Chapter 29

Over the next several weeks, Emma avoided doing anything whatsoever out of the ordinary. Partly to give suspicions time to die down, partly to give both Regina and Gold a wide berth, and partly to devote her attention to helping David settle into his new life. For that matter, she too had to learn the ropes of a new town and a new job for the first time in years. Graham was fairly lenient about her scheduling at the station, as this place wasn't exactly CSI: Miami in its crime problem, and he'd promised she wouldn't have to work nights, which was a signal improvement over being out late all the time as a bounty hunter. The downside was that she now had time to actually be domestic, which was terrifying. There were definitely not going to be any frilly aprons and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking dinners, but it didn't seem out of line for her to expect herself to pick up the place, pack David's lunch, and, if she could, make him a snack and help him with his homework in the afternoon, then tuck him into bed at night. Ordinary mom stuff, maybe, but it had mostly been the neighbor's job in Boston, not hers.

David, for his part, appeared to require far less adjustment than she did, in the agreeably malleable way of young kids. There was one day when he came home crying because he missed his Little League teammates and neighborhood buddies, but other than that, he took to Storybrooke as if he'd lived there all his life. He liked to introduce himself to everyone he met, and proceed to charm the socks off them – kindly old Marco, the woodworker, fun flirty Ruby, the waitress at the diner, and man-about-town Sidney, the local reporter. Emma watched them all carefully, to see if they were accidentally going to say something about the curse. But no one seemed aware of it. She didn't even know how they were supposed to be cursed. They just looked like ordinary working-class people, in an ordinary small New England town.

Emma wondered how she could gather further intelligence on the situation, without directly consulting Gold again. His offer was in her back pocket, but if she kept working with him, she was going to have to pay a stiff commission in far more than just money. She had to admit that he had behaved impeccably ever since their conversation, always wishing her good day whenever they saw each other, and likewise seemed to be operating under the expectation that she'd be back to do business whenever her temper cooled down. If you did me a favor. . .

Regina was a different story. After trying to get her lease terminated for some minor procedural detail (which Emma found out about from Gold, who clearly thought he was doing her a favor by informing her) and then trying to restructure the city budget to cut the funding for the sheriff's office and hence its ability to support a deputy (which Emma found out about from Graham, who was furious) and then trying to claim that David was ineligible to attend school in the district due to the unresolved situation in Boston (which Emma found out about herself, when she was called out of work over to Storybrooke Elementary) she had finally conceded defeat and changed tacks. Now she was launching a full-bore charm offensive, mainly directed at David. Barely a day went by without her offering to watch him, bringing cookies, asking if he wanted to come play at her house with his friends, and otherwise feeding his six-year-old ego. David, of course, saw no problem with any of this, and if Emma tried to step in and cut off the gravy train, she was the one who looked like the bad guy. It didn't take long for frustrations to reach boiling point.

"She is driving me fucking crazy!" Emma flicked open Graham's box of darts and nailed a bulls-eye through the deer's butt, which for some weird reason constituted the target he'd posted on the sheriff's station wall. "What is her deal? Can't she just, I don't know, adopt an orphan and satisfy her weird passive-aggressive clingy psycho mothering urge? Why the hell is she trying to steal my son? Is it just because she's made clear how much she hates me? How does that even work?"

"Regina's. . . complicated." Graham, trucked up at his own desk with a to-go cup of black coffee from Granny's and a gooey fresh bearclaw vanishing rapidly into his ginger-scruffed face, observed her deadly accurate dart-flinging with admiration. "I'm sure she doesn't mean any harm. Maybe you can have a chat with her though, see if you can talk some sense?"

"Sense and Regina do not live in the same zip code. They haven't even chatted at a cocktail party. I'm also not entirely sure that she's, you know, stable. There was a little scene a couple weeks ago, when she more or less told me that if I didn't leave town, things were going to get unfortunate. I'm not a lawyer, but I've spent a lot of time working in the criminal justice system. I'm pretty sure that counts as a court-admissible threat."

Graham looked startled. "What? No!" He shoved back from his desk, unloosing a raft of fugitive papers; the guy had to be single, because this place was pretty much used as his bachelor pad. "I promise you, Emma. I won't let her or anyone hurt you."

"Wait, what?" That was a little weird. Emma coiled her legs under her, ready to make a break for it if he started wigging out again. "Does that mean that you think she might try?"

"No! Of course not! I just. . . I just. . ." Graham rumpled his hand through his hair, in that oddly adorable habit he had when flustered, and looked in all directions as if his head was on a pivot. Notably excepted was the one of her face, but she could see his cheeks turning dull red. "I just meant. . . I just. . ."

"I can handle myself. You don't need to look out for me."

"It's. . . it's my job, hey?" He tried a weak little smile. "Sheriff? Have to look out for all the inhabitants of Storybrooke, even the stubborn and beautiful blonde ones."

Emma's jaw dropped. "Are you flirting with me?"

"I am not! . . . Oh God." Graham covered his face. "That was all wrong. I don't even know why I said it. It just. . . came out. Please, please forget it."

Emma was tempted to needle him just a bit more, but the color of his face now approximated a fire engine, and she was afraid he might actually explode if she took it too far. Funny, for a handsome guy like him, he was as awkward around women as a pimply, knock-kneed nerd trying to work up the nerve to speak to his first crush. "It's all right," she told him, still repressing the urge to laugh at the stricken look on his face. "Just as long as this isn't going to get weird. We have a professional relationship to maintain, you know."

"I know." Graham looked abjectly relieved. "I just have one other question. It's actually going to sound less awkward now, well done Humbert. Have you ever. . . seen a wolf around here?"

"A wolf?" Emma frowned. "Like, large furry howls at the moon thing? That sounds like something for animal control, not – "

"Yes, that kind of wolf, but. . ." Graham flapped his hand in futile search of a better description. "It's just. . . I'm seeing one around more and more often, since you came here, and I'm starting to think it means something. That it's mine, that. . ." At the uncomprehending look on her face, he trailed off. "I am so sorry. You can call for the friendly lads in white coats now."

"It's all right," Emma said again. What she was thinking about, however, was something quite different. Once Upon a Time, August Booth's fantasy novel, where the heroine, Anna, was the long-lost daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. When she'd confronted him in jail, he had openly admitted that he had written the book so that she would read it and be stunned by the similarities. Anna went to Storybrooke, where everyone was a cursed fairytale character who had forgotten their true lives back in the Enchanted Forest, ripped up and swept here by a dark curse cast by the Evil Queen. Where she had to break the curse, help them remember, and. . .

Okay, Emma told herself. This is getting out of hand. Regina might be a pain in the ass, but the sensible thing to do was to assume that the woman had serious emotional issues and needed to be put on strong medication, not that she was a tyrannical, magical monarch from an alternate universe. But it was one possible permutation of the curse she kept hearing so damn much about, and if she was organizing a plan of action that included a possible trip to fucking Neverland, she couldn't cast it aside immediately. Yet if they had forgotten, if they had all apparently forgotten very well, why on earth would Graham be starting to remember? Remember what? That in a previous life he was the Wolfman? He could have gotten a crank "discover your past self!" hypnotist to tell him that he was, hell, William Shakespeare for a lot less stress.

"I'm sure it's nothing," she said, seeing that Graham was still looking at her in prompt expectation of his consignment to the funny farm. Glancing at the clock, she added, "Hey, I promised David I'd pick him up from school. We're going to go shopping for Thanksgiving. Time really flies, huh?"

"Thanksgiving? Right. Yeah." Graham shook his head. "That's this week, isn't it? Thursday? Very good. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Course," Emma promised him. She clocked out, pulled on her jacket, sunglasses, and scarf, and stepped out into the chilly, apple-crisp autumn afternoon. It was so picture-perfect that someone should have painted an oil portrait, and it briefly made her heart hurt, remembering cozy fall afternoons on campus, scuffling through red leaves while smoke curled gently from Gothic towers. I had to leave BC. I had no choice. That life, like so much, felt like a thousand years ago.

School was just letting out when she pulled up to the curb. Pigtailed little girls in plaid skirts and shrieking little boys in blue blazers were scattering everywhere like a bomb had blown up an anthill – David had initially been rather taken aback to discover that he was expected to wear a uniform, and compensated by getting it as dirty as humanely possible, until Emma warned him that he was going to learn to wash it himself if he kept this up. This had effected an improvement in his cleanliness, if not his decorum, and she leaned on the wheel of the Bug, looking for him among the chattering crowd. But something else caught her eye instead. Around the corner of the old brick edifice, on the opposite side of the playground, were two figures she recognized.

A slow heat rose up Emma's cheeks. She couldn't claim definitively that anything wrong was going on, per se, but something – call it her spidey senses – were tingling. Mary Margaret Blanchard, recognizable even at this distance by her short black pixie cut and demurely buttoned cardigan, was laughing at something David Nolan had said, his hand resting casually on the wall behind her head and his gaze fixed on her with something very much like tender devotion. And unless something had changed in the past few weeks – which Emma doubted, considering that this was a small town and news traveled fast – he was still very married. To Kathryn.

What the heck? She told me there wasn't anything going on with him! Perhaps it was absurd to feel betrayed, considering, but Emma was still disposed to be somewhat miffed. But it wasn't just that which had taken hold of her as she watched them, like a Peeping Tom in the bushes, some grubby little voyeur. If everything she had heard or been asked to believe was true, those were her parents. Who had no idea that they were her parents, were seeing other people, weren't much older than her, and – the big kicker – might actually be classic storybook characters exiled from their own world and dependent on her to save them. Snow White and Prince Charming. It almost felt like open mockery. To look for her family, and find this, to find. . .

"Honey?" The nurse again. Why the hell wouldn't they just leave her alone? "I've got the birth certificate here. Have you picked out a name for your son?"

Floating. Far away. Things didn't hurt as bad after the epidural. Sweaty hair on the paper pillow, the crumpled hospital gown, still breathing heavily, exhausted, smelling blood and medicine and chemicals. Somehow, she'd never thought of this at all. Just assumed that the baby would be born and be whatever it was, however it was, with minimal input from her. She had never even imagined picking out her child's name, much less anything else about him, and yet, only one came to mind.

"David," she croaked. "His name's David."

"That's a good classic name. Never goes out of style."

"Yeah. My dad's." The lie slipped from her lips so easily, and yet she never asked herself why.

"That's very sweet." The nurse scribbled. "Middle name? Last name? Are you going with the father's or is it going to be yours?"

A well-meant question, asked professionally – she worked at the hospital, they were already well aware that Dad wasn't in the picture – and yet it made Emma feel almost violated. For a moment, she did want to give her newborn son his father's name, seeing as it was the only thing he'd ever have of him. But why? This was her kid, and hers alone. She was the one who'd borne it from start to finish. On the vanishingly impossible chance that she ever saw Killian again, he wasn't entitled to a damn thing from either of them. He would probably never even know that he had a child. David was hers, and why screw up their lives with two last names?

"Swan," she mumbled. "David Eric Swan."

She'd never known either where Eric came from, just that it occurred to her. Just that it seemed right. She was past asking questions by that point. She only wanted to sleep.

"Mom?"

Startled out of her reverie, Emma jerked upright so quickly that she nearly banged her head. David himself, backpack slung on his shoulder, had opened the passenger door and was eyeing her in puzzlement. "You had a funny look on your face."

"It's nothing." Emma forced herself to sound bright, enthusiastic. "Ready to go Thanksgiving shopping?"

David rolled his shoulders. "I guess."

This was so unlike her normally bombproof, happy-go-lucky little man – he'd been telling her for the last three days not to forget – that Emma frowned. "Hey. Something wrong?"

"Nope." He stared at his shoes.

"Come on, buddy. One of the reasons I agreed to move here was so I could have more time with you. Talk to me?"

"I. . ." He glanced up furtively, like a hunted animal. "My dad. He was a bad guy, wasn't he?"

Oh, Jesus. "What?"

"I just. . ." David twiddled the strap of his backpack. "Some kids today were teasing me. They told me that he was no good and that he drowned in the river back in Boston and you weren't sad because you didn't even like him. Is it true? He's dead and you're happy?"

"I. . ." Emma felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. As sickening as it was, she had to admire it; no matter how skillfully it had been set up to appear as to originate from schoolyard bullies, there was only one person in Storybrooke that she'd told that story – that lie – to. And he, knowing full well that it was a lie, had gone ahead and arranged for her son to hear it. "David. Sweetie. Back then, things were. . . very complicated in my life, and – "

"Is he dead?" Tears were shining in David's big blue eyes. "Just tell me, is he dead?"

"I. . . I don't know. He disappeared before you were born."

"But then why did the meanies think he drowned?"

"They've. . . probably been listening to the wrong people." Emma's stomach felt tight, clenched. She was fighting a very real urge to forget the groceries, drive straight to the pawn shop, and punch Gold in the face. "David, with adults. . . again, it's grown-up stuff. It's messy. Believe me, I wasn't happy when your dad disappeared. I still miss him. Every day."

David relented somewhat. "What was his name?"

She hesitated. The kid was already a wicked good Googler, and she didn't want him finding out this way. "Colin," she lied. It sounded enough like Killian; maybe later, if he found out, he'd just think he misheard. "His name was Colin. Now come on. Let's go shopping."

A few hours, several large grocery bags, one mostly mollified kid, and a favor asked of Mary Margaret later, Emma was storming into Mr. Gold, Pawnbroker's like Medusa unleashed.

"Happy holidays to you too, Miss Swan." He held up a delicate glass piece to the light, squinting through it as he fitted it to a mobile. "Next time, don't break my door handle."

"Shut up. You fucking bastard."

"Oh ho. Most unladylike language to boot." Nonetheless, appearing to sense that the situation had to be taken seriously, he put down his monocle and turned around. "May I have the pleasure of enquiring why I am either fucking or a bastard, as I have no recollection of either?"

"You know exactly why. How dare you use kids to make my son feel bad?"

"Oh, that?" Gold wiped his hands. "Schoolchildren gossip. Schoolchildren bully each other. I fail utterly to see how I can be held in any way accountable."

"You're the only person they could have heard it from."

"And yet, the person I first heard it from was you. Lies take on a strange life of their own, don't they, Miss Swan? And whatever your lad heard, it's doubtless far preferable to the truth. I was doing him a kindness."

"Like hell." Emma slammed both hands down on the counter, causing him to – if not quite flinch, at least look as if he was thinking about it. "Fine. I see you want to take this little game to the next level. What favor, and I use the word loosely, did you have in mind?"

"This unofficial one? Oh, that's a favor far more for you, dearie, than for me. You've been in Storybrooke almost a month now, and yet you've made scant effort either to take me up on my well-meant offer. Or to find out more information. Or even to do anything except feud tiresomely with Regina about your son and shout at me for passing on only what I've heard from you. Is this all a game to you, Miss Swan? Because for the rest of us, I assure you, it is not."

Emma squirmed. "I've been busy," she said lamely. "And trying to work things out on my own."

"On your own? The way you've always done things, you mean? Do let me know how that's going. Considering your track record, I'm sure it's marvelous." Gold's eyes glittered maliciously. "As an apology for attempting to assist you in finding your family – well, no, I'm not sure I wish to call it an apology after all, but rather a tip, shared in confidence between friends, or at least those with mutual enemies. Look in the library."

"The library?" Emma was confused. "It's boarded up. I didn't think anyone used it."

"And should that not make it a most suitable place for concealing something that Mayor Mills doesn't want found?"

Her pulse spiked. God knew that Regina could use being taken down a peg or ten, and she hoped she'd be the one to do it, but her old suspicious instincts sniffed a trap. "If you know so much about her dirty little secrets, why haven't you done something about this? Why can't you go?"

"Me? With this?" Gold nodded toward his crippled foot. "Crawling around in dark spaces isn't something I'm cut out for, dearie. And besides, Regina has the place strung up so thoroughly that if I went, she'd know in minutes."

"Not to mention that the two of you run this town, and as much as you might hate each other, you still are careful about stepping on each other's toes." Emma glared at him. "You want me to do your grunt work, and you don't want to be caught with your fingers in the pie, just like you were a big man and got a bunch of schoolkids to do it with David. But it does appear that we're more on the same side than I am with Regina, and so I'm going to ask you a little question. Whatever you say, I better believe. Can I trust you?"

Gold grinned. "Of course you can't. I'm not a good man. But when it comes to this, you and I are indeed of the same mind. You'll have to go at night, otherwise you'd be noticed."

He started to turn away, then stopped. "Oh," he added, as if only just thinking of it. "And I wouldn't go alone."

Naturally, Emma's first impulse was to rush out and break into the library right then, but she at least recognized that this had to be planned for. There wasn't really any casual way to broach the subject at work the next morning, but she did her best. "So. . . Graham. Has anyone ever checked out the old library? How long has it been abandoned?"

"The library?" He blinked. "It's been like that for as long as I can remember."

"So much for that city budget, huh?" Emma snorted. "But I was just driving past it yesterday, and it looked like someone had been taking the boards off the windows. There could be squatters in there, or something. I think we should check it out."

It was clear that this dimension of urban policing had never even occurred to Graham. "Homeless people? No, I don't think so, we don't have much of a problem with those."

"Come on? Please?" Emma had to admit, she was laying it on thick – she didn't want to mix her signals, considering her well-established policy about dating and men and romance in general – but she was flashing a little bit of a pout and a whiny voice and fluttering eyelashes. "Just because you like me?"

He blinked. "I do like you. Ahem, you know. Professionally. But I fail to see how that – "

"You don't want me going by myself, do you? What if there's, like, a bat's nest in there?"

"Bats are very harmless creatures," Graham, ever the tree-hugger, insisted. "I don't think we can get a probable cause warrant to search the premises just because – "

"But the boards," Emma pressed. If he did go to look, he would in fact find several boards ripped off the windows. He just wouldn't know that she was the one who had done it. "And don't tell me it's against the law, because we are the law. I'm sure you can get a warrant if someone's going to ask for it, but why would you need one if you think it's abandoned?"

Graham looked trapped. "I just don't know if it's the best idea to go nosing around in there."

"Why?" Emma said, exasperated. "Because of Regina? Well, you know what? Fuck Regina. I'm not scared of her. What can she do to either of us? And unless she has pictures of you having sex with a goat or something, you don't need to be so far up her ass all the time. Seriously." She stepped forward and grasped him by the shoulders, almost shaking him. "Get with it."

Graham continued to look blindsided, but a corner of his mouth twitched. "No goat porn. Scouts' honor."

"Good. So let's get with the program. Tonight?"

He let out a long, gusty sigh. "All right. Tonight."

It was dark, cloudy, and cold, the scent of snow hanging pungently in the air, by the time they got off work. Emma called Mary Margaret to once again apologize for peddling David-watching duty off on her, and she and Graham grabbed service weapons, flashlights, tools, and heavy gloves, which she hoped would be sufficient for whatever they were about to encounter. Taking the police cruiser would be too conspicuous, and likewise everyone in town now knew that the yellow Bug belonged to her, so they walked the several blocks from the station to the library. As they reached it, boots crunching and breath huffing silver in the wintry November twilight, Emma noticed to her surprise that the clock in the tower had started to move again. She'd just figured it was broken like the rest of the place, since it had been stuck at 8:15 every time she'd been here, but if it had started to wind itself again. . . well, that was a little odd.

They waited until the street was quiet, people headed home or for a warm dinner at Granny's or a stiff drink at the White Rabbit, and then moved in. Graham swept his flashlight across the weathered exterior, duly discovering the ripped-off boards, and raised an eyebrow in a way that Emma took to mean he thought she might have a point. He peered through. "Hello?"

Not terribly surprisingly, there was no answer.

"Guess we're going in." Graham, the hastily procured warrant folded up in his brown bomber jacket pocket, eyed the locked door with professional acumen, removed a pair of bolt cutters, and snipped the chain. He pushed, and it groaned open into dusty dimness, smelling of paper and mildew and must. Another sweep of the flashlight revealed crowded, dingy bookshelves, an empty circulation desk, and a few broken carrels and chairs. He wrinkled his nose. "Charming."

"Yeah, really." Emma took a firmer grip on her own flashlight, which was stainless steel, of sizeable heft, and suitable to bonk on the head any deranged bibliomaniacs who might come rushing out of the darkness shrieking at them. When no such specter appeared, she shrugged and stepped inside, her flashlight casting slices of eerie shadow through the closed louvers. "You guys have a pretty nice little town here. How come the library's been abandoned all this time?"

"I. . . don't know." Graham frowned. "It doesn't make sense, does it? Well, come on. Let's have a look around."

An inspection of fifteen minutes, however, failed to yield any result. Emma got down on her hands and knees, feeling with gloved hands beneath the shelves, unable to stop herself from imagining a jumbo-sized rat lurking under there and waiting to take a nip. But even the vermin appeared to have deserted this place, and she had to fight the prevailing suspicion that Gold, yet again, had set her up. This would probably be front page of the Storybrooke Mirror tomorrow, what with Sidney and his irritating penchant for exposé journalism – Corruption In The Police Force! in three-inch type, accompanied by an article strongly intimating that their purposes in scoping out the empty library could only be nefarious. Either that or –

Graham, searching nearby, suddenly froze.

"What?" Emma whispered, voice sounding too loud. "What?"

He put a finger to his lips, signaling quiet. His head was cocked toward something that Emma had originally taken as part of the wall, but now looked more like an old-fashioned freight elevator. One person would have to crank it, while the other went down. Whatever he thought he'd heard, it had come from there, and this time, straining, she thought she heard it too. So faint she couldn't be sure, but it sounded like a shout. Or a bellow.

"I think. . . there's someone down there." Saying it gave her the chills. "One of us should. . ."

"I'll go," Graham said immediately. "I'm the sheriff."

"Yeah, but I'm the deputy sheriff. And just between the two of us, I really don't want to be caught in here, if somebody decides to take an interest in our handiwork."

"What if it's dangerous?"

"Hey, this morning you were the one telling me that bats were harmless creatures."

"That didn't sound like a bat." Graham set his jaw.

"Then I guess I was right about us needing to investigate the library, huh?" Emma put her hands on her hips. "Lower me down, and I'll do a quick recon. If it's dangerous, I promise, I'll jump right back in and get the hell out of Dodge, and we can go kill Gold together for thinking this was a good idea. If not – "

"Gold?" Graham was staring at her with an even stranger look on his face. "Gold told you to go here?"

Fuck. "He let something slip when he thought I wasn't listening," Emma lied. "Now come on. We're wasting time with chit-chat. This could be a serious situation."

Beaten, Graham threw up his hands with a muttered curse, then helped her wrench the elevator's doors open, shrieking with rust. Emma did have something of a qualm about stepping into the insubstantial-looking grilled cage, hand closed tight around her gun, feeling nervously at her waist to make sure her sheriff's badge was still there. Her heart was pounding fast and short as the door rattled closed and Graham began to crank, lowering her down into the darkness.

She tried to gauge how far it was, but it was impossible to see anything besides rough walls gritting past her. No light, no nothing. Her flashlight didn't pierce the murk, and when the cry came again, it scared her so much that she bit her tongue. Human-sounding. . . maybe. Were there feral cave people who'd been living down here for years, doing God knew what? If so, they were not about to be very impressed with her entrance, sheriff's badge or not. How many rounds did she have? Was it really a smart idea to be shooting at all when you couldn't see what the fuck you were shooting at? Oh God, talk about giving Sidney tabloid fodder, if she came out guns blazing and capped an innocent repairman in the ass or something –

The doors jerked open. Starting to wish that she'd let Graham go down after all, Emma stumbled out.

The blackness was absolute, and she shone her flashlight carefully on her feet to make sure she didn't perform an embarrassing facer. The ground was rough, stony and dangerous, dripping wet and uncomfortably breathing as if she was deep in a cave. Her senses were on red alert, the back of her neck prickling. There was some kind of strange animal scent down here, almost reptilian, and it made her sneeze. Jesus Christ, what –

"Help? Help!"

That was definitely a human voice, and it just about gave Emma a heart attack. Adrenaline overloading, she whirled on the spot, flashing her light in every direction, until she caught sight of a low, narrow passage leading off the main one, from which the shouts were still echoing. She snatched her badge off her belt, cocked her gun, and broke into a sprint. "Police! Police!"

She followed the echo through a narrow, labyrinthine jungle of speleothems, down toward the end. There was something here. A cell. She could see bars. And then, like something out of a nightmare or a really bad B-movie, the skeletal hands of the woman clutching them.

Tamara cringed, turning away from the glare of the flashlight. In the blur of movement, Emma caught sight of a second person huddled in the corner – this one, no, yes, yes indeed, was her erstwhile downstairs neighbor, Greg Mendel. Both of them looked starved and filthy and freezing, so much so that despite the fact they'd once kidnapped her and taken her up here tied in the boot of their car, Emma's heart twinged with pity. Once they recognized that she wasn't whoever they'd been expecting, Tamara scrambled back. "Hello? Who's there? Help!"

Emma just stared, trying to wrap her mind around it. It was like one of those cases where the police found people who'd been missing for years, walled up in some psycho's house, but this time she was the police and she had a horrible hunch that she knew the psycho too. She kept her voice level. "It's all right. This is the sheriff. I'm not going to hurt you."

Tamara, recognizing her, blanched. ". . . Emma? Emma Swan? Oh my God. We are so sorry for everything earlier. I swear, it's a horrible mistake. We want to help you, we're on your side, I promise. Please just let us out of here. Please!"

Emma knelt cautiously by the bars. "How long have you been down here?"

"I don't know. We've lost track. After we were arrested during the break-in on Gold's shop. . . we've been prisoners ever since."

"Who put you here?" Please say Regina. Please say Regina.

That, however, would have been too easy. Tamara shook her head. "We don't know. Someone brings us food and water every so often, but we never see their face. Just. . . please, please get us out of here. There is, I swear, there's some kind of monster down here. We can hear it. I don't know what, but it's awful. We will do anything for you, anything. Please!"

Emma hesitated a moment longer, then made a decision. "Hang on, okay? I'll be right back."

With that, detaching Tamara's clutching fingers from her jacket sleeve, she struggled to her feet and navigated back into the main passage, reaching the winch cage in record time and banging on the bars. "HEY!" Her voice echoed uncomfortably into the darkness, making her think of that stench again, and what Tamara had said about monsters. Knock it off, Swan. You've got a job to do. "I NEED THE BOLT CUTTERS! WE'VE GOT PEOPLE DOWN HERE!"

She couldn't see Graham's reaction, of course, but after a moment, the elevator began to bang and rattle back up the shaft at double-quick time, which wasn't a whole lot more than single-quick time, but at least enabled her to tell that her partner was putting his back into it. He probably would have jumped in himself, but had to stay and crank, and before too long, she could see the shadowy shape of the cage descending again. She pulled the door open, extricated the requested implements, and dashed back down.

A few minutes of work later, hard enough to break a sweat even in the dark, close, cold air, she had the cell door open, and Tamara and Greg stumbled out. Their smell, at least, verified their story that they'd been down here for months or years; their clothes were ragged and filthy as apocalypse survivors, and Tamara had a bad ankle, fractured or broken. Emma draped her arm around the other woman's shoulders, and the three of them hopped, shuffled, and slid across the treacherous rocks in the direction of the elevator cage. She made Greg go in front of her, not wanting to have him unseen at her back just in case, and by the time they reached it, she was certain that she'd heard something stirring, nearby in the dark. Whatever it was, it was quite large, and – she told herself to stop being ridiculous, but couldn't help it – decidedly not human.

"All right," Emma panted, winded from carrying Tamara. "Let's get going, people. I assume there aren't any fond goodbyes you want to say."

Both of them shook their heads, and she shooed them into the cage, then pulled it shut and shouted up to Graham. Their ascent this time was torturously slow, due to the added weight of two people, and at one point they stopped altogether, probably to allow Graham a breather. She had to resist the urge to shout at him to get moving again. Suspended in perfect darkness, with some kind of unknown thing below, in a small cage with two people who had once kidnapped her and tried to ruin her life. . .

At last, as Emma's nerves were shredding, it started to move again, and they finally stumbled out onto the main floor of the library, Graham clearly shocked to see what her expeditions had unearthed. Outside, it had started to snow, and Tamara and Greg were clearly in no shape for walking to the hospital in the freezing cold. So, leaving them locked in the elevator as a precaution, Graham ducked out to fetch the cruiser, while Emma supervised the refugees.

"Thank you so much," Tamara said, shivering. "We'll never forget this. We promise."

Emma nodded tersely, not wanting to be drawn into conversation. She kept peering through the glass of the front door, watching for the returning cruiser. She was more on edge than she could remember being in a long while, and not just from her subterranean adventures. Something about this night just felt different. Strange. Wrong.

At last, the falling snow began to glow in headlights, and Graham stomped in, blowing on his hands, flakes melting in his curls. He and Emma got Tamara and Greg out and into the car, turning the heat on high, and he blared the siren and floored it through the empty streets to Storybrooke General Hospital. Emma made a call en route, and when they pulled up in the rotunda, a bevy of medical personnel were waiting to meet them, bundle the two freed prisoners into wheelchairs, and supply them with IV drips and heated blankets. Graham and Emma followed them in to start filling out paperwork, and had barely made a dent when a familiar voice rang through the foyer. "What is going on here? There were people discovered in the library basement?"

Emma's head jerked up. "Madam Mayor. It's good to see you taking a civic interest on this cold and snowy night."

Regina ignored that, snapping shut her umbrella and dusting off her stylishly cut coat. Her face was bloodless, except for spots of hectic color burning high in her cheeks. "If this story is true, I need to get to the bottom of it immediately. Gold won't get away with this outrage. But you!" She wheeled on Graham, voice a low, venomous hiss. "What the hell are you doing?"

Graham paled, but stood his ground. "I'm doing my job. Protecting Storybrooke's citizens." He shot a loyal glance at Emma. "All of them."

Regina looked like she was about to blow a blood vessel. "You'll pay for this," she warned him, so softly that Emma knew she wasn't supposed to hear, then turned around and plastered on a bright smile for the approaching nurses. "Where are these patients? I need to see them, assure them in my official capacity that everything will be done to investigate this crime."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Mills." The nurse shrank. "I can't allow that."

"What do you mean, you can't allow that? You know who I am!"

"Excuse me," Emma broke in. "Haven't you ever heard of patient privacy laws, lady? Those two have been through some pretty rough stuff, and frankly, if I was them, yours is the last face I'd want to see showing up in my room with promises to help. I'm all for investigating this crime, though. We might turn up some extremely interesting results."

Regina went white. She appeared, however, to have no immediate answer, and before she could recover, Emma turned pointedly to Graham. "Can you take it from here, Sheriff Humbert?"

He blinked, but caught on. "Yeah, I think I can, Deputy Swan. You've done great work, you'll be recognized by the department. How about you go home to your son and get some rest?"

"I think I will." Emma took a fiendish pleasure in the impotent fury on Regina's face.

"Take the cruiser," Graham urged. "It's a bit much to walk."

"No, I got it. I'll see you later. Happy Thanksgiving, Madam Mayor." With that, Emma put up her hood, pulled her scarf tight, and pivoted smartly on her heel, leaving both of them behind as she trotted across the sterile hospital linoleum and through the sliding glass doors into the night.

It was snowing, thick and fast enough that she momentarily regretted turning down Graham's offer of the car. But the air felt bracingly clean in her lungs, flakes dancing like kisses on her face, and she felt downright pleased with herself as she began to trudge. Let's see how Regina got out of this one. She probably had some contortionist act up her sleeve, but she couldn't have expected that this would happen now, if at all, and Emma was quite certain that she was the only person who could have done this. If Greg and Tamara held true to their word and started talking to detectives, this could be an open-and-shut case. Even –

She couldn't say what exactly it was. She was alone in the snowy night, in the deserted downtown, looking out between the buildings toward the harbor. It normally contained an assortment of rusty tugboats, brightly colored fishermen's tubs, a few catamarans and paddle boats rented out in summer, and a fleet of private sailboats that wouldn't have looked out of place on Cape Cod, and she thought that it was still the same, but something had caught her eye. Just for a second, silhouetted against the glow of the streetlamps and the bobbing light buoys, the fluorescent strobes of the cannery and the wharf walk. It had been there, veiled in snow and fog. Or else she was dreaming.

A ship. An honest-to-God ship. Old-fashioned. Two masts, furled sails, rigging, deck, cannons, anchor, lantern dangling from the spar, the whole nine yards. And an unmistakable flag crusted in ice, draped silently, spectrally, from the crow's nest.

A pirate ship.