prompt from afirewiel: Emma and Graham's reunion after Emma and Snow return from their time in the Enchanted Forest in season 2. (Graham came back after the curse was lifted, but Emma doesn't know that until she gets back so this reunion would be her first time seeing him since his death.)
Conceal.
Graham… Graham is gone. The first man in over a decade to actually make her believe in so much as the possibility of love, and he is gone. Dead, in her arms, just like that.
Don't feel.
He's gone. There's a hole in Emma Swan's heart that she knows will never be filled; and it's all from losing him. But she can't let anyone see that, not Mary Margaret or Ruby or Henry or God-forbid Regina.
Don't let them know.
She only cries for him behind closed doors, where no one else can see. She doesn't ever, ever mention him. He's gone. There's nothing she can do… Nothing but hide her pain and wrap his old bootlace around her wrist to keep him with her in some small way.
…
Emma takes Mary Margaret's hand and jumps into the portal. She's going home, to Storybrooke.
She had tried not to show her sheer terror when Cora revealed she had Aurora's heart (because she knows the truth now. Graham was always right. His heart… His heart had been in Regina's hands all along. Henry was right. That bitch crushed Graham's heart into dust because he chose himself). She wasn't sure she'd succeeded, but no one had said anything… No one had asked. So she has to assume that she'd hidden her feelings well.
They come out in that stupid well that August had taken her to, and she uses the rope as she climbs up the stone wall. When she's about to the top, strangely familiar callused hands take her arms and pull her up out of the well, almost too fast for her to register what's happening.
It's not until her feet are firmly on the ground that she takes in the hands… And the arms attached to them… And looks up and sees his face.
"Graham?" she whispers, not daring to believe her eyes. He… He had died in her arms. She cannot let herself believe it.
"It's me, Emma," he says, one of his hands moving down to her wrist, where the lace from his boot lies, the other coming up and cupping her face.
"No- No, that's not possible," she shakes her head. She doesn't know what else this could be, but it can't be him.
He gently guides her hand up to his heart. The beat is strong and steady and it feels so real under her palm. But she thought it felt real that last day, too. And she'd been wrong. So it was just so easy to assume she was wrong again. How can she get her hopes up? That's what she'd done that night – and she'd lost him.
"The curse- When it broke- It brought me back, I don't know how," he explains softly, "Please, Emma, you have to believe me."
She wants to. Oh, God she wants to. Her heart is screaming at her to believe him, but her head won't allow it.
"Emma," Mary Margaret's voice breaks through their little bubble, "For heaven's sake, just kiss him!"
She swallows, locking her gaze on his deep blue eyes. They are shining with adoration and love and that gaze feels so familiar (it's how he was looking at her as he leaned in to kiss her that third time, that time that never happened, she knows this) and it makes her ache.
"You're real?" she barely lets the question past her lips; whether he is or not, of course his answer would end up being yes. Either because it was the truth, or to torture her.
"I am," he confirms.
She reaches up to meet his lips, barely brushing them; this is tentative, more a test than anything else. The memory of his taste matches this, sending hopeful shivers down Emma's spine. Oh, even such a soft kiss is glorious perfection and she knows it is him and she needs more, so much more. She presses their lips more firmly together and it doesn't matter so much how he's back; he simply is, and that is what's important.
He is back, and they have forever.