Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 7 - What Can I Say, I Like Walking in Graveyards

Mary Margaret's voicemail was vague, but she had invited me over for breakfast the morning after to talk. Emma's messages were about Graham, and him lying about the reason she had to work the night shift, but that she wouldn't have to work any more night shifts moving forward. Little information, incredibly vague, but enough for me to confirm my suspicions that Emma had feelings for Graham, at least in some way.

The day went by uneventfully but Ruby invited me to the diner for dinner and half-off drinks – wanting someone to talk to during her shift. I was at Granny's when Graham came in and started ordering drinks and playing darts. I chatted with Ruby and watched as Graham hit shot after shot, winning a bet against Sidney Glass who had been perched up in a booth near him, when Emma came in, nearly running into Graham as she turned the corner. She stormed out with Graham following quickly after her (after making a remarkably good shot from across the room with a dart stopping Emma from leaving considering how many drinks I'd watch the man consume). 

I waited a bit before heading out, wanting to give Emma and Graham their space to figure out whatever it was that was going on between them. Once I did leave, as I was walking across the street to my place, I noticed a wolf standing right there in the middle of the street, running off down the alley.

There aren't wolves in Maine, my brain told me, but a wolf I had seen – tall, gray and white, with one red eye and one black, just trotting on down the street and down an alley.

I tried to follow after it, compelled to at least get a photo of the wolf, but once I turned the corner to go down the alley the wolf had disappeared, or maybe it had never been there to begin with, my brain taunted viciously. 

No, I had definitely seen it, it was impossible to confuse.

I filed it away in the "maybe I drank more than I thought" category and went back the way I'd come, heading to my apartment to turn in for the night.

The next morning I headed over to Mary Margaret's for coffee and had just gotten there as Emma had thrown out some flowers that were sent to Mary Margaret. Emma and I both assumed they were from David, but were shocked to learn they came from the (in my opinion) sleazy Dr. Wale after they had had an apparent one-night stand.

We immediately convened for boy talk, sharing stories about our dating pasts – and did our fair share of over-sharing on our dating and sexual exploits. While Mary Margaret's one-night stand was probably not likely to repeat, she did get a rather solid analysis of Emma's reasons as to why she only prefers those types of short relationships - the wall she builds up to keep people out.

The school teacher sees a lot more than people give her credit for.

I wondered what she saw when she looked at me the way she was able to look at Emma, if she even could see behind my walls, if I had any that were hidden even from myself. I was scared of the answer and wondered when - not if - it would come. We all realized the time then and rushed off to our prospective places of work for the day.

The office manager still hadn't fully uploaded and sorted through the pages I had scanned in the last week, so I was asked to deliver papers to the rest of the dispensers around town for the afternoon edition of the paper. (The afternoon edition of the paper is when everyone was too lazy to get the paper ready for print for the morning edition so they call it the afternoon edition with a different font to make it more 'unique' if they don't have a good story to push). I drove around to all the newspaper dispensers in town, dropping bundle after bundle of papers into the different spots around town, familiarizing myself with the streets as I went. Once I was done I was free to go for the day to "search for potential stories" which everyone knew meant do whatever and still get paid for it.

I headed to the sheriff's station but found both Emma and Graham gone. I checked my watch and decided to walk to the school and see what Mary Margaret was up to since she should have been getting off work around then. Once I got there I found her just about to leave. She explained that Graham had stopped by, and it was so weird but he'd asked her about how they met and she couldn't remember, it was just hazy. She then explained he was running a high fever and talking nonsense, must have been talking with Henry about his book and the curse, but it still just bothered her for some strange reason. She rehashed their conversation and after hearing it I agreed that it sounded weird and very curse-like, but I had a spotty memory sometimes too, so, who's to say? I wasn't from the town, so the memory problems couldn't be curse-related (obviously since the curse wasn't real there was no curse in the first place but it was still important to get the facts straight, you never knew when Henry would hit you with one of his impossible to answer questions, after all).

We went to the local grocery store to stock up on some groceries together before parting ways to take our groceries home to our prospective apartments. It was night hanging out with Mary Margaret like this, I liked that, despite how small the town was, I had made friends here easier than I had anywhere else, and living just down the street from each other was a huge bonus. 

After I put everything away, ate something, and tidied up around the place I decided to go for a walk. The trail I took led me through the woods to an unfamiliar part of town. I came across a beautiful pond, following the paved walkway around it for a bit before following the trail back through the woods which led to the local cemetery. The sun had fully set and I was using my phone's flashlight to make sure I didn't accidentally trip over one of the headstones when a light in the distance drew me forward, deeper into the cemetery. There was a large mausoleum that stood amidst the newer gravestones in the cemetery, door open, light pouring out from the entrance.

I walked forward, curiosity driving me to stand at the threshold of the open mausoleum, which in and of itself was beautiful, if not a bit creepy. There was enough light to illuminate the engraving by the entrance – MILLS - meaning it was probably the mayor's family mausoleum. I looked into the structure and noticed light coming from a gaping space in the floor, and could see stairs leading down under the ground the mausoleum sat upon, the stone chamber that one would think would house the body of whoever the deceased was pushed to the far side of the wall.

"Hello? Is someone in there?" I called into the building, not daring to go so far as to explore whatever was down those stairs. Normally I wouldn't hesitate, but something made me pause and urged caution, and I listened to whatever that tiny voice was. I heard a startled noise from down those stairs and decided to book it for the tree line. 

Whoever had been down in that secret room under the mausoleum hadn't seen me, because nobody pursued me as I made my way out of the woods. Whatever I had uncovered, whatever I had interrupted, I had a feeling it was important.

I had just gotten out of the woods and was on my way back to the safety of my apartment when I got a call from Emma – something had happened to Graham.

I rushed to the hospital, meeting an unbelievably distraught Emma in the waiting room. She explained that Graham had been acting weird and feverish and after a useless search through the cemetery - for his heart of all things - they had gone back to the station, thinking she had finally talked some reason into him. They had shared a moment and suddenly he just collapsed. No blood, no seizing, no sign or warning – one minute he was fine, fully lucid and eyes clear – the next he was on the floor. Dr. Wale had no explanation and they were running a ton of tests but it wasn't looking good.

After 6 hours of testing, they couldn't figure out what had sent him into the coma, they weren't sure they'd be able to get him awake - especially given the tests didn't reveal anything inherently wrong with him. It looked like Storybrooke General Hospital had another coma patient – this time it's Sheriff.