"I don't have any old friends," Emma said with a frown but slid off the desk and strode towards her battered office door. "None who would leave their pedestrian little town in the middle of nowhere, anyway."
She flung the door open. There, in an immaculate tailored suit, tight navy pencil skirt, white linen shirt, three buttons undone, and shiny, high navy heels sat a most impressive figure. The woman smiled, scarlet lips curving in a hint of amusement as she leaned slightly forward, her cleavage as familiar as it was magnificent.
"Oh Jesus." Emma sank into her chair, opposite, as she forgot entirely how to work her muscles.
"No. Regina Mills, actually. Although you might remember me as the mayor of some pedestrian little town in the middle of nowhere you visited once."