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May. 16th, 2012 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
notinthebook Night patrols aren't really so bad. Besides, with luck, Mary Margaret won't be home tonight anyway, at least not for a while, so Emma might as well be doing something useful instead of hanging around at home waiting to see how it went, right?
And there's something sort of relaxing about driving around Storybrooke at night in the cruiser. It's quieter, more powerful than her little Bug, and it turns smoothly through the streets as she makes her way around and through town.
Gold's pawnshop: nothing going on there, though there's a light on in the back. She wonders, briefly, whether the guy ever goes home, and, if he does, what he goes home to. She seriously doubts there's a Mrs. Gold around to put up with his cryptic riddles.
The residences and businesses are all shut up for the night, warm yellow lights glowing behind some windows, but it's late, and plenty of people are already asleep, probably, or getting ready for bed and work and school tomorrow.
The Mayor's house takes up practically it's own street: a graceful New England version of a mansion, built square and simple with a high hedge around it for privacy. The windows are all dark as she drives slowly by, but she looks over anyway, wondering if Henry's up.
Maybe he'd give her a wave or something if he saw the cruiser.
But it's not Henry she sees when she looks towards the house: it's a tall shape, jumping lightly out of a window and landing on the lawn below with hardly a thump. Heart racing, she pulls over, gets out of the cruiser and shuts the door as quietly as she can, nightstick at the ready as she tiptoes on silent boots to wait by the edge of the driveway.
When he comes out, she's ready for him, with a swing right to the gut.
And there's something sort of relaxing about driving around Storybrooke at night in the cruiser. It's quieter, more powerful than her little Bug, and it turns smoothly through the streets as she makes her way around and through town.
Gold's pawnshop: nothing going on there, though there's a light on in the back. She wonders, briefly, whether the guy ever goes home, and, if he does, what he goes home to. She seriously doubts there's a Mrs. Gold around to put up with his cryptic riddles.
The residences and businesses are all shut up for the night, warm yellow lights glowing behind some windows, but it's late, and plenty of people are already asleep, probably, or getting ready for bed and work and school tomorrow.
The Mayor's house takes up practically it's own street: a graceful New England version of a mansion, built square and simple with a high hedge around it for privacy. The windows are all dark as she drives slowly by, but she looks over anyway, wondering if Henry's up.
Maybe he'd give her a wave or something if he saw the cruiser.
But it's not Henry she sees when she looks towards the house: it's a tall shape, jumping lightly out of a window and landing on the lawn below with hardly a thump. Heart racing, she pulls over, gets out of the cruiser and shuts the door as quietly as she can, nightstick at the ready as she tiptoes on silent boots to wait by the edge of the driveway.
When he comes out, she's ready for him, with a swing right to the gut.
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Date: 2012-05-17 01:05 am (UTC)Either she leaves before he does for Mayoral duties, or he finds himself leaving in the middle of the night, when the streets are more or less empty, and Henry's asleep.
She never asks him to stay over and he never expects to.
The front door can be loud, and there's the added security system feature that means a noise signals the comings and goings of guests in the Mayor's house. Windows are best, even if they entail a whole new form of humiliation and shame.
A form that Graham is currently experiencing as he agilely lands in the front lawn with his clothes in vague disarray ...
... only to get nailed right in the gut as he attempts to straighten.
He lets out a pained groan.
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Date: 2012-05-17 01:27 am (UTC)This can't be right. That person, lying on the ground with his hand at his gut, groaning in pain, can't be Graham. It can't be.
Can't be. She doesn't even stop to think why that needs to be true, just clings to the denial even as he looks up at her and she recognizes those features: curly hair, scruff, vest, the shirt he'd been wearing earlier today.
"This is volunteering?"
She can't keep the disbelief out of her voice, doesn't even try.
She feels like she's going to be sick. Disappointment twists like snakes in her stomach.
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Date: 2012-05-17 01:35 am (UTC)The expression on her face - he can't quite find the bravery to look her in the eye. It hurts worse than the physical jab in his gut; it hurts worse than anything he ever thought he could feel.
"Plans ... changed," he says weakly. "Regina needed me to ..."
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Date: 2012-05-17 01:44 am (UTC)She's not a jealous person. She's never had an issue with it before; people are people and if everyone involved is a consenting adult, it's none of her business who sleeps with who, and it's not like she's a saint, herself, getting mixed up with Michael at the bar.
It's none of her business, and there's nothing going on between her and Graham. A few evenings hanging out at Granny's does not a relationship make.
...But she can't help it. She looks at him, and she can't not see how slightly disheveled he is, like fingers have been running through his hair, toying with his shirt, and it's like something snaps and twists and breaks deep in her chest that it's someone else who got to see him like that first, mussed out of his usual neat efficiency.
Maybe it's not her. Fine. That's fine. But does it have to be Regina?
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Date: 2012-05-17 01:56 am (UTC)It's another lie.
Another lie he wishes he could take back, if only to take away the look on Emma's face right now.
He staggers to his feet, the soreness in his chest only worsened by these intense, terrible feelings.
This is what he hoped he would never see from her.
(It's what he hoped he would never see directed at him.)
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Date: 2012-05-17 02:05 am (UTC)She wants to believe him so badly it actually hurts, aches in her chest like she'd gone for a ten mile run and developed asthma right at the end.
But she can't, because he's lying, and he's not even lying well.
"...Why were you sneaking out the window?"
It doesn't matter who he is or what she wants to believe. If he's not a thief, there's only one other explanation.
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Date: 2012-05-17 02:10 am (UTC)Graham considers another lie, anything that might alleviate the look of crushing disappointment from her face, but ... he can't.
He just can't anymore.
Emma deserves better than this.
She deserves so much more than this.
"... she didn't want Henry to know."
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Date: 2012-05-17 02:13 am (UTC)Now she really does feel like she's actually going to be sick.
Horrified: "You did this with Henry in the house?"
He's standing, shoulders slumped, hair mussed, tie loose and askew, in front of her, and the look on his face....is that an apology? Is it guilt?
She's not sure she even wants to look at him ever again. She'd thought so much better of him, she'd thought...
Well, it doesn't matter now.
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Date: 2012-05-17 02:20 am (UTC)Understand what?
He doesn't even know.
He has no idea what this is, why this had to happen, why he feels the way he does.
There's a terrible ache in his chest and it's very nearly foreign to him.
"He's sleeping," Graham says desperately, "he doesn't know."
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Date: 2012-05-17 04:04 am (UTC)Of course, there's something to be said for blissful ignorance.
"Oh, god," she says, feeling her stomach lurch. "I wish I was Henry right now." Her eyes flick to him again, still disbelieving, still entirely, utterly, disappointed without even knowing why.
"This is disgusting."
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Date: 2012-05-17 04:40 am (UTC)But his mind is racing, and everything sounds wrong or it's not enough.
He searches her face, shifting to remind himself that this is, in fact, happening and he needs to fix it.
"I really do work at an animal shelter," Graham says with the last desperate plea he can muster, before he goes quiet.
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Date: 2012-05-17 02:15 pm (UTC)Letting people in is a mistake.
"You can finish my shift," she says, flat, tossing him the keys as she turns on her heel. "I’m done working nights."
When she walks away, she doesn't bother looking back to see whether he goes or stays or heads back to Regina. He can do what he wants.
She doesn't care.