AN: Despite how this chapter ends... rest assured this is a Swan Queen story all the way. With that said, enjoy and review!

This chapter is unedited, any mistakes are mine.

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Chapter 3

A week had passed since Graham had sacrificed himself for her. A week she had spent locked in her room with only empty bottles of mead and her grief to keep her company. Once or twice a day, her mother would enter and try to get her to eat the food that was brought in but each day, Emma refused her. The Queen was getting frustrated with her daughter's current state of apathy, and in a bout of irritation sent up the one person she hoped could break through the drunken haze.

Emma was sitting underneath her window, the freezing air settling numbly on her bare shoulders as she raised her hand to her mouth and swallowed another gulp of mead.

"You look like shit." a voice stated from the doorway. Emma raised hazy green eyes to meet those of her best friend - well, one of her best friends, she mentally reminded herself. Ruby scrutinized her from her position for a moment longer, before taking purposeful steps towards her. "What are you doing? Trying to commit suicide by freezing to death? Where are your maids and why haven't they been tending the fire?" The brunette asked in quick succession, pulling the window closed and gesturing to the embers in the fireplace that barely flickered with life.

Her questions were left unanswered however, as Emma continued to watch her with an aloof expression. The blonde wanted to be left alone, not be bombarded by ridiculous questions about her state of being. "G'way." she slurred in what she thought was an authoritative tone, but only made Ruby roll her eyes as she left the window and tended to the fire.

After tossing a few logs on the hearth, Ruby made her way back to Emma, standing above the Princess with her arms crossed and face scrunched in distaste. "You need a bath, pup."

The blonde grunted in a response and raised the bottle of mead to her lips again. But before it could touch her lips, it was ripped out of her hand quicker than she could process it's absence. Staring at her empty hand for several seconds, she finally realized what had happened and fixed an unfocused glare at her friend. "Eey… give't back." she whined, reaching for the bottle that her friend now held out of her reach.

"Yeah.. I am going to say you've had enough of this." Ruby said firmly. "Come on, you need a bath." she added as she extended a hand to help Emma stand.

However, the blonde wasn't having it. "G'way Rooby." she demanded again, pulling her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them securely before dropping her forehead onto her forearms and burying her face away from the daylight.

Above her, Ruby smirked, an idea forming in her mind. "Okay, fine. But you're not getting this back." she sloshed what was left of the bottle to indicate what she was referring to and then left the room.

Emma sighed, happy to be alone once again but upset she no longer had her mead. It had been the only thing to keep the memories of Graham at bay. The ones where Graham's pleading eyes bore into her own as the dagger pierced his heart. The ones that no matter how hard and fast she ran, she wasn't able to save him. The ones where she cried out as she watched the life fade from him. The ones where 'I'm sorry Princess' echoed in her mind like a horrible mantra, driving her insane to the point of throwing anything within reach until her guards burst into the room to see if she was alright.

The moment Graham fell at her feet, she had shifted back into her human form, cradling his form to her chest as her emotions overtook her. She didn't pay any attention to the Black Knight behind her, but registered the soft thump of his body as it hit the ground, several arrows piercing his body. Emma had called Graham's name in vain until she felt a presence directly behind her , only then fully aware of the situation around her as her soldiers busied themselves with cleaning up the mess around her.

"Emma, let him go." A deep voice said quietly beside her.

"No!"

"Emma… he's gone. Come on-" A hand reached her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze, but the blonde shook away the contact.

"No! Neal you have to do something, get the fairies!" Emma insisted, refusing to let Graham's body out of her grasp.

"Princess, the fairies can't help Graham. He's gone." Neal reapplied his hold on her shoulder a little more firmly, insisting that she stand. "There is nothing that can be done."

The straightforward approach seemed to work on Emma, as she suddenly rose from her position on the ground and pushed past the knight who was standing there with a sympathetic expression in his light brown eyes. She couldn't take that look. She couldn't take any of it. Breaking out into a sprint, she ran back to the castle and locked herself in her room.

Emma let out a surprised gasp as she was rudely brought out of her hazy thoughts by a bucket of icy water being dumped over her head. She leapt to her feet sputtering, looking around for her attacker and blinked in confusion at Ruby's raised eyebrow and cocky posture, a now empty bucket at her side.

"Don't look so surprised. I told you that you needed a bath, and you refused to get up to take one, so I improvised." Ruby informed her, face remaining sternly unaffected as the Princess fixed her with a slightly more sober-looking glare. "Now, take that dirty shift off of your filthy self and follow me into your bath chambers before I go get another bucket from the drinking well."

Knowing the threat was real, Emma grumbled before wiggling her way out of the shift she'd been wearing for the past several days and marched fully naked into the bath on the other side of her chambers. Each of the Royal suites had it's own sitting area, bed chambers and bath chambers, which on any normal occasion Emma would take pride in. Today, however, she scowled as her friend directed her into enchanted warm water of the bath pool and perched herself on a low, man-carved bench and focused on the water lapping around her increasingly gaunt looking hip bones.

Ruby made her way around the pool, settling herself on the other side of the pool and reaching for a sponge that was resting in lavender bath salts. Dipping it into the warm water beside the blonde, she spoke quietly in a tone Emma recognized as one of honest concern. "You have lost far too much weight, Em." When Emma remained silent, the brunette continued. "You've been held up in your room for a week, living off of nothing but mead and drowning in your own misery. What do you think Graham would say if he could see you now?" Softly, she ran the sponge over slim shoulders, gently scrubbing away at the filth that had accumulated in the time Emma had been lost to her grief. The blonde stiffened at the mention of the dead man's name, but remained seated and Ruby took that as a positive sign. She lifted long blonde hair up and brought the sponge across a ivory toned back, taking care to be gentle on the few cuts and scrapes still healing from Emma's battle in the woods that night.

"I suppose he'd tell me I was a fool for disrespecting his sacrifice… or something like that." Emma whispered, her drunken mind still foggy as she tilted her head to one side so Ruby could bring the sponge forward to clean her chest. "But I don't want to talk about Graham, Ruby. I want to forget. Not permanently, but for now.. I would like to forget."

Ruby nodded, dipping the sponge into the water again and continuing her mission. They sat in silence for several minutes as she worked, the only sound coming from the water echoing off the chamber walls. Soon, Emma moved off the bench inside the pool and dropped her body fully into the water to rinse and wash her hair. Once clean, she met Ruby's gaze, her body now facing the brunette. "I want to forget Ruby."

Blue eyes searched green as Ruby pursed her lips together, taking in Emma's wet form before sighing. "I don't know how to help you with that, Em."

"Yes you do. We swore never to speak of it. But you know what I am asking." The blonde insisted, taking a couple of steps closer to the other woman before kneeling on the bench, not caring about the uncomfortable surface as her eyes flickered between Ruby's and the other woman's lips.

"Emma… that is not a good idea. We swore never to talk about it because it was a mistake." Ruby reasoned, lowering her gaze to her lap nervously.

"Was it? I don't remember feeling like it was a mistake." Emma leaned in and brushed her lips against the shell of Ruby's ear. "I remember feeling quite the opposite."

"We were drunk." The said logically, wetting dry lips as she tried to quell the embers of arousal that had pooled in her belly at Emma's whispered words.

Emma snorted. "I'm still drunk."

"But I'm not." Ruby said, pulling back and standing in an effort to put some distance between them. "It wouldn't be right to take advantage of you like that."

Emma wasn't deterred, however, having set her mind on what she wanted. She stood and used the bench as a step, following her friend. "I want you to make me forget, Ruby." She followed the brunette until she had her pressed up against the chamber wall, Ruby looking anywhere but directly at her in an attempt to seem uninterested, but Emma could smell her body's betrayal. She stepped closer, pressing her wet skin up against Ruby's clothed front. The sharp intake of breath from the other woman was enough for Emma who started kissing a small trail along Ruby's jaw line. "Make me forget…" she pleaded in a whisper, pulling back to catch the taller woman's gaze. "Please…"

Ruby knew it was a bad idea, knew she should just shove the guilt-ridden and intoxicated Princess away from her and leave the room. For that would be best for both of them. But, unfortunately for the both of them… Ruby's canal instinct overrode her reason and she quickly grabbed Emma by the shoulders and flipped their positions, pinning the blonde against the wall. "Just this once." and with that in mind, she dipped her head and brought her lips to Emma's, growling when the blonde's hands found purchase in her long dark hair and pulled her closer.

Just this once still echoing in their minds.