"What's bothering you?"
Emma looks up from the papers in front of her, her gaze unfocussed.
"Huh?"
David sighs. "Emma. You've been distracted all day. Tell me what's going on."
"It's nothing."
David casually leans against her desk at the sheriff's station, his arms crossed, looking thoughtful. At her statement, his eyebrows shoot up. He's clearly not buying it.
"Fine. If you don't want to talk about, I'll respect your privacy."
Emma detects a slight note of hurt in his voice. David turns around abruptly and stalks off to his own desk. Emma gives up on the report in front of her and sighs. She's been rereading the same paragraph three times now without taking in any information. She just cannot focus. She should be investigating who cast the curse, but she cannot focus on that task either. Damn Hook.
The phone on David's desk rings and she jolts in surprise. The sound is very loud in the silent office. David picks it up and talks to whoever is on the line. Emma has difficulty following his conversation, her thoughts straying back to the events of the morning. Damn that damnable pirate and his unasked for declarations.
David gets up and grabs his coat.
"Something is happening on main street. Apparently the road is blocked. Let's have a look."
Emma is grateful for the distraction, then immediately angry at herself. She shouldn't be happy about being distracted. She should be busy finding out what the hell is going on and what she can do to stop it.
Emma stares at the scene before her, her mouth hanging open. There's an honest to God marching band blocking main street. At the head of the marching band is Gold, down on one knee. Belle is standing before him, beaming down at him. Even from the distance, it's clear that she's overjoyed.
Emma hears the 'Yes' in spite of the distance. Gold stands up and they embrace each other. The gathered crowd actually cheers. Emma narrows her eyes and looks at the faces of the townsfolk next to her and it's big, honest smiles all around.
And all of a sudden something that has been bothering her since they entered town slams to the forefront of her mind. People seem genuinely happy. She remembers when she came to Storybrooke for the first time. The atmosphere back then was downright gloomy. There was something in the air, like everybody was caught in a trap, unable to live the life they really wanted. Back then, the town was suffused with unfulfilled potential, unlived dreams, haunting memories of a different life.
She sees none of that in the faces around her. Everybody seems full of life and energy. The bystanders look genuinely happy for Gold and Belle. It's a completely different Storybrooke. Now that she's noticed, she wonders how she could have missed this vital piece of information for so long. A small voice in the back of her head pipes up that maybe she has been distracted, but she shuts it down. She needs to focus. She has a strong feeling that she's onto something here.
David is talking to Gold, presumably trying to get the marching band of the street. He's smiling, though, so she assumes it's a friendly conversation. Emma has a sudden thought. David looks like he'll be fine on his own. She turns around to check the clock tower and sure enough, the clock is ticking. On a hunch, Emma enters the building and makes her way to the top of the tower.
There's nothing out of the ordinary in the tower as far as she can see. She sighs and makes her way down the stairs again. When she exits the building, she notices a woman across the street staring at her. Emma is pretty certain that she has never seen her before. The woman is strikingly beautiful, tall, with long blond, almost white, hair falling down her shoulders. Even though she's wearing jeans and a plain shirt, she looks like she just stepped out of some fairy tale. Which is probably what happened.
The woman realizes that Emma has spotted her and turns away, walking quickly into an alley. Emma gives chase. Her gut instinct tells her that this woman knows something about what's going on. Emma follows her for several minutes. The strange woman is almost running now and Emma has to speed up in order to keep up with her.
Emma turns around a corner into a dead end. An empty dead end. Which is impossible, since she's sure the woman was ahead of her and definitely took a turn around this corner.
"Can I help you?", she hears a strong, commanding voice behind her.
Emma turns around and up close the woman is even more striking. Her features look like somebody chiselled her out of white marble, possible while trying to create a statue of an angel. Her expression diminishes the illusion a little, she looks angry and annoyed.
Emma decides on a straightforward approach. She spent enough time beating around the bush already.
"Have you ever been to the Enchanted Forest?"
The woman's eyes widen a tiny fraction. Gotcha, Emma thinks.
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you are referring to."
Emma is more than done with all of it and ready for this nightmare to be over. Hence, her reply comes out a little more gruffly than she intended.
"Listen, I know when people are lying to me and you're lying your ass off right now. How are you involved with this curse?"
"Curse?"
Her expression is one of honest confusion and it's so well done that Emma almost believes it. However, her gut instinct tells her a different story.
"Cut the bullshit, lady. The curse who brought everyone back to Storybrooke."
The woman's expression changes. "You're Emma, aren't you?"
Emma considers her options for a second and decides to go with the truth. "Yes. Emma Swan. The saviour. At your service. Now, please tell me what the hell is going on here."
The woman looks her up and down. "I don't understand. Why are your memories still intact?"
"So you do know what's going on here!" Emma crosses her arms. "Spill it."
The woman sighs but something in Emma's stance must have convinced her that further argument is useless.
"We went back to the Enchanted Forest and for a while everything was fine. People were happy to be home again. Or deluded themselves into thinking they were. But then, out of nowhere, there was more and more unrest, people started complaining about every little thing." She pauses. "I guess you only know the value of indoor plumbing once you don't have it anymore. People began to crave the luxuries they had known in this world. Chocolate. Coffee. Internet. For regular folks, life is much tougher in the Enchanted Forest than in Storybrooke. I saw unhappy faces everywhere, people easy to anger and quick to lash out at one another."
She looks around, as if trying to find something to reassure herself.
"We didn't really belong there any longer. Yet, we also didn't belong in this world. We are cursed to be forever drawn to two worlds, our memories divided between the old life we knew in the Enchanted Forest and the new life we knew here. I felt we are better off without knowing the truth about ourselves."
Emma looks at her in shock.
"You cast the curse because you thought it would make people happy?" Her eyes widen as she remembers the details of the curse. "You crushed the heart of the thing you loved most because you weren't quite satisfied with your life style?"
The woman huffs. "Don't be silly, child. I didn't cast a dark curse. I gave people the life they deserve."
Emma's eyes narrow in confusion.
"Who are you?"
The woman smiles. "That's irrelevant. Besides, you won't remember it even if I told you."
She reaches forward quicker than Emma can react, touching Emma's forehead with her index finger. The sensation she experienced at the town line returns, only much stronger. She feels her magic flare up, fighting against the intrusion, but this time she isn't strong enough. She feels her memories slip away from her one by one and it's a terrifying feeling.
"S-stop." Her protest is weak, her vision slowly going blurry.
The last thing she hears is the woman's voice, sounding strangely soothing.
"Stop fighting, Emma. Be happy."
Killian puts down his book and picks up his tea. The beverage has long since gone cold, but he doesn't notice, he's too deep in thought. He picked up the book in the hope that it might contain a clue about the curse. After all, it's a product of the curse and it's about a boy finding out the truth. If he's honest with himself, that was mostly an excuse. What he actually needed was something to distract him from his fight with Emma.
He spent the morning walking around town aimlessly, trying to clear his mind. His treacherous feet took him to the docks and he stood there for a long time, looking at the open water, his heart filled with a strange melancholy. After a while, he was fed up with his self pity and decided to do something productive. He went to the pawn shop, intend on confronting the crocodile.
No matter the realm, Rumpelstiltskin always has something to hide. Killian is certain the man has something to do with this curse or at least some knowledge of what happened. Alas, the crocodile was nowhere to be found. Killian spent half an hour in a fruitless search of his shop, finding nothing that brought him any closer to solving the riddle. In the end, he returned home, still as frustrated and upset as when he left.
The book had turned out to be a great distraction. It had a decidedly unreal feeling to it. He recognized a lot of phrases, a lot of idioms, the style of it felt like something he could have written. It was at the same time unbelievably familiar and yet completely unknown to him. And it was quite well written, if he could say so himself. He was captivated by it, devouring page after page.
He rubs his eyes, then picks the book up again. He is so enraptured that he doesn't hear the door open and close. He jolts when he feels the soft brush of Emma's hair as she leans over his shoulder to find out what he's so captivated with.
"Feeling a bit narcissistic today, are we?" Her words are teasing, but they lack the bite he expected. Her voice is affectionate, fond even. His head snaps up and he drops the book on the table.
Emma is smiling down at him. It's an honest, open smile which transforms her face and makes her breathtakingly beautiful. Alarm bells go off in the back of Killian's mind immediately. Something is not right.
She straightens up and looks around. "Where's Henry?"
Killian studies her, takes in her relaxed pose, her friendly smile and the unsettling feeling that something is wrong with her intensifies.
"He's spending the afternoon at a friend's, playing with something called an 'exbox'."
Emma grins down at him. "Something 'called an X-box' says the man who almost missed the deadline for his second novel because of Halo 4."
A terrifying thought strikes Killian. "Emma, love, are you feeling well?"
Emma is still smiling and even though he has to concede it's a beautiful sight, it is rather unsettling at the moment.
"Never better", she states and sits down on his lap, her legs on either side of him and dives in for a passionate kiss. He's too surprised to react at first. After a moment, he responds in kind, without thinking. The kiss is deep and affectionate, yet it is completely different from their first kiss. It's not fast and hard, it is rather a promise of things to come.
Killian's worst fears seem to have become reality. Again. He pulls back from the kiss and looks at Emma's face.
Emma is looking back at him with an unguarded expression and what he sees there takes his breath away. There's desire in her eyes, affection and love. She's looking at him as if they have known each other all their lives, as if she wants to be with him, as if she's content and happy. Killian swallows around the sudden lump in his throat.
"I need to take a shower", she says and grins at him wickedly, "Wanna join?"
Killian groans and closes his eyes for a heartbeat. He cannot stop the image that invades his mind, him and Emma in the shower, the water running down her bare skin. He's growing hard and he knows she must feel it.
When he opens his eyes again, Emma is looking at him with a smug expression, clearly pleased with the effect she is having on him. She kisses him again, slowly and passionately, and he is lost in the moment, forgetting for a second that this is not Emma, that this is not what she really wants. For a second, he allows himself to be just in the present and forget the ramifications.
It is him once more who pulls back first, to find Emma looking at him expectantly. There is a small, selfish part of him that just wants to say yes. He has been through so much, has given up so much, surely he must have earned this by now. She finally wants this, wants him and it would be so easy to give in and pretend it's true.
But even as he is having these thoughts, he knows in his heart that it's not right. It would not only be very bad form indeed, it would be a breach of trust that he's certain they could never come back from. Emma isn't herself right now. It would be the same as taking advantage of a drunk or intoxicated lass. He is not that kind of man. Especially not when it comes to Emma.
He watches the expression on Emma's face change slowly, the smile turning to worry. "Is everything alright?"
"Aye. Yes", he struggles for something to say, "I'm just not in the mood at the present moment."
Killian has told many lies in his long life, but that might just be the most outrageous untruth to ever leave his lips.
Emma's eyebrows shoot up in surprise, then the wicked smile returns.
"Really? Because I think there is some hard evidence to the contrary."
Killian bites his lip. He never pictured himself on the receiving end of the innuendo. He tries to come up with some explanation that won't clue Emma in immediately to the fact that he's not quite the man she married. He comes up empty-handed. He can't think of a single reason why he shouldn't join Emma in the shower. Well, actually he thought of a couple of very good reasons just a minute ago, but none that he can share with the woman in his lap.
"Um", he says, stupidly, looking anywhere but at Emma.
Emma puts her left hand on his cheek and tilts his head to face her.
"Are you sure you're alright? What's going on?"
Killian has a sudden inspiration.
"I, um, just had an idea. For a novel. I need to put it into writing before the words vanish. My apologies, love."
Emma looks disappointment, but unsurprised. It seems he got lucky and found a plausible excuse.
"Okay. Try not to stay up the whole night, honey. Even writers need sleep."
She gives him another quick kiss, then she slips out of his lap and stands up.
He waits until she has safely vanished out of sight, then he drops his arms on the table and his head on top of them. Whatever did he do in his life for the Gods to decide to tempt him so? Well, he can think of quite a few things he did that might incline the Gods to punish him, but surely this torture is more than any mortal man deserves. For crying out loud, she just got her memories back. Surely, this can't be happening again.
He sits up straight once more, deciding that there is no use in self-pity. He'll just have to find a way to break this damnable curse as soon as possible. He needs to speak with David and find out exactly what the two of them were doing today. If he can retrace her steps, maybe he can figure out at what point Emma's memories were affected. A scary thought hits him. What if the same thing happens to him? What if he also gets affected and they continue their lives like this, unaware of who they truly are?
His eyes are drawn back to the book. Would it really be such a terrible life? He was a successful man in this reality. He had a job, a house, friends. A better life than he deserved. He had Emma. And Henry.
The irony of the situation is not lost on him. Only a few days ago he told Emma that she couldn't live a lie and now he is considering to do exactly that. No, it wouldn't do. He's certain that their true identities could never be erased completely. Surely, something of their true selves, their essence, must remain and always cast a tiny shadow of doubt on their existence. No, he will break the spell somehow and win Emma over without the trickery of a curse.