Who: Emma and Graham What: You can only ignore a ghost for so long before he catches you at your most vulnerable... When: Middle of the night Tuesday/early morning Wednesday Where: Emma's room Warnings: Some angst cause it's Emma...some creeper dead boyfriendness...cause it's Emma
She'd read that pregnancy could cause dreams to become more vivid. It didn't make it easier every night she woke in a cold sweat. It was always the same. Those cold eyes watching her, judging her, waiting for her to make the wrong move. Vicious hands grabbing her violently, throwing her against the nearest wall. The smile, the one she'd so desperately loved, turning cruel and maniacal. A soft Irish lilt calling her a hypocrite and a liar and every other name she could think of. And the cool steel pressed against her skin. First her cheek, blood trickling down her face before it traced the slightest line to her throat. It would press in lightly, just enough to make her wince and catch her breath. And finally, it would make its way to her abdomen, where her daughter rested, not knowing the danger she was about to be in.
It was always the same, and it always caused her to jolt awake, gasping for breath. When they'd moved into Zee's house, she'd made sure to not have Henry's room directly next to hers for fear of waking him. She rarely screamed, though. Even in the dream, she braved the assault, knowing it was deserved. It was only her baby she worried for.
Nothing about the routine changed that night as she choked back a cry, her eyes flying open and her hand immediately resting on her stomach, ensuring that the bump that had started to show quite obviously was still there.
What did change about the routine was the voice that filled the room shortly after. Another Irish lilt completely. "Good morning, your highness."
Emma's eyes narrowed in the darkness, grasping for the sheet as she glared in the general direction of Graham's voice. "Don't call me that." It was the first time she'd actually acknowledged his presence.
When the ghosts had first begun appearing, Emma had been working, and had no idea anyone else was being followed. At first she'd simply thought she'd seen someone who looked like him. Standing off in the shadows of an alley where the local drug dealers liked to hang out. She'd written it off, just someone similar. And then he'd spoken to her. 'You shouldn't be in a place like this in your condition'.
It was everything she could do not to slap him, especially since he'd gone from the shadows to only inches from her. She'd finally snapped. It was the only explanation. But of course, going home had proven that almost all of Lawrence had found new companions. And Henry had the same ghost that she did, which was strange. Strange and confusing and worrying, too.
"It's your title, Emma. Why do you continue to fight who you really are?" Graham was looking way too comfortable in the arm chair across the room. Like he belonged there. Maybe he did, but she'd never know, would she? Just one more thing stolen from her.
She wanted to keep ignoring him. He'd done nothing but pry at her with comments like that since he'd arrived. But he'd found her in her most vulnerable state. "I'm not fighting it," she argued, her voice weak with fear and sleep and post-nightmare adrenaline. "It isn't who I am. Not here. It's never been. If I'd grown up there it'd be different, but I didn't. I'm here and I'm just Emma, thanks."
Her eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness and she could make him out more clearly now, his Sheriff's badge catching the moonlight in her room. She could also see the worry in those dark blue eyes. Not that she could make out the color in the room but she was in no hurry to turn on the light. Bringing him into focus couldn't happen. Even if she was acknowledging him now, it didn't mean she had to look at him.
For a moment he was silent and she thought maybe she'd finally shaken him for a bit. Maybe she could try and go back to sleep. But then he spoke, his voice still shaking her as it did when she'd first heard it in Lawrence.
"Just Emma," he said with a little scoff. "Just Emma? Do you realize what that means?"
It was Emma's turn to scoff. She sat up in bed, tucking her legs in a criss-cross position. If she was going to give in and talk to the fool ghost, she may as well get comfortable. She wouldn't be falling back to sleep anytime soon. "If it means I'm a bitch who half of Lawrence hates, sure, I know what it means." She heard the disapproval in the gentle tsk across the room, but she continued on. "I screwed up. I'm going to be paying for that for quite a while, thanks. Possibly the rest of my life. Or the rest of hers."
Her meaning wasn't lost on him. He was watching her. She could feel that, even in the darkness. Graham had always had a way of looking at her that made her fidget just slightly. Like she was much more than she actually was. "Everyone screws up, Emma. Everyone makes mistakes. Why are you beating yourself up?"
"Not everyone's mistakes wind up with people dead!"
Her shout echoed through the quiet room and she found herself breathing heavily, angrily. But not with him. No, her anger was with herself. He'd only brought to the surface what she'd been living with for two months. Longer, if she really let herself think of the last few weeks of Jim Moriarty's life.
Graham was silent at first, and she wondered if she'd angered him, or offended him. He was still there, though. She could make out his outline in the moonlight. He looked exactly as he had the night he'd died, including the expression on his face. Like she had changed his life completely.
A moment later he stood and she tensed, waiting. The onslaught of fury about to come out in his words, the accusations, the anger. Or he'd leave and she'd be alone again.
He surprised her, though. He walked closer, settling on the edge of her bed by her side. For a ghost, he certainly carried presence. She'd never thought of them as having actual mass and shape, but he caused the bed to shift as he sat and the sheets pulled beneath him.
"Are you going to blame yourself forever?" he questioned softly, his words somehow piercing through her even more now that he was close by. "You didn't kill those people. You know that."
Despite herself, despite her strong reserve, her lower lip trembled. "I could have helped them. If I'd done the right thing all along, they'd be alive today."
He nodded thoughtfully. He was close. Too close. She could make out the scruff on his chin, the high cheekbones, and that scent... Ghosts shouldn't have a smell to them, should they? Maybe it was just her memories kicking in. But it was woodsy and fresh and the smell of his leather jacket just bound it all together in a package that caused her to close her eyes against the outpouring of memory. She'd been in Lawrence just under a year and already, Storybrooke felt forever away. But if she tried, if she really focused, she could still be sitting there in the Sheriff's office, Graham only feet away, making some silly comment that could be taken as flirtatious if she allowed it to be. And at any moment, Henry would come running in excited about something he'd learned at school, or Mary Margaret would pop in to see if she wanted to walk over to Granny's for dinner with her.
When had that been the more simply time in her life? All because she hadn't accepted the curse and what all it implied. If she'd known, she'd have understood that those early days in Storybrooke were the start of something incredible. Something she couldn't even begin to understand.
"You're not perfect, Emma," Graham reasoned quietly. She flinched when his hand rested on her knee, but she didn't pull away. "As much as I sometimes let myself think you were. You made your choice and no, maybe it wasn't the best one. But it was what you thought you needed at the time."
He was giving her that look. The one that said he saw so much more than the surface. The Huntsman who was, literally, raised by wolves, rather than the Sheriff who was forced to live under Regina's thumb. It was both uncomfortable and, somehow, comforting. Like someone out there still knew her for her. But she was also one who had never wanted people to know her, not really.
And everytime she let someone that close, it turned around to burn her.
"Why are you here?" she finally whispered into the dark, finally bringing herself to meet those ridiculously soul-searching eyes.
The smile Graham gave her was so familiar she wanted to cry. One of the last things she remembered of her life before Lawrence was holding him in her arms as he died. As Regina killed him, she reminded herself angrily. Which she wouldn't have known if her own sick curiosity hadn't gotten her to watch 'her' show. "To remind you that life does go on. Yes, you're scared. You've been hurt, you've hurt others, but you will survive this. Your parents were two of the strongest people I've ever met. And together, they made you."
Emma laughed cynically, the sound hollow in her ears. "Then they screwed up. Maybe that courage skips a generation or something, I don't know."
"Your friends are right, you know," Graham told her with a soft laugh of his own. "You're much too critical on yourself. You? You have courage enough for everyone. This city needs you as much as everyone else. And then, someday, you'll return home and be our savior, too."
The very idea made her grow cold. She reached for the blanket, pulling it snugly around her. She couldn't imagine leaving here. For all her faults, for all the mistakes, this place was necessary. She couldn't go live in that world, not again. "You picked the wrong savior," she replied, anger tinging her tone. "I can't save them! I can't save them, I can't save Lawrence, I couldn't save you and..." Her voice dropped to a strangled whisper. "And I couldn't save him."
It was out and there was nothing she could do. If she could have reeled in her words, she would have. But there was no stopping them. And, honestly, wasn't this the one person in the world she could be completely honest with? Who was he going to go tell? Maybe it needed to be said. Maybe her shortcomings all stemmed back to that one moment when she'd let it all go to hell, and she needed to be free of them once and for all.
His hand drifted to her hair. She didn't want it. But she wouldn't fight it. Instead, her eyes widened, giving her an innocent look rather than the furious and angry one she'd had only moments ago. "People have to want to be saved, your highness. The people of Storybrooke do. And so do the ones here. And him... He didn't feel he needed saving. You did what you could, but that can't be blamed on you. In the end, he made his choice and you had to make yours."
While the words were meant to heal her, they only cut deeper. Why wasn't she enough? If this was what she was born to be, a savior, someone to heal the gap in so many lives, why couldn't she protect the man who'd loved her? Why wasn't she enough? "I should have helped you. You came to me for help. I blew you off. My foolish pride..."
"We were asking you to believe in a curse, love. No one could've expected you to understand that, not in the beginning when it all seemed so foreign." The hand in her hair drifted to her cheek and she could remember what it felt like to allow herself to let him in. Those walls Mary Margaret had accused her of having breaking down and knowing how badly she wanted him in her life.
Did it really surprise anyone that she'd finally let the most persistent man in existence into her heart? As long as she'd fought it, she needed to feel. Something. Anything. She'd found the same in Graham, someone desperate to be able to feel something, someone with his own barriers to overcome. And she'd lost him, failed him. Then Jim had come along, with his own version of those walls. He'd been so determined to take hers down brick by brick. No one else could possibly understand that. Not the way Graham did.
That was why he was there. She understood it now.
"You have to let go, Emma," Graham told her, leaning in to touch his forehead to hers. "You have to let him go and heal. You're an asset to these people when you let yourself be. You've helped them, you even helped when you were with him. One day, you're going to save Storybrooke. I have every faith in that. You'll make your parents so, so proud. But here? Now? You have to be there for the friends you've made. The ones who've stood by you despite everything. You have to be the mother Henry needs, the one he's deserved all along. And someone has to raise that baby girl."
The feel of him, that scent, the light scruff of his beard, all of it was too much to take. His voice was comforting and gentle, and soothing. It made her want to curl up into him and find some sort of shelter. And he didn't protest when she did. Rather, he tenderly touched her hair and she found herself ridiculously grateful that these ghosts, this version of them, were corporeal. "I'm scared," she admitted in a soft, tearful whisper. "What if I mess it up all over again? What if I'm a terrible mother? Or I can't be who she needs to keep her from turning into...into him?"
His arms wrapped around her, holding her close, more like a child than a lover and she found she was all right with that. "Henry was born to you, with a father who was hardly a prize to be won. He was raised by the most evil power in our kingdom. And he? Is the personified version of goodness and light. And hope, Emma. You have to have hope."
"Hope Swan?" she asked, giggling over her tears. "Terrible name."
Graham laughed, and the sound rumbled pleasantly in her ears. "You'll think of something. Just remember, Emma. You're not alone. Even when I'm gone. So many people here care for you, even in spite of the mistakes you've made. You can pick up the pieces and move on. You just have to have faith in them. And in yourself."
She didn't know when she'd fallen asleep again. All she knew was she woke up curled at Graham's side. And, for the first time in a long time, her sleep was deep and peaceful.