Takes place 24 years after canon. Listen to 'Gone' by Kina Grannis for extra sadness
Charming never liked graveyards. They were depressing, especially in the winter. Going into the future and seeing Snow's grave certainly didn't help any. Nonetheless, the prince is standing in a nearly empty cemetery in the middle of December with a bouquet of flowers resting in his hand.
Jacob Grimm, 1978-2014. Beloved son, brother, and husband. You never gain anything by not trying.
William carefully puts the flowers on top of the grave. They were daisies and carnations, with a single red rose in the middle. The exact kind of bouquet he'd have gotten for Jake while the human was alive.
He still remembers the day he found out, though he wished he didn't.
He had just started to wake and up and was about to make some coffee when someone starts to knock at his door, rapid and loud. Charming shuffles over to the door, still blinking sleep out of his eyes, and realizes that it's Puck.
"What do you-" The prince starts to ask, then notices that the fairy looks like he's been crying.
"I-I'm really sorry," Puck stutters out, tears slipping down his face.
"What are you sorr-" Charming begins to ask, realizing there's a mason jar in the crook of the fairy's arm. A jar filled with ashes. "Is- that's not Jake is it?"
Puck nods slowly and it's like the prince's brain short-circuited. The words just don't compute.
"We were fighting this dragon a-and he didn't move fast enough..." Puck doesn't finish his statement, but William can see the picture quite clearly. Jake was gone forever, passed away, dead.
For two weeks afterwards, the prince alternated between crying and screaming before falling into something resembling 'okay'. He would occasionally forget about Jake for a few hours and immediately berate himself when he remembered because how was he supposed to feel fine when Jake was dead?
The funeral passed in a blur, with nothing but tears and grief to remember it by. Some remote part of Charming recalls making a speech at the funeral, though he had been choked up and half-crying the entire time. The only thing he remembers with full clarity is the thought "It shouldn't have been him" circling in his head for hours on end.
He was interrupted from his memories by the sharp crunch of snow. The prince looked up numbly as another everafter walks up to the grave next to Jacob's. It's Canis, also carrying flowers. The bouquet is mostly poinsettias, though a few yellow roses poke through the sea of red. It vaguely registers to him that yellow roses mean friendship, though he's not sure why he knows that information.
Charming already knows who the flowers are for, after all, Canis didn't have any other dead friends besides Relda. She had died three years after Jake, right on William and Jacob's wedding anniversary. It was a bit ironic, two former enemies going to the same cemetery, both for Grimms.
Canis nods at the prince then places the flowers on Relda's grave, brushing some snow off of it as well. The two men stand in the bitter cold, the moaning of the wind the only sound between them. Charming wonders if this was part of the reason the Scarlet Hand disliked humans so much, because it hurt so much when they died. Snow continues to spiral towards the ground, like a dance without music.
He barely registers someone else entering the graveyard until they speak.
"I really shouldn't be surprised that you two are here," Puck says, kneeling in front of a grave to the right of Canis. From his coat, the fairy fishes out to drawings, both in bright colors and folded sloppily in half. With a pang, Charming realizes who the drawing are from. Emma and Allison, six and eight respectively, who were Sabrina and Puck's daughters. Their mother had died three years earlier, after an investigation went sour.
Puck gently places the pictures on the grave, clearing a bit of snow away so the papers don't get wet. He stands up, brushing the snow off of his pants, then turns to the other two everafters.
"Y'know, Allison really looks like Sabrina. Well, when Sabrina was eight anyway. Daphne and Red are babysitting them. Those two are getting married in May, did you know?" Puck rambles, grasping desperately for a conversation.
As the fairy chatters on, Charming lets his thoughts wander. For the millionth time since Jake died, he wondered why it hurt so much. This time, he might have the beginning of an answer. Jacob was the only person William had been willing to grow old for, to die for even. He'd loved Snow, Cindy, and Briar equally, but they weren't mortal. Jake though, he was human, which meant death was a lot closer than if he was an everafter. Which meant if Charming wanted to stay with Jake, he's have to age along with him. Which is what he'd be willing to do if life hadn't thrown a wrench in his plans.
Charming starts to tune back into the conversation, where Puck was still talking about Daphne and Red. The prince painfully realizes that if Red was going to get married to Daphne, she might someday have to join the group of everafters who had gotten to close to humans before they died.
With one last look at the grave, William walks out of the graveyard, wondering if getting attached to humans was really worth it.