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August gapes at the waitress in front of him. She slowly comes into focus in both his memory and his vision. The problem is, the images are the same.
By the time the pieces click disjointedly together in his head, she’s already giving him an impatient head tilt.
“Coffee?” she asks again, obviously unsure as to how he managed not to hear her the first time.
“Yes, please. Black,” he chokes out, shaking his shoulders out in an effort to regain his usual cool. “What’s your name?”
“Ruby.”
Of course it is. It’s all he can do not to snort.
August remembers her from that awful day when Gepetto took him to the gathering of the Round Table. He remembers thinking her so pretty, with her friendly face and bright smile. She'd patted him on the head and given him some berries from her basket. He remembers learning that her name was Red, which made perfect sense, since her cape was her most defining feature. He later asked Jiminy why everyone teased him for naming his favorite stuffed bear Gray, after its color. If people could be named after their colors, why not bears?
Today, instead of berries, she’s giving him a look that is much less innocent. If she knew who he was, she’d probably stop. Or perhaps she wouldn't. August isn't sure which he would prefer.
Everything seems smaller here. And not just because Storybrooke is a small town, especially compared with Boston and Vancouver and Bangkok and everywhere else he’s been. He has never considered himself a particularly tall man, but here, he finds himself shifting and angling in a seat that feels too big even though it’s just the right size. Red was so tall, and still is in his memory, in the picture behind his eyes that is almost the same as the one in front, but not quite. Behind him, Grumpy—Leroy, apparently—chats with another dwarf, whose name August never learned. Even the dwarves used to seem so tall, but now, they barely come up to his shoulder.
“Granny said a hunky guy in a leather jacket booked a room. You’re him, aren't you?” Red asks as she pours the drip. August can’t help but notice the tilt to her hips, the way she leans forward, all the better to show off her figure. He also can’t help but admire, to think very un-little-boy-like thoughts.
“I seem to be the only guest, so yes, it must be me,” he finally manages with an ambiguous smile, caught between friendly and flirty, that reflects his confusion.
She slides the mug towards him. “How long do you intend to stay in Storybrooke?”
“Until my business is done.”
Her right eyebrow arches up in a controlled, well-practiced fashion. “Mysterious. I like that.”
It’s too much, too soon, between Red coming on to him, and Prince Charming, the man whose child August failed to protect, coming in. So, a few minutes later, with just a pained glance in His Majesty’s direction, August asks for a to-go cup and slips unnoticed out of the increasingly claustrophobic diner.
Emma’s on her shift at the precinct, Henry’s at school, and August isn't yet ready to see Gepetto, so, with nothing else to do, he goes exploring. The autumn morning air is crisp, perfect driving weather. Or biking weather, as it happens.
He can’t tell if it’s the storyteller in him seeing parallels that aren't there, or if Storybrooke really does pattern little details after their native land, but August can’t help but notice things. The way the bay curves in and out just so… just like the bay where he and Gepetto washed ashore the day he became a real boy. The particular kinds of trees in the forest. The sweet creek underneath the Toll or Troll Bridge.
He rides through a part of town that’s relatively close to the center, but feels isolated somehow, a world away. A pretty, almost maze-like, road winds around and ends in front of a large mansion, on the steps of which sits a man in a long overcoat.
August gets the feeling the man has been waiting for him, though how or why, he can’t say. He stops his bike since the driveway is too narrow to do a u-turn. “Sorry to disturb you. I’m just riding around. Your driveway looked like a road.”
“That’s because it is a road. No one’s ever driven up it, though.”
August thinks the house is too close to Granny’s and town hall for that to be possible. “Never?”
The man narrows his eyes and says with meaning, “Not in 28 years.”
It’s specific. Too specific to mean anything other than... August studies the man closely. He’s the only person in the whole town who actually looks like he might be from their old land, with his foreign-looking cravat and long coat that isn't quite Victorian. Anywhere else, and to anywhere else, he'd look mad, but to August, he looks like home.
“You’re new here,” the man says when August doesn't immediately take the bait. “No one’s new here, but you are.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw when you first rode into town.”
It’s a little bit creepy, but August won’t be distracted from his line of questioning. “No, I mean, how do you know no one else is new here?”
“Same reason you do, I’m guessing.” He stands up, and August gets a full view of how otherworldly he really looks, with the wind whipping his coat and boots that look just like the kind Charming used to wear. If Ruby likes mysterious, she’d love this guy.
“And what reason would that be?” August asks, just to be sure, even though he mostly is.
Instead of answering, the man simply bugs his eyes out. Great. The only person who might be awake is a loon. “Want to come in?”
He’s the first person in weeks who has been real, and even though the crazy is coming off him in waves, August can’t say no. And anyway, he’s got a gun hidden in his jacket pocket if anything goes wrong. He parks his bike and climbs up the stairs.
“I’m August, by the way,” he says, by way of making conversation.
“What’s that fake for?” The question is the final confirmation he needs.
This is the first time August has ever had to say his name, knowing how ridiculous it sounds in this world. “Pinocchio.”
The man throws his head back and laughs. “Fantastic. Though… should I believe you?”
“Original.” August groans. It’s odd; back in their old land, no one knew him and no one bothered him about his past. But here, in this world where the concept that someone could actually be Pinocchio is unheard of, never mind the fact that August is, the joke has already gotten old. A world full of people who've never met him think they know all about him.
Changing the subject, he asks, “What did you say your name was, again?”
“I didn’t say. But it’s Jefferson.” He unlocks the door and ushers August in as he clarifies, “It was always Jefferson.”
The name doesn’t ring a bell, but then again, he hadn’t been in their old world long enough to meet many people.
The interior of the house is just as insane as its owner. Strange art and furniture, in an unsettling cacophony of modern and antique. Jefferson leads August into the living room and offers him a seat.
“Would you like some tea?”
“Sure, thanks.”
Jefferson disappears around a corner and August fingers the keys on the grand piano, playing an old tune from their land without actually pressing down hard enough to summon the notes. He remembers where he is, remembers that it’s safe here, inasmuch as being in the home of a lunatic stranger is safe. He allows himself to press harder, to create the music that haunts his dreams.
The sound of Jefferson humming happily along is a comfort he’s sought for 28 years.
“How’d you get to keep it?” he calls in the direction Jefferson disappeared off into once the song is over. “Your name, I mean. And your memories.”
“Not sure,” Jefferson yells back. “I’ve got the fake ones, too. I don’t know if I got messed up because Regina wanted to make me especially miserable. Or if the overall universe is playing a really unfunny joke. Or if it’s because I wasn’t in our land when the curse hit.”
“Where were you?”
Jefferson reappears with a mod silver tea set. “Wonderland.”
Carrying this secret around for almost his whole life, August has developed a cockiness, an inability to be surprised. When you know that you yourself are impossible, it becomes too easy to shrug off everything else, to smirk smugly in the knowledge that you know and have seen things that would shatter everyone’s worldview, their entire sense of reality.
But this is different. This is new. It’s one thing to be a character from another world; it’s another to find out there are more worlds, more characters, that can be and are real.
Jefferson places the tea on the table and forms a smug smirk of his own. “Guess you weren’t expecting that.”
“No.”
Jefferson sits down next to him, and his face grows serious as he pours for both of them. “You’ve been hanging out a lot with the sheriff. Emma Swan.”
It’s out of nowhere, and it’s annoying. August wants to talk about Wonderland, about queens and caterpillars and rabbits. He doesn’t want to talk about Emma.
His leg seizes up just as he has the thought. A reminder. A reminder that he hasn’t spent nearly enough time talking about Emma.
So, wincing in pain, he says, “Yes, I have.”
Jefferson ignores August’s discomfort. “She’s special, isn't she?”
“How do you know?”
“When she came to town, the clock started moving. Things started happening. The days were no longer the same, over and over. I could leave the house. And now you’re here,” Jefferson continues. “Are things about to change even more?”
“I hope so. But it’s all on her.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s Snow White’s daughter. She’s the only one who can break the curse.”
Jefferson whistled. “So she has magic?”
August finally realizes there’s something fishy—and fishing—about this line of questioning. “Why are you so interested?”
“Because I want her to make it work, but I need magic to do it.”
“Make what work?”
Jefferson stares into his tea. Finally, he confesses, “My hat.”
Ah.
The man’s face is actually getting red and hot (August wonders why he doesn’t take off his cravat). It looks like August isn’t the only one who’s aware of and ashamed of the reputation he has somehow gained in this world.
“You’d be mad, too,” Jefferson continues in one long, wordy breath, “if you had two sets of memories in your head, if every day was the same, for twenty-eight years.”
“I never called you crazy.”
“Good," Jefferson says with a manic grin. "Then I won’t call you a liar. So, how can I help?” August doesn't think the team he's been cobbling together could be any less impressive: a man turning into wood, a little boy, and the Mad Hatter.
“How about we help each other? If you can get Emma to believe, maybe she’ll be able to get your hat to work.”
Jefferson leans forward, and he looks even more desperate now. “How?”
“We somehow get her here. You tell her you know all about the curse. Right now Henry, the mayor’s kid, has been filling her head with this story, but she won't listen. She just thinks it's a lonely little boy's pet fantasy, something as silly as an imaginary friend. If someone else, an adult, someone Henry’s never met starts talking about the same thing…”
“…She’ll have a hard time writing it off as a coincidence or a kid's escapism.”
“Exactly.”
“How am I supposed to get her here?
“Keep watching her. A moment will come.” August pauses, unsure as to how well his next suggestion will be taken. “Use violence, if necessary.”
“Got it.”
August leans back. They’ve only just met, but he can tell they’re similar souls. Mercenary, easily tempted, but driven when there’s something worthwhile at stake. There’s something Jefferson wants as badly as August wants for his leg to be flesh again.
“What’s it like out there?” Jefferson asks. “I’ve traveled through many lands, visited many worlds, but I’ve never before explored a world without magic.”
“It’s… not really that different. Yeah, there are computers and high-speed trains and The Chrysler Building. But people still steal and die and fall in love and fight with their siblings. People still want magic, just as the ones in our world who didn’t have it wanted it. There are still evil kings and queens who wreak terrible havoc on their people.” August pauses. “People still tell stories.”
“I know. They tell stories about us.”
“Not together, though.”
“Maybe it’s our turn to write one.”