Chapter 12 – Words That Stick
The Vault…
"Marriage." Graham's voice echoed around the catacombs which suddenly didn't seem as extensive as they were.
Regina sucked in a deep breath of air that felt too thick to breathe and felt her head nodding without conscious thought on her part. She stopped quickly, before her brain splashed into nothing against the insides of her skull and pressed her lips together.
Graham frowned at her and took a step closer.
"Explain."
"What's to explain?" Regina lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "It's just a chapter in the book. It means…"
"It means something. You're terrified."
"I am NOT…"
"Pet, you're bloody shaking." Graham pointed out gently, his frown –had it been on anyone else's face- might have been concerned.
"I'm fine." Regina tried to step away from his outstretched hand but her feet refused to budge.
She felt it now. She had been feeling it since she woke up in the hospital and perhaps even before that.
That connection. That tug. That tie that bound her to him. She shuddered when she realised fully that it was real. That it wasn't some hallucination on her part but an actual magical phenomenon that not even a world without magic could sever.
"You're anything but fine."
Regina's jaw clenched.
"Can we just get out of here? I really don't think this is the time or place for…this."
"And what is this?"
Regina scrubbed a hand through her hair and let out an explosive breath.
"Can we just not?"
"No." Graham's frown deepened. "You've not to hide anything from me anymore. Especially when it scares you. We're in this together. I told you that. If you're not honest with me…he's going to kill us both. I need to be able to trust you."
"How can you trust me?!" Regina demanded. "How could you POSSIBLY trust a monster like me?! I used you. For decades. You were a thing to me. Not even a person. Not even an animal. I was your jailor and your tormentor and now you stand there and tell me that I need to trust you because you need to trust me?"
Regina stopped herself before her voice rose completely into a shriek. She stood, shoulders heaving with every breath, her chest aching and her eyes burning.
"I broke you." She gulped then, realising it was true. "You can never forgive me and you can never trust me so don't…lie to me about it."
Graham waited her out. Let her get it all out of her system before he spoke. He reached out, spanning her jaw with his hand and lifting her face until she had to look him in the eye. He waited until he had her complete and undivided attention.
"Can you ever forgive me for killing you?"
Regina sucked in a sharp breath.
"I murdered you, Regina. I killed you."
"To be fair," Regina forced the words out, "I deserved it."
"Maybe." He stepped closer, tugging her into his shadow with his hold on her jaw. "Not by my hand though. Never at the hands of the man you love."
She flinched at those words and his thumb swiped gently back and forth over her cheek to try and soothe her.
"I told you before. I'm used to having it thrown back in my face."
"I am not them."
"No. You're worse." Regina dropped her gaze from his the instant he released her chin. She stared at his chest until the materials of his shirt and waistcoat blurred together. "You are the greatest atrocity I ever committed. I took you and I used you and I abused you and I shattered you into a monster almost as bad as I am. I…I am sorry."
It seemed like such a useless and paltry thing. So few words for the depth and range of feeling that stormed inside her. She never felt like she had the words to express what she felt. She could have been able to speak every language ever known and those not yet born and she'd never have words enough. How could he ever understand that she truly meant it and –even if he did- what difference would it make?
Her shame, her guilt, meant nothing. She couldn't take back what she had done. She might wish she could, but if wishes were horses…
"I believe you."
Regina huffed a sound almost like a laugh.
"Impossible. How can you say that? You were my toy. My thing to amuse me at night."
"Yes. I was…and you were my punching bag."
She frowned at him.
"I tore at you, pet. I bit and scratched and bruised. I did things to you that no man should ever do to a woman."
"I asked you to."
"Which is why we work together." Graham huffed out a slow breath. "I'm an animal, pet. I'm wild and savage and anyone less than that would just be devoured by the beast in me. You caged that part of me. Controlled it. Gave it a use. You stopped me from being a monster by being monster enough for both of us."
"So, what, we're even?"
"Exactly."
"If what you're saying is true, if we're both monsters, we'll destroy one another."
"No. We'll become unstoppable. We're not monsters anymore. We tamed one another."
"I'm a psychopath. You don't tame that."
"Maybe you were but not anymore." Graham shrugged. "It's in you. Just as the wolf is in me, but you changed. I told you that I remember everything. I remember you caring for me. I remember your kindness. I remember the gifts and the birthdays and the Christmases. I remember the thanksgivings and the dancing and the lock-ins at Granny's when we would talk until dawn about nothing and everything."
"What can I say? I began to believe my own lie."
"If we both believe it, is it a lie anymore?"
Regina gulped down what she was going to say and shook her head.
"I'm too broken."
"No. You were broken. Being here let you heal. Let you start to at any rate. Until the book and Henry running away, you were so different to the woman that cursed an entire world because she hurt too much to face it anymore."
"And look what happened!" Regina waved her hand wildly and shrugged off the wince of pain it caused her. "As soon as things didn't go my way, I reverted."
"And when you realised you were losing me, you set me free." Graham ducked his head a little so she had to look him in the eye. "You loved me enough to let me go. You died to make it happen. If that's not redemption enough, I don't know what is."
Regina had no answer for that.
"Now, trust me and tell me. What's this about marriage that's got you so upset?"
Regina rigidly controlled her breathing. Her eyes burned but she couldn't look away from him. She let out a shuddering breath and rallied her strength. She had never felt weaker, not even when she'd been dying. She had never been so scared.
"I died for you."
"I killed you." Graham nodded.
"Well…turns out…that has repercussions."
"Like?" Graham prodded when she seemed to stall.
"Like…mating my soul to yours."
Graham frowned.
"I thought soulmates were dictated by fate."
"They are but it can be…manufactured." Regina struggled to explain. "Soulmates are incredibly powerful. If you think about how powerful True Love's Kiss is and that's just the PG version of two souls coming together. Making love," she stumbled over the words, "is exponentially more powerful and a mating of souls is even more powerful than that. The druids figured out how to mate one soul to another outwith the edicts of the fates. I didn't get all of it, but I suspect that it was that power which allowed them to conjure the Woodcutter in the first place."
She couldn't look at him as she spoke. Tried to keep her voice dry and remote. Devoid of emotion.
"So we are soulmates now because we chose to be?"
"No. I am your soulmate because I died for you. I am bound to you for the rest of eternity. There will never be another for me. You, however, suffer no such affliction. You're free of me."
"It is entirely one sided?"
"Yes." Regina lifted a shoulder. "It is not without its benefits. Had we been back in the Enchanted Forest, I'd be more powerful than ever but –as it stands- that's about as useful as a chocolate teapot."
"Wait, am I understanding this? You have bound your soul to me and there's nothing I can do in return?"
"The rite is done. By accident, yes, but it is done. I…I love you and I died. My soul sepertated from my body in that moment and –when you revived me- it bound it to yours. Had you done something then, something of comparable sacrifice as giving up your life, then it would have gone both ways but –as it is- I am enslaved to you." Regina mustered something of a bitter smile and spread her hands. "It would seem you were right, the tables really have turned."
Graham could only stare at her. He felt a powerful need to sit down.
Soulmates. They were soulmates.
Marriage was too paltry a word for it. That kind of connection, one that would last for the rest of their lives and beyond, and it had happened by accident? He frowned. That couldn't be right. Things of this magnitude didn't just happen. He found it impossible to believe that her soul could have bound to his without SOMETHING from him in return…something like half of his heart, maybe?
Graham staggered backwards and the book thudded from his numb fingers to slam onto the floor with an echoing bang that made her flinch.
"Graham?" Regina frowned at him. "Graham, what's wrong?"
"Bastard thing…" Graham turned away from her and scrubbed both his hands down over his face.
No way. No way was this an ACCIDENT. Things like this couldn't just happen. Not by themselves. Such powerful magic required intent. It needed power. A power so ancient, so wild, that it couldn't be constrained nor bothered by such things as free will.
"Graham, you're not making any sense." Regina's fingers hesitantly touched his elbow and he whirled to face her so quickly that she hopped back a step in alarm.
"This was done to us."
"What?" Regina shook her head. "No, Graham, you misunderstand. No one can make something like this happen."
"A person couldn't, no. No mortal creature, but a monster, a monster as fierce as the Woodcutter, a monster like that could do it."
Regina's frown deepened.
"You've lost me."
"The Wolf At the Door." Graham hunched his shoulders in a shrug. "He told me this was to be my fight. He sent me away to the Enchanted Forest to hide, to grow and to find a power that would help me defeat the Woodcutter. You. He sent me to find you."
"Sent you?" There were so many things that needed questioning from that statement so she started with what she thought was the easiest. "Sent you from where?"
"From the Blackwood. Where I was born."
Regina's brows shot up and she made a very quiet but high pitched sound in the back of her throat. She coughed and then muscled a response for him.
"Excuse me?"
"I was born in the Blackwood and I was raised by the wolves there. I stumbled across the Wolf At the Door and the corpse of the Woodcutter and I awoke them both. The Wolf passed his task to me and sent me away, far away, to a place where I might survive long enough to find a power strong enough to defeat the Woodcutter."
"So, let me get this straight, some rug threw you half a world away into my greedy little clutches to be kept as a pet to make you…stronger?"
"You can't deny that I'm stronger now than I was when I came to you. Besides, I doubt he intended it to happen that way but he did mean for this." He waved between them. "We're allies now. Equals. He meant for us to fight the Woodcutter together."
"Well, that's all well and good, but we're not IN the Enchanted Forest are we?" Regina threw her arm wide and regretted it immediately. She soldiered on. "We're in the entirely wrong dimension! How am I supposed to defeat this monster with a power I don't even have?!"
"WE are going to beat it by breaking the curse." Graham stepped forward and gripped her by the shoulders, grounding her. "You're not alone and I won't let him get you. We're going to break the curse, go back to the Enchanted Forest and behead him with his own axe."
"You're just a mortal man, Graham. How can you possibly hope to defend me against something so powerful as the shadow of the beast I felt earlier? A shadow so heavy it would have crushed me into jelly had it fallen on me."
"I'm not 'just' anything. I am the Huntsman. I am the Wolf At the Door. I am your mate, your husband, your protector." He watched her eyes go wide with those words but he didn't care right now if she didn't believe him. He had to say the words. They might not have had marriage vows but that didn't mean he couldn't make such promises all the same. "I was wild and savage before I came to you and you honed me into a killing machine. I doubt there is a creature in any of the worlds that could look me in the eye now and not feel a frisson of mortal fear. I might not be the Woodcutter's equal yet but the day will come and –when it does- you'll be ready to destroy him."
"You really believe that?"
"Aye, I do."
"I can't decide if that's wilful stupidity or boundless optimism."
"Maybe a mix of both." Graham flashed a sudden grin at her and she just frowned at him in bemusement. He released her shoulders and stooped to pick up the book. "Now, let's go and eat something. I'm starving."
He held out his hand to her and Regina could only stare at it for the longest moment.
Slowly, as if expecting him to pull away at any second, she slipped her fingers into his.
He nodded once, gripping her hand firmly, and pulled her towards the surface and back into the light.
The Manor…
The truck growled to a halt outside the Mayoral Manor and Graham wasted no time in hustling Regina out of the vehicle and behind her wards.
The little wall of salt had been absorbed into the bedrock of the path and only the slightly grubby surface of the flipped stone would let anyone know that anything had been changed at all.
He ignored her tension when his arm settled over her shoulders and he propelled them both up the path, waiting impatiently whilst she unlocked the door to let them inside. He seethed out a breath when he felt the pressure of the secondary wards locking into place within the actual walls of the house.
"Mom!" Henry slithered out of the living room, sliding on the marble floors in his socks and sprinted towards her.
"Gently!" Graham hoisted the boy up off the floor, legs still churning, before he could crash full pelt into Regina.
"Right, right, right." Henry wriggled his way out of Graham's hold and gently wound his arms around Regina's waist. He murmured into the thick wool of her sweater. "You okay? You didn't see him again?"
"I'm fine and Graham was there to keep him away." She stroked his hair and Henry nuzzled his face deeper into the wool of her sweater.
Henry peered up at Graham with one eye and Graham shrugged a shoulder. He doubted that was the case at all, but if it made Henry feel better he would play along.
"More storybooks?" Emma spoke from the doorway of the living room and Regina stiffened.
She had almost forgotten about the book that Graham held under his arm still. She wasn't worried about Emma being able to read it, you had to believe –or know- about magic in order to understand it and Miss Swan was still under the impression that Henry was just a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
"Is it?" Henry pulled away from Regina a little to study the book. "Will it tell us how to break the curse?"
"Something like that." Regina didn't look away from Emma as she spoke and the deputy didn't bother to hide her frown nor the way her arms folded over her chest.
The kid had mentioned something about Regina getting on board with the idea of the curse but she hadn't really believed it until she'd heard it from the woman herself. She must be getting desperate for Henry's affections, Emma surmised, if she was playing along with his imagination.
"It's more of a history book. To tell us about…the man who was chasing us this afternoon." Regina swept Henry's hair back out of his face and then smiled. "Have you eaten?"
Henry shook his head and smiled when hers broadened.
"You must be starving. Why don't you go and look in the cupboards and see what's for dinner. Then we can all laugh at Graham trying to cook."
"I can cook!" Graham protested and she rolled her eyes at that pronouncement.
Henry giggled and took a hesitant step away.
"We're not going anywhere." Regina reassured him and then he nodded, turning to trot deeper into the house and disappear into the kitchen.
They all watched him go and Regina counted down in her head.
3…2…1…
"Alright, I'll bite, this is a hell of a turnaround." Emma nodded to the book. "What happened to Henry needing to go to a shrink for his 'overactive imagination'?"
"What happened to you abandoning him to be raised by someone else?" Regina arched an eyebrow. "It is amazingly convenient how quick you are to forget that."
"Regina." Graham's fingers grazed her elbow and she glared at him. He tilted his head and tried to get through to her.
They had to be careful with how they broached this with Emma. Her going to the town council and declaring that both Regina and Graham had lost their minds was a roadblock they could do without. Right now, not alienating Emma was probably the best course of action.
Regina looked as pissy as she felt about it but she nodded curtly. Fine. She'd play nice. For now.
"Suffice to say there's more going on here than you've been told."
Emma tilted her head at Regina. Well, hadn't that been fucking obvious?
"Who is he?" She said instead. "Who's after you?"
Graham and Regina glanced at one another with one of those speaking glances of theirs. Emma had never seen people hold entire conversations with just a look before she'd taken a good long look at how Regina and Graham regarded one another.
"Someone from my past." Graham finally spoke to Emma. His jaw clenched with admittance. "I think he's after Regina because she's…mine."
He tried to tone down his language but he found himself completely incapable of it. She'd told him about the bond between them and he'd heard the words right down to his very core. She was his, his mate, that was all he needed to know. He hadn't allowed himself to tap into his wolf nature for such a LONG time and now it was prowling about his head like his very skin was a cage that was too small for it.
Regina's head snapped up to look at him and she frowned. Well, he hadn't said that in their silent little conversation.
"Do you know his name? Where he's from? Can you give me a description?"
"I know his working name, he's from the same place I am and the description I give will be of no use to you. He's not in any database you can access." Graham's tone shut down that line of questioning. Hard.
"I think you're underestimating my resources." Emma's fingers bit into her arms as her irritation spiked.
"I think you're severely overestimating how long you'd last against this man." Graham's voice was a cold clip. "He'd kill you without breaking stride. The only thing saving you right now is that he's under the impression you don't know about him."
"And how do we know this?"
"Because you're not dead." Graham's voice was flat and even Regina was surprised at how brutal he was being.
Up until a few days ago he'd been ready to bed the little chit and now he was growling at her like she'd shaved him in his sleep. The Woodcutter really had frightened him it seemed.
"He's really…that bad?" Emma looked like she was finally getting it and this wasn't two town officials going vigilante. This was the Sheriff and the Mayor trying to protect the everyone from a man that might well be as bad as they believed.
"He's worse." Graham spoke with utter surety. "Rivers will run red if he has his chance. I endeavour not to give it to him."
"Shouldn't we warn people?" Emma waved a hand wildly. "Get people to stay inside at night, not go anywhere alone, anything other than let them wander about with a psychopath on the loose?"
"I've been in office for years." Regina shrugged a shoulder and Graham shot her a glare. Ah, perhaps not the time for her brand of humour then.
"So long as we're both alive, he'll remain fixated on us." Graham waved at himself and Regina. "He sees us as the only obstacles in his path. He takes us out and he can do what he likes."
Emma frowned and held up her hands.
"This isn't making any sense. Why won't you even tell me his name?"
"I could tell you but I'd have to kill you." Regina finally wriggled her way out of Graham's jacket, turning automatically so he could help her out of it. "It would be kinder."
Emma blinked at that. It hadn't been a word of a lie. Her eyes darted from Regina to Graham and his steady gaze silently voiced his agreement.
"You guys are really beginning to creep me out." Emma admitted.
"Good. You might live longer that way." Regina took the book from Graham and turned with a smile when she saw Henry. "Did you decide what you want?"
"There's stuff for tuna pasta."
"Really? That's all?"
"It's easy. Even Graham should manage it." Henry padded closer, looking between Emma, Graham and his mom.
"I can cook." Graham threw up his hands. "Honest!"
"Of course you can, dear." Regina petted his arm and bent as if to unbuckle her boots, she winced when her stitches pulled.
Graham took her shoulder, straightening her up and then dropped to a knee to help her out of the boots. Buckles clipped an inch apart all the way up the back of her leg to her knee. He glared up at her.
"How did you even get into these?"
"Drug induced nirvana." Regina rested a hand against the wall, one foot on Graham's knee and doing her best to ignore the feel of his fingers sliding up the back of her leg. She looked over to Henry instead. "Could you pour me a glass of water and find my purse? My pills are in it still, I think."
"I put them in the medicine cabinet. Out of my reach." Henry said with utmost seriousness. It was only Regina that managed to hold his gaze with only the barest twitch of her lips revealing her amusement.
"Okay, Graham can get them for me when he goes to massacre dinner."
"I can sodding well cook." Graham grumbled, undoing the last of the clasps of her boots, setting Regina's foot back down on the floor.
He wiped the dust from the catacombs that had clung to her boots on his pants and rose to his full height.
"Yes, dear." Regina smiled over sweet up at him and he arched a brow at her. She held out her hand and Henry dutifully took it in his own, pulling her towards the kitchen. "We're going to set up a splash zone for your cooking."
"And that's my cue." Emma stepped back to let Regina and Henry pass her by and went to the coat hook to retrieve her jacket. She had no desire to sit through an awkward dinner if Henry could talk Regina around to inviting her for tuna pasta.
"You're going?" Henry frowned drawing to a halt. Regina surprisingly made no move to hurry him along.
"Yeah, I've got the night shift." Emma nodded to Graham to indicate the Sheriff's department.
"Oh, okay, be careful." Henry shifted from foot to foot and looked up at Regina.
Regina sighed and looked over to Graham. He nodded.
"I'll walk you to your car." He turned, opening the door and ushered Emma outside. He closed it behind him with a quiet clip.
She rounded on him immediately.
"You cannot seriously expect me to swallow this crap."
"I can and you will."
"This is vigilante bullshit!" Emma let herself be herded towards the yellow Bug but didn't stop complaining.
"This is the way it is." Graham let a little growl creep into his voice and the way she fell back a step let him know she'd heard. "You can either be patient and help when the time comes or you can come at Regina like a goddamn rhino and see what it gets you. Looking at past experiences should be a pretty fair way of telling the future in that regard."
"Yeah, well," Emma looked down at the sidewalk and scuffed her toe against the brickwork, "subtlety isn't exactly my strong suit."
"No shit." Graham snorted and rubbed at his eyes. "We're going to need you on this but you have to give me time to talk her around."
"Oh, sure, in the mean time she can get herself killed."
"False concern doesn't suit you." Graham folded his arms over his chest.
"My concern is plenty real." Emma snapped. "So long as Regina is a target, so is Henry, or is he not yours too?"
"Henry's a child, no threat to him. He won't care about him until both Regina and myself are dead. Which I'm not really in favour of happening. So Henry is safe."
"Then let me HELP!"
"I'm trying." Graham snapped. "If you'd get over your pride for two damn minutes…"
"MY pride? What about Regina's? She's the one that's locking me out, according to you." Emma prodded him in the chest with a finger and snatched it back out of reach just as quickly when something stark and ferocious swam behind his eyes.
"Do not do that again." His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper, but it might have been kinder if he had screamed at her.
"Sorry, I…I'm sorry." Emma tunnelled her fingers through her hair. "I don't like not knowing what's going on."
Graham snorted at the irony. All Henry had done since she'd bloody arrived was tell her what was going on. No, she wasn't ready yet.
He'd been partially truthful when he'd said he needed to talk Regina around before they could bring Emma in on things. They also needed to wait until Emma was at the point where she might actually believe that the man she was after was an ancient power of distilled evil designed to destroy everything wild and free in the world.
"Be patient." He told her. Again. "I'll talk her around. The moment you can be useful, we'll use you."
Emma watched him for a long moment and shifted her weight. Her jaw clenched and she scrubbed a hand through her hair again.
"You're really standing together with her on this, aren't you?" She looked up at him. "What happened to not being able to feel anything?"
"I had a change of heart." Graham somehow managed to say it with a straight face.
"You found it then?" Emma lifted her hands and then let them slap down against her thighs. "She have it in her purse all this time?"
Graham barked a laugh before he could stop himself and scrubbed a hand over his mouth to try and control his smile. Maybe it was hysteria but he felt he had to take his laughs were he could.
"Suffice to say that both my heart and myself are where we belong." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and his smile slipped from his lips. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry I hurt you."
"You didn't hurt me." She spoke too quickly for it to be the truth and he nodded.
"I'm still sorry."
"I'll get over it." Emma shrugged a shoulder and looked down at his shoes. She forced her gaze back up to his. "You made your choice. All you have to do now, is live with it."
Graham arched a brow at her, letting her know she was skating close to the precipice that was his patience again and she ducked her head in a nod. Warning received and heeded.
"She's not as bad as you think she is."
"Oh, she's worse?"
"Get in the car." Graham told her firmly and Emma took the out so readily offered.
She ducked into the Bug and started the engine. Lifting her hand in a half-hearted wave, she pulled away from the kerb and out into the road. Graham watched her until the car disappeared around the bend in the road and Emma only then felt safe enough to voice her suspicions. Even if they were just to an empty car.
"So, Mister Sheriff, why do you and Regina have all that dust on your shoes?" Emma indicated when she came up to the junction. She turned away from the signs pointing to Main Street and the direction of the Sheriff's station.
She drove along at a sedate pace until she found the turn off for the cemetery.
"Dust that looks exactly like the stuff it took me a week to clean out of my boots when we went heart hunting in the Mills Mausoleum."
Emma pulled the car into the lot and killed the engine. Even from there, she could see the tall marble building built along similar lines to Regina's house. All clean lines and pillars. That freaking tree motif embedded in the roof.
It occurred to her then that Emma didn't know very much about Regina's family. Sure, she was the Mayor and she had that huge house. She dressed expensively and her family emblem was the same as that of the town which all spoke of Regina coming from Money. Old Money.
How old?
She visited her father's grave every Wednesday but there were no pictures of him in the manor, not even a portrait, and absolutely no mention of her mother.
Regina had said that the man after her came from the same place that Graham and she did…which would mean Storybrooke if the history of the Mills' family name was to be believed.
The language Regina and Graham had spoken to one another had been like nothing Emma had ever heard before. Not German but similar, definitely no kind of Native American dialect that might be from these parts. Regina had said it was something like Romani –Eastern European, half a world away- Graham sounded Irish.
None of this made any damn sense.
How could Regina's family be one of the town's founders and Regina herself have come from somewhere else? This same mysterious elsewhere that Graham supposedly hailed from.
Something wasn't right and not just a potential killer walking the streets. There were secrets within secrets in this town and Emma was going to unravel them one at a time until she found out what the hell was going on.
She had the sneaking suspicion that it was going to begin and end with certain Mayors.
Emma made a mental note to have a look at the town records and find out a little bit more about Regina. She threw open her car door and heaved herself out into the amber sunlight of falling evening.
Though, before she did any reading, she was going to find out what the hell was in that mausoleum that could apparently help Regina and Graham catch a killer.
It was time for some answers.
Back at the Manor…
"This is good!" Henry shovelled more tuna pasta into his mouth.
"Always the tone of surprise." Graham murmured and ate at a more sedate pace. "I told you I could cook."
"I must confess that I'm as surprised as Henry." Regina picked at her pasta and willed the nausea that accompanied her pills to disperse. "I thought your talents restricted to the open fire."
"I suppose that makes sense if you were the Huntsman." Henry mulled it over, chewing thoughtfully. "I don't think there's many gas hobs in the Enchanted Forest, right?"
"Actually, there was no such thing as gas." Regina lifted a forkful of pasta to her mouth and changed her mind when her drugged stomach flipped over in protest. This was probably the blandest meal they could have made and she still couldn't cram it down. "Well, there probably was, but no one had thought to mine or harness it in such a fashion."
Both Graham and Henry froze and looked wildly at one another. They slowly looked over at Regina.
She sipped her water and continued to toy with her pasta.
"Are you alright, pet?" Graham spoke tentatively.
"Aside from being drugged up to my eyeballs, unable to bend down, reach up or crack open a boiled egg without assistance, I'm peachy keen." Regina mustered a smile from somewhere. "For the record, I prefer 'luvzhang' to 'pet'."
"Mom, you just…you just talked about the curse as if it was real." Henry could scarcely believe it. She had said she would tell him the truth but he hadn't…he hadn't expected her to actually do it.
He wasn't crazy. He really wasn't crazy. He'd hoped that the curse was real in the way that the only sane person left on the planet hopes that they are in fact the sane one and not the only crazy one. He stared at Regina for a full minute, only managing to muster a shocked blink as a physical response to her finally revealing that it was all true.
It was all real.
Henry let out an explosive sigh and tried to ignore the world tilting alarmingly around him. Somebody stop the room, he wanted to get off.
"Of course I did." Regina forced a mouthful of pasta down her neck. "It is real."
Graham's brows made a dash for his hairline and he reached up to rub at the back of his neck.
Henry continued to gape.
"A little warning might have been nice…luvzhang."
She offered Graham a scant smile.
"Loov-zshang?" Henry stumbled over the pronunciation, shock still had his eyes as wide as saucers. He clutched at something to do other than stare. "What does that mean?"
"It's a term of endearment." Graham answered before Regina could and she looked at him with surprise. Graham huffed out a slow breath and decided –if he'd come this far… "Wolves have special names for their…wives."
Henry and Regina's expressions of wide eyed shock were startlingly similar. Graham wanted to laugh. Emma could tout her claim on Henry all she wanted, the boy was Regina's son.
"You two are married?!" Henry looked between them and Regina's jaw clenched so hard it clicked. She whipped her head around to stare at him when he laughed. "Awesome!"
"Awesome?" Regina frowned at him.
"So, when mom called you Haurool, that's her name for you?" Henry ignored Regina's question and turned to Graham instead.
Graham dipped his head in a nod and ignored the daggers Regina was glaring at him. He smirked. He did so enjoy complicating her life.
"How long have you two been married? Why don't you have rings? Why isn't it in the book?" Henry stalled his questioning when Regina lifted her fork to silence him.
"Let's talk about the curse instead." She tried to distract him but Henry was having none of it.
"No, this is important!" Henry insisted. "If you two are married, then you really love each other and True Love's Kiss breaks all curses!"
"Uh…" Graham's brows shot up and then he smirked. "Henry, do you really think I haven't kissed your mum in the entire time we've been here?"
"Well, no. I figure you must have." Henry wrinkled his nose at the thought of his mom kissing anyone. Gross. He brightened. "Maybe it has to be at a specific time and place."
"No." Regina viciously stabbed her fork into her pasta and finally choked some of it down. "My kissing Graham, or anyone, will not break this curse."
"But…"
"I can't break the curse. It's part of it. If you cast a curse, especially one as powerful and heinous as the Dark Curse, you lose the right to break it."
"But, if you have magic…"
"My magic is seriously truncated here. There is a limit to the powers I possess in this world." She didn't look pleased about it either.
"But you started the car this afternoon by screaming at it." Henry frowned at her and Regina stilled, Graham perked up considerably.
"You what?"
"You saw that?" Regina spoke to Henry instead. He shrugged.
"I see lots of stuff."
"Wait, you started a car with a vocal command?" Graham sat forward. "That's high magic, you know that, why didn't you say anything?"
"My afternoon has been somewhat full." Regina clipped out. In all honesty, she had forgotten about it entirely.
"So, if you can use 'high magic' why can't you break the curse?" Henry steered the conversation away from the argument he could see brewing.
"For starters 'use magic' is not the simple cure-all that people in this world think it is. There are laws, costs to be paid and sacrifices to be made. Magic takes a great deal of strength, discipline and no small amount of sheer steel nerve." Regina ate more pasta rather than launch into a tirade about civilians and their preconceptions of magic.
"You lost your bottle for it, pet?" Graham prodded at her and Regina growled at him, teeth bared and everything.
Henry blinked at her and she forced the fierce expression from her face. Where the hell had that come from? A side effect of being married to a man that was raised by wolves? Gods, she needed to actually read that book.
"Suffice to say; it is a great deal more complex than either of you apparently realise and I will not waste time explaining the minutia of the laws of magic to you when we should perhaps be dealing with other problems." Regina looked at Graham pointedly and he huffed out something like a chuff of growl.
"Very well, pet," Graham mocked lightly, "suggestions are welcome."
"Suggestions? From moi?" Regina laid a hand to her chest innocently. "I'm not the one who wants to break the damn thing. You two had the bright idea of tearing everything I've built down, figure out how to do it by yourselves."
"And our friend who has so recently come to visit?" Graham folded his arms over his chest and Regina huffed out a sigh and another low growl.
She had fooled herself into forgetting. Indignation was a lot easier to deal with than the mess that was her general state of being when it came to Graham. Not to mention the horror of the Woodcutter.
"The guy that was after us today?" Henry bit his lip and fidgeted with his fork.
The two bites of food that Regina had choked down sat like a rock in her stomach and she mustered a smile for him.
"Yes. He's from the Enchanted Forest." Regina lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "After a fashion."
"He came with the curse? Why'd he suddenly turn up now?"
"I have no idea." Regina mulled it over and looked at her son. She had promised him the truth, her jaw rocked to the side and she voiced her suspicions. She picked at the corner of her placemat and couldn't look at either of them. "I gave Graham his heart back. When someone like me does something like that…it's kind of like you lighting a bonfire on Main Street." She glanced at Henry and then hurriedly back to her plate. "I think that's how it noticed me."
"It?" Henry frowned and looked between both adults. "You said it was a man and now he's an 'it'?"
"He's a monster." Graham answered before Regina could. "And he's not after your mother, he's after me. Through her."
"Why?" Henry frowned at Graham and his tone held more than a little accusation.
"Because we're together." Graham answered simply and jolted at the stark bolt of emotion that went through Regina at those words.
Surprise, fear (always afraid of him, or what she felt for him, it would seem) and something heated and deep that struck right to the very core of her.
Had it been from anyone else, Graham might have labelled the emotions as something along the lines of 'warm fuzzies'. He smiled at her at the thought and she frowned at him. Confusion leaking from her from every pore.
"Grown-ups are weird." Henry murmured mostly to himself.
How could the book be so wrong about how the Evil Queen and the Huntsman had hated one another? Well, as to how the Huntsman had hated the Queen. If it was wrong about that, because his mom and Graham definitely didn't hate each other. Not when they looked at each other like Prince Charming and Snow looked at each other in the book. Henry snapped his fingers, startling Regina and Graham out of another one of their silent conversations.
"I got it!" He looked between Regina and Graham practically bouncing in his seat. "True Love can break the curse but it doesn't have to be your true love, right?"
"Which is fortunate." Regina drawled and canted her chin onto her hand and her elbow on the table. "Go on."
"Prince Charming and Snow White!" Henry thrust his hands out and his fork went flying the length of the table.
Regina watched it go and arched a brow but merely sighed. This conversation was getting worse by the second.
"What about them?"
"We get them to fall in love all over again and kiss each other and –bam!" Regina jumped when Henry slammed his hand down on the table with a clap. "Curse is broken, everybody goes home."
"It has a certain elegance." Graham smirked at Henry's enthusiasm.
"A couple of hiccups." Regina held up her fingers one after the other. "Charming's in a coma, Miss Blanchard has no idea who he is never mind loves him and not everyone would be going home."
Graham looked at Henry and the boy frowned.
"What?"
"You weren't born in the Enchanted Forest, sweetheart." Regina's eyes filled with pain at the very thought of it happening. "If we break the curse, you'll be left here alone."
"I…so everyone who was born in the Enchanted Forest will go back there?" Henry frowned.
"Everyone." Regina nodded. "We cannot break the curse until we can be sure that either I will stay here with you or you will come with me. I will never abandon you."
Henry frowned and thought hard about that one. He looked up with a smile.
"You'll figure it out."
Regina blinked at him.
"In the meantime, there's got to be a way to wake up Prince Charming."
Regina opened her mouth and then –after a moment of silence- clipped it shut again. She looked up at Graham and shrugged.
"We could try and break the curse on Snow like it was broken on me?"
"That's a good idea." Henry nodded vigorously.
"Except, we're fresh out of wolf brothers to guide her."
"So my idea did have merit. Animals can see the curse in a way we can't. It could help her find her way back to the truth." Graham sat forward, his fingers laced together and his elbows on the table.
Regina's mouth twisted and she scowled at the very thought of giving Snow anything, let alone the truth…but she had to break the curse to get her magic back. She needed her magic to protect Henry. To defeat the Woodcutter.
"Maybe not all animals." Regina sat forward too, leaning in towards Graham and looking right into his eyes. A pose they had adopted several times in the past when involved in one nefarious plot or the other. "Night Guide was magical. Not quite a wolf in the same way that you aren't quite a man. He was intelligent enough to see the curse for what it was…if he was even really here. Seeing him might simply have been you interpreting the curse in a way your mind could accept."
Graham mulled that over. When it came to magic, she would always know more than he did, but seeing Night Guide had seemed so real…
"Night Guide was your wolf?" Henry felt like he was intruding again when both adults tore themselves away from one another to answer him.
"Aye, my brother. I saw him when the curse was breaking for me."
"Well, then we should get Miss Blanchard a bird. She likes birds. One of them has gotta be able to wake her up."
"Birds aren't my thing." Regina's voice was flat and she shook her head. "Besides, I don't think that will work. I don't think the curse can be cracked in the same way twice."
"Why?" Graham looked more curious than accusatory so she gave him an honest answer.
"I don't know. I just…feel it." Regina reached out and idly smoothed out a wrinkle on his shirt sleeve. She jerked her hand back when he flinched at the tug on his new tattoos. "We should get some cream for those."
"Later, you're not getting out of this that easily." He smirked and she rolled her eyes looking back to Henry.
"I think the curse will break differently for everyone. I also think that no one else's senses are keen enough to pick up on the subtle hints that Graham could when it came to the curse. No one other than Granny or Ruby at least."
"Why don't we try and wake them up then?" Henry frowned, trying to think of a way out of it.
"What good would that do?" Regina arched a brow at him. "Snow White in a fit of pique, I can handle. Two werewolves on the warpath? I'd be kibble within five minutes."
"Maybe not then." Henry hurriedly agreed. He nodded to himself firmly. "I still think that waking up Snow White and getting her to kiss Prince Charming will break the curse."
"But not take you with us." Regina reminded him and Henry looked down at his dinner plate again, his shoulders hunched.
"Maybe that's the way it has to be." His voice was small, he fiercely hoped it wasn't.
"Never." Regina shut that down. Hard. "You're my son. I'm not giving you up even if I have to dig a tunnel to the Enchanted Forest with my bare hands in order to take you with me."
Henry smiled, glad to hear it, and huffed out a slow breath.
"This is tough."
"They're called curses for a reason." Graham murmured and pushed his plate away. He had noticed that Regina had barely eaten anything and made a mental note to try and feed her again later. "I think Henry's right though. Snow White was the real target of this curse, it seems only fitting that she be the one to break it."
Regina tunnelled her fingers through her hair and thought it over. If she swept aside her personal feelings –her vendetta against Snow- and subsumed that rage with the desire to protect Henry, if she did that, she could put her mind to breaking the curse.
IF she could do that.
Regina looked over at Henry and her heart clenched at the thought of him being left behind. Of him being caught in the Woodcutter's path. Of her being killed and leaving him alone.
She never wanted him to feel abandoned.
Never.
"I could try…something." She glanced at Graham. "You're not going to like it."
Graham arched a brow.
"Charming is unconscious and he is cursed but he is not in a sleeping curse, like the one I put on Snow with the apple." Regina bit her lip for a moment and then forced herself to go on. "So, I could –in theory- fool an unconscious Charming into waking up and, perhaps, be free of the memory blocks that everyone else suffers from."
Graham's brow lowered into a frown.
"And how –pray tell- might we be fooling Charming into waking up?"
"I would…have to…kiss him." Regina spoke carefully, watching Graham's expression for signs of danger.
"No." Graham didn't even think before the word was out of his mouth.
He shook his head even as he realised it wasn't a rational response in the slightest. They needed Charming woken up. They needed to break the curse in order to get back to the Enchanted Forest and defeat the Woodcutter but the very thought of Regina even touching another man made him feel like there was a wolf in his gut trying to chew its way out.
"It would just be once." Regina sucked in a deep breath when her eyes met his and all she could see was a wolf looking back.
"No." Graham gritted out from behind clenched teeth.
"It's a simple enough spell, to fool an unconscious mind. I'd need something of Snow's, a lipstick, a couple of candles, a pomegranate and…"
"No."
"And a half of cider."
"Cider?" Henry frowned.
"Dutch courage." Regina folded her arms on the table and turned back to Graham. If she was going to kiss Charming, she sure as hell wasn't doing it sober.
"Unclench for five minutes and agree. It's the only way."
"You don't know that." Graham growled. "You suspect it may work."
"Then what's the harm in trying? If we're wrong, we've lost nothing, if I'm right then we have a weak point in the curse. Charming has never been awake in this world, the curse never had to forge memories for him. He will be easier to get through to and we won't have to shatter an entire life to do so. I'm sure you remember how painful it was to reintegrate."
Graham's jaw clenched. He remembered fine well how scattered he'd been. How it had led him to sticking a knife in Regina's chest. He'd been a mess but he'd had to rise to the occasion.
Dealing with the fallout of Regina giving him his heart back, suddenly finding himself in a situation he didn't want with Emma…which was nothing compared to the possible situation that Regina might be getting herself into now and how much he didn't want that.
"No."
"Why not?!" Henry was less patient than his mother. "It's one kiss! It won't even be real True Love, it will be pretend. Mom will be borrowing it from Miss Blanchard, right mom?"
"Essentially."
"And if he wakes up and he has his memories and he sees you standing over him, injured, defenceless, what do you think he's going to do?"
Regina's mouth twisted. They were both thinking that Charming would probably do the same thing that Graham had done only Charming didn't have an investment in stopping himself.
"This is why I need you to agree and be there." She decided not to argue the 'defenceless' comment. If he felt he had to be there to protect her, then he was more likely to go along with it. Maybe. "Who better to protect me than my husband?" She smiled sweetly and he narrowed his eyes at her.
"You will be kissing another man."
Regina let out a sigh.
"A man who is not me."
"For which I am grateful." Regina moved to lace her fingers together and made a sound of annoyance when her cast got in the way. "One Charming in any world is more than enough."
"You know this and you still expect me to be okay with it?"
"I expect you to want to do what it takes to break this curse." Regina looked him dead in the eye and he growled. "This was your idea." She reminded him.
"None of this was my idea." He waved at the dinner table. "I thought we'd take care of this ourselves. Not drag little boys into it."
"Prince Charming's a grown up." Henry frowned.
"Prince Charming is a moron." Graham snapped.
Which was not really his opinion of the man. He had helped him escape Regina, a long time ago. Something she still did not know and he was in no hurry to enlighten her about but there was a limit. Prince Charming, husband to Snow White, could be a potential ally. Prince Charming, awakened from the Curse by Regina's lips on his…Graham fought down another growl.
This was ridiculous.
He tunnelled a finger through his hair and heaved out a sigh. He looked up at Henry –the boy holding his breath and waiting- then over at Regina. She watched him just as intently though she still breathed with a regular rhythm.
"You're going to do it anyway, aren't you?" He spoke quietly after a long moment.
"I think it is our best chance. Charming will be the easier of the two to break out of the curse…I think this way is the most likely to work." Regina tilted her head to the side and shrugged a shoulder, she looked between Henry and Graham. "Though you should know that all of this is relative. The chances of us succeeding are…slim."
"How slim?" Henry began to frown again.
"Positively anorexic." Regina drawled and then looked at the ceiling for a long moment when both Henry and Graham just looked at her. "About…one in four thousand three hundred and twenty nine."
Henry's brows shot up.
"Why the heck don't you help me with my math homework?!"
Regina gusted a surprised laugh that almost didn't hurt and even Graham managed a smile.
"Because it is important that you know that you can rely on yourself." Regina smiled at him and then sobered when he did.
"That's a pretty slim chance."
"I've had worse." Regina lifted her shoulder in a shrug and Graham looked sharply at her.
"Atlantis." She reminded him.
"Fair enough." He nodded and huffed out a sigh. "When do we get this over with then?"
"I will need something of Miss Blanchard's. I suppose I can entrust that to you, since you seem to have inherited Miss Swan's penchant for kleptomania."
Henry blinked at her.
"You're a pickpocket." Graham said flatly and Henry ducked his chin and flushed a little.
"I did what I thought I had to do."
"Just as well, I suppose." Graham allowed after a long moment and Regina snorted.
"Oh, absolutely." She propped her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table. At his glare she went back to his original question. "I will also have to take care of the…contingencies I have in place for Charming waking up."
"Did you hire an assassin?!" Henry gasped.
"No!" Regina scowled, ignoring that she already had one on contract sitting right next to her. "I had a subroutine written into the curse so that –if he ever woke up- he'd have someone come to claim him that wasn't Snow. I'll need to…distract her."
"Distract who?"
"Princess Abigail. She's Kathryn…something, in this world. A lawyer. She was in love with someone called…" Regina looked up at the ceiling and shook her head when the name wouldn't come to her. "I know him when I see him."
"You know him when you see him?" Graham drawled, arms folded over his chest.
"Yes, he works at Henry's school. He's the soccer coach."
"Oh, then that's easy." Henry perked up. "We just need to get them together. True Love will take care of the rest."
Regina resisted the very real urge to drown herself in her pasta just to escape those words. She hated them. It was all made even worse by the fact that it probably was going to work out that way.
"And how –pray tell- are we to bring them together?" Graham looked to Henry.
"Henry's going to join the soccer team." Regina nodded to him.
"I'm what?" Henry's eyes widened.
"The exercise will do you good." Regina smirked at him and turned back to Graham. "Then I call Kathryn up with some legal problem, have a meeting set up, call and rearrange so that she has to come with me to pick Henry up from practice and introduce them to one another." Regina sipped from her water, wishing for something stronger. "All going well, some part of them will recognise the other for what they are and –when we do wake up Charming- Kathryn will be suitably distracted not to leap headlong back into marriage with her 'husband'."
"You romantic, you." Graham smirked at her, mocking lightly.
"You have to know how something is successfully put together to break it irreparably." Regina shrugged a shoulder. "Something that applies to happy endings as much as it does toasters."
"One time, mom!" Henry threw up his hands. "One time!"
"It's never been the same since." Regina reminded him. "The toast hits the ceiling if you don't catch it first."
"You gotta admit that's pretty impressive." Henry defended himself.
Graham laughed and sobered when Regina spoke next.
"Don't think I don't know that you helped him put it back together." Regina sipped from her water again and considered another mouthful of pasta. She didn't feel completely sick to her stomach, but that just meant the pain would return soon.
"You can't prove anything." Graham told her primly and she smirked glancing back at Henry, she saw the boy looking between herself and Graham, something like calculation in his eyes.
"Mom…?"
Regina knew that tone, she knew he was about to ask something she didn't want to answer, but the words were out of his mouth before she could distract him with something else.
"Why did you adopt me instead of having a kid with Graham?"
All the air rushed out of Regina's lungs and her eyebrows made a dash for her hairline. She blinked at him for several long moments.
Of all the questions she had thought he might ask, that hadn't been one of them. Hell, it hadn't even hit the top fifty.
She had thought he would ask about what had tipped her over the edge, why she had gone so mad and bad, why she hated Snow. ANY of those.
She should have known he would pick the one thing she least wanted to talk about.
Regina could feel Graham's gaze on the side of her head and she cleared her throat, stalling for time, and refused to look at him.
"We couldn't." She spoke at length. "The curse that freezes us all at the same age stops that kind of thing from happening."
She felt Graham shift, he hadn't thought of that.
"Oh," Henry frowned, turning that over and over in his head, "but you wanted to?"
Regina chose her words carefully, intensely aware of Graham's close scrutiny.
"I wanted a child very much."
"With Graham?" Henry kept pushing.
"Your mum didn't think I was father material at the time." Graham attempted a rescue but Regina shook her head.
"On the contrary, I think you'd make an excellent father. You're fierce, you'd have never let me hurt Henry the way I did." Regina was staring at the table, aware of both Henry and Graham's attentions but unable to look them in the eye. She swallowed hard and frowned, her next words hoarse. "I just never believed I would ever have children with anyone other than…Daniel."
"Who's Daniel?" Henry frowned and Regina shook her head sharply, suddenly having hit the wall at high speed.
"I can't." She shoved herself to her feet and shook her head, she knew her hands were shaking but she couldn't stop them. "I…I'm going to bed."
She all but ran from the room.
"Mom!" Henry was halfway out of his chair before Graham's hand landed on his shoulder and pushed him back down into his seat. "But…!"
"Leave her, lad." Graham pressed Henry more insistently into the chair until Henry stopped trying to rise. "It's cost her so much to tell you even that much. Best not to prod at open wounds, eh?"
Henry bit his lip and frowned, twisting to look after Regina but turned back to Graham.
"Who's Daniel?"
"He's your mum's true love. He died. A long time ago." Graham tried to decide how much he should tell the boy and huffed out a slow sigh when he realised Henry would just go to Regina about it if he didn't spill and she was skating close enough to the edge as it was.
The hurt that had raced through her at the thought of Daniel had been staggering. Graham was glad he had been sitting down when he felt it. He might well have buckled to the floor had he been standing. He wished desperately that he could take it from her when he suddenly had a name to attribute to the pain that lashed her every single day.
"It was Snow's fault. That's why your mum hates her. Why she cast the curse, why she's in so much pain all the time."
"But she has you now," Henry frowned, "and me. Are we not enough?"
"Yes and no." Graham sat forward and tried to explain. He had known Regina for over thirty five years, longer than most husbands and wives had been married, and he was still learning new things about her every single day. He might have known her for all that time but he was only just now coming to understand a small part of her due to the connection of their hearts.
"She loves us, both of us, with everything she has, but she still loves Daniel too." Graham took a moment to sort his words again. "That feels like a betrayal to her. Every time she gets close to being happy with us, she's reminded of how Daniel was stolen from her. Of how she lost him and she thinks that it's awful of her to be happy without him. Considering how awful your mum already thinks she is, to have that added on top of it…it can make her desperately sad."
Henry stared at the polished woodwork of the table for a long moment and frowned. It gradually hardened into a truly fierce expression that he must have learned from Regina.
"If Daniel truly loved her he'd want her to be happy. Even if it was without him."
"I know," Graham nodded, "but your mum doesn't know that. She doesn't know very much about love at all other than that she feels it so fiercely it all but burns her. She didn't have anyone to teach her about it until Daniel came to her and he was killed before he could do much more than tell her that he loved her."
"Who killed him?" Henry demanded suddenly, his fierce expression back with a vengeance.
"Her mother." Graham didn't see the point in hiding it. The more Henry knew about Regina, the less likely he was to hurt her again. Gods, knew that Graham never wanted to hurt her again. It was difficult to want to hurt anyone, no matter what they had done to you, when you felt the pain that had driven them mad just as fiercely as they did.
"What?!" Henry nearly yelled. "How could she do that?!"
"Because she was a heartless monster. She's the reason your mum is so broken. Her and Snow and Rumplestiltskin."
Henry opened his mouth to say something but he realised he had no words for the rage he felt on behalf of his mother. How could they? How could they hurt her like that? How could her own mother do that to her? That wasn't what family was supposed to DO!
Henry felt the shame pour through him when he realised he'd been just as cruel when he had ripped himself away from her. He might not have died, but he had left her of his own choice. He'd been a brat and said hateful things and he'd thrown everything she'd ever given him back in her face and maybe –quite possibly- that had hurt her more than anything that had come before.
Henry gulped suddenly and looked up at Graham with eyes that were wide and wet, seeing understanding come from the other man.
"Hey," Graham took Henry by the back of the neck and pulled him a little closer, he did not tug him into a hug, neither of them was ready for that, but that touch grounded him, "all you have to do is try your best to make it up to her. She's hurting. Every single day she hurts, but we don't have to make it worse for her. Just being here makes her feel better."
"How," Henry sniffed and scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, "how do you know that for sure?"
Graham smirked and shrugged a shoulder.
"I know her. She might have ripped my heart out of my chest but she gave me hers when she gave it back." He looked Henry right in the eye. "I know her better than anyone. Trust me when I tell you that she's steadied just by you being here. Do you think she'd EVER have offered to wake up Prince Charming if you hadn't been here to help?"
"No." Henry looked back down at the table and then dragged his eyes back up to meet Graham's. "Are you super mad about that?"
Graham dropped his hand from around Henry's nape and folded his arms on the table. He mulled it over and finally shrugged.
"I'll get over it."
"I'm sorry it has to be like this." Henry didn't narrow down what 'it' was and Graham nodded. He didn't have to.
"Me too." Graham waited until Henry looked him in the eye and then smiled. "But it won't always be this way."
"And what if the change is worse?"
Graham shrugged a shoulder.
"Then we protect her."
"I don't think I'm strong enough to do that. She's so…fierce." Henry rubbed at his arm and looked down at the table. "I'm not like that. I'm not…her son."
Henry jumped when Graham burst out laughing and Henry blinked at him.
"What?!"
Graham mustered himself under control and managed to look Henry in the eye after a long moment. He shook his head.
"Boy, you're so like her, it's undeniable. You couldn't be less like her if you tried." He hurried to explain when Henry looked like he didn't know how to take that. "I'm not saying that you're Evil, but then again neither really is Regina. I'm saying that you have her sheer stubborn determination. You refuse to believe that the odds are stacked impossibly against you. You love with everything that you have in you and you'd go to the ends of the earth and back again to prove it. You didn't get that from Emma. If she'd had it in her, she'd never have given you up."
Henry, slowly, smiled.
"You really think so?"
"Ask anyone." Graham shrugged.
Henry mulled that over and nodded.
Maybe he would.
The Graveyard…
Emma did not glance surreptitiously about herself as she walked up the steps to the Mills Mausoleum. Part of successful trespassing was looking like you had every right to be there.
So Emma strode with purpose across the springy turf of the graveyard and up the steps to stand by the door. She rummaged a moment in her pockets and made a small sound of triumph when she found her picks. Not that she –cough- carried them around for anything other than sentimental value.
Dropping to one knee, Emma put her mind to the task of breaking and entering. It had been a while but it was kind of like riding a bike. She listened to one tumbler after the other roll over and smirked when the chunky lock clunked over. Straightening, Emma gripped the door handle and froze.
Her free hand lifted, sliding back towards the small of her back but she stopped when she remembered that she had left Graham's gun in a drawer in the manor.
There was someone behind her.
Fuck it.
Emma whirled, whipping out the only weapon she had, and flicking the switch.
The beam of light from the flashlight shone on nothing save the nearest grave marker.
Emma leaned back against the door, her chest heaving with every breath with no idea as to why, and scanned back and forth with the flashlight. All she saw was green grass and silent stone.
She had been certain that there had been someone there.
Emma shook herself. That conversation with Graham had her spooked, that was all. She shrugged off the pounding of her heart and turned back to the door of the tomb. It swung open with a well oiled silence and she slipped inside without hesitation.
The pool of light from her flashlight bounced around over the floors and walls as she searched for what could be in here that would bring both Regina and Graham here when they should have been out looking for a potential killer.
She dropped to her heels when she saw the distinctive footprints of a pair of heavy duty boots and a set of killer heels. Trust Regina to wear five inch heels whilst recovering from surgery.
Emma tracked them from the doorway of the tomb to the coffin and back again. She frowned. They didn't seem to go anywhere. Just to the coffin and back again.
There were no fresh flowers. Nothing to indicate that Regina had come here to pay respects to her dead father but…why else would she be here?
Emma huffed out a breath. What the hell was she doing?
Just because Regina had been here with Graham didn't mean they had stayed there for the entirety of the time they'd been gone from the manor. Living in this crazy little town was beginning to get to her. Connection did not equal causality. She knew that.
Emma turned to go and stalled.
Turning back, Emma aimed her flashlight at the coffin.
No. Surely not. Emma shook her head. Not even Regina would use her father's coffin as some kind of macabre storage space…would she?
Emma turned back to the coffin and gripped the flashlight in her teeth. She set her hands to the seam between the lid and the body of the coffin and ran them the length and breadth of it, her fingers searching for a grip to prise it up and off. Gripping it, Emma set her entire weight against the coffin and heaved. She grunted with the effort and sagged after a long straining moment.
She was about to give up, about to go back to her car and drive back to the station where she was supposed to be, but then –with a low grinding sound- the lid began to shift.
Galvanised by her partial success, Emma set her feet and shoved again. An inch at a time, muscles burning and a sweat slicking her skin, Emma hefted the lid a whole six inches across the coffin.
She looked down, unable to make out anything inside the coffin in the dark and almost afraid to look in now that she had succeeded in opening it.
Emma shook herself again. This was ridiculous. At the worst, it was going to be an embalmed body in there. Which offered no threat to her whatsoever.
Moving quickly, before she could think better of it, Emma lifted the flashlight and shone it inside.
Nothing.
Emma blinked, frowning and ducked her head, angling the flashlight to look up and down the coffin.
Nothing at all.
No secondary wooden coffin –as there sometimes was with tombs like these- nor upholstery to cushion the body if it lay inside. Most importantly; no body.
The coffin was empty. Nothing more than a very large and expensive marble box.
Emma rocked back a step and frowned. What the hell did that mean?
Did Regina know? Did she know that she visited an empty grave every week? Had she had an empty coffin set up in memorial?
Was her father even dead?
Emma snorted at herself. That kind of nonsense was only found on daytime soap operas and that was exactly where such idiotic plots deserved to be.
Regina's father was dead. Emma believed that.
Rounding the coffin, Emma put her back into sliding the lid back in place and sagged when the effort cost her more than she had expected. Damn, it was solid marble and it was heavy.
Emma dusted off her hands and once more scanned the interior of the tomb. She shook her head. There was nothing here.
They must have come to pay respects –it was Wednesday after all- and then gone off on their little adventure elsewhere.
Shaking her head at her own idiocy, Emma slipped out of the mausoleum again and closed the doors behind her. She had to leave it unlocked, she didn't have that much skill with locks as to lock it again, and she started across the graveyard back towards her car.
She shivered at the cold of the fully fallen night. Hunching her shoulders, she stuffed her flashlight and her hands into the pockets of her red jacket. She shivered again and told herself it was just the wind and drying sweat that was making her skin crawl.
She did not notice the gigantic footprints pressing into the grass behind her.
They followed her all the way to the Sheriff's station and then they waited.