It would seem I'm on a kick of writing Steve and Peggy into other shows. This time, they're in Once Upon A Time. (For the unfamiliar, it's a fairy tale world, and the evil queen casts a curse that sends everyone into our world without magic or their memory of where they came from. No one ages and nothing changes for 28 years until the curse is broken.) Steve is big this time and he's a baker, Peggy is a lawyer, and Bucky is also here as himself/the Mad Hatter, since Sebastian Stan was already in the show and all (though parts of his story will be different than in the show).
1983
When Grant woke up, it took him a minute of staring at the ceiling to shake off his dream and remember where he was. He wasn't sure what it was about those dreams with the purple smoke, but he always felt like it was still clinging to him when he woke, cold and confused and smelling lightning on the air.
He sat up and the dream vanished as he pushed the curtain open—warm sunlight was peeking through the window, and he could hear seagulls cawing out in the harbor. He headed downstairs to the bakery to start up the ovens and get a few batches of dough rising, then came back up and had breakfast.
He paged through the Storybrooke Daily Mirror as he ate his eggs. Sometimes he wondered why he got the paper at all, as nothing ever seemed to happen, but he supposed there was comfort in its sameness, and he liked doing the crossword puzzle. One of these days, he would get the thing done in pen.
He washed his breakfast dishes—the more dishes he did now, the less there would be to do after dinner, leaving more time to relax at the end of the day. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to point that out, or who it was he was supposed to be pointing it out to. He shrugged and headed downstairs and got to work baking.
The usual morning rush had slowed down by the time he leaned across the counter with his half-finished crossword puzzle. He penciled in a few more words, then straightened up when the little bell over the door rang.
"Good morning, Mr. Rogers," said the woman coming in the door.
"Good morning, Miss Carter," he replied. "I'm pretty sure I've told you you can call me Grant," he added with a smile.
Her perfectly red lips curled up in an answering smile. "Well, I won't until you call me Elizabeth," she said. "It would be overly familiar."
Grant laughed. "Alright, Elizabeth," he said. "Let me guess, French Bread today?"
She arched an eyebrow. "How did you know that?"
"It's Tuesday."
"Good Lord, am I really that predictable?" she chuckled. "Yes, I'll take two loaves, please."
Something dinged in the kitchen behind him. "Perfect timing," he told her. "Let me go get them out of the oven."
When he came back, she was studying his crossword puzzle. "I think you've got seventeen across wrong," she said, tapping the puzzle with the pencil. "'Amber' is a five-letter word for 'brown', but I think 'hazel' is what they're after."
Grant leaned over and looked. "Makes sense. Fourteen down could be 'hazard', then. I've been trying all morning to come up with a word for 'danger' with a 'b' in the middle. Thanks." He looked up and realized she was still leaning in, her face only inches from his, and 'hazel' was the right word for the puzzle but also for those gorgeous eyes staring back at him. 'Amber' worked too, though, right there where they were catching the light, and he swallowed quickly and straightened up all the way, backing up a step or two. "Anyway, um, here's your bread," he said.
"Thank you," she said, blushing a little. She smiled, only a little awkwardly, trying to return the conversation to normal. "It smells wonderful. I've got half a mind to go straight home and eat it with some butter before it cools down. Thank you," she said, placing a couple of bills on the counter.
"Have a good day," he told her as she left. He shook his head. "Nice, Grant," he said to himself. "That was smooth." He sighed, shook his head again, and returned to his crossword puzzle.
Business had slowed down as closing time got closer, so he closed up shop a little early, cleaned up, and loaded some things into a bag and got on his motorcycle. It was a nice evening for riding, and when the weather was good, he always enjoyed the country road that wound out to Jefferson's house.
"Hey, Jeff?" he called, knocking once and letting himself in. "You home?" The door was unlocked, but that didn't mean much. His best friend had a tendency to forget things like that. "Jeff?" he called again.
There was a crashing sound from the direction of the living room, and Grant stepped through the foyer and stuck his head through the door. Jefferson was standing by the window and glaring at the top hat in his hands. The crashing sound seemed to have come from the clock on the wall next to him—the glass that should have been across its face was scattered in pieces on the floor around his feet.
"Hey, are you okay?" Grant asked.
Jefferson looked up from the hat, seeing Grant for the first time. "Hey, Steve," he said, smiling in a way that looked happy to see him.
Grant smiled back, though not with his eyes. There wasn't any denying that Jeff was having a bad time of it these days—after the car accident last year where he'd lost his daughter, then Laura leaving him, it was little wonder his best friend was in such a dark place. He spiraled down pretty hard, and Grant did his best to take care of him, but he was never sure what to do when Jeff's grip on reality slipped like this. It happened on his really bad days, his insisting Grant's name was 'Steve'. Grant had no idea where that came from.
"Hey, Jeff," he said, setting down his bag and picking his way carefully across the glass. He took the hat from his friend's hand, noticing as he did so that the hand he had punched the clock with was bleeding around the knuckles. "Let's get that cleaned up, huh?"
Jeff looked down at his hand like he was seeing the blood for the first time. "Yeah. Okay." He let Grant lead him into the kitchen, then slumped down onto one of the stools by the counter, his head down in his arm.
Grant wet a cloth at the sink and started washing the blood from his friend's hand, pausing occasionally to pick out an errant piece of glass. "What happened?"
"Punched the clock," Jeff muttered into his arm, not looking up.
"Yeah, I saw. How come?"
"Stupid hat doesn't work," he said.
"I thought the hat looked good."
Jefferson snorted. "It's not about what it looks like, Steve," he said. "It's about whether or not it works."
Grant nodded. Jefferson had this fixation with the hats lately, and it gave him something to do with his hands, but he always got to rambling when he tried to explain what it was he was trying to get them to do. Grant decided not to ask and set him off again. "Sorry it didn't work," he said instead, drying his hand off. It didn't look too bad. One band-aid for that big cut in the middle ought to do it. "And it's Grant, remember?" he said gently.
Jefferson snorted again, though he lifted his head this time. "Remember," he repeated, chuckling a little manically. "That's rich, coming from you. Because you don't."
"I don't what?"
"You don't remember," Jefferson sighed.
"What don't I remember?" Grant wondered.
"Anything!" Jefferson insisted. "You forgot all of it—everyone forgot all of it!"
Right. He was having a worse day than Grant thought if he was on that magical forest kick again. Grant opened his mouth to say something, but Jefferson cut him off.
"I know, I know. This is the part where you tell me I'm nuts."
"I wasn't going to say that," Grant told him gently. He would never call his friend crazy—he was just hurt, and after everything he'd lost, a magical fantasy world didn't seem like the worst place to escape to.
Jefferson looked at him for a minute, then seemed to decide he believed him. "Thanks. Grant," he added, and Grant could tell he was just humoring him, but it was something. "What are you doing here?" he asked when Grant got up to wash his hands and throw the band-aid wrapper away.
"I brought you some groceries," Grant said. Eating enough was among the other things Jefferson often forgot to do. "I'm going to put them in your fridge, though, and you're going to come home and eat dinner with me," he said, stepping back into the living room to grab the bag of groceries.
"Thank you, but I'm good here," Jefferson said.
"I wasn't asking," Grant replied, putting the groceries into the sadly empty fridge. "You need to get out of this big empty house for a while." And he didn't need to be alone right now. Jefferson still looked like he wanted to argue, but Grant crossed his arms and arched an eyebrow. "You going to make me carry you to the car?"
Jefferson laughed at that, surprised but genuine. "You really haven't changed that much, have you? Alright," he said, getting to his feet. They went out to the garage—Grant made sure to lock the door behind them—and Jefferson handed over the car keys with little fuss. They drove back to the bakery, and Grant made dinner while he sent Jefferson to shower. He suspected it had been a couple of days. He loaned him a set of clothes for the night, which would be a little big on him but would do the job.
They sat down to eat dinner, and they didn't talk much, but it was mostly comfortable. The accident had left a nasty-looking scar that circled Jefferson's neck, and Grant tried very hard not to look at it—his friend usually wore a scarf to cover it, even around him, and so Grant appreciated the trust he was showing and didn't want to make him uncomfortable by staring.
Jefferson was really flagging by the time dinner was over, and it took very little prompting for him to let Grant walk him back to the bedroom and tuck him into bed. As he grabbed his pajamas off the foot of the bed and turned off the light, Grant wondered how long it had been since Jefferson had slept. Living alone in that big house really wasn't good for him. Grant had suggested a couple of times that he move in with him above the bakery—it wouldn't take too much work to renovate the space he used as an office into another bedroom—but he always turned him down. Suggestions that talking with Dr. Hopper for a little bit might help only made him angry and combative, usually culminating in a shouting match where he insisted that he wasn't crazy. All Grant could really do for his friend was keep an eye on him and keep picking him up out of the holes he fell into.
He made himself up a bed on the couch, and spent a little while watching TV before he went to sleep. He felt like…This was what he did every night—either this or read—so he didn't know why he felt like he ought to be doing something else. It took him a little while to fall asleep.
Jefferson was still asleep when Grant woke up in the morning, and he probably needed it, so he left some breakfast out for him and left him to it. The morning passed quickly as he baked and kneaded and greeted customers, and soon it had slowed down, and he got back to work on the new crossword puzzle.
"Good morning, Elizabeth," he said, looking up with a smile when the bell chimed.
"Good morning, Grant," she replied, smiling back. She crossed her arms and arched an amused eyebrow when she stopped in front of the counter. "Alright," she said. "Wednesday. What am I having?"
Grant laughed. "Well, normally Wednesday is when you order five rolls—and I've always wondered why five—but I suspect today is the day you're going to mix things up."
She sighed, still smiling. "See, I was coming in here to prove you wrong about the rolls, but now you've caught me and you're going to be right no matter which way I go."
Grant grinned.
"Fine," she sighed. "Give me the rolls. They are delicious," she admitted. "But I'm also going to mix it up. What sort of cake is that?"
"Carrot."
She bit her lower lip thoughtfully, and Grant wondered how she did that without disturbing the brilliant red lipstick. "Cake at this hour seems rather indulgent," she said.
"It comes in muffins too," he said.
She smiled. "Oh, you are good. I'll have one of those as well. No, no, that one there that's got more frosting."
Grant chuckled. "Sweet tooth, huh?"
"My only weakness," she said, snatching away the carrot cake muffin before it went into the box with the rolls. She swiped a finger through the icing and stuck it in her mouth. "My compliments to the chef."
"Thank you," Grant said, still smiling as he got her her change. "Can I ask about the five rolls?"
"Well," she said, swallowing down a bite of the muffin. "You've thrown off my routine with this absolutely heavenly carrot cake."
Grant smiled.
"But I can't really resist the rolls when they're so warm and fresh, so the fifth roll normally is so I have one to eat on the way to work and still leave an equal number for myself and Fred when we do our weekly Wednesday dinner."
Right. Fred. The guy down in the land office she was engaged to. "Okay," he said. "Well I guess now I know."
"Yes," she said, and something in the air was different now. "Um, yes. Right." She picked up the box of rolls and her change. "Thank you." She smiled again. "Have a lovely day."
"You too," Grant said, waving after her as she left. He sighed as something he couldn't quite identify fidgeted in his chest, then his eyes widened in surprise when he turned around and saw Jefferson standing on the stairs behind him, leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed. He hadn't heard him come down. "Oh, hey."
"Hey," Jefferson replied. He was watching Grant with more clarity in his eyes than Grant had seen in a few days, which was good, but the look he was giving him was…sad. He nodded at the door where Elizabeth had gone out. "You like her, don't you?"
"What?"
A smile quirked up one corner of Jefferson's mouth. "I've known you all your life, punk. You've got it bad for that girl."
"I…" Grant started. He sighed. "Doesn't matter," he said, picking up a rag and wiping off the counter. "She's engaged."
"Happily?" Jefferson asked.
"I…That's not really any of my business."
"It could be."
"Jeff…" Grant sighed.
Jefferson raised his hands in surrender and didn't press the issue. He still looked sad, though. "I'm gonna get going," he said. "Thank you for last night, and breakfast and everything."
"Sure. Anytime," Grant said, and he meant it. "You sure you're okay?" The sadness in his eyes was different than the kind that had been there yesterday.
"I'm alright," he assured him. He took a few steps over and rested a hand on his shoulders. "You're a good friend, Grant," he said. "Even after all of this…" He shook his head and let out a sad huff of air. "I'm glad I've still got you, man," he said.
Grant threw an arm around him, clapping him on the back a couple of times in a quick hug. "Always," he replied. He pulled back and looked him up and down, and he really did look better than yesterday. "I'll come by and check on you tomorrow, alright? I put some good meat in those groceries I got you—maybe we can go out in your yard and grill something."
"Sounds good," Jefferson replied, and there, at least, was a little smile.
"Now, you're going to eat at least once, shower, and sleep before I come over, right?" he said as Jefferson walked toward the door, smiling, but serious.
"Yes, Mom," Jefferson replied, and there was more of a smile like Grant was hoping for. "Hey," he said, pausing in the doorway. "You should hit the market this afternoon. Get some raspberries to make some tarts for tomorrow."
"Why?" Grant wondered. That seemed like an odd request. He didn't think Jefferson even liked raspberries.
"Trust me," he replied with a smirk, and then he was gone.
Still puzzled about the raspberries, Grant got back to work, then took a long lunch and hit the market down by the dock. He bought some apples for his usual Thursday morning fritters, then decided what the hell, and grabbed a box of raspberries. He didn't make a lot of tarts, since the really sweet stuff didn't usually sell early in the morning, but when Elizabeth came in after the rush on her way to the law office where she worked, her eyes lit up at the sight of them.
"Are those raspberry?" she asked.
When he nodded, she smiled like Christmas had come early. (He thought about that smile for the rest of the day.)
"Would you think me terribly greedy if I bought all two dozen?" she asked, and he laughed and boxed them up for her. Later that evening when he was cleaning up, he couldn't help but wonder how Jefferson had known.
The Enchanted Forest
An unexpected rainstorm had the vendors hurriedly shutting shop windows and carting their wares back inside. Steve yanked his display table back so it was at least under the awning, then started moving baskets of bread inside before they got soggy. As he spun outside to get the last one, he collided with the woman right behind him who was already carrying the basket.
"Whoa!" he exclaimed, catching her waist and spinning her inside so that if either she or the bread fell, the landing would at least be a clean wooden floor instead of a mud puddle.
"That was terribly smooth, my darling," Peggy said with a wide grin, looping her arms around his neck and kissing him soundly, still holding the basket of bread in her hands. "Much more graceful than the first time that happened."
Steve laughed. Three years ago, he had met Peggy in much the same way—she was passing the bakery when a sudden rainstorm started pouring down, and she moved to help him get his bread inside, both to be helpful and also to get out of the rain herself. They had collided back then too, but Steve had definitely knocked her into the mud puddle. "Are you ever going to let me live that down?"
"No." She kissed him again and pulled away, setting the basket of bread down on a table. "Besides," she added with a grin. "How many girls can say the first time they met their husband, he literally swept them off their feet?"
Steve laughed and moved to pull the shutter down where rain was starting to drip inside. "Welcome home, by the way. I didn't think you'd be back until tomorrow."
"We had good weather," she said, dropping her bag from her shoulders. She worked as one of the legal advisors to the county magistrate, and though she was still fairly junior in her role, she was the most well-versed in the new labor laws, and had been taken along on the magistrate's trip to 'remind' some of the landholders up north of the new codes.
"Good trip?" he asked.
"Very," she replied, looking pleased. Her grin widened, as she attempted to hold further news in and play it cool, but failed utterly. "Steve, I got a promotion!"
"Hey, that's great!" he said, smiling broadly.
"The Duke of Embria was trying to get around one of the new laws with an old loophole, and the Magistrate was so impressed with the way I spotted it and knew how to correct it that he offered me a spot on the Legislation Council!"
Steve's jaw dropped. "You're kidding," he said. That was the job Peggy had been aiming for, but normal channels would have taken her several more years to get there.
She shook her head, still grinning.
He stepped over and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her soundly. "Congratulations." He rested his forehead on hers, looking down into her hazel eyes that were shot through with excited sparks of amber. "I'm so proud of you."
She kissed him back. "Thank you." She nuzzled her head into his chest and hugged him tightly. "I still almost can't believe it." She hugged him tighter, then looked up at him with a smile. "It was a wonderful trip. But I did miss you awfully."
"I missed you too," he said, kissing her forehead. "I'm glad you're home."
They stood there for a little while, holding one another and listening to the sound of the rain. When it hadn't slowed down by the time the sun started going down, Steve went ahead and closed up, though he didn't put out the ovens just yet.
"Darling, are you coming up?" Peggy called from upstairs. "I don't think anyone's coming out to buy bread in this."
"Just cleaning up," he called. "I'll be up in a minute." He finished his cleaning and pulled the pie from the oven—raspberries were Peggy's favorite, and he'd been meaning to make tarts tomorrow to welcome her home, but a congratulatory pie would work just as well tonight.
Upstairs, Peggy was cutting up bread, cheese, and ham for dinner, and the small apartment was glowing warm and welcoming in the firelight. Steve just stood there for a moment and looked at her, admiring the flashes of gold dancing through her dark hair that echoed the dancing flames on the hearth.
"Oh, you didn't need to bring any bread up," she told him, catching a glimpse of the dish in his hands. "You still had some up here."
"It's not bread," he told her, moving forward and holding out the pie so she could smell it.
"Oh," she said, a smile stretching across her face. "Have I told you lately that I adore you?"
Steve chuckled and set the pie on the table. "I mean, you're very welcome to tell me again."
She laughed and set down the cheese knife, then wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. "I adore you," she whispered in his ear. "Totally and completely, and I would even if you couldn't bake to save your life." She kissed him again. "Though you might be on the wrong career path, if that was the case."
Steve laughed. "I love you too, Peggy."
After dinner, Peggy wound up one of the music boxes she had sitting in the corner, like she did every evening, and they danced in the kitchen as the rain died down.
The sun was out the next morning, so Steve moved his bread outside for the morning shoppers. "Hi, Uncle Steve!" a little girl called, running across the square.
"Good morning, Grace!" he greeted, smiling down at her. "How are you today?"
"Very well, thank you," she said. "Papa and I came into town for market." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "We have apples this time."
"Have you, now?" Steve said, arching an eyebrow. "Well, you make sure to tell your papa to come over here with some of those apples before he sells them all."
She grinned. "Yes, sir! They're very good. Very sweet." The five-year-old's smile widened. "I got to eat one yesterday."
"He let you eat the apples? And there's still some left for market?" Steve said in mock surprise.
"Uncle Ste-eve!" she complained, though she was laughing. "I couldn't eat that many!"
"Grace?" called a voice through the crowd.
"I'm over here, Papa!" she responded. Steve could see Bucky looking for his daughter, not quite able to pinpoint her voice, so he reached over the table and hoisted her up onto his shoulders. She laughed gleefully, then waved. "Here, Papa! With Uncle Steve!"
Bucky smiled and came over. "There you are," he said. "What did I say about running off?"
"I didn't run off," she said indignantly. "I was helping you sell apples."
"That's funny," Bucky replied. "Since all the apples are here with me." He patted the pack hanging from his back.
"She was doing the advertising," Steve said, setting the little girl down. "Telling me about how nice and sweet these apples are."
"Uh huh," Grace said earnestly.
"Well, I suppose that's alright," Bucky said.
"Good morning, Grace!" Peggy said from the doorway behind them. "Hello, Bucky!"
"Hi, Aunt Peggy!" Grace greeted.
"Hey, Peggy, welcome back," Bucky said.
"Thank you," Peggy said. She crouched down a little and grinned at Grace. "Why don't you come in? I've brought you something from my trip."
Grace squeaked happily and hurried inside.
"How are you doing?" Steve asked. He hadn't seen him in about a week.
"Not bad," Bucky said, hitching up the bag around his shoulders. "Listen, you don't have to buy apples just because Grace—"
"I need apples for the fritters and tarts," Steve told him. "It's not charity, Buck." Neither of them had ever been good at accepting charity, but they'd had each other's backs since they'd been little kids running around in the forest.
Bucky nodded with a small smile, and swung the bag of apples off his back. "How many do you want?"
Steve picked out his apples, and Grace came hurrying outside with butter smeared around her mouth. "Come inside, Papa!" she said. "Aunt Peggy invited us to lunch! There's bread with butter and raspberry pie!" She rushed back inside.
"I can assure you, Grace did not invite herself to lunch," Steve said, not looking up from picking his apples, but knowing the expression that was on Bucky's face. "Peggy hasn't seen her in two weeks—I'm surprised she's not just kidnapping her for a couple of nights."
Bucky huffed a laugh. They both knew Peggy was absolutely besotted with her adopted niece. "She really must have missed her if she's sharing her raspberries," he said with a grin.
They all went in and had lunch together, and they played with Grace and laughed and listened to Peggy's stories from her trip. After the meal, Bucky and Grace left to sell the rest of the apples in the market, and Steve gave them several loaves of bread in exchange for the apples he'd taken. Peggy leaned against his shoulder and sighed as they waved them off.
"I do wish he'd let us help more," she said. Bucky had given up his portal-jumping when Priscilla died, and while Steve was glad about that for the sake of his friend's safety, that had also meant giving up the lucrative contracts that came with the job. He and Grace were doing alright, but not as well as Steve knew he would have liked to have been doing.
"I know," he sighed. "But you know he would if he really needed it." If Grace got sick, or if he wasn't able to get her enough to eat, Steve knew his best friend wouldn't hesitate to ask for help then. "He's kind of stubborn."
Peggy snorted. "That's a bit rich, coming from you."
Steve looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me? I'm not the one who annoyed the deputy to the point of being banned from the marketplace for a month."
"He was ignoring the law about tariffs owed by street vendors, and that old woman had already paid double what she owed! That wasn't stubbornness," Peggy insisted. "That was standing up to injustice."
"Stubbornly standing up to injustice," Steve said with a smile, kissing her forehead.
"Are we ignoring the time you punched that magician who was selling things and giving out change that disappeared after two hours? Most people foolish enough to punch a magician in the first place and subsequently be turned into a goose for their trouble would have run away, but you proceeded to chase him down the alley biting him in the leg."
"He turned me into a goose!" Steve replied. "That's, like, the most aggressive of all birds. He should have expected that."
Peggy giggled into his shoulder. "Well, at least we're happily stubborn together."
"Very happily," Steve agreed, and kissed her.
1989
"Hi, Elizabeth," Grant said, looking up as the bell above the door rang. "Don't usually see you here in the afternoons."
"No," she said, and she wasn't smiling like she had been this morning.
"Is everything alright?" he wondered.
She sighed. "Oh, it was just a hard day at work."
"What happened?"
"You don't want to hear about it," she sighed.
"If that was true, I wouldn't have asked," he said.
A little smile quirked up one corner of her mouth. "Alright." She leaned onto the counter. "It's the mayor's office. You remember last month, there was that thing in paper about the new docking regulations for the harbor?"
Grant had to think back for a minute. "I think so."
Elizabeth smiled. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. It was hardly interesting. Anyway, the gist was there were some old rules in place that were to the detriment of some of the lower-income fishermen. The rules were proved to be unjust, and the city had to make restitutions. Mayor Mills," she said, pausing significantly. "Did not come out of it looking as good as she could have. I was the lead on that case, and I am currently, totally coincidentally, I'm sure, being audited for possible mismanagement of city funds in my office."
Grant's jaw dropped. "Well, that's…bold." He wasn't a big fan of Mayor Mills—she did run an orderly town, but she was…well, she ran that orderly town with a very tight fist. He intended to place his vote elsewhere next year.
Elizabeth huffed a humorless smile. "It is that, though perfectly legal. I suspect it's a warning to mind my own business. I keep impeccable records, so I'm not actually worried about the end result, but, well…" She sighed. "There's going to be something about it in the paper tomorrow. My name will be attached, and once it's all over, there will be a report stating all is well, but no one ever really remembers the correction as well as they remember the scandal, do they?"
Grant frowned. "I'm sorry. That's…" He couldn't remember the Mayor having done anything like this before, but he'd been going to say that it wasn't unexpected.
Elizabeth nodded. "So, yes, that was my day. And I suppose I'm here because…" An embarrassed smile played around the corners of her mouth. "Stress-eating, I think they call it. I was hoping for something warm and delicious and fresh from the oven."
Grant smiled. "Well, if you're okay with waiting about fifteen minutes, I can help with that. Chocolate chip cookies were about to go into the oven."
"I can wait for that," she said with a smile.
Grant smiled and went back to the kitchen, reforming a few of the balls of dough so they would contain larger chunks of chocolate. He popped them into the oven, then boiled some water. "Would you like something to drink while you wait for the cookies?" he asked, coming out with a cup of tea. "Black tea with honey."
He supposed he should have asked how she took it first, but he was oddly unsurprised when she looked up with a smile. "That's just how I like it," she said. "Thank you." She flushed a little. "I hope you don't mind that I filled in a couple of words on your crossword for you. I think for seventeen across, the five-letter word you want for 'brown' is 'hazel'."
Hazel, just like her eyes. Grant shook his head and handed her the teacup, looking down at the puzzle. "Yeah, that does look like it fits there," he said. That meant fourteen down could be 'hazard', which fit in nicely. "Thanks."
He left her to his puzzle, then came out a few minutes later with a plate of cookies. "Oh, those smell divine," she said. He set the plate down on the counter, then lifted one of the stools over for her to sit on. He sat down on his side of the counter and picked up a cookie of his own. They chatted amiably for a few minutes, and it took very little prompting for her to tell him more about the case with the harbor and the audit.
"Well," he said. "It really sounds to me like you did the right thing with the case. I know some of the guys who work at the docks, and they're having a little easier time paying their rent now. Sorry it came back and bit you like that, though."
She shrugged, breaking the last cookie in half and handing one of the halves to him. "I rather think the Mayor is hoping this will remind me of my place. But I've done nothing wrong and I don't intend to be cowed."
Grant smiled. "It takes guts standing up to the people in charge. I'm proud of you." He winced a little internally after he said that—that felt like a touch too intimate of a thing to say, but she smiled back.
"Thank you. And I intend to keep standing." She smiled, picked a couple of crumbs off the plate and stood up. "I should be going. Thank you, Grant. I didn't mean to unload all my problems on you, but I do appreciate the sympathetic ear."
"Sure," Grant said. "I'm glad I could help."
"You did," she assured him. "Much more than…Well, Fred would just say it's the cost of going up against the city." She caught herself. "That's not to say he…" Color rose in her cheeks. "I'm not sure why I said that. I'm sorry. But you really did help. Thank you."
Grant wiped down the counter thoughtfully as she left. He closed up a little later, realized he might have the bakery well-stocked but his own fridge could use a trip to the grocery store, and headed to Granny's Diner for dinner. After he ate, he walked down to the harbor and watched the sun set over the water.
"Hey, Grant," came a voice from one of the benches down the way. He turned and saw Jefferson sitting there.
"Hey," he said. He walked over to where his friend was sitting. "How's it going?"
Jefferson shrugged. He was doing better since the accident last year. His bad days seemed to be coming farther apart, and while he did tend to wallow in apathy most of the time, Grant figured as far as coping mechanisms went, that was healthier than creating some sort of fantasy world to slip in to. It had been almost three months since he'd called him Steve.
"Something bugging you?" Jefferson asked.
Grant sighed and sat down beside him. "Maybe?"
"What's up?"
"Just…" He shook his head. "I was talking to Elizabeth today." He recounted for Jefferson her second visit to the bakery for the day and what they had talked about. "And, you know," he finished. "I'm glad I could listen, and help her out and everything. But then she said something about how her fiancé would have just told her it was the cost of going up against the city, and I…" He sighed. "This is the sort of thing she should be able to talk about with him, not me, but it sort of sounds like she thinks maybe he wouldn't care, and…well, he should care."
Jefferson nodded. "And you're wondering why she's with a guy who doesn't care?"
"What? No. Well, yeah, actually, but that's… Why should I get to make judgement calls about their relationship? That's not cool."
"She's the one who brought it up, though," Jefferson pointed out.
"I know," Grant sighed. He slumped down a little more on the bench. "I just…While we were talking, just sitting there and eating cookies, I was glad she was talking to me instead of him. It felt right. And it felt…familiar. Like I've done it before. Like sitting across from her and trying to help her figure things out is where I'm supposed to be."
Jefferson was smiling. "Maybe it is."
"No," Grant sighed. "It's not. Because she's with somebody else. And however right and familiar and whatever it felt like, why did it feel that way? I've never done that with her before. It sounds crazy even saying it."
"Maybe. Maybe not," Jefferson allowed. "You've got it bad for her, man. You always have."
"I think 'always' is a little strong. I've only known her for, what, a year?"
Jefferson huffed an amused laugh.
"What?"
"A year," he repeated, chuckling to himself. "Sure. Just a year." He was laughing a little harder now, slightly hysterical.
"Jeff?" Grant asked, and for some reason, that only made him laugh harder.
"Right," he said, still chuckling. "Right. I'm Jeff, and it's only been a year. Just one. One year."
"Why is that funny?" Grant wondered.
"Oh, it's not," Jefferson said. "But it's either this or screaming."
"Jeff," Grant began, putting a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm fine," Jefferson said, and though he was still laughing a little bit, he did look lucid. "Fine as I can be." He shook his head as the laughter died away. "Seriously, though, you should go for it with her."
Grant sighed. Jefferson had been bringing this up a lot. "Okay, maybe I do have a crush on her," Grant admitted. "But it'll pass. Why are you so hung up on this?"
"Because you should be with her."
"She is engaged."
"Yeah. Engaged. Not married. And they see each other once a week for dinner—it's the most boring engagement in the world."
"It's still wrong," Grant protested. "She loves him."
"Does she?"
"Why would she be engaged to him if she doesn't?"
Jefferson chuckled. "All kinds of reasons."
"Yeah, well, even if that's true, they're her reasons."
"Grant," Jefferson said, all traces of laughter gone. "You. Belong. With her. It's just…" He waved a hand out at the harbor. "Everything's wrong here. Everything. And if you and her were together, it would be one thing right." He looked over at him. "You said yourself that it felt right."
Grant opened his mouth to argue, but found he couldn't.
"Just…" Jefferson pushed himself to his feet with a deep sigh, then patted him on the shoulder. "Just think about it." He walked back to his car before Grant could think of anything to say.
Grant didn't sleep very well that night, and when he woke up for what felt like the fortieth time at a quarter to five, he decided to just give up and go ahead and get out of bed. He got things going in the bakery, and while the usual bread and muffins and rolls were baking, he heard the newspaper land on his porch and went out to get it. Instead of starting at the beginning and working his way through, like he usually did, he flipped through looking for any mention of Elizabeth's law office. It was there on page three, and while he was grateful on her behalf that it had avoided the front page, it was still fairly scathing. In a way, he almost had to admire the way the unnamed writer (he wanted to say it was the editor, Sidney Glass, himself, but he couldn't say why) made no actual accusations of any wrongdoing, but still left the reader with the sense that Elizabeth could hardly have done anything but misappropriate city funds. He sighed and snapped the paper shut, then went back to the kitchen.
He came out every time the bell rang and greeted all his usual customers—Granny liked his rolls for breakfast as a change of pace from her own cooking, the sisters had a standing order for fruit pastries, Dr. Whale always bought three blueberry bagels, and Mr. Gold was in most every morning, though Grant hadn't pinned down his routine orders yet. After Mary Margaret came through to pick up her special order of cupcakes for her class, things quieted down. It was past the time Elizabeth normally came in, and he had a hard time pretending he wasn't worried.
She didn't come in all day, so after the lunch and afternoon shoppers quieted down, he cleaned up and closed up, packed up what he'd been working on in the kitchen, and got on his motorcycle.
It wasn't until he was standing outside the door of her apartment that it occurred to him to wonder why he was doing this. This was probably over-stepping things a little. But, as much as he might otherwise have liked to, he wasn't making a move here, or anything. She was his friend, and he suspected she'd had a hard day, and giving people food was his first response in an emotional crisis. Besides, he'd already knocked anyway.
The door opened, and Elizabeth was standing there in a pair of pajamas. Grant realized she probably hadn't been in to work today, and he was intruding and she was in pajamas, which made this a little more intimate than he'd been intending. He could feel color rising in his cheeks.
"Grant!" she said, surprised. "Hello. What are you doing here?"
"I just wanted to see if you were okay," he said. "I saw the paper this morning."
"Yes," she frowned. "Very cleverly written, didn't you think?"
"It certainly was… persuasive," he agreed. She sighed and he hurried on. "And ridiculously one-sided. It was all conjecture, and, Elizabeth, anyone who knows you will know it's not true."
She did smile at that. "Thank you." She stepped back a little. "Would you like to come in? I'm being terribly rude leaving you out here in the hall."
He stepped inside, and she shut the door behind him. "Would you like some tea?" she offered. "I was just making some."
"Sure," he said. "Thank you." She went back into the kitchen, and he stood a little awkwardly in her living room. He looked around while he waited. It was a cozy little room, with flowers in vases on the end tables, and various books with dog-eared bookmarks sticking out of them scattered around. She had a shelf with framed photographs on it, and he took a step closer to look. There was one of her and a girl he'd seen around the community theater whose name he thought was Angie, one of her with a group of friends in a booth at Granny's Diner, and one of her on a boat that he recognized as part of the community sail races last year. There were none of Fred, which struck Grant as a little odd. Maybe Jefferson was right about things not being great between them. He shook his head. That was none of his business, and he felt kind of like he was snooping, so he turned away from the photographs and looked at the rest of the room.
"So, you like music boxes, huh?" he said when she came back in. Two shelves were full of them, in a wide range of colors and sizes and designs.
"Yes," she said, stepping over to join him. "I've collected them ever since I was a little girl."
"They're really pretty," he said.
She grinned. "Except for that one?" she asked, pointing at a very tacky-looking one in one corner that was covered all over with seashells.
"I wasn't going to say that," he said, though he had been looking at it. It looked out of place among the other, more elegant ones.
She chuckled. "It has sentimental value," she said. "I've had it the longest. And it plays rather a lovely tune." She held up a cup. "Tea?"
He accepted the cup, sitting down in the chair she waved him toward. "Thank you," he said. It was lightly sweet, with a hint of lemon, and he didn't remember telling her that was how he liked it, but maybe she'd seen him drinking it that way in the shop before. The lemon was an easy smell to pick up.
"So," she said, curling her legs up into her chair and cradling her hands around her own cup of tea. "You really came all this way just to see if I was alright?"
"Well, all this way might be overstating things," he said. "You do live two blocks away." She smiled. "But, yeah," he finished.
Her smile softened. "Thank you. That's very…That was very thoughtful of you." She sighed. "And it was a trying day." She took a long sip of her tea. "As you might have noticed," she said, nodding down at her pajamas. "I didn't go in to work today. I was asked to stay home so they could run their audit without me in the way."
Grant nodded. He figured it had been something like that.
"They're free to do so, of course," she went on. "Though it does rather make it seem more serious this way."
"Do you think…" Grant started. He didn't want to worry her more, but if the Mayor's office had proved they were willing to play dirty, then there wasn't much point underestimating them. "You said yesterday how you kept impeccable records, but do you think they wanted you home so they could…fudge them if they wanted to?"
"That did occur to me, yes," she said. She nodded at a box on the floor by his chair. "That's why I made copies of everything."
She laughed when he looked over at the box in surprise. "Oh, I've been doing that for years," she said. "My father got me in the habit when I was young—said it was good business practice. Turns out, he was right."
Grant smiled. "They've obviously underestimated you."
"It happens," she said. "I've always come out on top in the end." She sighed. "It doesn't necessarily make the waiting easier."
"That reminds me," Grant said, leaning down to pick up the box he'd set by his feet. "Here."
"What's this?" she asked, reaching over and taking it.
He shrugged. "I was going to give it to you this morning when you came in—I figured it might be tough with that hitting the papers today."
She opened the box and let out a tiny gasp of surprise. Inside was a small raspberry cheesecake, with drizzles of raspberry jam and chocolate across the top. "You made this for me?" she asked.
He nodded. "I thought…" He knew what he wanted to say, but he suddenly couldn't figure out how without feeling stupid. "I wanted to remind you you weren't in this alone. I'm not so much with the legal expertise, but I can be a friend. And I guess I communicate in food, so…" He nodded at the cake.
She stared at it for a moment longer, and maybe it was just the lighting in the room, but he thought her eyes might have been glistening just a little when she looked up. "Thank you," she said softly. "That was very…No one has ever done anything like that for me before." She smiled warmly. "That was very kind of you, Grant." She reached over and squeezed his hand briefly. "I could use a friend right now."
"Well, then, I'm glad I'm here," he told her.
They finished their tea in companionable silence, then chatted for a little while—not about the audit or how it might turn out, but just smaller things. She told him about the books she was reading, and he told her about the cute little kids who'd come into the bakery that afternoon. They talked about what was happening on Dallas, and he found out she was a big fan of Quantum Leap. It was late when he left, but she was smiling, and he didn't mind riding home in the dark, something warm purring happily in his chest.
The Enchanted Forest
Steve stood his ground when the officer across the table from him cleared his throat, resisting the urge to ask if there was some kind of problem. He knew the soldier was just trying to intimidate him with his silence, and it took more than that to shake him. He stayed where he was, a patient expression on his face, and the other man went on with his counting, sliding one coin at a time agonizingly slowly from one pile to another as he counted out the gold.
After what felt like hours later, he looked up, stared at Steve for a long moment, then grunted. "All there," he declared. Once again, very slowly, he began to move, reaching for a parchment and quill, and Steve bit down the urge to growl in frustration. He had to be doing this on purpose. Still, he kept his breathing under control and his not-quite-smile pleasant, listening to the scratching of the quill as the soldier wrote out a receipt. He finally dropped some wax over the signature and stamped his seal down into it. "This way," he said, snatching up the paper and a ring of keys and moving out from behind his desk.
Steve followed the officer down a narrow stone hallway. It was a little chilly, but it was fairly well-lit, and it was dry. He'd been picturing something gloomy and damp, but then, his experience with prisons was fairly limited. That was probably a good thing. His escort stopped in front of a barred door, and Steve's breath caught in his throat as he looked inside. "Peggy!"
She was sitting on a bench along the back wall, and though she looked a little mussed, she didn't look hurt. Her hands were folded in her skirt, but Steve could see the bands of the shackles on her wrists. She smiled when she saw him, but she got to her feet slowly, eyeing the guard beside him a little warily.
The soldier made quite a show of searching for the right key and opening the door. He beckoned Peggy forward, making the sort of noise one might make to summon a dog as he did so, and the only thing keeping Steve from knocking him unconscious was the knowledge that it would just land Peggy back in the cell and him in one right next to her. "Hands," the guard growled at her.
She held out her wrists, and he undid the cuffs, then put a hand on her shoulder and shoved her forward. Steve automatically put out his hands to catch her as she stumbled. "All sorted, then," the officer said. He handed the receipt to Steve, who stuffed it down into the pocket of his coat. "Best keep your woman in line, sir," he said, in the tone of someone offering incredibly helpful advice. "Bail gets pricier with repeat visits."
Peggy looked very much like she wanted to say something, but Steve slid his arm over her shoulder and turned toward the exit. "I'll do that, Sir," he said through gritted teeth and a painfully fake smile. Peggy turned her death glare on him, but at least she waited until they were outside to say anything.
"You're going to keep me in line?" she said icily.
"Well, what was I supposed to say?" he replied, far snappier than he meant to. He'd been up worried all night, and after dealing with bankers and guards and officers of the law who seemed to be trying to prod him into doing something stupid so they could arrest him too, his emotions were stretched dangerously thin. "I was just trying to get us out of there! If I'd said what I wanted to, we would have each had a cell of our own, and we don't have the money to bail both of us out!"
She looked away, and he sighed deeply, regretting the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. "You're angry," she said softly.
"Yeah," he sighed. He slid his hand into hers and looked down at her. "But not at you." She looked up, and he smiled apologetically. "I've been wanting to punch that soldier in the mouth for the past half hour. I shouldn't have let all that explode all over you. I'm sorry."
"It's alright," she said. She squeezed his hand. "There wasn't really any other way to handle it. You've got a much cooler head than I have." She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. "Thank you."
He nodded and smiled back. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Did they hurt you?"
"No," she said. "They shoved me around a bit, that's all."
"What about your wrists?" he asked, nodding down at where the cuffs had been.
Her right hand reached over and touched her left sleeve. "A bit sore," she admitted.
"Can I see?" he asked.
"Wait until we get home," she said. She sighed. "I really am sorry about all this. I had no idea when it started—"
"Peggy, it's okay," he told her. In the past couple of years, the queen's hold on the kingdom had gotten tighter. Stricter laws were going into place, fines were swift to be enforced and grace was slow and rare to be given. When taxes had gone up in the village for the second time that year, the citizens had begun to protest. Peggy and the rest of the Legislation Council had gone through the national laws and found the limitations on how often taxes could be raised. Regina's court had responded with a new law to supersede the old one, stating the raising of taxes were the monarch's prerogative. Some of the members had backed off then, but Peggy had dug deep, and when she found other regulations that laid out the guidelines for changing the tax laws (an action that required approval from the governors of each state), several of them had stood with her and they'd pushed back. All eleven of them had been arrested.
"You did the right thing," he told her. They stopped on their doorstep and he kissed her warmly before digging into his pocket for the key. "I'm proud of you."
She shifted a bit uncomfortably. "It didn't do much good, though, did it? The new taxes are still in place and the Magistrate's office is closed for the foreseeable future."
"It doesn't matter," he said, ushering her inside. "You fought something that needed to be fought, and people saw that. They're going to remember that next time. And maybe more of them will stand up too." He hugged her against his chest. "I'm proud of you," he said again. He kissed the top of her head. "So proud."
She tilted her head up to look at him, and she was smiling. "Thank you, darling." She pulled her arms out of where he was holding her so she could wrap them around his waist. "Was it awful, last night?" she asked.
He nodded. One of the clerks from the office had come to give him the news, but it hadn't been until well after sunset, and it was too late to do anything. "I didn't find out until it was too late to come last night." He hugged her a little tighter. "Bartholomew said they didn't hurt you, but I was really worried."
"I'm sorry," she said, stretching up to kiss his jaw. "I rather think they planned that—not coming for us until the end of the day. Making everyone wait longer just to prove their point." She nuzzled her head into his chest. "Was it terribly expensive, bailing me out?"
"We might have to cut meat out of the grocery bill for a little while, but we can take the hit," he said quietly, kissing the top of her head and glad she couldn't see his face—his eyes always gave him away when he lied. "Don't worry about it." The truth would have to come out before too long, but he didn't want her to feel worse than she already did.
He locked up the front door—there was no bread to sell today anyway—and they went upstairs. She sat down at the table by the fire and rolled up her sleeves so he could look at her wrists. Pain twisted in his stomach at the thought of someone hurting her, but he just put some water on to heat, then washed the red, chafed skin gently, rubbed in some ointment, and wrapped bandages around her wrists.
"There," he said, kissing the back of her hand.
"Thank you," she said.
"You want to talk about it?" he asked.
She sighed. "I don't know what I'm going to do now. I'm out of a job, and when the Magistrate's office does open again…" She sighed. "I doubt very much that any of the old employees will be hired back."
"Probably not," Steve agreed. "Regina does enjoy making a point." There had been enough public cases over the past couple of years to prove the Queen's vindictive streak.
"And I'm sure I'll find something to do, I just…" She sighed. "This was my life."
Steve reached across the table and squeezed her hand. "I know. And I'm so sorry. But there are other ways to stand up to her. You'll find them. And I'll be right there with you."
A smile curved up the corners of her lips. "Thank you."
He got up to make them some tea, hers with honey and his with a bit of lemon, and she went to clean up a little bit. He finished the tea as she was coming out of the bedroom, but that smile that had been on her face was gone.
"What's wrong?" he asked, setting the tea down on the table.
"You said it was a hit we could take," she said quietly. She held up a piece of paper that Steve recognized as the receipt from the jail. "I went to hang your coat up and this fell out," she said by way of explanation. She looked up at him, worry swimming in her eyes. "Steve, where did you get the money for this?"
Steve sighed and walked over to her. The amount on the receipt leered up at him, a number far larger than he knew it should have been. Regina had been trying to make a point. "I took out a loan on the bakery," he said quietly.
She gasped softly. "Steve…" She swallowed hard. "Darling, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"No, Peggy, it's okay," he said, sliding his arms around her as tears sprang to her eyes.
She shook her head even as she folded into the embrace. "But, Steve, you…You worked so hard." It had been his dream to own the bakery since he'd been old enough to work, and he'd spent years making payments until it was finally his name on the deed. She sniffed. "You love this bakery."
"I do," he agreed. He hugged her tighter. "I love you more." She sniffed again and he pressed a kiss into her hair. "I didn't hesitate," he told her. He put two fingers under her chin and tilted her head up gently to look at him. "My bakery or the love of my life? It wasn't even a choice." He kissed her forehead softly. "And I'm never going to resent you for that."
"Steve, I…"
"You really think I would have left you there in that cell if I had a way to get you out?" he asked gently. The thought of her being there for even that single night was unbearable enough.
"No," she said softly. "I'm just sorry to have put you in that position." She sniffed again. "And now with me out of a job, we're in an even tighter spot, and…" She sighed heavily. "I'm so sorry, darling."
"Don't be," he told her. "I would have given up the world if it would keep you by my side. And I'd do it with a smile." He leaned down and rested his forehead on hers, staring deep into her watery hazel eyes. "I love you, Peggy. With every beat of my heart. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."
The tears pooling in her eyes trickled out, but she smiled at him. "Thank you," she whispered.
They stood there for a long time just holding each other.
"Hey," he said softly. She tilted her head up to look at him. "I know this isn't exactly how we thought we'd be spending our anniversary…" She huffed a semi-amused snort at that, and a smile quirked up one side of his mouth. "But I did get you a present."
"Aside from bailing me out of prison?" she asked with a small smile.
"Yes," he said. He kissed her forehead and pulled away. "Wait here a minute." He went back into their bedroom and dug to the bottom of the trunk they kept their winter clothes in. He'd found this almost a month ago and had been saving it.
He walked back into the main room and pulled out the little music box he'd been hiding behind his back. "Now," he began a little sheepishly. "I know it's not much to look at."
Peggy couldn't suppress a small giggle. "I'm sorry," she said. "You got me a gift, and I shouldn't be laughing at it."
Steve laughed. "Go ahead and laugh," he said. "It's really ugly." The music box was simple dark wood, and he suspected it was good-quality wood, but it was hard to tell, as it had been covered over with a wide variety of seashells. Their placement was not artistic, nor did it follow any sort of pattern, but seemed more like the sort of design a small child might have arranged.
"It is," Peggy agreed, laughing a bit more freely now that he'd made it clear he wouldn't be offended. She took it from him and turned it in her hands, looking it over. "There's really just not a good angle for it, is there?"
"No," Steve agreed with a smile. "But I didn't get it for the aesthetics."
"Well, I should hope not," she teased.
Steve gestured at the little key in the back, and she wound it up, her amused smile softening as the music started to play.
"Oh," she breathed. "That's the song they played at our wedding."
"Mm-hmm," Steve nodded, warm happiness expanding in his heart at the look on her face.
"Oh, Steve," she whispered. She set the box down on the table next to their cold cups of tea and went up on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him soundly. "Thank you," she said. She kissed him again.
"You're welcome," he said, hugging her closer. "Thanks for marrying me."
She laughed and pulled away from him, winding the music box back to the start. "May I have the pleasure of this dance?" she said, taking his hands in hers.
"This one and all my other dances," he said, joining her in swaying across the floor. He wasn't sure what the future held from here, but he knew he could face it as long as they faced it together.
1998
(This section contains a content warning for a brief, non-detailed mention of a past failed suicide attempt. If you want to avoid it, skip over the section where Bucky/Jefferson is in the bathtub starting at the line that ends "...even his fantasy world was filled with loss." to where Grant asks "What resets?".)
.
Grant stomped the mud off his boots and let himself into Jefferson's house which was, again, unlocked. "Jeff?" he called, shaking the raindrops off his coat as he hung it by the door and brushed his hair back down. "Jeff? You here, buddy?" The house was dark even though evening was falling, and it smelled sort of musty. How long had it been since his friend had been outside, or even opened a window?
"Jeff?" he called a little louder, and this time there was an answering clatter of pots and pans from the direction of the kitchen. Grant followed the noise, flipping on a couple of lights as he did so. Rounding the corner into the kitchen and turning on the light, he saw Jefferson slouched in an untidy heap on the floor against the cabinets. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked, rushing over.
Jefferson squinted up into the light, then blinked and grinned as his eyes landed on Grant. "Steve!" he said happily. "Hey, Stevie. Hey. 's good to see you."
By this time, Grant was close enough to him to catch the smell of alcohol that was rolling off of him in a wave. He sighed. "Have you been drinking again?"
"'Course," Jefferson snorted. "'s a stupid question. 'M always drinking. What else've I got to do?"
"How about not drink yourself to death at twenty-nine?" he replied, pulling a mostly empty bottle out of his unresisting hand. For some reason, Jefferson found this very funny. He snorted, and Grant caught some mumbling about twenty-nine as Jefferson slumped down even farther, giggling. "I don't see why that's so funny."
"'Course you don't," Jefferson said. "Don' worry about it. You wouldn' get it anyhow."
"Okay. You want to get off the floor?"
Jefferson shrugged, clearly not caring, and Grant sighed and got his hands under his arms and pulled him to his feet. "Come on, buddy. Up we go," he coaxed. He coughed as Jefferson's head lolled on his neck and flopped closer to his. "Dude, you smell disgusting," he said.
"You want a drink?" Jefferson offered. "You get drunk with me, the smell won't bother you."
"No," Grant said. "Come on." Propping Jefferson against him and taking all of his friend's weight, Grant made his way out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He didn't say anything as they walked, because he didn't want to snap. It had been eighteen months since the accident where Jefferson lost his daughter, and Grant knew things like that took a long time to heal. He wasn't angry at his best friend's chosen method of dealing with the pain, he just wished it wasn't so self-destructive. He wasn't mad at Jeff, but he was mad that he didn't know how to help.
Grant steered them into the bathroom and sat Jefferson down on the edge of the bathtub. He took off Jefferson's shoes, socks, and scarf, then Jefferson wobbled backwards and swatted at his hand. "What're you takin' my pants off for?" he grumbled.
"Because you need a bath," Grant said, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady him before he fell into the tub.
"'m forty-four years old, Steve," he huffed. "I c'n take my own pants off."
"Go ahead," Grant said, ignoring the first half of that statement. Jefferson's other preferred method of coping seemed to be slipping off into some kind of fantasy world where (among other things) Grant's name was Steve, and it made a weird mix with the alcohol. Grant kept a hand on Jefferson's shoulder to keep him from falling over while he divested himself of the rest of his clothes. He slid clumsily down into the tub, and Grant got the hot water running. Neither of them said anything until the tub was full and he turned the water off.
"You want to talk about it?" Grant asked gently, working soap onto a clean washcloth.
Jefferson sniffed. "'s just getting' so hard," he moaned, propping his elbows on his knees and dropping his head into his hands.
Grant started rubbing the warm, soapy cloth across Jefferson's back, but said nothing, giving his friend space to pull his words together.
"I keep thinkin'," Jefferson said thickly. He sniffed again. "I keep thinkin' it has to get better," he said. "That after this long, it…it would go away. Or maybe even…Maybe even, I'd get used to it." He sniffed again. "Wouldn' be the worst thing," he mumbled. "Least it wouldn't hurt so much."
"I'm sorry, man," Grant said. "I know a year and a half seems like a long time, but—"
He was cut off by a snort from Jefferson. "Right," he said. He looked up then, rolling his head to turn red, weary, miserable eyes to meet Grant's. "It hasn' been a year," he said. "'s been fifteen."
"Fifteen?" Grant asked. "Since what?"
"Since everything went wrong," Jefferson explained.
Grant sighed sadly. He must have slipped really far away this time. "Jeff, the accident was eighteen months ago," he said gently.
To his surprise, Jefferson started laughing again. "Steve," he said, like he was explaining something obvious. "There was never an accident. That's just part of…" He trailed off like he couldn't find the words he wanted.
"Jeff," Grant began.
"And my name is Bucky," Jefferson cut him off. "You been callin' me Jeff for fifteen years, an' I wish you'd stop."
"Okay," Grant said. His friend was in no fit state to argue right now, so he would humor him. "Bucky. I'm not really following you. Can you explain what happened fifteen years ago?"
Jefferson snorted. "Y're not gonna believe me."
"I'm just trying to understand," Grant told him gently.
Jefferson studied him for a moment. "Fine," he sighed. "Why the hell not?" He sighed and leaned back into his knees again, and Grant took the opportunity to start washing his hair while his eyes were shielded from the dripping soap, mindful of the scar ringing Jefferson's neck that was still kind of tender.
"Fifteen years ago," Jefferson said. "The curse happened. I don't know what the hell Regina did, but she cursed everybody an' brought 'em here."
"Regina?" Grant asked. "You mean Mayor Mills?"
"Uh huh," Jefferson replied, not looking up. "'cept she was a queen then. Guess she kinda downgraded when she set up here." He snorted to himself as if the thought was mildly amusing. "Anyhow, we got cursed and pulled into this stupid world tha's got no magic, an' everybody forgot. Everybody got a whole new life. 'cept me. Don' know why I didn' forget too." He sighed deeply. "Wish to God I did." He was quiet for a minute. "An' now we're stuck," he sighed. "'s been Fifteen years. Fifteen years of no one rememberin', an' nothin' changin', an' everybody thinkin' I'm crazy."
"I don't think you're crazy," Grant said softly.
Jefferson looked up at him then, and he smiled sadly. "You really mean that, don' you? Even though you don' believe me. Thanks."
"So," Grant went on, trying to prompt a little more of the story out of him. "When you say everyone forgot…"
"I mean everyone had some other kind of life. Your name was Steve, an' you were married to Peggy."
"Who's Peggy?" Grant wondered.
"You call her 'Lizabeth now," Jefferson said.
A light bulb went on in Grant's head. If this was what Jefferson thought, no wonder he was always trying to get Grant to get together with Elizabeth.
"'n Grace wasn't dead," Jefferson went on. "Her mom was," he added softly. "But that was a long time ago. It was me and Grace, and we were happy. Lived out in the forest. Sold apples and mushrooms in the market. Things like that." He sniffed and drew a hand across his nose. "You had a bakery, same as here. Lived in the village with Peggy." He smiled up at him. "You an' me were still friends. Grew up together." He sighed. "Glad I got to keep that."
Grant nodded, taking this all in.
"Grace still isn' dead," Jefferson continued. "She's alive, an' she's here, 'cept she's not with me." He sniffed again, moisture pooling in his eyes. "Thinks her name is Paige now. Doesn' know who I am. Thinks someone else is her dad," he finished, barely a whisper.
"Aw, Jeff," Grant said sadly.
"Bucky," Jefferson snapped. "That's my real name."
"Sorry," Grant said. "Bucky. Keep going."
"Don' know why I remember it all," he sighed. "Sometimes, I think I might be getting' better at it. An' sometimes, I think the curse has got to lift, because, fifteen years, tha's a long time. But then…" He sighed heavily. "Then it jus' hits me how long it's been, an' how nothin's changin', an'…It jus' hurts too much, so I go an' drink 'til it doesn't." He sniffed sadly. "Hasn' actually worked yet," he admitted. "But sometimes I get drunk enough to pass out, an' that works for a little while."
Grant sighed deeply. How much pain did his best friend have to be in that even his fantasy world was filled with loss?
"Don' worry about that, though," Jefferson said. "'m not gonna drink myself to death. Can't."
"What do you mean?" Grant wondered.
"Mean I can't die," Jefferson said. "Spell won't let me. I tried."
"What?" Grant whispered.
"Got low," Jefferson said. "Few years ago. Couldn' take it anymore an' slit my wrists." He held up an arm to a horrified Grant for inspection. "Won't let me forget, but won't let me go. Don' even have scars from it." Grant couldn't think of anything to say, and Jefferson lowered his arm back into the water. "Don' have to worry 'bout liver damage either. Everything resets tomorrow anyway. I'll be good as new."
"What resets?" Grant asked. He wanted to get back to the suicide thing, but Jefferson just kept going.
"Everything," Jefferson said. "The spell." He looked up at him shrewdly. "Why do you still think I'm twenty-nine? Or that this 'accident' was only a year and a half ago? 's because Regina has to keep resetting the spell. Or maybe it does it on its own; I don' know. Don' think she has magic here either. But everything always resets at the end of June. Don' know why it picked June," he said thoughtfully, as if that had always bothered him. "But it'll start over. We'll all go on just like we always have been, nobody getting any older, an' nobody getting out, an' no one will notice." He cocked an eyebrow at him. "We've had this conversation before, y'know."
"We have?"
"Mm. Five times. But then the spell resets an' you forget." He sighed. "'s weird, though. Everybody forgets time passes, but still remembers parts of it. Like, remember when 'Lizabeth got audited after th' boat thing?"
Grant nodded.
"That was nine years ago," Jefferson said. "Or, uh…" He sniffed, looking for another example. "Or when I broke my wrist? Eleven years ago," he said when Grant nodded. "It all blurs into some weird…non-time thing."
Grant sighed.
"You think I'm crazy now?" Jefferson wondered.
"No," Grant said, and he didn't. He thought he was hurt and confused, but not crazy.
"You want proof?" Jefferson asked. "How's 'Lizabeth like her toast?"
"What?"
"Answer the question."
"Um," Grant considered. "Butter and marmalade."
"You ever had toast with her?"
Grant opened his mouth, then closed it. "No." How did he know that?
"She like to dance?"
"She loves it," Grant said softly, not sure how he knew that either, but certain of the knowledge.
"Who was Marco?"
"The cat she had when she was a kid." Jefferson was smirking at him, and Grant found his heart beating a little faster. "How do you know all that?" he asked. "How do I know all that?"
"Those are things you remembered about her," Jefferson said, and though he still looked completely intoxicated, he was speaking with remarkable clarity. "You forget them every time the spell resets, but, see? They're in there."
"I…"
"Do you have dreams about the purple smoke?"
Grant's eyes widened. "What?" He'd never told anyone about that.
"The purple smoke," Jefferson said, all traces of humor gone. "It rolls in, low and heavy like the thickest fog you've ever seen. It's cold and dark and seeps into your bones, leaving this weight of looming dread behind. There's thunder and lightning, and you can smell the ozone in the air. You have those dreams?"
"Yeah," Grant whispered.
"That's the spell," Jefferson said. "That's what it looked like when the curse came in and changed everything."
Grant was quiet for a minute, rolling Jefferson's words over in his mind. The purple smoke was just a dream, but it felt like a memory. It always left him with this feeling of being torn in two, but this time he thought he remembered it more literally—the feeling of something being yanked from his grasp and disappearing into the smoke. Something precious.
He looked down at Jefferson with the feeling that maybe his friend wasn't as confused as Grant thought he was.
"You're remembering, aren't you?" Jefferson asked.
"I…" Grant stammered. "I don't know." He ran a hand back through his hair. "Magic and curses and spells, it…it can't be real." It didn't feel wrong, though.
"You don't sound very convinced of that," Jefferson said.
"I'm not," Grant admitted.
"Look," Jefferson said. "My head's clearing up some here, but why don't you go downstairs and make some coffee, and I'll finish up here, then we can talk some more?"
"Okay," Grant said. Jefferson still didn't look that great, but he did seem to have sobered up awfully quickly. And Grant needed some time to pull his thoughts together.
He went downstairs, set some coffee going, then picked up the pots and pans Jefferson had knocked over earlier to give himself something to do with his hands. He didn't just remember the smoke, and how Elizabeth liked her toast or that she loved to dance. There was a song, a song he could hear, that was soft and floaty and light, and Elizabeth was dancing and so was he. There was green grass everywhere and she was wearing something white, and he could feel the way her hands felt in his and hear the way she laughed.
He could see Jefferson, except he wasn't wearing designer clothes and silk scarves, but a tattered leather coat, with his hair longer and shaggier than Grant had ever seen it. There was a little girl with him, and she had his eyes, and they were happy, and Elizabeth was playing with her on the floor, and after Jefferson went to put the little girl to bed, she slid her hand around Grant's arm and leaned on his shoulder and said maybe someday they should have one of their own.
There was a bakery with wood-burning ovens instead of electric, and cobblestone streets, and a forest, big and green and alive in a way the woods here never felt. There were soldiers and merchants and magicians, and Elizabeth, always Elizabeth, except that didn't feel right, that wasn't her name, her name really was Peggy, wasn't it? And his name…
He had this vague idea that he'd been named Grant after his father, but he didn't really know where that came from. When he tried to latch on to any memory of his dad, he couldn't find one. And his mother…She was supposed to be from Ireland, but the only memories of her that would come up were of her in a little wooden house in that forest that felt so alive. He could hear her voice in all its inflections, soft, stern, sweet, worried, scolding, comforting, encouraging, proud…Steve. She always called him Steve. 'Steven', if he was in trouble. 'My Steve' when he was scared. He could hear a young Bucky shouting 'Steve!' as they played, and the softer 'Stevie' when he was feeling big brotherly. Peggy calling him 'Steve' with a fond smile, or whispering it in his ear as she cuddled against him in bed.
The clink of a coffee cup on the counter in front of him snapped him out of his reverie, and he was in the kitchen and Jeffers—no, Bucky, Bucky was in front of him with his hair wet and his eyebrows furrowed in concern.
"Why do I think my name is Grant?" he croaked. That had been his name his whole life—or so he'd thought—but now it didn't fit him anymore. He'd come here tonight to make sure his friend was okay, and instead he'd gotten his entire world turned on its head.
"That's how the curse works," Bucky said. Bucky. Of course his name was Bucky—what sort of name for him was Jefferson? "She took everything from everybody. It was bad enough that she split people up—you know there's not one family in town that has everyone in it? Couples living apart, kids with the wrong families…She tore everything apart, and then took away everyone's identity on top of that."
"Why?"
Bucky shrugged. "I don't know. She had some sort of beef with Snow White—"
"I'm sorry, Snow White? Like the fairy tale?"
Bucky huffed an unamused laugh. "Where do you think those fairy tales came from? When the curse brought us all over here, magic leaked out everywhere, and our history became just stories. Regina was Snow White's stepmother. Took the kingdom from her and took over, then Snow and the resistance took it back. Then Regina decides if she can't get what she wants, no one does." He waved hand in the direction of the living room to take in the world around them. "So we get the curse."
Steve—that was his name, his name was Steve—picked up the coffee cup Bucky had set in front of him and took a drink. "It sounds so crazy," he said. "That we all had this whole other life. But it…But if it's crazy, then why do I remember it? It has to be real." He groaned and put a hand to his head as fragments of memories continued to flicker across his mind. "I'm only getting pieces of it, though, I…"
"Well, you've been cursed for fifteen years," Bucky said. "Technically, you still are. The spell is fighting to keep you 'Grant'."
"Tell me," Steve said. "I want to remember. Tell me everything."
Bucky smiled, and suddenly fifteen years didn't seem so far-fetched after all, because Steve realized that was the first time he'd seen joy on his friend's face in fifteen years. He started talking, telling him about growing up in the woods together while their parents worked at the mill, then how Bucky studied magic and started portal-jumping, traveling to other realms with his magic hat, and how Steve started his bakery. He told him how he met his wife, Priscilla, and about having Grace and losing her mother. He told him about moving back into the woods and giving up his magic to keep his daughter safe. He told him about how Steve met Peggy, and her work in the county law office. He told him about the years they lived in the village, and the years they spent fighting with the resistance. He told him how Regina had threatened Grace to get him to use his magic hat to help her, which had ended with him trapped in Wonderland, and how he'd really gotten the scar around his neck.
Steve listened while Bucky talked, both horrified and fascinated, and though the logical part of his brain argued that he was just feeding his friend's intricate grief-filled illusion, the words rang true in his soul, in parts of him that seemed to come awake and ignite flickers of memory. It didn't feel real, not quite, but it felt right.
"And you've really been…" Steve shook his head, unable to wrap his head around the magnitude of his friend being fully aware of the curse and not being able to do a thing about it. "You've been handling this for fifteen years? And you're still sane?"
Bucky huffed a laugh. "Well, the 'sane' part is debatable. But, yeah."
"What do we do?" Steve asked. "How do we fix this?"
Bucky shook his head. "I don't know. The magic I knew was nothing compared to this. I keep trying to make a hat that works, thinking maybe we can get home, but…"
"That's why you have all those hats," Steve realized.
"Yeah. I've been trying to get one to work, but there's no magic here. So I just have a room full of top hats."
"There has to be something we can do," Steve said.
Bucky nodded. "All curses have ways to break them. You just have to find them. And since no one else here knows about magic, that's not so easy."
"Well," Steve began, pushing away from the counter. "We…" He trailed off as a wave of…something washed over him and he swayed, throwing out one hand to catch himself on the counter. "Whoa," he breathed.
Bucky was beside him in an instant. "Steve?" he asked worriedly.
"What was…" Steve started. He was suddenly having trouble keeping hold of his thoughts. He felt like he hadn't slept in a week.
"No," Bucky said. "No, no, no, Steve, don't do this!"
"'s happening?" Steve slurred.
Bucky's eyes darted up to the clock on the wall, and Steve's followed blearily. "It's midnight," Bucky whispered. "Midnight on the last day of the curse. The spell's resetting."
Steve might have been sinking toward the floor, but Bucky's arms around him were keeping him kind of upright, and even as lethargy coursed through his body, horror was screaming in his soul at the thought that he was about to forget everything. "The hell did she do to us?" he muttered.
"Steve, you've got to remember!" Bucky urged him, and Steve was on the floor now, but Bucky was holding his face in his hands and staring desperately into his eyes. "Please! Don't leave me here like this! You have to remember something! Just hang on to something, please!"
Bucky was getting blurry, and Steve's head felt like it weighed a couple thousand pounds, but he nodded as best he could. "I'll try," he said. "'m so sorry, Buck," he whispered, realizing that he was the one slipping off into a fantasy world, leaving Bucky grounded in reality all alone. "'m sorry. I'll try." Then black rolled in, black tinged with swirls of purple and flashes of lightning.
Grant came awake slowly, his head pounding like there was a guy inside it with a sledgehammer trying to break out. He blinked open groggy, heavy eyelids to soft sunlight in a room he didn't recognize. "Nnh?" he grunted incoherently, pushing himself up a couple of inches on exhausted arms before quickly returning to his horizontal position as his head and stomach vehemently protested the movement.
"Hey," a voice said softly, then there was a soothing hand resting on his back. "Take it easy."
He blinked up in the direction of the voice, and though the outline coalescing into a person was kind of blurry, Grant thought he recognized it. "Jeff?" he mumbled.
Jefferson smiled at him, though the smile didn't reach his eyes. His eyes, actually, looked like he was trying very hard not to cry. Grant wanted to be concerned about that, but his head was pounding too much to allow any further thoughts to form. "Yeah," Jefferson said softly. "I'm here." He patted his back gently. "Go on back to sleep."
"W'z'n?" Grant mumbled, even as his eyes started falling closed again.
"It's okay," Jefferson said. "Go back to sleep. I've got you, buddy."
The next time Grant woke up, he was clear-headed enough to recognize that he was in his bedroom. The pounding headache of earlier had vanished, though the nausea and general achiness persisted, if not quite as bad as before. He sat up carefully, and a muffled snore from the floor drew his eyes off the side of the bed. Jefferson was asleep in a graceless sprawl next to his bed. He was lying on top of the cushions off of Grant's couch, just like they used to do when they were kids.
"Jeff?" he asked, touched at the memory, but confused as to why his friend was asleep on his floor in the first place.
Jefferson blinked awake, then sat up quickly when he realized Grant was looking at him. "Hey!" he greeted. "Hey, you're awake! How do you feel?"
Grant considered for a moment before deciding on, "Alive." He nodded to the couch cushions. "What happened?"
"What do you remember?" Jefferson asked.
"Uh…" Grant was a little thrown off by the way Jefferson was watching him. He looked so…hopeful. "I feel like I was at your house?"
Jefferson nodded, prompting him for more. "You were. Do you remember what we talked about?"
"Plans for your garden?" Grant guessed. "I remember you saying something about growing apples." It was a little odd, but it would get him outside in the sun and give him something to focus on. After the accident six months ago, his friend could use something positive like that to work on.
That was what Grant remembered, but it had evidently been the wrong thing to say, because Jefferson's face fell as all the hope vanished from it like someone had flipped a switch.
"I'm sorry; should I not have…?" he wondered.
"It's fine," Jefferson assured him, though it didn't look like it was fine at all. "That was the gist." He looked up at him in a sad attempt at a smile. "We were up pretty late, and I think you were coming down with something and it just hit you while you were over there, and you fell asleep on my couch. I got you home, but I figured I should stay at least until you finished puking."
"Oh," Grant said. That would explain the taste in his mouth. "Thank you."
"No problem."
"No, really, thank you," he said. He knew Jefferson was the one who needed help these days, and he felt bad about making his friend have to take care of him for a while. At the same time, it was a hint of the old Jefferson, from back when they were kids, and he was glad that was still in there. "I really appreciate it."
"It's my job to take care of you, buddy," Jefferson said as he stood up, and there was something a little more real in his smile. "Lord knows you do it enough for me."
Grant smiled and nodded, knowing that his friend wasn't saying he was looking out for him only out of some sort of obligation, but because that was just what the two of them did.
Jefferson helped him up and into the bathroom, and Grant felt a little better after a shower. When he came out, Jefferson had put all the cushions back on the couch and had tea and toast waiting for him in the kitchen.
"Hey," Grant said as he ate his toast. "Are you okay?"
"Me?" Jefferson asked. "I'm not the one who spent the night throwing up."
"No, I just mean…When I woke up," Grant explained. "Did I say something wrong about the apples?"
Jefferson sighed. "No," he said. "I was just hoping…" He sighed again. "You didn't do anything wrong."
Grant's head felt clearer, but details of last night at his friend's were still kind of fuzzy. "Did I forget something that happened last night?"
Jefferson huffed a soft laugh. "Yeah," he said quietly. He held up a hand to cut Grant off before he could ask what it was. "Don't worry about it. I'll fill you in later."
He clearly didn't want to talk about it, so Grant nodded. "I'm sorry," he said, feeling like he'd hurt his friend somehow, but not sure how.
"It's really okay," Jefferson assured him, and the look in his eyes told him he meant it. "It was nothing you did." He patted him on the back. "Actually, I feel like I should be the one apologizing to you—I know you're not usually up that late. I'm guessing that's why it hit you so hard."
"This bug thing?" Grant asked, not quite sure how staying up late would make him sick faster.
"Bug, curse, whatever you want to call it," Jefferson sighed. "Yeah." He nudged the half-eaten plate of toast closer to Grant. "Finish your toast," he said. "You make me eat all my food when I'm sick."
"Yes, Mom," Grant said, and that got a laugh out of Jefferson.
After Grant finished eating and declared himself to be feeling better, Jefferson looked him over and then nodded and headed back home. Grant still felt like he was missing something, but he would have to wait for Jefferson to tell him in his own time.
He heard a knock at the downstairs door, and realized if he'd been asleep for half the day, the bakery would have been closed. There wasn't anything fresh to sell, but maybe whoever was down there would want some of the day-olds.
Grant flicked on the light at the bottom of the stairs and crossed the room to open the door, and when he saw Elizabeth standing on the steps, he suddenly wished he was wearing something nicer than his pajamas. Although, he supposed it was only fair, since he'd seen her in her pajamas too. At…some point? When had he done that?
"Hi, Elizabeth," he said, pulling the front of his robe closed. At least he could hide the t-shirt with holes in it. "Sorry I wasn't open this morning. Wasn't feeling well. If you're okay with slightly less fresh bread, though, I've got some of that."
She smiled. "I know you weren't feeling well," she said. She nodded at the door, and Grant turned to see a sign taped in the window that read, 'Under the weather. Closed today,' in Jefferson's hand writing. "I saw the sign when I came by this morning."
"Oh."
She held up the plastic bowl in her hands. "I didn't come to trouble you for bread when you were feeling ill, but I thought you might like some soup."
Grant blinked in surprise. "You made me soup?"
She nodded and held out the container. He took it from her, and it was still warm. "Chicken and rice," she said. "I know convention dictates chicken noodle, but chicken and rice is an old family remedy."
Grant smiled. "Mine too. Thank you."
"You're welcome," she said. "I am sorry you're not well," she said, laying a hand briefly on his arm and sending a shiver through his body that had nothing to do with being sick. "I hope you feel better soon."
"Thanks," he said. "I think it's just a twenty-four hour thing. I'm feeling a little better already." He nodded down at the soup. "And this smells great. It's the first thing I've wanted to eat all day."
She smiled. "Well, good. I hope it helps."
He wanted to ask why she'd gone to the trouble of doing that for him—they didn't really know each other that well, but…but they kind of did, he felt like. Maybe they hadn't known one another long, but they were friends, and friends did things like that for each other.
"Thank you," he said again.
"You're welcome," she replied, smiling fondly. "Now, you go in there and eat that, have some tea, and then straight to bed. Rest and fluids is what you need."
"Oh, is it, now?" he asked with a grin.
"Doctor's orders," she said with a cheeky smile.
"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. He took a step back inside. "I'll see you tomorrow."
"I do hope so," she said. "But only if you're better. Don't drag yourself down to the ovens before dawn on my account."
He was about to say something about if she wanted bread, he would bake the night through to get her some, but he caught himself before it came out. That was…Yeah, he shouldn't say that. "Oh, I won't," he assured her. "Germs on the bread is bad for business."
She laughed at that, told him to get well soon, then touched his arm again before she left. He stared at the spot on his arm where she touched it for a minute before closing the door.
The soup was delicious.
The Enchanted Forest
Steve dragged himself home on heavy feet, exhausted. The sky above him was gray and ominous, threatening rain, but he didn't have it in him to make himself go any faster. He made it home just as it started to fall, heavy drops stinging against his neck.
He sagged against the doorframe as he stepped inside, appreciating for possibly the first time the way the ovens in the back really warmed up the front of the shop. He hadn't realized he was this cold.
"Hello?" Peggy called, stepping in from the kitchen, and for a moment, Steve forgot how cold and tired and sore he was and just looked at her. "Steve!" she exclaimed, hurrying forward.
"Hi," he said tiredly, smiling at her.
She wrapped her arms around him, and he hugged her back, so glad to finally be home. "Good Lord, you're freezing," she said. She pulled out of the hug and took his hand, leading him back to the kitchen. "Come back here and warm up," she said.
He didn't argue.
"I thought they weren't going to let you out until this evening," she said, steering him to sit on a stool by one of the ovens and swinging the kettle back over the fire. "I was going to come and get you."
He nodded. "They were running out of room. They needed the spot, and I guess they figured I'd done close enough to my time."
Steve had just come from the same jail where Peggy had been locked up a year ago, although he'd spent three nights there instead of one. It hadn't actually been his fault—he'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time was all. He'd gone out to Bucky's cottage to help him replace one of the timbers in the ceiling. Some soldiers had shown up and arrested Bucky for being behind on his taxes, and Steve had been there, so they'd taken him too. In Bucky's case, a simple fine should have taken care of it, and Steve should have been allowed to go once it was clear he hadn't done anything, but…Simple fines had gone out the window lately, replaced with jail time 'as a warning'. They'd been separated in jail, so Steve didn't know how long Bucky had been given—he himself had gotten three nights, but he suspected Bucky got more for being the original 'criminal'. Bail was no longer available for petty crimes, so he'd had to just wait it out. They'd stopped allowing visitors too, so Peggy hadn't been allowed in, but she'd at least been notified of his whereabouts.
She nodded and handed him a cup of tea, lightly sweet with lemon, and he clutched it tightly in his hands, savoring the warmth on his chilly fingers. "You look dreadful," she said, resting a hand on his shoulder.
He nodded and huffed a soft laugh. "I kind of feel like it." The cells were being used so often these days, they weren't in as good of shape as they had been during Peggy's stay. It had been cold and damp the entire time, with water pouring in the windows when it rained, and rats that came and tried to nibble at him if he slept for more than an hour or so. "Are you okay?" he asked. "They didn't come here and give you any trouble?"
"No," she said. "Aside from worrying about you, I've been alright." She crouched down so she could look in his eyes and drew a hand down the side of his face. "Did they feed you?"
"A little," he said. He was starving, actually, but as he took a drink of his tea, he thought the liquid might be all his stomach could handle right now. "Is Grace alright?"
Grace had been at the cottage when the soldiers came, and Bucky had put up far less of a fight than Steve knew he'd wanted to in the hopes they would leave her alone. They had, though they'd made sure to properly terrify her before they left. Steve had told her to go to Peggy, and Bucky had nodded, assuring her everything would be alright.
"She's okay," Peggy told him. "Exhausted and shaking with worry by the time she got here, but she's alright. She's upstairs putting lunch together." She worked a hand under his arm. "We should get you some too. Come on. There's a fire up there as well."
Steve nodded and followed her up. The stairs were a lot of work, but he made it, stopping to lean against the door when he reached the top. He had to smile at the sight of Grace setting the table. The seven-year-old was singing to herself as she worked, a little song she'd made up about ham sandwiches. She looked up when they came in, looking happy and fearful all at once when her eyes landed on Steve.
"Uncle Steve!" she exclaimed, hurrying over to greet him. "You're back!" She hugged him warmly, and Steve smiled and patted her hair.
"It's good to see you too, Grace," he said, leaning down enough to kiss the top of her head. "I'm glad you made it here okay." He knew she knew the way from her house to the village, but it was still a long way for a little girl to go alone. He and Bucky had both been worried about her. Her eyes darted hopefully to the empty stairwell behind him, and he sighed. "I'm sorry, sweetheart; I don't know when they're going to let your dad out."
"Oh, I know," she sighed, the happiness in her voice deflating. "They said he had to stay for a week. I was just hoping they would maybe let him out with you."
"I was too," Steve said.
"I'm glad you're back, though," she assured him, hugging him again before letting him go. "You don't look very good, though. And you're all cold. Come sit over here by the fire."
"Yes, ma'am," he said with a smile, following her to the stool by the fire. Once he was situated to her satisfaction, she returned to getting lunch ready.
"A week?" Steve asked Peggy softly.
She nodded. "I got the news when they told me how long it would be for you. I suppose Bucky must have given them our address for the notification."
Steve nodded. That was smart. At least Grace would have an answer this way, even if she did have to wait longer. He sighed. "How he's supposed to make up for his taxes if he can't work for a week…"
Peggy nodded. "At least they're not keeping him in until it's all paid off," she said. "He'd never get out then." There was at least that. It wasn't so much an act of mercy as it was making sure everyone got their money, but at least it was something. "And maybe we could set something aside for him," she said, and Steve could see her flipping the pages of their ledger in her head.
He'd been thinking the same—they were barely staying above water these days, what with the increased taxes and the mortgage on the bakery, but they were at least floating. The increased taxes and the fees for permits for selling in the marketplace meant that for a while now Bucky had been very close to drowning.
Peggy refilled his tea and Grace brought him a sandwich on a plate that he propped on his knees and tried to eat in front of the fire. As tight as money was, he felt awful wasting it, but he couldn't get down more than a few bites. Peggy noticed before she started eating, and packed the makings of her own sandwich away.
"If you can't finish that, I'll eat it," she said. He smiled gratefully and handed her the plate. "We'll let you rest, and then maybe we'll try some soup for tonight," she added. "You do need to eat something."
He nodded, not having the energy for much else.
By the time he'd finished his tea, his eyelids were starting to droop, longing visions of the bed in the next room dancing through his mind. After three days of damp and mud and mildew and rats, however, he felt disgusting, and was contemplating just curling up on the floor in front of the fire instead and falling asleep. Peggy, however, after sending Grace downstairs to mind the store, pulled out the tub and set to filling it, then helped him undress and coaxed him down into the warm water.
"For the first time ever, you actually look worse with your clothes off," Peggy told him, and he could hear the pain in her voice behind the teasing tone she was trying to put on. She rested a hand on his back. "Does it hurt awfully?"
Most of his left side was a greenish-yellow bruise from being shoved into the wall of his cell upon his arrival. There were plentiful smaller bruises from trying to sleep on the stone floor, as well as patches of itchy redness where the fleas had gotten him. "It's more a full-body ache than anything particularly painful," he said.
She nodded and picked up a cloth, gently working soap across his back and his chest and his arms and legs, washing away the dirt and the memories of the cell. She hummed softly, knowing he wasn't up to much conversation, and Steve recognized the tune from one of her music boxes. He nearly fell asleep while she worked her soapy fingers through his hair, but settled for leaning forward onto his knees and closing his eyes.
"I could jus' sleep here, y'know," he mumbled as she poured warm water over his head to rinse the soap off. Her fingers slowly massaging his scalp were amazing.
She chuckled softly. "As amusing a picture as that would be," she said. "Don't you think you'd get cold? Besides," she added, wrapping a towel over him and coaxing him upright. "It might scandalize poor little Grace to find her Uncle Steve naked in the dining room."
"Point," he agreed. "She okay down there by herself?" he asked.
Peggy nodded, toweling him off and helping him into something dry. "She's been helping me down there ever since she got here. Having something to do keeps her from worrying as much. And there's plenty for her to do that doesn't involve the ovens."
In the bedroom, she helped him into bed, tucking the blankets in securely around him. For a moment she just sat beside him, running her fingers through his hair.
"You okay?" he asked softly.
She nodded. "It's been helpful, having Grace here," she said. "Selfish as that sounds. It gave me someone to put on a brave face for. But I was terribly worried about you." She drew a hand gently down his cheek. "I'm glad you're back."
He smiled up at her. "I'm sorry you had to worry."
She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "Well, you had to worry about me last year, so I suppose it's only fair. Now that we've each done it once, how about we never do it again? It's dreadful."
"Deal," he said. He pulled her hand over from where it was stroking his cheek and kissed it. "I'm sorry you had to take care of the bakery on top of worrying and everything else. I'll be back on my feet to help you run it tomorrow." He knew that she could handle it—she'd had trouble finding work in the last year, so she'd been working with him, but it was a lot for one person.
"No, you won't," she said. "You are going to rest until you no longer look like death warmed over."
"I—"
"Darling, you've been working yourself to the bone lately. You would have fallen ill even if you hadn't spent three nights in a damp little hole. The jail cell just sped the process along a bit. You need to take some time to heal. I can manage on my own until you do."
He opened his mouth and she reached down and placed her hand over it.
"If you won't do it to take care of yourself, do it to take care of the bakery. Think how bad it will be for business if you go down there tomorrow and spread your germs all over the bread."
Steve narrowed his eyes in annoyance. "I was going to say 'okay' the first time," he said. He yawned.
"Oh." She blushed slightly, but she smiled. "Well, how was I to know that? You do like to argue."
"You have a terrible bedside manner," he told her.
"Have I?" she asked. She leaned down and kissed him warmly on the cheek, then started carding her fingers through his hair, drawing them in slow spirals across his scalp.
Whatever Steve had been about to say was lost in a sleepy hum of contentment. "Maybe y're not so bad," he mumbled, eyes sinking shut.
She laughed softly, keeping up her stroking of his hair. "I'm so glad you're home, darling," she whispered. "I love you."
"I love you too," he replied.
"Get some rest."
After three nights of failing to sleep on a hard, cold stone floor, Steve fell asleep almost immediately. He woke later in a cloud of fuzzy contentment. He still ached all over, and his stomach and head were still protesting their general existence, but he found he didn't mind all that much, tucked up warm and dry and soft under his piles of blankets. Belatedly, he realized that what had woken him was a hand resting on his shoulder, and he turned enough to see Peggy sitting in a chair beside the bed.
"Hi," he croaked.
"Hello," she said with a smile. "Did you sleep well?"
"Mm," he agreed. His eyes were closing again. "Gonna get back to that."
"No," she said, tapping him again on the shoulder. When he didn't open his eyes fast enough, she poked him gently in the shoulder.
"Hey," he complained, squinting at her unhappily.
"You need to eat," she said, holding up a bowl of soup. "Then you can go back to sleep."
He sighed, but shifted into an upright position. "I was comfortable."
"I'm sorry, darling," she said, smiling, but not particularly remorseful. "Do you want bread with the soup?"
He took the bowl and inhaled tentatively. The smell didn't turn his stomach, which was a good sign. "Maybe?" he said. "Let me try just some soup first." It was chicken and rice—his mother had always made it for him when he was sick, and he and Peggy had taken to making it for one another when either of them were under the weather.
He took a bite, and his stomach squirmed in protest, but not so much that he was worried about the broth making a second appearance. After a few more careful bites, the nausea settled enough that he thought he could manage the soup, but the bread might need to wait until tomorrow.
"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?" he asked.
Peggy filled him in on the comings and goings of their regular customers while he ate. It was all business as usual, which was comforting. There was comfort in the little routines.
Peggy managed to force some tea on him after he finished the soup, but keeping his eyes open any longer was proving difficult, and he fell asleep again. He woke partially later on as she slid under the covers beside him, waking up just enough to kiss her cheek as she snuggled up against him. She was nice and warm.
He woke later to a much smaller hand tapping his shoulder and saw Grace standing beside the bed with a plate of buttered toast. "Hi, Uncle Steve," she said softly, as though she needed to be quiet until he was fully awake. "Aunt Peggy is working on the oven downstairs, so she asked me to bring you breakfast." She held out the plate with a hopeful smile, and Steve smiled back and sat up enough to take it.
"Thank you," he said, taking an experimental bite of the toast. He was a little hungrier today, and if he ate slowly, this ought to be alright.
"Do you feel better today?" she asked.
"A little bit," he said. She nodded, sitting down thoughtfully on the stool by the bed. "Something on your mind?" he asked, when she had sat for a couple of minutes in thoughtful silence.
"Yeah," she said. She sighed. "What's it like in jail?" she wondered. "I always thought they just locked you in a room, but then you came back all sick and looking kind of beat up. Are they mean to you there?"
Steve sighed, and took a large bite of his toast while he contemplated his answer. He knew she was concerned about him, but he could also tell where the question was going. A part of him wanted to lie, knowing she was worried enough about Bucky as it was, but he knew she trusted him, and he didn't want to break that.
"They can be," he said at last. "Sometimes the guards there lock you up and leave you alone, but sometimes there's a guard that feels like being a bully and giving you a hard time."
"And you got one of the mean ones?"
"When I first got there," he said, thinking of the force with which he'd collided with the wall. "But the reason I'm sick is because my cell was wet and cold and I didn't sleep very well."
She nodded. "I'm sorry," she said, reaching over and squeezing his hand.
He smiled in thanks, and they were quiet for a few more minutes while he ate his toast.
"My papa's probably going to be sick when they let him go too, isn't he?" she asked. "If the cells are like that."
"Probably," Steve agreed sadly. Worried furrows crossed her little brow. "What's the matter?" Steve asked gently.
She sniffed softly. "I'm just…" She sniffed again. "I'm worried for my papa. He's going to be sick, and, and maybe hurt, and the doctor is so expensive, and…" She sniffled again.
"Hey," Steve said softly. He reached over and put a hand on her arm. "It's okay. Come here." He patted the mattress beside him, and she got up and snuggled against his side. "It's okay," he said again, looping an arm around her. She sniffled into his shirt. "Whatever happens, it'll be alright. Me and your Aunt Peggy are going to take care of you, and when they let your dad out, we'll take care of him too." He rubbed a hand up and down her arm. "And if he needs to go to the doctor, then we'll figure that out too."
She blinked watery eyes up at him then, and he smiled warmly.
"We're a family, the four of us," he told her. "And that means we do whatever we have to to take care of each other. And that we're happy to do it," he added, kissing the top of her head.
"Thanks, Uncle Steve," she said with a small smile. Her smile fell away and she sniffled again. "I'm still worried about my papa, though," she whispered.
Steve sighed and hugged her a little tighter. "Me too, kiddo. Me too."
Steve spent most of the rest of the day sleeping, though his appetite was returning. He felt well enough to sit up and stay awake the next day, though both he and Peggy thought he should stay away from the food in the bakery for a little longer. He stayed upstairs and napped and played a card game with Grace and told her a story about when he and Bucky had been kids and built forts out of the sacks of flour at the mill.
By the end of the week, he was on his feet again, and he left Peggy and Grace to mind the bakery while he went down to the jail to see about Bucky. He and Peggy had talked it over the night before, and thought that Bucky might get let out earlier in the day, like Steve had, and that maybe Steve should be there to meet him without Grace, just in case he needed a little cleaning up before she saw him and got even more worried. On his way to the jail, Steve went by the tax office and paid Bucky's debt, which was awfully high for someone with such a small income. It was little wonder he had trouble paying it—the amount expected of him was nearly as much as Steve and Peggy had to pay on the bakery. Steve shook his head angrily as he left. If Regina kept taxing her subjects out of house and home, she wasn't going to have anyone left to rule over before too long.
The guards at the jail smirked when they saw Steve again, but, like when he'd come to get Peggy, he just smiled calmly and didn't say anything and imagined himself punching the smug look off their faces while he waited. Bucky came out a couple of hours later, and he looked pretty terrible, but he smiled in relief at the sight of Steve.
"Is Grace okay?" he asked, as soon as they were out of the building.
"She's fine," Steve assured her. "She's at home with Peggy. What about you? Are you okay?"
Bucky nodded. "I'm fine."
Steve arched an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Okay, fine, I feel like crap," Bucky admitted. "But I can sleep it off. Grace and I can go home, and I'll just—"
"You're going to stay with us until you feel better," Steve said.
"No, Steve, I—"
"Buck, if you try walking home, you'll collapse before you're halfway there," Steve pointed out. He wondered if Bucky was unaware of the fact that he was currently leaning on Steve while they walked. "Think about how Grace would feel if that happened," he added, not afraid to pull out the big guns in the face of his friend's pride.
"Oh, that's just playing dirty," Bucky sighed. "But, yeah, you're right." He smiled up at him, a little embarrassed. "Thank you."
His big-brother instinct kicked in as they walked, and he made Steve tell him about his stay in jail and how he'd been. He apologized profusely for getting Steve caught up in this, and Steve assured him it was all on the Queen and her thugs and not his fault at all.
Back in the bakery, Grace squealed excitedly and flung herself into her father's arms when they came in the door. Bucky smiled in relief as he folded her into his arms and kissed her, but Steve saw the flash of pain across his face as she collided with him. After several minutes of hugging, Steve convinced her to let go so he could take Bucky upstairs to get a bath, promising to alert her the minute he was done.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked as he filled the tub with hot water.
Bucky sighed heavily. "They roughed me up pretty good," he said. He peeled off his shirt, and Steve's eyes went wide at the sight of the bruises and cuts marring his torso. Across his stomach—right where Grace had run into him—was a large, dark purple bruise that stretched across nearly his entire abdomen.
"That's more than roughing you up," Steve said. "How old is that?" he asked, pointing at the large bruise on his stomach.
Bucky was quiet for a minute. "Old enough that it shouldn't be this dark," he admitted.
Steve stepped forward and prodded it gently. It was swollen and tender, and Bucky winced at the slightest pressure. "I think you need a doctor," he said.
"I know," Bucky said grimly.
"I'm going to go find one," Steve said. "You stay here and get cleaned up, and I'll be back."
"Thanks," Bucky said quietly. "I'm sorry. I can't pay you back for this now, but I will, I—"
"No, you won't," Steve said, sternly, but not unkindly. He held up a hand as Bucky opened his mouth again. "You wouldn't expect me to pay it back if it was the other way around."
Bucky stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you."
Steve hurried out the back—no need for Grace to know about the doctor and worry even more until they had an actual report to give. Bucky was clean and looking a little better when they got back. The examination revealed a little bit of internal bleeding—if it had been more to center, it would have been much more dangerous, but it was mostly around the muscles in his side and had already started healing itself. The doctor left them with some witch hazel and other herbs to speed the healing along, as well as instructions for how often to apply cold cloths and pressure to it. He also left them some yarrow for the fever Bucky was running, shaking his head sadly as he left.
"He'll be fine," he assured Steve at the door, accepting the few coins and the loaves of bread Steve gave him. He sighed. "Most of my business comes from the jail these days. And not everyone is so lucky as your friend, there. It's a sad state of things, these days. A sad state." He shook his head again and left.
Bucky slept for most of the afternoon, Grace curled up against his uninjured side. Steve had tried getting him to take the bed, but he'd refused, saying the couch was more than comfortable enough, especially after a week on a stone floor. He'd then promptly fallen asleep before Steve could force him to move.
Later that night, Steve and Peggy stayed up late talking quietly at the table by the light of the fire. "They could have killed him, Peggy," Steve said bitterly. The doctor's words about how dangerous the injury could have been were playing on a loop in his head.
"There certainly seems to be an increase in brutality these days," Peggy agreed. "I suppose they know they've got a free hand. Eleanor was telling me just this afternoon when she came in about her son. He was playing in the street with his friends, and their ball bounced into a mud puddle and splashed mud all over a passing soldier, so he caught the boy by his shirt collar and boxed his ears." She scowled darkly. "He's ten."
Steve shook his head, anger churning in his stomach that was showing up more and more often since the day Peggy had been thrown in jail. "It's not right, Peggy," he said. "The Queen and her soldiers, they're all just bullies, using the fact that the law is on their side to throw their weight around."
"The law isn't even on their side," Peggy said. "It's illegal to beat the prisoners in jail, or people on the street. The taxes aren't allowed to be going up as often or as severely as they do, and there are supposed to be alternatives when the taxes do come to a point where someone is about to lose their home or business." There were several shops up and down the street that had been boarded up as their neighbors' finances had crumbled. "They're not even pretending to follow the law anymore."
Steve looked at her. "You mentioned something once about joining the resistance," he said. "Did you mean that?"
"I don't know how seriously I was talking then, but I'm taking it very seriously now," she said.
"I think we should do it," he said. "This can't keep happening."
"No, it can't," Peggy agreed. She smiled at him and reached across the table and took his hand. "Are we really going to do this?"
"It's the right thing to do," Steve said, squeezing her hand and smiling back.
"It could be dangerous," Peggy said, arching an eyebrow.
"It already is," Steve pointed out.
She grinned. "Well, then, shall we carry on stubbornly standing up to injustice together?"
Steve grinned back, feeling the anger in his gut settle at the realization that they were going to do something about it, but before he could reply, a voice from across the room said, "Seriously, if you're going to keep going this way, could you take it to the bedroom?" They both looked over to the couch, where Bucky was sitting up a little bit. He nodded down at Grace, who was still asleep by his side. "There are children present."
Steve chuckled. "Sorry we woke you up."
"No, that would be the throbbing pain in my side, not you," Bucky replied. "So, the resistance, huh?" He sniffed thoughtfully. "Count me in."
"Really?" Peggy asked.
"Well, I mean, once I can walk around without falling over again and everything, yeah," Bucky said. "Like Steve said, it's the right thing to do."
"It's dangerous too, though," Steve pointed out. He nodded to Grace. "I mean…" Steve and Peggy, though it was dangerous, were at least going into this together. Bucky had more to lose.
"I know," Bucky said, looking down at his daughter and running his hand over her hair. "That's the other reason I'm in. She shouldn't have to grow up like this. She deserves better."
Steve smiled and nodded, then looked back at Peggy and squeezed her hand. "Okay," he said. "Let's do this."
2004
Grant came out of the back room in the bakery to find Elizabeth wiping down the table in the corner by the window. "You don't have to do that, you know," he told her, picking up the empty coffee cups. "It's my store."
"Yes, but it was my meeting," she replied, finishing her tidying up. "My mother did not raise an ungrateful house guest."
Grant chuckled. "Well, that's very nice of you. Did I miss anything important at the end?"
"You were voted to do the designs for the posters," she said. "I know we didn't technically ask you, but…"
"I am the only artist in the group," Grant finished for her with a smile. "And I seem to recall volunteering when I talked to you yesterday."
She smiled. "That was why I nominated you."
Tired of fighting with Mayor Mills in court on what seemed like every decision that came across city legislation, Elizabeth had decided to run for mayor herself in the elections this fall. She'd talked it over at great length with Grant, and he'd thought it was a great idea—he'd been planning to vote for someone else in the next election anyway, and Elizabeth would be great. She never seemed to get tired of standing up for the right thing. Her friends Angie, Rose, and Edwin were helping her plan things—Angie helped her with her speeches, Rose was a whiz researcher, and Edwin ran things behind the scenes, scheduling appointments, gathering information and supplies, and just generally pulling whatever they needed out of his hat. Grant had offered his bakery as a place for them all to meet, and somehow or other had ended up as her campaign manager. He still wasn't sure how that had happened, but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't nice getting to work so closely with her.
"The only question," she went on thoughtfully. "Will be gathering the funding for printing the posters. I rather imagine Mr. Glass will not be extending me his usual discount for city employees for this venture."
"You're probably right," Grant agreed. It was an open secret in Storybrooke that Sidney Glass, head editor of the newspaper and owner of the print shop, was thoroughly and completely at Mayor Mills' beck and call. Grant didn't imagine her taking too kindly to a potential usurper.
"I can cover it," Jefferson offered from his seat in the corner.
Grant and Elizabeth looked at him in surprise. "Really?" Grant asked. It had been a little over a year since the accident where he'd lost his daughter, and he'd been floating along in a sort of numb apathy. Grant had been dragging him to the meetings mostly just to get him out of the house. (Well, that and to make sure he was eating.) He'd been at all the meetings so far, but Grant didn't think he'd actually said anything at one yet.
"Sure," Jefferson replied, shrugging one shoulder. A small smile curled up one corner of his mouth. "I haven't actually contributed yet."
Elizabeth smiled. "Thank you. That's very generous of you."
"Happy to help," he said, and he sounded like he meant it.
Elizabeth gathered up the rest of her things and left, thanking Grant again for his help. Grant promised to have some sketches done up by next week, and she smiled and waved as she left.
"So, are you ever gonna do anything with her?" Jefferson asked after the door had closed behind her.
Grant sighed. "Jeff, we've been over this. She's engaged."
"Yeah. To a guy who's about as interesting as a dry-erase board. She sees him once a week, and he's not helping her with this campaign. There was more spark in the way she touched your arm just now than they have in their whole relationship."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. If there was anything there, he'd be the one doing late nights at her apartment drinking tea and running numbers and ideas and thinking how beautiful her hair looks in the lamp light."
Grant blinked in surprise, and Jefferson smirked. "Okay, yes, I've been spending a lot of time over at her place trying to help her, but that's only because we both work all day." He stared at him suspiciously. "How did you know the thing about her hair?"
"Because you've always liked her hair. I know everything."
"Sure." Grant sighed. "That's pretty terrible, though, isn't it? Because I do like her, and I like her a lot. But she's with somebody else. Why can't I let it go?"
"It's not terrible," Jefferson replied. "You can't help having feelings, but you're not doing anything with them. You're being a disgustingly perfect gentleman about it."
Grant huffed a laugh, though his cheeks reddened. "You know I'm not just helping her with this because I like her, right?" Sure, if she wasn't in a relationship, then he would be very interested in pursuing something with her. But he liked her as a friend, too, and he wasn't trying to use this campaign to worm his way into something more.
"I know," Jefferson said. He smiled fondly. "You're a good guy. Believe me, nobody is thinking that's what you're doing."
Grant nodded. "Oh, hey, thanks, by the way, for helping out with the posters. That's really nice of you."
Jefferson shrugged again. "Well, you keep dragging me to these things; I figure I should actually do something."
"You know you don't have to if—"
"I know. I want to." He sighed. "I don't think it's going to do any good, but I want to help. If anybody has a chance of beating Regina, it's Elizabeth."
"Why do you think it won't do any good?" Grant asked.
"Because it never does. No one ever beats Regina."
Grant frowned, puzzled. "This is her first term in office. No one's run against her yet."
Jefferson laughed, a long burst of genuinely amused laughter. "Well," he said, still chuckling. "You're not wrong. I guess twenty-one years without an election does still make it your first term."
Grant sighed. "Jeff…"
"There's not going to be an election," Jefferson said. "There's never been one, and there won't be one in October."
"Why not?"
"Because everything's going to reset in June, and everyone will forget this whole thing ever happened."
Grant sighed again. Since the accident, his friend didn't always have the strongest grip on reality. He had this theory about time repeating itself in some sort of magical-forest-fantasy-slash-Groundhog-Day-scenario, but trying to correct him on it typically led to a breakdown and some yelling and usually Jefferson wandering off and drinking until he passed out.
"If that's the case, why do you want to help, then?" Grant asked curiously. He didn't want to feed into his friend's delusions, but he was curious.
Jefferson shrugged again. "Because I'm hoping someone will remember something. I've seen it, you know. After twenty-one years, I've seen some little things start to stick, just here and there. We keep at this long enough, we might get somewhere. And I meant it when I said I believed in Elizabeth." He sighed. "And if nothing else, I'm down with sticking it to Regina. May as well do something with my time, and I can say with absolute certainty that I've never hated anyone more."
Grant nodded. He'd always known that his friend's animosity for the mayor ran deep, though now that he thought about it, he couldn't put his finger on why. He looked at his friend thoughtfully, and for a moment, he was replaced by a weeping little girl with dark hair and Jefferson's eyes.
Grant blinked and shook his head, and Jefferson was staring at him curiously. "You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah," Grant said, shaking his head one more time. That had been weird. "You want to come upstairs and have dinner? We could watch Stargate after—there's a new one on tonight."
"Sure. Why not?" Jefferson said. "I finished your crossword puzzle for you, by the way," he added, picking up the newspaper from the table. "Seventeen across should be 'hazel', not 'amber'." He got up to follow Grant up the stairs. Grant's mind was only half on the show, though. He couldn't shake the image of that little girl from his head. He'd never seen her before, but he felt like he knew her, and he didn't know what her connection was to Jefferson.
He managed to forget about the incident over the next couple of days. He was busy with his sketches for Elizabeth's posters, and the bakery was keeping busy. There were also several late evenings at Elizabeth's apartment working on her platform. They both agreed that it should focus on reform and renewal, but it needed to be more specific than that. They didn't want to focus just on what Mayor Mills was doing wrong that Elizabeth would do right. That seemed like a low sort of move, and besides, people would be more attracted to a positive message. (Elizabeth's friend, Angie, had been very disappointed to hear that, having evidently relished the chance to smear Regina in public. Grant also got the impression she wouldn't have objected to simply walking up to the mayor and punching her in the mouth.)
"Sorry, just a moment," Elizabeth said as the phone rang. "Yes? Oh, yes, hello, Fred. What? No, I told you I wouldn't be able to make it tonight." She lowered her voice. "We've discussed this."
Grant wondered for a moment what he should do—she clearly could use some privacy, but the cord of the phone didn't stretch far enough for her to go to another room. He could leave, of course, but that might make it weirder, so he settled for picking up the tea cups and moving into the kitchen. He tried to make a lot of noise setting new water on and filling the cups back up, but it was a small apartment and he couldn't help hearing snatches of the rest of the conversation.
"Yes, I know, but this is important to me," Elizabeth huffed. She listened for a moment. "I'm not asking you to run my campaign or anything, but it wouldn't kill you to show some support." She listened for a little longer, and when her voice came back, it was calm in a way that was kind of scary. "How dare you?" she hissed. "To suggest that I would—" She drew in a breath. "I'm glad to hear you think so little of me. Good night."
She slammed the phone down, and Grant waited for a couple of minutes before taking the tea back out. She was standing with her arms folded, staring at the wall. "I should probably go," Grant said, setting the tray with the tea cups down on the table.
"Please, don't," she said, turning to look at him. "I should very much like the company of someone sensible right now." She smiled a little. "Please stay."
"Okay," he said. He smiled as he sat back down. "I'll have to remember to tell Jefferson you called me sensible. He tends to argue that I'm not."
She laughed a little at that and sat back down, picking up her tea cup. "That sounds like a terribly older-brother thing to say." She took a sip of her tea. "I'm sorry you had to hear all that," she said, nodding at her phone.
Grant waved away the apology. "Don't worry about it. Is, ah, is everything okay?"
"Things have been a bit difficult between Fred and I lately," she sighed. "He doesn't really approve of my political goals. And it's taking time away from our relationship."
Grant nodded, very unsure of what he should say. Fortunately, it seemed like he didn't need to say anything, just listen.
"I do feel badly about that," she went on. "I don't mean to neglect him. And his reasons for not wanting me to run for mayor are a bit old fashioned, but I know he means well. And he does support me in it, I just wish he would be a bit more…well, a bit more explicit about it." She sighed. "It's just, well, it's a stressful time. It will blow over soon, I expect."
"I'm sorry," he said. "Relationships are tough."
She smiled and nodded in agreement. "Never quite what one imagines as a child thinking about the future, is it?"
Grant chuckled. "No. I think eight-year-old me would be disappointed I'm still single."
Elizabeth smiled. "My younger self would be very put out that I've ended up with someone who can't cook." She smiled, her eyes dancing with memories. "I was never particularly conventional—playing house and all that—but I did often imagine myself meeting someone I could go on adventures with. Slaying dragons and such, you know?"
Grant smiled. "Yeah. Someone fighting your battles with you. The two of you against the world." His smile softened. "And on a smaller scale, I always wanted someone I could dance with." He blushed a little as Elizabeth looked at him curiously. "I don't know how—Jeff used to like to tease me about how awful I am—but I always thought it would be nice."
"That sounds lovely," Elizabeth agreed. She looked down at the papers spread across her coffee table. "I think I've finished with this for the night. I can't manage something this complex right now." She leaned back in her chair with her teacup and grabbed a cookie up off the plate. "Let's talk about something else. What made you decide to become a baker?"
They talked for a while, sharing stories about their childhoods. Grant couldn't shake the feeling that there was something familiar about it—that he'd heard these stories before, some sort of half-forgotten dreams.
Occasionally, Elizabeth would pick up a trinket from one of her shelves to illustrate her story. Several of them involved her music boxes, of which there were many. "Okay, I have to ask," Grant said. He pointed to one sitting on the top shelf, one he remembered her saying before was sentimental. It was incredibly ugly, covered with seashells glued on in a haphazard, tacky pattern. "What's the story behind this one?"
Elizabeth stood up and pulled it off the shelf, then put it on the coffee table as she sat again. "I've had it for a long time," she said. "Longer than I can remember, to be honest." She frowned thoughtfully at it. "To be honest, I…I don't remember where it came from. It was a gift, I know that much. A gift from someone…someone I loved very much." She sighed. "I suppose it sounds daft to say I can't remember who that person is, but…"
"No," Grant said, and it didn't. He often found that he came up with blank spots when he tried too hard to think about the distant past. Maybe that just happened when you got older.
"Just having it nearby, it, it makes me happy," she went on. "And when I listen to it, I feel…It's hard to say what I feel, only that when everything seems to be going wrong, it's a bit more right when I listen to the song." She paused. "I've been listening to it a lot lately."
"What's it sound like?" he wondered.
In response, she reached down and opened it and twisted the little dial on the back. A sweet, beautiful tune began to play, and for some reason Grant couldn't explain, it suddenly took everything he had not to cry. She was right, though. He didn't know why listening to it hurt so much, but it made something feel right, too. He closed his eyes and listened, and he felt like he almost saw something, something with a crackling fire, worn wood beneath his bare feet, falling night, and soft hands in his and someone's heart beating against his chest.
"Wow," he whispered when the song ended. He looked up at her, and her hazel eyes were sparkling amber in the lamplight. "That's a great song."
"It is, isn't it?" she agreed, smiling at him softly.
Over the next couple of weeks, Grant thought about that song a lot. He caught himself humming it every now and then, and he realized once he was doing it behind the counter of the bakery and Jefferson was sitting in the corner with a cup of coffee grinning at him, though he didn't say anything.
The campaign seemed to be going well too. They'd gotten a design together for the posters and when Jefferson picked them up at the print shop, they looked great. Elizabeth had nailed down what she thought her key platform should be, and Angie had written up a couple of great versions of a speech. Edwin had gleefully gone around town and put the posters up, and when Grant went by Granny's diner, everyone seemed to be talking about Elizabeth's candidacy excitedly.
A week later, Grant came home from the market on his lunch break to find Mayor Mills and Sheriff Humbert waiting on his doorstep. "Mayor Mills," he greeted. "Sheriff." He shifted his groceries to one hand so he could shake theirs.
"Mr. Rogers," the mayor greeted. She was smiling in a way that made Grant very uncomfortable. "Can we speak to you inside? There's something I'd like to discuss."
"Um, sure," he said, digging for his keys and feeling a little nervous. He didn't think he'd ever actually spoken with the mayor, and the presence of the sheriff seemed a little confrontational.
He let them in and turned on the lights. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
"I've come to speak to you about a legal matter," she said. She nodded at the sheriff, and he stepped forward and handed Grant an envelope. "Am I correct in understanding that this is where Miss Carter has been holding her campaign planning meetings?"
"Yes," Grant said slowly. There was nothing wrong with that, but the mayor's uncomfortable smile grew wider.
"And am I also correct in understanding that you don't have a permit to conduct political matters in your place of business?" she asked.
"What?" Grant replied. That was the first he'd heard of such a thing.
"That would be a 'no', then," she said with a smile. "I'm afraid what you've been doing is illegal," she said. "And seeing as it's been going on for so long, that has had an impact on the fine."
"The fine?" he repeated. She nodded at the envelope and he looked down and opened it. He read it over, and for a moment, forgot how to breathe. "I…" he breathed. He looked back up at the mayor. "Are you sure this is right? I've never heard of this law before."
The sympathetic smile she gave him was anything but. "It's hardly the city's fault if you don't know what the rules are," she said.
Grant looked back down at the letter, then up at her again. "I can't pay this," he said. It was almost as much as he had left to pay on the mortgage on the bakery.
"Then I'm afraid you'll have to come with me," the sheriff said, speaking for the first time.
Grant gaped. "I'm…You're arresting me?"
"I'm afraid so." The sheriff did look a little apologetic about it, but that didn't do much to help.
He got permission to go in the back and turn off the ovens so the place didn't burn down while he was gone, but then he was being handcuffed and walked down to the police car parked out front. It was a quick ride down to the sheriff's office and the jail, where he found himself being deposited into one of the two cells.
"Graham," Grant said, looking across at the sheriff. "Please, this has…this has got to be some kind of mistake."
The sheriff sighed. "I'm afraid it's not. The law's there on the books. It's an honest mistake to make, and I'll be the first to agree the fine's a little steep. We'll find you a lawyer, and I'm sure they can get it down. Do you have a lawyer in mind?"
Grant sighed. "Elizabeth, I guess." She was clearly not in the mayor's good books right now, but she was a great lawyer.
The sheriff nodded. "I'll give her a call." He walked out.
Grant sighed and dropped down onto the bed. What the hell had just happened?
Elizabeth arrived half an hour later, and she seemed just as perplexed as Grant about the law. "It's ridiculous," she said. "I've never seen this law. And the law is my job." She frowned. "Why did they come after you anyway? I'm the one organizing the meetings."
Grant sighed. "According to the letter, you're allowed to organize the meetings, but business owners aren't allowed to host political events without permits." He nodded in the direction of the door. "The letter's with my other stuff. I don't know where the sheriff put it, but maybe he'll let you take it."
She nodded. "I'll go and sort this." She reached through the bars and squeezed his hand. "I'm terribly sorry for getting you into this. But it will be alright. I'll fix it."
He smiled. "I know you will. I've got the best lawyer in town."
She smiled back, then turned and left, a business-like click of her heels on the floor as she walked.
It was nearly dark by the time anyone came back. The sheriff came and unlocked the cell and told him he could go, saying his fine had been taken care of. He gave him back his keys and wallet and waved him out the door with another apology. To Grant's surprise, it wasn't Elizabeth waiting for him outside, but Jefferson.
"Jeff?" he asked in surprise.
"Hey, man," Jefferson said, getting up off the bench he'd been waiting on. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," Grant replied. "What are you doing here?"
"Thought you might need a ride," he said, gesturing to his car. "And I brought you this." He handed Grant a piece of paper stating that he was permitted to host a political gathering of no more than seven participants no more than once a week. "Figured you were going to need that," he said when Grant looked back up at him. He handed him another piece of paper. "Also brought you that."
"You…you paid my fine?" Grant asked, looking down at the receipt in his hand.
Jefferson nodded.
"Did Elizabeth get it reduced?"
Jefferson shook his head.
"Jeff," Grant began, swallowing hard. "Jeff, that was a lot of money."
"I know," Jefferson replied. He shrugged. "I've got a lot of it. It's fine."
"Jeff—"
"Grant," Jefferson cut him off. "Listen. You needed help. I helped you. That's how we work, you and me. It's not a problem; I'm happy to do it; and if you try to pay me back, I'll punch you."
Grant smiled in spite of himself at that. "Thank you," he said softly.
Jefferson clapped him on the shoulder. "You're welcome." He grinned. "You should have seen the mayor's face. Elizabeth was raking her over the coals—which, by the way, remind me to never argue with that woman—but she wasn't budging, just going on about how the law was the law and exceptions couldn't be made, because where was the justice in that? On and on, and you could tell she was enjoying every minute of it."
"Why?" Grant wondered. "I mean, I get that she may not be happy to have competition in the election, but—"
"Oh, she hates you," Jefferson said. "You and Elizabeth. This was a way to dig at you both. So, yeah, she was enjoying it. But not as much as I enjoyed the look on her face when I walked in and handed her the receipt showing I'd paid for it all. The letter of the law said you had to have a permit and pay the fine, so she couldn't argue with it, even though I could tell she wanted this to go on for a while. It was beautiful."
Grant wasn't sure what to say to that—it seemed bizarre that the mayor would hate him, but what happened today sure seemed to point that way. He certainly cared much less for her than he did this morning. "Thank you," he said again, and Jefferson nodded and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Least I could do," Jefferson told him. "Come on; I'll take you home. I thought about making you dinner, but I think we'd both be happier with Chinese takeout, which should be getting there about the same time we do."
They went back to the bakery and ate, and Jefferson listened as Grant tried to process what the hell had just happened with his day. Elizabeth came over the next morning to check in with him.
"I'm so sorry about yesterday," she said. "I know you were counting on me to help get you out of there, and then you ended up having to pay the whole fine anyway."
"It's okay," Grant assured her.
"I just don't understand it," she said. "There was no legal reason for her to hold so firmly to not bringing the fine down. It was almost as if she was saying no just for the hell of it; like she was enjoying the whole thing."
"According to Jefferson, she was," Grant said. "He was telling me that she hates us."
"It certainly felt that way," she agreed. "Though I can't see what she'd have against you. I'm the one running against her."
"I don't know," Grant sighed. "Jeff got a little…" He knew Elizabeth knew Jefferson had been struggling lately, but knowing someone was having trouble and knowing they believed in a magical time curse were two different things. "He wasn't clear on why he thought she hated me, but I was definitely picking up that vibe from her."
"It's bizarre," Elizabeth said. "And it's so…petty and vindictive."
"Great campaign slogan for a mayor," Grant chuckled.
Elizabeth laughed, then reached over the counter and rested her hand on his arm. "I really am sorry. I understand if you want to pull out of this. And I'm sure we can cobble up some money to help you with the fine."
"Don't worry about it," Grant said. "Jeff covered the fine, and then he threatened to punch me if I tried to pay him back, so…"
Elizabeth smiled. "He's a good friend."
Grant nodded. "He is. And so are you. I'm not going anywhere."
The way she smiled at him then made him forget where he was for a minute, and he cursed inwardly as the little bell over the door rang.
"Oh, good, you're both here!" Rose said. She smacked her ever-present pile of research folders down onto the counter. "So, listen, you know how we were all confused about that political permit thing?"
Grant and Elizabeth nodded.
"And we both know Lizzy is the best lawyer this town has, so, if she doesn't know about a law, that says something is super-sketch to me, so I did some digging." She rifled through her folders for a minute and pulled out a piece of paper. "That law is on the books, so, technically, you were in violation of it, but! Look at this," she went on, tapping something in the middle of the paper. "Look at when that law went into effect."
"Two days ago?!" Elizabeth said.
"Yep," Rose said, smiling like she'd just solved a puzzle. "The day before you got arrested."
Grant gaped. "That is…"
"Totally legal but horrifyingly unethical?" Rose finished for him. "Yep."
Grant grinned, and Elizabeth looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Why are you smiling? The mayor just did something incredibly awful."
"I know," he said. "You must be scaring the crap out of her."
"This is a good sign, right?" Rose said. "I mean," she added, turning to Grant. "Pretty sucky for you, but a good sign for the campaign, if you can rattle her this much."
"Yes, I suppose," Elizabeth agreed, but she didn't seem thrilled about that.
"What's up?" Grant asked.
"I am glad that I seem to have Regina on her toes," Elizabeth said. "But can I really be selfish enough to push on with this if she's going to retaliate by punishing people I care about?"
"Go for it," Grant said without hesitating. "She's the one who turned up the heat, here. Let's take her down."
The Enchanted Forest
"Excuse me," a distinguished voice said from the doorway of the bakery. "I know you typically sell the finished product, but is there any chance I might buy a sack of flour?"
"Sure," Steve said. "Store room's back there," he said, nodding at a small door. "Go pick one out and I'll be back in a minute to weigh it."
"Thank you," Jarvis said, tipping his hat and disappearing into the back room where several other members of the resistance were gathered.
After deciding to join the resistance a year and a half ago, things had moved quickly for Steve and Peggy. It had taken a little work to get into—and that was fair enough, because a good resistance didn't want to accidentally let spies in, but that was where some of Bucky's older business contacts had come in handy. Bucky knew people everywhere. The bakery had soon become a meeting place—everyone needed to go to the bakery, and so it was the perfect place for meetings, planning sessions, and covert passing of goods and information. Steve had even figured out how to conceal information on rolled up pieces of paper inside the bread without burning them—that had taken some practice, but he'd gotten it down. Most of his job, by nature of being the person everyone expected out front, was hiding the information in the bread and acting as a gatekeeper for the secret goings-on in the back of house. Peggy organized most of the local resistance events, and Bucky was their connection to other groups. He had even gotten them in touch with Princess Snow White herself. That was what the meeting in the back was about.
Steve helped the rest of the customers in the store, and just as he was getting ready to head back and check on the meeting, the bell over the door rang and two soldiers came in. Steve stepped on a button underneath the counter and greeted the soldiers with a smile. "Good morning, gentlemen. How can I help you today? You here for lunch? I've got some fresh bread just about to come out of the oven."
"No," said the one in front. "Royal business." He unfolded a piece of parchment from inside his coat pocket. "News of anti-royalists holding frequent gatherings in this neighborhood. This is a warrant to search the premises."
"Oh," Steve said, taking the warrant and looking it over. Okay, good, this was a warrant to search everything in the neighborhood. Nothing sticking out about here in particular. "Sure, sure, of course. We certainly don't want any of that kind of trouble in here. Feel free to look wherever you like."
One of them went to look upstairs, and the other asked Steve to show him the main floor of the bakery. Steve showed him the kitchen, and he poked around a little, satisfying himself that there were no secret passages. "What's that room there?" he asked, pointing to the meeting room.
"That's the storage room, sir," he said. "Come on in." He led him inside, and Peggy was there, giving orders to Angie.
"Just fetch that top one down," she said, pointing at a pile of sugar bags. "Then we'll take it into the kitchen and—oh! Hello," she said, turning around and acting as though she'd just noticed the soldier.
Steve walked over to her and slipped an arm over her shoulders. "This is my wife," he said, and Peggy curtsied a little awkwardly and rested a hand on her stomach where there was a small sack of flour tucked underneath her shirt. They'd quickly learned that a pregnant woman evoked more sympathy points from the soldiers, and a man and his wife just about to start their family added credibility to the idea that they didn't want any trouble. And if things got a little dicey, an overly emotional, weeping pregnant woman made the soldiers very uncomfortable and quicker to clear out. (That last part had been Angie's idea, and they'd only had to do it once. Peggy had blushed for about a day and a half afterwards, but it had worked.)
"And this is our assistant," Steve added, nodding at Angie.
"How do you do, sir?" Angie said, curtsying more gracefully then Peggy had. "I don't suppose you could help me get that big bag of sugar down, could you? It's a little hard to reach, and you do look awfully strong."
The soldier smiled and stepped forward to help her get the bag down and she followed him to the kitchen to show him where to put it, complimenting how easily he'd managed that all the while.
"Dear Lord, she's laying it on a bit thick," Peggy whispered.
"She is the actress," Steve said. "Sounds like he's eating it up."
They walked back out into the main room of the bakery where Angie was leaning on the counter and giggling, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. The soldier was flirting back, but jumped to attention when his comrade came down the stairs.
"Everything seems alright here," he said. "I don't suppose you folks have noticed anything unusual going on around the area?"
"Well," Peggy said thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, sir, you know the old blacksmith's shop two streets over? Boarded up for months it's been, but an awful lot of people seem to be passing by for a place that should be closed. And not all of them looking as though they belong in this part of town, if you catch my meaning." She sighed, and rubbed a hand over the sack of flour under her shirt. "I do hope whoever you're after, you find them soon. I can't abide the thought of that sort of trouble in the neighborhood."
They thanked them for their time and left, assuring Peggy they would look into it. Steve, Peggy and Angie waited a few minutes until they had turned the corner, then Steve snorted and looked down at Peggy. "Angie was laying it on a bit thick?"
"I wasn't caressing his muscles," Peggy shot back, pulling the flour sack out from under her shirt and shaking the loose flour free. "And last time we did this, I was told I wasn't acting the part of the worried mother enough."
"You've gotta embrace the role," Angie said, unperturbed. "Worried mother—go all in. I'm telling you, bring out those tears more often. Attractive young assistant?" she went on, pointing to herself. "I am going to caress his muscles and kiss his cheek if I have to and save all our skins."
"We appreciate your sacrifice," Peggy said, and Angie rolled her eyes.
"Are they gone?" came Rose's voice from the store room.
"They're gone," Steve called back.
"Can someone come help me with Jarvis, then?" she asked.
There were several hiding spots built into the storage room—Steve wasn't sure which Rose had chosen, but Jarvis had been in one of the barrels and had gotten stuck. "I don't see why I have to hide in the barrel so often," he complained after Steve helped him out, brushing flour from his vest.
"Because it's the best place to hide in here, and you've got legs long enough to get up into it quickly, darling," said Jarvis's wife, unfolding herself from behind a cupboard. She kissed his cheek. "Angie, dear, your performance was wonderful."
"Thank you, Ana," Angie said, beaming.
"Did you guys make enough progress to break it up?" Steve asked. Usually they split off home fairly quickly after soldiers came by.
"We did," Peggy said. "I'll fill you in later."
He nodded and went back out to mind the front. Ana and Jarvis left, and Rose and Angie copied out the dates and locations of the next operation for Steve to bake into bread to pass out to the rest of the members tomorrow. The rest of the afternoon went smoothly, and when they went upstairs for the evening, Peggy filled Steve in on the newest plan.
There was going to be a raid, and they were going to need all hands on deck. Steve had never really thought of himself as much of a fighter before—well, a physical fighter anyway, but it was turning out to be a hidden talent. His size probably had something to do with it, but he'd aced his hand to hand training with the other members of the resistance, and though he didn't have much skill with a sword, he was great with a shield and bow. (Peggy was the sword-fighter of the family.) Two nights from now, they were going to attack a supply train headed for the palace. Losing the supplies would be a blow to the queen's army, and the supplies would be redistributed in some of the poorer villages along with messages of encouragement from Snow.
The day of the raid came, and Steve was a little on edge as he always was before a battle, but the day passed without incident. He closed up the shop and he and Peggy slipped out the back, heading for the rendez-vous point. Jarvis and Ana were there, as were Angie, Rose, Bucky, and several other faces that Steve recognized. Once everyone had arrived, they all looked to Colonel Phillips, the local leader of the resistance, but to their surprise, he only welcomed them all, then stepped back, gesturing to a figure waiting in the shadows. Everyone gasped as Snow White herself stepped into the firelight.
She thanked them all for coming, told them she knew how difficult this fight was, and laid out the battle plan for the evening. Things moved quickly after that as they all moved into position.
The element of surprise gained them a lot of ground, but then the fighting began in earnest. Steve stayed closed to Peggy—they complemented each other in how they fought, her with the sword and him with the shield, and it was always kind of thrilling being in action with her. They plowed their way to the first wagon in the train, and Steve shielded Peggy as she ducked down and disabled the wheels so they couldn't flee with the supplies, then they repeated the move in turn all down the train.
"Peggy, duck!" Steve called just as she was getting up from the last wheel. She threw herself to the ground, and Steve flung himself forward and caught the arrow coming at her head with his shield. She jumped up, sword slashing at the soldier coming around the wagon toward Steve's back, and Steve left her to that one as he swung his shield up to smash into the soldier appearing out of the darkness.
"Teamwork," Peggy said with a grin, kissing him quickly on the nose before they moved up the road to where the fighting was thicker.
"They're breaking through toward the river!" Phillips' voice came over the crowd, and that was the cue for the archers to get after the fleeing soldiers. They couldn't let any of them escape to get back to the queen with news of what happened.
"Go!" Peggy told him. "We've got it here." She kissed him again. "Be careful," she whispered.
Steve nodded and hurried off. "Buck!" he called before leaving the firelight.
"Behind you," Bucky said, appearing out of the darkness. "Let's go."
"How do you do that?" Steve wondered as they hurried into the trees. He never heard him sneaking up like that.
Bucky just chuckled and told him to be quiet, and the chase was on. Steve had lived in the village for years now, but on nights like these, his childhood in the woods came rushing back. His feet remembered how to move over the underbrush, his eyes remembered the difference between shadows and movement, and his lungs remembered how to breath quick and quiet, helping him blend into the forest. He and Bucky slunk through the shadows, the footsteps of the soldiers ahead of them.
A little whistle that sounded like a bird came from Bucky, and Steve slowed his pace and moved off to the right. A soldier was in front of them, and they quickly pinned him between them, then moved on to the next. Soon, the night was quiet, and a quick sweep showed them the forest was clear. They grouped up with the rest of the archers, gathered what weapons they could from the fallen soldiers, and herded the ones who had surrendered back to the wagon train.
As they approached the firelight, they could see the fighting had died down there too. "Good job tonight, Stevie," Bucky said, clapping him on the shoulder.
"You too," Steve said with a smile. There was something in the way Bucky carried himself now, something that hadn't been there since all of this started, that made him step a little faster and move a little lighter. Steve thought sometime he felt that way too. They hadn't won this war, not yet, but they were getting closer, and the knowledge that they were doing something buoyed them up.
As they got closer to the firelight, Steve started searching the crowd for Peggy, and he soon spotted her. He waved to catch her attention, and she hurried over. "Are you alright?" she asked, hugging him tightly.
"I'm fine," he said, kissing the top of her head. "You okay?"
"Just fine," she assured him, and he sighed in relief. She was a great fighter and she had a good team, but he always worried about her when they went into combat. He knew she felt the same way about him.
They regrouped and made plans to parcel out the supplies and get safely back to where they had come from. As they did so, Snow White moved through the crowd. She was checking on the wounded and making sure everyone was alright, and her concern was genuine. Steve smiled as he watched her. That was what a queen should be like. That was why they were fighting.
They made it back into town and home without trouble, and they quickly washed and went to bed. Thankfully, the next day was the usual day for the bakery to be closed. Steve never closed the bakery the day after an operation if it wasn't the normal schedule since there were pretenses to keep up, but it was always exhausting working a full day after something like that.
The next couple of days passed quietly. They tried to keep gaps in the meetings after a big operation for safety's sake, though everyone usually came by at some point to get bread anyway. They saw Jarvis and Ana and Rose and Angie, and Bucky was in a few times with Grace.
About a week after the raid, Steve and Peggy had just gone to bed when there was a frantic knocking at the door downstairs. They looked at one another in alarm, then slowly made their way down as the knocking continued. Peggy picked up her sword as they reached the stairs, holding it hidden behind her nightgown.
It was difficult to see anything out the window, but Steve could see enough to tell there wasn't a crowd of soldiers waiting in the dark. He unbolted the door and eased it open just enough to peek outside, ready to slam it shut if he needed to. To his surprise, it wasn't a soldier or anyone from the resistance standing on the step, but a little girl. "Grace?" he asked, opening the door wider.
As soon as the door was open far enough, she flung herself inside and into Steve's midsection with a sob. "Grace?" he said again, kneeling to wrap his arms around her. He saw no sign of Bucky in the darkness beyond. Peggy stepped around him and peered into the night, and when she saw no sign of him either, she shut the door and locked it again and lit the lamp.
Steve's eyes went wide as he caught sight of Grace in the light. Her eyes were red and puffy and her cheeks stained with tears—she'd been crying for a long time. There were twigs stuck in her hair and tears in her dress and she was shaking as she clung to Steve.
"Grace, what happened?" he asked.
She tried to answer, but her words came out in a garbled sob and she burst into tears again. Steve hugged her tighter and tucked her head under his chin, looking up worriedly at Peggy. After a few minutes of this, he picked her up carefully and moved for the stairs. Peggy went up ahead of him and stoked up the remains of the fire, and Steve carried Grace over to the front of the fire and sat down in his chair with her on his lap. Peggy got her a glass of water, and she started to calm down as she took a few sips.
"Grace, sweetheart, what happened?" Steve asked. "Are you okay?"
She sniffed. "They came and took my papa," she said quietly.
"Who did?" Peggy asked gently.
"The soldiers," she said softly.
"The soldiers came and took Bucky?" Steve asked. She nodded. "Do you know why?"
"They said," she started, then sniffed. "They said…They said the queen wanted to talk to him. And he said what for, and they wouldn't tell him in front of me, so one of them took me over to the corner of the cabin and the other ones started talking real quiet to him. I don't know what they said, but he kept looking at me like he was scared. Then they made the one soldier take me outside, and a few minutes later he came out and said he was gonna go with them." She swallowed hard. "I asked him not to, and he looked like he wanted to cry and said he had to. Then he said he loved me and everything was going to be okay and he would be back before it got dark." Her lip trembled and tears welled up in her eyes. "That was yesterday morning," she whispered.
Steve's heart dropped into his stomach.
"You've been all on your own out in the cabin since yesterday?" Peggy asked softly.
Grace nodded. "I was waiting for him to come back. But I'm scared now that something happened." Peggy looked up at Steve, and Grace curled closer into him. "Something bad did happen, didn't it?" she asked quietly.
"Maybe," Steve said after a minute. "But, hey, we'll figure it out, okay? We'll find out where they took him."
She sniffed and nodded.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "Did they hurt you?"
She shook her head. "No. They left me alone. But then when I was coming to town, I was hiding from them in the bushes any time I saw soldiers on the road. And I tripped and fell a couple of times after it got dark," she added, which at least explained her disheveled appearance.
Peggy smiled at her warmly. "Why don't we get you a nice hot bath and something to eat, hey?" she asked with a warm smile. "We'll see if that helps a bit."
"Okay," Grace whispered.
Steve got the tub out and heated the water, then retreated to the bedroom while Peggy helped Grace clean up. He could hear her talking softly with the ten-year-old in warm, soothing tones, though he couldn't make out what either of them were saying. He came back out when they were done and emptied the tub. Grace was sitting quietly at the table nibbling on some bread. Peggy got her a cup of tea, then came to help him put the tub away.
"She told me a bit more of what happened," Peggy said quietly. "They took something with them when they left. She didn't know what it was, but based on the box she described, I think it was Bucky's hat."
Steve's eyes widened. Bucky had sworn off portal-jumping, but he'd kept the hat because destroying a magical object like that could be dangerous. "What could make him use that again?" he whispered. Bucky had resisted the temptations of everything he knew the hat could offer after he'd lost Priscilla, even when he and Grace had been desperate for money. Steve couldn't imagine anything that could make him pick it back up again. Except… His eyes went wider as realization dawned. "Grace," he whispered. "The queen must have threatened Grace."
Peggy nodded. "That's what I thought too. If they were giving him the choice of going with them and helping the queen or watching them kill his daughter in front of him…"
Steve sighed. "No wonder Grace said he looked so scared." He shook his head. "And if he hasn't come back yet…"
Peggy opened her mouth to respond, but stopped as they heard a muffled sob from Grace. "We'll have to talk about it later," she said softly, and they both moved back over to where Grace was sitting.
Grace was clearly exhausted, and Steve wondered if she'd slept at all while she waited at home worrying about her father. They put out the fire and went to bed, settling Grace down on the mattress between them instead of leaving her out on the couch alone in her fear. She fell asleep almost immediately, but Steve spent a long time staring at the ceiling and thinking. The queen's summons didn't seem to have anything to do with Bucky's part in the resistance since she'd demanded he bring his hat. Steve wondered vaguely how she knew about that—Bucky hadn't offered his portal-jumping services for so long. She'd wanted something from him, and whatever the soldiers had told him, it had evidently been convincing enough for Bucky to believe he would be back. He wouldn't have told Grace to wait if he thought they were taking him off to kill him—he would have sent her to Steve and Peggy right away. The most obvious answer, then, was that Regina had double-crossed him. It was well within the realm of possibilities, but had that double-cross resulted in his death or imprisonment? Worried tears prickled in Steve's eyes, and it was a long time before he fell asleep.
Over the next few days, they tried to figure out where Bucky had gone. The first obvious place to check was the jail, and when that turned up nothing, they had contacts in the resistance start checking the jails in other towns. They even had a spy in the palace who told them there was no sign of him in either the jail in the capital city or the palace dungeons.
The search expanded then—enough people went missing in the resistance that there was an established network for searching out of the way places. News kept coming back negative, and Steve quietly began a search of records of deaths, praying he wouldn't find his friend's name there.
In the meantime, the resistance went on, and soon the tide began to turn. Snow White and the rebels were able to take back the capital city and the palace, though Regina continued to fight while on the run. Her magic was strong enough to keep them from finding her, wherever she was hiding, and though her own forces were dwindling, she fought back with enough ferocity to keep the battle going. Snow White was officially crowned Queen, and while it was a joyous occasion, there wasn't time for much celebrating as the war continued.
Steve and Peggy split their time in the fight now—they took it in turns to stay home with Grace while the other went out for operations. Though they each hated the thought of the other fighting without them, it seemed cruel to risk the possibility of something going wrong and leaving Grace alone in the world.
Grace, meanwhile, was understandably taking her father's disappearance badly. She ate very little, slept very badly and was constantly on the verge of tears. Afraid she was going to make herself sick, Steve eventually managed to coax her into eating more by asking what Bucky would think of Steve when he came back, not taking care of his little girl and letting her get sick like that. He'd never let Grace come stay with them again. Steve felt guilty framing it that way, but it seemed to do the trick.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Steve," she said. "You and Aunt Peggy have been so nice to me, and I wouldn't want for you to get in trouble." She frowned thoughtfully. "And Papa would want me to take care of myself," she decided. "I'm sure he's worried about me right now, and I'll bet he'd be even more worried if he knew I wasn't doing good."
Steve smiled sadly and pushed her plate a little closer, and she looked at it as though making a decision, then picked up her sandwich and took a bite. "He worries so much because he cares, you know," Steve told her. "He used to worry about me all the time when we were kids…" While she ate, he told her a story about Bucky taking care of him when he'd been really sick, trying not to think about the fact that Grace had her father's eyes, and the way their worried, tearful expression looked exactly like Bucky's had all those years ago.
Grace started to turn a corner as the days went by—still obviously worried about her father, but doing the best she could to keep on. Steve and Peggy made sure she felt safe voicing her worries to them, and they made sure to let her know she wasn't the only one worried either. Knowing that she wasn't alone in it seemed to hearten her. She still followed the two of them around like a shadow, but she allowed herself to be distracted with chores and things to do around the bakery, and she was getting by.
"I've got some news," Peggy said softly as they crawled into bed one night. Steve looked at her nervously, trying not to get too hopeful. If it had been good news, she wouldn't have waited until Grace had gone to bed. (She was sleeping on the couch now—after it was clear that finding Bucky was going to take a while, Steve had gone back out to their cabin to get some of her things for her. Among them had been a pile of quilts, and she had taken to bundling up in the lot of them every night and snuggling down on the couch to sleep. Steve suspected they smelled like Bucky and home.)
"Is he…" Steve started worriedly.
"I didn't find his name on a death notice," Peggy said, and Steve breathed a little easier. Four months of searching for his best friend had turned up nothing so far, and while that was good when it came to death notices, it was just making that knot in Steve's gut twist tighter and tighter every day. "But it's not a very concrete lead either."
"What is it?"
"You know the spy from the palace who told us about the dungeons?" she asked.
Steve nodded.
"She's done a bit more digging around in the palace now that Regina's gone," she said. "Apparently, someone matching Bucky's description entered the palace on the day Bucky left the cabin. One of the serving maids saw him, and remembered his clothes and his hair and thought he didn't look like the sort of person who was usually summoned to the queen's private chambers."
Steve arched a surprised eyebrow.
"She described him as carrying what I'm fairly certain was Bucky's hatbox," Peggy went on. "And thank goodness for serving maids with their minds in the gutter, because she waited nearby to see how long it took him to come out."
"When did he?" Steve asked.
Peggy shook her head. "He didn't. The guards left, and later the queen left as well, but the man never came out. The maid went in, of course, to snoop about and act like she was cleaning, and saw no sign that anyone but the queen had been anywhere in the chambers."
"That's weird," Steve said. "If she had him killed or arrested…"
"Where did he go?" Peggy finished for him. "The only way to kill someone and get them out of the room unnoticed would be to throw them out the balcony window, which isn't really unnoticed because of all the gardeners."
"Did the serving maid see the hat anywhere?" Steve wondered.
"No, but she remembered seeing what looked like the box it was in tucked into the back of one of the wardrobes."
"What if…" Steve started, thinking aloud. "If she made him use the hat, could she have…left him somewhere?" He knew the hat acted as a doorway to other realms with the right spells, but not much beyond that. If he'd been somewhere and Regina…cut off the magic somehow, without the hat to open the door again, he wouldn't be able to get back.
"That's what I was thinking," Peggy said. She sighed. "If that's the case, it certainly complicates things."
Steve let out a huff of air in agreement, not sure what else to say. If Bucky was stuck in some other realm…How in the hell were they supposed to get him back? Steve's experience with magic was limited to that incident with the magician and his brief stint in poultry transformation, and Peggy had none at all. Bucky was the only one of them who knew anything about magic—and portal magic was a lot different than other, more common kinds. There was also the uncomfortable fact that he'd been gone for four months at this point—if he'd been able to get himself home, he would have done it by now.
"Could we hire someone?" Peggy wondered. "I don't even know how one begins to look for a portal-jumper."
"No," Steve agreed. "But they've got to advertise somehow. Bucky wasn't the only portal-jumper out there. There's a couple of magicians in the resistance—like that guy, Howard, that Jarvis works for. Maybe he can help us figure out where to look."
Peggy nodded, and they drifted off to sleep. They'd been holding one another closer at night these days—Steve's heart ached for Grace and for his best friend, and he couldn't stop himself from thinking about losing Peggy like that. It would be like being torn in half, losing a part of himself. He hugged her closer and nestled his head down into her hair, breathing in her scent and focusing on the feel of her warm and present in his arms and reminding himself that she was still there.
Their search continued, as did the fight. Though they had the upper hand now, they hadn't won yet, and Regina still made the occasional threats accompanied by a show of power that reminded them they would have to take her down to truly win. Peggy had taken over command of their branch of things when Phillips had been wounded, and Steve was heading communications now for the entire county. He and Peggy would sit up late into the night drawing up strategies and battle plans, usually watched by Grace, who said very little but seemed to enjoy listening to them talk strategy.
Jarvis, meanwhile, had put them in contact with Howard, who found the problem of Bucky's disappearance entirely fascinating. He admitted he knew nothing of portal magic himself, but eagerly began to research it. His first several experiments were wildly unsuccessful—his attempts to transport eggs into other realms tended to result in explosions, and he tried it once with a chicken and made a godawful mess. Howard was undaunted, though, insisting he was learning something each time, but Steve kept looking for actual portal jumpers to get in contact with, which was turning out to be harder than he'd thought. He'd found a couple of leads—someone who knew a guy who had a friend whose cousin once…etc.—and they'd both ended up being about Bucky. Apparently, portal jumpers were rarer than Steve had thought. No wonder Bucky had gotten paid so well for it.
"Grace, can I ask you something?" Steve asked her one night at dinner. She looked up at him expectantly. "Did your dad ever tell you what he did for work before you were born?"
"A little," she said. "Why?" she asked curiously.
"Well," he said. "We were thinking that if we could find someone he used to work with, maybe they could help us find him."
"Oh." Grace took a long, thoughtful drink of water. "Well," she said after a minute. "Papa was always kind of careful about what he told me about that—he said it was dangerous, and I shouldn't know too much about it because he didn't want me to get hurt. So, he didn't tell me about any of the people he worked with." She took another drink. "Except for one of them. There was a man Papa used to work for that didn't like it when he stopped. Papa used to think that maybe he would try to come looking for him. He told me about him because he wanted me to watch out—he said the man was tricky and magic, and if I saw him, I shouldn't talk to him." She frowned. "I don't know if someone like that could help you."
"Maybe not," Steve allowed, but someone with magic could be a hopeful lead. "But we're looking everywhere for your dad, so anyone that could tell us anything could help."
Grace nodded. "He said the man had hair that was long and kind of stringy, and he was skinny and had a high voice. That he would act really friendly, but friendly in a way that made you wonder what he was up to."
Steve nodded. That wasn't an awful lot to go on.
"But Papa said the easiest way to tell it was him was his skin—it was sort of scaly and brownish-green, like an alligator," Grace went on, and she was ten, so her story-telling could use a little bit of work, but that was really where she should have started.
"He had skin like an alligator?" Steve clarified. He looked at Peggy, who looked just as surprised as Steve.
Grace nodded.
"Did your dad say what his name was?" Steve asked.
Grace shook her head. "He said he didn't have a name, but that since people didn't know what it was, sometimes they called him the Dark One."
"Bloody hell," Peggy whispered.
"Is that bad?" Grace wondered, her eyebrows furrowing as she caught Peggy's whisper.
"Well, not…necessarily," Steve said. There had been a couple of years before Bucky had met Priscilla that he and Steve hadn't talked much. Their lives had pulled them in different directions, and Steve always kind of got the impression that Bucky had gotten into some work of questionable legal standing back then, but he'd never talked about it since then. But some shady business deals was one thing, and working for the most powerful magical being the Enchanted Forest had ever known was another. What the hell had Bucky gotten himself into?
"The Dark One is an incredibly powerful magician," Peggy explained. "Your father's right—he is dangerous, but if we go about it right…"
"He might be able to help track down your dad," Steve finished. "If we can find him," he added. He didn't doubt the man's power, but his willingness to help was another issue. It probably wouldn't be cheap, either, but if he could do something, then Steve and Peggy would come up with whatever money they needed.
Despite being the most well-known magician in the kingdom, the Dark One was turning out to be incredibly hard to find. A lot of people knew about him, but very few knew where he was or how to track him down. The only concrete information they could get their hands on was the fact that he was no longer living in his castle in the woods.
The battle for the kingdom had finally drawn to a close—the last of Regina's supporters had given up, though the former queen remained uncaptured. There were still spies and special agents hunting her down, worried about the threats she had made before disappearing, but things were finally starting to return to normal. Steve wished Bucky could be here to see it.
"What if we talked to the Queen?" Peggy asked one day. "She's leaving most of the fighting to the King these days, so she'll be in the palace," she said. Snow and Prince David had gotten married in the early days of the resistance, and were currently expecting a child. She was now far too pregnant to be out in combat, so David was handling the military while she saw to restoring the lives of the kingdom's citizens. "And, not that I think she needs persuading to help, but after the battle at Rushing Creek, she does owe me a favor," Peggy added.
"If anyone had the resources to find either the Dark One or another portal jumper, it would be the Queen," Steve agreed. "Let's do it. I can close up the bakery for a few days and we can go tomorrow." He looked into the kitchen where Grace was washing dishes. "If nothing else, the trip will be a good distraction for her. And if the Queen can help and we can actually find him…" Hope bubbled up in his chest that he hadn't felt for a long time.
"She would want to be there," Peggy agreed.
It was a couple of days' journey to the palace, and he'd been right—traveling and camping along the roadside was a wonderful distraction for Grace. She seemed to be enjoying herself, and he saw her almost smile once or twice. She hadn't smiled at all since they'd lost Bucky.
They woke up on the last day of the journey to a bite in the air. "Storm's coming," Steve said as they packed up camp. "If we walk fast, I think we can make it to town before it hits."
They made good time along the road, but as they went, Steve couldn't shake the feeling this was a different kind of storm.
"Something is odd about this," Peggy said quietly. "I've never felt the air before a storm like this before."
"I know," Steve agreed. It was hard to describe what it was that was wrong—the air felt like it should be sparking with lightning, but there was more than that, some kind of energy trilling up and down his spine that was twisting his stomach into knots. "Let's shelter by that next group of trees until it passes."
They had just made it to the trees when a bolt of purple lightning shot across the clouds with a screech that echoed through the air, seeming to rip the sky in two.
"What was that?" Grace exclaimed.
Steve had no answer for her, and found himself unable to think of anything to say as thunder clouds billowed up in the sky faster than he'd ever seen them. They were thick and dark, black not with rain but with menace, and the purple lightning was flashing between them like fireworks.
Steve was staring up at the sight open-mouthed, and he shook his head and pulled himself together, drawing back against the nearest tree until he felt the wood against his back, pulling Peggy with him. "Grace, come over here," he said, holding out his free hand, but she was already moving.
"What's happening?" she whispered.
"I don't know, but you stay close to us, alright?" he said. She nodded and curled tighter into his side.
The dark clouds were changing color now, a rich, venomous purple, and they were rolling closer and closer to the ground. Steve's instinct was to run, to get as far away from those clouds as possible, but one look at the speed they were moving told him it would do no good. It would be a minute, maybe two before they engulfed them.
"It's got to be Regina," Peggy whispered. "Those curses and threats she kept making—there's no way this is a normal storm."
Steve nodded. "I don't know what this is," Steve said quietly. "I don't know what's going to happen." He pulled his arm as tight around her as he could without hurting her. "But I love you," he told her, not sure why he suddenly felt compelled to say that right this moment, but knowing he would regret it if he didn't. "Remember that, whatever happens next." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I love you so much."
"I love you too," she whispered. "With all my heart."
Grace whimpered, and Steve pulled her closer, feeling Peggy slip one of her arms around the girl too, and they bent down, crouching at the foot of the tree and holding on to one another for dear life. "I'm scared," Grace said shakily.
"Me too," Steve told her. "But we've got you. Just hold on."
She nodded, and Steve felt her little fingers clench even tighter in the folds of his shirt. The air was getting cold and thick, and the purple smoke was barreling down from the sky and along the road toward them. Suddenly it hit, and it was the coldest Steve had ever been and he felt like he was on fire all at the same time. He couldn't see anything, not even Peggy and Grace where he was holding them fast against him, and wind was howling through the clouds so strong and loud he couldn't hear a thing.
There was a crack and a snap and a burst of pain so sharp he wondered if he'd been hit by lightning. Grace shrieked, and he felt her ripped away from under his arm. He tried to call her name and the wind whipped the words away from his throat as he reached out blindly in the direction she'd gone. Then he felt himself being yanked away, Peggy slipping from his grip, and he pulled his arm back in and threw it around her. No, no, no! he pleaded, gripping her tighter in desperation, feeling her fingers digging into his back as she tried to do the same. Over the howl of the wind, there was a heart-wrenching tearing sound, and then Steve was flying backwards and Peggy was gone and he was alone, tumbling into oblivion through the howling maelstrom.
He fell for what seemed like forever, tossed through the purple smoke like waves in a storm, chaos exploding through his mind until he couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't even remember his own name. The world was spinning when he landed, and he was lying on his back in a quiet little bedroom that he'd never seen before but had always been his. The smoke faded away and what felt like everything else he knew faded with it, leaving him with the strength to do nothing but close his eyes and keep fading.
When he woke up, his name was Grant, and he'd always lived in Storybrooke.
2011
"Good morning, Sheriff Swan," Grant greeted as the little bell over the door rang.
"Hi," she said, stepping up to the counter.
"Everything alright?" Grant wondered. She was looking a little harried.
"Hmm? Oh, yeah, it's…It's fine. A lot going on," she said.
Grant nodded in sympathy. The past few weeks had been some of the strangest he ever remembered. Emma Swan had come to town a few months ago, decided to stay, and somehow ended up running for Sheriff after Sheriff Humbert's sudden heart attack. To nearly everyone's surprise—since Mayor Mills had been backing another candidate—she'd won. She was one of the only people Grant could think of to have defied the Mayor successfully. Things kept getting stranger after that, chief of which was, of course, David waking up from his coma and his wife Kathryn's disappearance and evidence pointing to her gruesome murder, followed by the accusation that the school teacher, Mary Margaret, of all people, had done it. Kathryn had just returned, alive if not entirely well, Mary Margaret had been exonerated, and though the Daily Mirror was keeping mum on the subject, the rumor around town was that Mayor Mills wasn't looking overly innocent of the whole mess. It was a lot for anyone, never mind someone a couple of months into the job. The Sheriff in Storybrooke had never had much to do in the way of crimes more serious than parking tickets before now.
"Can I get you anything?" Grant asked. She was in here most mornings on her way to work. Lately, she'd been meeting up with Henry, the biological son she'd recently reunited with and the reason she'd decided to stay in town. Henry was also the Mayor's adopted son—and that situation was a web Grant didn't envy being entangled in.
"Whatever's freshest and some coffee, please," she said.
"Hi, Emma!" Henry called from the doorway. "Hello, Mr. Rogers!"
"Morning, Henry," Grant said, handing Emma a cup of coffee and a sausage roll.
"Sorry, kiddo, I've got to run," Emma said, looking apologetic. She put a ten dollar bill down on the counter. "Let him get whatever he wants, huh?" she asked Grant.
Grant nodded, Emma gave Henry a quick hug and ruffled his hair, and hurried out with her breakfast. "Sorry you missed her this morning," Grant said.
"Oh, that's okay," Henry replied, not looking overly bothered. "She's working on—" He stopped himself, as if worried he was going to reveal a secret. "She has something important to do," he said mysteriously, and Grant chuckled at the boy's seriousness.
Henry picked out a couple of scones and a cup of hot chocolate, then settled down into one of the tables in the corner to eat, flipping through a large, ornate-looking book as he did so. "Don't you have school this morning?" Grant wondered.
"Not for a little while," Henry said. "I'm waiting to meet my friend and we'll walk together. Is it okay if I sit over here?"
"Sure," Grant said. "Just didn't want to get in trouble for making you late."
He served a couple of customers and started cleaning up, noticing that Henry kept looking down at his book and then back up at him with what were probably supposed to be covert glances. "What's up?" Grant asked.
"Nothing," Henry said. He looked back down at the book, then up at Grant again. "You've always been a baker, huh?"
"Yeah," Grant replied, a little confused.
"That's nice, I guess," Henry said, and Grant didn't think he was talking about his profession. "Do you ever get lonely here by yourself?"
"Uh…" Grant didn't really see how Henry's questions connected to each other, and he wasn't sure where this line of questioning was going. Normally when he came in here, he talked to Grant about baseball. "Sometimes, I guess."
Henry nodded, as if that had been the answer he was expecting. "Yeah. It's hard missing someone when you don't know who they are. I missed Emma for a long time before I met her, but at least I knew she was out there somewhere."
"Sorry, I don't think I'm following you," Grant said.
Henry smiled and shrugged. "It's okay. Hopefully, you will soon. I think me and Emma are getting close." That didn't really explain anything, but before Grant could ask what he meant, he jumped up from the table and slid his book back into his backpack. "Oh! My friend's here. I've got to go. Thanks for breakfast!" He picked up his scones and headed outside, handing one of them to a little girl waving through the window. Grant lost his train of thought as he watched them walk away—he would see that little girl around town (he thought her name was Paige), and she always made him think of Jefferson, though he had no idea why.
"He's a good kid," came a voice from behind him. Speaking of Jefferson… His best friend was standing in the stairs from the apartment, leaning against the door. He'd clearly just woken up, though he didn't look like he'd slept well. The dark circles under his eyes were still there, his normally clean-shaven jaw was dark with uneven stubble which should have hidden his jawline, but somehow only accentuated the weight he'd lost, and he was looking paler than normal.
He straightened up and wobbled a little bit, and Grant rushed over to catch him by the arm and steer him to sit down on the nearest stool. "Whoa! Hey, are you okay?"
Jefferson swatted irritably at his hand, but didn't actually shake him off. "I'm fine," he insisted. "I'm always fine," he added with a manic little chuckle.
"Do you want to go back to bed?" Grant asked. Jefferson had been having a rough time of things in the past year since his daughter died in that car accident—he swung back and forth between being close to okay and having some fairly dark depressive episodes, but he'd been on the mend until last week. Grant wasn't sure what had happened last week because Jefferson wouldn't tell him, but whatever it was had completely unhinged him. He'd lost any progress he'd made in his recovery, spent more time talking about magic hats and curses and his enchanted forest than anything else, and spent the rest of the time wandering around listlessly or slumping on the couch and muttering to himself about how he'd been so close and nothing was working and what was the point of anything?
Grant would have been keeping a close eye on him anyway in this state, worried he would hurt himself, but he'd almost called Dr. Hopper last week to get someone professional to jump in. The only thing keeping him from doing it had been the pleading, absolutely miserable look in Jefferson's eyes when Grant picked up the phone.
"Please," he'd begged. "Please, don't." He'd put a hand on Grant's arm and twisted the material of his sleeve desperately into his fist. "You're all I've got left," he'd whispered. "All I've got. Please, don't give up on me. Please, don't lock me up somewhere alone. Please…"
Grant's heart had broken at the plea and the look in his eyes, and he'd hung up the phone and pulled his friend into a hug and promised he wouldn't let him go. Jefferson had collapsed into the embrace and sobbed and apologized and followed Grant meekly back to his house above the bakery. He wouldn't tell Grant what had happened that had led to Grant finding him lying in a pile of glass underneath the broken second-floor study window, just kept saying he was sorry over and over again, and Grant had picked the glass out of his hair and cuts, cleaned him up, and sent him to bed.
His cuts had mostly healed up by now, though there was still one long one running across his cheek that stood out starkly against his pale skin. "No," Jefferson huffed, swatting at Grant's hand again. "I don't want to go back to bed. I don't…" He sighed and sagged down. "I don't want to do this anymore, Stevie," he said sadly. He'd been calling Grant that for a week, and it upset him more than it usually did when Grant corrected him, so Grant had just been letting it go for now.
"Do what?" Grant asked worriedly. This was starting to sound uncomfortably suicidal.
"Any of it," Jefferson sighed. "It's just too hard, and it's not getting better, no matter what I do, and I'm so tired." He slumped forward until his head was resting against Grant's chest. "I've run out of ideas," he continued, sounding a little muffled. "Then Emma came, and the clock moved." He looked up, watery eyes meeting Grant's. "Do you remember when the clock moved?" he asked hopefully.
Grant nodded. The clock downtown had been stuck on 8:15 for as long as anybody could remember, but a couple of months ago, it had started working again. He'd always just assumed someone had finally fixed it.
"She's got magic, Steve," Jefferson said. "She's the one. She can fix this—all of this. And I was so hopeful, and then…" He sighed again. "Nothing keeps happening. And I couldn't take it, and I did something stupid, but it doesn't matter, because she doesn't believe in magic anyway. She can do it, but she won't."
Setting aside the ramblings about magic, Grant asked, "What stupid thing did you do?" Was this connected to the broken window?
Jefferson snorted. "You'd lock me up if I told you that."
"I promised I wouldn't," Grant reminded him.
A tiny, grateful smile tugged up one corner of Jefferson's mouth. "Something impulsive and a little bit illegal that ended up with me getting kicked out of the window," he said. Grant's eyebrows went up in surprise. "In retrospect, I could have gone about it a lot better, but I'm falling apart, here. I'm kind of surprised I was able to pull off as much as I did."
"What 'a little bit illegal' thing did you do?" Grant asked worriedly. "And who in the hell kicked you out your window?"
"It was actually probably a lot illegal," Jefferson corrected. "But I won't tell you any more so you won't get in trouble."
"Jeff, that's not—"
"No. Look, nothing's going to happen with it now, and I scared some people, but I swear, I didn't hurt anyone." He blinked sadly up at Grant, and Grant believed that part, at least. "And Snow White was the one who kicked me out the window," he added, almost as an afterthought. "I kind of deserved it."
Grant couldn't remember which of the people in town Jefferson thought was Snow White, but he knew he wasn't going to get anything else out of his friend for now, so he thought he would let it lie in favor of getting him taken care of. And it had been a week—whatever possibly illegal thing he'd done didn't seem to be coming after him. "I think we're going to need to talk about this later," Grant said gently. Jefferson shrugged noncommittally. "But for now, why don't we get you something to eat?"
"Alright," Jefferson sighed. He stayed on the stool, and Grant got him some uncaffeinated tea and a couple of sausage rolls. "Here," Jefferson said, handing him a slightly crumpled piece of newspaper as he took the sausage rolls. "Finished the crossword puzzle for you. You're still terrible at it. Seventeen across has been 'hazel' for twenty-eight years." Grant took the puzzle, which Jefferson had filled out in pen, as he always did. He did them so fast, Grant sometimes wondered if he was even reading the clues.
Jefferson ate his breakfast, his eyes drifting over to the spot where Henry had been sitting earlier. "Maybe the kid can bring her around," he muttered.
"The kid?" Grant asked.
"Henry," Jefferson said. "That book of his has all our stories in it. He's got the truth and he knows it. Maybe she'll listen to him."
Grant just nodded, not sure what to say, and Jefferson didn't sound like he was looking for a response anyway.
He finished eating and Grant finished his cleaning, making sure he was always within eyesight of his friend as he moved around the shop. Jefferson was starting to list over sideways, and he thought maybe he could try another push for taking him back to bed when the chime over the door rang.
"Good morning, Grant," Elizabeth said with a smile.
"Hey," he said, smiling back. "I was wondering if you were going to come in this morning."
"I'm just running a bit late," she said. "Hopefully everything good isn't gone already? Oh, hello, Jefferson," she added, spotting him sitting off to the side. Jefferson nodded back at her, but didn't say anything. "Have I come at a bad time?" she asked, lowering her voice.
"No," Grant assured her, lowering his voice to match hers. He sighed a little. "Not any more than usual." Elizabeth had seen Jefferson a couple of times in this past week when she came in, and while she knew something was wrong, she hadn't pried.
"Do you need help with anything?" she asked softly. She hadn't pried, but she knew Grant was taking care of him, and he felt touched at the offer.
"Thanks, but I think we're alright," he said. He probably could use help, actually, but what kind of help, he wasn't sure.
"Look, I'm gonna go back upstairs and let you two have some space," Jefferson said from his corner. He pushed himself to his feet, wobbled dangerously, and Grant darted over to catch him. Elizabeth moved at the same time, getting under his other arm to prop him up.
Grant blinked in surprise at the speed at which she had moved. "Uh, thanks," he said. "I've got him."
"Nonsense," she replied. "I'm already here. Let me help."
They got Jefferson to the stairs and up, and Grant didn't realize until they were walking him into the bedroom that none of the maneuvering through the stairs and hallway had been awkward, as if they'd known how the other one was going to move.
"Sorry," Jefferson muttered as Grant pulled a blanket up over him, already half asleep. He patted Grant's arm before fading out completely. "Thanks, Stevie."
Elizabeth had tactfully pulled back to the doorway, and Grant sighed and joined her and they moved into the living room. "Thank you," he said.
"Of course," she replied. "Is everything alright?" she asked, sounding concerned.
Grant sighed. "No. Not really."
She nodded, then took a step back and sat herself down on the couch. "How can I help?"
Grant smiled in appreciation at the offer. "Don't you have to go to work?"
She shrugged. "I'm already late." She patted the cushion next to her. "You look like you need to talk."
His smile widened gratefully, and he dropped down next to her. He stared down at his feet for a minute, then sighed. "It's…complicated, what's going on, and, you know, I don't want to share stuff that isn't mine to share, but…" He sighed again, and he couldn't keep all the desperation out of his voice when he spoke again. "I don't know what to do."
She nodded sympathetically and reached over and took one of his hands. "I don't know that I'll know either, but I can listen at least." She squeezed his hand. "Whatever you feel comfortable telling me."
He smiled gratefully, took a moment to gather his thoughts, then started talking. He knew she knew about the car accident, but he started there, talking a little bit about the trouble Jefferson had had since then, and as he saw compassion and no judgement in her expression as she listened, he told her more. He talked about the different ways his friend tried to cope, mentioning his magical forest alternate reality and his theory about the curse.
"Is that why he called you 'Steve' earlier?" she asked.
Grant nodded. "You caught that, huh? Yeah, he…he has this idea that everyone here in town used to live in that magical world of his, with different lives and different names. As tough a time as he's having right now, I've just been answering to 'Steve' and focusing on the bigger stuff."
She nodded. "Does he have another name for me?" she wondered.
Grant nodded. "He calls you Peggy." He didn't mention Jefferson's insistence that she and Grant were supposed to be married.
She nodded. "Interesting." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "There's something about that name…You know, I think I might have had a relative called Peggy." She shook her head. "Sorry. Anyway, so, this forest theory of his, is that connected to what's been going on this week?"
She still didn't sound judgmental of Jefferson's delusions or the way Grant was handling them, which Grant was grateful for. "Yeah, but I'm not sure how, exactly," he said. He told her what Jefferson had told him. "I just…" He sighed. "I've never seen him like this before. I know losing your kid—I can only imagine how much that hurts, but it seems like he's giving up, and that scares me. I'm scared that he'll hurt himself, and now I'm also kind of worried he might hurt someone else without meaning to, and I just…I thought about taking him to Dr. Hopper, but, Elizabeth, you should have seen the look on his face when I said that."
"Was he angry at the suggestion?" she asked.
"No, he was terrified," Grant said. "He said he didn't want to be locked up somewhere alone and he said I was all he had left and he begged me not to give up on him, and…" Grant didn't think Dr. Hopper would have locked Jefferson up somewhere, but with the state he was in, he could see some sort of institutionalization being an option. "I couldn't do anything but bring him here," he said.
Elizabeth nodded in understanding. "I think you made the right choice," she said. "He clearly feels safe with you. I suppose you could always keep the hospital in mind as an option, but I can see how he wouldn't want that. No matter how often you might visit him there, it would still be terribly lonely. It's hard to heal when you're alone."
Grant smiled gratefully. "That's what I thought. I just…I don't feel like I'm doing any good."
She nodded again. "I think you are, but I also think you're wearing yourself out. You've got a full-time job downstairs, plus taking care of him, never mind the emotional toll the worrying is taking. And I doubt you've been sleeping well either," she added, nodding at his blanket and pillow at the other end of the couch.
"Yeah, I'm too tall for the couch," Grant agreed. "But I think he needs the bed more than I do. And I'm not sure how else to manage all of this."
She nodded, considering him thoughtfully. "Will you let me help you?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" he asked. Having someone to talk to did make him feel better, but he wasn't sure what else she could do.
"I mean that you're right, there's really no other way for you to manage this when it's just you. I could help you, with looking after Jefferson, or the bakery perhaps, but you'd have to let me."
His eyes widened as he realized what she was offering. "I…I couldn't ask you to do that."
"You're not," she said with a little smile. "I'm offering. You're my friend and I want to help you."
His instinct was to protest and not accept that sort of charity, but it was so kind of her to offer and he was so touched by it, and it…it just seemed right, somehow, like the two of them should be solving problems together. "Okay," he found himself saying. "I would like that." He smiled gratefully. "Thank you."
She smiled back. "Alright," she said. "Then I'll help you." She looked down at her watch, then stood up. "I've got to go and check in with work, but I'll be back this afternoon. Don't worry about doing anything for dinner—I'll put something together and bring it with me, then we'll hash out a proper plan this evening."
Grant smiled warmly. "Okay. Thank you."
She smiled, patted his arm and left, and after checking on Jefferson, he went back downstairs. As the hours ticked by, he wondered whether he'd made the right decision in accepting Elizabeth's help—it was a lot to ask, and she had her own things to take care of. Several times, he almost picked up the phone to tell her not to worry about it, but when she walked in the front door at four o'clock with several tote bags on her arm, he felt nothing but relief.
"Do you need help?" he asked, stepping forward to take some of the bags from her.
"I've got it," she said as a timer sounded in the kitchen. She nodded toward the back. "Don't burn your bread."
He chuckled and nodded, moving to the kitchen as she headed up the stairs. Once the last of the bread was out front, he went up the stairs. "Everything okay?" he asked.
"Just fine," she assured him. She waved him toward the stairs imperiously. "Go see to the pre-dinner rush. I can manage."
"Yes, Ma'am," he replied, heading back down as he heard the front bell ring. It should have felt weird, leaving her up in his apartment without him, but it felt…normal, somehow.
By the time the last customer left for the evening, the smell of something delicious was wafting down the stairs. Grant locked up and ascended the stairs and found Elizabeth setting the table and Jefferson sitting in one of the chairs, watching her. He still looked terrible, but he looked a little calmer than Grant had seen him in a day or two. And the fact that he was at the table and apparently waiting on dinner was a good sign—Grant had been having the worst time trying to motivate him to eat.
"Perfect timing," Elizabeth said, setting a dish on the table.
"Did you…" Grant looked around, realizing belatedly that he hadn't had the time to clean up the kitchen for a few days and it hadn't been exactly suitable for company. "Did you wash all my dishes?"
"It was easier to find my way around once everything was clean," Elizabeth said matter-of-factly. "Don't tell me I didn't have to do it," she added with a knowing smirk.
Grant closed his mouth. That was exactly what he'd been about to say. "Thank you," he said instead. He sat down. "This smells great."
Jefferson snorted. "Like you're surprised. You're a great baker, but she's always cooked other stuff better than you."
"Well, I hope this lives up to your expectations," Elizabeth said cheerily, taking a seat. "Dig in."
The food was delicious, and though Jefferson didn't eat as much as he normally would have, he ate more than Grant had expected him to. Conversation around the table stayed mostly light and inconsequential, but it felt peaceful. Grant was enjoying it, and something about it seemed to settle Jefferson some, even though he just listened and didn't talk.
After dinner, Grant and Elizabeth cleaned up together. Jefferson stayed in his chair and watched them with something that was almost a smile as they did. "If I knew it would get you two together like this, I would've had a breakdown years ago," Jefferson told Grant when Elizabeth left the room.
Grant wasn't sure what to do with that—Jefferson was making a joke, which was good, but there was a lot of mess underneath that joke to unpack. Elizabeth came back in then, and Jefferson didn't seem inclined to say anything more about the two of them. He seemed a little bit more like himself the rest of the evening, though.
A little later after Jefferson collapsed into bed, Elizabeth pointed out the air mattress she'd brought along. "It's big enough that you can sleep on it without curling up into a ball like you must have been doing on the sofa, and if we blow it up and put the sheets on it in here, we can drag it back to your bedroom without waking him and you can sleep in there. I suspect being close enough to be able to hear if he needs anything will help you sleep better," she said.
Grant smiled. "Thank you. I think that will help. This is…" He waved a hand around. "This really helped."
"I'm glad," she said, and she looked like she meant it.
"Will you think I'm a terrible host if I go to bed after we blow the mattress up?" he asked. "I'm exhausted."
She smiled back. "No. I imagine this week has been tiring. Get your rest." The way she was smiling at him, Grant suddenly felt the urge to brush her hair back and kiss her cheek, so he cleared his throat and stepped back and started unfolding the mattress instead.
Jefferson did wake up a few times in the middle of the night with nightmares, like he had been doing, but being closer let Grant calm him down before they had time to build. Grant slept better, having that worry taken care of, and the air mattress was a lot more comfortable than his couch.
He woke up early the next morning to go down and start the ovens, and he was surprised as he stepped into the living room to see Elizabeth asleep on the couch. She was sleeping on a pillow that Grant did not own, curled up under a blanket that he recognized from the back of one of her armchairs, and the arm tucked up under her chin was wrapped in the sleeve of silky blue pajamas. He thought she'd gone home after he went to sleep, but evidently she'd come prepared to stay. Instead of feeling embarrassed that she'd thought he needed that much help, he felt a wave of fondness washing over him. He tiptoed downstairs and started ovens heating and dough rising, and when he came back up, she was in her bathrobe in his kitchen making breakfast.
"Hi," he said.
"Oh," she said, turning and seeing him in the door. "Good morning. I didn't hear you come up. Breakfast?"
"Thanks," he said. He accepted the plate of bacon and eggs she handed him and sat down. "I, uh, I didn't realize you stayed last night," he said.
"I did say I was going to help," she said, joining him at the table. "This seemed like the sort of thing that might take a little while to find some equilibrium." A crease appeared in her forehead. "Did I overstep?"
"No, no, it's fine," he hurried to assure her. "I just wasn't expecting it." He smiled sheepishly. "I would have cleaned the bathroom otherwise."
She laughed. "I shan't judge you for it."
He chuckled and thought maybe he could straighten up some when he went in to take his shower, but when he got there, he found the floor clear of laundry, the bottom of the sink free of bits of hair, and the scent of raspberries and lavender hanging in the air. The last one puzzled him until he spotted a set of feminine-looking bottles of shampoo, conditioner and shower gel sitting in one corner of the shower.
"Are you just going to stealth-clean my entire house while I'm downstairs?" he asked when he came out of the shower.
Elizabeth smirked, looking pleased with herself.
"I appreciate you helping," he said. "Really, I do. I just…It's kind of embarrassing," he admitted. "I'm normally not this messy." He hated for her to think he normally left food crusting on his dishes and laundry strewn across the bathroom floor.
"Oh, I know," she said. She smiled when he quirked a curious eyebrow. "The state the bakery is always in suggests to me that your house follows suit. But as I said before, I wasn't judging you. Your schedule's been upended and you've had to allocate cleaning time to other matters."
Grant smiled, still a little embarrassed on principle, but grateful for the understanding. "Well, thank you."
"If it makes you feel better," she went on. "I wasn't intending to spend the rest of the day cleaning."
"It does a little," he said. "Are you heading off to work?"
"Yes and no," she said. She nodded to the end of the couch where a messenger bag was propped against the end. "I've brought my laptop, and I'm working remote today. I don't know how much use I'd be in the bakery, but I thought I could stay up here and keep Jefferson company so you could mind the store without worrying."
Relief washed through Grant's chest. "That would be great," he said. Jefferson was, well, he could be a handful at the best of times, but his current state was something else again. He trusted Elizabeth to be able to handle it, though—in a way that would work both for her and for Jefferson. "You're sure you won't be in trouble for not being at work?"
"I'm sure," she said. She smiled and waved at the stairs. "Go on. You stay up here chatting and nothing will be ready when the morning rush starts."
Grant came up to check on the two of them throughout the day as he had free time, but it was a relief not to have to worry about what might happen to Jefferson while he was down here. Jefferson slept most of the day, but Elizabeth got him to eat, and he even talked with her a little bit.
"Of course, I didn't quite follow it all," Elizabeth admitted to Grant later. "It's rather complicated, this forest of his. But I think he seemed relieved to be able to tell it to someone else—he knows you're going to listen, of course, but other people…"
"He's not as worried about people thinking he's crazy as he used to be," Grant said. That wasn't actually a good thing—it felt more like he was giving up.
Elizabeth nodded. "He actually said that earlier, yes." She smiled sadly. "But after talking with him, I still don't think he's mad—just very hurt. I shudder to think the sorts of places my mind would go if I suffered a loss like that."
Grant smiled at her warmly. "Thank you," he said. "That's what I think about it all too, but I…I worry that with the kinds of stuff he says, no one will want to listen well enough to see that. I just…" He sighed. "I want him to be okay. It hurts to see him so hurt." He looked back up at her and smiled. "Thank you for today. For all your help, really, it was…Thank you."
"You're welcome," she said. "And I hope you're not building up to seeing me off. I thought I might stay a few days and help you boys regain your balance. If that's alright," she added hurriedly.
He smiled at the thought of her sticking around a while longer. "That would be—I mean, if you're sure—that would be great," he told her.
Elizabeth ended up staying for the rest of the week. They fell into a sort of pattern very quickly, with her working online from his kitchen and him downstairs. Jefferson was spending more time awake, and Grant would sometimes pause in the stairway on his way up and listen to them—her voice never held any condescension or pity, and Jefferson was actually engaging in conversation. There was even a friendly, comfortable sort of banter that went on between them, as if they'd known each other for a long time. Jefferson confided to Grant one night that this was the most normal he'd felt in twenty-eight years. Grant was glad about the first part, but before he could think of anything to say about the second part, Jefferson sighed and apologized for the fact that he was still so out of it a lot of the time—he was trying to enjoy what was happening here as best as he could, but he knew it was going to end, and that knowledge kept dragging him back down.
"Jeff," Grant began, sitting down beside him. "Is it okay if I ask what all this made you feel better?" Elizabeth was going to leave eventually, and maybe if Grant knew what it was that was working so well, he could keep it up.
Jefferson sighed. "I know you're going to argue, but you and her together…" A little smile turned up one side of his mouth. "It's like when I would come to visit you back home. Watching you together, it's so familiar. It's nice." He smiled a little wider. "Even here, you fit together really well. You know she knows where everything is in your kitchen? Just knew it when she walked in."
"Well, I mean, kitchens aren't that hard to figure out," Grant pointed out.
"She knew you keep the garlic and the salt down at the end of the counter instead of by the other spices."
"The steam and stuff from the stove makes them clump up faster," Grant protested. "Everybody knows that."
"No," Jefferson argued. "It's super-weird that you have a spice rack right next to your stove, but you keep those two things farther away. Literally no one else does that. Except maybe her. Because that seemed logical to her too."
Grant opened his mouth to protest, but Jefferson held up a hand to stop him.
"Look," he said. "I'm not going to harp on about how you belong together. You just asked me a question, and I'm giving you the honest answer. This is a glimpse of home that I haven't seen in a long time, and it makes me happy. It may not be enough to get me through another twenty-eight years, but it'll hold me out for a little while. Maybe long enough for Emma to fix things." He smiled. "I know you don't understand, just…I'm still exhausted and disappointed and maybe a little crazy, but this is a good thing. Please just let me enjoy it."
Grant smiled and nodded. "Okay. You're right, I don't understand, but that's never going to stop me from trying to help. And I'm glad this is helping."
"You're a good friend, Stevie," Jefferson told him, squeezing his arm. "A good friend."
Elizabeth was cleaning up the remains of dinner when Grant came back into the kitchen. The radio was on, and she was moving to the music, swaying gently and humming to herself. As she moved into a spin, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to step forward and catch her hand and finish the spin with her, and Grant did before he realized that was what he was doing.
"I'm sorry," he said, realizing he was holding onto her hand and resting one hand on her waist. "That—I don't—"
He started to pull away, fire burning in his cheeks, but she held onto his hand. "It's alright," she said. She was staring at him in a way that made a knot catch in his throat. "You did say you didn't know how to dance." She blinked up at him, hazel eyes glowing amber in the light. "Would you like me to show you how?"
"Okay," he whispered.
She took his other hand and put it back on her waist and started to move, directing his steps as they went. Grant found himself following along like he'd done it all before and she was just reminding him how, and soon they were gliding in wider circles across the floor. The way they fit together made him feel like he was a puzzle that had been missing a piece all his life and it had finally slotted into place.
"I could dance with you for the rest of my life," he said softly, and the way she smiled up at him told him she felt the same way. Then the song ended and they realized how close together they were standing and they each took several steps back.
"I'm sorry," Grant said, realizing what he'd just said.
"Don't be," she said, though her cheeks were flushing scarlet. "I did ask you to dance, I—That was overly familiar of me. I'm sorry." They both stared uncomfortably at each other for a minute. "Right," she said. "Um, good night." She stepped around him and into the living room, and Grant quickly retreated to his own room and the mattress on the floor.
He spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, alternatively reliving their brief dance in the kitchen and wondering what in the hell he'd just done. That moment had been…It was the best thing he could ever remember feeling, but she was engaged to and in love with someone else. What had he been thinking? She was in a relationship and she was happy, and stepping into the middle of it like that and complicating things was terrible of him. But, well…she had asked him to dance. Though she wouldn't have if he hadn't stepped in and caught her hand. But she seemed to have felt the same way in the moment that he had. But maybe she'd just gotten caught up in the moment. He sighed. He'd made a royal mess of things, and what was going to happen with their friendship now? He'd always valued her as a friend, whether or not romance was on the table, but why would she want to be friends with someone who'd just done what he had?
It was a very long night.
He half expected her to be gone when he got up in the morning, and it was a great relief to see her on the couch. She was sitting up and the light was on, and he got the feeling maybe she hadn't slept much either. The smile she gave him was uncertain, but it was a smile, so hopefully that was good.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked.
He nodded and sat down across from her. Neither spoke for a moment.
"I'm sorry about last night," he said. "I…I don't know what possessed me to step in and start dancing with you like that, but it was out of line, and I'm sorry. I know you're with Fred and you're happy, and I wasn't trying to…" He sighed. "Maybe if I'd met you before you met him, we could've…" He supposed there wasn't any harm now in telling her how he felt. He'd made it pretty clear last night. "But I didn't, so, I shouldn't've done what I did last night, and if you need to step away from being friends with me now, I'd understand."
She looked at him for a long moment, then sighed. "You're right that I am with Fred," she said, and he nodded, preparing himself. "But," she continued carefully. "I don't know that you're right in saying that I'm happy."
He looked up at her in surprise.
"Fred is lovely," she explained. "And he's…comfortable?" she said, as if not quite sure of the word she wanted. "But we've been engaged for a long time because I keep not deciding on a date for the wedding. I could marry him tomorrow and have a perfectly satisfactory life, but a happy one?" she sighed. "I don't know." She looked at Grant for a minute in a way that felt like she was staring into his soul. "Fred is comfortable in a complacent sort of way, but you…You're comfortable in a way that makes me feel as though I'm at home."
"Really?" he asked quietly. That was how he felt about her.
She nodded. "After last night, I was feeling as though I was the one who'd gone too far. I am engaged, as you said, and you've been nothing but a gentleman about it. But then I go and…" She sighed again. "I've complicated things."
Grant smiled at her in understanding. "I think we've both complicated them."
She smiled at that. "Perhaps we have." She drew in a thoughtful breath. "I think I need to go home. I wanted to wait and talk to you because I didn't want you to think I was running away, but I think I need to go and think things over."
He nodded. "That's fair."
She reached over and took his hand. "But please don't think…You're important to me, and however this turns out, I'd like to keep you in my life, if that's not too selfish a thing to ask."
He smiled.
"I need a bit of time to think, but I don't want you to feel as though I'm pulling away and cutting you out."
"Okay," he said. "Thanks for…well, for clarifying that. I should probably think about things too." He squeezed the hand she was holding. "I'll be here whenever you're ready. As your friend or whatever else you need."
She smiled and thanked him, and he helped her pack up the stuff she'd brought, though she told him to keep the air mattress for a while. She left, he started the ovens and dough and took a shower and had breakfast, deep in thought the whole time. Was she actually considering leaving Fred? That was, that was what she'd been implying, right? How awful of him was it to be excited by the possibility? If that was really what she meant, could they really keep being friends if she thought it over and picked Fred after all? He liked to think so, but would that hurt too much? What about her? If she picked Fred, would she feel too uncomfortable spending time with Grant? Or what if…What if he'd misunderstood her? What if she was just reevaluating her friendship with Grant, and things with Fred were just fine? He sighed and kept thinking and burned several loaves of bread for the first time in years.
When he went upstairs and had lunch with Jefferson, his friend looked like someone had kicked his puppy when Grant told him Elizabeth had left, but he started smiling when Grant explained what had happened.
"Stevie, this is great!" he said. "The spell is weakening, I told you it was!"
"Jeff, it's not great," Grant said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. He wanted to be patient with Jefferson's delusions, but this was a very real-world problem.
"Okay, fine, forget the spell," Jefferson said, though it felt like he was just humoring him. "Look at it this way. She's thinking about dumping Fred for you. That can't be anything but good."
"You really think that's what she meant?" In the moment, it had seemed pretty obvious that that was what she meant, but uncertainty was growing as the hours ticked by.
"With all this second-guessing you do, I'll never know how you managed to marry her in the first place, but yes," Jefferson sighed. "That conversation couldn't have meant anything else."
"What if…What if she decides to stay with him?" he wondered.
"She won't," Jefferson said, so certain that Grant couldn't help but believe him.
A couple of days went by where she didn't come into the bakery, and though Grant knew she was thinking things over, just not seeing her hurt more than he thought it would. Seeing her and talking to her, even if it was only for a little while, was part of his daily routine. He found himself thinking back over the days she spent at his house more and more often—the dance, certainly, but just her being there…like she'd said, it had felt like being at home, and he missed it. He missed her.
Things had started getting very strange in town—Emma and Mayor Mills were clearly in the middle of a battle, though no one seemed to know over what. Tensions were high, then they got the news that Henry had suddenly gotten sick. He'd abruptly fallen into a coma and people seemed to think he was dying, and Grant couldn't help feeling horrified that that friendly, peculiar little boy that he'd seen only three days ago might be dying.
The next day, Grant woke up feeling jittery and nervous. Everyone who came into the shop that morning seemed on edge too, though no nobody seemed to know why. It was like they were all waiting for something.
Grant needed to get out and move around, and he needed to pick up some groceries too, so he hung the 'Be Back Later' sign on his door and took a long lunch. Jefferson was having a good enough day that Grant didn't feel worried about leaving him, but Jefferson didn't want to go outside. He hadn't since he'd come to stay, and while Grant thought some sunshine might be good for him, Jefferson seemed to feel safer inside, so Grant didn't push it for now.
That strange, jittery feeling kept growing as he walked into town. The air felt like a storm was brewing, though there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it didn't feel like any storm Grant had ever felt. No, no, that wasn't quite true. There was something about it…something in the air that he felt in his bones that terrified him.
He stopped at the pier and looked out over the harbor, smooth as glass, like it was unaware of whatever was happening in the air. Everyone he passed seemed jumpy, looking up at the sky like they were waiting for something to drop down out of it. Grant understood the feeling.
A screech suddenly tore through the air above him, like the roar of a thousand fighter jets. The screech was accompanied by a streak of purple lightning that seemed to tear the sky in half. Dark, billowing clouds appeared out of nowhere, and Grant stared up in horror at a scene he'd only seen in his dreams before—it was the purple smoke. It was…It was real.
Smoke poured down from the clouds, dark and dangerously purple. Just like in his dreams, Grant wanted to run, and just like in his dreams, he knew there was nowhere to go. He clenched the railing of the pier and held on for dear life as the smoke hit him with a howl of wind.
The wind and the smoke screamed around him, and just like in his dreams, he felt like he was being struck by lightning. Something was different this time, though. When he dreamed about the smoke, he always felt like he was being torn in half, losing what felt like part of his soul as he tumbled into oblivion. This time, though, instead of being torn in two, Grant felt like he was half of something being slammed back into place with its other half with the force of a wave smashing against the rocks.
The smoke vanished and he was on his hands and knees, shaking and gasping for breath. He tried to stand, but wasn't sure which way was up, words and images and people and everything exploding through his brain at a pace he couldn't keep up with, so he just curled down until his forehead was resting on the concrete and waited it out.
When he could see again, he pushed up enough to sit back against one of the rails behind him and catch his breath. Two different lives were fighting for dominance in his head, and, slowly but steadily, Grant from Storybrooke was fading away. Grant wasn't real—he'd never been real, just a nightmare that he'd been trapped in for…God help him, for twenty-eight years. He shoved himself to his feet as Steve settled back into place. Steve. That was his name. He was Steve, and Bucky had been right about everything, and Peggy…
He staggered back and clutched at the rail behind him. Peggy! She was—did she know?! Had she woken up like he had?! His legs started moving before he told them to, propelling him forward to find her. He stumbled to a halt as he got back to the street. Where should he look? Was she at home or at work? He'd comb every inch of town if he had to, but he couldn't stand the thought of taking a second longer to find her than necessary. He started running again.
All around him, people were picking themselves up and running, looking just as shell-shocked as he felt. He stopped next to a woman he recognized as the blacksmith's wife from the next street over from his old bakery. She'd fallen and cut herself when the smoke hit, but her thanks were distracted as he helped her to her feet—she was looking for someone too.
He ran on, and there she was, hurrying across the street that would have taken her from her office to the bakery. "Peggy!" he called, much louder than he would have thought he'd have the confidence for. Would she remember her name? Would she remember him?
She froze with her back to him, still as a statue, then slowly spun around to face him. Steve's spirit soared at the recognition in her eyes while his body simultaneously forgot how to move. For what seemed like an eternity, they stared at each other, wide-eyed and unmoving, then a laugh bubbled up out of Peggy's throat and she started running. Steve was running too, not able to get to her fast enough, and he staggered back with the force of her flinging herself into his arms. His arms caught her and wrapped around her, clinging to her like she was a rock and he was being swept out to sea.
"Steve," she whispered, holding him close and burying her face in his chest. "It's you!" She looked up, her eyes shot through with fear. "It is you, isn't it? Please tell me it's you!"
"It's me, Peggy," he breathed, not sure how much tighter he could hug her without breaking any of her ribs. "I'm me again. And you're—you're really…"
"I'm really me too," she breathed. "We're back."
"I missed you so much," Steve said, choking on a sob as the realization of how long he'd lost her for hit home.
Tears were pooling up and spilling out of Peggy's eyes, and she didn't seem to be able to speak, but she put her hands to the sides of his face and kissed him, and he held her tight and picked her up and kissed her back.
"I love you, darling," Peggy whispered when they broke apart. She clung tight to Steve's shirt as he set her down, like she was worried about getting too far away from him, though Steve had no intention of letting her go. "I love you, I love you, I love you."
"I love you too," he replied, the words so inadequate for what he was feeling. He brushed a thumb across her cheek, wiping away a tear. His own eyes weren't exactly dry either.
"Is this real?" she asked. "Do we get to keep this? Or is it—"
"It has to be," Steve said, not wanting to entertain the possibility of it being some sort of trick. "The curse breaking felt just as powerful as when it hit. I think it…I think it really broke." Still, he didn't feel inclined to let go of her just yet.
For several long minutes, they simply stood there, holding on to each other. Steve rested his head on top of Peggy's and closed his eyes, breathing in the smell of her shampoo that resembled nothing from back home in the village but still smelled completely and totally like her. "I'm sorry I let go of you," he whispered into her hair, feeling moisture prickle behind his closed eyes. "If I had just held on tighter in that first storm…" They still would have been cursed, but they would have at least been together.
A watery laugh escaped Peggy's throat, and she tilted her head up to look at him. "I was about to say the same," she told him. She nodded out at the street, taking in the town and the people around them. "I don't think we would have been able to," she went on. "Everyone else seems to have been…" She let go of him with one hand to wave out at everything, not sure of the word she wanted, but Steve understood. She turned back to look at him. "I'm still sorry."
"Me too," he said. He kissed her forehead. "But I love you. And now that I have you back, I'm never letting you go again."
She smiled. "You can't let go of me if I don't let go of you," she replied. "And I don't intend to."
"Uncle Steve! Aunt Peggy! Is that you?" a child's voice cried, and they turned to see Grace (not Paige, not anymore) running across the street. The knees of her school uniform were dirty and her pigtails were coming undone, as though the wind that had accompanied the breaking curse had thrown her around a little. She stopped just shy of flinging her arms around both of them, looking up at them questioningly.
"It's us," Peggy said as she and Steve both reached out and scooped the little girl up in a hug.
"Are you alright?" Steve asked her, running a hand over her hair.
"I'm fine," she said, squeezing him tightly with one arm and Peggy so tightly with the other she almost clunked their heads together. "I lost you in the storm," she said. "And when I woke up I…I don't know. It's like I forgot everything."
"So did we, sweetheart," Peggy told her.
"Everyone did," Steve said. "But you remember now?"
"I think so," she nodded. "That was really bad magic, wasn't it?"
"It was," Steve agreed.
"And it was the Evil Queen?" she clarified.
"It was," Peggy said. "But something broke the spell." She kissed Grace's cheek. "We're all back now."
"I'm glad," Grace said, hugging them both again. "That was…That was really weird. Do I have to go home to Carl and Linda's house? The spell made me think they were my parents, but they're not. Can I keep staying with you?"
Lightning flashed across Steve's brain, and it was a good thing Peggy was holding on to Grace too, or Steve might have dropped her. "Oh, my gosh, Bucky!" he exclaimed. He looked up at Peggy and then back at Grace. "Grace," he said, grinning widely. "You don't have to stay with Carl and Linda, but you don't have to stay with us either—your dad's here! You can go home with him!"
Grace stared at him with wide eyes. "My papa's here?" she whispered. "You found him?"
"We found him," Steve said, even though in this world he'd never really been lost.
"Where is he? Where is he; I want to see him!" she exclaimed.
"He's at my house," Steve said. "Come on, let's go!"
Peggy set her down and they each took one of her hands and hurried toward the bakery. It was only as he was unlocking the door that he remembered how rough Bucky had been looking. After twenty-eight years, though, he doubted Grace would care.
"Bucky!" he called, hurrying up the stairs, Grace and Peggy behind him. "Bucky, are you here?"
"Yeah, I'm here," Bucky said. He was lying across the couch staring at the ceiling, but he narrowed his eyes suspiciously and sat up, then stood up and took a step closer to Steve. "You just called me Bucky. What—"
His voice cut off abruptly as Grace made it to the top of the stairs and burst into the apartment. Several emotions warred for control of Bucky's face, and then, to Steve's surprise, he turned to look at Steve with a glare.
"What the hell are you doing to me?" he hissed. "This is—" He gestured at Grace. "I can't—I can't…Why are you—"
Steve realized with a start that since Bucky had never been under the curse, he wouldn't have realized it was broken. He thought it was still Grant and Elizabeth and Paige standing in front of him.
"Papa?" Grace asked hesitantly, startled by his anger.
Bucky's words died in his throat again, and he pivoted slowly on his heel back to look at her. Water pooled in his eyes as Steve saw him mouth the word 'Papa'. "You…" Bucky began. He choked on his words, tried again. "You called me Papa," he said like he couldn't believe it. He stepped forward, started to reach out a hand, pulled back. "You…You remember me?"
Grace nodded, still looking uncertain. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
"Am I happy to see you?" Bucky repeated, shaking his head in wonder. He stepped forward again, reached out a hand, hesitated one more time, then touched her cheek. Then he knelt down in front of her, running his hands over her arms and looking into her eyes. "You're real," he said, half to himself like he still couldn't believe it. "And you really remember me?"
Grace nodded.
The smile that lit up Bucky's face was one that Steve hadn't seen in twenty-eight years, and even as tears poured from his eyes, it showed no signs of dimming. "Of course, I'm happy to see you," Bucky rasped. "You're back. You're back, I—" He swallowed hard and cupped her face in his hands. "I've never been this happy in my whole life."
Grace smiled and flung her arms around him. "I missed you, Papa," she said, the last words leaving her in a rush of air as Bucky hugged her tightly.
"I missed you too, baby," he said, his voice wavering. "I missed you so much."
"I knew you would come back to me," she whispered, and he closed his eyes and cradled one hand protectively over her head.
Peggy's fingers slipped through Steve's, warm and reassuring, and she squeezed his hand tightly, resting her head on his shoulder as she watched the reunion. "I don't think I've ever been this happy in my whole life either," she said after a minute, tilting her head up to look at Steve. She kissed him warmly, then traced a finger down his jaw. "I can't believe I've been staring at this face for twenty-eight years without knowing it was you."
Steve felt the same way, and he didn't know what to say, so he just kissed her again and hugged her against his chest.
They held onto one another contentedly until Bucky and Grace finally broke their embrace, then there was a group hug as they all celebrated being back together. Having found her father at last, Grace expressed her worry at how sick he was looking, and so he explained, in halting steps, what had happened to him. Steve could tell he was worried about disappointing his daughter, but it warmed his heart to see her simply snuggle in closer to his lap and listen with sympathetic eyes, hugging him tighter instead of pulling back.
After that, Steve and Peggy joined the conversation, and between all of them they tried to piece together what had happened. They filled Bucky in on the months in the village that he'd been gone, and he in turn told them about being trapped in Wonderland, unable to get back without his hat. The Queen's curse had pulled him to Storybrooke with everyone else, but whether it didn't affect him to the point of forgetting because he'd been further away or because of some design of Regina's, he wasn't sure.
The curse had been broken somehow, and as Bucky explained what he'd been able to learn about it over the years, there was no doubt that Sheriff Swan had had something to do with it. What exactly she'd done, they didn't know, but as no further crises seemed to be forthcoming this evening, they weren't too inclined to venture out and explore. Tonight they just…wanted to hold on to each other.
Dinner happened at some point during all the talking, although since Peggy and Steve didn't want to let go of each other and Bucky and Grace didn't want to let go of one another, it was a little tricky to get it all together, but they managed. Eventually, Grace and Bucky set off for Bucky's house. They needed their time together, but Steve would go over and check on them in the morning—everyone's memories returning and having Grace back would go a long way to healing Bucky, but his curse had been of the unmagical variety and it would still take him a while to get his feet back under him.
"I keep worrying I'm going to lose you again somehow," Peggy said when they were alone again, folding herself into his arms.
"I know what you mean," Steve said. "When you're just sitting over there like that, you could still be Elizabeth, but when I'm holding you…" He kissed her forehead. "When I'm holding you, I know you're Peggy."
"Exactly," Peggy agreed. "Although…Grant and Elizabeth came awfully close, didn't they?" she added.
Steve smiled. "Well, I know you didn't know, but Grant was pretty far gone on you for twenty-eight years. It wasn't just the other night."
Peggy chuckled. "Oh, I knew. Neither Grant nor Steve was ever very subtle." She tilted her head curiously. "Why did you never say anything?"
Steve felt his cheeks flushing even as he smiled. "You were engaged," he pointed out. "It would have been inappropriate. I mean, I know in hindsight, that's ridiculous, but…"
She smiled. "No, I know. That's why I never said anything either." Her smile faded and her eyebrows furrowed. "Are you alright with that?"
"I'm not holding the curse against you," he replied.
"No," she said. "I know that. I just…" she sighed. "I was engaged to another man for longer than I've even known you. It was an engagement of convenience, and it was rather dull, and we never…I mean, we never…" She made an awkward gesture in the air, her cheeks flushing, and Steve suddenly realized what she was trying to say they'd never done.
He caught her gesturing hand and kissed her fingers. "I am very glad to hear that," he admitted. "But I hope you know that if you had, I would have gotten past it. It was the curse and you thought you loved him."
She smiled and rested her head on his chest. "Thank you," she said softly. "But what I'm trying to ask is, do we need to talk about it, or, or do you need some time or something, or—"
She stopped talking as Steve kissed her deeply. "I've had enough time," he said when they came up for air. "Way too much of it without you." He kissed her again. "I love you, Peggy."
"Oh, darling, I love you too," she said, pulling him down into a kiss that made him go shaky in the knees. "And you know," she said, stroking his cheek as he caught his breath. "When I was cursed, I never thought I loved Fred. I always thought I should love Fred, which was awfully hard to do with you around. Elizabeth spent the last twenty-eight years considering calling off her engagement at least once a month."
"Really?" He thought he might be grinning wider than was suited to the moment.
"I can only blame the spell," she said. "I'm not usually that indecisive. I'd've been married to Grant by 1984, otherwise." She arched a mock-disapproving eyebrow. "You're grinning like an idiot."
"Can you blame me?"
"Shut up and kiss me," she told him, and he happily obliged.
"You know," he told her softly. "I remember how to dance now."
"Do you?" she said warmly.
He nodded. "I don't think we got to finish the other night."
Peggy pulled back, tugging on his hands and guiding him into the kitchen toward the radio. "Well then," she said, flicking the switch and pulling him close. "Although, I'll have you know that even if you don't remember how, I don't intend to dance with anyone else ever again."
"The rest of our lives, you and me," Steve whispered, kissing her cheek before they started to move with the music. "The rest of our lives."
That's it for Once Upon A Time!
Up next, we're going Medieval.
