princehonorable | (no subject)

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Since Graham had arrived, Charming's been eager to talk to him without Ruby around to see if they really were on the same page or if it's just hopeful thinking that has Charming believing that he's not alone. Still, even if Graham does remember, he's not sure he knows about the part where he might not know if he's dead. Everything has changed so much since those early days when even Charming had known nothing more than the fact that he was David Nolan, a man married to a wife he didn't love and in love with the local schoolteacher.

Regina couldn't control everything, not without their hearts. That thought makes him feel guilty as he thinks about how she had controlled Graham, all thanks to his heart.

Still, Charming needs to find out if Graham knows about the Enchanted Forest, so he starts his perusal of the hotel, searching it high to low. Eventually, it's the stables where he goes to look. He's been working there as a sort of stablehand whenever the frustration of not getting back to Neverland eats at him, but it's not a regular occurrence.

"Graham?" Charming calls out, when he hears footsteps near him. "Sheriff?"

And then, there's that last hopeful attempt.

"Huntsman?"

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Charming's brow has been going up the whole time Graham has been speaking. "I've never really begun to understand people," he agrees. "Given my complicated life, I genuinely think that might be a result of the madness that afflicted me since birth." Their family, already struck by Rumplestiltskin's deal. "You know, sometimes I wonder what my life might have looked like if a deal had never been made. Calmer, probably, but I'd also never have met Snow."

"So maybe, maybe being raised by people who mold the way you think affects who you want to be with," he says with a shrug. "I know my mother taught me to look for friends and love in other good-hearted, honest people. I want to do right by her."

In all likelihood and outside the realm as was connected to Snow and the reports the Queen had hissed in rage over, he knew no more about the other man's life than David knew about his. It had him listening attentively, even as he curled his hand around his glass and tipped it onto one side of its bottom and swirled the alcohol round and round. The action helped divert something of the energy that buzzed through his fingertips and across his shoulders. He meant to allow the other man to speak without any needed comment, but the word 'deal' caught his attention too much to let pass him by. "Deal?" he repeated, "What deal was that?"

He could not disagree with the man on the other matter, no matter that his experience had been almost the exact opposite in those who had raised him. Those he had left behind. He lifted his glass to his mouth again but paused there, lowering it again as he attempted to make sense enough to explain his thoughts without simply overwhelming the conversation with them. "Red had what my pack lacked - this sense of honor and the desire to do right by more than just herself. The Pack was too driven by fear and anger, I had to leave them long ago."

Charming is grateful that the rumour of his childhood hasn't spread to the whole of the Enchanted Forest, though it's not as though it's the juiciest morsel that can be fed. "I have a twin brother. I had a twin brother," he corrects. "Prince James? King George's son. My parents made the deal to get money to save the farm and gave up my brother. And if James hadn't died, then I never would have become the prince I was." It sounds so simple when laid out like that, even though Charming knows very well how complicated it truly is.

"Speaking of Red..." Charming says, clearing his throat. "How do we make her remember? Do we have to send her back until the curse is broken or do you think there's something we can do here?"

That- that actually explained a good many things when it came to Regina's cryptic commentary, the smug tilt of her lips when she had spoken of the Prince and the King. The nature of having gotten his information only overheard or from the Queen's gloating had left his knowledge of the goings on of the world outside the Palace at once skewed and spotty. He had known that the man had not been King George's son, but had thought it fruitless to guess at how or why that situation had come about.

There was only one who the Huntsman could think of who would make such a deal, but he would not speak the creature's name aloud unless it was necessary.

"Huh," he said instead, tipping his head a degree at that new information before letting it be. Only for the conversation to open the way to the confession he had just set aside for a later time. "I do not know." He wanted, almost desperately, for Red to remember herself but could not say how it could be accomplished. He steeled himself, drank the entirety of his glass in one swallow and turned himself to look at David evenly as he told him in measured words, "I kissed Emma. That is when I began to remember."

He raises his brow and waits for a few seconds to let that piece of information sink in and for that to process. He licks his lips and clears his throat and nope, that's still sitting in a little bubble that feels a little like protective anger. "You kissed my daughter," Charming says, the words crisp, clear, and definitely not easy to mistake for anything else. "And then you left her," he says.

It's habit of twenty-eight years that had his hands lifting, palms forward in the universal gesture of 'wait wait wait' "Look, it wasn't like that-" A few days space was nowhere near enough for him to be able to forget the desire to kiss her or that he had done so while thoroughly sloshed. "It wasn't something I should have begun with her, I knew that - I just - I couldn't feel anything for as long as I could remember. Not until she arrived, and I couldn't understand why," He was rushing over his words, trying to make himself understood even where he had gone about everything the wrong way.

He stopped and sighed, "Without her I could not have freed myself from Regina, I would not have remembered who I am, and I am nothing but not grateful to Emma for what she has done for me. If she hadn't kissed me-" Even where he wanted to leave no doubt that he had nothing but respect and, yes, affection for the woman, he could not find the words to encompass all of what he felt then. He shook his head, "I did not mean to leave her, David, but if there is a chance in the world to be with the woman I love, shouldn't I take it?"

He's willing to listen to Graham's protestations for a little while, seeing if he's going to dig his way into the hole or whether he's going to try crawling out of it any time soon. "Seeing as how I nearly ruined my life many times over just to be with the woman I love, I suppose I can understand that." He musters up a smile, looking at Graham thoughtfully, because he knows that Emma is out of the picture now. "So, Red...do you think your connection in the past might be able to spark some of her memories?"

With his understanding of men limited to the cobbled together knowledge he had picked up before the Queen's collar had tightened at his throat, and twisted through the years of his captivity, Graham did not know what to make of the situation. Not involving a man and his grown daughter. Not to do with protocol or expected behavior. Certainly not when the Dark Curse muddied the waters beyond any hope of matters clearing on their own.

He managed a nod at what seemed to be the other man's upset settling, but felt no more sure of the situation. Or that he had been at all successful at making himself understood. As it was, Graham thought he would gladly take the man simply taking pity on him enough to let it slide. Only for him to have to lift a hand to his hair again at the question asked of him. The matter had taken up much of his thoughts where it had been able, but his understanding of the Curse was tenuous at best and his ability to break such powerful magics non-existent as far as he knew. He had not been able to save himself from Regina's manipulations, how could he hope to save Ruby from her magic? "I don't know," he admitted, finally. "I don't even know if she felt the same as I had, all those years ago."

Charming isn't sure he wants to touch that with a ten foot pole. He feels for Graham, he really does, but the last time he kissed Snow when she couldn't remember who he was, he'd wound up sucker-punched in the face for it, having learned a valuable lesson about not presuming true love's kiss would solve things so handily. "Maybe we need to bring her somewhere, or to someone," he says, still unsure as to who that could be.

He shakes his head, sympathy written all over his face. "I'm sorry that she can't remember."

Graham neither wanted nor sought the other man's pity, and so made to attempt to push further into the topic of what he had just admitted. Frankly, he was glad David left it as it was and did not prod at the confusion and frustration over the matter that Graham thought he needed a good deal more time to understand himself.

"I am too," he agreed, unable to stop the sigh that followed, though he would not forget to be grateful that Ruby was safe. That he stood not alone in a strange place, that he had an ally he knew could be trusted (as rare a thing as that was, to his mind). "Emma did break the Curse with time, didn't she?" As much as he hated the idea that Ruby might have to leave in order to remember what they had all lost, he could not deny that that might have been a strong possibility. "She is - as far as I am aware - the only one who holds the key to breaking the Curse."

"She broke the curse, yes," David agrees, his smile as bright as possible when discussing his daughter's ability and her incredible talent for being the saviour. "It didn't fix everything. In fact, I think we're all still struggling to come to terms with it. Emma included. She's nearly the same age as her parents. I'm a grandfather," he says, laughing at the madness of it. "She broke the curse, but there wasn't an immediate happy ending before us."

While he begrudged neither David nor Snow their happiness, having been witness for too long to the hatred Regina had nursed for the pair and the evil she had wreaked in her desire to destroy her step daughter, Graham did not smile then. He nodded, "I understand." Graham had little love of magic and less belief that it was the key to one's happiness, but even if it did not fix everything, breaking the Curse on Red was the least he owed her. "I don't expect a happy ending, David. I know better than to hope for that for me, but what matters is that Red be free of Regina's spell."

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