It was always half invented
Dec. 12th, 2011 02:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapacifidoraTitle: It was always half invented
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Picks up where 1.07, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, leaves off. AU from there on out, but with speculation based on promos for 1.08 and beyond.
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14, for language and implied violence. Canon character death mentioned.
Word Count: 2,757
Disclaimers: Horowitz and Kitsis own everything recognizable from Storybrook and Over There. I don’t possess nearly enough whimsy to have come up with anything like it. The title is from Jimmy Eat World’s song, Littlething.
Author’s note: Ladies, you know who you are and where this came from – I just hope you’re happy you lit the match under my imagination’s ass.
***
The sheriff’s office was quiet as a tomb – and dark besides.
It was apropos, in a morbid way: That the room where Graham drew his last breath should have the same atmosphere as his final resting place.
Emma pressed her fingertips tightly to her lips, her fingernails pressing into the tender flesh of her nose, swollen from the tears that had dried into salty streaks hours ago.
She wasn’t sure she could actually hold back the dry sobs that still shook her frame now and again, but she’d try. She was a bail bonds person. She was tough.
She was Emma Swan, ferchrissakes.
She did not, could not, would not break.
Drawing a deep breath, she turned her chair to face away from the empty office window and toward her desk. Methodically, she began going through her drawers, pulling the few personal items she’d placed there, and piling them on the blotter. She couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t know till morning if she still had a job – she was the deputy, after all, but Graham seemed to serve as sheriff at the pleasure of the Mayor, so it was anyone’s guess – but she didn’t want to be rushed if she did have to clean out her desk tomorrow.
When everything – a spare shirt, a hair brush, a small toiletry kit, her second favorite pair of cuffs and an emergency kit – was mounded haphazardly on her desktop, Emma stood and crossed to the supply closet and pulled the light chain. The incandescent bulb flared to life, throwing the back of the closet into shadow and providing just enough light to make out the outlines of objects on the two desks in the office. She leaned forward, pulling an empty printer paper box from a pile of empty boxes near the back and turned back to cross to her desk. With more instinctive precision than conscious care, she placed her personal items in the box.
Emma swallowed heavily and closed her eyes for a moment, gathering the loose stones that had fallen from the wall Mary Margaret said she’d built round her heart – the stones that had started to come loose, she realized now, when Henry had shown up outside her door all those weeks ago – and turned to the other desk. Graham’s desk.
The desk the new sheriff would use.
She opened her eyes and found herself wondering, just for a moment, what it was about this town, these people, even Henry’s possibly (probably?) insane story that had burrowed under her skin when not a single case in the last decade had thrown her this off course.
Emma wasn’t sure if it was longing or shame she felt when her very next thought was whether she should simply pack up her car and get the hell out of Dodge, as it were.
But she’d promised Henry she would help him, if she could: Maybe in not so many words, but she’d started down this path and it would only be more difficult to turn back to safety – to logic, really – at this point. Besides, if Henry was as nuts as she thought he must be sometimes, it was, presumably, his genetic inheritance, and she owed it to him – and to Regina, she supposed – to be there.
Emma sighed heavily and crossed the short space between the two desks, and, tucking her hair behind her ear as she bent, began opening the drawers. She wasn’t sure what she would find – though she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised by the half-empty bottle of Gentleman Jack she found at the back of a bottom drawer – but her gut told her Graham wouldn’t have wanted Regina cleaning out his desk. She gathered the few items she found – similar to those she had pulled from her own desk – and turned back to her own desk.
“Good evening, Deputy Swan.”
The quiet, measured voice startled Emma, and she tightened her grip on the neck of the whiskey bottle, with an instinct born of being caught in her share of barroom brawls. She shifted into a more stable stance as she spun toward the supply closet, but relaxed only a little when she saw her late night visitor.
“Mr. Gold.” Emma cleared her throat and walked with measured steps to her desk, where she unceremoniously dumped the armful of items from Graham’s desk into the empty side of the printer paper box. The whiskey bottle she continued to hold at her side, her grip shifting on the neck till she held it more like a hammer. She glanced from the lanky man in the dark suit to the dark doorway from the reception area to the main office. “How did you get in here?”
“My apologies if I startled you, Deputy.” Mr. Gold held a hand to his chest and tilted his head to one side, every movement just a little too smooth to trust. “But rest assured I simply came through an unlocked door.” The smile he offered her rode the knife’s edge between patronizing and predatory. “There’s no force on Earth that could transport me through a solid, locked door.”
“Except magic.” Emma blinked as the words left her mouth before she had time to think about them – or to whom she was saying them. She watched as Mr. Gold’s expression shifted – just a slight tensing of the muscles around his eyes – and swept her free hand across the top of her hip holster, loosening the snap that held the strap at the top down.
“Yes.” Mr. Gold bared his teeth in what Emma supposed was a grin. “I suppose there is- magic.” His pause would’ve been imperceptible to anyone else, an she wondered absently if she wasn’t simply reading more into the situation than was actually there. “But it has been, as I understand it, a very long, very troubling evening for you.” He paused as Emma nodded in response, not trusting her voice as her eyes turned of their own volition to the spot where Graham had fallen earlier. “You have my- condolences.” Mr. Gold dropped his gaze from Emma’s and straightened a ring on his finger. “And I don’t want to keep you.”
“OK.” Emma licked her lips, hoping he couldn’t hear her confusion in her voice. “It’s kind of you to check in on me, but I’m just heading home now-”
“Deputy Swan.” Mr. Gold shook his head slightly and took a step forward; Emma’s hand tightened on the neck of the whiskey bottle. “I am not heartless. But I am not simply here out of sympathy.”
“What do you want?” Emma fought the urge to duck around him and run hell for leather for the door and her car.
“We made a deal, Deputy Swan.” Mr. Gold looked her from head to toe. “In exchange for young Ashley keeping her child, you agreed to owe me a favor.”
“I remember, Mr. Gold, but as you’ve already said, it’s been a really long night for me…” Emma trailed off, putting her free hand to her hip and flipping back her jacket, hoping he’d read it as a sign of impatience and not as a means of removing another barrier between herself and her weapon.
“Quiet.” Mr. Gold nodded once in agreement. “I have a valuable shipment arriving in town tomorrow, and I’d like you to take receivership of it and keep it until I have need of it.”
“Is it drugs?” Emma asked, her head cocked to one side and her tone flat.
“Certainly not.” Mr. Gold showed no annoyance, though his voice lost a little of its composure. “I am a respectable businessman, Deputy.” He paused as Emma scoffed. “It is simply a valuable item, and I wish for it to be in safe hands. With whom would it be safer than the deputy sheriff?”
“I wouldn’t assume anything yet, Mr. Gold.” Emma lifted her chin slightly. “I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be the deputy, much less in Storybrook.”
“Oh, you can’t leave.” Mr. Gold’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “Not yet. Oh, no: Not just yet, Deputy.” He took another step toward Emma and placed both hands on the head of his walking stick, which he set in front of him. “So, will you fulfill your end of our bargain? Shall I tell my delivery men to take it to you as Miss Blanchard’s home?”
“All I need to do is sign for this package and keep it till you need it?” Emma asked, certain from the roots of her hair to the base of her spine that she was missing something, but unsure what it could be.
“Precisely.” Mr. Gold raised an eyebrow. “Sign for the package. Keep it safe.” He leaned forward on his walking stick as though adding extra emphasis to the last word. “And turn it over to me when I ask you for it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then, I suppose, we will need to revisit the small matter of Miss Boyd being in violation of the contract she signed with me to place her child in an adoptive home.”
“Fine.” Emma blinked, once, and blew out a loud breath through her nose. “When will this package be delivered?”
“I believe sometime between noon and 4 p.m.” Mr. Gold shrugged lightly when Emma made a noise of exasperation. “I’m afraid that not even men such as myself can control the whims of a delivery company.” He glanced toward the box on her desk. “May I walk you to your car, Deputy? Perhaps I can carry your box for you?”
“Thank you, no.” Emma laid the whiskey bottle in the box and hefted it under one arm, skirting Mr. Gold as she crossed to the supply closet, turned off the light and shut the door. She turned back to face her guest and was dumbstruck for a minute as she thought she caught a metallic sheen on the back of his hand where it rested on his walking stick in the moonlight. She shook her head and gestured toward the reception area. “But you can walk me to the front door: I need to lock up for the evening.”
“As you like.” Mr. Gold preceded Emma to the front door. He paused by the doorway to the reception area and inclined his head toward a seldom used coatrack. “Mind you don’t forget the sheriff’s coat.” He watched Emma for a long moment before nodding once and bidding her a goodnight.
Emma silently watched him go, then walked to the coatrack and pulled Graham’s jacket from a hook and threw it into the box before walking out and locking the front door. As she walked to her car, she felt as though she were being watched.
But when she turned, she caught only the impression of movement and silver reflected in the glare of streetlights.
***
“Of all the-” Emma stormed through her front door, slamming it closed behind her.
As if being punched by your bosses’ boss because she’s a jealous bitch weren’t enough. As if realizing that maybe, yes, maybe, your boss isn’t a horrible letch weren’t enough. As if that same boss then dropping dead at your feet weren’t enough.
Regina had fired her. She, Emma Swan, had been fired. A firing had taken place: Regina was the firer and Emma was the firee.
She rounded the island and frowned as she opened the fridge and stared down into its chilly depths.
OK. So maybe ‘firee’ wasn’t a word.
It didn’t really matter: She had been fired for the first time in more than a decade, and for no other reason than the mayor, unreasonably, irrationally, inexplicably hated her guts.
Emma pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured herself a glass. She sipped it and ran a hand through her hair.
OK, so maybe it wasn’t unreasonable: Henry had, on more than one occasion, made it clear he trusted Emma – who had given him up for adoption – more than Regina, who had raised him. Maybe it wasn’t irrational: If a court believed Henry’s stories that Regina was an evil sorceress queen hell-bent on revenge – if a court believed even a little bit of that – somehow, someway custody might revert to Emma.
And maybe it wasn’t inexplicable: From the first, Emma had questioned Regina’s motives, questioned her parenting, questioned even what made her an object of such revulsion.
(And that was just last night.)
Emma groaned aloud, folded her arms on the counter top and dropped her head onto them. She didn’t know how long she stood there, bent over and resting on the island in the quiet, empty apartment.
But a knock at the door drew her from her thoughts. A glance at the clock on the stove indicated it was within the window for Mr. Gold’s delivery. Emma crossed to the front door and looked through the peep hole before pulling open the door.
“E. Swann?”
“That’s me.” Emma stepped away from the door and watched as the two-man crew wheeled in a tall, narrow wood crate. “You can just take it upstairs and put it in the bedroom.” She watched as one of the men began to carefully pull the crate up the staircase with the help of a dolly. Turning to the other man, she held out a hand. “Do I need to sign anything?”
“Yup.” The delivery man pulled out a small electronic tablet and tapped at it with a stylus before passing both to her. “Sign at the ‘x,’ initial and date below that.”
“Right.” Emma did as she was told and handed the tablet and stylus back to the delivery man. She glanced up the stairs, where the second man was walking back down from her bedroom. “Any idea what’s in the box?”
“Nope.” The first man slid the stylus back into a slot on the tablet and looked to his partner, who nodded once and walked out the door. He looked back at Emma. “You have a nice day now.”
“Thanks.” Emma followed him to the door and closed it, throwing the deadbolt. She crossed back to the island and grabbed her glass of juice, taking a sip as she crossed to the stairs and climbed to her room.
The crate was lying on its side at the foot of the bed. Emma set down her glass and sat on the bottom corner of the bed, first looking at the nearest sides for a packing slip or some sort of label. When she saw no markings whatsoever, she reached out and ran a hand over the surface, wondering what Mr. Gold needed kept safe. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the box she’d brought home last night.
Reaching out, Emma pulled the box close, then lifted it up and set it atop the closest end of the crate. She lifted out Graham’s jacket and set it aside before rummaging through the remaining items she’d taken from his desk, but there was nothing there to give her any clues as to what had happened.
(She didn’t think she’d ever be satisfied with the explanation Dr. Whale had provided when she’d followed shortly behind the ambulance.)
Emma sighed and picked up Graham’s jacket, running her thumbs over the soft leather around the collar. Feeling a little silly, she lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Immediately, she was overwhelmed by scents familiar – leather, dirt – and unfamiliar, which she assumed were those that had rubbed off from the previous owner. She shivered and glanced at her alarm clock, realizing Mary Margaret wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. She slid the jacket on and smoothed her hands down the front, admiring the quality of the leather and regretting that she’d never wear this jacket because Graham offered it to her – a silly, schoolgirl regret she felt stupid for having but decided to indulge for the moment.
As she ran a hand over a front pocket, she felt something press against the leather, and she stopped short before reaching a tentative hand into the pocket.
“Ow.” She withdrew her hand quickly and shook it as she looked at it and raised the fingertip with a welling drop of blood to her lips, wincing at the sting. After a moment, she opened the pocket with both hands and carefully reached in, pulling out one of the darts Graham had been playing with two nights ago.
She was tough. She was competent. She was Emma Swan.
But she could break.
***
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Picks up where 1.07, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, leaves off. AU from there on out, but with speculation based on promos for 1.08 and beyond.
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14, for language and implied violence. Canon character death mentioned.
Word Count: 2,757
Disclaimers: Horowitz and Kitsis own everything recognizable from Storybrook and Over There. I don’t possess nearly enough whimsy to have come up with anything like it. The title is from Jimmy Eat World’s song, Littlething.
Author’s note: Ladies, you know who you are and where this came from – I just hope you’re happy you lit the match under my imagination’s ass.
***
The sheriff’s office was quiet as a tomb – and dark besides.
It was apropos, in a morbid way: That the room where Graham drew his last breath should have the same atmosphere as his final resting place.
Emma pressed her fingertips tightly to her lips, her fingernails pressing into the tender flesh of her nose, swollen from the tears that had dried into salty streaks hours ago.
She wasn’t sure she could actually hold back the dry sobs that still shook her frame now and again, but she’d try. She was a bail bonds person. She was tough.
She was Emma Swan, ferchrissakes.
She did not, could not, would not break.
Drawing a deep breath, she turned her chair to face away from the empty office window and toward her desk. Methodically, she began going through her drawers, pulling the few personal items she’d placed there, and piling them on the blotter. She couldn’t, didn’t, wouldn’t know till morning if she still had a job – she was the deputy, after all, but Graham seemed to serve as sheriff at the pleasure of the Mayor, so it was anyone’s guess – but she didn’t want to be rushed if she did have to clean out her desk tomorrow.
When everything – a spare shirt, a hair brush, a small toiletry kit, her second favorite pair of cuffs and an emergency kit – was mounded haphazardly on her desktop, Emma stood and crossed to the supply closet and pulled the light chain. The incandescent bulb flared to life, throwing the back of the closet into shadow and providing just enough light to make out the outlines of objects on the two desks in the office. She leaned forward, pulling an empty printer paper box from a pile of empty boxes near the back and turned back to cross to her desk. With more instinctive precision than conscious care, she placed her personal items in the box.
Emma swallowed heavily and closed her eyes for a moment, gathering the loose stones that had fallen from the wall Mary Margaret said she’d built round her heart – the stones that had started to come loose, she realized now, when Henry had shown up outside her door all those weeks ago – and turned to the other desk. Graham’s desk.
The desk the new sheriff would use.
She opened her eyes and found herself wondering, just for a moment, what it was about this town, these people, even Henry’s possibly (probably?) insane story that had burrowed under her skin when not a single case in the last decade had thrown her this off course.
Emma wasn’t sure if it was longing or shame she felt when her very next thought was whether she should simply pack up her car and get the hell out of Dodge, as it were.
But she’d promised Henry she would help him, if she could: Maybe in not so many words, but she’d started down this path and it would only be more difficult to turn back to safety – to logic, really – at this point. Besides, if Henry was as nuts as she thought he must be sometimes, it was, presumably, his genetic inheritance, and she owed it to him – and to Regina, she supposed – to be there.
Emma sighed heavily and crossed the short space between the two desks, and, tucking her hair behind her ear as she bent, began opening the drawers. She wasn’t sure what she would find – though she supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised by the half-empty bottle of Gentleman Jack she found at the back of a bottom drawer – but her gut told her Graham wouldn’t have wanted Regina cleaning out his desk. She gathered the few items she found – similar to those she had pulled from her own desk – and turned back to her own desk.
“Good evening, Deputy Swan.”
The quiet, measured voice startled Emma, and she tightened her grip on the neck of the whiskey bottle, with an instinct born of being caught in her share of barroom brawls. She shifted into a more stable stance as she spun toward the supply closet, but relaxed only a little when she saw her late night visitor.
“Mr. Gold.” Emma cleared her throat and walked with measured steps to her desk, where she unceremoniously dumped the armful of items from Graham’s desk into the empty side of the printer paper box. The whiskey bottle she continued to hold at her side, her grip shifting on the neck till she held it more like a hammer. She glanced from the lanky man in the dark suit to the dark doorway from the reception area to the main office. “How did you get in here?”
“My apologies if I startled you, Deputy.” Mr. Gold held a hand to his chest and tilted his head to one side, every movement just a little too smooth to trust. “But rest assured I simply came through an unlocked door.” The smile he offered her rode the knife’s edge between patronizing and predatory. “There’s no force on Earth that could transport me through a solid, locked door.”
“Except magic.” Emma blinked as the words left her mouth before she had time to think about them – or to whom she was saying them. She watched as Mr. Gold’s expression shifted – just a slight tensing of the muscles around his eyes – and swept her free hand across the top of her hip holster, loosening the snap that held the strap at the top down.
“Yes.” Mr. Gold bared his teeth in what Emma supposed was a grin. “I suppose there is- magic.” His pause would’ve been imperceptible to anyone else, an she wondered absently if she wasn’t simply reading more into the situation than was actually there. “But it has been, as I understand it, a very long, very troubling evening for you.” He paused as Emma nodded in response, not trusting her voice as her eyes turned of their own volition to the spot where Graham had fallen earlier. “You have my- condolences.” Mr. Gold dropped his gaze from Emma’s and straightened a ring on his finger. “And I don’t want to keep you.”
“OK.” Emma licked her lips, hoping he couldn’t hear her confusion in her voice. “It’s kind of you to check in on me, but I’m just heading home now-”
“Deputy Swan.” Mr. Gold shook his head slightly and took a step forward; Emma’s hand tightened on the neck of the whiskey bottle. “I am not heartless. But I am not simply here out of sympathy.”
“What do you want?” Emma fought the urge to duck around him and run hell for leather for the door and her car.
“We made a deal, Deputy Swan.” Mr. Gold looked her from head to toe. “In exchange for young Ashley keeping her child, you agreed to owe me a favor.”
“I remember, Mr. Gold, but as you’ve already said, it’s been a really long night for me…” Emma trailed off, putting her free hand to her hip and flipping back her jacket, hoping he’d read it as a sign of impatience and not as a means of removing another barrier between herself and her weapon.
“Quiet.” Mr. Gold nodded once in agreement. “I have a valuable shipment arriving in town tomorrow, and I’d like you to take receivership of it and keep it until I have need of it.”
“Is it drugs?” Emma asked, her head cocked to one side and her tone flat.
“Certainly not.” Mr. Gold showed no annoyance, though his voice lost a little of its composure. “I am a respectable businessman, Deputy.” He paused as Emma scoffed. “It is simply a valuable item, and I wish for it to be in safe hands. With whom would it be safer than the deputy sheriff?”
“I wouldn’t assume anything yet, Mr. Gold.” Emma lifted her chin slightly. “I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be the deputy, much less in Storybrook.”
“Oh, you can’t leave.” Mr. Gold’s lips curled into a knowing smile. “Not yet. Oh, no: Not just yet, Deputy.” He took another step toward Emma and placed both hands on the head of his walking stick, which he set in front of him. “So, will you fulfill your end of our bargain? Shall I tell my delivery men to take it to you as Miss Blanchard’s home?”
“All I need to do is sign for this package and keep it till you need it?” Emma asked, certain from the roots of her hair to the base of her spine that she was missing something, but unsure what it could be.
“Precisely.” Mr. Gold raised an eyebrow. “Sign for the package. Keep it safe.” He leaned forward on his walking stick as though adding extra emphasis to the last word. “And turn it over to me when I ask you for it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then, I suppose, we will need to revisit the small matter of Miss Boyd being in violation of the contract she signed with me to place her child in an adoptive home.”
“Fine.” Emma blinked, once, and blew out a loud breath through her nose. “When will this package be delivered?”
“I believe sometime between noon and 4 p.m.” Mr. Gold shrugged lightly when Emma made a noise of exasperation. “I’m afraid that not even men such as myself can control the whims of a delivery company.” He glanced toward the box on her desk. “May I walk you to your car, Deputy? Perhaps I can carry your box for you?”
“Thank you, no.” Emma laid the whiskey bottle in the box and hefted it under one arm, skirting Mr. Gold as she crossed to the supply closet, turned off the light and shut the door. She turned back to face her guest and was dumbstruck for a minute as she thought she caught a metallic sheen on the back of his hand where it rested on his walking stick in the moonlight. She shook her head and gestured toward the reception area. “But you can walk me to the front door: I need to lock up for the evening.”
“As you like.” Mr. Gold preceded Emma to the front door. He paused by the doorway to the reception area and inclined his head toward a seldom used coatrack. “Mind you don’t forget the sheriff’s coat.” He watched Emma for a long moment before nodding once and bidding her a goodnight.
Emma silently watched him go, then walked to the coatrack and pulled Graham’s jacket from a hook and threw it into the box before walking out and locking the front door. As she walked to her car, she felt as though she were being watched.
But when she turned, she caught only the impression of movement and silver reflected in the glare of streetlights.
***
“Of all the-” Emma stormed through her front door, slamming it closed behind her.
As if being punched by your bosses’ boss because she’s a jealous bitch weren’t enough. As if realizing that maybe, yes, maybe, your boss isn’t a horrible letch weren’t enough. As if that same boss then dropping dead at your feet weren’t enough.
Regina had fired her. She, Emma Swan, had been fired. A firing had taken place: Regina was the firer and Emma was the firee.
She rounded the island and frowned as she opened the fridge and stared down into its chilly depths.
OK. So maybe ‘firee’ wasn’t a word.
It didn’t really matter: She had been fired for the first time in more than a decade, and for no other reason than the mayor, unreasonably, irrationally, inexplicably hated her guts.
Emma pulled out a carton of orange juice and poured herself a glass. She sipped it and ran a hand through her hair.
OK, so maybe it wasn’t unreasonable: Henry had, on more than one occasion, made it clear he trusted Emma – who had given him up for adoption – more than Regina, who had raised him. Maybe it wasn’t irrational: If a court believed Henry’s stories that Regina was an evil sorceress queen hell-bent on revenge – if a court believed even a little bit of that – somehow, someway custody might revert to Emma.
And maybe it wasn’t inexplicable: From the first, Emma had questioned Regina’s motives, questioned her parenting, questioned even what made her an object of such revulsion.
(And that was just last night.)
Emma groaned aloud, folded her arms on the counter top and dropped her head onto them. She didn’t know how long she stood there, bent over and resting on the island in the quiet, empty apartment.
But a knock at the door drew her from her thoughts. A glance at the clock on the stove indicated it was within the window for Mr. Gold’s delivery. Emma crossed to the front door and looked through the peep hole before pulling open the door.
“E. Swann?”
“That’s me.” Emma stepped away from the door and watched as the two-man crew wheeled in a tall, narrow wood crate. “You can just take it upstairs and put it in the bedroom.” She watched as one of the men began to carefully pull the crate up the staircase with the help of a dolly. Turning to the other man, she held out a hand. “Do I need to sign anything?”
“Yup.” The delivery man pulled out a small electronic tablet and tapped at it with a stylus before passing both to her. “Sign at the ‘x,’ initial and date below that.”
“Right.” Emma did as she was told and handed the tablet and stylus back to the delivery man. She glanced up the stairs, where the second man was walking back down from her bedroom. “Any idea what’s in the box?”
“Nope.” The first man slid the stylus back into a slot on the tablet and looked to his partner, who nodded once and walked out the door. He looked back at Emma. “You have a nice day now.”
“Thanks.” Emma followed him to the door and closed it, throwing the deadbolt. She crossed back to the island and grabbed her glass of juice, taking a sip as she crossed to the stairs and climbed to her room.
The crate was lying on its side at the foot of the bed. Emma set down her glass and sat on the bottom corner of the bed, first looking at the nearest sides for a packing slip or some sort of label. When she saw no markings whatsoever, she reached out and ran a hand over the surface, wondering what Mr. Gold needed kept safe. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the box she’d brought home last night.
Reaching out, Emma pulled the box close, then lifted it up and set it atop the closest end of the crate. She lifted out Graham’s jacket and set it aside before rummaging through the remaining items she’d taken from his desk, but there was nothing there to give her any clues as to what had happened.
(She didn’t think she’d ever be satisfied with the explanation Dr. Whale had provided when she’d followed shortly behind the ambulance.)
Emma sighed and picked up Graham’s jacket, running her thumbs over the soft leather around the collar. Feeling a little silly, she lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Immediately, she was overwhelmed by scents familiar – leather, dirt – and unfamiliar, which she assumed were those that had rubbed off from the previous owner. She shivered and glanced at her alarm clock, realizing Mary Margaret wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. She slid the jacket on and smoothed her hands down the front, admiring the quality of the leather and regretting that she’d never wear this jacket because Graham offered it to her – a silly, schoolgirl regret she felt stupid for having but decided to indulge for the moment.
As she ran a hand over a front pocket, she felt something press against the leather, and she stopped short before reaching a tentative hand into the pocket.
“Ow.” She withdrew her hand quickly and shook it as she looked at it and raised the fingertip with a welling drop of blood to her lips, wincing at the sting. After a moment, she opened the pocket with both hands and carefully reached in, pulling out one of the darts Graham had been playing with two nights ago.
She was tough. She was competent. She was Emma Swan.
But she could break.
***
