Chapter 8: Desperate souls
"Tell me again, why am I here?" Asked Rose standing in front of Mr. Gold's shop.
Emma sighed and looked at her friend with a hopeful smile.
"Because, Mr. Gold called the office and asked me to come. I don't' trust him, and he seems to like you. A little too much." She mumbled the last part, and her friend raised an eyebrow at the comment. "So, you are here in case he wanted to try anything, he won't do it if you are there." Rose looked at her friend with her eyebrow still raised and a pout starting to form on her face.
"So, I'm here as a human shield? Very nice Em. Very nice."
Emma looked at her friend with a grin and clapped her shoulder. She opened the door and went into the store. She turned to Rose and her grin got bigger.
"Come on. Afterward, I'll take you out to dinner. My treat."
Rose sighed and followed her friend into the store. She didn't like that Emma had dragged her here. She didn't think that Mr. Gold would hurt Emma in any way. After all, she owed him a favor. Who in their right mind would harm someone that owes you a favor, that would be a sure way to lose that favor. But, Rose understood that her friend was still uneasy about Mr. Gold with everything that happened with Ashley. She would have gone with Emma anyway, she just had to ask.
Once inside the store, both women saw that the owner was nowhere in sight. Emma called out to him, and they heard him answer that he was in the back room. They headed there and a strong smell hit them.
"That's a rather… strong smell." Said Rose while waving a hand in front of her face, trying to dispel the horrid smell from the air.
Mr. Gold looked up at Rose's voice. He wasn't expecting Miss Swan to bring her friend along. He explained that the smell came from the lanolin that he was spreading on a cloth. Emma asked about the reason of his call, and practically begged that they talk anywhere else. She needed to get away from that smell.
Mr. Gold stood up and gave his condolences to Emma about Graham's death, and inquired about Emma taking the job of sheriff. She thanked him and the two friends started to make their way out. Mr. Gold followed them and asked them to wait. He had Graham's possessions, and he wanted Emma to keep them, or at least keep something. In the end he convinced her to take a pair of Walkie-talkies for Henry. Rose picked up something from the way he spoke to Emma and frowned. Emma went to leave and turned to look at her friend when she didn't move.
"Go ahead. I'll catch up with you and Henry in the castle." She smiled at her friend and watched her leave.
Once Emma had left, Rose turned to Mr. Gold with a sad look in her eyes. He looked at her, a little surprised that she didn't leave with her friend. They had had small talk the past few weeks, just meaningless things like the weather or their jobs. But, she hadn't gone out of her way to speak with him like this.
"Can I do something for you, darling?" He asked her with a soft smile.
She shook her head, approached the counter and rested her elbows on it. Looking at Mr. Gold in the eyes.
"I'm sorry about your loss." She said with sad eyes.
Mr. Gold's eyes widened, and he looked at the woman in front of him in surprise. She smiled softly.
"From the way you spoke to Emma about Henry, I could tell that you had a son. And that something must have happened, that made you lose him."
Mr. Gold nodded his head and gave her a little smile.
"Yes, I had a son and I lost him a long time ago." He looked at the box with Graham's thing until he felt a hand grab his own. When he looked at it, he saw Rose's hand squeezing his. He raised his head to look at the young woman, and she had a smile on her face.
"Don't worry. If he passed away, you will always have him with you. All the memories will keep him alive." Then she looked at him with a determined look. "And if he left, no matter the reason, I'm sure you will find a way to be with each other again."
She let go of his hand with a last squeeze and turned to leave the store. He looked at her with a curious look.
"What makes you say that?"
She turned around to look at him, opened the door and before leaving she gave him a big smile and shrugged her shoulders.
"Call it a hunch." And with that she made her exit, leaving a bewildered Mr. Gold behind. He let out a chuckle and turned to his backroom to finish what he was doing.
Rose arrived at the castle to see Henry leaving with a sad face. She frowned at the sight and called out to the kid.
"Henry, everything okay?"
He turned around, shook his head and kept going. That worried Rose. Henry had been upset before, but he had always said something to her. She turned to the castle and saw Emma with the same worried look.
Emma told her how Henry wanted to stop Operation Cobra because of what happened to Graham. He was convinced that he died because he was remembering. Henry blamed himself for Graham's death.
Rose sighed, she understood that Henry felt responsible, but he wasn't. And Rose knew that you can win following the rules, they just had to find a way to prove it to Henry.
Back at the apartment, Emma was destroying the toaster while Rose was working on her computer with headphone on, to try to block Emma's loud music. Then Mary-Margaret came in, turned off the music and asked Emma what happened. Rose took of her headphones with a sigh.
"She's been fired." She told Mary-Margaret. "And she's taking it out on the poor toaster."
Emma explained what had happened at the sheriff's office and how she wanted her job back. Rose got up to help Mary-Margaret put the groceries away, when there was a knock on the door. Emma went to answer it, and found Mr. Gold on the other side. He asked to speak with Emma, and the woman looked at her two friends. They looked at each other.
"Why don't I show you my plans for the next class? We talked about doing a mix project for the kids." Said Rose to give the two women a reason to leave. Mary-Margaret nodded and turned to the other two.
"We'll let you be."
Once Mr. Gold left, Emma went upstairs to find Rose and Mary-Margaret. She had a grin on her face and the two women looked at her with curiosity.
"Good news?" finally asked Mary-Margaret.
"I'm going to run for sheriff." She said proudly. "Turn out that Regina can only appoint a candidate."
"We'll help with your campaign." Said Rose standing up. Mary-Margaret nodded with a big smile. "We are going to beat the crap out of Sydney Glass in these elections." Mary-Margaret frowned and slapped Rose slightly on her arm.
"Language!"
The three women laughed and started to make plans about the upcoming elections.
Sydney Glass made opened the Mayor's office door with a big grin and the following day's newspaper in his hand. He gave it to Regina. The woman saw the front page and smiled.
"As you asked, I managed to crack her records and found out this piece of news. It was hard to find anything about Emma Swan." Regina nodded absentmindedly while she kept reading. "Now, it would have been very easy to do this about Rosalind Kingsley. She might be only 26, but that girl has not stayed put for a second."
Regina looked up at that information and frowned. She asked Sydney to repeat the woman's age. She knew that Rose should have been 28 after the curse had taken effect. What had happened? What had kept her away from the curse for two whole years?
"Yes, she is 26, but she already is a force to be reckoned with in the field of Archeology. She just published a paper about how she discovered Shambhala. In fact, it looks like she just got back from that expedition right before coming to Storybrooke." He shook his head with a grin on his face. "That girl has done a lot of impressive things."
Regina looked at him with a frown, and after thinking about it, she told Sydney to get all the information about Rose he could get his hands on. The man nodded and left, he was actually excited to do that. Covering a famous archeologist, that was real journalism, this was not some petty news for the Mayor.
Once he left, Regina was deep in thought. She needed to make sure that Sydney won the election, but she wanted to know about Rose. What had she made of herself with the new life she had given her?
When she devised the curse, she had made sure that Rose would have a chance at a new life. To be free to be and do what she wanted. Once she disappeared from the Enchanted Forest, Regina was afraid of what had happened to her. And when she had seen Rose in this world for the first time, she was greatly surprised. For what Sydney had said, she could have found out about her if she just had taken the time to look.
She was really curious to see what Rose had done in this new life.
Rose arrived at the Mayor's office with Mary-Margaret after they knew about the fire. Once there, Rose made a beeline for her friend and started looking her over to make sure she was okay. Emma just ignored her and let Rose do her examination. She knew her friend wouldn't believe it if she said she was fine.
Once Rose was satisfied, she smiled and hugged Emma tightly. After a short conversation, Ruby, Granny and Archie decided to join Mary-Margaret and Rose on their campaign to help Emma. Henry was starting to believe that good could win without playing dirty. Rose approached Regina with a soft smile.
"Are you okay?"
Regina looked at her and was surprised. She wasn't expecting Rose to care about her, after all, she had been doing everything to run her friend out of town. But looking at her, Regina knew that Rose was still the same caring person she had been in the Enchanted Forest. She smiled and nodded her head.
"I'm fine. Thank you for asking. It seems that your friend got me out just in time."
"I'm just glad no one got hurt." Rose put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
She made her way back to Emma and saw her kick a cloth on the floor. She frowned and the two friends looked at each other. Both knew where that had come from.
They made their way to Mr. Gold's shop. Emma was fuming and she confronted the man, while Rose stood by the door and observed with a hard look on her face. After their conversation, Emma was ready to leave, but again Rose stayed behind. She gave a nod to Emma, which she understood and left.
Rose approached the man and like the day before, she rested her elbows on the counter, looking at him.
"Why?"
He looked at her with a fake surprised look on his face.
"Why what, darling?"
"Why are you doing this?" She rested her chin in the pal of her hand and looked at him with analyzing eyes. "You made sure that Emma would see the cloth with the sheep grease. You knew she would confront you. And you know as well as I do, that she will end up exposing you. She won't let Henry down like that."
Mr. Gold had a smirk on his face. Rose was as observant as ever. She had been able to see his whole plan. He was about to comment on that when she spoke again.
"I ask again. Why?"
Mr. Gold smiled and shook his head.
"I can't tell you my reasons now." He looked at her intently. "But, once I have everything sorted out, I will tell you if you still wish to know."
Rose looked at the man hard and after a while she straightened up.
"Is that a promise?"
Mr. Gold chuckled.
"No, darling. It's a deal." He raised his hand for her to shake.
Rose looked at his hand with a raised eyebrow but shook it.
The day of the debate and voting had come and Emma was anxious. She was debating with herself about what to do. Mary-Margaret and Rose approached her to give her her speech and a bottle of water. They talked about it and Emma finally made a decision once she saw Mr. Gold enter the room.
Archie opened the debate and gave the word to Sydney Glass. He gave the speech that Regina had prepared word by word. Then came Emma's turn, she started a little insecure, but with one look at Henry she decided to tell the truth. If she was going to win, she would do it playing by the rules.
Henry approached Rose and asked her where Emma would be. She smiled and together they headed to Granny's, because Rose knew that her friend would have needed a drink. Once there, Henry gave Emma a walkie and reopened Operation Cobra. Ruby brought Rose a beer and Henry a glass of milk.
Regina and Sydney made their way to the small group and informed Emma that she was the new sheriff. At that moment everyone else of their campaign entered the diner and a celebration started.
Things were about to get very interesting in Storybrooke. Emma had won over Regina and the whole town not had only seen it, but had helped make it happen.