This…didn't go remotely where I expected it to when I set out to write it. I hope it's not dreadful as a result. It's also a bit…plot-less. I'm not sure what happened. But, well hopefully you'll enjoy it anyway.

Blue

Prompt: By chance, Jefferson, Emma, & August happen to meet in town around the same time. Curiosity abounds - especially for Jefferson, who is wary and suspicious of the other mysterious gentleman acquainted with the Sheriff. Bonus points if you throw in a bit of subtle jealousy on Jefferson's part.

He'd started showing up randomly. Everywhere.

It wasn't so much that he appeared frequently or was bothering her or anything else to that effect. It was just that she never knew when he was going to pop up next. It was unnerving.

Emma just couldn't be comfortable when he was around. And rightly so, after all, she told herself. Their first encounter hadn't exactly set the groundwork for a friendly relationship. Honestly, she'd have him locked up if she could, but two things were stopping her. First, that pressing charges would mean admitting that she had been at his home the night before Mary Margaret's arraignment, and she really didn't want to explain that. Second, if she pressed charges, she'd have to put up with him while he was in the cell at the sheriff's office. With everything that had been happening, she just didn't think she had enough of a hold on her sanity to deal with that at the moment.

Speaking of people's grasps on sanity, she was starting to think this fairy-tale thing of Henry's was becoming an epidemic. First the kid shows up on her door claiming that his adoptive mother is the evil queen in Snow White. Then Graham goes unhinged and starts raving about wolves and not having a heart and…

She stops herself. She doesn't like to think about the way Graham died, about the way he looked at her in his last moments like she had somehow made everything clear, saved him, only to die without warning or reason the next moment. It hurts to picture that night.

Anyway, then it was Graham, and now she was dealing with someone who was honest-to-goodness convinced that he was a character in a story book. The Mad Hatter. Honestly.

The odd thing was that if you eliminated the first meeting, erased the gun…and the drugs, the hats, and the—she closes her eyes in horror—telescopes…well, she would never have pegged him for the type. Eccentric, maybe. A bit off-beat, perhaps, but not deranged.

Jefferson had vanished that night with no explanation, then reappeared a week later with even less explanation, and Emma had made an executive decision that she just didn't want to know. No one had been hurt, and as far as she was concerned, as long as he continued not to hurt anyone, she was going to look the other way.

But the trouble was that he kept appearing. It was as if watching her by telescope had become unsatisfactory. But she had to remind herself that he wasn't showing up often enough for her to have grounds to think he was stalking her. And she'd purposefully gone back to his house during his absence and removed the telescopes. As far as she knew he hadn't replaced them, so he wasn't watching her, either.

So really, if it weren't for that first meeting, she wouldn't be so bothered by running into him on the street. Or seeing him sitting in the park, reading a book. Or carrying home a bag of groceries.

But as it was, she was bothered. A lot bothered. Her stomach would give an anxious little turn when she spotted him, and her pulse would quicken just a little. Their eyes would meet and her throat would go dry.

They didn't speak. He seemed to sense that she was pretending their meeting had never happened, and for the moment, he had been willing to play along with that.

Until now, it seemed.

August had stopped by the Sheriff's office one evening just to see her, and had offered to buy her a drink when she was ready to leave. She'd agreed, partly out of an interest in solving the ever-present puzzle that is August W. Booth. Maybe Henry and all his wild theories were getting to her because she couldn't help thinking that August was hiding something. A little part of her just itched to know what that was, to unravel that mystery and understand him.

It didn't hurt that she enjoyed his company. He was kind, complex, and interesting to talk to. And he didn't need to say out loud that he found her attractive. It was just there, silently acknowledged between them. She was starting to think that maybe she liked him that way, too. At least a little. Sometimes attraction is immediate. Other times it grows on you so slowly that you can't be certain when it started. That was August. Like a pair of jeans that you start to increasingly love the more worn out they get.

She had just locked up with August when she turned and bumped into Jefferson, who had just rounded the corner.

"Oh I'm sorry, I–" she broke off, realizing who it was, a slight flush going to her face.

"It's my fault, Sheriff Swan," Jefferson was saying, "I wasn't paying attention t–"

But he stopped, not finishing the statement. He was looking at August, and frowning slightly.

"I'm sorry," Jefferson said, "I don't believe we've met." He extended a hand for August to shake.

Emma bit her lip, looking between the two men. Jefferson had the strangest little glint of curiosity in his eyes, like he, too, found August to be an enticing puzzle.

"August Booth," August said, shaking Jefferson's hand. There was a pause. "And you are?" he prompted Jefferson.

Jefferson was looking between Emma and August. "Were you leaving?" He asked Emma. "I wanted a word."

Her eyebrows rose. "You did?" was all she could say at first. Then she snapped out of it. "Oh right…." She glanced at August before looking at Jefferson again. "Is it urgent? I'm on my way home."

"Together?" Jefferson asked.

August frowned. "I don't see how–"

"We were getting a drink first," Emma clarified.

Jefferson was now looking at August in an entirely new light, and Emma could have sworn she saw his jaw tick slightly.

"So was it important?" Emma repeated, when Jefferson appeared to have forgotten that she was waiting on his answer.

He started. "What? Oh, that. No," he said, eyes still on August, sizing him up in a way that was making Emma distinctly uncomfortable. "It's fine. I'll just…" he turned his eyes back to Emma, and she swallowed tightly at the wicked light dancing in them as he leaned a little closer to her, his voice betraying nothing, "drop by tomorrow."

And with that, he walked away, pulling the collar of his long coat up around his neck.

Emma's mind flashed to that night at his house, when she'd seen the horrible scar in a ring around his neck. She suppressed a shudder.

August was watching Emma carefully. "You've met him?" he asked.

"Yeah," Emma said, still watching Jefferson walk away. "Briefly," she said quickly, realizing what she'd just said. "Once. Don't know him well or anything. So are you ready?" she said, beginning to walk in the opposite direction from Jefferson, leading the way to the diner.

August smiled. "Of course."

When Jefferson had said "tomorrow," she hadn't been expecting him to be waiting for her at the sheriff's office first thing in the morning.

"Oh my God," she said, clutching her heart when she found him waiting beside her desk when she got it. "How the hell did you get in here?" she demanded, grateful that Mary Margaret was no longer sleeping in the jail cell. It would have given the poor school teacher quite a turn.

Jefferson smirked. He was leaning against her desk with his arms folded. "I have my ways."

Emma glared at him. "Great. I'll be having the locks changed then."

He shrugged, un-offended. "I figured you'd prefer it if I waited for you here as opposed to showing up at your home uninvited," he said, walking slowly around the desk and fiddling with objects on it idly. "Considering our last encounter," he finished, raising his eyes to her.

Emma was watching his hands, trying to decide if she needed to be worried. How long had he been here? Was it possible he had planted something? Should she be worried? "How considerate," she said dryly, unamused.

"So who is he?" Jefferson asked.

"Who?" she asked, honestly confused.

"Last night. Buying you a drink. He's not from Storybrooke. Who is he?"

Emma opened and closed her mouth, an indignant little part of her wanting to say it was none of Jefferson's business. "He's new in town. Somewhat."

A slow grin pulled at the corners of Jefferson's mouth, not the kind he had when he looked like he was hanging by a thread, a satisfied smile. "And you still don't believe you have magic. But there's never been anyone new here before. You've been bringing a lot of changes."

Emma sighed at the mention of magic and rubbed her forehead. "Jefferson, in spite of my better judgment, I'm choosing to believe that you don't belong behind bars. It would be really, really helpful if you could resist the urge to talk about magic and fairy tales around me, okay?"

He gave her an irritated look, but seemed to accept her terms. His perusal of her desk over, he turned to perusing her. He appraised her from head to toe, silently, intensely, and Emma shifted uncomfortably. "Did you need something?" she asked impatiently, wanting him gone.

"You don't look tired," he commented, ignoring her question.

"Excuse me?"

"At least, not more tired than usual. Not the kind of tired you are when you've been out all night."

"Why would…what?"

"I take it that it was just a drink last night?" Jefferson asked.

Emma gave him a look of disbelief. "Are you seriously asking me a personal question?" she asked incredulously.

He shrugged nonchalantly. "Just curious."

She rolled her eyes. "What do you want Jefferson?" she asked firmly.

His eyes, which had been studying the clothes she was wearing, flicked back up to her eyes, a much more intense answer to her question burning behind them. She faltered back a step. But he didn't speak on it. "Just wanted to see how you were doing," he said lightly. "Apologize about everything."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Seriously?"

He nodded. "So have you been out with him before?"

"Jefferson!"

"I just wondered," he said, smirking. "It's nothing to hide you know." He glanced at the spot on the floor where Graham had died, and Emma was seized with a sudden realization that he may well have seen everything that had happened that night. "Everyone needs someone." He was looking back at her now. "Once in a while," he added. He looked poised to say something else but seemed to think better of it, licking his lips instead.

Emma folded her arms protectively. "Right, well…." she trailed off, not sure what else there was to say, looking out the window instead of at him. When he didn't say anything, she ventured to look at him again, and was slightly dislodged by the expression of sadness she could see in his eyes. She dropped her arms. "Jefferson…are you sure you didn't need anything?"

What could he say? That he needed someone who would reach out to him? Someone whose presence didn't force conflicting realities on his mind? That she had been added to his list of obsessions for new reasons? He looked at her and he wanted to touch her, to hold her, to shake—and possibly kiss—the disbelief out of her. He'd been kidding himself when he thought he was only keeping an eye on her because she was meant to be their savior. It had been more than that. When she'd lost the Huntsman, that was when he'd seen the change in her. And he'd wanted nothing more than to comfort her that night, because if there was one thing he understood, it was loss.

And then he'd met her in person, and a whole new onslaught of problems had toppled down on him. He wished he had been more patient. In his midsummer madness he'd been a fool. He couldn't force belief on her at gunpoint. Like his growing affinity for her, belief would take time.

He realized quite suddenly that he'd gotten very close to her. He could smell the scent of her shampoo. His hand was hovering an inch from her arm, as if to hold her there. He forced himself to lower it.

The stranger had touched her. He'd seen it. August had been standing so close to Emma the night before that their arms had brushed and she hadn't even noticed it. And then he'd rested his hand on her back. Not too low, but low enough.

Jefferson felt a burning of jealousy in his stomach, thinking of how liberal he had been with touching Emma the night she met him. But he had to restrain himself now. He couldn't give her any more cause to be afraid of him.

She was looking into his eyes now, so much concern in hers as she tried to decipher what he was thinking.

"No," he lied, knowing she'd see through it. "No, I just wanted to check on you," he told her, "that you were doing all right."

He turned to leave, and just as he was reaching for the door, she called out his name.

"Jefferson."

He turned toward her, casual facade back in place. "Yes?" he asked, giving her that look that made her toes curl slightly.

She swallowed with some difficulty, trying to ignore the shameless skip in her chest that his expression caused her. Her eyes dropped to his cravat. "Your…the scar. How did you get it?" she asked.

He was surprised by the question, but he only smirked mischievously at her. "From a mad woman, of course," he told her with a wink, before leaving at last.