#mostly because I want 'Henry remembers but Jo doesn’t' angst for the Mortinez plot thread

[diddykongfan]

Forever AU, part 5. We’re still before “Nightmare,” in terms of verse chronology. I think I got all the Forever characters who are coming except Lucas curse names that I either like or am okay with, though, so yay! That’s one curse name and a verse name left to go! Her Grossness has been demanding the right to speak for a while now, so I gave her this part’s opening section hoping to help mitigate part 4’s weak ending and the fact that there is conflict there that needs to be addressed (because, as I mentioned in part 4, she knows what she did). Also Forever characters are finally starting to appear in more than just cameos! Finally! (Although there are two more semi-cameos from them beyond our first two to actually show up showing up. also cameos from fairytale characters that as far as I know have yet to appear in OUAT. Also, yes, the curse identity I made for Will Scarlet in The Possibility of a Happy Ending.) (I am so, so sorry Henry. So sorry. I couldn’t work your new fake name in. Also the other thing, too.)

The Huntsman is alive.

It goes against everything she knows of the magic of stealing hearts, cultivated first watching her mother and then practicing herself. How can he be alive, while Daniel lies cold, gone for so many years now?

(She intended him to die, preferably in front of Miss Swan's eyes, a punishment for them both.)

The Huntsman is alive, and though both he and his deputy pretend nothing has changed to her face, she is not stupid. She turned the wolf to a sheep with the curse, but she can see the wolf back in his eyes, spent 28 years seeing the change, the docility, the willingness to obey.

Protecting the curse, protecting her happy ending, is more important to her than anything else. She has maintained an act for this long; she can keep up the facade, in public, no matter how much she wants to rage. She knows she has to be ever-so-careful - it's not broken in full, as of yet, or an angry mob would have torn her apart already. How the Huntsman is awake enough to be a wolf again is a bit less of a mystery than how he is alive (that woman has influenced him since she arrived, caused him to think for himself. It must be more of that sway, somehow), but he is one pawn on a much larger board. She can find a way to deal with the problem.

So if they're going to pretend, so is she. Instead of fuming and acting surprised that he is not dead, she pretends that the reason she came to the station was to remind that town policy prohibits fraternization. After all, she watched him trail out of the cemetery behind his deputy, and watched them come in this morning together, if a touch too careful in their act that nothing is different.

(She’s actually quite proud of herself for this act of improvisation. Makes it useful that she couldn't stop him from hiring the annoyance without resorting to commands to his heart. Commands she didn't make because his suddenly changing his mind on a job offer he'd not hinted he would make would look... Suspect. He'd already given Miss Swan a badge, by the time she knew.  And now she can use it against them. Leverage over both their jobs. What a lovely twist, even as things are going wrong.)

When she leaves them behind, she heads straight to her vault. The box that once contained his heart is still discarded and empty, proof of what she did, but the dust that was once the Huntsman's heart is gone, disappeared, no longer scattered across the floor. She picks up the box again, throws it, smashes it against the wall, a crack in that facade here in her sanctum because he should be dead. Not free. A snarling rage bubbles inside, but she forces herself to temper it. The curse is still intact, mostly. One little splinter can be dealt with.

She just needs to figure out how.

...

There's not generally much work, for the Sheriff's department. Crime has gone up, since time started moving, but it's still quite often very slow, quiet.

(Jack Hertz gets caught trying to steal a Care Bear twice a week, now, instead of every day. That's actually an improvement, technically speaking. And the older woman who runs the toy store is certainly exasperated with him, but she never does press charges and he never does get the merchandise out of the store. Sometimes it almost seems like she's playing a game with Hertz, Ms. Fürst, like she almost wants to see if he can actually succeed. It's probably the closest thing the widow has to a friendship, in its own odd way.)

So he might be planning on using the quiet to try and talk to Emma more, about the past and the curse, since she said she wanted to hear-

Except he doesn't get the chance, because almost as soon as Regina has delivered a message about fraternization he's sure she made up on the spot to cover her curse and the real reason she was there, the phone starts to ring.

"I'd like to report a theft," says the woman on the other end of the line, and when she goes on to describe getting home from the Rabbit Hole only to find her wallet missing from her purse, and calling the bar to hear it hadn't been left behind- Well, he knows exactly who's likely to be behind it.

Hertz and Rendón. While Jack might tend towards stuffed children's toys, for whatever reason (probably the curse, he can now admit, because it’s the only reason that makes any sense at all), it's... Pretty much common knowledge that he also has a pickpocketing scheme going on with Vera Rendón at the bar in question. The thing is, no one ever bothers complaining about their swiped cash, because the wallets are always in the lost and found in the morning, cards untouched, and nothing can be proven. Usually because it’s a smiling Vera who turns the wallets in claiming she found them on the floor – which covers for her fingerprints, would an actual investigation take place – and the bartender, Johnson, he won’t ever say a bad word against her.

(It must still not be in the lost and found, for Ms. Utkin to be calling to report the theft, meaning the pair of thieves are behind schedule, this morning.)

“We’ll check it out, ma’am.”

He sees the question in Emma’s eyes, and he’s not sure how to explain. The curse had made him know these crimes were taking place and not do anything about it. True, he can tell now that for a long time it was just the same day, on repeat, a horrible loop, but time had started moving again and still… Nothing.

(Of course, this is the first time anyone’s actually called in one of the thefts, anyway, and it’s not as though he’s ever been a first-hand witness. Just heard people grumbling.)

“Possible theft at the Rabbit Hole last night for us to investigate,” he settles for, because he’s pretty sure those two are smart enough to cover their tracks, even if Johnson doesn’t try and cover for Vera, as he almost certainly will.

And then the phone rings again.

Emma answers this time, and whatever the person on the other end says seems to surprise her.

When she hangs up, she’s more puzzled than anything, he can read it on her face.

“Doctor Bellamy is convinced she just ran over someone on a bicycle, only…  She can’t find the victim.  Just the bike.”  She moves to get her jacket, and it seems that splitting up will get more done quickly, so he goes for his keys, left in his office overnight (fortunately they hadn’t disappeared like his clothes had)-

And then the phone rings again.  At this rate, they’re already understaffed, just the two of them.

“Sheriff’s station.”

“Hi, Graham?  It’s, um-” he recognizes Ruby’s voice, “Granny sent me to the docks to get some fish because our shipment didn’t come in, and, you know that guy who takes care of the cemetery? He’s, um, running around naked and asking how he got out here? Like, he found a newspaper somewhere but- You can still kinda tell."

A theft, a disappearing accident victim, and a skinny dipper.

There's a long day in head, he thinks.

...

There's something wrong with his memory.

He was on his bicycle, when a car came out of nowhere, he recalls; then, a flash of visions before his eyes that feel more right than anything has in a long while even as they flee his grasp (people he does not recognize who feel like home, somehow), a gasp of breath, and suddenly, he's in the water of the harbor. And his clothes are gone.

Terribly, terribly wrong with his memory, because while he feels like he should know what just happened - as strange as the situation is, he is... not terrified by the sensation? Not even surprised by it? - feels like somehow, he's just used to it... He doesn't know why. Or even what, honestly.

Of course, once he manages to get out of the water, he's fortunate the first fisherman he sees wordlessly hands him a newspaper. But then he starts to ask the people around - did you happen to see how I got here? - and they all look at him like he's lost his mind.

(He feels a little like he's losing his mind. Something about knowing there's something wrong with his memories gives him a headache, and when he tries to think back more than a few weeks, everything turns to fuzz. Trying to recall the images from before he was in the water, too, makes the fuzz and the static increase a hundredfold.)

He's almost relieved when Deputy Swan appears with blankets and generically baggy sweats - all blessedly dry - to herd him to her vehicle and back to the station. Something about that, too, feels a little bit familiar; not her, necessarily, but the situation, it's like there's something on the tip of his tongue, about to be recalled, feels right like the images and eases the buzzing of his swimming head.

He rides along in silence, the strange feelings not gone but subsided enough, and when they arrive at the station two others are leaving; the man, he doesn't know - and while Storybrooke is a small town, that's still not completely unexpected. But the woman-

He saw her, in the images, recognizes that lovely face and the fall of her hair, the intelligence behind her cold eyes (eyes that should be filled with warmth, he thinks), even as her clothes are different, ripped jeans and a blood red shirt under a leather jacket instead of blouses and pantsuits and polished professionalism. A cigarette rests between two of her fingers, unlit but ready to go, and a voice he instinctively knows is hers whispers through his ears like a memory - "No thanks, I quit years ago."

He doesn't know her. Can't.

But he also can't bring himself to stop staring, nor does he even consciously decide to breathe out the name that just feels right when he sees her- "Jo?"

She gives him a blank look in return. "Vera," she says like a correction after a moment, the same voice as he predicted but a different tone, rolling her eyes and pulling a lighter from her pocket as she continues to walk away.

(Vera? No, it doesn’t feel right. But he doesn’t know her, certainly not better than she knows herself. He doesn’t know a Jo, either, he doesn’t think. But then…  There is something wrong with his memory.  He just doesn’t know what.)