A/N: Disclaimer is in the prologue. Further information as at the end of the chapter. Many thanks to my lovely beta EvelynRose, for RleFay for the search help and to everyone who left a review, favorite and starts to follows this story. Also, the song is Dead Hearts by Stars.
Chapter Two: They´re all dead hearts to you.
I can say it, but you won't you believe me.
You say you do, but you don't deceive me.
It's hard to know they're out there,
It's hard to know that you still care.
I can say it, but you won't you believe me.
You say you do, but you don't deceive me.
Dead hearts are everywhere!
Dead hearts are everywhere!
Somehow when people advised her to not skip classes in her high school days, Emma Swan never listened. Because how good would school be to someone like her? It´s not like she ever planned going to college, anyway. And school didn´t teach her to recognize when someone was trying to use her, or how to defend herself when someone was trying to assault her, or how to fix her plumbing because she doesn´t have money to call a plumber, or even how to not get lost in a new city. These things she learned by herself, no one taught her, least of all the school.
Sitting at Granny´s, almost ten years after finishing high school, Emma is convinced that hindsight is a bitch and that she should have, at the very least, not skipped psychics' class. Of course, considering what she read on Google (Did you know that if you digit time travel you´ll find results?) psychics wouldn´t help her understand how in the hell she managed to time travel.
And to make matters worse it seems that there´s this huge discussion of if time travel to the past is possible (apparently it´s much more easy to travel to the future. Who would have thought that, huh?) and the seemingly accepted methods of travelling to the past don´t include sleep. Ironically enough, sleeping seems to be a common way of travel to the future according to literature.
Henry did try to help her but not only are the psychics' books in the town library surprisely outdated, there´s nothing about time travel in Henry´s fairytale book.
Since she didn´t find a wormhole or something that could be used as a time machine, the only conclusion is that if she travelled through time it was done by magic. Of course, that was her first thought, but the fact that she knows now how she travelled will not help her know why she travelled. And so, it begins the search of the effects of time traveling.
Google might not be able to help her much, but she still has other ways of gathering information. And by other ways she means books, movies and tv shows. Well, Jefferson did say that other worlds exist, so for all she knows the man had been to Oz and actually knows Harry Potter or something. And that means that maybe the things about time travel in these apparently fictional works are true. Who knows?
The one thing that all of the fictional and not fictional works seems to agree on, is that it is not possible to change the past. No matter what you do, something will happen that will make it impossible for you to change it. It´s called the law of causality, of cause and effect. The cause occurs before the effect, and that´s why so many scientists dismiss travelling to the past as an impossibility.
And this is when Emma´s nightmares started. She would attempt to save Graham and something would happen, he would end up eating the apple turnover and her kiss wouldn´t revive him like it did to Henry, or they wouldn´t be able to put his heart back and Regina would find it and crush it anyway. There was even one where Graham was killed and Emma was framed for it (Emma still has the suspicion that Regina wanted to kill Kathryn, not kidnap her).
She ends up blaming the lack of sleep for the crying that comes after watching an episode of Doctor Who. At least, she was in her car, it was late at night, and no one saw her crying because of The Angels Take Manhattan. Emma´s pretty sure she will never be able to look at an angel statue the same way again.
Death seems to be the one thing that everyone travels in time to fix, and it is also the failure of every time traveler.
Hope, though, it´s the one thing that Emma Swan always had in life. Even at her lowest, the blonde still had that tiny flame of hope inside herself. Because maybe, just maybe, one day she would find her parents, she would have a family, someone would love her.
Hope, this time, came in the theory of alternative universes. There was a possibility that she could change the past, after all. It just wouldn´t be her past. The idea that somewhere in space and time, there was a Emma Swan, who after crying her heart out in the station, woke up to headaches and pains in the neck in a world where Graham was dead was…Well, sad is the only word that comes to mind.
Of course, the possibility that something will not end up like she wanted also crossed her mind. Maybe the alterations that she does to the past will make it impossible for her to break the curse or maybe Graham won´t fall in love with her. That´s why she had decided to stick as close to what originally happen before as she could, and that resulted in a long talk with Henry about how she can´t break the curse now. About the fact that Graham may not love her…the important thing is that he would be alive. And that is enough (it has to be enough).
That was all the information that Emma managed to gather. Books, movies, tv shows and Google can only take you so far. And all of that means Emma is stuck in her search. She always hated when she found a dead end in her searches and it inevitably managed to put her in a bad mood.
So it was a scowling at her notebook Emma that had a mug of hot cocoa thrusted at her by the smiling sheriff as she muttered about slow internet connections.
"I think I owe you a hot cocoa with cinnamon, right?"
"Thanks". When she reaches for the mug, Emma´s fingers briefly touch Graham´s and it´s enough for her eyes to fix on anything but his. That´s when she notices that the cup he´s holding in his other hand appears to be hot cocoa as well. With cinnamon on top. "So I´m suppose to believe you like cinnamon on your hot cocoa?"
Graham grins at her while sitting at the other side of her table. If she didn´t know him like she did, Emma would probably miss the flash of hesitance in his eyes. And it breaks her heart a little that he thought she wouldn´t like if he sat at her table. "Well, I will admit the taste is not so bad. After awhile it even grows on you."
Now after a line like that who would believe he was actually raised by wolves? And that before she came into town, he had never flirted with anyone? "Good to see I helped you acquire such fine taste in beverages."
The sheriff shrugs one shoulder in a casual manner, while they both take a sip of their respective chocolates. Emma turns back to her computer and decides to end her search, it´s not like she will suddenly find some new information anyway.
"Do I even want to know what got you so irritated before?"
"I suppose I could tell you, but you wouldn´t believe me." Graham´s eyebrows raise a little and he seems to incline his body in her direction unconsciously.
"Try me."
He is looking at her trying to be persuasive and the blonde knows that. But for some reason her gaze seems to linger on his lips. Graham had kissed her before and she knows what his kisses taste like (she doesn´t think it´s something that she will ever forget) but suddenly she´s acutely aware that they hadn´t kissed in a very long while.
Her lips feel dry so she licks them and the sheriff appears to accompany the path her tongue makes with his eyes. It´s suddenly way too hot in the dinner and Emma incline her body a little in his direction. There´s a small grin on Graham´s face and the urge to make him stop grinning that way at her grows exponentially.
"Emma! Emma!" Henry´s voice reaches her ears and before he even finishes call her a second time or stop running at front of her table, the blonde´s body is completely rested at her chair and facing her son´s direction. "I found Prince Charming!"
The boy´s eyes are twinkling happily but the bail bonds had to take a moment to understand what he was talking about( To tell the truth, she needed a moment to take her mind away from Graham´s lips and what they would feel like) and to realize that finding Prince Charming means finding her father.
"I´m sorry, you found who?"Graham´s confused voice stop her thought.
Her son then seems to notice the sheriff´s presence and Emma wonders if he told him about the curse during the last couple of days. Otherwise, that conversation is gonna turn way to weird for the sheriff.
"Prince Charming. Snow White´s true love, remember?" Comprehension seems to dawn at Graham´s face and the blonde has to stop the audible sigh of relief that she wants to make. That makes things a little easier.
"So where is he?" Henry gives her a strange look for asking such a stupid question. They both know where Charming is after all. Emma inclines her head a little at Graham´s direction and the boy seems to take the hint.
"He´s at the hospital in a coma." He puts the fairytale book in front of Emma´s notebook and opens at the page with a drawing of his grandfather. "He has that same scar in the same place."
"So who he is in Storybrooke?" Graham´s voice doesn´t have a trace of incredulously. He appears to be more curious then anything. Emma has to stop the smile that threats to appear in her face, she just knew that the sheriff wouldn´t think Henry was crazy and that he would try to help her son.
"John Doe. Miss Blanchard says that´s what they call you when they don´t know your name"
"There´s a John Doe in Storybrooke? I don´t remember that." Graham appears to be a little disturbed by the possibility that he didn´t realize that one of the town´s inhabitants needed his help.
"Don´t worry, you just don´t remember because of the curse." Henry´s matter-of-a-fact tone reminded Emma of the first hours after the curse was broken (Whale? We were cursed.) .
"I should go back to the station and see if there´s a John Doe file." Graham quickly drinks the rest of his cocoa and is already standing up by the time Emma talks again.
"Ok, you try to find the file and Henry and I are gonna try to wake up Prince Charming." The blonde is also standing up, at the same time that she ends her drink and starts to guard her notebook.
"And how you two are gonna do that?"
"By requesting Snow White´s help, of course." Emma´s voice seems to indicate that it should be obvious for the sheriff what they would do. She turns to Henry who is already putting the book on his back pack. "C´mon, kid. Let´s walk you to school."
Henry is already out of the door when Emma turns and almost collides with Graham who was a few steps behind them.
"Oh, and thanks for the cocoa" The blonde already turned and was out of the dinner before she could see the sheriff´s content smile.
/-\
"You want me to read to a coma patient?"
If she stopped to do the math, Emma´s pretty sure that´s the first real conversation she has with her mother. After the curse was broken, Snow did try to have a real talk with her daughter but things were kind of chaotic and Emma focused on that. So, while her mother tries to, well, ambush her, the blonde is focused on finding Regina, stop the people from panic, mediate custody battles, help people get divorces, stop innumerous murder attempts, help look for people´s loved one…in other words, she kept busy.
Since travelling back in time, she has avoided (there´s no other word, really.) the school teacher and the few times they did talk it was always rushed. Now, Emma is sitting at the loft that she had learned to see as home, drinking hot cocoa with her mother. And she´s trying to convince Snow White to read a book with their story in it to Prince Charming who is in a coma. These days her life is looking more and more like a painting of Salvador Dalí.
"Henry thinks it will help him remember who he was." The blonde´s voice is casual while she stirs her cocoa with the cinnamon stick. "Besides, reading is supposed to be good for coma patients, right?"
"Yes, but only if the patient knows the person that is reading." At the look at Emma´s face, Mary Margaret frowns and inclines her head a little to the left. "Henry thinks that I know that coma patient? But from where?"
"The Enchanted Forest." Emma takes a careful sip of her chocolate.
The school teacher closes her eyes and let a little sigh. "So, that would make the coma patient…"
"Prince Charming."
"And with me as Snow White he thinks that him…and me..."
Emma decides to save her best friend and get to the heart of the matter, so to speak. "He has a very active imagination, you know that. We need to show him the truth about fairytales but we can´t talk him out of his beliefs. I thought that if we played along, doing what he says, then maybe, just…maybe."
"He´ll see that fairytales are just that. That love at first kiss or first sight doesn´t exists."The blonde hides her little grin by taking another sip of her cocoa. "He´ll se reality." Mary Margaret concludes in a kind of sad voice and Emma wonders if the school teacher knows in some deep corner of her soul that these things do exist.
"Something like that."
"Well, sadly this plan is rather genius. We get him to the truth without hurting him." The brunette takes a sip of her cocoa and there´s something in her expression that reminds Emma of herself. That´s part of the reason why the blonde couldn´t stand much time in her parents' presence. She recognizes herself in them.
Suddenly, it´s too much. Emma´s self-preservation instincts kick in again and she has to run.
"I told him we would all meet tomorrow for breakfast at Granny´s, and that you would give a full report." Emma finishes the rest of her cocoa in a gulp and puts Henry´s book on the kitchen table. She tries not to look like a cornered animal while she grins at the school teacher.
"I guess I have to get ready for my date. I suppose I´ll do all the talking."
"I should leave you them."
"No, it´s ok. It´s still early. You don´t want to stay for dinner?"Mary Margaret´s face looks so much like the hopeful expression on Snow´s eyes, the first time Emma called her by her real name, that it hurts a little.
"It´s all right. There´s somewhere I should go, anyway."
It doesn´t matter how long Emma Swan searched for her parents. Nothing could have prepared her for what feels to be a daughter. A loved daughter. At least, with this time travel thing, she has more time to get used to the idea.
/-\
She wasn´t lying exactly. There is a place she hadn´t gone since a little before travelling back in time, and she really needs to be there now. Except, what she looks for in that place doesn´t exist, and she hopes with all her heart it never will.
Graham´s grave.
Emma can count in one hand the times she visited the sheriff´s final resting place. After his funeral (she came back alone), when she won the sheriff election, after Jefferson kidnapped her, when Mary Margaret was the principal suspect to Kathryn´s murder and after August showed her the ' big picture'.
Even if she only went to this place a few times, the blonde found the spot where Graham´s body had lain without difficult. There was only grass there, of course. And if Emma has her way that´s all that's gonna be in that particular spot.
Still, she did what she always did in her previous visits. She imagined she was talking with Graham.
"I, I know that you´re not dead anymore. And I´m so glad for that, Graham." Here she took a deep breath and try to stop the tears from coming. Emma Swan is not a crier, after all. "Remember the last time I came? I told you I had never been more lost in my life. Well, I was wrong. Now I have never been more lost in my life. And I can´t even talk to you, not really…"
Movement at the corner of her eye made her stop what looked like another ramble (Why every time she pretends to talk to Graham does she always ramble on and on?). For a terrified moment, the blonde thought that it was Regina coming to put flowers at her father´s grave.
It wasn´t the Mayor. It was a wolf. A very familiar wolf with one red eye.
Graham´s wolf.
"Hey, boy." Emma takes a few small steps in his direction. She should know she would find the wolf in the cemetery. He was probably there guarding Graham´s heart, and that realization made her own heart hurt. "Remember me? Emma? "Another few small steps in its directions. The wolf´s eyes seem to follow her cautiously. "You made me crash my car so I wouldn´t leave town."
Finally, the blonde could swear she saw recognizance in its bicolor eyes. The wolf advances in her direction slowly, waging his tail. When it´s close enough, she starts to pet him.
"You´re protecting Graham, aren´t you?" The wolf wags his tail with a little more force and Emma decides to see that as a yes. "Don´t worry, you´re not the only one now."
The wolf barks.
/-\
"So, you told Graham about the curse." It´s supposed to be a question but Emma says it like a statement.
Her son passes some strawberry jam in his toast. "Yeah, I did."
She expects an explanation but when Henry simply starts to munch on his toast, she decides to go straight to the point. "Why?"
"You were nice to him." At his mother´s raised eyebrow, the boy tries to offer a better answer. "You are always talking to him. It looked like you were friends...am I wrong?"Henry´s eyes betray his amused but there´s enough curiosity in them for the blonde to know it isn´t a rhetorical question.
"No, you´re not." She takes a sip of her hot cocoa, and is graced with what looked like an exactly replica of her past look. "He gave me a job. I was his deputy."
(It´s in my badger.)
The bell signaling a new costumer goes off, and they see Mary Margaret comes in their direction.
"So?"Emma resists the urge to sigh in relief. Saved by the bell, literary.
"He woke up!" Mary Margaret´s voice would be enough for betray her incredulously, if her face didn´t already have that covered. "I mean he didn't 'wake up' wake up, but he grabbed my hand"
"Really?" The blonde made sure to drop enough douse of incredulously in her voice. One thing that she learned from all this time travel business is that her childhood dream of being an actress wasn´t so pretentious after all.
"Well, the doctor did say that I imagined it, but I know that I didn´t. I´m not crazy."
"Of course you´re not!" Ok, perhaps Emma´s vehemence was a little too much; it´s just that the whole thinking-you´re-insane thing is still a sore subject with her.
"C´mon!" Henry is already standing up and gesturing impatiently for them to follow him. "We have to go back. We need to get you to read to him again"
The brunette took less than five seconds to jump and start follow her student. "Let´s go!"
They enter the hospital running. Even if she´s the last of the trio, Emma´s sure she was the one who spotted Graham´s first. By now, she´s pretty sure she can identify his jacket miles away, and how could she not considering all the times she stared at it?
"He´s waking up!"
It seems that Graham recognizes Henry´s gleeful voice, because he turns back from his conversation pretty quickly.
"Henry, you should stay back."
"What´s going on? Is it John Doe? Is he all right?" That Mary Margaret is worried is obvious. That she´s more worried than one should be about someone they don´t really know, is something that apparently only Emma picks up.
"He´s missing."
The blonde crosses her arms expecting to see Regina but the sheriff doesn´t step back this time. If the bail bonds didn´t knew better it looked like he was trying to protect them from Regina (but at this point in time, Graham had no idea who the mayor really is…right?).
"What happened to John Doe? Did someone take him?"
"We don´t know yet. His IVS were ripped out but there´s no signal of a struggle."
Of course, even if Graham was protecting them, they couldn´t stayed hidden from the Queen forever.
Regina´s face was a mask of controlled furious. "What the hell are you doing here?" It´s then that she seems to notice that Henry is with them. "And you- I thought you were at the arcade. Now you´re lying to me?"
Emma´s hands clench when she sees the grip that the mayor has on her son. And she´s surprised that the kid is lying to her? God, how hypocritical can the woman actually be?
"Why wouldn´t I? You lie to me all the time." The boy´s voice is angry and his response surprises both his adopted and his biological mother.
"C'mon, we gonna talk about your insubordination latter. Do you know what insubordination means?" When Henry just shakes his head, Regina let go of the grip on his arm, but holds his hand and start to pull him away. "It means you´re grounded."
Half way on her way out, the mayor turns back.
"Sheriff? Find John Doe. Dr. Whale told me time is precious. And Miss Swan? Since this clearly doesn´t concern you, stay out of this. Stay away from my son as well."
Emma smiles tightly but holds her tongue in check. Time is precious after all and she doesn´t want to risk her father´s chances.
Graham looks her way for a bit before turns to Whale.
"Doctor, how long between your rounds since you last saw him?"
"Twelve hours or so."
"Then that´s what we need to take account for."
Emma decides that she stayed quite too long. "Where is the security room?" She directs that question at Whale and the doctor seems to be a little surprised by her question.
"Why?"
It´s Graham who answers him. "We need to see the security tapes."
It´s a small thing to be happy about but when the sheriff said we (twice!), clearly disobeying Regina, Emma felt like her stomach was doing somersaults.
"It´s the third door on the corridor turning left."
"Thank you"
Inside the room, the trio found Leroy and Walter there; a nurse had already informed them the sheriff wanted to see them. The blonde couldn´t help but grin a little when she sees the later. She´s the only one who can appreciate the irony of Sleepy being a night guard, after all.
"You two were the only employees at the floor last night. And you saw nothing."
"Not a thing."
"I didn´t see nothing"
Graham is about to speak again when Emma interrupts him.
"We´re looking at the wrong tape. The kids hang up banners in this ward yesterday, if this was really the real tape we would see the decorations."
"Tsch, you fell asleep again."
"You selling me out?"
"I ain't getting fired for this."
"At least I don't drink on the job."
It was a little surreal see the dwarfs, who were literary honorary uncles to Emma, fighting like that. It doesn´t even matter that theoretically, she had already seen them fighting like that, it was still weird.
"Gentlemen, enough. Where is the real tape?"
When they see Charming awake in the right tape this time, Mary Margaret is the first to speak.
"He walked out alone. He´s okay." The relief in her voice is almost palpable.
"Where does this door lead?"
And that´s how Emma Swan saw herself back at the woods tracking down her missing amnesiac just-woke-up-from-a-coma father. Well, Graham was tracking him, to tell the truth, but then again he was the Huntsman.
"The trail runs out here"
The optimist little corner of her mind that is not consumed with worry for her father (She knew she should have done something about his situation sooner. What if something does change and not for the better?), enjoys watching Graham in his element.
"But you can find him, right?"
That´s enough worry in her voice for the sheriff to momentary stop his frantic search and try to assure her.
"Sure. This is my world. I´m gonna find Prince Charming."
When he leaves again, Mary Margaret turns to Emma.
"Prince Charming?"
"Oh, yes. Henry told him about the curse as well."
The school teacher seems a little pensative and honestly confused. "I didn´t knew these two were close. Well, Graham did help him with his science fair project last year but…"
"Wait. What?"
"Well, normally the parents are supposed to help the elementary school children with their science project. The mayor is always busy, so normally Henry does that with the help of the teacher." At the moment, Emma vows to help her kid with his next science project. Even if she never really liked science and have to read uncountable boring books. "Last year, his teacher, Miss Goodwin, end up sick and couldn´t help Henry. So, Graham was the one who helped him."
Oh, Graham.
Emma still manages to speak, even with the lump in her throat.
"But then, how come they are not close?"
Mary Margaret looks a little apprehensive with the question. "It appears that Regina didn´t like when she found out."
Of course. The ever control-freak Regina wouldn´t like to see Henry getting close to anyone besides herself. Jesus, that woman needs some help urgently.
As if she could hear the thought going on Emma´s head, the brunette tried to change the direction of the conversation just a little. "So, Graham knows?
"Yeah. He knows."
It looked like the school teacher would say something more, but they heard a crack behind them and they turn to see Henry a little out of breath for all the running he did.
"Henry!"
"Did you find him yet?"
Emma has to smile a little at his ever present optimism. "No, not yet. You actually took longer than I thought to come back, kid."
Mary Margaret looks a bit surprised. "You knew he was coming?"
"Sure. Prince Charming went missing and the Evil Queen tried to stop the kid from coming. It´s obvious that at the moment her back is turned, he would run to here."
"Guys!"
At the sound of Graham´s voice, all three of them start to run. They find the sheriff crouched examining something at the ground that Emma knows for sure is Charming´s hospital bracelet.
"Is that…"
"Blood."
"We need to find him now!" Henry´s voice is the one who spurges the others to keep looking.
While looking for the forest, Graham still following the trail, Emma turns to her son.
"Don´t worry, kid. He´s going to be all right. Trust me."
Henry nods at his mother´s words. Meanwhile, the blonde is trying not to think of time paradoxes like the grandfather one.
/-\
"That´s not his wife." Emma strides in the sheriff office with purpose, her footsteps echoing in the dark station. The only light comes from the lamp at the sheriff´s desk. Graham´s desk. Emma´s old desk.
Everything happened like the first time. They found Charming (And Emma couldn´t shake the feeling that it was them who had to find her father. His family. Yes, she´s including Graham in that count. And it scares her.). Mary Margaret bought him back. Charming doesn´t know who he is. After taking the amnesiac man back to the hospital, Henry went home so the Queen wouldn´t find him there. Regina bought Kathryn into the hospital and still had the nerve to say that true love won out.
After that, Emma went to Mary Margaret and consoled the school teacher (who didn´t even knew why she needed consoling. Not really) while waiting to speak with the sheriff. Storybrooke is still a small town, even if it´s a cursed one, and late at night there´s no living soul out on the streets. This means, that Regina´s eyes and ears won´t know about the conversation taking place between her and Graham.
"Emma?" A shiver curls down her spine at the sound of her name in his voice. No one else ever says her name the way he does, accent curling around the vowels and a tender softness that makes her ache. It´s the first time he calls her by her first name, first time since she travelled in time and it´s like a punch to her gut.
It takes her a moment to get her bearings, when she does; Emma notices tiredness on his voice along the ever present tender softness. There´s a cup of coffee on his desk along some folders and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up showing a nice pair of forearms (her gaze may have linger a little longer on them).
"I´m sorry, I shouldn´t have barged in here like this." The blonde´s voice is surprisingly low compared to before, it´s like she thinks speaking loudly would tire the man even more. "Long night?"
"You could say that." He stretches a little before standing up, arching his back and flexing his arms in a definitely entrancing way. "I did manage to find the John Dole file, it´s even in my hand writting, but there´s no date in it. I was going looking for you and Henry to tell you guys about it, but I got that call from the hospital."
"That´s all right." Her fingers curl against her leather jacket in an effort for not reaching him. Even if it´s been a while since she come to the past, the urges to reach out and touch Graham (to know that he´s real. That´s he´s really here) haven´t passed. Sometimes, like just now, the urge surprises her with its intensity.
Emma doubts it´s something that will end anytime soon.
"And I didn´t have you cell number, so it´s not like I could call you…"The sheriff trails off and look at the blonde in what can only be described as a doubtful hopeful way.
"It´s that your way of asking my number?" She has a big smile on her face when she sees his discomfort. Payback is a bitch.
Graham clears his throat.
"And I didn´t find any David Nolan missing file."
Emma decides to cut him a little slack and accept the subject change. "I knew there was something wrong with the story Regina come up."
"So you´re thinking the women are lying?"
"Regina, yes. Kathryn, no. I´m pretty good at telling when someone is lying and that woman was genuine. Doesn´t mean the whole story isn´t fishing though." She shrugs a little after finish talking.
"Well, the marriage certificate is not false, but the Evil Queen makes no small amount of effort into separating Snow White and Prince Charming." There´s a little smile on his face when he tells her that.
"What is manipulating someone into believing an amnesic patient is your husband, to the one who used an apple to poison someone?"
Bantering with Graham in the station, Emma is reminded of the days when she was his deputy. Days long gone but still, somehow, possible in a not so distant future.
"I really don´t remember Prince Charming being married to someone other than Snow White"
"According to Henry´s book, he almost married someone else." At Graham´s raised eyebrow, Emma explains better. "Charming was engaged when he and Snow White met. I guess that would makes Kathryn King Midas' daughter, Abigail."
"Right. I forgot that the stories on the book are different from the ones we know." The sheriff takes a sip of his coffee. "And according to Henry who are you? Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty?"
Since Emma is looking at him with such a you-are-insane expression, Graham hushes to explain himself.
"I mean these are the only blonde princess I know." He scrunches his face in thought. "Wait. There´s another one, right?"
The blonde´s voice is soft and a tiny bit incredulous when she answers him. "You think I would be a princess?"
Graham is right. Emma Swan is a princess, after all. It´s just that a princess is not what someone would associate with her. She´s most certainly not princess material.
"Yeah. There´s just something about you…" He trails off a little and when he does speaks again is with a sheepish smile. "And you´re more than pretty enough to pull that off."
Emma can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and let some of her hair cascade down her front, hoping to hide her blush. "So about the John Doe case..."
Graham´s husky laugh interrupts her. Payback is a bitch indeed. She can´t see because of the beard, but it appears that he´s blushing a little as well. That knowledge calms her down a bit.
"As you wish, princess."
Emma rolls her eyes a little at the title but doesn´t comment on it. "You do know what we need to do, right?"
"No, but I have a feeling you do."
"We need to check these tapes Regina mentioned."
And that is how Emma finds herself reliving some of her days before Storybrooke. Breaking into a place it´s not something new, neither is the warm male presence behind her when she´s picking the lock. The feelings that the male presence invokes shouldn´t be new either, but their intensity certainly is.
"I´m the sheriff and I´m breaking into a security room." Graham´s voice, so close, is not good for her concentration.
"Sometimes, you have to break the law a little in order to get justice." Or in their case, break the law in order to break a curse.
Emma stands up, after hearing the sound of the lock giving, and spares him a brief glance. Graham´s jaw is set, but his eyes are soft when he pulls the door and gestures for her to enter.
"Ladies first."
She stands at the same spot for just a moment before moving forward into the room. Emma wonders what working for the Queen could have done to the Huntsman´s sense of honor. It´s obvious that the sheriff does not like the whole breaking in thing, he´s only doing it because even if he doesn´t remember the curse, Graham knows that it isthe only way to right what feels like a wrong.
It´s kind of funny, that when Emma Swan finally managed to fall in love it was for a good guy. And they say that good guys don´t get the girl.
Graham is close behind and he closes the door after she pulls the light. The room where they store the security tapes is tiny; Emma can still hear the sounds of the television at the reception (it looks like a football game. The night guards must not been into sports much, since they were snoring when they passed them), and the light is not very good.
"No wonder it was so easy to switch the tapes. This town doesn´t seem to understand the concept of security." She murmurs, while searching the shelves.
Of course, except when we´re talking about what the Queen wants to stay safe and hidden.
"To be truthful, I don´t think we ever really needed it." The sheriff´s back is against her while he´s searching the other side´s shelves. The skin on Emma´s back feels very warm all of sudden.
She scoffs, and even if his back is to her, the blonde can clearly see the smirk on his face. She might be wrong, but it seems that Graham was smiling a lot more this second time around (and so was she).
The silence is too much for the bail bonds (even with the buzzing of the television as a distant echo) and she eventually opens her mouth again.
"I know you don´t like doing this. So, thank you."
There´s a pause and Emma thinks that he won´t acknowledge what she just said. She´s wrong.
"You don´t need to thank me." Graham´s voice is low and for some reason his accent is more noticeable than ever. "It´s my job to help the people of Storybrooke."
"I know. It´s just that you´re helping me too. And you don´t really have too." Emma´s smirk is just a bit sad, not that he could see it. "Till today I wasn´t even a resident of Storybrooke."
And he doesn´t. Helping Emma is what ended up causing his demise the first time. Sure, it was Regina who took his heart and turned it into dust. But none of this would have happened if Emma hadn´t showed up in town. Rationally, the blonde knows it´s all Regina´s fault, but there´s still that small voice that says she was guilty as well.
It´s like everyone she loves is taken away from her one way or another.
"What do you mean?"Graham says confused.
"Mary Margaret offered me her spare room. I decide to accept the offer tonight and I guess that makes me the new resident of the town."
"So that means you´ve left the inn?"
She turns around so quickly, she bumps into some shelves. The noise makes Graham turn as well, a tape clutched at his hands.
"You don´t know?"Emma asks in an incredulous whisper.
"Know what?"
"Regina made got me kicked out of the inn." She shrugs. "Apparently there´s a rule against accepting people with a criminal record at Granny´s."
Graham´s jaw is set and his hands clutch the tape with a little more force. The noise attracts Emma´s attention to it.
"Is that the tape we´re looking for?" The blonde points to it.
"Yeah."
The sheriff hand her the tape and she makes a move to get away from the room. A familiar hand on her wrist stops her.
"But you´re living with Mary Margaret now, right?"
Emma nods and he release her. Why do you even care? It´s a question that she had to swallow. The first time around, the blonde would argue with Graham, ask why he cares and insists she´s perfectly capable of living in her car, it´s nothing she hasn´t done before.
Now though…now she is scared of what the answer to her question could be.
\-/
They left the tape at the station to analyze at a later date. Graham told her to go home and rest since she looked tired, he has no way to know that Emma doesn´t plan on rest until the curse is broken and he is saved, along with everyone else in the town. So, the blonde smiles and says the same thing to him. In truth, she doesn´t go to Mary Margaret´s. She goes to the cemetery again, but this time she doesn´t plan on talking to Graham´s no-existent grave.
For every cause there´s an effect, she knows that. What´s she´s gonna do will definitely have an immense effect on the way things are supposed to go. But what´s the point of travelling back to the time the man you love is alive, if you don´t even try to save him?
The wolf is there again. Emma swears he knows what´s she´s about to do.
For the second time that night, Emma is picking a lock. This time she´s not searching for a doctored tape. She´s searching for a heart, and not in the metaphorical way. The one helping in her search is a wolf, not a lion, and he´s not a coward.
Well, she had been in more bizarre situations in her life.
The moment the door opened with a soft click, the wolf was already sneaking inside. The blonde is just closing the door again when she hears the whine. Graham´s wolf is digging his paws into the floor at the edge of the casket. She also noticed marks at the floor.
"So it´s here?"
Before breaking the curse, Emma would never try to talk to an animal, she would also never believe the animal in question could understand her. The wolf let a small bark when he heard her question though.
And that´s what prompted her to push against the stone structure, supposedly guarding the body of Regina´s father. The moment the opening was exposed, her companion bounded down the stairs, Emma following close behind.
Graham was right the first time. That´s where she kept all the stolen hearts, including his. The sound of the casket sliding back into place stopped her urge to bang her head against a wall for her stupidity. If only Regina hadn´t come, maybe they would have found the way in and…
The sight of a wall full of little drawers stopped her thoughts and literally made her stop in her tracks. There were so many drawers, more than Emma could count.
So many hearts. So many stolen hearts.
Emma suddenly feels the bile rising in her throat at the sight. How could Regina do that to so many people? God, what kind of twisted woman was the one who ended up raising her kid? And how had Henry turned out so well, despite being raised by someone so heartless?
The feeling of dampness on her wrist made her look at the ground, where the wolf was staring patiently at her. When he realized he had her attention, the canine started walking in the direction of the wall and she followed him. He put his paw in one of the drawers and turned to look at her.
Taking a deep breath, Emma takes the little drawer of the wall and opens it. Inside there´s a glowing red human heart. It doesn´t beat, just glows in a slow rhythm that´s almost hypnotic. The huntsman´s heart. The heart of the one who spared a young girl and was cruelly punished for it. Graham´s heart.
In his home, the sheriff will hear the triumphant howl of a wolf at the distance while he´s sleeping. He will dream of a forest, a wolf with one red eye and a beautiful, snarky, blonde woman. By morning, he will forget about the forest and the wolf. He will only remember that he dreamed about Emma.
/-\
A/N: Again, sorry for the delay, law school started(and God only knows how long it took to decide the classes I´m taking this semester) and my beta was swamped with uni work. But look at the bright side, the chapters are always long!
Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and let me know your thoughts on it!
