TITLE: Awakenings (3/?)
Chapter Three
Emma freezes as the wolf comes a step closer. He cocks his head to the side once more, now clearly beckoning her to follow as though imbued with an unnervingly human spirit.
"Why?" Emma whispers. "Why should I trust you?" She ought to feel like a fool, she thinks, talking to a wolf. And yet the wisdom shining in the depths of his eyes outweighs the doubt in her mind, so desperate is her need now for answers.
The wolf grunts, but does not reply outright. Instead he simply stares her down, the silence growing.
Emma feels the faintest tendril of hope beginning in the pit of her stomach, threatening to break through the shell of numbness she has been trying to build, a cocoon of safety against her own faults which she cannot change.
"I'm not coming," she insists suddenly, realizing the danger of letting herself become swept up in impossible thoughts. "This is ridiculous. It's cold, it's the middle of the night, and I'm not stupid enough to just go blindly following you into the woods. I'm going home."
This time the wolf moves lightning fast, darting out to grab the sleeve of her jacket, sharp teeth barely missing the skin of her wrist. Emma gasps, instincts screaming to run, but confronted by this creature, she does not dare to move. The wolf tugs, a delicate, calculated gesture, enough force to show her exactly what she is up against without doing any harm.
"Okay," she breathes, feeling dizzy with the sudden burst of adrenaline. "I'll come with you."
Without waiting for further confirmation, the wolf takes off toward the woods. Haltingly, Emma follows, struggling to keep up after three days of little sleep. The wolf wants to show her something here, she is certain, but it seems increasingly likely that whatever she finds will only deepen the hurt. She thinks of the mausoleum in these woods, of Regina's father buried there. Emma wonders how many other bodies might be concealed here.
A hundred feet past the treeline, every trace of light from the town is drowned out by dense foliage. It is a new moon, and the darkness is so thick that it is almost palpable, smooth and cold like silk. Roots seem to reach up from the ground to ensnare the toes of her boots, and Emma feels utterly off balance, disoriented and overwhelmed. She has lost the wolf already, rare panic rising in her chest over the realization that she is unable to turn back now, no matter what happens.
Pausing for a moment, she tries to listen for movement and finds it all around, the forest come to life by night. Reaching out, she finds the rough bark of a tree to her left, but nothing within arm's reach on the other side. Her palms are already raw from feeling her way, and she takes another tentative step forward.
The sound of twigs snapping comes loudly from behind, and Emma freezes again, suddenly certain that she is being followed. For a moment she tries to convince herself that it might be the wolf, having circled back to correct her path. But his feet are light and soft on the ground; the sounds which are growing nearer now are unmistakably human. Heartbeat thundering in her temples, Emma drops into a defensive posture, though she remains hopelessly blind.
For a moment nothing happens, silence all around as fear grows, filling her veins with ice. Then, out of nowhere, a hand rests on her shoulder, surprisingly light, neither threatening nor forceful.
"Emma!" she hears as she spins instinctively, and her knees feel suddenly weak as she identifies Graham's familiar accent. Henry's words echo again in her mind; she feels haunted by his reality lately, the possibility of magic playing on her own desolate wishes until the edge of her world seem to blur.
"Stop," she breathes, her mind instantly racing. She thinks that she must be hallucinating, her sleep-starved mind creating what she so desperately wants to find here.
"It's okay," Graham's voice comes again, sounding loud in the sudden stillness of the forest. All of the sounds Emma has been hearing on her disorienting journey out here have ceased, as though something is changing in the very fabric of the atmosphere, as if she might now be peering into another realm.
"You're dead," Emma says firmly, searching now for the anger to which she has been clinging, finding it like a familiar piece of armor. "You're dead and there is nothing I can do about it! Leave me alone."
"I'm sorry," he insists. "I'm sorry for what happened. I never meant for you to get hurt. I just—"
"Stop!" Emma snaps, clinging fiercely to the anger, feeling it grow stronger as she resists any thread of hope. "I don't want anyone's sympathy. I don't want anyone's help. I just want to be left alone before anyone else gets hurt!"
"Emma."
Graham reaches for her hand again, through the darkness, and this time she lashes out, feeling as though all of her wounds have been laid bare, utterly unable to heal. Reflexively she lunges toward the sound of his voice, expecting to find nothing but spectral emptiness. Instead she collides with the warm solidness of his body, and he grunts as her unexpected attack knocks both of them to the ground. Her breath leaves in a rush, and Emma lies still, momentarily stunned. But Graham is laughing, his arms wrapping around her as the familiar scent of that damned leather jacket washes over her.
"Not a ghost, then," Emma gasps, feeling shaken to her core.
"Definitely not," Graham answers, still chuckling, his exhalation warm against the skin of her neck, and she shivers. "Are you okay?"
"I'm—this is crazy," Emma answers, still unable to risk happiness, or even any sort of significant relief. "You were dead. Your heart stopped. I felt it."
Without warning, Graham gets to his feet, pulling her up with surprising strength. "Come with me."
"Where are we going?" asks Emma, apprehension growing again. Finding him here has not made the forest any less dark or impenetrable.
"Do you trust me?" Graham asks softly, still holding both of her hands firmly in his.
"For all I know, you're a ghost," she answers stubbornly, and he laughs again.
"Just come with me."
Emma follows blindly as he starts off through the trees, guiding her quickly but flawlessly. She wonders how he is able to see out here, to be so certain of where he is taking her when she is entirely blind. Being out of control now feels dangerous, though she knows she has been slipping further and further into irrationality in the days since his death.
In the distance, a pale, greenish light begins, a shape emerging from the void. It grows stronger as they draw nearer, and Emma finds that she is able to make out the shapes of the tree trunks now. They cross a few hundred feet more before Graham draws to a halt, and she catches her breath as she realizes that they are facing a rocky overhang at the mouth of a cave, the light coming from a phosphorescent lichen growing along its edge.
Moving again, Graham leads her just inside the small shelter, and at last she is able to see his face as her eyes adjust to the dim light. He looks eerily unchanged, as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. But Emma knows the truth, is certain of it, and she feels the beginning of a headache starting behind her eyes.
"Sit," he instructs softly, and she sinks carefully onto the rocky floor, feeling the chill of the night creeping up through the thin fabric of her jeans. Her legs feel like rubber, and she is certain now that she would not be able to run away if her life depended upon it.
"Your heart stopped," she says softly, as he settles beside her, close, so that their shoulders are nearly touching. "I know."
"And yet here we are," Graham answers, voice strangely flat, distant.
"Are you going to tell me what happened?" she presses. "Because this—I'm pretty damn sure it's impossible."
"I don't know what happened," says Graham, frustration creeping into his tone for the first time. "All I wanted was to understand what's happening to me, and I still don't."
"Then tell me what you do know." Emma reaches for his hand, then stops herself, crossing her arms over her chest instead.
"I was there with you," he answers quietly, looking away from her to stare out at the forest. The wolf stands a few hundred feet off now, eyes just visible in the darkness. "And then I just—wasn't. There was nothing, like going to sleep. Next thing I knew, I was out here."
"In the woods?" asks Emma, swallowing, feeling the sense of loss rise up again as his words resurrect memories of the moments she has been trying with all her might to lock away, forget.
Graham exhales audibly. "Yes. In the ground, more specifically."
"You were buried—alive?" Emma feels her breath catch, as though the darkness might be sticking in her lungs.
"You said I was dead," Graham says softly. "And I believe it. There was—earth, everywhere. In my eyes, my mouth. I thought I was in hell. I think I would have suffocated if it wasn't for the wolves digging me out."
When he turns to look at her again, there is an intensity in his eyes that makes her feel dizzy, as though she is slowly becoming untethered from the reality she has always trusted. Nothing that has happened this week makes any sort of sense; there is no way to rationalize his sitting here now, telling her how he has survived the certainty of death. All of her instincts tell her to reject this moment, to get away as quickly as possible, before this can all be revealed as a cruel illusion. Yet she cannot bring herself to pull away now, when she has been given this moment, when she has wanted it so terribly. Emma reaches for his hand again, finding it surprisingly warm as he laces their fingers, his own shaking ever so slightly.
"Henry's book says that it's impossible to leave Storybrooke," says Graham, the pad of his thumb playing along the curve of her palm. "Maybe death isn't a way out, either. Maybe—this is hell."
Something shifts then, Graham's desperate helplessness mingling with her own until Emma cannot stand the distance which remains between them. Though every defense she has cultivated within herself is crying out for danger, she leans to kiss him, needing suddenly to prove that hope still lives here, buried deep though it may be.
He responds instantly, hand coming up to tangle in her hair, and Emma closes her eyes, breathing him in, acutely aware that this moment could be stolen from them at any time. But walking away now seems impossible, beyond consideration. A low, needy sound slips from his throat as she pushes his jacket off of his shoulders, slips a hand beneath the hem of his shirt, finding the comforting solidness of his skin.
"Emma," he murmurs, as she presses him back against the soft earth of the forest floor. "Whatever happens, I don't want you getting hurt again."
"Shut up," she whispers savagely, catching his lip delicately between her teeth as she kisses him again, determined to shut out the rest of the world if only for a little while.
He groans helplessly, hands coming up to catch hold of her hips as she undoes the button of her jeans.
Overhead, the cave's ceiling glows with a thousand tiny pinpricks of phosphorescent light, like stars fallen close to the Earth.