Warning: homosexuality, and mild allusions to sex
Emma was five hours late when she got home. The house was too silent when she turned her in the front lock. Even though Emma hadn't been there very long, she had observed the household enough to know that everyone was wither fighting or sobbing in the aftermath of one. The swept up pieces of a broken vase were piled near the coffee table. The television was turned on, even though no one was in the room; the happy voices of prevailing protagonists echoing throughout the house, making the halls seem hollow and the rooms pockets of tears.
Emma stood in the foyer, unsure of how to proceed, when the lonely droning of the TV was interrupted by the entrance of a young Chinese girl whose countenance implied that a scowl was almost always present on her face. Her brisk walk stuttered briefly as she made eye contact with Emma, but she quickly turned her attention to its earlier focus: the door. Her pace quickened as she flew by Emma as if she wasn't even there and hastened out of the house/ No doubt Emma was curious, as by nature she always was, but she'd rather not know something when that knowledge could lead her to be at odds with a person she was forced to live with. And, seizing the opportunity to postpone her own bit of trouble, she slunk quietly back into her bedroom.
"She's not my lover, Mom," Aurora began correcting Penny. "She's my girlfriend!"
I don't care what she is to you or anybody else, Aurora Rose Longworth, but she is to never set foot on this property again, do you hear me?"
It was breakfast, and there hadn't been any full-out familial brawls in the past ten hours; all the built up tension began to take a toll on Aurora and Penny. Emma and Ella sat watching their argument rally back and forth like a Ping-Pong match.
"I thought you were an advocate of gay rights!" Aurora accused.
"It's not like I have a problem with homosexuality, it's just that I didn't sign up for you to be caught making out with that girl - Yulong? - in the hallway of your Catholic high school, and then bringing her home with you!"
"First off, her name Mulan, not Yulong; second, you can't support things everywhere else but not in your own home - that's hypocrisy; third, there wouldn't have been a single question asked if I were kissing a boy."
"You forget you're going to that school on scholarship, and like it or not we have to strictly abide by the school policies in order for them to keep paying for you to go to school there," Penny reasoned
"You think I want to go school there, Mom!" Aurora cried. "With the people look at me as I walk down the halls? How I'm getting D's in all my classes but no one even says a word because of what happened? How they think I'm so helpless and traumatized? Because I'm not! I deserve to be scolded and given detentions for all the things I do. People shouldn't have to look at me like I'm some spectacle that they're obligated of ogled. Mulan doesn't do that. She calls me out on my bullshit. But we kiss, my very least offense, and suddenly it's like my soul needs to be saved from same-sex relationships? Why would I want to spend most of my time in an institution like that?"
Aurora's speech silenced her mother. Ella only stared with sorrow in her eyes.
"See, that's what I mean," exclaimed Aurora, as she snapped her eyes over to Ella's look of pity. "Even you do it!" She dropped her half-finished banana on the kitchen table and began to stomp out of the room when Ella called after her. "No!" she snapped, pivoting around to face them again. "You don't get to tell me I'm being ridiculous, you whore! You futz around in your pretty makeup and your pretty clothes, with your pretty friends and pretty boyfriend, but you've never gone through what I've been through." She began to leave again, but Ella persisted once more:
"But if you'd just let me be there for you-"
"I don't need anyone," was the shouted response, and after that Ella let that matter drop, sinking back down into her chair to finisher now-soggy bowl of cereal.
Emma preferred to be neutral in these sorts of situations. She knew these were conversation she didn't belong in, and when her opinion was ever wanted on something, she knew it was best to pick the side she knew would win. For now, it seemed Aurora was the clear victor, heavy eyeliner and ripped jeans in all. Emma could tell that this family hadn't always been this dysfunctional; she could see the undercurrent of love that had been overthrown by bitterness and marked by tragedy.
"I'll take you to school," Penny offered as Emma headed out the side door.
'I'll walk" Emma called back, not taking a moment to hesitate; an awkward car ride alone with her new foster-mother was something she wanted to prolong as long as possible, especially after the display with Aurora.
Emma slid into her seat in Mr. Booth's AP English as soon as the late bell rung.
"And not a moment too soon, Miss Swan." He shook his head in either disappointment or in disbelief. Perhaps both.
She found it hard to come to terms with the fact that he was the one who had signed her up to be Killian Jones' tutor without her permission. She couldn't make a scene, or have the school sign a petition about deserving freewill, but she suspected that went against Principal Gold's plan; and any action against Gold's schemes immediately landed you on the chopping block, well at least for her. She still didn't understand why it was so special for her to be a shining example at Storybrooke High. Even if she managed to make through the entire rest of the year there, she would only have been there four months, compare to the four years spent there by others. With her past affecting her future riding on the line, Emma thought it best to keep quiet, lest any prying ears be on the lookout for scandalous information other than Gold. Not many teenagers have a history worth mentioning, let alone fearing. But Emma's was an ominous green loud on the horizon, cursing her to follow her diabolical headmaster's every instruction to the last detail. The sentence might have been more tolerable had Emma not been such a feminist. Or if Killian Jones wasn't her new protégée. Or if she hadn't done what she had done with who she had done it with in the first place - that was the main thing. She supposed she could handle Killian's sarcasm and impertinence, and that she may even followed Gold's orders without question for the sake of a pristine reputation among her teachers, and that her strong support of feminism could have been placed in other causes other than the school environment. But what happened, happened, and not matter how hard she tried to think it away, she couldn't undo it. All that was in her power to do was reply the scenes over and over in her mind from those few months and think of how clueless and vulnerable she had been; how her sapling self had seemingly morphed over night into something sturdy; how her open space had been fenced in and then walled, so high that she could barely see the sky; how her idealisms had been crushed with a single step; how the straw the broke the camel's back was only the first; and how in love she'd been how her heart shattered into a million pieces.
"Today," Mr. Booth addressed the class, snapping Emma out her reverie, "we're throwing everything out the window - literally." He tossed a stack of papers out of the second story window. That janitor was just going to be thrilled.
"In case you were wondering what those are - or were, I should say - that garbage was your essays you wrote for your unit final a month ago. Some of you asked when they would be given back, after several weeks of holding your breath waiting for your results. Well, now you know. You will never, ever get them back. Those of you who think they did a splendid job, feel free to say so, and I will strongly contradict you, hurt you with my words and kindly ask you to leave the classroom, find that goddamn paper and eat it. Every single piece of work that was handed into me for that assignment was a disgrace. It became a literal struggle to read what you had written, there were so many correction marks -" The door squeaked open and lo and behold Killian Jones walked in.
"Ah, Mr. Jones," Mr. Booth regarded him warmly in words that when used by any other teacher might have said otherwise. "How kind of you to grace us with your presence, just as you will this Saturday for detention - you know my zero-tolerance for lateness: I don't care if you're here five hours before the bell, or one second before the bell, just be sure that your ass is planted in that seat before it rings, do you hear me? Take your seat." The class, by now, was snickering and whisperings telephoned from seat to seat. "I don't believe Mr. Jones' humiliation is anything to be laughed about," Mr. Booth said, facing again to the class. "Firstly, laughing about someone isn't the way to do it, you laugh at them, and second, since Mr. Jones decided to turn in his invisible paper for the fifty-second time, he has the least embarrassing essay out of the lot of you."
"What was wrong with them?" a brave soul asked timidly from the back of the classroom.
"Ah, yes, that brings us to today's lesson. 1) All lawyers should be shot on sight, 2) There will never be peace in the Middle East, and 3) Writing requires much more the just technique. Writing is an expression of yourself, as way to connect you to a wider, more varied audience besides staring at your phones all day. Writing expresses educated ideas and beliefs so that a reader can gain insight on the world in which we live, in whatever reality, state, or age we so choose to lives in. Writing discovers universe upon universe in which every thought that one clings to exists, and every universe is drastically different from the others through the drastically different measures of people and their convictions. Writing exposes us to one another; it is a form of art, and art is a medium we use to bear our souls in what normal, everyday actions and words cannot express. And yes, to write, to strip ourselves, we need proper grammar, because without those commas and semicolons it would be disgusting to read. But where you capitalize and punctuate is only a small percentage of what goes into the words. We shouldn't just be making structured coherent sentences and paragraphs and ideas, but words that are woven together in the purpose so that we might understand each other better. So if you chose to write about global warming, and how there is scientific evidence that proves that it is indeed occurring -" Mary Margaret turned bright red - "I shall make you aware right now that that is not at all what I was looking for. I was seeing if you had the ability to choose a topic you were passionate and opinionated about, explain to me why you had that passion and held your opinion, and convince me that I might benefit myself from looking at things from your worldview. But you were incapable of a task that freshman are already beginning to do successfully. You wrote about bland, outdated, overused subjects, spouted a bunch of facts at me, and wrote about what you thought I might like to hear.
"Mr. Jones' invisible paper was by far the most compelling, for he must have had an objection as to why he didn't want to do the assignment, why he never talked privately with me about it, and why when I asked for his essay and offered him fifteen percent credit if he turned it into me an ample two weeks after the due date, he said, 'its bullshit, I didn't write it, I'm not going to write it, and I very well may never write another goddamn thing ever again' - so I thank you, Mr. Jones for being so forthright and I daresay emotional about this assignment."
The whole class except Emma and Mary Margaret tittered at the mention of emotional in the context of Killian Jones.
"Again, with the laughing!" Mr. Booth rose his voice, clamping the students' mouths shut immediately. "Emotion," he said more calmly, " is something everyone in this room is sorely lacking, and something that needs to be acquired to write an extraordinary second draft of this essay." He waited for his words to sink in before he addressed the class again, "Any of you who are still unclear about what the guidelines are, I'll see you after the bell." He looked directly at Miss Swan while saying this, just as the bell marking the end of first period rang.
Emma did as she was told, staying behind while everyone else left.
"Miss Swan," Mr. Booth addressed her warmly, "I had a feeling I'd be seeing you."
She nodded without speaking; Mr. Booth took the hint. "The assignment," he began, "is simple. You write an opinionated piece about something you feel strongly about. The criteria is as follows: a) it must be controversial b) the opinions expressed must be your own c) the minimum length is ten paragraphs, but if you feel you need to add more, you may do so at your leisure, and d) it must be typed in MLA format, with grammatical correctness.
"Your topic can be anything you like, as long as it is unique - you heard my global warming example earlier."
Emma nodded again, and slid out of her seat, accusations sizzling on her tongue that had been smoldering there since the day before. But she bit the inside of her cheek and stayed silent, afraid that even with the slightest opening of her mouth, her words would come spilling out like a tidal wave.
"Have a nice day, Miss Swan, and don't disappoint."
Mary Margaret waited by the door for her again, as Emma secretly hoped she would, only this time she was talking to a tall, lanky boy with bug-eyed glasses and wispy blond hair.
"So the experiment is going well," he stated awkwardly, unaware of Emma's entrance. "I mean we're just getting started and all, but I think we're in pretty good shape to win this year, if Forest Prep. doesn't cheat again."
Emma had no idea who he was, but she recognized the voice; he had been the one brave enough to interrupt Mr. Booth in class. She also realized that the glasses perched on his nose weren't glasses at all, but safety goggles used in a laboratory.
"You could come if you want to... It's next Saturday, so..." he asked May Margaret hopefully.
"Victor," she sighed, "you know I volunteer at the pet shelter on Saturdays.
"But you could skip just one time, right?"
For all of Mary Margaret's poise gentility, nothing had prepared her for that rash, persistent question. "We're having an adoption event," she lied through her teeth, "All hands on deck, and all. But my friend, Ruby, is free. I'm sure she would love to come."
Everything clicked in Emma's mind. Victor was Vic Whale, the science nerd Ruby had been obsessing over. He was in love with Mary Margaret. And the clincher: Ruby didn't know. I was all to soap opera-y for Emma's taste, and this knew tidbit of information might make her budding friendships testy already. God, she hated drama. All she wanted to do was go through the motions and leave, and maybe enjoy herself a little here and there.
"Oh," was all Vic Whale said in response to his rejection as he shuffled down the hall, his backpack falling off his shoulders.
Emma cleared her throat.
"That was some brutal feedback, huh?" said Mary Margaret referring to the English essays. She wanted to pretend that she hadn't stopped to talk to Vic Whale, so did Emma.
So in agreement, "Totally," she said, and they walked out to the yard.
"You'll never guess what happened yesterday!" Ruby squealed when Emma and Mary Margaret sat down at the lunch table with their brown paper bags.
"Vic Whale proposed to you and you're getting married in Vegas over the weekend," Mary Margaret joked. Emma flinched at her words.
"Yeah, like that would happen," Ruby rolled her eyes. "Obviously not. Graham spilt coffee all over Emma's boobs, and then went to clean it up! How hilarious is that. He literally took a handful of napkins without a second thought, and was, like, about to unwittingly feel her up. I mean seriously! He had no clue! You'd think that my incredibly hot cousin would have at least some remedial knowledge of the female anatomy. And then, as he is a poet, went and offered to buy the very drink which ruined her shirt!"
"Classic Humbert," remarked Mary Margaret. Emma didn't realize that good people were even better liars. Maybe the reason saints were saints was because they could even fool God.
"What really topped it off was the fat he knows second cousins are allowed to procreate, but he can't seem to figure out what side of the road to drive on."
"Graham's kind of a stud," Mary Margaret said to Emma. As if that wasn't blatantly obvious already.
"He's banged nearly every girl here," Ruby added, "and rumor has it he used be Regina's boy toy."
"Wait," Emma interrupted. "Isn't Killian Jones the one who does everybody?"
"No," Ruby corrected. "Killian Jones is the one chicks want to be banged by. They don't though. Girls want Graham, too. But they always get Graham, so there really isn't much mystery there. Killian Jones gets kinky stories made up about him; Graham is gushed over by how good his in bed, but that's all. They're sexually famous for two completely different reasons of the same species. The core of people's desire for them is based evenly on good looks."
"It's just that Humbert's kind of the golden boy of sex," observed Mary Margaret. "He's good at it; He's experienced. But he's something that everyone knows has plenty to go around. But Killian Jones," she got a mischievous twinkle in her eye, "is exclusive material. He doesn't do just anybody. He'll flirt, he'll tease. But there are very, very few people that can claim they've done the dirty with Killian Jones, and even fewer of them ever admit to it. That's how much of a god he is."
Emma and even Ruby gaped. No one - no one - had even briefly entertained the idea of Little Miss Virgin to make such a lust-haze speech.
"What?" Mary Margaret defended, snapping out of her daydream. "It's not like I did any of those things with him!" She turned bright red. "I just hear things, that's all."
"You hear some pretty juicy shit," Ruby leaned back in her seat, clearly impressed.
"I just wonder how he's in AP English," Emma mused, drawing the conversation away from Killian Jones sex fantasies.
"Me too," Mary Margaret concurred. "Do you think he actually does his work but Mr. Booth pretends to the class he doesn't?"
"No way!" Ruby disagreed. "In my whole life, I never saw Killian Jones try at anything."
"Maybe its part of Gold's twisted plot."
"Plot to what? To ruin our lives? Doctoring transcripts in a positive way doesn't fit the M.O."
"There's something everyone's been missing about him - a connection that's been right in front of our faces this whole time that we can't seem to make sense of," Emma thought aloud. She had to admit, she was curious about anomaly that was Killian Jones - but only because she wanted to beat him. She wanted to put the pieces together for the sake of being the only one to do it. She loved doing that with anything. Butch had figured that out back in Michigan. There'd been nasty drug thefts back when she was fourteen between a notorious bank robber who called himself the Pinocchio with his henchman and the Lost Ones, a gang run by a powerful anonymous leader. Emma had helped catch a couple gang members, Greg and Tamara, who'd managed to gain considerable favor with the elusive chief. But he, along with the Pinocchio, were never seen again as far as she knew.
Despite the danger, this had been Emma's favorite case because it was other-worldly compared to graffiti artists and stolen sandwiches at the 7-Eleven. It was the only case she never solved, too. She often wondered what happened to the Pinocchio. Once, she'd caught a glimpse of him, and the only thing she could remember after he knocked her out cold was wood where his flesh should have been on his right leg. The lies he told must have been doozies.
So yes, as a freshman in high school Emma Swan came face-to-face with a ne'er-do-well scallywag from Manifest, Michigan (population 2,300). After that, she should have sure as shit gotten moved to another foster family. But she would have anyway, no matter what, because Butch died three weeks later. That was the other reason she wondered about the Pinocchio.
"Why are you doing this?" Mr. Booth demanded as soon as he shut the door behind him.
"This is how it works, Mr. Booth," Principal Gold began, "Miss Swan is here to stay. She and I have a special agreement that she won't be causing any mischief around here, given her unpleasant history that you do have the privilege to be privy of. You, after living it up as a thief in Michigan and knocking Miss Swan out cold in a dark alley, straightened up, and applied for a job here. I know everything about everybody , Mr. Booth, and that includes you, so naturally I'd already heard about your shady business. Of course, I hired you, because of your interactions with the Lost Ones. Mr. Jones, another facet of mine, has connections to a personal matter, as does Miss Swan. And now, I've made her tutor him. And if all goes according to plan, I shall have what I need to finish what I started: find my son.
"Emma and Killian are indispensable, but you, you are only a pawn, and can easily be replaced, coincidence has been beneficial in your happening upon me before I happened upon you. But make no mistake, Mr. Booth: I never go back on a deal, but you decide not to hold up your end of the bargain, there will be severe consequences, is that understood?"
"Loud and clear."
So, um, yeah guys. The plot thickens. The themes that have been present throughout the previous chapters shall still be the most important, and will strongly carry through to the rest of the story. Remember Emma's legal trouble in the real OUAT? This ties a lot in with that. August being desperate? That's also in this. Gold scheming as per usual and doing everything in his power to find his son? Yup. Gold manipulating Emma? Double yup. So it won't be so Law and Order-y all the time, y'all, I swear. Just a little drama for yo mamma!