Guest Comments
Bosslady: Teary-eyed is good! It means I'm doing my job. ;) One of my main ideas in this verse is just how important these people are for Emma, Graham, and Henry. I want them to feel like real friends. And oh, I do think I need to go for some Andie flashbacks, for sure!
Title: Chiaroscuro
Rating: T, for some violent thoughts
Summary: Graham gets cornered.
Author's Note: Semi a prompt from a Guest "where graham finally confronts regina about what she did to him," gremma shoelace wanted "one where Regina was involved," Summoning Secrets wanted "David talk to Graham about either Snow's apology (chapter 6) or about Emma and Henry," and a little for 42oodsinwonderland who wanted more David. Whew. After It Was For Us, same day.
Rumplestiltskin's store was a cornucopia of lost relics.
From magical items to the most nostalgic of treasures, the entire room was definitely high on their list of searches due to the sheer volume alone.
After the disaster that had been that morning, Graham had convinced Emma that he could search without her, while keeping her firmly in the loop. So far, Graham had found several interesting things, but nothing that could give a single clue to whomever was behind this curse.
He sighed, digging through the most recent pile of papers. They were working backwards to get forward, but so far nothing yielded anything. Emma and Henry were back at Granny's organizing the far corner of the room into a collection of their leads. Henry was doing a marvelous job of distracting his mother after her confrontation with Snow, Graham knew.
Belle was splitting her time between the store and the library, and was currently at the latter. David would be meeting him at the store momentarily, and so he had been working in a sort of eerie silence that he tried to tune out.
He barely noticed the bell on the door ring as he waited for the steady pace of David's footfalls.
"It was years ago."
Graham swallowed, a coil of anger and pain tightening his spine as he raised his gaze to the familiar sound of the acidic bite of the voice.
Regina stood, her eyes blazing as her grip tightened along the top of Gold's counter.
It was different seeing her again this time. The first, he had been surrounded by family, worried about protecting the little circle he loved so much. Now that he was alone, with only himself to be concerned about, and his thoughts brewed in a darker tone.
His knuckles cracked as he made a fist, his temper flaring just beneath the surfaces. Decades under her thumb had strengthened the façade he'd never mastered in the forest, but his look was certainly not blank. His tone, however, was cool as he replied "seventeen months, if we're counting. What does that matter?"
She glowered at him for a long moment, her lips pursing. Carefully, she straightened, leveling him for a cold stare. "You were dead."
"As I am fully aware," he mumbled, making a show of returning to his search. He kept the corner of his gaze trained on her, but made clear he didn't wish to continue any conversation.
Regina, however, was never one to follow anyone else's request, silent or otherwise. "How?"
Graham's jaw tightened. "Why do you care? Need to know if any more of your victims are returning?"
She scoffed. "Your wit has never been sharp, Huntsman. Tell me," she demanded.
He glanced up again, feeling his every muscle tense as he reminded himself that he was still at the disadvantage here, heart or no. "I no longer go by that name," he replied stiffly.
She shook her head, teeth gleaming in her false smile. "Go by whatever name you care for, pet, just tell me what I want to know."
Had it been before, when he lived alone with his brother and away from all human society, his blade would be against her neck the second the slight escaped her lips. Instead, the weight of his memories burned tracks along the scars that still remained upon his skin, his patience tempered from his years of waiting, wanting, wishing for her violent demise. His nostrils flared as he worked to not advance on her. "I don't follow your orders anymore."
Her eyes narrowed before she flickered her cropped hair over her shoulder. "I have my concerns, you see. I thought you would have liked to protect the family you stole, dear."
His jaw tightened, a click sounding through the veneer. "I don't know if you are insulting or threatening, but either way you can take your concerns and –" He paused, pulling back the acidic burn of the threats he wanted to spew.
Her nails drummed down on the counter, too near his face. He refocused on the items in his hand, desperately trying to place a brave façade over his nervous energy. He imagined violent reactions, of crushing those fingers in a sharp blow, of closing his hand over her throat before she could scream, of bones cracking and blood-red veins in the whites of her eyes as the pupils rolled back.
He blinked back the images nearly as quick as they formed.
It had been easy, with his family, to place that feral being he once was away. Love and trust had fostered a more temperate mind, steadied by a life of memories without the woman before him. He had even been able to forget, at times, with Henry's tired lean against him, of Emma's hand curling into his, of their baby stirring beneath skin. There was a sort of calm, a peace that he had never had even when he had been free. Emma and he had worked through much of his fears, and he had been able to reconcile his memories to the point where they didn't crop up as frequently.
This was the first true test to those feelings. Having Regina so close sent violent shivers through his soul, but he didn't feel near as damaged as he used to. Progress, he thought bitterly. But he still felt like a confined wild thing in her presence, not the functional, happy human he was in New York.
He pushed back the vicious thoughts, pulling forward memories from the days prior, pleasant memories to stir a more moral being. He was going to be a father twice over, and thus had a standard to uphold (no matter what the darker part of him was trying to reason; safer, safer if she were gone).
He was ashamed to admit that what had him finally release those impulses was the knowledge that he was no match to her magic, that he would fail before he could inflict the damage.
"I'm alive," he finally choked out, swallowing his anger. "It shouldn't matter to you how."
Her eyebrow arched. "And if you're not the only one?"
His smile was more a sneer, despite his efforts. "Then I guess you'll have to deal with that."
The door chimed again, David stopping short at the sight of the two. He shifted uncomfortably, his face straightening from its previous surprised and, if Graham wasn't mistaken, disgusted state. He nodded stiffly. "Regina," he said in greeting, hands fumbling with the umbrella in his hands. "Wasn't expecting you here."
The here was pointed, clearly a reference to being in Graham's specific presence. A silence stretched between all three, thick as steel.
Finally, she huffed, tossing a last glare in his direction. "Just you wait. You'll wish you had asked for my help from the beginning."
She stomped away, heels clicking mercilessly against the tile. David and Graham watched her, looks of confusion and contempt respectively on their faces.
"Sorry I'm late," David mumbled, then sighed. He threw his hand over his short hair before turning to Graham. "You shouldn't have to be dealing with her."
Graham shrugged in response. His pulse was better controlled, now that Regina was fading into the distance. "Better than Henry, at any rate."
David looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "He's … he's really uncomfortable with the idea of seeing her, isn't he?"
"More than you know," Graham muttered. He blew out a low breath and finally stood. "It's not just the two lives, you see. Regina's threatened everyone before, and tried to make him forget. He has everything back, now."
David's brow furrowed, his expression darkened for a moment. "Snow's … she can see …," he trailed off with a heavy sigh.
Graham stared at the other man for a long moment before nodding. "I know she has other ideas. But you can't expect Emma or Henry to feel the same."
"Or you," David added. His blue eyes were trained on him in concern. "I honestly don't know how you are able to handle being around her. Takes a lot of strength, I'd say."
Graham grimaced. "Not so much that," he said as his hand finally relaxed, skin coloring as the he released the tension.
David shook his head. "No, really. I know some days, I look at her and just—Well, I'll just say I don't always feel as diplomatic. But Snow is convinced, and she does seem to be trying … I don't know."
Graham offered a small smile, appreciating the fact that the other man was willing to share his feelings. "You don't have to explain yourself. I know you're having a hard time in the middle of all this."
"My plan was to be the buffer, to keep Regina away. Sorry that didn't work out," he said, fingering the butt of his holstered gun.
Graham shut his eyes for a moment. "I appreciate it. I don't know how much longer I could have been in her presence without doing something," he admitted.
David opened his mouth to respond, but before he could Graham's phone buzzed on the counter nearest the blond, then a few more times in quick succession. David turned instinctively, and he looked a little stunned.
"Sorry," Graham said, grabbing his phone. He looked down at the screen and he chuckled a little at what the other man saw. Are you guys home yet? flashed across the screen, along with five other texts saying simply how about now?.He was unsurprised to see Andie's name attached to it. He breathed a low sigh of relief, of his present filling him with a blessed pause from the ghost of his past being stirred up. He typed a quick response back, before turning back to David.
David looked like he was trying hard not to be curious, fumbling absently with a small figure in tin on the counter. "Was there anything you found before she came in?" he asked.
Graham chuckled under his breath and rose, finally, to a standing position. "Nothing, really." He unlocked his phone and scrolled through pictures, finally landing on one of he and Emma at Chief Irving's retirement, Andie and Leo hanging off them drunkenly, and Maggie holding the camera out awkwardly enough to capture them all. "This is Andie, the one who texted. Simmons, her husband, works with me. Maggie used to be Emma's social worker when she first had Henry, and is her best friend."
David's eyes had widened, taking in the image almost reverently. Graham scrolled past a few more pictures, noting David's eyes flickering actively to try and catch the fast-moving images. Finally, he settled on one of Henry at the school, his head leaning over his work, Michael and Avery by his side. "That's Henry at the Young Writers' Workshop with a couple of his friends."
"Can I?" David asked softly as he gently cradled the device.
Graham smiled and nodded. He watched as David collapsed against the counter, his thumb gently swiping to view the myriad of pictures they had gathered in the last year. Finally, David seemed to linger on one, his face soft.
"It's good for you guys there, isn't it?" he murmured.
"Not perfect, but yeah. Damn good," Graham replied. His heart tugged faintly, a reminder of just how close to perfect it all actually felt.
David nodded. "Can we … can you send some of these to us? I'm sure Snow would like to see them."
And there it was. There was the thing that held them all back: the fact that their whole family wasn't actually together. In New York, there would be no Nolans. In Storybrooke, there would be another chunk of non-blood-related family missing.
"It's moving quick, here," Graham said slowly. "I don't think any of us have had much time to process what's going on … and what will happen later."
Emma had been in tears earlier after speaking with her mother. It had taken a good hour before he convinced her to stay at the B&B with Henry while he worked on the case. The rock-in-a-hard-place situation was one that couldn't be remedied through one conversation, but he definitely understood Emma being so upset with Snow so stubbornly accusing.
David's face broke into a brief flash of sadness before melting back into placidity. "I know. Snow needs to ease into it," he said. He looked up. "I understand why you'd all want to go back, though."
Graham pressed his lips together, sympathy biting through him. "It's easier, in some ways. We don't have to deal with … the people we don't want to. But she misses you two so much. We do feel your absence, David. Every day."
David was quiet a beat. "I'm ashamed to say I'm glad to hear it." He took the phone again, gingerly placing it on the glass between them. "But I'm also glad you four are happy."
Graham looked down, finally seeing the picture David had been enthralled with, and his heart twisted in fondness.
It was at their reception. Emma's face was stretched wide in her smile, eyes twinkling as Graham leaned his forehead against her temple, looking every bit enamored as his hand reached to clasp Henry's shoulder. Henry was wrapped around Emma's waist, grinning as he pointed to where his sibling was growing. They were surrounded in an iridescent glow of bubbles being blown by their friends and coworkers celebrating their marriage. They looked like they had never known an ounce of trouble in their entire lives, if only in that one brief moment that the camera captured.
They had known so much pain in their respective lives. Having a chance to heal together was the greatest possible thing that could have happened to them. Coming back hadn't broken them, and couldn't as long as they were together. Things wouldn't be wrapped into a neat little bow at the end of this, and Graham did want to return home … but there could be another solution.
He swallowed, looking up at the man who had lost so much in Regina's quest for vengeance. "We'll find a way." He didn't know how, but that wasn't the issue. The feats he had overcome in the past year proved to him that having faith in that was well-founded, and Emma and Henry deserved to have the people who loved them this much in their lives.
David gave a smile that almost looked like a secret before he nodded. "I'll always find them," he replied.