The Promises Meme

[alethiometric]

the promises meme • Comment with your character's name and fandom in the subject line. • Select an option or roll RNG for a prompt. • Play! prompts i. family. A promise made in the name of family, whether literal or metaphorical. ii. business. No personal feelings involved. Just a working agreement. iii. romantic. A promise to your lover, something that binds you together. iv. enemy. Looks like you made a deal with the devil. v. too good to be true. A promise with hidden caveats. vi. false. A promise you don't intend to keep. vii. broken. A promise you've betrayed. viii. fulfilled. The time has come to make good on your word. ix. bound. A promise you have to keep, whether by threat, blackmail or magic. x. secret. A pact you can't reveal. xi. forever. You're promising forever after. xii. never. You promise that something will never happen. Ever.

Comments

[clinically]

[The silence stretches long while the wolf digs, and longer afterwards, until it's true quiet again on the riverbank. Just the water and the night birds, no more snap and rustle of an animal moving away from them at speed. When Chase puts his hand on her arm, it's to reassure himself there's someone still there.

This is insane, and he's far too new to town not to know it. But the words come anyway.]

We have to go look.

[sheriffing]

I thought you said he wasn't Lassie?

[She's going to look, but that question comes before she can stop it. As soon as she puts the gun away, her hand reaches up to pull his off of her arm; to hold it within hers for a moment and give him a gentle squeeze before she lets go again, picking up speed herself as she moves toward the edge of the riverbank.

As soon as she's close enough, she catches the sight of something just barely unearthed by the digging.]

There's something in there.

[Handing Chase her light, she crouches down to push the rest of the dirt aside. Taking her time, careful to disrupt as little as possible as she forces a heavy, decorated box out of the ground. There's already a distracting scent to it before she opens it up, a sign that she does not want to know what's in there.]

I guess I should - [Open it]

[clinically]

No, hey-

[He moves quick before she can do exactly that - keeping the flashlight raised but crouching to ditch the bottle in river silt and unzip his jacket. It looks like a jewellery box, but considering the circumstances of the finding it doesn't seem like something that should be opened with bare hands.

He clasps his own hand through the leather of his jacket to take the box from her - carefully. That smell isn't encouraging.]

Did you bring anything for evidence handling? Gloves?

[If not, he's already shucking off the other sleeve to use as a makeshift hand cover.]

[sheriffing]

Wait - [She pulls a pair of gloves out of her pocket, sighing when she realizes that she almost screwed this up. Her head and her heart are still pounding loud and heavy as she pulls on the gloves to lift the lid.]

Oh, my god.

[clinically]

[Chase doesn't quite recoil (he's exhumed worse) but he does glance away, setting his jaw before looking back down into the box, using the torch to confirm beyond doubt what that first look had already told him.]

We need to take this in to the hospital. [His voice is quiet, flat.] These are human remains.

[One, specifically. A human heart.]

[sheriffing]

I know what it is. [Kathryn's heart. No one else is missing.

She closes the box and takes it from Chase, letting out a shaky breath. He may be used to seeing human organs, but Emma isn't. The sight of it - and the growing understanding that something terrible happened to Kathryn, has her pale and nauseas, but she forces it all down. She's the sheriff, this is a murder investigation. It's her job to hold it together.]

Do you want me to drop you off at Grannys before I head over to the hospital? [She wouldn't offer, but he's been through a lot for one night.]

[clinically]

[It's a cold night but he shrugs out of his jacket anyway, giving it to her to wrap the box in, for security and to put just a little more distance between her and it's contents. Besides, he's not going to want to wear the thing again without some kind of dry cleaning process.]

No, but I'd like you to do something else, if you can.

[He looks around them - the river and its burial site behind (and he checks the location of it, its positioning between two rocky outcrops, keeping it in memory) and the forest with its potential wolfpack ahead. The sooner they're back on the road the better, gruesome cargo or not.]

[sheriffing]

Tell me what it is, I owe you.

[She wraps the box in the jacket, keeping a tight hold on it as she starts back up for the main road. It occurs to her that Mary Margaret has mentioned this particular spot of land before and that only adds to her concerns. But the first one on her mind is getting the heart to the hospital and Chase out of the cold.]

[clinically]

[He's on her heels as she walks, keeping his attention focused on the woods around them with senses heightened to a whole new level by the shot of adrenaline in his veins. It's the kind of stance referred to in cop movies as having someone's back.

(He wouldn't change his mind and not have come out here, even if he could.)]

I'd like you to let me drive.

[He recognises shock when he sees it pull the colour from someone's face. Not the best conditions for road safety.]

[sheriffing]

[Emma nods at his request, knowing she's not in the best position to turn him down. As much as she would like to be in control of her emotions, she's not.]

You can drive.

[Her mind is racing faster than she can make sense of things, anyway.]

The wolf must've... [Smelled it.]

He comes out once in a while. [Like he knows what they're looking for.

[clinically]

You have a pet wolf. [He looks across at her without breaking step.] Fortunately we're at the point of the night where I don't even think that's weird anymore. Is that the car?

[The thing's a beacon even on a dark night, but he's ridiculously pleased to see it.]

[sheriffing]

Is there anything else that yellow out here? [She fishes through her pocket with one hand to take out the keys and tosses them to Chase.]

I'm sorry you had to deal with this.

[Though she's increasingly grateful that he insisted on following her out.]

[clinically]

If there is, I don't want to think about it now.

[He catches the keys easily, unlocking and opening the passenger side door for her first.]

And likewise.

[He didn't know the girl in the box, and he barely knows the people who are inevitably going to be picking out shrapnel in the fallout of finding her. Emma did. He's the one getting off easy, this evening.]

[sheriffing]

It's not that late.

[Meaning he could still get back to Granny's at a decent hour if he wants to sleep and hit the road tomorrow. After what happened tonight, Emma's sure she won't be able rest. She thinks of a shower as she climbs into the car, hoping most of the paperwork can wait until morning.]

This is...not what I was expecting.

[How could anyone expect that someone would have cut Kathryn's heart out? No one in town seems capable of that.]

I'm going to have to tell David.

[clinically]

You don't need to keep trying to put me to bed. I'm not eleven.

[He's having similar thoughts about the prospect of sweet dreams tonight as he backs out into the long, empty road back to town. Besides which, now he's going to be on official paperwork in this investigation (an investigation which increasingly looks like a woman murdered directly after he showed up in town). It's likely there will be something to keep him in the morning.]

You don't have anything concrete to tell right now. Until they run the DNA on... that... it's anybodies. [He taps a hand on the steering wheel.] Not that it's much easier telling someone to prepare for the worst than it is telling them afterwards.

[Surgeon. One of the not-so-perky parts of the job.]

[sheriffing]

Technically it's anybodies, but no one else is missing. And this seems...new. So unless someone decided to stop here to hide it near the car of a woman who was already missing, we know it's hers.

[There's no question about that, and no hope for Kathryn. David will be at the top of the suspect list. Emma hasn't hated this job as much as she's hated Regina trying to tell her how to do it, but this, she hates.]

And I wasn't trying to put you to bed, I was just reminding you that you can leave this insanity at any time.

[He wouldn't know Kathryn if he saw her, he's not a suspect. Besides, a jewelry box? That's not something a guy brings in his luggage if he's just passing through.]

I wouldn't blame you if you headed out tonight.

[clinically]

No one else is missing. Which doesn't rule out anyone else being dead and you not knowing about it yet. I'm not trying to play morbid chicken over this, just pointing out that if it gets out that it's hers and it's not...

[Well, he'd say it would make matters worse, but there has to be a finite degree of how much worse they can get, right? Chase thinks about his own life for a minute and decides not to tempt fate by voicing that out loud.

The sheriff is sitting in a car with a murderer right now. There are all kinds of things people don't know about each other and for a long few minutes the weight of his own knowledge makes Chase fall silent. When he speaks again it's slow, sticky-throated.]

No, I'll—[He'll what. Make sure she's okay? Because that's absurd.]

Maybe tomorrow.

[sheriffing]

Tomorrow.

[Emma accepts that possibility with a nod and little else. He's not like her, in a few days (or less) he'll be gone. It was probably a bad idea to tell him as much about the case as she did, but he's not a part of it. This isn't his problem, just something he took on because he wanted to get a drink with someone he wouldn't be punching later on.]

A lot's going down tomorrow.

[They'll have more answers tomorrow. She'll see what fingerprints she can pull from the box, and hopefully find something other than her own. Regina's warning to do her job echoes in her head, and she knows she's getting hell for this either way.]

[clinically]

[The hospital is one of the few buildings in Storybrooke where the lights stay on all night. It illuminates the parking lot, which could still use one or two more freestanding lamp posts to act as a guide. But it's nice to be somewhere bright. It feels just a fraction warmer somehow.]

That might be a talent for understatement. [He exhales as he pulls the car into a space, looking down at his jacket packed round the box in her lap, then up at her already too-drawn face.] You'll get through.

[He brings a hand to rest over hers as he says it.]

[sheriffing]

I always do. [She admits that with a slightly bitter edge creeping in to the soft, low agreement. So far, Emma didn't ask for backup in going out, and she deliberately didn't accept help while they were in the forest. Comfort, however, she accepts willingly, leaving her hand under his until she realizes she's just dragging this out and pushes her car door open.]

Come on, you need to get through one last visit to Storybrooke General. [She holds tight to his jacket on the way up to the door, speaking to the first nun who approaches her and then rushes off to find someone. Hopefully they'll be so shocked, they might work quickly.]

I'm sure it's not the most advanced hospital you've been in. [Maybe the least.]

[clinically]

[Comfort is something he can be very good at, if only for the night. And this, like the last night he spent here, and the night before, could (should) be he last in town.

There's some small reluctance as he draws his hand back, but he follows her soon enough.]

When I was at med school I spent a rotation treating patients on sheep stations out in Western Australia. Half the time their idea of a clean working environment involved dousing the table with sheep dip. [He bumps a shoulder with her.] It's not the least.

[For such a small place, having a decent sized hospital with facilities for long-term care is actually quite impressive. It's certainly preferable to having to ship emergency cases to the next town over.]

Though, sheep stations tended to have less nuns.

[That might not be the most comfortable observation, but he deflects any question over it with a wry smile. This is more about distracting her from the wait than anything else.]

[sheriffing]

You get used to the nuns after a while.

[At least Emma has, now that she realizes they don't go around judging people. She has never taken any interest in religion, but these women seem determined to help people more than to push their faith on everyone else, and that's something she can respect.

The thought of Chase being uncomfortable is enough to make her lips twitch with amusement, but a smile - not quite. She's still holding a box with a heart in it, and she knows it's the heart of a woman who only wanted to start her life over after a painful betrayal. Kathryn didn't deserve this; no one deserves this.]

You don't seem like the sheep station type.

[If it sounds like she's implying that she expects he likes to be comfortable, she is. Most people would, it's not meant as an insult.]

[clinically]

It's not like I was raised on one. [Actually, he was more or less raised by nuns.] But three months swapping the OR for a clapped out little bush plane and on-the-spot trauma work hundreds of miles from the nearest emergency department sounded like fun.

[And it had been. As well as a chance to get away from being who he was, the son of who he was, the reputation his father had around the hospital and the long shadow the man cast. New Jersey had been a later extension of the same thought.

He's used to the way most people take him. There are enough silver spoon and yachting jokes to last him a lifetime - and it's not something he can exactly deny. There was always money in his life. He's used to some of what it can offer.]

But [he concedes,] you're right. I hate sheep.

[sheriffing]

I hate she smell.

[She's thinking less of sheep and more of the scent in Gold's shop the day he was working in the back. Emma's type of roughing it involves living out of a car, not living in the middle of nowhere. What's harder, she couldn't say for sure. But doing what she did wasn't easy, even if there were days when it felt like an adventure.]

But it's not as bad as this.

[The box, the heart. His jacket - she will definitely be paying to have it cleaned for him. When the man they're waiting for finally decides to come over, she does all of the talking, not bothering to explain Chase's presence in an effort to keep him uninvolved. He'll be in her reports, there's no way around that, but he doesn't need random people asking him questions.

She unwraps the box and sets his jacket on the counter while she waits so that the heart can be removed without disturbing the box. They don't do it there, and she almost asks to watch, but she allows them to take it away so that they're stuck waiting again.]

Sometimes I hate people, too.