A/N: I swear to God, I have no idea how the hell this happened. One minutes I was the happiest little fangirl to walk the earth, and then I listened to Robert Carlyle read this poem. The music and sadness and the snow and just the way he looks down at the end, like he's remembering someone…It hurt so good. And somehow, I turned that into what is possibly the most depressing fic I have ever written. I also found appropriate music to listen to here. It isn't mandatory to listen, but I find piano music to work well with this story. Be warned; here there be Red Cricket tears.
Archie stood over the headstone, a cane in his wrinkled hand as he pulled his long coat closer. The wind shook the orange dry leaves on the trees about him and they scuttled across the dead grass. Death. In this graveyard of pain and memories, Archie was surrounded by death. His knees ached as he slowly lowered himself on to the bench beside the grave. No one had come with him today. Rumpelstiltskin had passed away just two months ago, his pain too much after Belle had passed away. Rumpelstiltskin had been Archie's last living friend from their ancient Storybrooke. The town was dilapidated and abandoned, everyone having either died or been lost to the boundary line. Archie was the last one.
His veined hand shakily reached out and he patted the cold marble headstone.
"I miss you, Ruby." He said, voice crackling like the leaves. She'd been dead almost fifty years, and it still hurt. Some days it was better. He could get through days without it hurting too badly. It had been better when there had been other people. It had taken his mind off it for a time. But now it was just him. It hurt every day now. It hurt like the first day she'd been gone. Every part of him wanted to reach out and feel her beside him. Hold her hand, whisper in her ear. They hadn't had enough time. It could never have been enough time.
Beside Ruby's grave was another stone. A small one, barely more than a rise on the hill. It was their daughter. Still-born. Even in this modern age, with medicine and technology, there was nothing that could have brought her back. Baby Gracie was dead before she was breathing, and Ruby had followed her soon after. Post-birth hemorrhaging. Archie had held his dead daughter and dying wife within the same hour. He still held his dead daughter and dead wife.
They were cradled in his heart, pulled close like a candle in the dark still night. They were the reason he was still in Storybrooke, still going to the office for patients that would never come. He could cross the boundary and his pain would go away forever. But even on the nights it hurt most, when he wanted nothing more than to limp across that border and forget everything, Archie would never do that. To forget his pain would be to forget those who caused it. Archie was the last person who remembered Ruby, and he knew he would never forget her. Her smiles and her quips, the way she felt snuggled to his side. Nothing could make Archie forget his beautiful wife.
Archie brought his dry fingers to his lips and pressed a kiss to them. He flattened the carried kiss to the grave,
"Good-bye, Ruby." He turned to the smaller grave and again pressed his fingers to it,
"Good-bye, Gracie." Archie sat back on the bench, white hair blustering about him. The wind picked up and Archie knew it was time. He'd survived on his own for years. It was time to join his family. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and drifted away.
A cricket joined the wolf on Ruby's headstone.