"Why?"
"Sometimes it's better to just remove the bad stuff."
"Why?"
August looked up exasperated, but Emma smirked, pleased that someone else was on the receiving end of Henry's curiosity. Emma rolled a shoulder, letting August fend for himself.
"Because they found out I'm a cyborg," he concluded with a nod.
Henry gave one of his own as if that answered all of his questions. He suddenly leaned away from Emma to reach over to August's neck, tugging at the ball chain there and lifting it from beneath his shirt. Squinting at the tags, he turned back to Emma and pulled her own tags from around her neck so fiercely the blonde choked a little and ended up knocking heads with her Sergeant. "It's the same," Henry concluded after a very intense inspection of the tags.
"Told you," August whispered. "She's a cyborg."
"No," Henry insisted, almost scoffing at the older man who looked amused by the attitude of the three-year old. He turned to Emma holding up the tags. "Can I have it too?"
Emma smiled tightly, weaving the tags out of Henry's fingers, letting them drop over her shirt. "These are special. You get them when you work at a job like mine and August's."
"I can do it too," the boy insisted.
Both August and Emma looked at each other solemnly before the younger woman bounced Henry on her knee once. "I don't know, kid. Mommy's gonna miss you a lot."
"But you like a bwave knight!" He exclaimed.
Emma's heart melted at the adoration in his eyes. It was moments like these where she felt untarnished pride to put on the uniform, where every bad thing she had ever seen or done didn't matter because someone, even if it was just a child, thought she was a hero. She kissed his forehead gently and held his hands in her own earnestly. "You're a brave knight too, Sir Henry. And before you think about working like me and August, you gotta make sure Mommy is safe. Can you be Mommy's knight for me?"
"I am," he promised dutifully with a nod of his head.
A loud bark from Pongo, jumping excitedly at the threshold of the parlour, interrupted Henry's inquisition and distracted him from his newfound cyborg.
"Hi Pongo!" He greeted happily. The dog barked again, running in one quick circle at the entrance of the room, and Emma had to hand it to Regina. She even had the Dalmatian, whom she claimed to tolerate only barely, trained not to enter into one of her more formal sitting areas. Henry crawled off of Emma's lap and hurried after the dog, gripping Pongo's collar lightly as they trailed away from the room.
"Sorry," Emma apologized, motioning her head to Henry's retreating form. "His favourite movie is Treasure Planet."
August held up his hand in understanding. "Kid's curious. Great taste in movies though."
"He wants to grow out his hair like Jim Hawkins and get a rat's tail too," she laughed. "Regina hasn't figured out how to talk him out of it yet."
"Tell him he has to get the piercing too," August suggested. "That'll solve everything."
"Or make it worse," she groaned at the thought. Tucking her leg underneath her, she shifted to face August, an arm resting against the back of the couch as a soft smile graced her lips. "I can't believe you came down all this way."
"Really? You can't believe that?" He said offended. "Come on, Swan, that's what families do."
"Not all of them," she said dryly.
"That's because they weren't family." He leaned over to pat her leg. "It's been different for a while now, hasn't it?"
It took Emma a second to realize that yeah, August was right. Despite the trouble she had gotten into at the Johnson's, she had had August with her there, and then again when she enlisted, and now as her relationship with Regina and Henry growing by the day, it was surreal to have everyone she cared for all under one roof, in some middle of nowhere town that Emma would never have visited if the stars hadn't aligned. She shook her head, unbelieving of her luck but accepting it as it came. "Yeah," she admitted. "It's been pretty good for a while."
"Plus I had to see this for myself," August waggled his eyebrows knowingly. "Quite the friend you've got there, Emma. This time make sure that bedroom door is locked."
Emma rolled her eyes, but the thought of kissing Regina behind closed doors with no interruption was so captivating it took more mental resources to tap down on the image, for now at least. "Come off it."
"I'm just saying, you got a good one," August grinned. "She basically tracked me down. Hey, who's Sidney Glass?"
"A reporter." Emma squinted. "Why?"
"Sounded pretty frightened on the voicemail if I didn't contact Regina immediately and come to Storybrooke for a special event."
"A special event?" She asked incredulously. "It's just my birthday party."
"Pretty telling, isn't it?" He smirked when Emma ducked her head in pleased embarrassment. "What's going on with you two?"
This time Emma looked up, shrugging though not upset with it. "No idea," she began, "but, I don't know, I know that I, you know, like, like her."
"Like-like, that's serious," August teased.
Emma socked him in the arm and held him with a glare. "I like her, okay?"
"So what's stopping you?"
"What's stopping me?" Emma let out a dry laugh. "That techie, Dean Cooper, doesn't ever call his boyfriend and whenever he comes back from leave he says he visited his mom. I'm pretty sure the president himself would have my ass if they found out."
"No offence, Emma, but since when have you given a damn?"
"That's rich coming from you."
"Coming from me as your superior and your brother it should be loaded with golden goodness," August said pointedly. "And I call bullshit."
"On what?"
"On you being scared of what the job thinks," he answered simply. "So cut the on the offensive crap and tell me what's really stopping you?"
Emma let out a breathy sigh and leaned her head on her hand as she rested it against the couch. After a long moment of silence, she finally relented. "I'm going back next week," she said quietly.
"And?"
"And? And I don't want to start something with her that I can't finish," she explained, waving her hands around to prove her point. "She deserves more than a week and something better than a letter once a month."
"That's the life we signed up, Corporal," he reminded her. "Ramirez hasn't met his kid yet, and Hogan has had to postpone his wedding twice."
"I know," she said dejectedly. After a restrained sigh, she muttered quietly. "But I didn't."
August raised a questioning eyebrow for Emma to continue. She floundered for words as her hands waved wildly as if they knew what she wanted to say. "I was alone my whole life, and I never had anyone to miss or someone to miss me, and then I joined the army, and it very well might have been the greatest thing I've ever done because at least there I had you...and then everything changed."
August stayed quiet, his eyes narrowed, and Emma felt as if he was examining her, every minute body movement and every turn of phrase that she spoke. She did her best to remain as still as possible, her expression changing from conflicted to neutral in half a second, but it was no use for August's eyebrows rose to his hairline in wonderment. "You got it bad, kid."
Emma let out a groan and shook her head. "I know. It might just be hero complex," she reasoned mainly to herself.
"Who's saving who?" August asked wryly. When Emma's silence permeated the room, he continued. "Look, let me embark a little bit of wisdom on you. I know you feel guilty about my leg, Emma. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that." He held up a hand when she finally decided to speak, silencing her preempted apology. "I forgive you," he said sincerely.
Emma turned away, running a hand through her hair to gain her composure, but the guilt of what had happened to August seemed to come crashing down on her.