![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kricketstitle, rating: the wolf & i; r
fandom, pairing; count: once upon a time, david/ruby; ~2070
notes: written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
youcallitwinter for the fic war meme; au set after 2.07 Child of the Moon
The funny thing about waiting for someone to come home, is that you don't really know when to stop waiting.
Ruby moves in.
Ruby moves in and it feels temporary. Like, Mary-Margaret-is-just-out-at-the-grocery-store-and-she'll-be-back-any-minute temporary.
David's got his hands full and needs somebody to look after Henry when he can't be around, which is a lot of the time. And with magic back in Storybrooke, there are no guaranteed safe places anymore. There's Regina to think about. But, even if Henry wanted her around, Ruby doubts David would hear of it. But he doesn't, so it doesn't matter. She already spends most of her spare time there anyways, or down at the station, so it makes a kind of sense in that way. Like a natural progression of things. Which it is. Even though Granny gives her a raised eyebrow and she's pretty sure the rest of Storybrooke is inwardly doing the same thing. It's not like that, she wants to tell them. But protesting just seems like it'd cause even more suspicion, so she doesn't say a word.
David is oblivious, because David is just that innocent. And sometimes she loves that because it's one less thing she has to worry about, but sometimes she wants to elbow him in the ribs and tell him to open his eyes.
He's not like her. Ruby knows a thing or two about rumor, and she's had her fair share of it directed at her in the past. No different now. Never will be any different, she suspects.
-
She turns.
She turns and nothing bad happens because David helped her to remember that she could, that she was the one in control and not the other way around.
"Full moon's coming," he'll say.
"I'll make myself scarce," she says.
"Do you have to?" he asks. "I mean..."
"No," she laughs. "But it just seems like the polite thing to do."
He wants to tell her that it'd be okay for her to stay, that he feels safer with him and Henry stuck inside with a wolf he can trust than out there, with the rest of Storybrooke. But he doesn't. Because he gets it.
"Okay," he says. "We'll see you after."
-
It's a good nine months before David pretty much gives up on Mary Margaret ever coming home.
Henry drops a plate in the kitchen, and it shatters.
That's when it happens.
David bellows, so unlike him, and tells Henry to get out of his sight. Henry runs out of the room and then David's on the floor picking up the shards while Ruby looks on, and that's when David just loses it.
He loses it for a million reasons, but mostly because he had about fifteen seconds in this life with Mary Margaret before she was ripped away again and maybe it's true that knowing is worse than not knowing. Oblivion would be better than this.
And Ruby knows. She knows all too well. Because the truth is, she was better off before she remembered everything from before. The truth is that her life in Storybrooke, walking around and not knowing? Was better than anything she had before, better than the guilt and the pain. If anybody gets it, it's Ruby. So she kneels down next to him and takes the pieces from his hands and ignores the cuts in her knees when she pulls him to her.
And he's muttering "She's gone, she's gone," and his tears are on Ruby's shoulder and she just just holds on and she doesn't let go.
And she doesn't even think about how close they are.
Much.
-
He wants to tell her thank you.
He wants to tell her that she's pretty much the only thing good left in this world for him besides Henry.
But the next morning, when he wakes up to the sound of her in the kitchen, sweeping up the mess. He's too embarrassed.
How pathetic, he thinks. How pitiful.
-
A week later, David comes home to find Ruby packing her things.
"What's this?"
"I just thought..."
She tells him how things have died down now, how Storybrooke is getting back to normal. She doesn't tell him that it's time he learn to do this on his own, because she can't always be around, because this thing with him and Henry is forever now. That she can't keep playing house with a man and a child that aren't hers.
As much as she might want to.
"You don't need me anymore," she says. And it's really that simple.
Or at least it should be.
David crosses the room and sits down on the bed next to her suitcase.
"I really wish..." he starts.
"You really wish?"
His cheeks flush. "Nothing," he says. "Let me help you pack."
-
The one good thing about remembering, is that they have each other.
They fought side by side before, and now they can again, albeit in different ways.
"Henry wants you over for dinner, Deputy," David says, walking into the room while Ruby fills out paperwork at the station. And she's still not quite used to the weight of the badge at her side.
It's okay.
She'll get used to it.
"Does he, now?"
-
It's once or twice a week at least that she finds herself over at their place.
They cook dinner together, and usually watch TV and help Henry with his homework. Or if it's a weekend she'll bring over a movie.
Sometimes she'll forget that she doesn't have a room there anymore, and when she gets tired and starts yawning, her first instinct is to head further into the apartment, instead of out the front door.
One night, just after Henry goes to bed, David jokes.
"You could stay, you know? We've got extra sheets."
Ruby knows he's not serious, but for a minute she lets herself entertain the idea, and she watches him, watching her ponder. His eyes are soft around the edges, and he looks almost hopeful at the thought, and she feels her stomach turn in that way that makes her giddy, that makes her feel dangerous.
"Nah," she says, a little too quickly. "I better get back."
-
Sometimes, when she comes over, he wishes she would stay.
He imagines her arriving at the door, a suitcase in hand, a grin on her face.
But she shows up with a bag full of take-out from Granny's and a new DVD instead, and Henry rushes her and takes the bag from her hand. "I'm starving!" he chimes.
Ruby laughs. "Slow down there, buddy," she says. "Save some for us."
She winks at David, and he smiles, and reconsiders, thinking that maybe this is enough.
Maybe.
-
They don't really talk about when Regina comes back into Henry's life.
They do, but they don't.
She knows Henry has been spending afternoons with her when he gets off the bus. She knows that Regina has been buying him gifts. But she doesn't know more than that.
"Movie night?" she asks. It's Friday, a half an hour until they both get off, and she waves a DVD case in his direction. Something Henry had requested last week that she picked up before work.
David hesitates, fumbling with his words, before nodding. "Okay, sure. Why not?"
-
She stops off to pick up a pizza and when she finds him at his place he's alone, sitting in the dark.
She plops down next to him on the couch. "Where's Henry?"
David reaches for the glass of wine on the coffee table in front of him. "Henry," he says. "Is not here."
Ruby senses the weight of that, knowing he's not just out on some play date. "Okay..." she hesitates, doesn't want to jump to conclusions. "So where is he?"
"He's with his mother," he says. "Spending the weekend. First time since..."
Ruby sits with that a moment. Realizes now why David had been so flustered back at the station, why he wouldn't talk about it there, why he wouldn't want to be alone tonight. "You know that's okay, right?"
David sets his glass down, balances his elbows on his knees, closes his eyes.
"She's been trying so hard," Ruby finally says, hearing David scoff beside her. "Believe me, I get it. I never imagined any scenario in which I would be defending Regina, of all people. And I know you hate her, and you have every right. A lot of people do. But... she loves him, David. She... she's his mother. In so many of the ways that matter, she is."
He lets out a breath, leans back on the couch.
"Why are you here?"
Ruby is taken aback by that. "I'm not sure what you mean. I didn't mean to..."
"No," he cuts her off. "I mean... You've been here, with me, and with Henry, through everything. Why?" There is an accusatory tone in his voice, one that reminds her of the wolf, a predator and its prey, hungry and cruel and hopeless.
"David," she stands. "You're upset. Let's just eat something. You'll feel better. I brought food."
He sits up, grabs her wrist and twists it toward him, not hard, but in such a manner that she sits back down beside him, a reflex.
"Come on," she says, turned toward him, knees against his, already tired of whatever display he's putting on.
"I'm not hungry," he whispers, and then he pushes her hair back, leans into her.
Ruby closes her eyes, lets him get close, taking in her scent, his nose at her neck.
She says his name, and it's a half protest, half plea. And along with the goosebumps he brings to her skin, she feels this sense of duty rising up within her, the one she's held onto this whole time.
His lips brush her neck, and Ruby lets out a sigh, pushing back that feeling and reaching for his face instinctively.
"Dammit," she utters, before pulling him to her lips.
-
He takes her to the bed where Emma slept, where she stayed for all those months, and Ruby lets him take comfort in her in the way she was always afraid this was heading but she no longer has the strength to resist.
Say what you will about false rumor, sometimes there's a grain of truth to it.
And as she traces over his skin with her fingertips, feeling muscle and bone, she finally admits to herself that she's known it all along.
David bites down gently on her collarbone, and she gasps, twists her fingers in his hair, says, "Please."
When he comes, his lips on her neck, her nails down his back, he says her name like he means it, like it's her he's with and not somebody else. And maybe, just for a minute, Ruby lets herself believe it.
-
Henry can't know.
And the truth is that this whole thing with Regina turns out to be not so bad, actually. Because it gives them time to figure things out.
It gives them time.
"You don't think he's got it figured out?" she asks, one night, David's head across her chest, the half moon shining through the windows, illuminating everything in silver.
"Who's got what figured out?"
She laughs. "Very funny."
He sighs, "I don't know. I don't think so. His mind doesn't quite work in that way yet, does it?"
Ruby rolls her eyes. "Seriously? Kid's not stupid, you know."
"I know, but... maybe it's wishful thinking?"
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe I'm not ready," he says. "I want this for myself. For just a little while longer."
"I know," she says, brushes his short hair back from his face. "Me too."
-
Henry, as it turns out, is not quite as oblivious as either of them would hope.
One Friday night, not long after, Ruby brings over The Lord of The Rings, and while they're eating pizza, Henry just blurts out: "So how long are you guys going to pretend there's nothing going on between you two?"
And that's that.
-
Ruby moves in.
Ruby moves in and it feels like forever, this time.
This time, it does.
-
It's a Sunday morning.
Ruby's cooking bacon in the kitchen, wearing a pair of shorts and one of David's dress shirts, buttoned crookedly. Henry's sitting at the table with a mouthful of english muffin, and David's cracking eggs into a bowl beside her.
They're all laughing, and barely even register the sound of the doorbell ringing.
-fin
fandom, pairing; count: once upon a time, david/ruby; ~2070
notes: written for
youcallitwinter for the fic war meme; au set after 2.07 Child of the MoonThe funny thing about waiting for someone to come home, is that you don't really know when to stop waiting.
Ruby moves in.
Ruby moves in and it feels temporary. Like, Mary-Margaret-is-just-out-at-the-grocery-store-and-she'll-be-back-any-minute temporary.
David's got his hands full and needs somebody to look after Henry when he can't be around, which is a lot of the time. And with magic back in Storybrooke, there are no guaranteed safe places anymore. There's Regina to think about. But, even if Henry wanted her around, Ruby doubts David would hear of it. But he doesn't, so it doesn't matter. She already spends most of her spare time there anyways, or down at the station, so it makes a kind of sense in that way. Like a natural progression of things. Which it is. Even though Granny gives her a raised eyebrow and she's pretty sure the rest of Storybrooke is inwardly doing the same thing. It's not like that, she wants to tell them. But protesting just seems like it'd cause even more suspicion, so she doesn't say a word.
David is oblivious, because David is just that innocent. And sometimes she loves that because it's one less thing she has to worry about, but sometimes she wants to elbow him in the ribs and tell him to open his eyes.
He's not like her. Ruby knows a thing or two about rumor, and she's had her fair share of it directed at her in the past. No different now. Never will be any different, she suspects.
-
She turns.
She turns and nothing bad happens because David helped her to remember that she could, that she was the one in control and not the other way around.
"Full moon's coming," he'll say.
"I'll make myself scarce," she says.
"Do you have to?" he asks. "I mean..."
"No," she laughs. "But it just seems like the polite thing to do."
He wants to tell her that it'd be okay for her to stay, that he feels safer with him and Henry stuck inside with a wolf he can trust than out there, with the rest of Storybrooke. But he doesn't. Because he gets it.
"Okay," he says. "We'll see you after."
-
It's a good nine months before David pretty much gives up on Mary Margaret ever coming home.
Henry drops a plate in the kitchen, and it shatters.
That's when it happens.
David bellows, so unlike him, and tells Henry to get out of his sight. Henry runs out of the room and then David's on the floor picking up the shards while Ruby looks on, and that's when David just loses it.
He loses it for a million reasons, but mostly because he had about fifteen seconds in this life with Mary Margaret before she was ripped away again and maybe it's true that knowing is worse than not knowing. Oblivion would be better than this.
And Ruby knows. She knows all too well. Because the truth is, she was better off before she remembered everything from before. The truth is that her life in Storybrooke, walking around and not knowing? Was better than anything she had before, better than the guilt and the pain. If anybody gets it, it's Ruby. So she kneels down next to him and takes the pieces from his hands and ignores the cuts in her knees when she pulls him to her.
And he's muttering "She's gone, she's gone," and his tears are on Ruby's shoulder and she just just holds on and she doesn't let go.
And she doesn't even think about how close they are.
Much.
-
He wants to tell her thank you.
He wants to tell her that she's pretty much the only thing good left in this world for him besides Henry.
But the next morning, when he wakes up to the sound of her in the kitchen, sweeping up the mess. He's too embarrassed.
How pathetic, he thinks. How pitiful.
-
A week later, David comes home to find Ruby packing her things.
"What's this?"
"I just thought..."
She tells him how things have died down now, how Storybrooke is getting back to normal. She doesn't tell him that it's time he learn to do this on his own, because she can't always be around, because this thing with him and Henry is forever now. That she can't keep playing house with a man and a child that aren't hers.
As much as she might want to.
"You don't need me anymore," she says. And it's really that simple.
Or at least it should be.
David crosses the room and sits down on the bed next to her suitcase.
"I really wish..." he starts.
"You really wish?"
His cheeks flush. "Nothing," he says. "Let me help you pack."
-
The one good thing about remembering, is that they have each other.
They fought side by side before, and now they can again, albeit in different ways.
"Henry wants you over for dinner, Deputy," David says, walking into the room while Ruby fills out paperwork at the station. And she's still not quite used to the weight of the badge at her side.
It's okay.
She'll get used to it.
"Does he, now?"
-
It's once or twice a week at least that she finds herself over at their place.
They cook dinner together, and usually watch TV and help Henry with his homework. Or if it's a weekend she'll bring over a movie.
Sometimes she'll forget that she doesn't have a room there anymore, and when she gets tired and starts yawning, her first instinct is to head further into the apartment, instead of out the front door.
One night, just after Henry goes to bed, David jokes.
"You could stay, you know? We've got extra sheets."
Ruby knows he's not serious, but for a minute she lets herself entertain the idea, and she watches him, watching her ponder. His eyes are soft around the edges, and he looks almost hopeful at the thought, and she feels her stomach turn in that way that makes her giddy, that makes her feel dangerous.
"Nah," she says, a little too quickly. "I better get back."
-
Sometimes, when she comes over, he wishes she would stay.
He imagines her arriving at the door, a suitcase in hand, a grin on her face.
But she shows up with a bag full of take-out from Granny's and a new DVD instead, and Henry rushes her and takes the bag from her hand. "I'm starving!" he chimes.
Ruby laughs. "Slow down there, buddy," she says. "Save some for us."
She winks at David, and he smiles, and reconsiders, thinking that maybe this is enough.
Maybe.
-
They don't really talk about when Regina comes back into Henry's life.
They do, but they don't.
She knows Henry has been spending afternoons with her when he gets off the bus. She knows that Regina has been buying him gifts. But she doesn't know more than that.
"Movie night?" she asks. It's Friday, a half an hour until they both get off, and she waves a DVD case in his direction. Something Henry had requested last week that she picked up before work.
David hesitates, fumbling with his words, before nodding. "Okay, sure. Why not?"
-
She stops off to pick up a pizza and when she finds him at his place he's alone, sitting in the dark.
She plops down next to him on the couch. "Where's Henry?"
David reaches for the glass of wine on the coffee table in front of him. "Henry," he says. "Is not here."
Ruby senses the weight of that, knowing he's not just out on some play date. "Okay..." she hesitates, doesn't want to jump to conclusions. "So where is he?"
"He's with his mother," he says. "Spending the weekend. First time since..."
Ruby sits with that a moment. Realizes now why David had been so flustered back at the station, why he wouldn't talk about it there, why he wouldn't want to be alone tonight. "You know that's okay, right?"
David sets his glass down, balances his elbows on his knees, closes his eyes.
"She's been trying so hard," Ruby finally says, hearing David scoff beside her. "Believe me, I get it. I never imagined any scenario in which I would be defending Regina, of all people. And I know you hate her, and you have every right. A lot of people do. But... she loves him, David. She... she's his mother. In so many of the ways that matter, she is."
He lets out a breath, leans back on the couch.
"Why are you here?"
Ruby is taken aback by that. "I'm not sure what you mean. I didn't mean to..."
"No," he cuts her off. "I mean... You've been here, with me, and with Henry, through everything. Why?" There is an accusatory tone in his voice, one that reminds her of the wolf, a predator and its prey, hungry and cruel and hopeless.
"David," she stands. "You're upset. Let's just eat something. You'll feel better. I brought food."
He sits up, grabs her wrist and twists it toward him, not hard, but in such a manner that she sits back down beside him, a reflex.
"Come on," she says, turned toward him, knees against his, already tired of whatever display he's putting on.
"I'm not hungry," he whispers, and then he pushes her hair back, leans into her.
Ruby closes her eyes, lets him get close, taking in her scent, his nose at her neck.
She says his name, and it's a half protest, half plea. And along with the goosebumps he brings to her skin, she feels this sense of duty rising up within her, the one she's held onto this whole time.
His lips brush her neck, and Ruby lets out a sigh, pushing back that feeling and reaching for his face instinctively.
"Dammit," she utters, before pulling him to her lips.
-
He takes her to the bed where Emma slept, where she stayed for all those months, and Ruby lets him take comfort in her in the way she was always afraid this was heading but she no longer has the strength to resist.
Say what you will about false rumor, sometimes there's a grain of truth to it.
And as she traces over his skin with her fingertips, feeling muscle and bone, she finally admits to herself that she's known it all along.
David bites down gently on her collarbone, and she gasps, twists her fingers in his hair, says, "Please."
When he comes, his lips on her neck, her nails down his back, he says her name like he means it, like it's her he's with and not somebody else. And maybe, just for a minute, Ruby lets herself believe it.
-
Henry can't know.
And the truth is that this whole thing with Regina turns out to be not so bad, actually. Because it gives them time to figure things out.
It gives them time.
"You don't think he's got it figured out?" she asks, one night, David's head across her chest, the half moon shining through the windows, illuminating everything in silver.
"Who's got what figured out?"
She laughs. "Very funny."
He sighs, "I don't know. I don't think so. His mind doesn't quite work in that way yet, does it?"
Ruby rolls her eyes. "Seriously? Kid's not stupid, you know."
"I know, but... maybe it's wishful thinking?"
"What do you mean?"
"Maybe I'm not ready," he says. "I want this for myself. For just a little while longer."
"I know," she says, brushes his short hair back from his face. "Me too."
-
Henry, as it turns out, is not quite as oblivious as either of them would hope.
One Friday night, not long after, Ruby brings over The Lord of The Rings, and while they're eating pizza, Henry just blurts out: "So how long are you guys going to pretend there's nothing going on between you two?"
And that's that.
-
Ruby moves in.
Ruby moves in and it feels like forever, this time.
This time, it does.
-
It's a Sunday morning.
Ruby's cooking bacon in the kitchen, wearing a pair of shorts and one of David's dress shirts, buttoned crookedly. Henry's sitting at the table with a mouthful of english muffin, and David's cracking eggs into a bowl beside her.
They're all laughing, and barely even register the sound of the doorbell ringing.
-fin