A/N: This was a very stressful chapter to write, haha! (Not helped by losing half of it when fanfic logged me out and it had to be rewritten- not cool...). I guess this is the biggest chapter plots-wise so far and I was a bit nervous going into it. I hope it works and reads nicely :) Reviews would be really nice :)
"What the..."
Emma croaks, feeling as though all of the blood has rushed from her body. Crawling a little further beneath the bed- the top of her head brushing the slats- she reaches for an object at the very back by the wall with trembling fingers. Retrieving it, she works her way out from the darkness and sits back on her heels, her eyes wide as she stares at the book in her hand. It's old, with a tattered cover, but she remembers it well. Remembers reading it, and remembers losing it. Opening it up, her breath stops; spying the spiky letters scrawled at the top of the second page in blue ink.
Someone left this in the park, and the mention of trauma, gore and betrayal had me thinking you might like it.
Can you move the car to the Other Place when you wake up?
I'll be back around 12.
X
She recognises that writing immediately, of course, she does. She's received dozens of notes in that same, strangely childlike block print.
"Neal...?"
Her voice wavers as she traces blue ink with her finger. The last time she'd seen the book- Euripides' Medea- had been back in her apartment in Boston. Her old apartment. The apartment she no longer thinks about.
The apartment where life... Stopped.
"How can... How can this be? How could it be here?!"
She whispers, looking from the book in her hands to her surroundings with mounting panic.
It's gone now, but there was a birdbath outside. That's where Cass would sometimes sleep.
Those pillows with the dandelion and daisy used to be a set of three. There was a tulip one as well, but Ruby spilt her wine on it when we sat in the dark and cried.
I brought this book along with about fifty others; the only things from that life that were really worth keeping.
I brought them here. Most of them were in the bug, but I packed a couple in the back of Regina's car when we left that first time. I stacked them in the footwell so as not to bother Cass. Regina didn't want her on the seats, but Caskett wriggled free, and I think Regina only pretended to mind... I think she knew that there was a whole lot more chaos about to come.
She offered me an out and I took it. I wouldn't have, but she called me up on my reality. She spoke down to me, but she meant well. She came in while I was sat with Mr Clayton and she knew... She knew what was happening. She wasn't grey, though. Not a grey person. She didn't leave me to it. She stopped me. And I was mad, and I was embarrassed, but mostly I just didn't know what to do with the fact that she wanted to help me.
She actually saw me for me. As an equal.
Regina brought me here and ordered Granny to give me a room, and she pretended to give me a job when really it was all a ruse. It was a cover. She was giving me an excuse to lean on her and not feel awful about it, just as she was giving herself an excuse for letting me in.
She helped me. Hell, she fucking saved me. She saved me and we both knew it, but she never made me say it. Never made me feel small. She came and got me from this very room and took me for ice-cream.
By then I knew I liked her.
I liked her, and I stole the gin from Mary Margaret. I planned to seduce her but it all went wrong.
She yelled at me, screamed at me.
She told me I had ruined everything, and I believed her because that was exactly how I felt myself at the time.
She yelled at me and I ran.
Ran, ran, ran.
Back to Boston.
Back to that old apartment, that old life, back to where I last remember this book being.
It hurt. It hurt deep.
But she came back for me. For me! She came looking for me, and she found me, and she apologised, and she took me back with her. She looked after me, and eventually... She explained.
She explained why she'd yelled at me, and it made sense in the end.
It made sense when she explained about H-
"-No..."
She chokes, struggling to breathe, and she catches hold of the side of the bed-frame to keep herself from keeling over. She grips the frame hard with her head bowed, feeling as though she might pass out.
"No, no, no..."
She sobs, before hurling the book away from her and staring at it accusingly.
It can't be here. It can't! It was lost in Boston...
She shakes her head desperately as she tries to force the damned thing to disappear through sheer logic and sanity.
That's what that knocking noise was. It must have slipped between the mattress and the slats the last time I was here.
That's what I heard. What Henry heard, too... It-
"Oh, fuck..."
She pleads, covering her face with her hands before pushing herself up and brushing herself off frantically.
"Nope. Nope, it's just... Nope!"
She mutters desperately, staggering a little as she shakes her head with her eyes wide and teeth clenched.
"Nope."
Tripping over her own feet, she knocks the vase on the dresser over, sending chrysanthemums and water cascading down the paisley wallpaper. Beneath, a small etching stares back at her in the varnish. ES 4 RM, scratched out to form RL instead. And, those initials could belong to anyone- anyone!- but oh god, she remembers Ruby scratching them in with the sharp point of her nametag, shrieking with laughter in the face of Emma's own growling at her to grow the fuck up and that there was nothing going on with her and the damned Mayor.
She teased me something rotten, but in the end, she scratched out the M for Mills with a bold L, claiming I loved her. I smacked her on the hip and she pulled me downstairs for hot chocolate. She made a heart out of the whipped cream.
"No!"
She scolds her mind; so intent on humouring this utter insanity.
Yes, Swan. Yes. Don't you see? The lost time. The money. The note. It was Regina, it was always Regina. Don't you see?!
"I can't..."
She moans, her terrified denial breaking into chesty coughing as her lungs still ache from their torment this morning, and oh god...
"Regina set the fire..."
She vocalises this revelation numbly, thinking about last night, thinking about the night before, thinking about everything the brunette has said to her since coming to find her in Boston and suddenly understanding why everything had seemed wrong.
"I... I..."
She stammers, but there's no getting away from the truth. It's all around her. Choking her. Smothering her. Memories rush back to her in tidal waves of emotion and she backs into the corner and slides stiffly down the wall until she sits shaking and cradling her knees.
Eventually, she reaches for her phone.
"Hello..."
Regina smirks after glancing at her phone to check the caller ID.
Her smile swiftly fades; frowning as she struggles to decipher most of what Emma says to her.
Screams at her.
She is unable to catch a lot of the blonde's words as they are replaced by terrible sobs, and she falls down into her chair numbly as she tries her best to calm the younger woman; still holding her keys and wearing her coat.
"Emma! Emma!... Hush! Slow down, dear, I can't understand you!"
She pleads, but she's worried that she might understand just fine. Maybe not Emma's words, but the emotion behind them...
"H-how could you?! H-how is this even... How... I d-don't... H-Henry!? I... I... Regina!"
The girl snarls down the phone, her voice laden with salt, and she sounds to the Mayor like a wounded animal howling with their final anguish.
Their Swan Song.
"Emma, please-"
She begs, before staring at the phone in her hand numbly when it goes dead.
"Oh..."
She breathes, her face ashen and mouth slack. Looking up as Henry comes hurrying into the room, she simply stares at him.
"Mom, what's wrong? You were shouting..."
"I... I wasn't... I... She knows..."
"Who knows?"
"Emma. I don't... I don't know how. She... Oh, Henry, I need to talk to her!"
Regina frets, not bothering to try the blonde's cell again as she knows it's unlikely Emma will answer her right now, and instead dialling the Diner. Ruby answers on the third ring.
"Granny's, can I take your-"
"-Miss Lucas."
Regina cuts her off, and there's a pause before the waitress replies tentatively
"Mayor Mills?"
"Yes. Listen, dear, I need you to go upstairs and find Emma. I need you to tell her to call me right away and to explain to her explicitly that I'm not asking, I'm telling her she must do so. I need you to do this now."
"Uh..."
Ruby hesitates, and the Mayor can hear quiet mumbling as she relays something to either Granny or one of the other waitresses. Finally, she's back on the line.
"Regina?"
"I'm here."
"I'm on the restaurant phone, it's not cordless. Can you hang on a second while I go upstairs?"
"Of course. Just hurry."
"Okay."
Ruby agrees, sounding intrigued but ultimately obedient, and the brunette waits with her fists clenched and the dull murmur of background noise in her ear before finally, three minutes later, Ruby returns.
"She's not there."
"What?!"
"Emma. She's not in her room."
"Well, where is she?!"
Regina demands, aware that Henry stands watching her solemnly in the doorway.
"I dunno."
The waitress chirps unhelpfully, and dark eyes roll before the Mayor offers a curt farewell and hangs up the phone.
"She knows..."
The brunette reiterates numbly, and Henry takes a few anxious steps closer and asks her gently
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"It's... It's what we wanted."
Regina nods, before looking up and admitting tearfully
"I'm just not sure what's going to happen now."
"She's upset."
Henry reasons, and he shrugs his shoulders as he reminds his mother that they'd both known this would be inevitable.
"She's upset, and maybe she's angry, but she'll come around. She remembers now... She remembers everything."
He tags on this last part more as though talking to himself, his eyes widening with the enormity of it all.
She knows who I am...
"I need to find her. I'll call Johanna, she can come and watch you, but I-"
"-It's ok, mom. It's barely even lunchtime, I can handle being left to look after myself. Besides, I said I'd go say hi to Pongo, and I want to check the comics that came in yesterday. If I see Emma, I'll call you."
He assures, and he supposes that ordinarily, Regina might have more to say on the matter, but as it is, she simply casts him one last glance before nodding and hurrying out the room.
Walking with his head bent deep in thought, Henry pulls his phone from the pocket of his coat, but his mother hasn't sent him anything to let him know that she's found Emma. Sighing, he makes his way across the beach, before frowning when he glances up at his castle standing stark and withered in the grey light of an oncoming storm. Cocking his head, he slows his pace as he walks on until he is finally sure of what he's seeing.
Clambering up the castle's ladder, he stops with his palms rested on the platform floor, his eyes wide as he peaks into the small shelter beneath the sloping roof.
"Emma?"
He tries softly, regarding the tight ball of leather and curls that shivers in the corner, but he is awarded no response. Biting his lip thoughtfully, he hoists himself all the way in before crawling a little closer on his hands and knees and trying once again.
"Hey... Emma?"
He touches her knee and she retracts further into herself. Sighing, Henry pulls his own legs up to his chest comfortably; taking a seat and simply waiting. Eventually, he's rewarded, as the blonde raises her jaw from the safety of her thighs and regards him uncertainly; eyes pink and her bottom lip bloody from where she's bitten it incessantly.
"... Henry?"