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He made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want to be a father.
“Mine was a disappointment,” he’d said.
When he found out she was pregnant the first time, he’d screamed at her, telling her that she should have been more careful, that he didn’t ask for this…that it wasn’t his problem.
She cried that night until she fell asleep, legs tucked up to her chest, biting the pillow hard enough to muffle her sobs until he spooned behind her, pressing his good arm around her waist and keeping her close to his body.
She struggled while he whispered apologetic words in her ear, kissing her jaw and neck. For the first time she was scared of his vulnerability.
And she was happy again. Even if it was just for a moment.
Three months later she lost the baby.
-
She went to see both Dr. Hopper and Dr. Whale.
One of them told her that she was absolutely healthy and the other one told her that she wasn’t ready for this yet, that she still had to mourn her true love.
‘True love’ was a strange word now. Her ‘true love’ was gone. Yes, he woke her, but she had always wondered whether or not he was in love with someone else.
And she had fallen in love again.
-
When she found her nightgown covered in blood for the third time, she knew she couldn’t do it anymore.
Maybe she wasn’t meant to be a mother after all.
Or maybe her body was just trying to tell her that she wasn’t meant to create a family with him.
The pregnancy scared him much more than it scared her. He’d drowned his sorrow into a bottle of rum after the first time. And then the second time and he slept on the couch for weeks before joining her in bed again. After that he seemed afraid to touch her, like she was a fragile little thing that he could crush just by putting a finger on her cheek.
But now he just held her close, making her realize that her sadness was his as well, that he lost this baby too, that he’d lost every single one of them.
This time though, it was completely different. She felt like her body didn’t belong to herself anymore. What was once full of love and hope was now… empty.
She wanted to blame him for darkening her soul, but as much as he was her dark side she was his light.
She was the reason why he didn’t kill Rumplestiltskin.
She gave herself to him that night, knowing he couldn’t refuse a woman’s attention.
He tried to be as gentle as possible, and she found herself in love with this broken man who only wanted revenge for the love he had lost, a feeling she knew all too well. Two broken humans, two colliding worlds that learned to love again.
He never actually said the words, but she could feel his love.
It wasn’t nothing like Phillip’s. It wasn’t romantic or platonic, it was real. It was rough and animalistic most of the time, like being burned alive or frozen to death.
But she loved it.
She loved him.
That’s why her decision was hard to make. What will be of him when I’m gone? She just shook her head, knowing that he wouldn’t even realize she disappeared. She was the only thing keeping him away from his revenge and he would probably take advantage of it.
She found herself near the town line.
She didn’t even know she walked all the way there. She tapped the red line with her left foot, raising her hand up in the air and motioning towards the other side. All she could feel were a pair of arms around her keeping her on this side, one with a hand and one with a hook.
She shook herself from his grasp and she turned around to see his desperate eyes asking her why.
“I have to do it,” she started uncertainly.
“I’d be curse if I let you do that,” he replied harshly.
“Don’t you see? We’re cursed anyway. This is the only thing that can help us.”
“But you’ll forget everything. You’ll forget me. Us.” He sounded pained and she knew he truly was scared.
But she was not.
So she stepped back just as he stretched his good hand toward her, whispering, “I love you”.
The last thing she heard was his scream.
And then…nothing.