Graham has his keys in hand and he doesn't let go of them, even if he never ends up actually getting back into the car and finishing the rest of Emma's night-shift.

He definitely looks like a complete mess, like he'd been thrown up by the neighbourhood hedges, his shirt half-buttoned, his vest hanging loose, his tie gone missing. His mind is buzzing, half-caught between exhaustion so great it's a bit like being wired, and a panic so desperate and frenzied, that he couldn't sit still even if he wanted to.

There's just - nothing he can do, nothing to fix or explain the reasons why tonight happened the way it did.

And it's that helplessness, that hopelessness that keeps him far away from calm.

He decides to walk. At first he thinks he'll make a round about the mayor's house before ending back up at the cruiser, and by then he'll be fine enough to drive home and get some sleep. But it's ten minutes ... twenty ... thirty-five before he finds himself heading further from Regina's until he's hitting neighbourhoods he would only ever frequent while in his car. He can do nothing but walk off that energy, walk off that desperation and guilt and anxiety until his body is so tired, it has no choice but to shut down long enough for him to get some sleep, even if it is at the side of the road.

What happened tonight shouldn't have happened. He knows that now, even if the revelation comes too little, too late.

He shouldn't have answered Regina's call. He shouldn't have agreed to it, not if it meant seeing the look on Emma's face, the one he'd been hoping never to see, never to cause - the expression like he'd just betrayed her.

(And god, has it only been this afternoon? Just this noon, Emma had been smiling at him, teasing him, and they'd had coffee together.)

He should have known. It was an unexplainable itch, a sudden heavy feeling in his gut when he offered her doughnuts by way of polite (and, again, teasing) bribery that what he was going to do was ... wrong, somehow. For days now, Graham knew that his arrangement with Regina was off anyway - why would going to her then fix anything? When was the last time, he thinks, Regina even made you feel?

(Had she ever?)

He pauses by the corner stop-sign, red metal still bright in the darkness, illuminated by the streetlamp some paces away, reflective bold white letters telling him to 'STOP'. He rubs his face and comes away with a slight sheen of perspiration. How long had he been walking?

(Of course she had. She must have. You felt for her once. Didn't you?

But Emma ...)

Emma, with her bravery and her guts, that take-no-shit attitude, her stubbornness and her heart - something about her - no, everything. He couldn't stop thinking about her, and he didn't even try.

From the moment he'd arrested her that first time, something clicked. Something happened. Emma reminded him of an existence - a feeling so long gone past, he didn't even remember it was there at all until then.

And now it won't leave him alone, like something growing bigger and brighter, something he can't reach or touch or smell or even acknowledge with any sense of clarity. It is the start of something magnificent, something hopeful - that much he knows.

And it is destroying what little he understands of himself.




The dark black sky begins to turn a cerulean blue, and then there's a smear of soft pink streaking overhead like someone had taken a brush to the sky. By the time Graham stumbles back towards his cruiser, his feet feel like bricks and his head feels like it's stuffed with cotton. His car is still waiting patiently for him the next street over to the mayor's house where Emma had left it before their confrontation. He makes sure to take a detour, walking the other way so no one from 108 Mifflin Street could catch sight of the disheveled Sheriff, then he gets into his car and drives straight home.

He stands under the shower for an inordinate time, letting the hot water run like it might clear away his guilt, which is now nothing more than a dull ache in his chest. It's a sensation he's still getting used to feeling, and it's foreign and horrible as strangely reassuring as it also has become.

He's exhausted when he collapses into bed, barely managing to pull on a pair of pyjama bottoms before he falls, face-down onto his mattress.

An hour later, his alarm goes off.