A/N: I told you I'd update quick. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and have an amazing Christmas! Content warnings for mentions of canonical character death.
-/-
Emma is walking down to her car - she parked a good mile away from Gold Inc., they charge an arm and a leg for parking like the greedy pricks they are - when she spots a familiar head of short, blonde hair.
She sighs, heavily. He's walking right in her direction, but maybe if she ducks around that building she could get away before he sees her-
The moment of pause she takes to decide what to do next is enough.
"Emma," he says shortly as he stops right in front of her.
Her reply is just as tense. "David."
"Long time no see."
She's already walking away. "Yup."
"Emma - wait," he calls after he and she can't bottle the groan. "Can we talk?"
"Can we? Yes?" Emma replies. "Should we? Probably not."
"We should," David answers tersely. "Forgive me if I want to hear from my sister and make sure she's okay."
"My door is always open," Emma says, noncommittally. "You can always visit."
"We did," he retorts. "Then you threatened a restraining order against me and Mary Margaret."
"Well, that's what happens when you don't learn when to leave me the hell alone," Emma says defensively, crossing her arms in front of her.
"Ever since Graham died, you've been like this," David points out. "Shutting everyone out. Quitting your job. Acting like you don't give a damn about anyone or anything."
"It's not acting if it's true," Emma grumbles. "I shut out people who suffocate me and I quit my job because it sucked."
"You loved being a cop, Emma."
"I'm my own boss, now. It's much more freeing, you should try it sometime. At first it was just bail bonds, but broadening it to priva-"
"We're always there if you need us, Emma," David points out, exasperated. "I'm making dinner Thursday night. Elsa and Anna are coming, I think Anna is bringing her new fiance to boot. You should come."
It's against her best judgement to go.
"I'll come," she groans.
-/-
Mary Margaret and David's apartment is just how she remembers it, just with Christmas decorations. They're both annoyingly festive when it comes to this shit - Thanksgiving ended a few weeks ago, and she already spent that holiday holed inside her office and didn't go to her apartment at all that day to avoid Mary Margaret and David dragging her to dinner then - so it's not exactly a surprise. They've even outdone themselves from last year, if the twinkling lights just on their goddamn door are any indication.
Emma knocks.
Mary Margaret answers with a surprised smile.
"Your door is probably a fire hazard," Emma mutters, gesturing to the lights on the green wood as she walks into the apartment.
"It's good to see you too, Emma," Mary Margaret replies, not even sounding the slightest bit irritated.
She's always been good at that, not getting bothered by Emma's bravado.
"Emma!" David exclaims, walking into the living room with a similar shocked smile. "I'm really glad you could make it."
"After Thanksgiving, I was starting to fear the consequences," Emma replies, shrugging off her jacket. "Where should I put this?"
"Your jacket?" David asks, gesturing to the red leather. "I'll just put it in the coat closet, don't wor-"
Emma rolls her eyes and opens the aforementioned closet to hang her jacket up. "I may have avoided you guys like the plague, but I still know where the coat closet is."
"Right," David replies, a little tensely. "Well, Anna and Elsa should be here any-"
The doorbell rings, as if he's summoned them.
"I'll get that," Mary Margaret says quickly.
Elsa and Anna, sure enough, appear on the other side of the door.
Anna's eyes nearly bulge out of her head when she sees Emma and she's suddenly met with Anna practically attacking her with a hug.
"Emma! I haven't seen you in forever!" Anna exclaims, her grip on Emma tight enough to be uncomfortable for her ribs. She pats her back, unsure of what else to do. "I missed you so much! David didn't tell me you were coming!"
"To be honest, I didn't know if she'd come or not," David says with a small smile.
Emma shrugs, gently extracting herself from Anna's embrace. "I didn't know if I wanted to come or not, to be honest."
"Well, I'm glad you did," Elsa says warmly, moving to meet Emma with her own hug.
Emma gives her an exaggerated sigh. "For now, you are."
-/-
The actual dinner is less tense, believe it or not. Mary Margaret and David make a five course meal. Her brother, unlike her, can cook things besides microwavable meals - it's one of her more superficial flaws. Anna is chatty enough to make things less awkward, Mary Margaret is warm enough to make her feel a little bit less uncomfortable in her own skin, and both David and Elsa act interested without being suffocating.
It could be going a lot worse.
"So, Anna," Emma starts, doing her best to make conversation. It's less uncomfortable for everyone, that way. "what brings you back in town? I hear Portland has been treating you pretty well."
"We're back in my hometown for the holidays," Anna says, beaming. "I came here first, I've been staying at Elsa's. Kristoff should be coming up here soon, too, once he's able to get off work. Winter is kind of a busy season for him. I can't wait for you guys to meet him!"
"Speaking of holidays," Mary Margaret prompts with a smile, looking at Emma pointedly. "You shouldn't be alone on yours, Emma. We're not reliving Thanksgiving. You're coming to Christmas."
Emma opens her mouth to protest, but Mary Margaret doesn't let her.
"We already bought your gift. You're coming. Christmas is about being around the people that you love and we love you, Emma. Get used to it."
Emma sighs, the fight already out of her at her words. Mary Margaret has always been one for trying to make Emma feel included, even if Emma puts most people at a distance the length of a million football fields. "And if I hole myself up somewhere to avoid it?"
"Then we'll drag you ourselves," Mary Margaret finishes.
David nods, "I will help her."
Anna just looks excited at the prospect. "Please, Emma? I really miss you. And you'll get to meet Kristoff! And potentially scare him out of his mind, I'm beginning to wonder why I-"
Elsa interrupts her sister before she goes on yet another tangent. "You should come, Emma. Mary Margaret is right, the holidays are about family."
Emma groans. "What, was the plan from the get go to gang up on me?"
"No, but why be mad about something if it works?" Mary Margaret quips.
"You win," she gestures to the table. "I'll come."
"All I wanted," Mary Margaret replies with a broad smile. "Now, Elsa, how is work? Social work really is such a good fit for you, I'm just excited…"
-/-
Gold is having Holiday sale, 50% off.
She snorts at the morbidity of it.
There's no time like then to buy one of those stupid fucking simulations, though. And she, whether she likes it or not, should probably try it at some point if she's expecting to get any real information from this place. The simulations don't come cheap, but, thanks to the fact that her caseload gets busier around the holiday season (why do people sleep around at Christmas? Is there no sanctity to anything anymore?) she has some extra spending money.
And yes, she's already spent what she needed to on gifts.
(Though internally Emma is still deciding whether or not it's worth it to go to David's tomorrow. Dinner one night was one thing. Christmas? An entirely different animal.)
So that's how she spends Christmas Eve: at Gold's to waste a shit ton of money on something that is likely going to cause her psychological trauma.
But, damn it, she has to spend money to get money and Ingrid will only pay the rest of the bill if she delivers. Emma has tried every other possible way to figure out what's going on in the inside of the company. Now she has to suck it up and finish the damn job.
(And on psychological trauma? She's not sure it can get much worse. Emma doesn't have much more on the bitterness scale to go to transform into a full on Scrooge.)
The assistants at the lab have her fill out a series of questionnaires, looking a little hurried and haggard thanks to the influx of business that night. Emma is asked questions like: What was their name? Their date of birth? Their favorite color? Your fondest memory of them? She drags out pictures and videos from her phone, too.
It's really fucking transparent, to be frank. Emma isn't sure how anyone can go through this process and still believe the brain matter explanation. But then again, desperate people are subject to believing anything. And if anyone knows that, it's her.
Not that she's desperate.
(Anymore.)
-/-
The first time she sees him (or whatever this is) again, she feels like she's been punched in the gut.
His eyes are the same shade of brown. His hair is just as curly as she remembers it. He's even wearing the worn boots that he always refused to replace.
Hologram or not, it looks way too fucking realistic.
"Graham?" she tries, voice cracking on the word.
"Emma," he exalts with a broad smile. "I missed you."
He tells her that he loves her, tells her that he's sorry he never got to say goodbye to her, asks her what she's doing now and how she's feeling.
Emma can't give him much in way of replies.
Graham moves on to talk about how he's found peace, how he knows he died doing the right thing, and how he hopes she's doing okay without him. He tells her that he never wanted to leave her, expression raw and gestures pleading.
The words are broad and vague and cliche, but in Graham's voice and mannerisms they sound damn near convincing.
She knows this isn't real. That none of this is real. In her head, she knows this. But he seems alive and he seems like he's really here and in front of her and she never, ever wants to leave him again.
Does it really need to be real, anyway?
"I have to go," she says, finally. Her voice is brittle. She doesn't know if he can even hear her.
"Come back and see me?" Graham begs, hands moving next to hers. There's only a sliver of space between his hand and hers, however illusory his body may be.
She can almost feel him.
Emma squeezes her eyes shut, shaking her head. "I can't."
"Why not?" he pleads, further still. "Don't you love me? Don't you want to see me?"
"This isn't you."
"This is as close to me as you're going to get. Isn't that enough?"
Graham is looking at her, so earnestly, with his same dark brown eyes and curly hair. It reminds her of the first time they kissed, when he patched up her wounds and just looked at her like he saw right through her.
But something is wrong, underneath that. Superficially, sure, he seems as real as ever - but there's something underneath that that's flat. His eyes are expressive, sure, in the way, that the romantic leads on TV are. There's no depth. It's two-dimensional. He's two-dimensional.
It's not Graham, not really.
It's an ingenious business plan, is what it fucking is, to manipulate your customers using their strongest desires and their most painful grievances to ensure you'll get a constant stream of revenue. Little girl with her report card and single dad come back to mom over and over again, or else face mom's disappointment and traumatize the both of them for life. A mother doesn't have to face the fact that she'll outlive her kid if she keeps on swiping the credit card. An orphan who never mattered and didn't think she ever would doesn't have to let go the one man who ever really loved her.
After all, how much would you pay to keep the people you love most alive?
Gold gambled on the love of other people to keep his business alive and won. Rolling with loaded dice is cheap, but if you lack things like basic human decency - it's a no brainer.
"No," she murmurs, and she knows the words won't matter to him. Not this him. But they'll matter to her, and that's enough. "It's not enough."
Emma ends the simulation with a press of a button, blinking back the tears in spite of herself.
Graham is gone.
She wishes she never would have brought him back.
-/-
She closes the door to the room and slumps against it, wiping the tear tracks from under her eyes. Emma doesn't have Graham, is short an exorbitant amount of money, and didn't find out much to help the case.
Emma really could not have made a poorer decision in coming here.
"Don't cry, it's Christmas," a kid advises her from a nearby bench, his legs swinging back and forth. He can't be any older than eleven.
"I'm not...crying," Emma defends, unconvincingly. The fact that the words come out slightly nasally probably isn't helping her case.
"My mom used to say it was okay to cry," he adds. "Did your mom ever tell you that?"
Emma stiffens. A scraped leg, her first boyfriend, finding Graham's body on the fucking scene with her mother on her heels. They were at dinner when they heard and the pavement sliced her knees when she fell on it. Now… "Not anymore, kid."
"Make the most with the family you have," the boy advises sagely. He turns around to leave, after that.
Emma frowns. "Merry Christmas to you too, I guess."
She leaves the facility - glamorized cemetery, really - after wiping the remnants of her tears in the bathroom mirror alongside some sobbing grandmother who can't stop repeating something about 'her baby' over and over again. When Emma gets out of the door and begins her mile long trek to her car, it's snowing.
It looks like it's going to be a white Christmas. Emma wonders, detached, how Bing Crosby's hologram would react to the news.
-/-
Emma winds up at the Blanchard-Nolan's doorstep the next morning, despite her half hearted attempts to shrug the invitations off. She already bought the gifts. It'd be a waste of money not to.
"I see you decided to show up for the holidays," Mary Margaret greets with a warm smile once she opens the door.
"There was nothing good on TV," Emma shrugs.
Mary Margaret only rolls her eyes and leans in to hug her. "Come in,"
She does so, setting the gifts she's brought under the tree in the living room. The place even more festive than the last time Emma was here, if that's even possible. Emma, again, has to consider all the fire hazards that must come into play with this many twinkle lights.
David comes in from the kitchen, wiping his hands off with a towel. When he spots Emma, he quickly beams and moves to embrace her, practically lifting her feet off the ground. Anna and a man next to her who she assumes is the much talked about Kristoff lurk behind him.
"Merry Christmas!" David exclaims into her hair.
"Merry Christmas to you, too," she replies, setting her feet back on the ground and leaning out of his arms.
Anna echoes David's words, a flurry of red hair as she wraps her arms around Emma. "Merry Christmas! I'm so glad you came!"
Emma is a little bit glad, too. Though she would hesitate to admit that. "Merry Christmas, Anna. Is this the fiance?"
"Kristoff," he introduces himself, hand stretched outwards to shake hers. "Anna suggested that I hug you when I first met you, but then she revised it and said that you might kill me if I tried."
"The latter is probably more accurate," Emma replies with a twitch of her lips. She takes Kristoff's hand to shake it. "It's nice to meet you."
"You too," Kristoff replies quickly.
He seems like a nice enough kid.
"You guys really went all out," Emma comments, studying the surroundings.
Mary Margaret shrugs. "Well, it's one of our specialties. This isn't as bad as that one year -"
"With all the paper snowflakes that took you guys hours?" Emma finishes, laughing at the memory.
"I remember we kept finding little pieces of paper around the loft, afterwards," a voice finishes, drifting from the entryway of the front door that's still wide open.
Emma doesn't know why she didn't anticipate Ingrid being there, all things considered. Maybe she thought her mother retreated to a lair in the Alps during the holidays after becoming a psychopath.
Mary Margaret and David look at her apologetically.
"We would've told you we invited her, but-" Mary Margaret starts.
David finishes, "Then you wouldn't have come."
"It's fine," she reassures them.
No, it's not.
"I would have gotten you a gift, but they ran out of pure evil at Target," Emma turns to address Ingrid, a little tensely.
Ingrid laughs, deceptively warm. "I must have wiped their shelves clean of it last time I went there."
"Please," Emma scoffs. "Like you would be caught dead somewhere as plebian as Target."
A terse minute of silence passes.
"It's really nice to meet you all," Kristoff says, a little awkwardly.
Anna elbows him. He winces.
Emma takes a deep breath. "Sorry for the tense introduction to the family, Kristoff."
"Oh?" Kristoff gestures to them, raising his eyebrows. "This? Nothing. You should see the way my family fights, especially around the holidays. I know you and your mom probably love each other under all that teas-"
"Oh no, I literally hate her with every fiber of my being," Emma enunciates carefully, stripping her jacket off. "I just will take a few less shots if that makes you feel a little less uncomfortable."
Ingrid sighs, crossing her arms and joining David in the kitchen without any additional commentary.
"Oh," Kristoff says, a little stiffly. "Well...you should probably be nicer to your mom around the holidays."
"You didn't tell him, huh?" Emma asks, addressing Anna.
"To be fair, I didn't think you guys hated each other that much." Anna winces. "I thought it was more 'I'm mad, but I still love you' instead of 'I can't stand to be breathing your air'."
"I can breathe it while still acknowledging that it's polluted by her complete lack of basic human decency. Point is, Kristoff, my reasons are completely justified." Emma says, directing her attention back towards him. "If Anna wants to tell you background later, that's her business."
"I-" Kristoff begins, stammering a little.
"And if you don't treat her right, I will use you as tinsel next Christmas."
"That's...fair," he says, adjusting his collar a little bit. "Is it hot in here? I think it's a little hot in here. Probably the fireplace...that they don't have. Why would they have a fireplace? The stockings are on the wall, not the fireplace. I'm going to go somewhere not hot. I think I'll go to the kitchen. Can't take the heat, go to the ki- I'm going, now."
After that weird tangent, he's off to join the rest of the family. Which leaves Anna and Emma alone in the living room.
Anna glares at Emma, arms crossed. "Seriously?"
Emma shrugs, unconcerned. "He seems tougher than he looks. He can handle it. Think of it as character building."
"And I thought Elsa was intimidating to him," Anna mutters, moving to sit over by Emma. "At least my task was accomplished so far."
"Task?" Emma repeats quizzically.
"I was the person assigned to stop you and Aunt Ingrid from killing each other," Anna says, by way of explanation. She's talking too fast, which is indicative that she's at least feeling normal despite all the tension. There's only room for concern when Anna starts talking at a normal pace. "So far, I'm considering this a success."
"Yeah, well," Emma says grimly, taking a long swig of eggnog. "The night isn't over yet."
"That's...optimistic," Anna says. She almost sounds like she means it.
Emma chuckles. "Welcome back home for the holidays, Anna. I bet you missed this madness when you were in Portland."
Anna opens her mouth to reply just as a knock sounds on the door.
Emma breathes a sigh of relief. "That must be Elsa."
Anna jumps up at the news, in something like glee.
They open the door and, sure enough, it is.
"Anna! Emma!" Elsa exclaims, leaning to embrace the both of them while carefully balancing the packages in her hands.
"I missed you so much!" Anna exclaims, arms wrapped around both Emma and Elsa.
"Jesus, I feel like you got stronger the last time I saw you." Emma adds, barely able to get the words out with how tight the sisters' grips are.
Elsa leans back. "Thanks, I've been doing a little weight training. And Anna - I missed you so much. Is Kristoff here?"
"Yeah!" Anna exclaims, ushering the both of them in. "Emma just scared the living crap out of him, but he's still here."
At that, Kristoff walks into the room. "Elsa, it's so good to see you again! Your cousin isn't scary."
Emma glares at him, just to see what his response is. Elsa tries (and fails) to cover her laughter. Anna only sighs in exasperation.
He cringes. "Okay, maybe a little bit scary. Like, I respect her scary. Mayb-"
"Relax," Emma reassures him. "I'm fucking with you."
Kristoff exhales deeply. "That is reassuring."
David walks into the room just as Kristoff finishes his sentence. "Elsa! I thought I heard you come in."
Elsa approaches him to give him a hug. "You did! It's so good to see you!"
Mary Margaret comes back in shortly after. Ingrid is at her heels and, at the sight, Elsa visibly tenses up.
Elsa is a little more like her. Less forgiving, more cautious. And as they've discussed, she doesn't trust Ingrid as far as she can throw her. She and Emma share a look.
"Ingrid," Elsa greets, coolly.
Ingrid bristles, a little, at the reply. "I see you and Emma have already spoken about me and you've come to some conclusions."
"Oh, please -" Emma contests, striding forwards.
Elsa's arm holds her back. "No, Ingrid. I made my own conclusions and my own decisions. Just like you did when you decided to take that case."
Ingrid sighs.
A tense silence passes between the group for a minute. Kristoff's eyes are nervously flitting around the room, as if plotting an escape route. Anna is literally biting her nails, ruining the festive red paint. Mary Margaret and David are looking at each other, trying to decide what to do using their weird, almost telepathic, communication skills.
And then there's Emma and Elsa and Ingrid.
The oven dings.
"I'm going to get that." David says, quickly.
"Me too," Mary Margaret adds.
Anna nearly runs towards the kitchen. "You know what, me three."
"I guess we're all just...taking the ham out of the oven together," Kristoff mutters uncomfortably, striding in the direction of the others. "It's a heavy ham. No other reason for us to be doing that."
And then there's three.
"Look," Emma starts off tensely. "We don't get along."
"I wish we did," Ingrid sighs.
"We don't get along," Emma repeats a little louder, leaning against the wall. "But at risk of giving those four a stroke, we should just avoid interacting with each other at all costs."
"I cosign that," Elsa nods.
"Is that really what you want?" Ingrid asks, toeing at a patch of the wood with her heel.
"Yeah," Emma answers shortly. "That is really what I want."
Ingrid pastes a fake smile on her face, one that's become all too familiar. "Then fine, we just won't interact. Now I'm going to help the four of them lift what must be the heaviest ham in the world."
-/-
There's a tense silence as they sit down to eat.
Anna and Kristoff (those two are really birds of a feather) attempt to make conversation as much as possible, aided occasionally by the efforts of David and Mary Margaret, but after a few limited replies their attempts quickly crash and burn.
"Albert Spencer is stepping down as Sheriff," David broaches, carefully.
"Is he?" Emma mutters, grabbing a healthy dollop of mashed potatoes. "His hip finally give out? Or did Satan call him back to his real job back in hell?"
"I'm running for sheriff," David announces, staring directly at Emma. "I think it's time we show Storybrooke what responsible policing really looks like."
Emma has to excuse herself to leave the room.
-/-
When she comes back to the table (she's seated between Kristoff and Elsa, which works well enough), they finally seem to have found a decent point in conversation. Without her presence it seems to have been made much easier. David and Ingrid are chatting about his campaign (the sentence ruins her appetite), Anna and Elsa are talking about Elsa's latest case in her social work pursuits, and Mary Margaret and Kristoff are having an intense conversation about ice sales.
Apparently Kristoff is an ice salesman. Who knew.
Emma doesn't say a word for the rest of lunch.
-/-
She isn't as lucky when it comes to gift-giving.
Emma tries with her presents, believe it or not. Mary Margaret gets a big print of an idyllic painting that Emma caught her eyeing at the mall months ago and David gets a new watch (he can never take off his broken one, though she kept bugging him about it for months). Emma gives Elsa a necklace that seems right up her alley. She gifts Anna with a giftcard to the best bakery in Portland and Kristoff with a generic Amazon giftcard because she doesn't know what else to get him.
Elsa gets Emma a camera case, Mary Margaret gives her a handwoven blanket, Anna and Kristoff gift a light brown leather jacket, and Ingrid's is, well,
Nancy Drew's The Secret of the Old Clock, first edition dated back to the 1930s. The thing must have cost a fortune.
Typical for Ingrid.
"You used to love those books when you were a kid," Ingrid offers, a small smile coloring her lips. "Which makes sense, for both of the careers you went on to have. I thought…"
"You could win me over with expensive shit," Emma responds, crossing her arms. "Yeah. I know what you thought."
"It isn't like that. I just-"
Emma walks out of the room before she gets the chance to finish her sentence.
-/-
She sits on the bed of the guest bedroom, which is thankfully still in its perpetual state of empty.
This was a bad idea, from start to finish.
"I didn't get the chance to give you my gift," David says, rapping his knuckles against the door as he enters the room. A small package is in the other hand.
"Sorry," Emma mutters, looking up to meet his eyes. "I was more concerned with fleeing at the time."
"I noticed," he replies, not unkindly, moving to sit next to her. David sets the gift in her lap.
She sighs, exaggeratedly, and opens it. Emma finds a small, ornately carved wooden box the size of her palm under the wrapping paper. Frowning, she opens it to reveal a necklace with a swan pendant dangling from its chain.
"You lost it when you were sixteen," David explains with a small, contemplative smile. "You were so upset. Said it was something you had for as long as you could remember. I teased you for being sentimental, great brother that I was. For years afterwards, you'd reach for it on your neck without it being there."
"You found it?" she asks, looking up to meet his gaze a little mystified.
"I don't know if it's the same one or just something really close to it," he shrugs. "I did bother about every antique dealer and pawn shop within an hour's drive, though. Don't worry, Gold's old place isn't the one that had it."
Emma tries not to sniffle and fails, tears springing to her eyes. "Jesus, David. You're making my gifts look like shit."
He rolls his eyes, gesturing to his wrist. "Please, I really needed that new watch. You were right, the old one needs to go."
She laughs, a little, before the mood between them turns a little more somber. They both stare at the wall in front of them, unsure of what to say.
"Why do you want to run for sheriff?" Emma asks, uncomfortably. "After all the shit that happened, why is that something that you want?"
"You're right," David sighs. "Things are pretty bleak right now, especially in the department. But I want to make it better. I need to make it better. I won't be able to live with myself if all I do is just stand idly by and let it stay that way."
Emma shakes her head. "Of course, you're doing it for the greater good. That sounds like you."
"I could really use your brains to help me out," David says, casually.
Emma scoffs, wrapping her sweater a little tighter around herself. "I think my brains would hurt you more than it would help you. I'm not exactly popular with the police."
"I don't need someone popular with the police, I need someone to help me act for the people."
"What?" Emma raises her eyebrows, "Now they're mutually exclusive? My, my, David, you really have changed."
David sighs, looking weary. "They're not, but the way things are going they may as well be. Things have only gotten worse since you left."
Emma's expression furrows. "What do you mean?"
"After what happened with...Arthur only seems to be getting worse and worse. Thinks he can get away with anything, and maybe he can at this point. Albert doesn't give a damn, either, I think he's encouraging it."
"The noble and true Storybrooke police department," she mutters.
"Reports of use of excessive force have skyrocketed and they all point at the two of them, Emma." David scrubs with face with his hands, leaning against the paneling of the porch. "Someone has to do something about it."
Emma nods, thinking of Graham and the kid he died to save. "Spoken like a true hero."
David frowns. "Not quite. I just...I want this to be the job I dreamed about when I was a kid, again. Saving people. Stopping the bad guys. The bad guys weren't supposed to be the people working alongside you, they were supposed to be the people that got a fair trial and a fitting sentence."
She nods, looking contemplative.
"Why didn't you quit with me?" Emma asks, wrapping her arms around her legs.
David shrugs.
"Someone had to stay behind and make sure Albert and Arthur don't burn the town to the ground."
"Unlike cutting and running, like me." Emma mutters, tucking her chin over her knees.
David shakes his head. "You went through hell, Emma. Being around them wouldn't have helped you. You're helping people in your own way, I get that now."
She snorts derisively. "Yeah, I'm really helping the community by snapping those dirty pictures."
"You're investigating a psychopath for the sake of a child," David points out. "That seems pretty heroic to me."
"Ingrid pays decent money. I like having a stable salary every now and then. Helps me keep the electricity on and Netflix subscription paid."
"No," David interjects. "You can fool a lot of people with that 'I don't give a shit' act, but you've never been able to fool me. You care, Emma. You've always cared, you just act like you don't because you feel like you care too much."
Emma stays silent for a moment, arms still crossed and eyes going to her boots.
She grumbles, after a moment, "What is it with you and Elsa and trying to be my shrink?"
David rolls his eyes. "Accept the fact that people love you and want you to think better of yourself. It isn't that hard, I promise."
Emma sighs in exasperation.
"I'm not a great campaigner, you know."
"I know," David answers quietly.
"I can't write speeches for shit."
"I remember tenth grade pretty vividly, thanks," David laughs, bumping her shoulder with his. "I'm not asking for you to become my organizer, Emma. I just want to know that...you're behind me, is all."
"David," she nearly reprimands, because he should know better. "I'm always behind you. A hundred percent."
"And I'm always behind you," he replies, tucking his arm over her shoulder. "A hundred percent."
David officially announces his candidacy a few days later.