She hadn't realized there was another man in her cell until she turned to see him hiding in the shadows, knees drawn up to his chest, and the dirt and grime on his face caked on so thick she wondered how long he had been here. The tally marks on the wall said weeks. His hazy eyes and tangled beard said much longer.
Nabil was his name. His overzealous son had joined their captor's cause a year ago, and when a group of men showed up to his front door deeming his land prime real estate to coordinate in and Nabil turned them away, he found himself in this cell, leaving behind his wife and younger son to fend for themselves.
People are coming, Emma reassured him as the dying sun brought them into complete darkness. She wasn't sure if hearing it aloud was more for him or herself.
A week passed, and Emma knew that for certain since she herself added the tallies to the wall with a broken rock. They questioned her. Beat her. Needed to know where her friends had taken their precious Mohammad. She took it, never once saying a word even as her skin broke and her body bled, and when they would toss her back into her cell losing more and more energy every day, she would will herself to crawl to the wall, lean against the sticky dampness, and shut her eyes tightly. The delusion she had in her head that a whole army of tanks would come storming down, guns ablazing, shrunk with each passing day, but the lullaby that was permanently on repeat grew louder.
"This will hurt." Nabil held her leg tightly. The graze from the bullet wound had left a gash so big that even the ripped material from her pants used as a gauze couldn't make it heal any faster. The pain in her hand was obvious, but even just moving her leg felt like a million needles prickling into her skin. A hand she could do without. She needed both legs to run the hell away from here.
She shook her head as he held up the small bowl of water. The men had finally remembered to feed them after three days, but the hardened bread and the murky water was no three-course meal. "Don't waste it," she gasped, trying to no avail to dismiss his help.
He ignored her and dampened a ripped piece of Emma's sleeve into the water and pressed against the wound.
"Ah!" She bit her fist hard, her teeth digging into her knuckles, catching remnants of dirt, salt, and blood.
He looked apologetic before fiddling with the matchbook that had been hidden on Emma's person. "Stay still," he urged and lit the match, bringing it to her open flesh.
"Ahhhh!"
"How'd it go?"
A pleased smile tugged at her lips when she returned to her room after meeting with Gambit, and that was all the woman on the bed needed to cheer. Alicia Stevens, a Boston PD, tossed the magazine she had been reading onto the pillow beside her in her excitement. Alicia, whose forward personality hid the fact that her mind plagued her with nightmares of the crossfire she was caught in and left her with insomnia, had grown to be one of Emma's closest friends in the facility.
The officer had attended sessions at Brookhaven four times weekly thanks to her Captain's orders six months prior. Oddly enough it was Emma who saw the terrified officer and partnered up with her during group help or down time and talked with her on the mornings she returned from her home after another fitful night. Emma's progress escalated in those six months alone, but she was certain that Alicia would be just as ready for duty in no time. Co-healing, that's what Dr. Mitchell called it. Emma just liked having a friend.
She sat on a chair at the desk across from Alicia. Pinned to the wall were drawings and notes Emma had done, practising with both her left and prosthetic hand. Some pictures were simply landscapes or vases and fruits, whatever topic the art program held. Some were of the scenes that plagued her mind. Burning fires. Dark rooms. Hazy figures. But a lot of them were of two brunettes, sloppily drawn since Emma never had much creative ability to start with. Only one of them held a drawing of all three. She leaned back on the chair, her hands clasped behind her head. "I'm going home," she confirmed.
"Finally!" Alicia exclaimed holding her hand up for a high five which Emma met. She leaned closer and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Stop by a store. Get some flowers and chocolate. Your lady friend must be going crazy by now."
Emma swallowed hard but nodded her acknowledgement. Crazy was one word that had come to mind, especially when she thought about stepping off that airplane and landing on American soil with her clothes on her back, a medal on her breast, and a mechanical hand where her own was missing. She thought about it. Driving straight to Storybrooke and pretending like the last two years hadn't happened. She and Regina were good at pretending. But the noise of the airport made her flinch, and it was overcrowded and uncomfortable, and Emma felt paralyzed, rooted to the spot. She had gone to August's, but instead of the man she called brother, an Asian family of five was occupying the apartment that held some of her best memories. A teenage girl had squinted at her then, no doubt gawking at the scar coming from the edge of her lips and running up her cheek nearly touching her eye like some cruel game of connect the dots. The girl quickly scampered away and returned to hand her a postcard which held a familiar clocktower that was perpetually inactive. No words. No explanation. Just the blank postcard.
Emma had been on her way to Storybrooke that night, stopping briefly in a motel to get some sleep before the drive in the morning, but when the sudden pounding on her door for house cleaning had her jolting so hard out of bed and left her in the fetal position in the corner for over an hour, she knew then why all those foster parents had tossed her away like yesterday's garbage. Too damaged. Too broken. Too much.
But she was better now. She had passed all the tests, and it had been nearly a year since a flashback had taken hold of her. The control she had lost ages ago slowly returned to her over the months, and she knew if she waited any longer, she would regret it.
So Emma bit back the uncertainty and nodded at Alicia again. "I think it's gonna take a lot more than flowers and chocolate."
"Corporal Emma Swan reported missing eleven months ago. Found near Karim by Troop B14 last night. Lacerations on face, back, and torso. Signs of trauma to the head."
The gurney jostled as a blurry mesh of figures in whites and blues spoke over Emma. Their words faded in and out of her ears, and the light above her burned uncomfortably. Someone was touching her. They were all touching her.
"Doctor—"
Emma screamed as the pain in her hand and forearm felt like someone through her into a vat of acid.
"We're going to have to remove it quickly before the infection spreads. Clear an OR!"
For a moment, the voices yelling over her quieted as if a greater force had muted them. Nothing substantial focused her attention, but the serenity that it'd be over soon washed over Emma like the tide on a day at the beach. It'd stop hurting. Soon. Soon, it'd stop.
A country song played on the radio about a man missing his baby. Emma wasn't familiar with the tune, but every station boasted some mainstream pop that just went over her head. Sixteen months ago, she found that the storage locker where she kept the bug was empty, forcing her to get a rental for the trip to Storybrooke that never came. Back in another rental — a hybrid that admittedly ran more smoothly than her bug — Emma was cruising along the interstate.