#fluffy darkness

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“Call me Mary Margaret.”  Emma smiles at Ms Blanchard’s very firm handshake.

“Sheriff Emma Swan,” she replies.  “I heard you ran circles around my tracking?”

Ms Blanchard blushes a very pretty shade of pink, which almost immediately mirrors in her deputy’s cheeks, and Emma files that information away for much, much later.

“I, uh, didn’t mean to---”

“I’m not complaining,” Emma cuts off the beginnings of her apology.  “I only know the basics, and my experience is more reading crime scenes than spoor.  I’m glad you’re here.”

Mary Margaret smiles an absolutely radiant smile, and David behind her blushes even more, and oh god, he’s got it bad.  Emma will spend many a future night making merciless fun of him.

  If they get future nights.

  A spike of pure fear makes Emma’s breath hitch and she pushes it down.

  “David said you had something to show us?”

Mary Margaret nods, and lets her gaze wander up over the surrounding trees, their branches creaking in the wind.  She spends a long time looking, and they all follow her example, but Emma can’t make out anything but evergreen needles and the last falling leaves of the deciduous.  

Mary Margaret’s brow furrows, but she doesn’t comment before she finally motions towards the bridge itself.

“Here, let me show you,” she says, and leads them all to the middle, before turning to Emma and pointing at the slats.  “We have to lie down.”

  Emma gets down on cold, rusty metal, and can feel Killian lie down down beside her.  He’s warm next to her, and just close enough to touch down the length of her side, and she smiles at him briefly before looking back at Mary Margaret on her other side.

Mary Margaret, who lifts her hand and points.

Up.

  The moment Emma sees the symbols down the length of the bannister, she can feel Killian beside her go rigid.  His breath stops .  The letters look exactly like the ones on the note cards, like the ones on Leroy’s back, but they don’t look carved into the metal, they look etched.

As if they were made by acid, something corrosive.

  She lifts her hand to trace them when an iron grip closes around her wrist and Killian next to her yells, “ DON’T! ” and yanks her arm away so forcefully, her shoulder protests loudly for a brief moment.  He sits up, breathing hard, and when he speaks, his voice is a gravelly hiss.

“Don’t touch anything.”  He looks sharply at Emma and Mary Margaret.  “Nothing at all.”  Then he turns to David.  “We need to photograph all of this.  Do you have your crime scene kit and camera?”

The deputy nods, and Killian looks at August. “Go with him,” he says.  “Help the deputy get his gear, take the photos.  You know what to do.  Touch nothing. ”

It is only then that he seems to come back to himself and looks at Emma, ducking his head.  “Sorry.  I’m sorry.  This is your crime scene.  I just-- I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” she says, and sits up, nodding.  “Go ahead, David.  Get the camera, document all of this.  Make sure it’s sequential, and stays in order.”

  She stands, helps up Mary Margaret, and Killian looks relieved and contrite in equal measure.

“Did I hurt you?”  He whispers.  “Your arm, did it hurt?  I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine,” she says, and smiles.  “Don’t worry about me.”  

Then she drops her voice low.  “Have you seen this kind of thing before?  Symbols on structures?”

Killian’s eyes are large and worried as he shakes his head.  “Never.  I don’t know what to make of them.”  

  Emma watches as his eyes drift over to August and the doctor, bent over the CSI cases with her deputy.  It’s a sign she has learned to recognize.  Killian looking away in that manner is a clear indicator that he’s completely caught inside his own head.

So she waits.

  “They weren’t made by a quill,” he finally says.  He turns his head back to her, his eyes focus slowly on hers.

Emma nods.  “I don’t think they were made by any type of blade or point.  It looked chemical, like the top layer of the steel was stripped.”

“We have to swab it.”  Killian shakes his head.  “We have to test it for particulates, residue, anything concrete---”

“And we will.”  Emma slowly puts her hand on his arm.  He looks so very strained.  

“Killian.”  She waits until he meets her eyes, gives her his full attention.  “We’ll take all the samples and do all the tests, OK?  And we’ll be careful.”  He gives her a wan smile.  “But now let’s sweep the area one more time and find out what Ms Blanchard wanted to----”

  “ SHERIFF! ”  It’s Mary Margaret’s voice, from the other side of the river.  Its pitch is easily an octave above normal, and somersaulting all over her words.  “ SHERIFF!  YOU HAVE TO COME HERE! ”

David sprints past them with a clatter of hard-soled shoes, and Emma and Killian break into a run to follow.

Behind them Emma can hear both August and Whale, but slower.

On the other side of the bridge is a clearing which runs in a very gentle slope down to the wide, generous bank of the river.  This side belongs to the forest - there are neither roads nor paths, just the trees and many, many animal prints leading down to the watering hole.

Mary Margaret stands at the far edge of the clearing, right at the tree line, white as a sheet and shaking.  

“I knew they couldn’t have just disappeared,” she says.  Her eyes are glassy and she’s mumbling to herself.  “They couldn’t have, it’s just not possible.”

She looks at David.  “I said it the first time, didn’t I?  That it’s not possible?”

Emma watches her deputy slowly take Mary Margaret’s hands and ask quietly, “What are you talking about?  What’s impossible?”

Her eyes fill with tears.  “Graham’s tracks, they just disappeared, and now I know why.”

She swallows hard, and more tears fall. “Look!”  Her voice cuts out and she tries again.  “Look up.”

  And six pairs of eyes lift to look at the trees above.

On a high branch in the tree to their left - an enormous rowan with quite a few leaves left - a figure swings gently in the wind.

Wearing a coarse linen robe, strung up by the wrists which are bound together underneath cupped hands, hangs the Huntsman.

-/-

“What.  The Fuck.”

Victor’s eyes are enormous as he looks from the corpse dangling up high to each member of the group and then back again.  He looks thoroughly bewildered and not a little afraid.

August can’t blame him.  It’s a gruesome sight.

  The Sheriff and Killian subconsciously step closer to each other, but they don’t touch.  August can see Killian’s hand twitch like he wants to take hers and stops himself at the last moment.  Repeatedly.  Not like the deputy and the woman with the rifle.  David is hugging her hard.  It looks like she knew the victim.

  “We have to cut him down,” August finally says, trying to keep his voice quiet, calm.  While every fiber in his body is telling him to Run.  Now.

Killian nods.  “Without touching anything.”  He looks up again, squinting.  “Emma?  Are there carvings on the branches?”

Sheriff Swan whispers, “I can’t tell.”  And steps even closer to Killian.  There’s barely an inch of space between them now, and August can see them for what they are: A unit.  

This is new, and it takes him completely unawares.

The fact that Killian is part of something again.

Back in Boston, a lifetime ago, when August and Liam were partners and caught the first in that string of strange homicides which would end their lives figuratively for one and literally for the other, Killian was just a stuttering image and lagging audio across an old computer screen.  Just someone Liam had videoconferenced to consult, because he’d had the sinking feeling that the randomly carved lines on the notecards were in fact not random at all.  Especially not after they found similar ones across the back of the victim.

And Liam had been right.

The lines were not random, they were an ancient phonetic alphabet which had been used to transcribe another ancient language, and Liam asked his brother to come and consult.

August remembers it well.

He remembers the Killian who first came to Boston, a walking cliché in tweed and elbow patches, with his messy hair and his scruff and his eyes constantly laughing.  They’d ribbed each other, Liam and Killian, like only brothers who truly love, truly understand each other can, and through it all Liam made sure everyone knew that his little brother was the smartest man in any room he walked into.

To which Killian would blush and half-smile, and then roll his eyes and make another futile attempt to get Liam to say ‘younger brother’.  Which he never did.

  And then tragedy struck and that Killian, the one with the quick jokes and the easy smile and the laughing eyes vanished.  He disappeared like the body of his brother they never found, and changed his life’s calling and purpose to the pursuit of atonement. 

  Years now, years of this, of penance and pain and the weight of the dead.

Of sifting the wreckage of lives destroyed and deaths unavenged, while August dove into a bottle and never came back up for air.

  And now Killian is here, broken and damaged and yet functioning, and it throws August for a loop, hard, the way Killian and the Sheriff seem to vibrate along the same frequency.  The way they are in tune, attuned, in this perfect sync and click which Killian has never had with anyone save his brother.

It’s simultaneously the most hopeful and the most terrifying sign yet.

There’s a deafening crack , and Killian and David both shout, “ GET BACK! ” as the branch breaks off and slams to the ground, corpse and all.

“Everybody OK?”  Emma’s voice is unsteady.  “Anyone hurt?”

August looks around, but everyone seems fine, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

Killian pulls at Emma’s shoulder to look at her, and she smiles at him, tells him she’s fine.

David is looking up at the tree, trying to gauge the damage.

The short-haired brunette has pulled the rifle off her back and is holding it in a firm regulation grip, barrel-down, index finger well away from the trigger.  She definitely knows her weaponry, and seems to have a handle on her emotions now.  She’s no longer crying.

And Victor----

  It’s a second too late.  He looks for Victor a second too late, a fleeting moment, a blink, a fucking fraction of time too late, because Victor has of course stepped forward

he’s a doctor, He’sADoctor

up to the corpse

how could you forget he’s a fucking DOCTOR

and knelt down next to it

and he knows nothing about this case, nothing

and stretched out his hand, his bare hand

why didn’t you check on Victor first

to touch----

  Killian and Emma and David and August simultaneously scream, “ DON’T ”, scream “ STOP! ”, and August leaps forward, but it’s too late

it’s too late

and Victor’s outstretched, bare fingers touch the cold, dead skin of Graham’s wrist.

  August’s momentum rips Victor away a split second later, but it’s not enough, and he knows it’s not enough, and they both tumble to the ground amidst brown leaves and cold earth and August swears he can hear the jaws of fate snapping shut.

  And then there is silence.

-/-

How long?

  It’s the question on everybody’s mind.  In everyone’s eyes.  Emma can almost taste it in the air.

  How long does he have?

  David is busy cordoning off a perimeter.  For all the good it will do now.  

Emma has called the ME, and Ashley says she’ll come down here with the siren, cut her driving time in half.  Like it’s going to make a difference.

Victor sits on a tree trunk off to the side, pale, shaking, listening to Killian and August.  Tell him about how he is going to--- how he is going to---- 

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

Emma turns and finds herself facing Ms Blanchard, her eyes narrowed, the rifle across her shoulder.

Emma shrugs.  “I’m not sure, exactly.”

“I realize I’m just a civilian.  And an elementary school teacher to boot.”  Ms Blancha rd’s tone is resolute and firm.  Emma has no trouble believing she can keep infinite numbers of 4th graders in a very straight line.  “But I have eyes.  There’s no need for discretion with me.”  She shakes her head.  “That guy over there, he’s the next victim.  Isn’t he.”

Emma looks at the woman before her, and it’s almost a relief to be able to nod.  “I think he might be.”

“Graham found the last victim, didn’t he.”

Emma nods again.

“Do you think Graham touched him?  Do you think that’s why he died?”

Ms Blanchard’s voice shakes on the last bit, and Emma remembers that she was friends with the hunter.  

“I think it’s very likely,” she says gently.  “Leroy was prostrate on the bridge, not displayed in a tree.  Graham probably tried to help, or check his pulse.”

“That makes sense.”  Ms Blanchard’s voice is very quiet now.  “He knew first aid.  And he was a very decent person.”  She looks up at Emma and sniffs, once.  “Did you know he tried to call me before he died?”

“He what?”

“It’s in my statement.  I--- I told David?”

Emma shakes her head to clear it.  

“Ms Blanchard---”

“Please Sheriff.  I told you to call me Mary Margaret.”

Emma can’t pay attention to niceties right now.

“When you say Graham called you before he died, what do you mean?  How long before he died?  What did you talk about?”

“We didn’t talk.”  Mary Margaret looks supremely unhappy now.  “He called sometime after midnight.  He tried, at least.  I woke up to 23 missed calls.”  She sniffs again.  “I’m a heavy sleeper.”  It sounds like an apology.  “Anyway, by the time I woke up and found my phone, he’d stopped, and I tried to call back, but all I got was his voicemail, and I----”  her voice breaks--- “and then I never saw him again.”

She’s holding on by the barest of threads.  Emma feels a pang of empathy.

“I’m sorry Ms Blanchard.”

The brunette rolls her eyes.

“I’m sorry Mary Margaret ,” Emma says, and gets a wan smile in return.  “But thank you for telling me.  This is incredibly helpful information.”

“How so?”

“Because this area is remote and wooded, and we have no less than five cell towers covering it.”  Emma feels a slim ray of hope for the first time in a long time.  This is tangible evidence.  This is what she does.  “And now we can triangulate the signals and track Graham’s movements.  His exact movements.”

-/-

“We are not joking, Victor.  This is real.”

  August’s voice is as soft as Killian has ever heard it, and Victor grows very, very still.

Only minutes ago he was rolling his eyes at Killian and August and laughing out loud at the preposterous notion of tangible evil that chooses its victims by touch, and Killian can’t blame him for thinking they are short all the fries of a Happy Meal, but he is also so, so tired of fighting this fight.

Of explaining every preposterous aspect of this godforsaken case.

Over.  And over.  And over.

  He looks at Emma, talking to the school teacher, and she feels his gaze, meets his eyes, and smiles.  It gives him enough strength to turn back to Victor, now pale and quiet, looking up at them with uncertain eyes and no small amount of fear.

He feels his gut tighten into nausea.

This is his friend. His friend who is going to----

  Victor was Elsa’s friend first.  She met him long after Liam died and she went back to work, met him at the hospital where she did her assessment sessions for insanity pleas.  Suddenly the word ‘Victor‘ crept into a lot of her stories, and Killian was so suspicious of him at first, just poised to hate him.

Until Elsa finally invited them both out for drinks, and Killian realized that Dr. Whale was just helping Elsa through things, and was not going to tarnish Liam’s memory.

He was also smart and wickedly funny and obviously cared a great deal about Elsa, and it was just so wonderful sometimes to have someone to talk to who knew nothing about impossible cases and deadly quills and runes carved in blood.  Especially since August had disappeared down a long liquid spiral, and Elsa spent her nights surrounded by framed memories.

Killian had just completed his rookie year at the Boston PD and was spending all his time either trying to untwist Liam’s death or studying for the detective’s exam, and it was just such a pleasure to go meet Victor for drinks and talk about none of it .

  To just have a conversation about the Bruins (Killian doesn’t know hockey, but he does know how to let other people talk about hockey), or about the Red Sox (same principle), or about the absolutely insane practical jokes surgeons play on each other (he’s now convinced they’re all eternally just hitting puberty).  So he went to whatever bar whenever Victor called to meet him, and for one night didn’t think about anything, and simply enjoyed the fact that Victor was smart and wickedly funny and knew nothing.  

And he didn’t have to carry the weight of the dead for a little while.

  And now this friend, this friend, is going to----

Is going to----

  Next to Killian August crouches and pats Victor’s knee.

“Hey,” August says, and his voice is still soft and careful.  Not a hint of its usual mix of bitterness and irony.  “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”

Victor’s eyes follow August’s movement, but don’t seem to see him.  August looks up.  

“Right, Killian?”

Killian nods.  There is no way he is losing another----

“Right.”  August gets up and holds his hand out to Victor.  “Now come with me.  We are going to go back and have a fucking drink.”

Victor’s empty eyes blink.    “It’s not even 10AM yet.”

“Trauma exception,”  August says, and pulls the doctor to his feet.  “Killian, can I borrow your car?”

Killian watches them both walk away, and doesn’t notice Emma until he feels her hand fold into his.  Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

Which it is.

“Where are they going?” He turns to look at her.  

Standing there, in the middle of these woods, in the middle of this cursed case, faced with impossible odds and improbable facts, with nothing but a deputy who’s never worked a homicide and an alcoholic ex-cop and a burned-out detective and an elementary school teacher on her side, Emma is holding his hand and offering comfort and care and support, and he lets go of her hand, catches the flash of hurt in her eyes, but he needs both of his hands, right now---

right now---

to lean in 

and take her face 

and tilt it up

and kiss her.

  Like he means it.

Like he has never meant anything ever in his entire life.

His entire.

Life.

  She stiffens for a moment.

And then melts against him, like a key sliding into a lock, and she kisses him back

back

back

and it is everythingeverythingeverything.  

  Everything.

.

There have been lessons in Emma’s life, hard-won and arduous; lessons she fought and bled for for years.  

She has learned that trust must be earned and sparingly given, promises are more often broken than kept, and that that which you do not feel cannot hurt you.

She has learned to be prudent with people and wary of good fortune, to not give without cause nor receive without caution, and that to be safe is always better than to be sorry.

She has learned that to be free of attachment, unbound by people or places or things, is the safest way to live.

  None it matters the moment his lips touch hers.

For one, brief, fleeting moment the lessons learned and the defenses built in their name scream in protest, and then---

and then---

  The warmth and peace and utter sense of belonging, and closeness, and oh god, home .  The sense of being seen, and treasured, and fucking cherished .  It’s almost too much.

She has to breathe through the tears that are threatening to come, because he is kissing her like he is the river and she is the sea.

  And she should be afraid.  

This is how they kiss on the rooftop in her vision amidst lightning and thunder and a storm raging destruction, which means they are another step closer to their inevitable demise, but she can’t because nothing

nothing 

nothing can feel like this and be bad.

When he pulls back his eyes are soft, and he smiles a small, shy smile, and then whispers, “Emma?”

She nods.  Her voice is not working.

“I’m not sorry,” he says.  “I’ve wanted to do that since----”  He exhales, slowly.  His hand runs down her arm until it reaches her hand, and he folds his fingers through hers.  

And squeezes them, hard.

“I’ve wanted to do that since the night we spent at Elsa’s house.”

Once again his voice is a whisper, and Emma thinks of that morning, when she woke up in a panic from the first vision and he came downstairs to comfort her, and in the middle of that room full of memories of everything he’d lost promised her they would prevail.

Promised her he would not let anything happen to her.

  Her eyes fill with tears and she simply stands up on tiptoes and kisses him again.  He wraps himself around her with a sigh, and when they finally break apart he doesn’t let go, leans his forehead against hers, rubs his thumb across her cheek.  Takes a few deep breaths as if he’s about to say something - but remains silent.

  Then David very pointedly clears his throat and Emma remembers they’re in the woods with her deputy and a civilian and a corpse .  

“Back to work,” she whispers, and Killian smiles.

“Yes,” he says.  Just that one word.  But she doesn’t need anything else.

  Then she turns to David, and he lets go of her hand, and the loss of warmth is simply awful.  But there is a killer to catch.

Also, David is scowling like thunder while Mary Margaret is rolling her eyes, and Emma nearly laughs out loud.  It’s so normal .  Their reactions are so very much part of How Things Are Supposed To Be.

Not the Twilight Zone version her world has become.  She half expects David to break out a lecture.

But instead he points across the bridge.

“I think Ashley is here,” he says, and they all watch the ME as she comes down the hill.

  Ashley looks around when she gets there; at the corpse on the ground, still tethered to a tree branch, at the blood-smeared rough linen of his gown, at his closed hands which are obviously holding an object, an object with brown barbules sticking out past his fingertips, and then she puts down her case.

“Something brought down the Huntsman? ”  Ashley’s voice is not quite steady.

David’s brow furrows.  “You knew Graham?”

“We met once,” she says, shaking her head.  “I took an orienteering /survival course years ago.  He was the guide.”

Then she straightens up and puts her hands on her hips.  “I think you owe me an explanation.  Because whatever is being played here, it’s not a game.”

-/-

Back at the diner, August puts the cruiser in park and shuts off the engine.  The man next to him hasn’t said a word the entire drive.

“Hey.”  August keeps his voice quiet as he turns to the doctor.  “How about we---”

“I always knew there was something,” Victor cuts him off.  Toneless and distant.  “With Killian and Elsa and the brother who died, I knew there was something.”

He looks up at August, and for the first time, he sees him.  “I’d read about the cases, of course.  I mean - for a while you couldn’t get away from them, you know?”

  August does know.  Serial killer on the loose.  Random, mutilated victims.  Unknown cause of death .  It was in every newspaper, every news cycle, for weeks.  For months .

And once Will had been killed----

August had known, then and there, that the case was going to get him, and not the other way around.  But the notoriety, the constant press, had magnified each loss a hundred times over, until all he could do was disappear away from it all.

  “And I’m not stupid,” Victor goes on.  “I knew there were things the news didn’t tell us, things Elsa and Killian didn’t tell me, weird things.”  He sighs.  “Things that were---- odd.  Strange, you know?  They both seemed to carry something so--- heavy.  More than the loss of a loved one.”

His blue eyes get very shiny.  August has to actively stop himself from taking Victor’s hand.

“Anyway, I always thought there was something .”  He shrugs.  “And now I know.”

He lifts his hands, only to let them drop back into his lap.  It looks utterly helpless.

“Now I know, and I wish I didn’t.”

  “I know.”  August takes a deep breath, and then he does reach for the doctor’s hand.  “Trust me, I know.”

Victor looks up in wonder and doesn’t pull away, and it gives August hope of a kind he hasn’t felt in years.

“Come upstairs,” he whispers.  “Let’s go upstairs and have a drink and talk this out.  Because that thing is not going to get you, whatever it is.  We are going to beat this, if it’s the last thing I do.”

And the doctor looks up and gives him a smile that’s both terrified and hopeful and says, “Good.”

-/-

“And now?”

  They have documented the crime scene.  Ashley has finished her on-site examination.  They have loaded the corpse into her van and watched her drive off and promised to come by later to get her results and tell her what they know.

Mary Margaret looks pale and David looks worried and Killian looks dead on his feet.

  “It’s been hours,” Emma answers Mary Margaret’s question.  “It’s freezing and none of us have eaten and Killian has boxes worth of files we haven’t even opened yet.”  She looks around.  “Killian and I will go back to the station and order pizza and get started on my report and his files.  David, can you take Mary Margaret home?”

“Don’t even bother,” Mary Margaret says.  “I’m coming to the station with you.  I know you can’t use me as a cop, because, well - I’m not a cop, but I’m coming.  I make very good coffee, and you might need my expertise.”  At their puzzled faces she adds, “You have pictures of previous crime scenes, right?  Were any of them outside?  Is it possible that a tracker could be a helpful second pair of eyes?”

David says, “We can’t ask you to do that,” and Mary Margaret rolls her eyes hard.  It’s fast becoming Emma’s favorite expression.

That woman plays her deputy like a fiddle already.

“I don’t want to be home alone,” Mary Margaret says quietly.  “And besides - the other two guys took Killian’s car.  Which leaves us with exactly one vehicle.”

Well, she has a point.  That woman is not a teacher for nothing.  

David says, “You really shouldn’t---” 

And Emma cuts him off.  “Of course you can come with us.  There will be things we can’t officially share with you, but your input could be valuable, and the safest place to be is the station.”

David blushes as Emma silently dares him to object, and she nods.  “Go ahead and start loading the gear.  We’ll be right up.”

  And then she turns to Killian.  

“There’s a couch at the station,” she says.  “You can take a nap while we wait for the pizza.”

He smiles and cups her cheek.

“I’d much rather go to my room.  With you.”  His smile gets a wicked edge.  “To talk about the case, of course.”

“Of course,” she says, and he leans in to kiss her.  It’s just as wonderful as it was the first time.   When they break apart, he sighs.

“Emma,” he says, and now the laughter is gone from his voice, and it’s so, so earnest.  “I know you’re worried, and you have every right to be.  And I know now we have to figure out impossible clues and an ancient unknown language and bloody magic , and save Victor’s life.”  He takes a deep breath.  “But this?”  His fingers brush past her lips, whisper down her jawline until they tangle in the hair at the back of her neck, warm and sure.  “This?”  He repeats.  “This is not a mistake.”

He kisses her one more time, short, and urgent, and then looks at her and his eyes are burning.

“Nothing that feels so right could ever be a mistake.”

  And Emma nods, because she feels the absolute truth of it down to the bottom of her battered soul.

.

.

A/N II: Hey, look everybody!  The slow burn is finally catching fire!  i really hope you enjoyed that, because OMG you all have earned it several times over.  You really have waited long enough.

-/-

Emma doesn’t know how long she’s been standing there, crying, and doesn’t want to think about it.  Killian is silent, unmoving, his arms wrapped tightly around her.

Solid.

Reassuring.

If only she weren’t so terrified.

  She lifts her head and his arms relax, let her go slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

And then he says, “Did you see a rooftop?”

Her knees buckle.

He simply pivots until they’re both sitting on his bed, facing each other. 

Emma blinks slowly.

There’s a faint feeling of nausea and vertigo.

  “You saw a rooftop?”

He nods.  “I did.  A flat rooftop.  Lots of wind.”

The nausea increases.  So does the terror.

“What else did you see?”  She can barely whisper.

“A thunderstorm,” he says, and Emma starts to shake.  It can’t be a coincidence.

“Emma?”  He leans forward and very, very slowly reaches for her hand.  He stops an inch above it and looks up, waiting for permission.

She’s afraid.  So afraid.  Of skin-on-skin contact.

But she nods.

  He puts his hand on hers, and nothing happens.  Nothing but the familiar spreading of warmth and the feeling of being safe, safe and---

“Whatever this is, you’re in the middle of it.”  It hurts her to say, but the time for denial has passed.

He saw the rooftop.

He heard the thunder.

“It only comes out when we touch.”

He nods.  Waits for her to go on, to work through it.

“I know it happened when I touched Elsa, but--- this thing ,” she waves a vague circle in the air, “Elsa had it, too.  It might just be---”  

  It’s too strange and too fucking complicated.

And too impossible.

  “OK.  I can’t explain Elsa, not really, but I think when we touch, you and I, I think maybe you’re like-- like an amplifier?  For energy that’s already inside me?  Or maybe a conduit?  And the more often we touch, the stronger the current, and the stronger the current, the more--- fuck .  I don’t know.”

She looks up at him, helpless.

“I can’t explain it, Killian.  I don’t even know what it is.  What does it mean?  And why can’t it just mean that I’m losing my mind?”

  “You’re not losing your mind,” he says, and she shouldn’t be as relieved as she is that he sounds so very sure.  “And we might not be able to figure it out tonight.  But,” he squeezes her hand and his eyes look grave, “I think we must simply be open for anything.  Not deny what is happening, no matter how outlandish.  Not ignore anything, not repress or rationalize.  I think we need to be vigilant for more signs.  And you need to listen.”

“Listen to what?”  Her voice is small. 

“Yourself.  Everything that’s happening inside your head.”

She shudders.  “Like I’m not terrified enough just sitting here.”

He lifts her hand again, puts it over his heart.

“I know,” he whispers.  “I know.  But I think it’s the only way.”

  She nods. He’s right. She can’t think of a single alternative.

  Then he slowly lets go and gets up.

“Neither one of us has eaten since breakfast, and it’s dinnertime.”  He holds out his hand.  “Let’s go downstairs and have some food and then you can tell me exactly what you saw.”

She feels cold and numb and helpless, but then she takes his hand and he pulls her up.  

“See?”  His eyes are soft as he smiles at her.  “Whatever it is, it’s not a bad thing when we come in contact.”  The tips of his ears turn bright red as he scratches behind the right one.  “Nothing that feels--- nothing this warm and---”  he shuffles and huffs and looks away.  “It can’t be bad.  It can’t feel like this and be bad.”

  And no matter what else, Emma has to agree.

-/-

“Where are you coming from?”

  It’s the first thing August has dared say since they exchanged names.  The man next to him is intimidating in his incongruity, in the way he seems both put together and yet unbalanced.  It looks like a carefully constructed image in which Dr. Victor Whale has created himself, one which doesn’t quite suit him, but which he takes great pains to maintain.

His eyes are a dead giveaway that all is not what it seems, and that the careless entitlement proclaimed by the wrapper is most certainly not the content of this package.

  Sometimes August misses being a detective.

  “Boston,” the man says, and August frowns.

“Boston-- how on earth did you come to pick me up along Route 2 in fucking New Hampshire?”  He stops himself and smiles, chagrined.  

“Sorry,” he says.  “Sorry for the language.”

Whale laughs out loud.  It sounds heartfelt, but like he’s out of practise.  “Are you kidding?  I’m a surgeon .  You don’t know language until you’ve been in an OR.  Tarantino on his best day couldn’t write what we say in there.”

August has to grin.  “You should see a metropolitan precinct bullpen at 4AM on Halloween.  When you’re questioning suspects as they puke on you.”

The doctor laughs again.  It sounds marginally more relaxed.  “Is that what you do?  You’re a cop?”

  It hits him out of nowhere and August has to take a very deep breath.

  And another.

  And another.

  “I used to be,” he finally manages, and opens his backpack.  “Is it OK if I have a beer?”

Whale turns, and looks at him with uncomfortably sharp eyes, and then nods.  

“It’s fine,” he says quietly.  “Go ahead.”  

He looks back at the road.  “But to answer your question, it’s because I’m an idiot.”  At August’s puzzled look he clarifies, “The reason I picked you up in New Hampshire, way off course.”

“You can’t be an idiot.  You’re a fucking doctor.”

Whale shakes his head.  “Yeah, well, I’m also a very tired man coming off an 18-hour shift, and didn’t realize I was going up I-93 instead of I-95 until I was in the middle of White Mountain National Forest.”

  There it is again. Another sign.

This man, who picked him up off the side of the road while August was still contemplating changing his mind and continuing to run wasn’t even supposed to be there.

Was supposed to be on a freeway a hundred miles east. Yet here he is instead, on the same road as August, on his way to the same fucking town, and it can’t be a coincidence.

  “In that case I am both extremely lucky and very grateful you came along,” August says, and takes a large sip of his beer.

Whale throws him the first smile that reaches his eyes.  “My pleasure,” he says, and turns back to the road.

.

-/-

“David?”

When he hears his name he snaps back to reality and it feels like coming out of hibernation.  He realizes that he is still holding Graham’s file in his hand, and that the only light inside the station comes from Emma’s desk.  When he looks up he sees Mary Margaret looking down at him, her eyes sharp and her lips pinched and worried.

  “David?”  Definitely worried.  “What are you doing here, sitting in the dark?”

  He doesn’t know.  Doesn’t remember what he was thinking.  Doesn’t remember why he is here.

  “David - are you all right?”

Possibly.  Maybe.  But that is not her concern.  It shouldn’t be.

“I’m fine Ms--- sorry.”  He blinks and shakes his head.  It’s like his brain is on a delay.  He blinks again, gets up and turns on the overhead light.  “What can I do for you?”

“You---  David, you look really out of it.  Are you sure you’re OK?”

  He won’t admit it under pain of death, but that note of worry in her voice is the nicest thing that’s happened to him, ever.

  “I’m fine,” he smiles, and she beams back at him.  “What do you need?”

“I was thinking,” she says, “about Graham.  And how his tracks disappeared.”  

David can feel his whole body stiffen in fear.

“Tell me you didn’t go out to the bridge by yourself.”  He grabs her arm, squeezes tightly.  “Tell me you didn’t.”

“Of course not,” she says with a full-body eyeroll.  “I’m not an idiot.”  Her eyes grow marginally softer.  “And besides.  I promised you.”

He breathes a sigh of relief.  

“But a thought did occur to me,” she goes on, her voice pensive.  “And it’s crazy, I know that, but the whole time we were checking out the scene, all three times we went there, you know what we never did?”

David slowly shakes his head, and the fear comes back fast and hard.

“What?”  He rasps.  “What didn’t we do?”

Mary Margaret meets his gaze head on.  “Look up.”

-/-

“So this is the diner you said also has rooms?”

  August stretches and nods at the doctor.  He’s hungry, and he did like Granny’s, back when he stayed here.  Did like the rooms, whenever he wasn’t sleeping in Sheriff Swan’s holding cell. The rooms were infinitely more comfortable.

He nods, smiles a bit and motions towards the door.

  “It’s probably not what you’re used to, given that your shoes probably cost more than my rent back in Boston, but Granny makes a mean onion ring, and the rooms are clean.”

The doctor’s eyes narrow.  “How would you know what I’m used to,” he mumbles as he opens the door.  

And then freezes.

Just stands in the doorway, still as a statue, and just as immovable.

August follows his line of sight and sees two people facing each other in a booth on the left.  A woman with blonde hair and her back to him, and a man with dark hair and enough scruff to nearly qualify as a beard.

  Killian is here.

Killian is here, talking to Sheriff Swan.

And the doctor is staring at them both.

  He knows them. He knows at least one of them.

He’s here because of at least one of them.

  “Killian?”  Whale finally shakes his head and releases the door.

“ Victor? ”  Killian looks up, surprise clear on his face, and then his eyes wander over and settle on-- 

“ August? ”

The sheriff’s head whips around at that and August can tell that she knows a lot more than she did the last time he saw her.  A lot more.

“We were trying to find you,” Emma says, and gets up.  “Killian said we needed you, needed your help, but I couldn’t find a trace of where you’d gone.”

“I wasn’t a detective for nothing.”  August grins for a moment.  “If I don’t want to be found, I---”  

But one look at Killian’s face tells him exactly why Killian needs help, and August wishes fervently that back at that rest stop he’d told his conscience to shove it and kept running.

Also, he should not have stuck to beer.  He is way too sober for this.

  “Can somebody tell me what’s going on?”  Whale’s voice sounds strained and uncertain as he looks at the Sheriff, and August picks up an undercurrent of--- something.  He fixates on it, concentrates on it, in order to not have to think about anything else.

“And who are you?”

“Sorry,” Killian gets up as well.  “Victor - this is Storybrooke’s Sheriff, Emma Swan.  Emma, this is Dr Victor Whale, a friend of mine from Boston.”

“Victor will do,” Whale says and shakes Emma’s hand, but his movements are stiff.

  August slides into the booth next to Emma and backs into the corner to get the best possible view of all the actors in this little drama.

Because there’s no way he’s thinking about blood-soaked symbols and bloodier quills before he’s had a lot more alcohol.

No way.

He orders a double shot of rye.

  “Tell me again why you’re here?  And--- how on earth did you two meet?”  Killian sounds puzzled, like this is too big a coincidence.  August is inclined to agree. 

“Elsa called me,” Whale says, his voice strained.  “She said you’d gone hunting down old ghosts.  Said someone had to keep an eye on you.”

  The last part is a lie.  The doctor is not here because he was sent by anyone.  He is definitely here out of his own free will.

  “And you?”

It’s the sheriff who asks, and August quirks a brow at her.  Don’t think .  “Missed the cot in your holding cell.”

“Smartass.”  She smiles at him, and August watches as Killian’s face grows soft as he looks at the sheriff, watches as Whale’s expression goes blank as he looks away.

  “I was almost in Lancaster,” August says, because not thinking will only get him so far, and he might as well accept that he’s here now, back in the fucking thick of it.  “I almost kept running.”  He shrugs.  “But then I thought, I’m never going to be able to run far enough or fast enough to escape it.”

The waitress brings his double shot just in time, and he slams it down and orders another.

Then he sighs, and the sheriff pats his arm, her eyes kind.

“I know I haven’t been a detective in forever,” he goes on, and does not count the number of years it’s been.  “And I know I’m not exactly, well---”

He can’t finish that sentence, not with everyone looking at him full of empathy.  Where is that damn rye?  

“But I’m here to help.”

“I’m glad you came back,” Sheriff Swan says, her voice low and sincere.  “We definitely need help.”

  And then her phone rings.

The longer she speaks, the tenser her shoulders.  The muscle in her jaw jumps, and Killian leans forward, worry clearly written all over his features, and almost touches her hand.

The Sheriff smiles at Killian, strained but grateful, and then August catches the expression on Victor’s face, and oh.

Oh.

  Well.

This is going to end in heartbreak.

  “David says Ms Blanchard came up with some interesting theories regarding the tracks surrounding the bridge,” Emma says as she hangs up.  “And he also says he has to show us something on the bridge itself.”  She quirks a tired eyebrow at Killian.  “He was going to show us after we got back from the cabin, but apparently, we never did make it back to the station, and now it’s too dark .”

She does a perfect impression of her Deputy in full huff, and Killian laughs out loud.  A faint blush creeps across Emma’s cheeks and Whale across from her looks like it physically hurts him to sit in the booth.

  Then Emma checks her watch.  

“It’s late,” she says, “and there is nothing else we can do tonight.  Let’s all get some sleep---” she looks pointedly at Killian, who has dark purple shadows under his eyes, “and meet back here at 7 for breakfast, OK?”

August nearly chokes on his second double shot and coughs for a solid 30 seconds.  

“Oh god,” he finally croaks, “by all that is good and holy, Sheriff, please make it 8.”

She rolls her eyes, but nods, and they all awkwardly slide out of the booth.

  “You can stay here,” Killian says to Whale.  “The rooms are decent.”

“So I’ve been told,” Victor smirks, and August has to smile.

He watches as Victor walks up to Granny and asks about her rates, and admits to himself that the doctor has a very nice smile, and a very nice ass.  Even if he’s crushing on the impossible get.

  Yes, this definitely has the potential to end in heartbreak.

Unless.

-/- 

    “I’m walking you home.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

  It’s a standoff without winners.  Killian looks as determined as Emma has seen him yet, and she feels equal parts touched and supremely annoyed.  

She does not need a chaperone.

But he doesn’t blink.

  “Stop it,” she says.  “I’m a sheriff.  I can take care of myself.”

“Swan,” he sighs, but his voice has no give.  “Don’t you think I know that by now?”  A note of steel creeps into his tone, subsumes the permanent exhaustion.  “Do you really believe I doubt your abilities?  Still?”

The note of steel isn’t irritation, she realizes.  It’s--- distress.  

“Emma.”  Even quieter now.  Even more urgent.  “This is no time for----”  He stops.  Clears his throat.  “I know you are tough and skilled and resourceful.  Everyone so far has been tough and skilled and resourceful.  Every one.” Oh god.  

“Please---”  His voice cuts out, he shakes his head.  “Just let me see you home.  If for nothing else but my own peace of mind.”

  And suddenly it is easy to concede.

  “Bring your overnight bag,” she says, amazed that it took her so long to suggest it, dancing around misplaced pride and unnamed emotions as she has been for days now.  “You can crash on my couch.”

He looks unspeakably relieved.

She waits as he runs up to his room, shakes her head at herself.

Maybe on her couch he will finally get some sleep.

.

“Boy Scout packing his toothbrush?”

August’s voice tears her from her thoughts and she watches as he slowly makes his way down the diner’s front steps.

“Did you just call Detective Jones a Boy Scout? ”

August laughs and pulls out a flask.  “Trust me, Sheriff.  The shoe fits.” “Apart from the fact that he breaks all the rules and he drinks like a fish.”

“Does he now,” August says, and lifts his flask.  “Cheers.”  

He takes a long sip and sits down at one of the empty tables.  “From where I’m standing the boy is stone cold sober and has his demons well on a leash.”  He holds the flask out to her.  “Drink?”

Emma shakes her head.  

“Be careful, Sheriff.”

She scoffs and gears up to tell August exactly what she thinks of his advice when he cuts her off.

“Don’t.”  August’s voice is pure flint.  “Don’t even think you know what this is all about.  What it will do to you, to your town, to your deputy.  Don’t you dare look at Killian as a piece of damaged goods.  You wait and watch everyone you love die and then, maybe , you get to have an opinion.  If you have enough sanity left for one.”

He looks at her like a piece of refuse, and she realizes that she couldn’t speak if she tried.

He takes another sip.  “He’s a fucking university professor charging headfirst into dark alleys and crack dens and shots fired, so don’t you dare .  He’s still on the job.  He’s still functioning.”

  “I don’t think of him as damaged goods.”  Emma’s voice is gravel and shame.  “I never thought that.”

August gets up, takes a step towards her, enters her space.  Focuses his eyes squarely on her.  She can smell cheap whisky on his breath.

But his eyes are clear, and she holds his gaze.  Doesn’t blink until he finally nods.

“Good,” he says, and she feels like she just passed the most important test she has ever taken.

  “What’s going on here?”

Killian looks puzzled and August leans back as he and Emma both say, “Nothing.”  And Killian’s brows furrow.

Emma stands frozen and August whispers, “Sorry if I came on a bit strong.  Old ghosts.”

She nods, and he turns to Killian.  

“I wish I could say I’m happy to be here.”  

He holds out the flask, but Killian declines, and August shoots Emma a look that could have cut glass.  She bites her lip hard, needs the pain to anchor her to this moment.  To stay in the present.  

Then August turns back, shrugs, and smiles at the detective.  “But it is good to see you, old friend.”

Killian grins, small and wistful.  “It is.  You staying here?”

August nods.  “Clean sheets and a liquor license?  I could do worse.”

“Much worse.”  Killian’s grin widens for a moment, before once again turning somber.  “Keep an eye out for Victor?  I don’t know why he’s here, and he looked a bit spooked.”

“You don’t know why he’s here?”  August laughs out loud.  

Killian shakes his head, and Emma gets the feeling she is missing something big.

“I can’t believe they ever made you a detective.”  August laughs again.  “You don’t notice shit.”

And with that he takes another long swig and makes his way up the steps.

“But don’t worry, princess,” he shoots back over his shoulder.  “I’ll keep both eyes peeled.”

Emma can hear him laughing all the way up the stairs.

.

“You all right, Swan?”  

She hasn’t spoken the entire way to her house, and his words sound strangely loud after the perfect silence of their walk.

“Fine,” she says, unlocks the front door, and turns on the light.

  The living room looks--- lovely.  Bright and homey, with a comfortable-looking couch and an overstuffed chair and books everywhere .  It’s how his own living room used to look, more or less, back when he had a life.  It’s how he would like to live again, someday.  When he gets his life back.  

If he gets his life back.

  Emma is walking around, rambling on about sheets on the couch and blankets to spare and does he need pillows? - and he reaches for her arm.

She stills in her tracks, an afghan in one hand and a cushion in the other, and he swears she is vibrating .  “Emma,” he says, and she’s not looking at him, not moving, not breathing, and he asks again.  “Are you all right?”

“I think you’re the smartest man I ever met,” she says, and turns towards him.  There are tears in her eyes, and the words sound like they were ripped straight from her soul.  “I think you’re brilliant and brave and stronger than----”

Her voice breaks on a sob and she yanks her arm from his grip with force.

“And I never thought you were damaged goods, I never thought, I----”

She sobs again, and tears start to roll down her cheeks.

“But I did.”  Her voice is a cracked whisper.  “Oh god, Killian, I did.  I thought---  oh my god, I did .”

She wipes her cheeks in hard, angry swipes, and he wishes there was something he could say, because she’s obviously distressed, but he doesn’t even know what’s happening.

“You said you were all those things, but you’re not, you’re not , and I thought all the wrong---” her voice is somersaulting--- “and then August came and said all the--- and I just--- I just----”  

A sob hits her so hard, it sounds like she’s choking.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.  “I’m so so so sorry.”

She hands him the blanket and the pillow.

“Please make yourself at home.  Help yourself to anything in the kitchen.  The bathroom is down the hall.  What’s mine is yours.”  She wipes her cheeks again.  Tries to smile.  Fails.  “I’ll see you in the morning.  Just - take anything you need.”  

And then she turns to go upstairs and leaves Killian standing in the middle of the room.

Completely bewildered.

  .

“Hey.”

  It’s pitch dark out still.  She was trying to be as quiet as possible, but there he is in her kitchen doorway, running a hand through his disheveled hair as he looks at her closely.  She knows her face is still red and puffy.  She can’t bring herself to care.

  She puts down the coffee can and looks up.  “Did you get any sleep?”

He smiles.  It’s happy and unguarded and makes him look so very young .  “I did.  Best sleep I had in years.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, because it can’t wait.  “I’m sorry about last night.  I don’t know what came over me.”

He takes a small step towards her.

“Emma.”   His voice is as kind as his smile.  “You’ve had some cruelly hard days and barely any rest.  I’m amazed you’re ambulatory, never mind sane.”  His hand reaches for hers slowly, and the moment they touch the lovely warmth spreads through her again, and oh, how she missed it.

“You’d be entitled to a bona fide nervous breakdown by now, and yet you’re just plugging away as if this were any other case.”

He takes her other hand.  It feels so safe, she nearly cries again.

“So give yourself a break.  You have nothing to be sorry about.  I’ve been where you are, and trust me, I was in much worse shape then than you are now.”

  She swallows hard.

Part of her wants to tell him to leave, not to go through all of this again.

Part of her wants to figure this out and put an end to the whole thing, once and for all.

Most of her just wants to remain here, in limbo, holding his hand.

  “So please don’t be sorry,” he says.  

She nods and silence descends upon them.  His hands are warm, folded through hers, and he pulls both of them up, against his heart, and they just look at each other.

Breathing in rhythm.

Emma thinks she can hear their hearts beating.  Together.

She can’t think, can’t move, can’t do anything but stand there in her kitchen, with his blue eyes on hers and his warmth in her veins.

  After an eternity he whispers, “This too, shall pass.”

And for a moment Emma gets the feeling that that’s not what he wanted to say at all.

.

.

THANK YOU ALL - for reading and for being so incredibly patient.

And about that new pairing that's starting to emerge here, all i have to say is that i did NOTHING. OK? NOTHING. August got into Victor's car and they started making googly eyes at each other totally without my doing. 🤣

And then @profdanglaisstuff​ came along and coined this pairing DOCTOR WOOD, (which is brilliant and perfect and i laughed out loud when she suggested it), and egged me on - and there you have it.

DOCTOR WOOD has all the earmarks of becoming my new favorite chew toy.