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Chapter IV

The Deputy

Emma drove back to the station at a much slower pace. Her head buzzed with thoughts as she made the familiar trip through town. They had saved the Storybrooke, but like everyone kept telling her, all magic came at a price. This time the price had been everyone's memories. Well, all but two. It was almost like that age old question about being stranded with one person of choice on a deserted island. A few months ago, she probably would have said anyone but Regina, but now. Now, Emma decided, that if she had to be in this truly screwed up situation, she wouldn't have it any other way. Her parents would, as they liked to say, "Find each other" again, and true love's kiss would break the curse and Storybrooke would, mostly, return to normal.

What was normal for a magical town full of fairy tales, anyway? Emma scoffed at her own joke. Normal was having breakfast with her family at the home-town Diner. She felt a dorky smile slide across her face at that thought. Maybe this whole thing, this re-cast curse, was something that was meant to happen. If it hadn't been for that moment in the mines, when they thought they were going to die, she and Regina would have never admitted that they felt something for each other. Something other than hate, at least. It had been a total Sandy-Keanu moment, except with a doom diamond instead of a bombed bus. Then there had been more. Like that one kiss had opened the floodgates. It felt like she'd been given a backstage pass and she got to meet the real Regina for the first time. The Regina that desperately wanted Henry to love her, the Regina that held her hand so tight it almost hurt because she was trying not to cry. The Regina who painted her toenails and treated every kiss like it was some sort of miracle.

Not the Mayor or the Evil Queen, Regina. Emma wanted to know Regina. She wanted to have breakfast with Regina, and lunch and dinner and a very private bedroom dese- Woah, Swan. She rolled her eyes at her own rambling thoughts. She was putting the cart way the hell before the horse. They had a curse to break, again, and a ton of issues to work out. She couldn't just leap into Regina's bed and expect everything to work out. That was the old Emma Swan, the love 'em and leave 'em Emma that had floated from job to job and city to city with no roots or strings to tie her down. She didn't want to be that Emma anymore. No more than Regina wanted to be the Evil Queen.

First thing was first, they had to set everything right again. That meant breaking up Kathryn and David's marriage, and getting Snow and David together, and when she put it like that it sounded tawdry, underhanded and wrong. It meant letting an entire town full of people know that their lives were lies. Fun. Henry had made it all seem so easy. She, they, could do this, though.

They would just take things one step at a time. It would be like any other job she'd taken as a bounty hunter. First you observe, and learn everything you could about the target. Since she had already gone through this dance once and Regina had been stuck at the same Prom doing the same dance for twenty-eight years, that wouldn't be very hard. Then you maneuvered the players into position, putting them exactly where you wanted and needed them to be. Easier said than done. How had Henry managed to do it? Well, if a ten year old could pull it off, surely two grown women could do it. Then there was the take-down. No two take-downs were the same. Some went fast, some were slow-burns, some were a walk in the park and others were a run through packed city streets in three-inch heels.

This one felt like it was going to be tough. A nice long case, but at least there was going to be a big pay out at the end: her family, friends and home all back to normal. She even got a bonus, Regina. It was just another, somewhat unorthodox, job. Gather the facts, set the players and go. She pulled up to the police station and parked the cruiser back in its customary spot. She had a small bounce in her step as she made the short walk from the car to the door. She was just going to check to make sure there was no one locked up. Leroy had been at the Diner so she doubted it, but it never hurt to be thorough. Plus since Regina was probably the Mayor again, it wouldn't kill her to at least look at the huge stack of unfiled paperwork on her desk.

She rounded the corner into the main area of the office and almost hit the ground when a dart missed her by six inches.

"Holy shit!"

She fumbled with her gun and twisted so fast she could almost hear the vertebrae in her back pop in protest. The dart was buried dead center in the target that had hung neatly on the wall. She followed the dart's path back to its origin and her mouth dropped open. She had no words.

Sitting there, feet propped negligently on the corner of a desk was Graham. A dead man wearing a Deputy's uniform. Only he was very much alive, in the pink of health, looking exactly the way he had when she'd met him at Regina's manor the very first night she'd arrived.

"Graham?"

He was there, actually there, with his carefully tousled and gelled hair and his beard and his leather jacket. She had felt him die, held him in her arms as he'd taken his last breathes. How had this happened? Why? Where? What?

Then Emma realized, with a sudden and almost painful clarity, that she didn't care. She rushed across the room and grabbed the man in a full-on hug. She could smell his earthy aftershave, coffee and a lingering scent of pine trees. He smelled like she remembered he did.

"Um, good morning to you too, Emma."

He even sounded the same, his words, slightly confused, had the same effortlessly sexy accent and touch of concern.

Whatever they had done to fix Storybrooke had brought Graham back from the dead. If nothing else, that made everything worth it.

She let him go, "I uh-"How did she explain to a perfectly fit man that he had been dead? "missed you?"

Oh so smooth.

"Right. You must have really had too much to drink last night. I told Ruby to cut you off at two but you pulled rank on me."

He grinned, "But since I heard you roar off this morning to take first patrol I figured you weren't that hung-over."

Drinking last night? Right, cursed memories that she didn't have. It couldn't have been that different then the few times they had actually gone drinking. She wandered to her office to sit down and think for a moment and could feel Graham's eyes track her the whole way.

If they had reset the curse, it wasn't about where they were, it was all about when they were, she supposed. Oh this was some Doctor Who, Stargate SG1, Quantum Leap bullshit. She didn't even like sci-fi, she'd just had to share her TV privileges with too many nerds when she'd bounced between foster homes. She didn't even understand all the time travel rules. If this was time travel, magic was confusing as hell. One minute she had been fighting to keep a diamond with enough power to erase an entire town and its population off the map under control and the next she was back to square one in Storybrooke circa her first week there.

The clock. She pushed her hand through her hair, Henry had told her that the town's clock hadn't started working until she arrived.

"Hey Graham?"

He looked up from his paperwork, "Need an aspirin?"

She rolled her eyes, "Have we got any complaints about the clock tower not working?"

He cocked his head to the side, "The clock tower?" He shook his head, "That old things been ticking away without a hitch for as long as anyone can remember."

She was going to get really tired of that answer really fast.

Okay, Emma tried to work past the shock of seeing Graham again. She had things to do. Step One, she reminded herself, was info gathering.

What did she know? The Curse was unbroken or re-cast or reset or whatever. People didn't remember that they were fairy tale characters. David was still married to Kathryn, Mary Margret was a single female school teacher, and she was the Sheriff and had been for as long as anyone could remember. Graham was her deputy, which was a total role-reversal. The curse had re-adjusted their roles, it had adapted and overcome her presence. The Curse was like Skynet or something, it had some kind of intelligence. Thank you, Mikey R. for the Terminator Marathon back in the day. She rubbed her temples, or had it been her and Regina? Or was it Gold? Or something or someone else?

She got out a blank legal pad. She usually just doodled on them, but now she had actual work to do. She needed to write her thoughts down to straighten them out before she confused herself again.

One: Graham was alive, again. How? Why? Were there spells to bring people back from the dead? Regina would know.

Regina. Emma glanced at the wall clock, she had a few minutes to kill before she needed to meet Regina and Henry at the Diner

Two: Greg and Tamara were in town, and apparently under the same curse everyone else was. She needed to find out who they were and what they did immediately. Those two, cursed or not, were a threat and there was no way in hell she was letting them run around town unsupervised.

Three: Gold. They needed to find out what, if anything, he remembered. Henry's grandfather or not, she didn't trust the man farther then she could throw him.

She tapped her pen on the desk and tried to think. She hadn't gone to the Police Academy, and neither had Graham, but they were the entirety of the Storybrooke Police Force and this was their biggest case ever. It was a good thing she had watched every episode of Law and Order at least twice. She and Neal had spent hours watching the show and laughing at the bumbling criminals-Neal. Emma sat up strait, was Neal here? Was he back in Storybrooke, alive and well? If Graham could come back, why not Neal?

"Hey Graham?"

The man, who had been tossing darts again, twisted around and lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Have you seen Neal lately?"

Now he did look at her like she'd had one too many. "I know everyone in town and there's no one named Neal, Emma."

Damn.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

Oh yeah, she was freaking peachy. The father of her son had been shot and fallen into a swirling green hole of doom and she had moved Heaven and Earth to save a town and in some crazy miracle, it had worked. Except for Neal. Of course, that was her luck.

"Fine."

He didn't look convinced, not even a little bit. Hell, she knew she was lying, no super power needed.

"I actually have a breakfast meeting with the Mayor here in a bit. Can you hold down the fort here?"

He grinned, that boyish grin that melted girls' hearts left and right, "It's awful early for Leroy or Lacey to cause trouble, so I should be fine."

Right, the curse meant that the only trouble in town revolved around alcohol and traffic violations. No lynch mobs, no murders, no wraiths or bean fields to watch.

"Just try not to piss her off too much today."

What was that supposed to mean?

"What's that supposed to mean, Humbert?"

God, she'd missed teasing him.

"Regina. Just one week, Emma. That's all I'm asking for. Just one week without her burying us in paperwork, that you make me do, because you've wound her up."

Yeah, she scowled bitterly, winding Regina up had been his old job, hadn't it? Now that the curse was back, did he still think he needed to visit Regina twice a week? If he did, he was about to be quickly re-educated.

"I know how she can be."

No he didn't, not anymore. The woman Graham had known, biblically, was no more.

"It'll be fine. We've come to an understanding." With their lips.

He chuckled, "You two? An understanding? Emma you and Regina have been circling each other like boxers for, well, ever."

That would piss her off, except for the fact that his statement was one-hundred percent right. They had actually exchanged punches. Not that Graham remembered that, apparently.

"Well you know what they say, Deputy. There is a thin line between love and hate."

She left him to ponder that and walked out the door, her scribbled upon pad in hand. She was more than ready for pancakes, cocoa and the little slice of relative normalcy that Regina and her shared knowledge of what had really happened to their town would bring her.

AN2: In my head cannon Emma has a potty-mouth and is always making pop culture references that nobody gets. Also, yes, Graham is alive. It will be explained, just roll with it for now, Dearies.