A Curse Upon Thee 3-4 (Patreon)

What are you going to do, Emma?That same thought had been a constant in her head since she was old enough to even think and it had only gotten more common every single year. These last two weeks? It might as well have been playing on a loop.

Exactly as long as she’d spent trudging through the trees and sleeping in the mud, those two weeks back in Storybrooke had rushed by like a night of sleep. Something poetic there, or at least it would be if Emma knew anything about poetry. Whatever.Thoughts of poetry and stories only made the pounding in her head worse, not that she would ever admit that out loud, considering her present company. No, Emma just sat with her back against vinyl, hands around a mug that had gone lukewarm a while ago.Lukewarm or not, coffee was coffee but even the best brew in the world wouldn’t have helped her headache. It definitely didn’t do a damn thing to ease the sound of somebody’s kid shrieking two booths over. Wait, that’s Ashley. 

Seeing Cinderella with her prince eating breakfast as she cooed the baby quiet should have been something wild to deal with but Emma had already experienced her ‘WTF’ meter top out a while after two weeks in Narnia. You fight a dragon once and then a witch a few times and suddenly, things aren't that crazy anymore. 

She bit back a sigh as her eyes landed on the fog outside, window almost frosted from the morning Maine chill. Even past it, she could see Main Street still chugging along.Like it had the whole time she was gone, with a shrug, all the gaps were filled in and the problems handled. It had went on without her and it was still going without Finn, too.Technically still the sheriff, though. And that technically wasn’t doing much for her, past the paycheck. Nobody had ever actually taken the badge from her; no vote, no paperwork, no conversation as she walked into the station her third day back and Graham had been sat at her… his… the desk with a case file open and a pen in his mouth.

She’d done all the blinking because he didn’t even flinch, Graham just looking up with a mornin’ like it was any other Tuesday.

Which was… fine, because it wasn’t like the man wasn’t good at the job. Twenty-eight years of experience tended to do that to you. It was weird that he was alive, though. Surprisingly, the whole town had just taken that with a shrug like everything else.Emma was still taking that part in, especially since she’d literally seen him die on the pavement outside that very same office. It was just another thing to add to list of things she hadn’t processed — sitting somewhere around fourth.

Maybe fifth, actually.Honestly, at the rate these things kept popping up, it might be tenth by next week. “—reasonable taxes on this one, which surprised me for the size, and it’s walkable, David.” A printout hit the table, her mother always carrying anything and everything in her bag. “It’s walkable—”“Mary Margaret, where do you think we live exactly? Everything is walkable.” Her dad — the mayor — had his elbow on the table despite Mary Margaret having told him about exactly that several times, a piece of toast halfway to his teeth. “You’ve really got to stop taking everything the realtor says as fact. Simon barely knows what he’s saying half the time.”“Don’t be rude, David.”“Rude?” Green eyes rolled — color and motion an almost perfect match to hers to the point Emma couldn’t believe she’d never noticed before — and David Nolan just took another bite of his toast. “I’m not being rude. Simon Duplain can sell a house, but the man is just… just an airhead, Snowy. He makes me want to dye my hair your color.”“Oh you…” Mary Margaret pursed her lips, the argument dying as Emma couldn’t miss the smile fighting her for freedom. “A mayor should be more respectful of his constituents.”Those green eyes tilted over to Mary Margaret, her father fighting a smile of his own. “Not exactly a high bar for me to clear.”“...oh, shush.”Emma pushed a piece of egg around on her fork as she listened to the conversation in front of her, one that had been on repeat over the last few days. Honestly, the fact that her family — at least half of it — was already making moves to… move was honestly more refreshing than she expected.True, she might have been avoiding dealing with that, too, but it would also be nice to have the whole apartment back to herself. That same listing slid across the table, Emma blinking up at a beaming Mary Margaret as it stopped against her plate. “It’s a Colonial Revival with five bedrooms.”A big house with cream walls stared back at Emma, the place absolutely covered with more windows than any house needed. Wasn’t too much sun bad for your skin, anyway?

“...congratulations?”David glanced over at Mary Margaret, those eyes sliding back onto Emma a second later as his face shifted with it. Mary Margaret’s own expression wasn’t still either, eyes patient and smile hopeful. “One could be yours, you know.”…there it is. Egg sat in her mouth as she stopped chewing, yolk suddenly feeling like rubber between her teeth. “I—”“I want the upstairs one!”A sigh of relief left her as a ten year old bundle of energy took all that parental attention off her for at least a second. “Henry… you don’t live with them.” Legally, you don’t even live with me. 

Something she was looking to change, but she doubted Regina would let go that easily.“I visit! I can have a visiting room.”David nodded slowly, still working on that one piece of toast. “Well, I’m convinced.”Emma rolled her eyes, fork already pointed his way. “You… don’t encourage him.”“As a grandpa, it’s my job to encourage and spoil him. Besides…” A smile split her father’s face wide as he leaned over to ruffle Henry’s hair. “He’s clearly thought it through.”“He’s ten.”“I’ve th-” Henry nodded his head, the words in his mouth muffled around a forkful of pancake the size of his own fist. “-it through.”“...sure you have, kid.”The bell over the door went off, morning Maine weather escorting in two women as they came through mid-conversation. “—ou moved it, Aura, the whole block moved to Thursday and then didn’t tell anyone.”The younger blonde hid her face for a second, almost sinking into her pastel blue sweater before she bothered speaking up. “I told… I told Baby.”“Owen doesn’t count.” The smaller blonde woman shook her head, a finger aimed right in the girl’s face in a way that made her seem almost twice as tall. “Look, I love my little boy, but Owen barely reads unless he has to. He’s definitely not reading the schedule book.”Emma knew the younger girl — Aura something — from the town spa, and Henry had been quick to tell her that she was Goldilocks. She hadn’t believed him back then, but… No point doubting now, right?Behind both woman came a guy who had to duck to get in the diner, his body just big all around in a way that his exposed arms made clear wasn’t just fat.  Emma watched his hand steady a stool as he walked past it, ham hands keeping it still so he wouldn’t tip it over or something. “Is he-?”“Papa Bear.” Henry’s answer came around his pancake.“Ah.” Figured.

The door chimed again, a brunette woman in blue-green scrubs walking in with a smile brighter and wider than Emma had ever seen — especially this early in the morning. She ordered a green tea to go and she was out the door in a few minutes, the paper cup in hand and a wave behind her to Granny.Emma tried to remember if anybody had ever told her that one’s deal.Even still, she didn’t ask.Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell may have ended last year but Emma still considered it active policy, at least as far as all the information Storybrooke had to throw her way. Most of it had been delivered by her own son at high speed and about two days in, she had stopped listening to any of it with all her energy wasted on the big ones.Her mother was Snow White and only a year older than she was. Her dad was was Prince Charming and a year older than that. Regina Mills was the Evil Queen, as well as the mother of her son on top of that. Anything else other than that would go firmly in the ‘Ignore’ pile unless it became relevant because there was a limit and she’d hit hers.A woman no older than she was, black hair tied back in a short ponytail, walked in and sat at the counter with her order — vegetarian omelet and black coffee — already waiting. Emma knew this woman well enough — Agnes George — considering she’d made a few trips to the butcher shop in her time in Storybrooke, but vegetarian was a choice for a butcher.

Emma didn’t ask about that either.The bell rang and a kid came in with the cold again, skateboard under one arm and hair as pale as Finn’s was red. A hand snatched two fries off a plate at a table he was only walking past and the guy he was stealing from didn’t even look up until he tried again, slapping his hand away without even breaking his conversation.The white-haired kid leaned on the counter with a wink at Ruby.Emma couldn’t hear what he said but the shape of it was obvious. Ruby kept pouring coffee without even a look his way, an entire minute spent with her mouth shut until he pushed off the counter and walked back out.

"Did he pay for anything?"

Henry looked up from his plate. "I don't think he bought anything. Jake does that."

Emma eyed the door another second. "Of course Jake does that."At the other end of the counter from Agnes, some guy smaller than any of the men she knew as dwarves was eating breakfast alone the same way he had been the past four mornings, Emma raising an eyebrow as he yawned into his waffles. “...doesn’t he own the mattress place?”Henry twisted around to look, peeking up over the vinyl of the booth. “Oh, Sammy? Yeah.”“Doesn’t that open at noon?”“Think so.”Then why is he- Nope. Emma didn’t bother opening her mouth for this one, eyes flicking back to Ruby even as Mary Margaret tried to get the house thing going again for the third time this morning.Ruby looked normal as ever, the girl wiping the counter with her sleeves pushed up and hair tied back. Perfectly normal, given that she was a werewolf of all things.And she had a grandpa.

Whose name was Bigby.And Bigby was, per Henry, the Big Bad Wolf.That was actually the last bit of information that had Emma close her ears up day two, choosing to go early to bed instead of deal with any more. And then the third day, she’d had to deal with Graham, so… yeah.Graham had changed too.Apart from being alive again, he’d put some real weight on in the shoulder area and he carried a sword just like David. A sword and a crossbow, both of which came out whenever one of those things people had started calling Nightmares showed up.Nightmares… None of this bullshit made sense. According to Regina and David, something about magic coming back in force and coming back wrong had brought monsters back with it and, as far as anyone could tell, it all had to do with Finn’s weird magic.Speaking of Finn…His cousin hadn’t left town either, picking up a job alongside Ruby and Graham at the sheriff’s station. Despite walking around town like he’d wandered in off a golf course, the kid had his own magic like Finn and went around glowing whenever he got pissed or took a hit.Nobody knew what that aura around him was, not even Gold.But Emma couldn’t care about any new magic when she was still focused on her old deputy.Finn had gone through first. She’d seen him hit the portal before them, just seconds before she and her mom had jumped in. But they’d come up out of the right side of the well and he just hadn’t, not even after the light had gone out and everybody around that stone ring just kept waiting.The dumb compass… It didn’t matter why or how because none of that mattered when she had to explain it out loud to Ruby and Chad.The girl was still managing, though; Ruby working doubles and running with Graham on hunts every time another one popped up. Chad was doing pretty much the same. After getting the full story of what Finn had been up to with her the third time in a row, he’d settled down and done his own thing too.She just wished she didn’t have to look at a face that reminded her of the kid she knew all the time but… Can’t always get what you want- “Emma?”Green eyes blinked as she stared forward at Mary Margaret, her mother’s head tipped ever so slightly with another searching look on her face. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”“Nothing…” Emma leaned back into the booth, a hand on her forehead. “It’s just that I-”The door banged open, the bell ringing like a five-alarm emergency as Chad came through it fast, blue polo tucked into khakis and a pair of fresh loafers on like he was about to rush a fraternity. It was almost aggressively normal, head to toe, that is if he wasn’t carrying a whole stop sign — pole included — like an axe; one edge of the octagon sheared and jagged.“Ruby!”“Another one?”“Another one!”The waitress was already over the counter, one palm flat on the laminate as she vaulted it clean and easy; apron off and airborne.Granny caught it without even looking up. “Try not to track blood inside this time!”Neither of them answered, both already out the door as it swung back and settled. Emma glanced around, nobody even looking up or caring all that much. Not even Henry, the kid still digging into his pancakes.“Emma?” David sipped his coffee. “You were saying something?”“...nothing.”Mary Margaret reached over and patted her hand.