A/N: Shoutouts and thank yous to OUATgirl17 and Dream Lighting for your reviews of Chapter 44! [Dream Lighting] Uh I agree, I was never a fan of Regina. Even in the newer seasons...! So With Chapter 45 we've covered everything from Season One Episode One, all the way through to Episode 13! There's only 9 episodes left of Season One! I'm going to try and get out as many Chapters as possible for y'all since this is when the story just stars getting good! Thanks again to everyone who Likes, Favorites, Follows, Reads and Reviews! Enjoy Chapter 45!
Mary Margaret was walking down the hall at school when her cell phone began to chirp a cheery tune. She glanced down at the caller ID to see David's name flashing.
"Hey!" She answered immediately. Did uh, Did you do it?"
"Yeah, it's bad." David sighed through the phone.
"I'm Sorry." Mary Margaret replied.
"No, it was...um really bad."
"But you told the truth, so now, we can pick up the pieces. We can start over from a real place."
"hey, I want to see you." David changed the subject. "Can you come by when you get done at school?"
"Of course!" Mary Margaret agreed instantly. "I'll see you then! And David, you did the right thing." The phone called ended, and Mary Margaret tucked her phone back in her pocket. She spotted Kathryn approaching her from down the hall. Not sure exactly what to say, Mary Margaret decided to start with an apology. "Kathryn, I'm...I'm sorry." Kathryn swung her hand back and slapped Mary Margaret across the face.
"Screw you, you're sorry." Kathryn snapped.
"I understand you're upset." Mary Margaret cooed, massaging her face. "You have every right to be."
"Thank you for that insight." Kathryn snarled.
"Can we...please talk somewhere private?" Mary Margaret asked. Children were coming back from their recesses and the Schoolteacher didn't want her kids to see this nightmare.
"Private?" Kathryn shrieked. "Why do you get any consideration at all? You have shown none for me! Either of you. All you did was lie!"
"We should have talked to you sooner, but we've been completely honest. We didn't lie."
"You didn't lie? You snuck around! You had him break up my marriage with a pack of lies! With some crap about not being able to connect? He didn't have any trouble connecting with you.
"David didn't tell you about us?" Mary Margaret looked crestfallen as realization hit her.
"No of course not." Kathryn faltered. For the first time since she'd come down to the school Kathryn almost felt bad for the doe-eyed school teacher. "That would have been the honorable thing to do."
"But he said he would tell you." Mary Margaret frowned.
"Well then he lied to you too. Good luck making it work. You two deserve each other." Kathryn turned and stormed out of the school.
Emma waited outside of Granny's for her date. She couldn't believe she was allowing herself to think that word. Date. Graham hadn't even been gone that long, yet here she was on a...date, with some mysterious writer guy. But it's not just a date. She reminded herself. It was a recon mission to find out more about the guy, August, who'd been so interested in her kids. Her kids. Emma's internal monologue came to a conclusion as August pulled up in front of Granny's on his motorcycle. August didn't get off the motorcycle, so Emma walked towards him.
"Are we going in?" She asked. "I thought you wanted that drink."
"I do!" August assured her. "But I didn't say here. Hop on!" He patted the back of his motorcycle.
"You want me to get on the back of that bike?"
"That's what 'hop on' means!" August confirmed.
"How about if we go somewhere I drive?" Emma suggested.
"How about you stop having to control everything and take a leap of faith? You owe me a drink! Hop on, I know a good watering hole." Emma debated her options for a minute before reluctantly accepting the helmet August offered her. Worse come to worse she could always jump off the thing.
The motorcycle quickly passed through the city streets and was soon speeding through the forest. Eventually the motorcycle stopped at the edge of the forest.
"A watering hole? Literally?" Emma complained as she tugged the helmet off her head.
"Well, say what you want about me, I always tell the truth." August shrugged.
"I just thought a drink was like, wine or whiskey." Emma said as she jumped off the bike.
"What, do you want me to get you drunk?"
"No." Emma snapped.
"Next time." August promised with a smile.
"You are optimistic." The sheriff laughed. August handed Emma a cup that he had presumably come from a compartment in his motorcycle. He them began to pull up the well's bucket.
"They say, there's something special about this well. There's even a legend. They say that the water from the well is fed by an underground lake and that the lake has magical properties."
"Magic?" Emma smiled. "You sound like Sarah and Henry."
"Smart kids." August nodded with approval. "So this legend, it says that if you drink the water from the well, something lost will be returned to you."
"You know an awful lot about this town for being a stranger." Emma remarked as the bucket reached the top of the well.
"And you know very little for being the Sheriff." August said.
"How do you know all this? You've been here before?"
"I know all of this, for one very simple reason," August plucked up the bucket and set it down on top of the well. "I read the plaque." He pointed to the plaque that had been tacked to the front of the well.
"You actually believe that?" The sheriff scoffed.
"I'm a writer, I have to have an open mind."
"Yeah, but...Magic?"
"Water is a very powerful thing. Cultures as old as time have worshipped it. It flows throughout all lands, connecting the entire world. If anything had mystical properties, if anything had magic, well, I'd say it'd be water."
"That's asking a lot to believe on faith." Emma sighed as August dipped his cup into the bucket of water.
If you need evidence for everything, Emma, you're going to find yourself stuck in one place for a long time."
"Maybe," Emma said, dunking her own cup in the bucket. "Or maybe I'll just find the truth before anyone else."
"Well, Miss Skeptic, there's one thing I can tell you for sure, that requires no leap of faith and I know you'll agree with me." He took a sip of his water and Emma waited for him to finish his sentence.
"What's that?" She asked when he'd finished his drink but remained silent.
"It's good water." He smiled.
Mary Margaret walked down the street on her way to meet David. She crossed paths with a group of people who seemed to be whispering about her. The school teacher stared back at them as she continued down the street, causing her to bump into Granny.
"Oh gosh!" Granny exclaimed catching Mary Margaret by the elbows.
"I'm so sorry Granny!" Mary Margaret apologized immediately. "I must have not been looking."
"I'm sorry, I didn't...Oh, You!" Granny let go of Mary Margaret as if the younger woman had burned her.
"Excuse me?" Mary Margaret was taken aback. Granny had never been rude to her as long as she'd known her.
"You should be ashamed of yourself!" Granny snapped before continuing down the street. Mary Margaret reached her car where David was bent down...with a scrub brush? She raced over to her car to see what had happened. Someone had spray painted the word "Tramp" On Mary Margaret's car.
"Who did this?" Mary Margaret demanded from David.
"I don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know how any of this happened." David apologized as he continued to frantically scrub at the vehicle.
"You don't know? Really?" She said hotly. She was still steamed from her conversation with Kathryn earlier.
"Mary Margaret, I can't control what other people do." David said sympathetically.
"No," Mary Margaret agreed. "But you can control what you do. And you lied, and now, everyone is calling me a tramp!"
"Who told her?" David asked.
"That is exactly the wrong question! The real question is, why didn't you do what we discussed? Why didn't you tell her?"
"I thought we could spare her feelings." David tried to explain.
"Right, you thought...not we, you! And we discussed this."
"I didn't want anyone to get hurt!"
"Now everyone is hurt!" Mary Margaret practically shouted. "We had an understanding. We had an agreement. But you not only lied to her, you lied to me!"
"Mary Margaret, please, listen to me! If we want to see...if this...if what we have is love we have to do what you said. You know, we have to pick up the pieces and we've got to move on."
"David this isn't love! What we have is something else entirely. What we have is destructive! And it has to stop."
"W-what are you saying?" David stammered out.
"That we shouldn't be together."
Across town, Emma was cleaning leaves off her yellow beetle when she spotted a red metal box in the gutter. She recognized the box as the same one Henry had hidden his book inside of. Bending down Emma scooped up the box and looked inside. There was Henry's storybook, safe and fully intact.
Regina watered the plants in her office when Kathryn entered.
"They're beautiful." Kathryn said as she stepped into the office. "I had no idea you were so good with plants."
"Well, better than with people it would seem." Regina said, turning away from her plants. "What are you doing here? I thought after what happened yesterday, I'd be the last person you'd want to see."
"So did I." Kathryn nodded. "And then I thought about it, and I realized I owed you an apology."
"Kathryn, you don't..."
"I know you'd never do anything to hurt me. I was just so angry, and confused and I snapped. I'm sorry. I've just been fighting so hard to hold on to David, I've never stopped to ask myself why."
"He's your husband, you love each other. You always have."
"No, we haven't." Kathryn admitted, grudgingly. Kathryn took out one of the photos of David and Mary Margaret that Regina had showed her the day before. "See the way he looks at her? He's never looked at me like that. Not even before his accident."
"Kathryn, relationships take work. You can't give up so easily."
"Have you ever been in love?" Kathryn asked her friend.
"Yes, once." Regina answered honestly.
"Then you're lucky, because what I'm coming to understand is, that I haven't. What they have is real, it's true. My marriage to David, it...It was just like an illusion. I don't know how it happened, but It was never real. I know that now. The way David looks at Mary Margaret, that's what I want for me. And I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to find it."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm sticking to my plan." Kathryn told her friend. "I'm moving to Boston. Alone. If I stay here, I'll never be happy."
"And what about David?"
"I wrote him a letter, him and Mary Margaret. I told them they should be together."
"I'm sorry, You did what?" Regina said, not sure if she'd heard correctly.
"I can't see him. Not now. It's just too painful." Kathryn pulled Regina into an awkward hug. "I'm going to miss you Regina. You've been a good friend to me."
"You're really going?" Regina asked again when the two separated.
"You know, it's funny, I've always had this irrational fear of leaving Storybrooke, like something's just holding me back. Is that crazy?"
"No," Regina comforted her. "Change is always frightening, but you know what Kathryn? This just may be what you need. Maybe you'll find what you're looking for."
Emma spotted Henry and Sarah sitting together at a bench outside of their school. Neither kid was looking at her; Henry was focused on his new video game and Sarah was scanning the pages of one of her new books.
"Wow, I love that game." Emma observed as she sat down between the twins. "Space Paranoids right?"
"Our mom got it for him." Sarah said looking up from her book.
"I used to play that all the time when I was a kid." Emma shared. "relax, it's all in the wrists."
"Our mom's picking us up in like five minutes." Henry told Emma worriedly as he set his game aside.
"Alright, I'll be quick then." Emma promised as she reached for a paper bag she'd carried with her. "I just have something I'd like to give you." Reaching into the bag, Emma pulled out Henry's story book and placed it in her lap.
"You found it!" Sarah smiled.
"Awesome!" Henry exclaimed. "Where'd you get it?"
"I found it in a gutter." Emma explained. "It must have fallen off the dump truck on the way to the junkyard and got tossed around in the rain. And somehow, made its way back to me."
"That's crazy." Sarah said with disbelief.
"What other explanation could there be?" Emma asked.
"However it happened, this means our luck in changing!" Henry grinned. "Operation Cobra is back on! It's a sign. Things are going to be better."
"I hope you're right kid." Emma said, handing the storybook back to Henry. "I gotta go. See you around kids." Emma rose from the bench and headed home.
At her apartment Emma found Mary Margaret stretched out on her bed frowning at the ceiling.
"You feel like talking about it yet?" Emma asked, walking towards the bed.
"Nope." Mary Margaret answered dejectedly.
"You want to be alone?" The sheriff questioned.
"Nope." Mary Margaret admitted sadly. Without another word Emma laid down next to her friend and together the two of them stared up at the ceiling, replaying the day's events in their heads.
