A/N: don't worry, I'll get back to the Killian storyline. I just missed August and wanted to add in some more about his friendship with Emma.
"Hi," the man said, his voice raspy.
Emma got to her feet slowly, moving towards August in disbelief. The whole of the diner had fallen silent, every set of eyes transfixed on the tramp. As Emma moved closer, the smell of alcohol reached her nostrils and she took in the bloodshot eyes and slightly glazed expression. The man was clearly drunk.
"Outside," Emma muttered, glancing over at Ruby who nodded her understanding that she'd keep an eye on Henry.
The blonde led the way out of the diner, August shuffling behind her and into the street. It was one of the first warm days of the year, March having brought with it the promise of spring, and Emma leaned against the wall beside the diner, waiting for August to speak.
"How are you?" he asked at last, his voice trembling slightly.
"Better than you," Emma remarked. "What the fuck happened?"
"Lost my job," August shrugged. "It took me ages to hitch back to the city and then when I got to our tunnel, you weren't there."
"No," Emma replied shortly. She didn't want to tell August about Regina and she certainly didn't want him knowing about Henry. It wasn't that Emma didn't trust the man, it was more that bad luck seemed to follow him even more than it clung to herself.
"You look good," he said, his eyes taking in her new coat and the clean appearance. "Great, actually."
"Well my life has turned a corner," Emma said. "And I don't want it going back to how it was."
There was a bite in her tone as she spoke and, even inebriated, August winced. He knew she was implying that his return might cause such a reversal of her fortunes. He also knew she was probably right.
"I'm sorry I left," August said. "I'm really sorry I left you alone, Emma. But I needed the job."
"Not enough to stop drinking though," Emma remarked. "I assume that is why you got fired?"
August nodded and looked away from the piercing eyes of his friend. Alcohol had always been his crutch, the only thing which kept the PTSD at bay. It didn't eclipse it completely, of course. The trauma was always there, bubbling just beneath the surface, threatening to explode and consume his life once more. Which it had in Chicago, mere weeks after he arrived.
"Why are you here, August?" Emma asked when the man didn't say anything further. "I can't help you. I can't have you drag me back to where I was when you left. My life is finally looking up and I can't risk losing that."
August understood what the blonde was saying but it still hurt. He might have abandoned Emma but somehow he had still believed she would help him when he returned. After all, the blonde was an infinitely better person than he was. As he rationalised this, he realised that she probably didn't deserve his shit-show of a life being mixed up with hers again.
"Ok," he sighed. "I'm sorry to have bothered you."
He turned and began to walk slowly down the street, stumbling a little over his sock-clad feet. Emma's heart broke at the sight and she dug in her pocket for some money.
"August, wait," she called, hurrying after him and pressing a twenty dollar bill into his hand. "Go and sober up in a shelter somewhere. Get some shoes. Don't buy any alcohol. Just, be safe, ok?"
August nodded and managed a weak smile in thanks. Emma watched him until he walked out of sight and then returned to the diner. Henry was kneeling up in the booth and had obviously watched the entire exchange curiously.
"Who was that?" he asked before Emma had even sat down.
"An old friend," Emma sighed.
"From when you didn't have a house?" he asked. Emma nodded. "But you have one now," he clarified. Emma nodded once more. "But your friend doesn't have a house?"
"No, kid, he doesn't," Emma sighed, running a hand over her face. Despite the encounter with August being short, she felt drained.
"Why not?"
Emma hesitated before answering. She realised she had never herself had a conversation with Henry about her time on the streets and didn't know what the boy's mother had told him either.
"He doesn't have a job any more," she settled on. "Just like me when you first met me."
"I gave you some money," Henry said, his memory crystal clear of that day. Even at four years old, he recognised the significance of that encounter, although he had no way of knowing just what an impact Emma would have on his life at the time.
"You did," Emma nodded. "That was very kind of you."
"What did you do with it?" Henry asked.
"The money? I came here, actually," Emma said, remembering the cup of coffee Ruby had made for her that cold January evening. It seemed like a lifetime ago, she realised.
"Is that how you got your job here?" Henry asked.
"In a way," Emma nodded.
"Why don't you work here any more?"
Yet another awkward question. Emma was sure that Henry knew nothing of her time inside and she certainly didn't want to be the one to tell him her prison records were why Granny fired her. Luckily, Regina arrived at that moment and distracted her son.
"Hello my little prince," Regina said, scooping Henry into her arms and kissing his cheeks. "How was your day?"
"Good," Henry smiled. "Emma's friend came to say hello."
Regina turned to the blonde and raised her eyebrows. Emma mouthed 'I'll tell you later' and waved Ruby over so they could pay their bill.
"How was work?" Emma asked as Regina sat down.
"You know I'm going to be able to ask you that question next Monday," Regina said, practically glowing with pride. Emma didn't think anyone had ever been proud of her in her life but that was certainly how Regina had acted when Emma told her about her new job. It made her feel warm and fuzzy inside, although she hated herself for using those terms. Emma Swan had never considered herself fuzzy before.
"And I hope I can answer positively," Emma said. She was already nervous about her new job and the responsibilities which would inevitably come with it. Seeing August again had awoken some old doubts too; would she ever be more than just a street-rat? August didn't seem to be able to drag himself up so why would she?
Regina, naturally, noticed Emma's pensive mood for the remainder of the day and as soon as Henry was in bed that evening, she asked the blonde what was wrong.
"You know that friend Henry mentioned? It was August."
Regina let out a low exhale. She had spent the past few weeks searching for the man but had come up empty at every turn. And now he had just waltzed back into Emma's life out of thin air. Judging by the look on the blonde's face, his return had not been welcome.
"What happened?" Regina asked, resuming the washing up she was doing. Emma was perched on the kitchen counter beside her, swigging from a beer bottle.
"He was a mess," Emma shrugged. "Drunk, filthy, suffering from PTSD again."
"What did you do?"
"Gave him twenty bucks and sent him to a shelter," Emma replied. "What more could I do?"
Regina had to admit she didn't know much about living on the streets, aside what Emma had told her, and even less about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but she knew it couldn't be ignored.
"Is there any way we can help him?" Regina asked.
"We?" Emma frowned. "Regina, you brought me in off the streets, you don't owe August anything. He's gone through patches like this before. He'll pull through after a few weeks."
"And what if he doesn't?" Regina asked.
Emma swallowed. She didn't want to think about that. She knew herself and she knew she would feel immensely guilty if anything happened to August she could have theoretically prevented. But she also knew the risks of offering to help him. After all, he had already abandoned her twice during their short friendship. She couldn't trust him not to do it again.
"I can't," Emma said, her throat tight. "I can't let myself be pulled back down by him."
Regina dried her sudsy hands on a towel and moved to stand between Emma's parted legs. She wrapped her arms around Emma's waist and kissed her lips softly, tasting the sweet tang of the beer as she did so.
"Do you really think I'd let that happen to you, dear?" Regina asked. "You've worked so hard to put your past behind you. I'm not going to let anything jeopardise that if I can prevent it. But I also know that you are a loyal and kind friend. Not helping August is going to gnaw away at your sub-conscience until you can't take it any more. I don't want to see that happen to you."
Emma looked down into her girlfriend's earnest face. It continued to amaze her how close she and Regina had become and how well the brunette knew her. It had been scary when she first realised it but now she found comfort in the way in which the woman could read and understand her so well.
"What can we do then?" Emma asked. "If you really want to help me help him, I mean."
"Rehab," Regina said simply. "It's the only way. And they'll be well-equipped to deal with his PTSD too. He needs help for more than just the alcoholism from what you've said."
Emma nodded but there was a frown on her forehead. "What if he refuses to go?" she asked. "I know a little about getting clean and it will only happen when the person really wants to do it for themselves, not because someone's forcing them to."
"Then we offer," Regina said. "We give him a chance and it's up to him to take it."
"And if he doesn't?"
"If he doesn't, then at least you'll know you did what you could. Even you wouldn't be able to blame yourself for what happens next."
"Even me?" Emma frowned. "What does that mean?"
Regina hoped she wasn't about to offend the blonde but continued anyway. "It just means you seem to take on more than your fair share of the blame when things go wrong. You blame yourself for your bad childhood, you think it's your fault you ended up in prison, and you also think it was your fault Lily left you."
"Are you saying I'm not the common denominator in all those incidents?"
"We're all the common denominator throughout our lives," Regina reasoned. "And despite your presence, you weren't to blame for what happened. For starters, your parents, whomever they were, had a huge hand in how you were raised. And were it not for Neal's betrayal, I'm sure you wouldn't have ended up in prison. As for Lily, well, she was the one who fell in love with someone else when she still had you. Surely that says more about her fickle heart than about your ability to love."
"You don't know that," Emma replied.
"The middle one, perhaps not. I can't predict what you might have gotten mixed up in even without Neal but the first and last I can say with absolute certainty. It was your parents' fault you ended up in the system, not yours. You must know that, right?" Emma did at least nod but she looked unconvinced. "And finally, I've felt your love Emma and I can't ever imagine needing or wanting anything else."
Emma swallowed thickly, staring back into Regina's beautiful, honest face.
"Perhaps…," she coughed, clearing her throat. "Perhaps that's because Lily never truly felt my love. At least, not the way you do."
Regina said nothing more. She leaned into Emma who kissed her back softly, her legs wrapping around the brunette's narrow waist and tugging her closer with her calf muscles. She came willingly, pressing herself up against the woman who had captured her heart in just a few weeks. Her hand moved upwards, slid beneath Emma's shirt and lay just above Emma's breast, feeling the organ thudding beneath the pale skin. It reassured her to feel it beating so powerfully because Regina already knew her world would shatter if that were ever not the case.
"I'm right here," Emma soothed, knowing Regina was thinking of Dani and not resenting her one bit for it. The loss of Regina's wife would always be a part of their relationship and Emma had known that from the start. The pain and suffering made Regina the woman she was that day, the woman who loved Emma fiercely and with all of her being. The woman who loved so deeply because she knew every moment was precious and didn't want to waste a second of whatever time she had left. "I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere."
Emma loved Saturday mornings. It had become somewhat of a tradition already for Henry to join the two women in the master bedroom where he would sit with his toys and play as they drank their first cup of coffee and read the newspaper. Although the thought of being so domestic would have sickened Emma mere months before, she couldn't stop the sleepy smile spreading across her face when a small boy crawled up her body and began to bounce on her ribcage the following morning.
"Alright, kid. I'm awake," Emma coughed, sitting up and dislodging Henry who slid off, giggling, into Regina who was rousing groggily from sleep beside her.
The couple had, after the first morning Henry had walked in on them, learnt to put clothes on before they fell asleep. Although Emma sometimes wished she could sleep curled up naked next to an equally nude Regina, she was happy to trade that sensual pleasure for the experience of having Henry wriggle down beneath their duvet between the two women.
"How did you sleep, my darling?" Regina asked, placing a kiss to Henry's tousled hair.
"Good," Henry smiled. "Can we go to the park today?"
"To the zoo?" Regina asked.
"Maybe," Henry shrugged, his little shoulders jiggling up and down as he tried to copy the adult movement he had observed. "Or to play soccer."
"Soccer?" Regina asked, surprised. That was the first time her son had ever expressed much of an interest in sports. She supposed it was partially because he didn't have a father-figure to play with, gender stereotyping as she was in that assumption.
"I'll play soccer with you, Henry," Emma said, holding out her hand for a high five which Henry eagerly gave her. "I loved kicking a ball around when I was a kid."
Regina chuckled to herself as her stereotype was wonderfully disproved by the woman now looking curiously at her.
"What?" Emma asked, unsure why Regina was laughing.
"Nothing," Regina assured her. "Coffee?"
"Please," Emma nodded, before turning her attention to Henry who seemed to be rummaging for something under the duvet. "What's up, you little wriggler?"
Henry furrowed his brow, his tongue sticking between his teeth as he searched for whatever he was looking for. Eventually, his hand re-emerged above the covers with Marlo clutched in his fist.
"Where was he hiding?" Emma asked.
"My pants," came the simple reply. Before Emma could even laugh, Henry had continued. "Will you tell me another story about Marlo in the jungle, please?"
"Alright," Emma nodded as Henry set Marlo between the two of them to listen. "Once upon a time, Marlo the monkey woke up in the middle of the night. He looked around him and saw all of his family were still asleep. His mom and his dad, his brother Marty and his sisters Milly and Miranda. Even his grandmother Myrtle was sleeping. But Marlo wasn't tired any more. So he got up from his branch very quietly and began to climb higher into the tree. Soon he reached the branches at the tippety top of the great tree which he lived in and there, in the soft green leaves, he lay down to look at the stars. There are lots of different shapes in the stars, as I'm sure you know, but monkeys have even more than people do. There's the great banana and the little banana. There's the famous monkey chief Bobo and his army of loyal followers, scattered through the night by hundreds of shining stars. But that night, Marlo was looking for a special group of stars he liked to call Beckham."
"Who?" Henry frowned.
"David Beckham is a very famous British soccer player and he was Marlo's favourite. You see, Marlo lived in a jungle near a village and one of the huts in the village had a television. Sometimes, Marlo and his friends would sneak down to watch soccer matches through the window. They loved David Beckham and played for hours in the jungle afterwards. But they didn't have a soccer ball so they had to use banana leaves scrunched up into a ball. The stars in the sky made the shape of a soccer ball though so Marlo lay back and stared up at the stars and wished for his very own ball. Suddenly, there was a rustling below him."
Henry's eyes went wide with excitement just as Regina reentered the room. Emma paused to accept her coffee before continuing. Regina climbed into bed beside Henry and snuggled up to him and Emma, sipping the steaming beverage and thinking, as she listened to Emma's story, how perfect her life seemed.
The sun warmed Regina's skin as she sat on the bench, watching Emma and Henry who were playing soccer a few feet away. They had set up a makeshift goal using Emma's bundled up coat and Henry's rucksack as posts and were taking turns trying to score. It was early afternoon and Regina was just beginning to wonder where they would have lunch when Henry came over to ask her exactly that question.
"How about the restaurant at the MET?" Regina suggested.
"Why not just go home?" Emma frowned, sitting beside the brunette and taking a long drink of water. "I mean, the food there is so over-priced and you can literally see your apartment."
"True but it's supposed to be a day out," Regina reasoned. "Plus we can take a look around their feature exhibit afterwards."
"Ok," Emma shrugged.
Regina frowned a little at the nonchalant way in which the blonde spoke. Just as she was wondering what Emma could possibly have against one of the greatest art galleries in the world, she suddenly remembered what the two of them had discussed the night before.
"Or we could go to the little cafe near the lake?" she said, knowing that would take their day far closer to the tunnel where Emma hoped to find August.
"Can we feed the ducks?" Henry asked. He loved to stand on the edge of the water, watching the birds gobble up soggy lumps of bread as he threw it to them.
"Do you have anything to feed them?" Regina countered.
Henry frowned at this. "No, but maybe they can eat the crusts of my sandwiches I have for lunch?"
Both Emma and Regina laughed. The boy would do anything to avoid eating his crusts. They gathered up their things and began to stroll through the park. It was busy, being one of the first sunny and warm weekends of the year and Emma and Regina walked hand in hand, Henry trotting a little way ahead, his new soccer ball under his arm. Emma couldn't remember ever feeling so content, even with the looming knowledge that she needed to find August.
At lunch Henry carefully nibbled his sandwiches, leaving as much bread as possible, and when Regina added the roll which came with her soup, the boy declared they definitely had enough to feed the ducks. Emma was too hungry to contribute, and she didn't think the ducks would appreciate the spicy relish on her hamburger anyway. When Regina had paid, they left the cafe and began to walk towards the lake's edge.
"I'm just gonna go and -,"
"Ok," Regina said, cutting Emma off before she had finished her sentence. "Are you sure you don't want me to go with you?"
"No," Emma said. She had thought about it and she didn't want August meeting Regina in his state. Despite Regina offering to help her friend, she didn't think the man would make a great first impression in their tunnel and she certainly didn't want Henry to see him there. Doubtless the small boy remembered the day he had seen Emma herself sleeping there too. "I won't be long."
She kissed Regina on the cheek and hurried away, weaving through the crowds and making her way quickly towards the tunnel she had once called home. She wasn't even sure if August would be there. After all, she had told him to go to a shelter. However, she doubted whether her friend would have heeded that advice, and suspected that he had done exactly what she told him not to and bought more alcohol. She had questioned herself the moment she handed over the money, knowing it probably wouldn't do him any good.
The tunnel seemed darker than she remembered it, even with the bright sunshine at its entrances. She stepped into the damp archway and moved along the wall. It was quiet, as always. That was one of the reasons they chose it; few pedestrians ever disturbed them. Emma was less than ten feet away when she spotted the huddled figure on the floor. She could tell immediately that something was wrong. Rushing to August's side, she turned him over and cried out as she saw the state he was in. Unconscious, with vomit smeared across his cheek, the man's breathing was slow and ragged, his body chilled and limp.
"August?" she called, shaking him a little.
There was no answer. No sign that the man had heard her at all. She shook him harder but his head just lolled on his neck. Digging in her pocket for her cell, she dialled 911. As soon as she had given the emergency services the details of their location, she hung up and called her girlfriend.
"Regina."
"What's wrong?" came the reply, hearing the panic of the blonde in just three syllables.
"It's August," Emma said. "I'm taking him to hospital. He's unconscious and I can't get him to wake up."