Chapter Nine – The Pawnbroker and the Fairies
The traveler was a princess in name only. She was a journeyman and an adventurer before she was of noble blood. She loved the road more than she would ever love the king's court. They said that it was because her father was not truly the prince, but merely a stand in for when the old king's son had had an unfortunate run-in with the cursed King Midas. The traveler had grown up in the long shadow of doubt about the legitimacy of her parents' kingdom. The legacy of the witch, or perhaps of a bloody war meant to overthrow the once-king, Charles, who had mortgaged his kingdom away.
Depending on which bard told the story, there were a multitude of outcomes of that war. The witch-queen fell from grace and vanished, the White Princess ascended to the throne and peace returned once more. Those were the facts, if you were listening to one who had been there. The common folk loved the witch-queen. She had once been their leader and the one person who had managed to see their needs met in a world where so often their kind went by the wayside.
The White Princess, the traveler's mother, had recognized this, and had turned to the witch for help in making a smooth transition. The witch had vanished, however. There was no trace of her in her exile castle, and none of the stable hands knew where she had gone. She had asked for horse to be made ready for a long journey, and had left without so much as a word.
As the traveler had grown up, there had been stories, rumors of a witch deep in the woods. Soon, those too sank into the bard's tales, and there had been nothing heard of the witch for years now. It was this that the traveler had set out to investigate, for the witch was as much a part of her life as she was an enigma.
The witch was not at all what the traveler had expected, nor had she anticipated ever finding her. There was a curse on her name to that lead to the future, a dream at the forefront of her mind. She had indeed been cursed, bound to a soul not her own.
She woke from the dream of the woman who was, yet was not, herself to find the little boy sitting at her feet. He was watching her, his expression quiet and unreadable. The traveler gathered her shirt-laces around herself and drew them shut, tying them into a loose bow at her neck so as to remain decent. Her vest was bundled underneath her cloak, a hard and uncomfortable pillow as she had refused the witch's bed. "Good morning," she said to the little boy.
The traveler reached for her boots and pulled them on tiredly. The blanket that had been generously given to her came next, folded carefully and set on the rocking chair from whence it came.
The little boy smiled cheerfully at the traveler, his hair was sticking up and his skin still sleep-warm. "You didn't leave," he said sleepily, and launched himself into her arms. His little body nestled into the traveler's lap as she awkwardly put her arms around him.
"Where would I have gone?" The traveler asked, running sleepy fingers through the little boy's hair. "The forest mistress offered me her hearth for the night."
She looked up to see the witch leaning against the doorway, wrapped in a house coat and a sleepy expression of her own. Her hair was down, curling past her shoulders and down her back. The traveler could see that it had, at one point, been in a single plait down her back. Now, however, with the night of sleep set upon her, her hair had started to worm its way loose and out of its braid. "Good morning," she said again, addressing the witch properly, with an almost subservient bow of her head in the process. She was not fool enough to disrespect a witch.
"And to you as well," the witch placed one hand on her hip, allowing the house coat she was wearing to drift open and the traveler could see the swell of her breast and her breath caught, taking in the beauty of her.
The morning progressed slowly, the traveler helping with the morning tasks without a word of question. She knew that it was a guest's duty, as it was a host's duty. She would not shirk such duties. She did the washing and went about the morning ahead of her without complaint.
"What do you know of fairies?" The witch asked as they went out to the stables later on. The traveler wanted to check on her mount, and to get a better look at the witch's steed. She had not been able to see him very well in darkness and rain the night before, she could not help but admit to say that she was curious.
The traveler knew very little, and said as much, a sheepish smile darting across her lips as she admitted to her ignorance. Humility was not something that came easily to anyone in her family. "Fairies are creatures of ancient origin," she explained, meeting the witch's gaze slowly. "They are so old that their natures are oftentimes forgotten. That's about all I know."
"Then you, my dear, know more than most."
Something damp touched Emma's forehead tentatively as she tried to twist her body and will herself back into the dream. The dream that was so real that she could be almost positive that it was actually about a real thing – a palpable thing that she could reach out and touch. The warm wetness on her forehead was certainly not appreciated. She scowled, and then slowly cracked open an eye.
The Mayor's face swam into view, blurry for the water that had dripped down into Emma's eye as she lay on what looked like the bed in Regina's guest room. Emma blinked furiously, but the water would not dissipate and her mind jerked more fully into wakefulness.
"'pose I killed it?" Emma asked. Her head was spinning an even the slightest movement made it ache like there was no tomorrow. Apparently talking was too much for her right now and she raised her hand with difficulty to wipe at the water in her eyes.
Her entire body was throbbing in pain. She remembered the fight, remembered what had come before it, but she did not remember what had happened after that. How had she ended up back here? Had she succeeded in killing the minotaur?
"You did," came Regina's voice then, and there was a pleasant sort of smile in it. Not the sort of smile that Emma would have ever associated with Regina. No, Regina was far more hardened and battle-tested. Emma blinked, pulling her hand away from her eyes and stared up at the Mayor. "And the world is a better place thanks to your continued persistence in avoiding death."
"No need to be sarcastic," Emma grumbled, turning over. Her entire back was on fire, being on her stomach was a much better plan right now. "How'd I get back here?" She turned then, her back screaming protest, "And if you say magic..."
"I called David Nolan, he helped me carry you back," Regina shrugged. The expression on her face was somewhere between amusement and disinterest as she set the washcloth in her hands aside. "You need to rest though, I'll be back to check up on you later."
The minotaur was dead. Perhaps she really could rest easy now.
It could never be that easy though, and Emma knew it well. Such an existence would be punctuated with long periods of calm and furious moments of absolute crisis. It was the story of Emma's entire life and as much as she was used to it, she had hoped Storybrooke would turn into a place where she could finally stop and rest.
"Regina..." Emma trailed off, squinting in the dim evening light towards the door where the Mayor had paused. "What do you know about fairies?" She asked the question on a whim, because it they had featured so prominently in her dream and the whole idea of them was intriguing to the point of being distracting. She had to know if they were as real as the book made them out to be.
"They're ancient beings with questionable motives," came Regina's succinct reply, echoing her dream from earlier. "Why do you ask?"
Raising a shaky hand, Emma tapped her head. "Dreams - and I er... I used a fairy ring to kill your minotaur." It was truly a testament to their growing relationship that Emma felt comfortable enough with Regina that she even considered divulging such a fact. Her mind was full of the dire warnings that Henry kept bandying about - of how Regina was a truly evil person who would stop at nothing to see them all killed. The problem was that Regina was also the only friendly person with any answers to the multitude of questions that Emma was trying to struggle with at the present time.
"Did you now," Regina seemed to ease back into the room slowly. Her steps were carefully measured and Emma watched them with some trepidation as she came to stand beside the bed once more. "And what do you know of fairy rings?" Her nostrils flared dangerously as she asked the question and Emma's whole body seemed to throb with the pain that radiated down from the back of her head.
Henry's warnings echoed in her ears, but they fell on deaf ears. Emma knew from the way that Regina had settled herself back into the room that she was probably in a sharing mood. And she liked that, because it was what she honestly needed now. The circle of magical energy that she'd used to kill that minotaur had to have been put there by something.
"When fairies come to this world, they leave them behind. And that ill fortune follows those who fall through them," Her head was killing her and her words seemed to slur together a bit. She knew other things about fairies, but she couldn't place them, and maybe she was mixing them up with the story of the Labyrinth? She did love her some David Bowie in tight pants.
Emma watched as Regina contemplated these words, before she shook her head ruefully. "The fair folk don't travel to worlds without magic unless they have reason." Her eyes narrowed and she turned to look Emma full in the face. "You said you fell through it?"
"Yeah, I fell and then I slid," The room was definitely spinning now, and Emma raised a hand to touch her forehead. She had hoped it would ground her, but instead it only seemed to intensify the out of control feeling she was currently battling with. "The minotaur fell through it after me and I think that it -" she trailed off, her head was killing her and she didn't think that she could keep this up. She wanted to sleep and wanted to be left alone, but the answer was staring her down, looming in the growing darkness. "It came through that portal?"
Regina's nod was curt. "Get some sleep, Ms. Swan; we must be discrete for the time being. I don't want it knowing we're aware of its involvement." She rose from the bed; her fingers lingering just at the edge of the sheet were Emma's hand had fallen away from her forehead as her dizziness increased. For the most fleeting of moments, Regina trailed her finger forward, touching Emma's hand.
It was strange to touch Regina, even stranger still to attempt to figure out what it meant. There were too many possibilities and too much confusion now. She had no idea what was happening.
Regina snatched her hand away, and retreated from the room. Emma was left in silence then, the dizziness gripped her and the room seemed to tilt forward and she found herself drifting off to sleep.
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Emma slept for a night and a day. The dreams that she had during that period were punctuated by soothing hands and calming words whispered into her ear as she slept. She slept fitfully, but over time it steadied out to an indeterminable stretch of calm.
She did not go back to the place in her dreams - something kept her firmly grounded in her own world. As she rose in and out of the dream world, her semi-waking mind wondered why she was not sinking back into that dream world, her body clinging to reality desperately as she tossed and turned in her half-sleep.
As the last rays of evening sunlight were streaming through the window, Emma cracked an eye open. Her body was slowly jerking its way out of sleep. She was feeling about a million times better than the previous time she had awoken. Emma blinked sleepily as she surveyed the bedside table with discarded pair of earrings and a few picture frames. As her mind woke up, she realized that had no idea where she was. The pictures on the bedside table were of Henry, and the book looked suspiciously like a relic of that other world she continued to dream of.
Had Regina really put her up in her own bed?
Emma frowned and sat up, examining her hands. They looked scrubbed clean, but she could not remember bathing. She gulped, and hoped that it was some sort of residual cleaning spell or something that Regina had put into effect. She couldn't stomach the idea of being seen broken and bruised by Henry's mother.
She clenched her fists and looked towards the door. She could get out of here so easily. She could hop into the bug and never look back to a world of swords in hearts of stone and minotaurs.
She could do a lot of things.
"You're very resourceful, when under pressure," came a voice from a second door that Emma hadn't noticed until that moment. It must have been connected to a bathroom or laundry room, as Regina stepped into the room holding a basket full of what looked suspiciously like Emma's clothes from the day before. The clothes that had been damn near ruined by that fight in the woods.
Emma cracked a smile and moved to get out of bed, only to realize that she had no pants on. "Thanks... I think," she replied, staying put and hoping that pants would come in short order. She felt awkward and exposed before Regina, and while she knew that there was very little that was left unsaid between them, a girl had to have some secrets.
Regina set the basket down on the end of the bed. "Get dressed, Henry stayed with Kathryn Nolan last night, and I need to collect him. I'll take you to your car." She leveled Emma with an almost appraising gaze before turning and leaving the room.
The clothes in the basket were still warm from the dryer, and Emma shoved her legs into her jeans and groaned. She hadn't put these jeans into the dryer yet, and they were almost uncomfortably tight as she wiggled her way into them. Her shirt, thankfully, hadn't shrunk, and she pulled it over her head before turning and setting the laundry basket on the floor and pulling up the sheets. She was almost positive that Regina would probably bleach the hell out of them as soon as she left, but making the bed seemed like the right thing to do. She'd buy Regina a nice bottle of wine to say think you properly.
Or - and Emma's cheeks flushed a bit at this - she'd just kiss her without swords having anything to do with it. That also sounded like a decent idea.
She found her jacket and boots by the door and Regina appeared from her study a moment later, a sheaf of papers in her hands. She handed them to Emma wordlessly as she got her own coat out of the closet. Emma glanced at them as she waited; they looked like some sort of charter and manifest documents - not really her cup of tea.
"So am I going to have to kill any more of those things?" Emma asked.
Regina paused, her hands half-way through fixing her coat collar. She flipped it down and smoothed it flat before replying, "I don't know." She seemed to hesitate and then add, "I have an idea of why it appeared, but I'd... like to know more."
"Is that what these are for?" Emma asked, tapping the papers with her free hand.
"There is the potential for that, yes," Regina said. A true politician's answer if she'd ever heard one. Emma's eyes narrowed. Regina was putting on a scarf and checking her hair in the mirror by the door.
Trying not to sound too exasperated, Emma sighed. She ran a hand through her hair, wincing as she hit a snarl. "Look, I can't help you if you're not honest with me," she said.
Regina pursed her lips and held out her hand for the papers. She tucked them under her arm and wordlessly led the way out the door to the car. As Emma shoved her hands in her jean pockets and moodily made her way over to the passenger side, Regina did something that was a little bit bizarre. She looked up the street and then down, as if checking to see that no one was watching before she unlocked the door.
"Afraid to be seen with me?" Emma asked sarcastically. A shy sort of a grin flashed across her lips as she did so. She hated to think that such a thing was true, but it probably was. Regina had made it very clear from the beginning of her time in Storybrooke that she wanted Emma gone. While they were working better together these days - the fact still remained that Emma was a threat to her life with Henry. A very real and probably just a little bit menacing one.
Not that she thought of herself as menacing at all. No, she was a big fluffy puffy with somewhat charming moments and generally good teeth.
"Quite," Regina sniffed.
"So you're not going to tell me what you think is going on?" Emma asked with a scowl. More than anything, Emma hated being kept in the dark, and she knew that if Regina wanted to, there were a great many secrets that she could not be told. Emma hated that idea, hated the feeling of powerlessness and not knowing. She was supposed to be the savior, the one who would someday break the curse that Regina had so foolishly cast on this town. Being put at a constant disadvantage by the one person who seemed willing to at least start to share information with here was damn near infuriating.
Regina started the car and shifted into reverse. She did not start to drive, however, but rested her hands on the base of the steering wheel. "No," she said curtly.
"And why is that?" Emma demanded.
"Because you are brash, Ms. Swan. You do things that are unpredictable and, frankly, stupid. I cannot risk Henry at this moment. If this is what I think it is, there is a certain finesse that is required. It is one that you lack, dear," Regina's eyes met Emma's at this moment and Emma could see the pain and the worry and the fear that was barely contained there.
She wondered what could possibly have an evil witch who had killed as many and as often as the stories said Regina had so worried. The whole idea of Regina being worried was extremely disconcerting for Emma, who thought the woman to be pretty much unflappable.
"What if I promised you that I wouldn't act?" Emma proposed after a moment of intense staring that had her mind reeling with more than a few possibilities. "I'm pretty useless without you anyway."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that, dear," Regina replied and slowly started to back the car out of the driveway. "If you truly must know, the curse included a few hangers-on that I had no intention of actually including when I cast it."
"Who?"
Regina shifted the car into first, and then second gear, accelerating down Mufflin Street towards town. "Fairies, dear." At Emma's blank look she added, "The nuns running the schools."
"Oh," Emma said quietly. After a long moment of silence, she added, "Why'd you make 'em nuns?"
Regina sighed, "I didn't control that aspect of the curse." She turned onto Main Street and then cut down the alley by the police station. Emma bit her lip, wondering if it were possible for anyone else in this town to be aware of what was happening here. Time, according to Henry, had started to move again. Ashley had had her baby, after Regina had apparently cursed her into being eight months pregnant for twenty eight years. That was cruel and unusual.
"Why did you cast this curse?" Emma asked as Regina parked behind the bug. "If you hated these people so much, why did you curse them all here with you? Why not just leave?"
The blank stare Regina sent her way was answer enough for Emma. Emma clambered out of the car and sighed. It was probably one of those soul-searching questions that Regina had no answers to, even now, so far removed from the events that had caused all this strife in the first place.
"I..." Regina shook her head and her expression hardened. "Keep me informed, Sheriff," she said curtly.
Emma gave a mock salute and watched as Regina executed a damn near perfect three point turn and drove back up towards the main street. The whole situation was beyond messed up at this point, and Emma was starting to struggle with it.
She turned on one foot and headed into the station, determined to get to the bottom of the stack of paperwork she still had yet to process. She was trying to be the good sheriff, to live up to and above the expectations that Graham had left behind.
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Henry came to find Emma a few days later, dragging his boots through the slush and not caring that the back of his pants were splattered with rock salt and muddy road debris. Emma was sitting in her office - Graham's office really, his coat was still on the rack by the door - and sucking on the back of a pen when he came in.
She had made a list of everyone in the town that she'd deemed important through her observations of how Regina interacted with them. There were a lot of citizens that really didn't seem like they had anything to do with anything, but were just good people that were somehow beholden to the rules of this curse in one way or another. Emma wasn't sure what sort of purpose that this list would hold, but she carefully pulled a file folder across her desk to cover it when Henry showed up. She didn't want him knowing that she'd ignored his warnings and was currently in cahoots with the evil queen of his stories.
"Hi Emma!" He said, setting his backpack down on the chair opposite Emma's and unzipping it.
"Hey kid," she replied, smiling at him and setting down her pen.
He was digging for something, and he'd already unearthed the book of fairy tales, a math text book, the third Harry Potter novel, and several battered-looking Marvel comics.
"You lookin' for China?" she asked with a raised eyebrow as Henry's head just about disappeared into his backpack.
"No!" Henry laughed, appearing with a crumpled pile of papers and a triumphant smile. He handed them over to her and she took them, trying to ignore the wear and tear on them. "I wanted you to see these, mom threw them out."
Emma set them down on her desk and slowly spread them out. Across her desk a story unfolded, carefully documented in the Mayor's spindly handwriting.
The papers were covered with some sort of writing that Emma had never seen before. The letters reminded her of some of the scenes from her dreams, but she wasn't about to let on to Henry that she recognized them. "What do you think they are?" she asked, running her fingers down one line of writing. It was written a lot like Chinese, with a very deliberate order and pattern for each line, even if some of them seemed completely counter intuitive to how Emma had been taught to write.
"Spells!" Henry said excitedly, pulling the book towards him and flipping to a specific page. There was a small illustration in the middle of one of the large and glossy pages there. A spell book covered in characters very similar to the ones on the papers spread across Emma's desk. "That picture is the spell book The Miller's Daughter tricked Rumpelstiltskin out of when she saved her child from the deal she made with him."
Emma blinked, shaking her head at the notion that had just popped into her head because it couldn't possibly be that easy. She knew that story, she was pretty sure everyone knew that story because it was one of the most well-known non-Disney-fied fairy tales. Henry might not have, due to his mother's probable connection with it, but pretty much everyone else had to know the story.
She knew who Rumpelstiltskin was. She'd probably always known, because honestly, Gold was creepy enough to begin with. Adding that aspect to his character, on top of his obvious awareness of what was happening in town was enough to make Emma have more than a few suspicions about him.
"Okay..." she said, and took the book from Henry. She flipped to the beginning of the story, hoping to get some convenient translation or cipher to help her figure out what was written here. There was no such luck, but she read about a young girl who was far shrewder than even Rumpelstiltskin when it came to making deals. Henry sat in his chair, hands balling up the knees of his school pants as he watched her read. Emma flipped forward a few pages, to the end of the story. "Do you think your mom has the book that they're talking about?" she asked.
Henry shook his head. "Don't think so. I checked everywhere at home, even in the attic and the basement. And then I snuck into her office when she was in a city council meeting. It's not there either."
Emma groaned. Henry was truly one of the worst children she'd ever encountered when it came to his absolute devotion to the idea that his mother was some sort of an evil witch. While Emma knew that this was at least somewhat true, she hated that he was doing this to the woman who had obviously cared for him his entire life. He had let Emma take that role away from Regina almost without a fight.
Maybe there was some neglect there, but Emma would have loved to have someone like Regina as a mother when she was a child. She would have been grateful to have a home to come home to every day. There was so much variance in her childhood that sometimes she found herself forgetting that there were good times mixed in with all the crappiness.
"If the stories are true," she began, tapping the book with her fingertips in quick succession. "Don't you think that maybe you should cut your mom some slack?"
"Why?" Henry asked, child-like incomprehension and innocence drifting across his face. "She cast the curse, she ruined everyone's life."
"I ruined your life, Henry," Emma explained. "I ruined your life by making it so easy for you to find me. I ruined your life for coming here. You don't deserve this, and neither does your mom."
"She's the Evil Queen!" Henry insisted. "You're the white knight; you're supposed to save everyone."
Emma shook her head. He just didn't get it. He probably never would. It was the sort of thing that he simply lacked the maturity and worldview to understand. "Kid," she said. "If I'm supposed to save everyone, the first person I'd want to save would be your mom."
He scowled at her, and Emma collected the sheaf of papers and stacked them neatly. She smoothed their corners and pressed them flat, taking care to keep them in the order that they'd been in when Henry'd handed them to her. Leaning back behind her, her foot hooking under the desk to keep her balance as she leaned her chair back on two legs, Emma reached for a file folder from the top of the filing cabinet behind her desk.
"I'm opening a file for stuff like this, Henry," Emma said. She picked up her pen and wrote out the file name on the label tab and held it up for Henry to see.
'Mills, Regina.'
"Awesome!" Henry's eyes widened and joy returned easily to his face and Emma wanted to scream. He just... didn't get it. And she had no way of making him get it until she had proof that this whole curse business was something other than entirely his mother's fault. There were indications - the minotaur and the conversations about fairies chief among them that made Emma wonder if it wasn't something else entirely.
They lapsed into silence, Henry opening up his math text book and completing two problem sets in one of his notebooks. Emma bit her lip and almost offered to check his answers over, but decided against it. That was more Regina's territory and she really didn't want to step over that threshold. It would indicate to Henry, she was positive, that it was totally okay for Emma to be in a parenting sort of role, which was totally and completely not acceptable.
She'd never wanted children.
At five thirty on the dot, Henry gathered up his things and told Emma that he was walking town hall to meet his mother. Emma nodded her agreement and walked him to the door. She did not offer to walk him, as the distance wasn't particularly far and it was unseasonably warm outside, if a slushy mess.
Emma leaned in the doorway, hands in her back pockets as she watched him pick his way up Main Street and out of sight around the corner to City Hall.
"He's a good lad," Emma damn near jumped out of her skin as she turned to see Mr. Gold leaning on his cane just outside of Emma's peripheral vision, watching Henry go with some interest. "Shame there's such a rift between him and his mother."
"Tell me about it," Emma agreed. Gold might be a total slime ball, but he was totally capable of making an astute observation. Emma watched him for a moment more before she turned to go back inside. "Did you need something with the sheriff's office, Mr. Gold?"
He shook his head. "Not particularly, I was just passing though." He lifted a plastic grocery bag from the shop just up the road. "I ran out of orange juice this morning."
"Ah," Emma said stupidly. She stood there for what was maybe a beat too long before adding, "Well-"
Gold's eyes flashed curiously in the growing twilight and he took a step forward. "Actually, if you don't mind, I do have something I need to discuss with you."
Trying not to groan, Emma held the door open for him. "Come in, then."
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Gold went immediately to the kitchenette at the back of the station, where the coffee maker and microwave were. There was a sink and a hot water heater as well, and he started the process of making tea without so much as a word. Emma leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed over her chest as she watched him putter about. She had a multitude of questions that she knew she could not ask. Regina hadn't said it as many words, but Emma was pretty sure that she was afraid of Gold, to some extent.
"Are you just going to lurk there, dearie, or ask me what I'm doing here?" Gold asked, glancing over his shoulder. The red of his scarf stood out starkly against the clammy color of his skin.
Emma shrugged and tipped herself forward with the toe of her boot. She ambled into the room, trying to look as nonchalant and unthreatening as she possibly could with a gun strapped to her hip and a badge to go with it. "Looks like you're making tea. Not much to ask about."
He shook his head and picked up the electric kettle and poured himself a cup. Raising the still steaming kettle towards Emma, he asked, "You want one?"
"Nah," Emma said, shaking her head. "Can't stand it hot."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
They went back to Emma's office, Gold sitting where Henry had sat, Emma shifting even more papers around on her desk to make room for a fresh piece of paper and the pen that she'd hadn't chewed the end off of to take notes.
"I wish to file a complaint," Gold began, sipping nosily at his tea. Emma wondered if it was a where-ever-the-hell he was from thing, because slurping was really rude across all the households she'd been brought up in. And usually got you slapped, but that was really beside the point.
"Okay," Emma said. She bent down and pulled open the bottom desk drawer were the incident reports were kept and produced one from the top of the stack. She sat back up and set it on the top of her pad of paper. "What happened?"
He sipped his tea again, watching her carefully over the rim of his borrowed mug. "I would rather have it not be official for the time being, if it's all the same to you."
Emma bit her lip and scowled at the paper before her, before she set down her pen and folded her hands across the report. "It's gonna depend on what you tell me."
"Naturally," Gold inclined his head. "Some time ago, I made arrangements for the Mother Superior of the convent that runs the schools here to spend some time in my shop helping with the inventory for a break on the rent. Some... rather sensitive books and documents went missing."
Emma leaned forward, lifting the pad and incident report and looking at the calendar before her.
"Six months ago," he replied with a sly smile.
Emma sat back, her hands just barely touching the edge of the desk before her. "What, then, do you want me to do about it?" Sure, there was a statute of limitations for stuff like this, but it was still a few years off. It was mighty fishy that Gold wanted her to investigate now, rather than have Graham do it when the crime had allegedly taken place.
"I think you've already encountered the results," he gestured to still healing bruise that circled her wrist and disappeared up under her sweater sleeve. "Certain creatures are... shall we say, more troublesome than they're worth."
Emma's blood ran cold and she tried to keep her expression blank. Her mind was racing faster than horses and she opened her mouth to reply with far more trepidation than she'd initially expected to have. She would never have expected Gold of all people to lay some of his cards out so quickly.
"I... I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about," Emma gestured to her wrist. "This happened when I was investigating some strange tracks up in the woods. I tripped over a root that was covered in snow and landed badly. David Nolan and the Mayor came to collect me."
Gold's eyes narrowed. "That would make a lovely story, if it weren't a lie, dearie." He tapped his finger against his head. "I know things, I see things - and I've seen you. The direwolf was a theory I had to -"
"That was you?" Emma rose to her feet, her body trembling with barely hidden rage. Henry had been right there, had handled it. What if he'd tripped? What if he'd somehow let it out? And Regina - Regina who had no magic in this world. "What the fuck were you thinking - You have it to Henry!"
He gave a tittering sort of a laugh, his eyes wide and manic. "He's a careful boy, now isn't he, sheriff? Doesn't go dropping expensive things belonging to his mother." He drew out the last word as though it were meant to hurt her. Emma wanted to laugh, for it really didn't bother her that much. Henry was her child, yes, but he wasn't her son. Not like he was Regina's.
"And then the minotaur?" Emma demanded, her hands clenching and unclenching into fists.
Gold's face grew stony, and his eyes seemed to darken considerably. In the half-light of her office, where the sun light hit his skin, he almost seemed to glitter like gold. "That is why I am here."
"It wasn't you?" Emma demanded, extremely skeptical.
"No dearie, I'm afraid I'm as bound to the rules as much as the mayor. This is someone else," He stood and set his mug down on the desk. "You'd best be careful - the sort of enemies that would summon such a beast - well, I'd hate to have them."
He turned and left without a word, leaving Emma standing alone in the middle of the sheriff's station with questions piling up and not an answer in sight. She sank back down into her chair and rested her head in her hands, groaning low and long.
This whole situation was just getting more and more complicated. If it wasn't Gold, then who was it? Gold made the most sense, and Regina had painted him as somewhat of an enemy, but maybe he wasn't the ultimate. Maybe he was more like a mini boss or something? Not really the real deal, even if he seemed hardcore as all get out in the book.
She reached forward and pulled her desk phone out of its cradle and – after a moment's hesitation - slowly dialed the number she had long-since committed to memory. It rang twice as she sat with her fingers pressing into her eyes, before it clicked on the other end. "I need to see you," she said without preamble. "Gold."
"Eleven tonight," came the response. Emma hoped it'd be soon enough.
The day dragged by, Emma spent most of it buried in a stack of paperwork that dated back years, looking for some sort of a connection between Gold and the nuns who ran the school. He had made complaints that Graham had documented on occasion regarding lateness in the rent of the school building and convent space. It was quickly becoming evident to Emma that Mr. Gold owned at least half the town, if not more. Maybe that was where his power came from, rather than the magic that he, too, was without in this world.
At ten fifteen she texted Mary Margaret and told her that she had one more errand that she had to run and that she didn't know how long it'd take. She was trying to distance herself from Mary Margaret, because she couldn't help the way she felt, looking at the woman. She was drawn in, and was terrified of the knowledge that yes, she might indeed actually have a mother.
Mary Margaret responded promptly, saying that she was going to bed soon and to drive safely. Emma found herself smiling fondly at her phone's screen as she readied herself to head out for the night. A fit of paranoia forced her to put every single file that she'd taken out of Graham's rather extensive filing system back exactly where she'd found it. She didn't trust Gold for a second and was completely positive that he would find a way to ascertain if she'd been into the files kept about him. Putting them back seemed a decent way to protect herself, should he actually accuse her of investigating him.
She threw on her coat and grabbed her keys and hissed low under her breath as she clicked off the lights and stepped outside. The temperature was not well below freezing and not even the warm ocean wind could keep the town from plunging into the depths of winter. It would soon be time for Emma to stop wearing her jackets and dig out her winter coat from the depths of the backseat of the bug.
Which, thankfully, started without a hitch. She shivered as the car's crappy heating system did little to warm the car. The windows weren't fogging so she headed out and up Main Street, towards the mayor's house.
Regina had said eleven because Henry went to bed pretty promptly at nine thirty. Emma had noticed that he did read in bed for a little while with a secret flashlight, but it was usually only until about ten, after which point he conked out. Still, Emma parked a little ways up Mufflin Street and walked the rest of the way to the Regina's house on foot, not wanting to attract the attention of her half-asleep son and thus make this whole situation even more awkward.
She picked her way up the icy walk and knocked quietly on the door.
It opened a few moments later, Regina in bare feet and holding a mug of something steaming and good-smelling. Emma's stomach growled with envy.
"I'll fix you one," Regina said quietly, and lead the way into the kitchen. She set a sauce pan on the stove and began to move about the kitchen with the ease of one long in practice. Emma knew she was a good cook, she knew that Henry's lunches were always lovingly prepared, and she knew that she was absolute garbage at anything domestic. Still, sometimes it cut her up inside that Regina was good at all the parenting sort of things that where she was not.
"Gold came to see me," Emma said, sliding onto a stool at the kitchen island and resting most of her weight on her forearms as she bridged her fingers together in front of her. She watched as Regina poured, sprinkled and whisked spices into the pot and measured out a shot of jack into a mug before she continued. "He mentioned that he was responsible for the direwolf."
Regina paused, whisk resting on the edge of her saucepan. "He actually came out and said as much?" Emma nodded and Regina sighed. She cut off the stove and poured the contents of the pan into the waiting mug. She set the pan in the sink, before scooping up the mug and handing it to Emma. Emma took it and wordlessly followed Regina out of the kitchen and into her study where there was a thick door and no chance that Henry could possibly overhear them. "He's threatened."
"How do you figure?" Emma asked, taking a sip of the mug of spiced cider that Regina had made her. "I didn't think he seemed particularly threatened, just wanted me to know that he knew that I knew."
Pursing her lips, Regina crossed the room and stood by the fireplace. Emma watched her stand there, looking almost defeated in her reverie. "He wanted you to know that it wasn't him trying to kill you, dear."
Emma busied herself with her drink, sipping on the steaming liquid, grateful for the kick the whiskey gave it. "Then why say anything at all?"
"A good strategist knows when it's best to show something of your plans," Regina mused. "He taught me that, many years ago."
"He seemed to think that it was someone else, a third party," Emma set her mug down on the coffee table, scooting a coaster underneath it as Regina glared at it. "He mentioned the nuns as well."
Regina ran a hand through her hair tiredly, "I had worried about that. They were more his enemy than mine." She crossed the room and sat down next to Emma, not across as was her custom. There was a moment where her expression appeared conflicted, as if weighing the possibilities of what she should best be saying. "I saw Henry digging around in the trash today."
Ah, Emma had wondered if it would ever come to that. She wasn't about to lie to Regina about what had been seen, but she did resent being put in the middle of a mother-son conflict. "He found your spell?" Emma shrugged after she said it. She wasn't going to make a huge deal out of it, because it really wasn't that big a deal. "Or at least what he thought was a spell."
"He was right to think that," Regina reached into her pocket and pulled out a bracelet that looked like it had been made out of hemp, but upon closer inspection, Emma could see that it was actually a finely-woven series of... what looked like wires. "I wrote the spell for this - for him. It's a protection bracelet in case he encounters one of those fairy rings you say are now dotting the forest."
Emma took the bracelet and weighted it in her palm. "I thought you couldn't do magic," she said, trying to keep her tone accusatory. "I thought that was why you needed me."
"The curse is weakening, Emma, I can do a lot of things if I put my mind to it." Regina's eyes softened as she said this. Emma stared at her, trying to figure out what exactly that meant, and why she was so intrigued by it.
They were so close, the bracelet clutched in Emma's shaking hand, her eyes trained down on Regina's lips. This wasn't a time for talking, they were so close together and the magnetism that drew forth the sword from Regina's stone of a heart seemed to kept the momentum between them going.
Emma kissed Regina softly, with a tenderness she didn't know she possessed. Regina was there and the whiskey in her system was telling Emma that this was a fantastic idea. This was her queen, and she knew that this wasn't the sort of kiss that would bring forth that terrible sword and all that it implied.
db
What does it mean, to have a fairy as an enemy?
People forget about fairies. They forget that they're old beings. They're neither good nor evil, they've been there since the dawn of time, and they don't intend to leave any time soon.
For a land with no magic, this place sure has a lot of lore about them.
And that is the stumbling point of this tale, isn't it? We are at a crossroads where there are two things that weren't meant to happen. The queen is supposed to be evil and the White Knight is supposed to break the curse. The imp certainly is not supposed to be on any side by his own. And the fairies are supposed to remain as they always have been, an unknown quality that is neither good nor evil.
But the White Knight knows of the stories?
As do all children of this world without magic. They are raised on tales of imagination and hope and dreams, only to have them crushed as they venture into adult-hood. It is a cycle that bears repeating, for it is only through this that it can be broken.
Then what comes next?
Ask yourself, what would you do now?
And now the plot thickens. Sorry for the HUEG delay getting this out, you guys, I suck a lot of butt and probably shouldn't be writing 100+ page long fanfics. huge thanks to wickedpencils for her amazing drawings. Go check them out.
Next: The Neutrality in Chaos