Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 11 - Maybe Next Time You'll Listen to Me...

After the storms had passed and we were back in the office, it was announced that Sidney Glass was no longer with the paper due to the illegal information he used in his smear campaign against Emma – even though I suspected it was really Regina who was behind the article he wrote.

Emma, Mary Margaret, and I got together for at least one meal a day every other day, usually at Granny's, sometimes at Mary Margaret's loft. I gave Emma the spare key to my apartment and she had the tendency to come over while I was gone and loot through my snacks and food. Sometimes before work, I'd wave one of them up from the sidewalk to have coffee with me in the morning and we'd sit on the back balcony and talk. Ruby had even come over a few times after her night shifts to sit outside or watch silly shows on Netflix that she could never watch at Granny's.

Mary Margaret, Emma, and I were all having breakfast at Granny's, as we had every other morning the past few weeks, when Emma caught us up on her latest run-in with Regina. The storms had hit Henry's playground castle pretty badly and it seemed Regina had not only discovered the secret place but caught Emma and Henry there this morning.

Mary Margaret had dropped the "she knows everything about this town – she's the Mayor" as an explanation for how Regina had found the playground before her phone buzzed and she ran off with some lame excuse I didn't buy. I was about to ask what Emma thought of the sudden abandonment of our friend when Sidney Glass sat right where Mary Margaret had been just a minute before already wreaking of whiskey. He told Emma his story and that he'd been working on an expose on the mayor and had found out information she didn't want to be found when he was finally fired. He offered Emma his card and told her to call him. She grabbed it and we left. 

I warned her not to listen or trust him. I didn't have a good feeling about him and still didn't think we could or should trust him. We parted ways for the day – her to the sheriff's station and me to the Daily Mirror across the street - and I just hoped she listened to me before I focused on the day ahead.

After work both Emma and Mary were busy so I decided to hit up Granny's for dinner and see who was in tonight. The man with the motorcycle sat perched up in my favorite booth once again, talking with Ruby. He had stuck around the last few weeks and I'd finally gotten a proper introduction about a week and a half ago - he was a writer, and his name was August. I slid into the seat across from him, ordering food and inviting myself to his company for dinner.

August laughed – but didn't object to my interruption of his dinner. We talked for a bit, joked awhile, and traded stories with Ruby between her tables. August and I had become decent acquaintances. I could tell he was hiding something - that there was a deeper meaning behind him being in the small seaside town other than "a writer looking for inspiration," but I had decided to let him keep his secrets – at least for a little while longer – without my prying.

Between him and Mary Margaret, I was becoming uncharacteristically patient. 

The next morning I was once again at Granny's but this time it was Henry I noticed, sitting up at the bar with paper and markers. I sat on the barstool next to him and asked what he was working on and he explained that his storybook had been taken by his mom, the Evil Queen, when she'd demolished his castle. He'd apparently kept the book buried under the castle playground so Regina wouldn't find it. Now he was working on writing everything down so he wouldn't forget. I tried to reassure him that the book would find its way back to him somehow, but he didn't seem very convinced.

August strolled up to us then, overhearing our conversation and standing on the other side of Henry. He asked him questions about his book and Henry wasn't afraid to do his own mini-interrogation of August – reminding me very much of Emma's first conversation with August the night of the storms. August left Henry with a vague non-answer, just as he did with Emma and me, and left out the door of the diner. 

Once August was gone I informed Henry of the notebook I'd been keeping of everything I'd learned from Operation Cobra and offered to run to my place and grab it. Henry decided to just come with me instead and it was the first time he'd been to my place, so he got pretty excited about the spiral staircase and even more excited when he saw the notebook I'd been keeping. He gave me a huge hug and thanked me for being in Operation Cobra and doing this. I hugged him back and ruffled his hair before telling him it was no problem and ushering him out the door and back to Granny's where he was supposed to be staying during the Town Hall meeting Regina was running that afternoon. 

I was grateful to not have to be there. Despite being on the city payroll I rarely was required to go to city events. However, the call I got from Emma as I was walking along the docks recapping what happened at the town hall meeting made me regret not going today. She'd not taken my warning about trusting Sidney and accused Regina, publicly, at the meeting, in front of everyone, of embezzling when all Regina had actually done was build a new playground for the children of Storybrooke after she'd had Henry's castle bulldozed due to safety concerns.

I knew she wouldn't appreciate my I-told-you-so, so I instead asked how bad it was. Regina had told her to stay away from Henry and threatened a restraining order. Emma had apparently done more than just accuse Regina of embezzling but she wouldn't say on the phone. I did tell her to not trust Sidney Glass, that I couldn't shake the feeling he was still in Regina's pocket despite everything he claimed, but doubted she listened. Emma had a tendency to ignore what was right in front of her, as if she was sabotaging the good things she had in her life.

Oh my gosh, I am starting to see her like Mary Margaret.

August and I ran into each other on his way to Granny's and we struck up a conversation, but he seemed weirdly curious about something on my face, to the point where I even asked him if there was something there. He apologized and admitted to being curious about my hair, the white streaks in the front. I explained it'd been like that my entire life, ever since I was a baby. Doctors didn't really have an explanation for it - I didn't have the gene that would normally be present with the mutation - it just grew that way for whatever reason. 

He asked about my story then and I laughed -telling him that'd be a much longer conversation than idle sidewalk talk, and admittedly not the brightest of tales. But I told him maybe one day, if he was extra nice, I might just tell him my tale, sad and tragic as it may be. He laughed and said it was a deal before heading off to Granny's – this time carrying a metal box rather than a wooden one as he went. Odd. Regardless of the oddness, it seemed like August and I were becoming fast friends. 

I decided to swing by the pharmacy to grab a bouquet of flowers and headed over to the hospital to check in on Graham. There was still no change in his condition and, just like David, they weren't sure what caused it or how to wake him. But he was stable, so I refreshed his flowers and caught him up on the town gossip even though he couldn't hear it, before heading home for the night.