an: Some readers might find this triggering, you have been advised.
Chapter Seven – The Sheriff and The Mayor
The witch lay a fair spread, the traveler would give her that. Her bread was perhaps a day old and her soup full of vegetables that would far better growing in fields, not wild along the forest floor. There was cheese and the stock of the soup was obviously that of beef. It filled the traveler's belly and pooled warmth at the base of her stomach, driving away the chill of the rain and the forest. She could not remember the last time that she had had a warm meal and she embraced the feeling as warmly as she could, the memory of the witch's hands closing around her neck still fresh in her mind.
Her breeches and the little boy's shoes were draped on the grate in front of the fire, the worn leather sizzling as the moisture of the wet and the rain was driven off of them. The traveler had burned many a pair of pants in her day, and was keeping a close watch on them as she ate, spooning the soup's broth in her mouth with all the grace of her upbringing.
"And here I was expecting you to eat like my son," the witch commented as the traveler set her spoon down daintily on the edge of her bowl. There was a twinkle of amusement in the woman's eye and the traveler found herself smiling back.
The little boy looked at his mother with an almost affronted gleam in his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. "I'm getting better," he protested, his cheeks puffing out moodily. He had changed into a long white shirt and knit stockings that went all the way down to his house shoes. The traveler thought that he looked angelic, sitting there with his cheeks shining and hair still damp from the rain. It was frizzing as it dried, sticking up at all angles.
The witch offered him a napkin, which he took and dabbed at his mouth with such an exaggerated level of prim and properness that the traveler snorted into her mug of cider. "You are indeed," the witch murmured, smoothing down his hair with an affectionate smile.
The traveler had grown up knowing of this witch, of this evil being that was somehow deeply connected to her life. The witch was a shadowy figure that flirted with the edges of her childhood, a specter upon her family's legacy.
Her father was a good man, a fair king. He had longed for a son, and the bond that he shared with his lone child was far more of a father and a son than a daughter and her father. He taught her to ride, to drive away her fear of combat and of horses. He taught her to hunt and to battle the darkness within her and all around her.
The traveler's mother's past was clouded. She was a princess, the daughter of a beloved king - the traveler knew this as truth. Her mother was also not the best person in the world. Her history was tainted with subterfuge and this woman - this witch who was once the queen. The traveler watched her as she ate, her movements every bit the part of a lady at table.
"Tell me, what brings you to my woods, traveler?" the witch asked. Her eyes were on her son, concentrating as he spooned soup into his mouth.
The traveler set down her spoon and knit her hands together and leaned forward. Her chin rested on her bridged fingers and she found herself trying to find the answer that she did not quite have. "I wanted to meet the forest mistress," she confessed after a moment. Honesty was the least that she owed the witch for her hospitality. "I heard tell of her closer to my homeland and I thought she might be the one to help me."
The little boy turned curious eyes towards the traveler, whose cheeks burned at his scrutiny. His cheeks puffed out in concentration. "Isn't the forest mistress..." he trailed off and turned to look at his mother, who wiped her mouth daintily with a napkin as he continued, "You, mom?"
"I suppose that it is a name I have been called in the past," the witch acquiesced. She shot the traveler a long look across the table, her lips curling into a shrewd smile that made her look far more dangerous than before. "One of many," she all but purred.
"I would be a fool to assume any differently," the traveler replied smoothly.
"Then why did you come?" The boy demanded, fingers reaching blindly for the cuff of the traveler's shirt. It was still damp at the sleeves, drying quickly in the warmth of the witch's home.
The traveler opened her mouth to speak and no words came out. She did not know why she'd come. There were no words to describe the feeling she felt inside her. It pushed her to move, to flee the castle that she'd called home all of her life. She had been cursed as a child - her mother had said as much - cursed by a witch of a queen with favor she had not earned.
She had to prove herself a champion to the woman who was once the queen. To earn the favor she'd been granted so that her life and honor were not forfeit in the perspective of the old ways.
"I..." she fumbled though the words. "I came because-"
"I asked you to come because this is your doing," the hiss was low and dangerous, but Emma heard it clearly as she shifted in the uncomfortable hospital chair and tried to force herself back into the dream.
Her dreams were damn fantastical, but at least they made more sense than her life right now. Emma screwed up her nose and shifted again, knowing that sleep wouldn't return. She'd squandered her chance - or rather Regina had squandered her chance by making a damn racket and yelling at someone while she was sleeping. Emma gave a quiet huff and shifted again. Her ass was asleep.
Emma cracked a sleepy eye open and saw a very different-looking vision of Storybrooke's mayor. Her cheeks were streaked shiny with tears; her mascara had run down across her face giving her a harrowed look that made Emma want to lunge for the sword she'd been given before. Regina had been crying, and she'd somehow fallen asleep.
The mayor was standing with her arms wrapped around herself, Graham's leather jacket over her shoulders. She was speaking in hushed, angry tones to Mr. Gold, who was sipping pensively on a cup of coffee and looking more bored than anything else by her anger. Emma felt her hackles rise just looking at him.
"What do you want me to do, dearie?" His tone was mild, but Emma could hear the contempt in it. She wanted to give away wakefulness by pointing out that there was plenty he could do, elsewhere. This was a place for those who were waiting on word from Doctor Whale about the sheriff. "There are rules in these sorts of things, he was not meant to be a part."
"He was mine," Regina raged, jabbing her finger into Gold's chest. "Like it or not, you have your things and I have mine. I - like you - do not appreciate others tampering with them."
"We both know that that's not entirely true," Gold replied smoothly. "You couldn't have him and what he stood for, Madame Mayor." He reached out a tentative hand and gave her shoulder an awkward pat before leaning forward, and saying in an undertone. "Please," Emma could hear the smugness in his voice and see how Regina' shoulders had stiffened, every muscle in her body tight. "Let it go."
What Regina did then was not what Emma would have ever expected from her. She gave a sigh and stepped aside, watching as Mr. Gold limped past her with a self-satisfied smile on his face. Emma could see her hands clenched into fists, she could see the white knuckles there and she stood up in an instant.
It was three steps to Regina, four to have her within range and have Emma's hands pressing soothing circles into her back as the Mayor sobbed into Emma's shoulder. "He was mine," she kept muttering over and over again. "Mine."
My knight.
Emma's brow furrowed. She was positive that this was not how Henry would envision the Evil Queen in his stories reacting to the death of one of her servants. She didn't know if it was because they were sleeping together – and probably had been sleeping together for some time – that Regina was reacting like this. Graham was a friend, a close friend to them both. Emma had done her best to force the terrible memories that had surfaced when he had kissed her back down from whence they'd come. They had no business being present at a time like this.
When Doctor Whale had carted Graham off into surgery, Emma had collapsed into a chair, head buried in her hands. She hadn't thought to text Mary Margaret and tell her that she'd be late coming home – or to ask Regina where Henry was. Her mind was full of worry for a man who had shown her nothing but kindness and misguided affection.
She wasn't good at hospitals or relationships. Had this been any other town at any other time in her life, she would have high-tailed it out of there the moment Graham kissed her. She wouldn't have stuck around to make sure he was okay – she probably would not have even noticed how his breathing had come erratic and his eyes were wide and almost feral looking in that moment.
It hasn't even been that long, she wants to protest, but she knows that it's not true. Her entire life, probably, has culminated in the events that led her to Storybrooke. She was finally starting to understand and accept that. To be here, to be there for all the people she's somehow come to care about when others who have wanted that level of connection from her have failed, was new and terrifying for Emma. She was never good at relationships, but Storybrooke is forcing her to change.
Emma took a deep breath and did the one thing that she probably should not do in such a moment. She leaned forward, burying her nose in Regina's hair. The Mayor smelled of pine and a fresh scent that Emma couldn't place. There was a layer of expensive perfume and the heady smell of fear there as well. So much fear. "I'm yours too," she whispered, the words falling flat and stupid from her lips. "Your knight."
Regina stilled in her arms, fingers curling around the lapel of Emma's jacket. She could feel the Mayor's breath, hot and heavy on her neck as the Mayor leaned in. Despite herself, Emma shivered. "Graham is dead, Gold can never know of your connection to me."
He... he was dead? Emma felt her own body still and she took a horrified step backwards from Regina. Graham was good and kind. He was like a big puppy and he was in the prime of his life – he couldn't be dead. Emma raised a shaking hand to cover her mouth as she tried to wrap her mind around what had happened. It was impossible, it had to be impossible.
The Mayor's expression was unreadable, her jaw set in a hard line and her lips pressed flat and almost white. She looked for all the world like she wanted to retreat back into Emma's arms and forget the torture of this day. "Why didn't you wake me?" She hissed.
It wasn't really the question that she wanted to ask, but she knew that Regina could not really articulate a response to much else right now. "Gold," She explained, gesturing towards the door that the pawnbroker had stalked out of just moments before. "I was afraid that I would lose my…" Regina trailed off, thinking of the right word.
"Cool?" Emma suggested, mind racing at the implications of that.
Regina sighed, "If I spoke like you or Henry, I suppose that would be suitable, yes." She looked away, arms still wrapped around herself and towards the doors that lead to the ER operating room. Emma watched as she bit her lip and seemed to contemplate something before turning back to Emma. "He doesn't have any family here," To say that the Mayor looked almost lost was to say that the Mayor actually knew how to handle such a situation. "I..."
Emma swallowed, because she'd known that. Graham had mentioned in one of their off-handed talks during the long quiet hours at the station (because nothing ever happened in Storybrooke) that he didn't have much in the way of family. Emma had sympathies at the time, because she did not have much in the way of family either. She never did. "Should we…" she trailed off, because to make arrangements would solidify the fact that Graham was dead, and she did not want to force herself to think about that.
"Yes," Regina agreed, and Emma looked up at her with weak and weary eyes. They had to do this, it was the right thing to do.
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Later that night, over a glass of warmed cider, Regina explained to Emma her fears about Gold. Emma had walked to the Mayor's house after heading to the station and processing some of the paperwork from the incident that had led to Graham's death. There was some sort of a solace in the repetitive work, and Emma had finally found herself calming down enough to process what had happened.
She had spent a while with her head in her hands, fingers pulling at her hair as she tried to figure out what she could have done differently. She could have saved Graham. She'd been trained on how to save lives what felt like a lifetime ago, but still she had done nothing. The CPR she'd started before the EMTs had arrived had done nothing, he'd probably been dead long before he'd ever arrived at the hospital.
The dry wracking sobs that had taken her body in that moment had not subsided for what felt like hours. Graham had been a friend. Despite the last few moments that they'd spent together and the horrible memories that he'd been able to dredge up, Graham had been one of the few friendly faces in this town when she'd first arrived. To say that he had been a friend would be understating it somewhat.
She mourned the loss of her friend because he did indeed have no family here.
"What do we do," she asked as Regina pressed the warm mug into her hands and lead her into the study. She had been informed that Kathryn Nolan had dropped Henry off a few hours ago, exhausted from what she considered to be an hour of hard work. David had apparently taken Henry on his evening trip to feed the animals at the shelter, so he'd spent the entire evening being fed junk food and playing with puppies. Compared to how both Regina and Emma had spent their evening, it sounded absolutely wonderful.
Regina left the door ajar and crossed to the window. She stood, her form a sharp contrast to the black night outside. "I don't know," she admitted.
Emma took a long swig of her cider and moved to stand on the other side of the window. The street was quiet, the clouds above murky and overcast. Emma stared at the sky and wondered if it would snow this evening. It had been threatening to do so for several days now, the slight flurries of the previous attempts had left the ground muddy and wet – but it had not stuck. "Did…" she trailed off, thinking about what Regina had said about Graham's heart being contained inside that mausoleum. "Did you really have his heart down there?"
The gaze that met her own was unapologetic as Regina gave a small shrug. "You still do not believe in the curse fully, Ms. Swan, how am I to explain to you the more grisly elements of what I had to do to create this town?"
She hadn't been expecting that. Regina had never explicitly hid the truth from her after the dire wolf had attacked. This almost seemed like a step backwards for her to be testy about it now. Emma had seen her at her most vulnerable today; it seemed only fair that they were honest with each other. "So it was down there," Emma concluded.
The mayor nodded. "My reasons for having it are not for you to know, nor for you to ask."
Emma had not planned on it. Henry had told her all about the Evil Queen's curse and the sacrifice and hatred it had taken for it to even work, once cast.
She watched as Regina moved to lean against the back of the sofa, pensively resting her own mug of cider against her chin as she stared at Emma with dark and unreadable eyes. Emma wanted to say a million things to her in that moment, starting with pointing out that they were in this together, starting from the moment Regina had smeared her blood all over Emma's face. It was so strange to find herself feeling completely and utterly blown away by the situation on hand.
"How the hell do you get someone's heart and keep it alive?" It seemed like the most honest question to ask, the sort of question that could draw an answer out of Regina and not have her shut down entirely.
Regina raised an eyebrow over her mug and smirked. There was a lipstick impression on the edge of the mug, blood red and oh – so enticing. Emma swallowed, and forced her eyes away from the stain and up to meet Regina's amused look. "Why, magic, dear." She stepped forward and into Emma's personal space. "Did you expect any less of me?"
Emma hesitated, but then raised her hands to rest on Regina's shoulders. "I suppose I didn't," she confessed with a wry smile. She inclined her head to the side and added, "Still doesn't explain how it exists here. Both you and Henry have told me that there is no magic in this world."
Long, cold fingers closed around Emma's hands, pulling them away from Regina's shoulders and holding them between their two bodies. Regina's eyes narrowed dangerously and her grip tightened to the point where it was painful. Emma kept her face as straight as she could, she refused to let the pain show on her face. This was a battle of wills between the pair of them, she would not fall victim again.
"You will find," Regina said, leaning forward, so closer her breath was hot on Emma's lips. "That these things have a way of working themselves out, Emma."
She didn't want to tell Regina that she would rather think that there was no magic in this world than the alternative. She had brought Henry into this world under the worst circumstances imaginable. To know that there was magic that could solve problems and end lives just like that was too much, and the weight of it tumbled down upon her shoulders. She couldn't do this, she couldn't be that person.
Regina's eyes were shining. She looked almost predatory, lips dangerously red and eyes gleaming in the half-light of the study. Emma knew what she wanted to do in that moment and the idea terrified her, because it would be so easy to change the rules of their relationship. From the way that Regina's nostrils were flaring and how she was almost biting her lip in anticipation, she was not alone in her desires.
"I want you to be sheriff," Regina said suddenly, hands releasing Emma and backing away to pick up her mug once more. Emma blinked at the sudden removal of Regina from her presence and looked down at the floor. "I have to know that if anyone goes digging into your past that there aren't any skeletons in your closet."
Emma folded her arms across her chest. Her skeletons were hardly the sort that she would reveal to a woman like Regina. "Like you don't already know them."
"I know that you were a minor when Henry was born, and that he was born in a correctional facility in Phoenix," Regina said primly, but there was a look of something after she'd said the words that told Emma everything. Emma straightened and scowled, hating that her secret was known by another.
The Mayor sighed when Emma gave her best and most defiant look. Who the hell was Regina to judge her for shit that had happened in her life and the subsequent decisions she'd made? "I…" Regina began, setting down her mug and staring down at it for a long moment before turning her attention back to Emma. "I want to know if there's anything else."
"There isn't," Emma promised, because what was left unspoken was more than enough of a burden to bear. "We've both shared our secrets."
"For better or for worse, Ms. Swan, for better or for worse."
Emma was inclined to agree with Regina. It sounded like a promise, and as Emma raised her mug in an almost mocking toast to the predicament that she'd found herself in, the smile that twisted across Regina's lips turned from almost pleasant to downright twisted.
Perhaps she'd over played her hand.
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She stepped out of Storybrooke's city hall and winced as a blast of cold air hit her. It stole her breath away and made Emma curse loudly as she pulled her scarf more tightly across her mouth and tugged her cap down over her ears. She'd just sat through twenty minutes of pointed questions from Sydney Glass regarding her appointment to Graham's vacant sheriff position. He'd wanted to know why she'd been appointed so suddenly, Graham's funeral had barely been a week ago.
"There's always a need for law enforcement," Emma had explained to the reporter as he'd scribbled down notes. "Graham was a friend - a good friend to both the Mayor and myself – to say that I accept this position with a heavy heart is an understatement. As Mayor Mills said, I'm the best man for the job."
Sydney Glass had seemed at least reasonably at peace with what she had said. She'd left him with a few questions for the Mayor over some sort of city ordnance about pet licenses or something. Emma was grateful, she'd been grilled by many people in her time, but the reporter was one of the more dogged in his pursuit for answers that she'd encountered.
Bowing her head to the stiff breeze that was blowing in off the ocean, Emma headed towards the sheriff's station. She had half a mind to stop at Granny's for some cocoa before getting on with the day's work, but thought better of it as she saw Mr. Gold crossing the street right by the diner. She wanted nothing to do with Gold after what she had overheard at the hospital. She still wasn't sure if he knew that she'd overheard, but he certainly had been interested to know that the mayor had decided to appoint Emma the town's sheriff.
She kept her head down, hoping to avoid a conversation with Gold. She knew that he'd seen her, however, when he paused, seemingly unperturbed by the biting chill in the air. Emma sighed and straightened, hands still tucked into her jacket pockets as she strode purposefully on.
"Good day, Deputy – or should I say Sheriff Swan," Mr. Gold's smile was polite, but disinterested. Emma knew that every statement he made was dripping with disingenuous courtesy and interest – it didn't even take her super power to figure that out. "It seems that winter is finally upon us."
"Indeed it does," Emma sniffed the air, smelling wood smoke and the kitchen at Granny's. Her stomach growled low, and Emma tried to push down the flare of embarrassment that she felt at the sound. It had been a long morning already. "Did you want something, Mr. Gold? I have things I need to do and most of my morning is already gone."
Gold eyed her curiously and Emma shifted uncomfortably under his eyes. Regina had never specified who Gold was in the book – and Henry had said that he'd never quite been able to figure it out. Gold had created the curse, which set him in direct opposition to Regina. Emma was willing to take the bet that he was probably at least somewhat aware of who Henry thought she was in the big scheme of the curse. "I merely wished to welcome you into the role you now fill, Sheriff."
"Well thank you," Emma said as politely as she could. She was lying through her teeth but then again, so was he. She shivered, the cold biting through her jacket and sinking down to her bones. She hated Maine. Why the fuck couldn't it have been somewhere temperate – Savannah was nice all year round. Hot as balls in the summer, but not this fucking cold, never this cold. "I should get going, nice talking to you."
Gold bowed his head and let her pass, before adding, "Please drop by my shop tomorrow, Sheriff, I have some things of Graham's – I was his landlord-"
Emma turned to stare at him, the request seemed odd. "You own the apartment complex?"
"One of them," Gold pointed out with a wry grin that came nowhere near his eyes. "But do come by, Ms. Swan."
"I'll be there," Emma agreed. There was a knot at the base of her stomach as she said the words, like she was agreeing to something that could absolutely not be broken. It felt strange, and she was oddly angry at the request. She should not be forced to bend to Gold's will.
She walked away with an uneasy feeling settling onto her shoulders.
Regina had not minced words when she told Emma to stay away from Mr. Gold. Graham had said the same thing before he'd died and still Emma knew deep at the base of her stomach that he was the villain in this piece. Regina was not a saint, that much was for sure. Henry had explained how the curse had been cast when Emma had first met him. She'd killed her own father to get it to work.
What the hell had happened to her to get her that way?
Emma knew that her loyalties were divided in this conflict. She wanted to be there for Regina, because she was honor-bound to be there. Regina was the queen who had granted her favor and like it or not, something about this goddamn town bound Emma to her will. She also knew that Henry had a point and that he'd figured out that his adoptive mother was the Evil Queen in his stories somehow.
She'd yet to really figure it out, but she'd yet to see Regina consciously show affection for Henry when he wasn't somehow in danger or half-asleep. She bit her lip and hunched her shoulders into the wind again, wincing as her teeth broke through flesh. She had to get something for the cold and her lips – she was not going to survive the winter here. The pain kept her focused. She'd stayed because she wanted to make sure that Henry was okay, she'd found out the truth about Storybrooke because she'd been in the right place at the wrong time, and now she was trapped in between two very different allegiances.
"Why were you talking to Mr. Gold?" Emma jumped about a foot in the air as she heard the question. Henry was standing in the patio of Granny's, a to-go cup of what Emma hoped was hot chocolate clutched in his mitten-clad hands.
"Jesus kid," she hissed, her heart still racing. She pressed a hand on her chest and took a few long and calming breaths before she tugged at her scarf so it was down below her mouth. Her breath fogged the mid-morning air and she took deep breaths to calm down after Henry had damn near scared the shit out of her. "Why aren't you in school?"
"We have in service today," Henry explained, sipping his cocoa. "I have a project to work on, so I'm going to go back to my mom's office and use her computer while she's in meetings."
Emma's eyes narrowed, thinking about how Mary Margaret had left at the ass-crack of dawn that morning to get to some sort of youth science fairy-thing involving a volcano. She'd have to look into that, because come to think of it, it was totally transparent. "Well, you should get going. You don't want to be late for your mom."
"She's not my mom," Emma's shoulders stiffened at Henry's proclamation. "You are."
She couldn't deal with this right now. She just couldn't, there was too much on her plate. She let her hands fall to her sides and looked away. "Henry," she began, emotion swelling up at the back of her throat. This was the one thing that she knew she could never have, this beautiful little boy before her who wanted nothing more than to be exposed to how bad a person Emma truly was. "Henry I'm no good," she said pathetically. "Your mom loves you."
He looked up at her with wide eyes, his cheeks rosy in the cold. "She doesn't love me," he retorted. "She never has. You don't know what it was like with her – stuck alone with only her."
Emma bent down and knelt before him. He was her little prince, he had to be. "I know it's hard to see it Henry, but your mom is a good person."
"She's the Evil Queen," Henry pointed out. Emma bit back the smile that threatened to blossom across her features at that statement. "She should be locked up."
She patted his head, "I've been locked up, Henry – I wouldn't wish it on anyone." She paused as his eyes widened. "Even the evil queen in your story and certainly not the woman who took care of you your whole life."
His lower lip jutted out stubbornly and Emma smiled, there was that expression that she knew so well. Regina did it too, looking all regal and pouty and adorable. Not that Regina was adorable, she was more, terrifying and pouty. Yes. "You were in jail?" he asked with wide eyes. "Why?"
"Because I did a bad thing," Emma explained. She reached out to touch his shoulder, feeling his body underneath his thick and warm jacket. He was tense and scared, she knew it. "I told you, I'm no good."
"You're better than her." Henry retorted moodily, pushing past Emma and stalking off down the street towards the city hall building and his mother's office. Emma watched him go as she tried to calm the maelstrom of emotions that had surged up inside of her. It was the first time, Emma realized, that she had ever recognized Henry's father in him.
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Mary Margaret was there, like always, when Emma escaped Henry, the day's work and three annoyingly persistent follow up calls from Sydney Glass, to retreat back to the apartment. She was caught up in her mind, in memories that she tried to force down and keep buried. She couldn't believe that she'd never bothered to look at Henry beyond his resemblance to herself and to Regina. There was something else there, something that scared Emma in its intensity.
She'd seen it before, in that moment that Graham had kissed her. The moment that had pushed her back, mentally to a time long before that; the one she wanted with all her heart to forget. It was a constant nightmare, those memories, and she'd gotten good at running when the dreams came, before the dreams took a turn for the dark and terrifying.
She wasn't coping with Graham's death well, no one in town really was. Regina's private assertions did not make it any less of a public freak accident – she'd floated a theory about what had happened long into their conversation the night that Regina had appointed her sheriff. There were no grounds, and Regina had warned her off Mr. Gold before she could really even put her nose to the scent. Emma was inclined to believe her about her theory, but she wasn't prepared to voice it just yet. Certainly not to Mary Margaret.
Not when their own relationship was so utterly complicated.
"What's eating you?" Mary Margaret asked as Emma moodily tossed her car keys across the kitchen island and slumped down on the couch next to her roommate. Emma watched as Mary Margaret set aside the newspaper that she was reading and turned to give Emma her full attention.
"Henry," Emma explained. She'd jammed her hands into her pockets, fingering the three pennies and a dime she had in there that amounted to her change from lunch. "He's… well, he's being really bad about his mom. And about me, I guess. I keep trying to tell him that she's a better mother than I'll ever be." She sighed, "I told him that I'd been to jail and he wanted to know why."
Mary Margaret inclined her head to the side, the universal 'go on' gesture. "Did you tell him?"
"That I'd broken into a house because I was freezing to death in the middle of the winter trying to get away from his asshole father?" Emma gave a rueful laugh. "Of course not." She sighed, body pitching forward as she stared down at her hands. "I told him that I had done a bad thing." She knew that it was coming and the words came forth almost before she could stop them and actually think about what she was saying. She'd never had someone she could talk to like Mary Margaret. She felt safe enough to admit. "I couldn't bring myself to explain further."
"Safe from the man who fathered him?" Mary Margaret's question was clarifying, but there was a strangled and pained tone in her voice that told Emma all that she needed to know about how Mary Margaret felt about that particular situation. Mary Margaret was the friend that she'd so desperately needed as a kid, and she had the mothering instinct that made her approachable and comforting.
(And she maybe, just maybe, truly was Emma's mother.)
Emma refused to get her hopes up.
Her entire body was a tense line, and Emma stared resolutely ahead. "I don't ever talk about this," she admitted, feeling awkward just saying it. "I've never talked about this."
"What happened?" Mary Margaret asked gently. She didn't look like she expected an answer and Emma was grateful for that.
The threads of the story came together easily, and Emma found it easier to tell as she thought about where best to begin the story. She thought for a moment, before beginning. "I was seventeen. I'd run away from the group home I was assigned because it was no better than a prison." She glanced around at the apartment she'd come to share with Mary Margaret and thought about how she would have reacted to such a place at age seventeen. She didn't think that Mary Margaret would appreciate her ICP CDs or the Marshall Mathers LP that she still listened to on occasion. Mary Margaret was too, well, pure for how Emma had been as a teenager. "I'd hitched a ride from Providence to Cleveland with a trucker - she was pretty cool, honestly - came from a situation sort of like mine. She left me in Cleveland and I realized very quickly that I wasn't prepared to be homeless in a city in the middle of the winter."
Emma knew she was being really careful to not look at Mary Margaret. She couldn't tell this story seeing the expression that was sure to be growing on her friend's face. She exhaled, running a hand through her hair, "I would hang out by bars, I didn't want to hook or whatever, but I did want someone to take my home. By that time, most of the guys on the streets were Desert Storm vets, and they didn't like girls much. There was this guy, I never knew his name, who offered me a place to stay - said I looked too young and was too clean to be on the streets."
"You went with him?" Mary Margaret asked, eyebrows raised.
She shrugged. "I was freezing to death," Emma explained, because it was the only reasoning she had. She didn't know why she'd gone with him; it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Emma had always had feelings that had driven her choices in life, and that one moment had been no different. She'd seen the man be kind to the vets and the kids on the street. She figured that he couldn't have been that bad. Mary Margaret should understand her reasoning, really she should. "I figured he'd be okay, he was clean cut, didn't use. He expected things from me, I um... well, I did them because it was him or the streets with the PTSD crazies sealing what little shit I had." At Mary Margaret's horrified look, Emma added, "I did say no, and he stopped, for a while."
"And then he started?" Mary Margaret's hand was warm on her shoulder and Emma felt her resolve drop. Her biggest secret, the one that she'd yet to really ever articulate to anyone. The one that Henry could never, ever, know.
"I- Yes. He did." Her voice choked up as she shoved at the coffee table with her toe. Anything to not look at Mary Margaret, she'd have to stop if she looked at her. "I ran away after that, as far as I could get from him. I went to one shelter after another. No one wants a teenager who's just been through all that in their shelter. He kept finding me, said it was what he'd done all his life."
"So you broke into a house and got caught on purpose?" There was realization in Mary Margaret's tone and Emma turned to glance at her friend. Mary Margaret's eyes were very wide, but other than that, her expression as completely neutral and non-judgmental. Emma was grateful that the questions at least had been reasonable and easy to answer. Mary Margaret had never asked if she'd specifically been raped, and Emma would never tell her that yes, she had. She was only just now, nearly a decade later, starting to be okay with what happened.
She nodded at Mary Margaret's question. "It was the only way out that I could think of. I was out of options - I knew that if he found me again that he would do it again. I'd just found out I was pregnant at that point and I wasn't showing yet, so I did what I thought was my only option." She remembered very clearly what it was like to stand in that bus station bathroom, stolen pregnancy test clutched between shaking fingers as she held it up to the light to be positive of the results. She had known in that moment that she had no choice, and had picked a house that she knew had a security system. She'd sat on the front steps until the police had come, and had surrendered herself willingly. The terror of those moments was surpassed only by the feeling of absolute nauseous panic that had come with that man on top of her, and when Henry had knocked on her door with the excited proclamation that he was her son. "I explained it to the DA when I pleading out of a trial and she - well, I guess she had a better heart than most - she got me a special waiver of some sort, got me sent to Phoenix. That's where Henry was born."
The smile that Emma found herself giving Mary Margaret was completely fake and they both knew it. It was as weak as Emma felt, finally telling the story to another human who wasn't a court-appointed shrink. She felt as though a huge weight had lifted from her shoulders, laid bare before this person who was still enough of a stranger to not judge her but a good enough friend to give her the sympathy that she'd never allowed herself to receive. "And there, that's the worst moment in my life, by far," she quipped as Mary Margaret pitched forward and gathered Emma up into a hug.
It was warm there, trapped in the embrace of a friend that Emma had come to trust more than anyone. Emma felt the tension in her shoulders relax ever so slightly as Mary Margaret held her tight. She wanted the curse to be absolutely true, and for Henry to be right and for Regina to be telling the truth. For Mary Margaret to be her mother would be wonderful, even if she wasn't sure that she was ready to suddenly find herself with parents after sending her entire life as an orphan.
She knew she'd probably be angry with them, when the time came. She was angry with them now. Why the hell did they abandon her?
"Does the Mayor know?" Mary Margaret asked, her chin digging into Emma's shoulder. Her voice pulled Emma out of her thoughts and back to the present moment. "About this…?"
"I imagine so – she knows everything else," Emma replied. She'd seen the look in Regina's eyes when Emma had asked if there were skeletons in her closet besides the obvious one. She'd seen the pity and she'd hated it in that moment – forcing it away and turning it into a dare for Regina to push it further. They weren't on opposing sides now, but they weren't exactly allies either. Realization of how it would play out would come with time, and Emma hoped to God that Henry never discovered the truth in that lie. "I don't think that she'd ever use it against me, it would hurt Henry too much."
At least that was what she hoped. Regina Mills was a complicated individual on the best of days. Emma hated how hot and cold she seemed, as if she was trapped between two extremes of emotions, constantly. She wanted to know why that was, and why she could never be the person that was there for Regina. She wanted to know why Regina couldn't express what could be considered human affection in a normal human way.
It had gotten bad enough for Henry seek her out – and the longer she spent around the Mayor the more Emma knew that she had to get to the bottom of whatever was rotten in Storybrooke.
If it was the last thing she ever did.
db
So what have we been missing?
Magic had always caused time in the realms it controlled to not be linear. Magic had always been able to warp time, to move it forwards and backwards, to stop it all together. The entire purpose of curses was to alter the very fabric of reality as it unfurls before the magic wielder, a terrible spell, cast out of malice and hatred.
You see, a witch must hate the magic that consumes her in order to wish it all away.
The circumstances of the life of the little girl who was the grand-daughter of the miller had always been planned. The Dark One had found the perfect soul long before she had come to him, consumed by grief and anger and the entirely wrong person. He had helped to shape her into the pitiful being she now was, manipulating her life in a way that only he could, driving her slowly to despair.
When the girl who would be the queen was very young, her mother had made a deal with the devil. The devil was on an epic quest at the time, a dalliance as he waited patiently for the moment when his plan could once more be set into action. He saw the love that the mother had for her daughter and he wanted it for himself. Deep within the most hidden places in his mind, the devil knew that love and knew it well. The love of a parent to their child, he reasoned, was the purest love of all.
The devil wanted to bottle true love - to capture the feeling that he knew he would never experience. True love was the most powerful magic of all, everyone knew that. It was the only magic that could break all curses. He needed it to safeguard his own plans.
And so he made a deal with the miller's daughter. Her love of her child for power to bring her child greatness. The cost was immense for the miller's daughter, a cost she had never truly realized at the time the deal with struck. Such was the power of the devil, he could twist intentions into the worst of motivations.
The miller's daughter grew to hate her child. The magic that was bestowed upon her fed on the darkness in her heart - driving her to do horrible things in the name of the love of her daughter.
The girl who would be queen's mother grew into the devil herself. She would use magic to punish the slightest wrong, and when the magic did not take, the miller's daughter would turn to a switch and then a belt. The wounds were deep, cutting though flesh and psyche together until there was nothing but mute obedience. The scars across the future queen's body would linger until the end of her days.
It was not until the miller's daughter went too far that the girl who would be queen truly understood the darkness that had claimed her mother's soul. It was not until her one love's heart was dust in her mother's hand that the girl who would be queen came to realize that the magic she hated so was the only weapon against the iron-grip of her mother's will.
The devil found her there, fleeing the kingdom that would be her own, riding hard and fast down a forest road. He saw her desperation and the darkness that already circled her own heart. She was a kindred spirt, and he had found his vessel.
The miller's granddaughter would be queen and she would cast his curse.
"Consider this," he said, pressing a dirty thumb with cracked nail against her forehead. "An investment in your future, dearie."
The girl who became the queen the following rest day before her mother's approving smile took to magic like the devil could never have anticipated. Her aptitude and her power scared him - and contingency plans began to be put into place. He altered the wording in his curse, changed it to isolate the queen. She had to be away from magic and any that might support her.
He would take away her knights one by one, strip her to nothing, and finally be able to complete the task he had set out to do so long ago now.
The Dark One never anticipated his patsy would create a knight for herself out of his contingency plan, you see.
This is the joy of the story, isn't it?
Yes, the devil's on defense.
Pity, he should have elected to receive.
Yes, they're coming and they're coming hard.
You guys are super duper awesome, thank you so much for your kind reviews!
Sorry for the slight delay getting this out. I had work-related training all week which meant that my writing time (I usually write on my breaks) was disturbed because I wasn't at a computer. Sad, but true, I tend to do social things and not write all that much when I'm at home.
I apologize if anyone found this chapter at all hard to read. I have a hard time envisioning Emma as a character being the sort of girl who has a one night stand with a guy at seventeen and decides to keep the kid. No, there had to be a hell of a lot more to it than that. I wanted her to be in a position in her relationship with Mary Margaret that she was willing to tell her about what had happened, but also to imply heavily that Regina might already know. That, in particular, is rather important to the plot.
I'm really sorry, again, Graham fans. I was trying to show a slightly more human side of Regina in her reaction to Graham, because really, she's been sleeping with him for probably 28 years. She'd have to feel something for him if she wasn't the one who had caused his death (more on that later heheheheheh).
Next: The Price and Might of Magic