Chapter Thirty-Five

Her head felt like it had been filled with flour. Resting her throbbing temple against one fist, Emma leaned over her desk and inhaled the pungent smell of her coffee. Her stomach was not strong enough for hot chocolate that morning.

She groaned and shifted position in her chair, closing her eyes against the glaringly bright overhead lights. Again, that same memory from the night before trickled through her brain – a hand gently running over her hair as she tumbled into a disjointed sleep. A pair of arms winding their way around her body as they tried and failed to carry her up the stairs. She heard someone cleaning up the mess on the floor, and she felt the cold metal of tweezers digging into the soles of her feet. Then, when she fully woke up hours later, she looked around and she realised that she was still lying on the kitchen floor, a blanket over her legs and a cushion from the couch beneath her head – but she was now alone.

She tentatively pressed her foot against the sole of her boot and immediately hissed in pain. Regina had done good work removing the glass from her skin, but the damage was already done. The walk from her car to the sheriff station that morning had left her almost crying.

She lifted her leg and draped it across the corner of her desk, then hooked the other over the top of it. The pressure left her cut feet, and she sighed. Letting her head fall backwards over the back of her chair, she closed her eyes and clung on tightly to that sickeningly comforting feeling of having Regina's arms back around her.

And then suddenly a voice. 'Emma?'

She jolted forwards, a wave of absolute sickness punching her in the stomach as her eyes snapped open and she looked over towards the door.

'Oh,' she said, relaxing. She watched as August fidgeted beside the doorframe. 'Hey.'

'Hi,' he replied, taking a step into the room. 'Everything okay?'

Emma watched as he lurched over towards his usual seat and lowered himself down into it.

'Fine,' she said slowly, trying to focus her swimming vision on the blue of his eyes rather than the increasing blurriness of the rest of his face. 'You?'

Ignoring her question, August leaned forwards against his knees. 'You look like crap.'

She groaned. 'August. Not now.'

'Sorry, but you do. What's wrong?'

'I really don't want to talk about this right now.'

August's face softened. 'Emma… you look like… just after…'

Emma's already rolling stomach dropped a few inches. She heard what he was going to say before he managed to say it: just after Moe had attacked her. Except she didn't look like that, and they both knew it – because she looked worse. When Moe had taken his gun into City Hall, Emma had come out of it broken. Now, when August looked at her, she was beyond that. She was defeated.

'Oh, Emma,' he sighed, his eyes dimming. 'What's happened?'

The absolute sadness in his voice nearly killed her, and she pressed her hand over her eyes.

'August,' she muttered, swallowing down the repeating taste of vodka and whisky. 'I'm sorry. But I really, really don't want to talk right now. I just want to be left alone. That's all.'

August considered her for a moment.

'No you don't,' he said quietly. 'You want somebody to yell at.'

Emma peered around at him from behind her fingers. 'What?'

'You're pissed off,' August said. 'You need to shout at someone.'

'I don't—'

'It would help, right?'

Rolling her eyes, Emma said, 'I'm not yelling at you, August. You're not the person that I'm angry at here.'

August went quiet for a moment. His hand was gripping hold of his knee when he spoke. '…but you are angry?'

Emma looked flatly at him, her eyes almost grey. 'What gave it away?'

He nodded thoughtfully, taking in the dark circles beneath her eyes and the scarf that she was wearing that he was almost certain didn't actually belong to her. It was dark blue, and it looked too expensive. It had Regina written all over it.

Emma's left hand was curling against the edges of it without her realising, the thin fabric sliding between her trembling fingers.

August looked down at his jumping knee and sighed. Then, without a word, he lifted his leg up by the loose fabric of his jeans and let it drop onto the edge of Emma's desk. She didn't notice the dull thudding sound.

'August,' she snapped, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. 'For god's sake. Can you not—'

And then she stopped.

August watched as her face darkened and she suddenly rolled her chair away from the desk. 'Jesus!'

It was wooden. And it was glowing.

'What in the fuck is wrong with your leg?!' she yelped, backing her chair away until it hit the wall. She was gripping hold of the arm rests like she was afraid that the floor was about to drop out from beneath her.

August smiled sadly. 'So you can see it now.'

'See what?' she spluttered. 'What happened to you? When did you lose your leg?!'

'Emma,' August groaned, looking up towards the ceiling and praying for patience. 'It's always been like this.'

'What? No it hasn't. You showed it to me and—'

'You couldn't see it,' August said calmly. 'It was always there. You just chose to ignore it.'

Her green eyes glanced down at the faintly glowing wood, shining worriedly. 'What…?'

Taking a deep breath, August dropped his foot back down to the floor and leaned forwards onto his knees once more.

'I know what Regina told you, Emma.'

At this, her eyes narrowed. '…what?'

'I know who she is,' he said. 'She's… the queen. The Evil Queen. And I know that she's told you. I know that's why you're angry.'

Emma nearly choked as she demanded, 'How could you possibly know—'

'I spoke to her,' he said. 'She told me that she would tell you.'

'Why in the hell would she tell you that?' Emma said dryly, tilting her head to one side. 'She hates you, August. She doesn't trust you.'

'She still doesn't trust me,' he shrugged, smiling slightly. 'And I think she might hate me even more. But she still told me.'

'Why?'

'Because,' August said, faltering momentarily. '…because I'm from that world, Emma. I left it before the curse hit, but I'm from there. I'm just as much of a fairy tale as she is.'

Yet again, Emma's disbelieving eyes glanced down to where August's leg was resting out of sight beneath the table. 'And the leg. The leg makes you…?'

'Pinocchio,' August said simply. Emma's face didn't even twitch.

'Pinocchio,' she repeated, slumping back in her chair with an exhausted sigh. 'Of course you are.'

'You don't believe me?'

Emma groaned. 'I have no idea. It's not the weirdest thing I've heard this week. But then again, I can't exactly say that I'm a hundred per cent on board with all of the bizarre crap that Regina's told me, either.'

'You can see my leg,' August said. 'So you must believe her. Even if it's only a little bit.'

Emma just looked at him for a moment.

'Wait,' she said, suddenly leaning forwards. 'Is that why she doesn't like you?'

'Why?'

'Because you're from… from their world. Your world. Whatever. She doesn't like you because you escaped the… you know?'

'The curse,' August gently prompted. Then he shook his head. 'No – she just doesn't like me because I'm an intrusive son of a bitch. She didn't know who I really was until last week.'

Emma opened her mouth to respond, and then slowly closed it again. Her eyes darkened to a frightening shade of forest green as she watched him.

'…then why did she tell you any of this?' she slowly asked, gritting her teeth. 'Why would she talk to you about it? About me?'

August paused. He struggled to swallow for a moment, and Emma quickly grew impatient.

'August,' she snapped, rolling her chair back towards the desk. 'She doesn't trust you. She hates you. Why would she confide in you about any of this?'

Wetting his lips, August tried not to let the worry show on his face.

'Well,' he said, his eyes flicking away from hers. 'I suppose… because there's a chance… that I told her that I knew about you two.'

There was a pause. And then, '…knew what about us?'

'Emma,' August said dryly, raising an eyebrow. 'For god's sake. Your roommate may still be completely blind, but not everyone is able to ignore the way that you two look at one another. You love her – that's why you're so angry.'

'I do not—'

'Give me a break,' August interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest. 'Why else do you think that she told you the truth? She loves you too, Emma. The only person in the world that she might love more than you is Henry, and that's only because he's never punched her in the face.'

Emma's eyes were darting across his face, panicked, like she was looking for an escape. The grey tinge to her skin had turned white.

'You…' she croaked out, shaking her head. 'You knew? All along?'

'Not all along,' August said. 'Just, I don't know. A few months, maybe. A bit less…'

'You knew?!' she screamed. 'You knew that we were together and you knew who she was and you never thought to tell me?!'

August coolly looked back at her.

'Would you have believed me?' he asked. Emma spluttered.

'No,' she snapped. 'But a little warning might have been nice.'

And then August had the audacity to roll his eyes. 'Give me a break, Emma – you would have laughed in my face. I can't even imagine what Regina must have done to make you actually believe her, but it can't have been easy.'

A hiss of rage escaped from her lips. 'Of course it wasn't easy,' she barked. 'I love her. I love her. What part of that makes this easy? How could anyone find out that about her and keep loving her?'

August shrugged. 'Henry does.'

'Then Henry's a better person than I am,' Emma snapped. 'And he's sure as hell a better person than she is.'

After considering this for a moment, August quietly said, 'She's changed, you know. She changed for you.'

Widening her eyes in exasperation, Emma said, 'She killed people, August! She killed Graham. She probably would have killed me too, at one point.'

'Maybe,' August shrugged. 'But obviously she didn't. She chose not to, because she chose to trust you instead. She fell in love with you and she got you involved in this whole messed up drama and you have to stop being angry at her for that.'

'I am not angry at her for that!' Emma spat, slamming a palm down on the top of the desk.

'Really?' August said, raising an eyebrow. 'If you had found out about this under any other circumstance, you would be furious. You would have hunted her down and strangled her yourself. But you love her, Emma – and that makes you even angrier. You're angry because your heart is broken and you're angry because it's only breaking in the first place because you think that you were stupid enough to decide to give it to her.'

'Well, I didn't need to bother,' Emma snorted. 'Apparently she takes them from people whenever she damn well pleases anyway.'

'But she wouldn't take yours,' August countered. 'And you know it.'

'August. Why are you defending her?!'

'Because she's done some fucking terrible things – but she's also done some pretty great ones too,' August said flatly, his eyes somehow suddenly colourless. 'She raised your kid, Emma. She built this town and, however inadvertently, she gave people a life away from all of the horrible things that happened to them back home. And then, she gave you a life – she picked you up and she helped to fix you, and she made you happy. And all of this other stuff… I don't know...'

He sighed, leaning back in his chair for a moment. Emma watched him curiously, twirling the edges of her expensive scarf between her fingers as she took in the certainty in his icy eyes. She almost softened at the quiet way in which he was defending the woman that he was meant to passionately and most intrinsically hate.

'It's sick, Emma – what she did,' he eventually sighed. 'It's cruel and heartless and she needs some serious therapy. But I don't think it's so important, in the end. Not really. It's not the stuff that really matters.'