Once Upon A Time ~ Book 1

Chapter 106 - Scene Of The Crime

Regina ran down an overgrown road, he cloak bellowing in the misty air. On one side of the road were small, dead trees by a dark, shallow lake and on the other side was the forest. She could barely see Snow's figure in the thick misty, moonlit fog in the hollow of the night.
"Snow! Snow! Wait!" Regina called after her as she ran as fast as she could, tears streaming down her face. "Snow!"
Then Snow tripped on the rough ground and fell. She sobbed on the earthen ground, her pale dress and cloak covered in dirt.
"Snow!" Regina caught up with her and knelt down on the road before her, holding her arms. "Are you okay?"
"No, no." she sobbed. She looked up at her. "Why we're you kissing that man in the stable? You're to marry my father. You're to be my mother."
"Snow, please, listen to me." she petted her arm gently and Snow bent her head and cryed. Regina held up her chin. "Hey......your father, King Leopold, he's a kind and fair man......."
Snow stopped crying a little and listened.
"......But I don't love him."
Snow's eyes widened in shock. "I don't understand. Why not?"
"Love doesn't work that way. Love.........true love......." she smiled. "........is magic. And not just any magic, the most powerful magic of all........"
She smiled a little, her face lifting.
".....It creates happiness."
"And that man in the stables......you love him?"
"With all my heart."
Her face broke into a smile. "Then you must marry him." she took her hands.
Regina chuckled.
"I'll go tell Father right away." she stood up and was about to turn, when grasped her arm.
"No. No, no, no, no. You can't." She stood up too, holding her hands and bending down to her level.
"Why not? Surely he'll understand."
She breathed heavily. "Perhaps. But not everyone will. My mother for one, she'll stand in the way."
"That's why your running."
"It's the only way our love can survive....... Snow.......do you know what a secret is?"
She nodded, wide eyes, staring at her.
"If you really, truly want to help me......"
"I do."
"Then what you saw, what I told you, you must kep it a secret....... Can you do that?"
"I think so." she nodded.
She put her hand on her cheek. "I need you to be certain....... You can never speak of this. And above all, you mustn't tell my mother......... Will you do that for me?"
She nodded and smiled. "Yes. I promise." she said quitly and threw her arms around her.
Regina held her close to her, looking over Snow's shoulder nervously.

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Emma sat on a bench by the pier, water droplets dripping from the railing behind her. Her head was bent as she ruffled through Henry's fairytale book.
August walked down the pier and towards her, a take away coffee and the Storybrooke Daily Mirror in his hands. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Emma shut the book quickly and slipped it into her bag. "Grasping at straws."
He stood next to her and held up the paper. "Still tying to find a way to prove your friend has been framed?"
Emma took the paper and scanned the front page where there was a large picture of Mary Margaret smiling happily with the caption Heartless! School teacher jailed on murder charges. "Every time I go down a path I think leads somewhere, it ends up being a dead end. I used to think I had these great instincts, super power. Now, I don't know." she gazed down at the paper and August sat down next to her.
"It sounds like you've got a case of writer's block."
Emma looked up at him.
"Only without the while writing part."
"Maybe."
"You know, when I get struck by a block, I usually re-read what I've done, rather than plough ahead blindly. Sometimes I find there'll be a little nugget of inspiration left behind."
"You mean start over?"
"I mean, when I start writing I usually have one idea. And then in the middle, I may get another idea, and things are different."
"So your perspective changes."
"Exactly. When you started this investigation, what was it about?"
"A missing person."
"Then it became a murder. And then a cover-up. If you knew that then, maybe you would have approached things differently."
Emma's eyes widened in realisation and she zipped up her bag.
"Where are you going?"
She stood up. "Scene of the crime." she began to walk down the pier.
"I'll drive." he said, as he followed her.
"No, I'm fine."
"No. You're not. You haven't slept in days." he caught up with her and walked ahead of her. "And let's be honest......" he turned to her, walking backwards. ".......it was my idea."
Emma rowled her eyes in objective agreement and walked along with him.

August drove his motorcycle over the toll bridge, Emma behind, her arms around his waist. He slowed down when he reached the end of the bridge.
They walked down, between the little trees, next to the bridge and down to the pebbals and rocks by the river.
"Ruby found the box with the heart right over here, just by the shore." said Emma.
As August steped down the from a rock, he winced in pain, and stumbled forward, then gained his balance again.
"What's wrong?" asked Emma, turned around to him, concerned.
"Nothing." he said limping towards the yellow tape around the area where the heart was found.
"Doesn't seem like nothing. Here let me look."
He quickly backed away from her. "No, it's okay. Just a shin splint..... Just let me....walk it off."
They stepped over the yellow tape and August winced in pain as Emma looked down at the hole is the rocky sand.
"Sorry." said August.
Emma glanced up at him inquringly then back down at the ground.
"I know this must be hard on you."
"Now, that's an understatement." she bent down at pick up some rocks and threw them aside.
"I don't know you that well. But it seems to me, thar aside from Henry, Mary Margaret's the closest thing to family you've got."
Emma went down on her honkers to take a closer look at the hole Ruby had dug.
"It's okay to admit it."
She stood straight again. "August? Look." she pointed to the hole.
August walked over to her and peered inside, he looked up at her inquringly then she bent down and took from the damp sand a dark, silvery grey shard piece from what seemed to be a shovel.
"What is it?" he asked and took it in his gloved hands and brushed the sand away.
"It's a shard. From a shovel. It must've broken off when it hit a rock."
August examined it carefully and held it up into the light.
"If we can find the shovel that it broke off of, we can prove that Mary Margaret didn't bury the heart. We can prove that she's innocent."
"And I'm gonna guess you know exactly whose shovel it is." he smiled and held put the shard to her.
She took it gazed at it, smiling optimisticly as August eyes stared at her proudly.

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Regina walked down the hallway, dressed in a robe and quitely pushed the door of Henry's room open and peered inside to see Henry fast asleep in his bed the light from the hall beaming over his peaceful face. Henry's eyes then shot open when he heard his mother pull the door in a little and walk back down the hallway. He waited for a moment, then sat up and pulled the walkie talkie from beneath his pillow. He jumped from his bed when he heard the shower turn on accross the hall and ran to the door.
He held the walkie talkie up to his mouth. "The eagle is in the nest. And the package is secure."

Emma walked towards the Mayor's house in the dark with August, her walkie talkie in her hand.
"Henry.......I left the code book at home." she said into the walkie talkie to Henry.

He sighed. "She's getting in the shower and the keys are under the mat." said Henry.

Emma bent down and lifted the mat by the garage door of Regina's house and took from beneath it a key. On her hands she wore plastic investigation gloves and in one of her hands she held a plastic bag with the shard inside. She stood up and unlocked the door and turned to August before she opened it.
"Don't touch a thing." she warned.
August held up his hands to show her he was wearing black gloves and she nodded.
Emma stepped inside and August took a last glance outside and followed her. They sneaked quitly inside and they held up flashlights. August carefully shut the door as Emma walked ahead, shining the light through the garage. August walked in the other direction, scouring for a shovel. They shone the torches through the shelfs, lining thr garage. Then suddenly behind a shelf something shiny caught Emma's eye. She stepped closer and saw, leaning against a set of drawers a shovel with a broken egde.
Emma smiled happily. "Hey." she said quitly to August.
He sneaked towards her and held his torch up above the broken edge. Emma took the shard from the plastic bag and held it up to the broken edge to see that it fitted perfectly, like a jigsaw.
She looked up at August. "We got her."
He leaned in and looked closer then they looked at one another, beaming and August gazed at her as she put the shard back into the bag.