Beane Odette - Reawakened - A Once Upon A Time Tale

— Hey, hey, hey, — she said, holding him up. — Come on, Graham. You’re just dizzy, right?

But it was worse than a dizzy spell, she soon realized, and the weight of his body forced them both down. He looked sadly at Emma. The sadness was what really scared her.

— Graham! — she cried, shaking him. — Graham!

He groaned again and took a few labored breaths.

— I love you, — he said.

— Don’t act like you’re dying, Graham, — she said, panic in her voice. — Please don’t do that.

He reached up, touched Emma’s face. She was crying. He was using all the strength he had to wipe away the tears.

He was gone. Gone just like that, gone with little explanation. Cardiac arrest? By the time the ambulance came, Emma knew in her heart that he’d left the world. She stayed with him on the ground, weeping over him, until the paramedics had to calmly, delicately remove her arms from his body. She watched numbly as they put him on the stretcher and carried him away. There was no need to go to the hospital. It was obvious to everyone in the room. Unlike John Doe, this one would not be waking up. There were no miracles to be had here.

Since Graham’s death, Emma had been sleepwalking through her job as acting sheriff. Storybrooke had suddenly gone quiet, giving Emma some room to mourn the loss of her friend.

The news about Graham was simple: He’d died of natural causes, a heart fibrillation that had haunted him since childhood.

Dr. Whale showed her the chart, and Emma accepted it, but a part of her suspected something was off with Graham’s death. But that didn’t mean she was about to start believing in a curse. It was just the type of thing people did when they were vulnerable; she’d seen it a thousand times. The truth was he was gone, and that was that.

It was a Wednesday morning when Emma arrived at the office and found a message from the service telling her that Mr. Gold had called and asked her to come by his pawnshop when it was convenient. With nothing else going on, she picked up her coffee and headed back to her cruiser.

She found Gold in his back office, applying some kind of clear liquid to a cloth. Emma assumed the horrendous odor in the room — somewhere between manure and sweat — was coming from it. As she announced herself, Gold did not look up, and instead kept applying the liquid.

— Lanolin, — he muttered. — That’s the smell.

— Lovely, — Emma said.

— It’s the same reason sheep’s wool repels water, — he noted. — Quite amazing, really. Highly flammable, of course.

— I got a message from the service, — said Emma. — What can I do for you?

— I wanted to express my condolences about Sheriff Graham now that things have died down, — said Gold, finally looking up. Emma wouldn’t have called it a sympathetic look, but she could see that he was trying to be kind. — Not good for the town. But I know you two were close. — Gold began cleaning up around his desk. — You’ll do well as a replacement, — he said.

— I’m not replacing him.

— Two weeks as acting sheriff makes you sheriff, Ms. Swan. That’s what the law says.

— You don’t say, — Emma said. She wasn’t sure what she thought of the idea. Sheriff Swan.

— I also wanted to tell you that I have some of his things here, and I wondered if you might want something. — Gold stood, picked up a cardboard box on a nearby countertop, and carried it over to her. He set it down on a table and Emma saw a number of items she recognized: Graham’s leather jacket, his sunglasses, his cell phone.

— I don’t want any of that, — Emma said flatly, staring into the box. She felt a strong aversion to having Graham’s things in her possession, and the strength of the feeling surprised her. She wondered, for a moment, how Gold had come to have these items, but asking questions meant continuing to discuss Graham. She couldn’t do that right now.

— No? — Gold said casually. — How about these? He pulled two walkie-talkies from the box. — These seem to be police-issued. You don’t have use for them? Couldn’t your boy play with them, at least?

Emma sighed and took the two walkie-talkies.

— Fine, — she said. — Thank you.

— Children grow up so fast, — said Gold. — You’ll want to make as many memories as you can.

Emma looked at him. He was making that same face — something between compassionate and devious.

— Don’t I know it, — she said.

Emma found Henry sitting in his «castle» at the seashore. It was only thirty minutes before school and he was in a glum mood; he didn’t seem all that cheered up by the walkie-talkies, and he eventually just stuffed them into his backpack. She suggested they could use them to continue their Operation Cobra work, but he only looked back out at the water when she mentioned it. What had once brought a mischievous energy to his eyes now had almost no effect.

— What’s wrong? — she said, after a silence.

— I feel like we should stop Operation Cobra, — Henry said. — It seemed really fun. But now Sheriff Graham is dead.

— That had nothing at all to do with you or the curse. He had a sick heart. He’d known for a long time.

Henry turned and looked at her with grave seriousness.

— That’s not what happened, — he said. — The Queen killed him because you two were falling in love and he was her slave. And she was mad.

— I know you think that, but sometimes bad things just happen for no reason.

— That’s not true, either, — he said, growing more agitated. — She killed him because he was good, and good always loses here. And you’re good, and that means you’re going to lose.

— Good doesn’t always lose, — Emma said. — It’s just harder for good. Because good plays by more rules.

Henry seemed vaguely interested in this point, even though he still remained distracted, disconnected.

— Good has to play fair, — he said.

— You have to get it out of your head that Regina killed somebody, — Emma said. — She didn’t That’s not fair to her.

Henry smiled.

— What? — Emma said.

— You’re right, — he said. — We don’t want to make her any angrier than she is already. Right?

Emma cocked her head.

— That’s not what I meant, kid.

— I know, — Henry said. — But still.

She dropped Henry at school, then went back to the station, ready for another long day of… very little.

When she came in, her eyes went to Graham’s desk as they always did. His badge was still there. Emma imagined herself with it, imagined changing her life in this way, settling in. She went to the desk and picked the badge up.

— You won’t be needing that.

Emma turned.

Regina, arms crossed, stood in the doorway.

— The position automatically falls to me tomorrow, — Emma said. — Have I misunderstood the charter?

— It automatically falls to you if the mayor fails to appoint somebody else, — Regina said, strolling into the room, looking disdainfully at the mess on Emma’s desk. — I’m going to appoint someone else this afternoon.

— Who? — Emma said.

— Sidney Glass from the Storybrooke Daily Mirror , — she said casually. — He knows the town well. He’s been here for quite some time.

— A reporter? — Emma said. — He’s not qualified.

— Oh, I think he’ll be just fine, — Regina said, smiling. — And it’ll be a pleasure to have somebody here who is not actively working to undermine me.