Three Little Words,
Written by WickedSong.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything used in this, please and thank you. Also, if you are reading When I Find You, I'll Find Me, I promise that that next chapter will be with you by the end of this week. It's a long one, so please bear with while I write it and enjoy this fluffy (fluffy Gremma, I KNOW) oneshot instead! :) It's AU, from The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, but that seems to be one of the few ways we can have Gremma fluff, lbr.
He's the first one to say it and while he means it completely, it's an accident.
Lazily lying with her in his bed, after an amazing night, he's stroking her blonde hair lightly and she's responding by moving closer, resting her head just over his heart. A part of him finds that kind of poetic but he wouldn't dare say that out loud. While she's clearly awake, her eyes are still closed and he finds that she's adorable when she's sleeping. That's another thing he wouldn't voice aloud.
They are content. It's peaceful, almost. This is as quiet as it's been for the last couple of weeks, ever since he left Regina, finally placing what that void in his chest was, and chose himself for the first time in – well it had been a long time.
Choosing himself, choosing his own fate, he guessed that meant choosing Emma and he was glad that she appeared to choose him in return.
His lips graze her forehead delicately and that's when he says them; the three little words he probably should have steered clear of. He blurts them out without even thinking.
"I love you."
He doesn't regret them for what they are because they are true. He regrets them for the way that they make Emma's eye snap open. She sits up, and leaves the bed, quicker than anything he's ever seen in his life.
"You love me now?" she asks incredulously, as she gathers her clothes from the floor, hastily discarded the night before, and puts them back on. She shakes her head, as she mutters something to herself and stands.
"Em-"
"No," she cuts in sharply. "It's only been a few weeks. You can't love me yet." He can tell there's something else she wants to say but she stops herself.
He stands and starts dressing as well. "We should talk about this."
But she's already turned from him and he has to stop himself from tripping while trying to catch up to her. By the time he reaches the hall, the door is already slammed shut and he wonders if this means they're over before they've even begun.
Work the next morning is awkward. He's the sheriff; he can't really call in sick to avoid an encounter with his deputy-slash-maybe-girlfriend-slash-woman-he-loves.
Stupid Graham, stupid Graham, he thinks, of the words. He lines up another dart and hits the board; perfect aim, perfect precision, even more so than when he had no memories of his previous life back in The Enchanted Forest.
That's another thing he has to worry about. Emma's the Saviour, the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, who are also known as Mary Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan, while he's The Huntsman, and he has no idea how he fits into this fairytale.
He shakes his head. He can't think about that now. Sure, it's important, Henry told him that. But hoping that Emma still wants to look him in the eye at all seems to be of greater significance right now.
"You're already here."
He turns to the door and is surprised that Emma is there. He wouldn't have blamed her if she hadn't come in today, even without a phone call. The 'I love you' was something he shouldn't have just sprung on her, he knows that.
But yet again, he can't seem to regret the words because they are true.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
They both laugh, and look down, averting one another's gaze. She's got a half-smile, and he wonders what she's thinking.
"I just…I think we should…stop this?"
He freezes, and the smile he had all of ten seconds ago is wiped from his face. He's sure he must have a heart (he's still not how, he just does) because a tiny piece of it just broke.
"Why?"
She doesn't offer up a reason. She just looks at him with pleading eyes.
"I shouldn't have said those words last night. And I'm sorry for that." He stays standing where he is because he's afraid if he takes a step towards her she'll bolt again. "But I'm not expecting them back." He's never had them said to him once in any of his lives; he doesn't know why this one would be different. "All I want is you and I'm ready to face whatever that means, for you."
Her eyebrows crinkle in confusion at that last statement but she doesn't leave. She only nods, and goes to her desk and he smiles at her, fleetingly, before going to his own office. He can't wipe that grin off of his face that entire day.
It's a few months later when she says it and she completely means it.
Mary Margaret went out for a few drinks with Ruby and a few of the other teachers from school, so Emma decide to have a quiet night in the apartment, with Graham, watching some crappy movies. It strangely makes her feel like a teenager (Mary Margaret sure as hell acted like her mother sometimes, Henry's book or not) and she finds the thought amusing.
Graham's head lays in her lap and she plays with the curls of his hair subconsciously, as the terrible comedy they're watching barely lifts a chuckle from either of them. But he seems content and she is too. She's more than just content. She's happy.
She never thought she'd have that again and strangely enough she does, and it's because of him.
Her mind flashes back, for one terrible moment, to that night in the sheriff's station. When they had kissed, and it had been wonderful and then he had collapsed and wouldn't wake up, his heart barely beating. She had made a vow in those moments when all she could hear were her own violent sobs.
That her walls would be reinforced, they'd be ten feet high if they had to be. No one would hurt her again, she just wouldn't let them anymore.
And then his eyes had opened and it had been…magical? There had been no explanation but a part of her, that naïve child who still, against her better judgement, believed in fairytales, thought it was him, pulling through so that he didn't leave her. But of course she hadn't said as much to anyone because it was a silly fantasy, and all that really mattered what that he was there, alive and well and breathing.
They had hardly spoken about it again. She hadn't really honoured that vow either. When he had woken up all that she could do was, and this was again, against every rule in her book, pull him into her arms and hug him. It was a strange intimacy but one that she didn't mind, and one that she needed desperately.
She finds herself out of her thoughts and back in the apartment and she bends down and places a quick kiss on his lips.
He chuckles, taken slightly off guard. "And what was that for?"
Her lips are inches away from his and it's so silent, as if she's telling him and only him, at least for now.
"I love you."
Three little words she can't take back. She's said them before and she's been burned but Graham chose himself, and by extension her, only a few months ago. And she let him. She let him choose her because she wanted to choose him.
He somehow opened his eyes again and came back (for her, for her, she likes to think it was for her that he fought even if that is the silliest thing she's ever thought in her entire life).
He doesn't say them back, because she knows, and now he knows, and they don't need them. Because it's more than words, it's a feeling. It's the reason he has a heart beating in his chest and it's the reason why she let herself feel and fall again.
She doesn't need him to say them again, anyway. She has that now-wonderful, then-terrifying, memory of him saying it. She knows that he meant it then as much as she needs it now.
They turn back to the movie and they are happy, because those three little words are now their secret, for them and only them.