A/N: It's been a long time since I last wrote for this site. I recently reread Sisters Grimm and thus rediscovered my love for the series. So, in an attempt to procrastinate studying for my exams, I decided to write what I think happened between the two epilogues. Hope you enjoy x
Sabrina stumbled into her apartment, choosing not to lock the door behind her in favor of a faster arrival to her bed. Besides, she knew he'd be coming soon enough, lock or no lock. Kicking off her jeans, she slid into bed, noting how much too big it seemed now that she was its sole occupant.
To say that she had had a bad day would be akin to calling Mount Everest a hill. This was not how today was supposed to go. She was supposed to be spending tonight in a hotel suite overlooking Central Park, wearing something much nicer than jeans (if anything at all), and lying in bed next to her new husband, Bradley. Bradley. Even thinking his name made Sabrina's stomach hurt. The look on his face when their wedding was so rudely, so typically interrupted, had imprinted itself on the inside of her eyelids, so that every time she had blinked in the six hours since the "incident" she was reminded of what she had done. The worst part about his expression was not the hurt it conveyed, nor the astonishment at seeing a man with wings, but rather the utter lack of surprise when Sabrina told him she had to go.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a shadow in the doorframe.
"Puck." She got out of bed and turned the lamp on, knowing he had been waiting for her invitation.
He stepped forward into the dim light of her bedroom, eyes scanning the pictures of her and Bradley on the nightstands, the two sets of slippers by the bed, before finally meeting hers. He looked perplexed.
"Why did you leave?"
"I dunno. It was just too much. Everyone kept asking me questions. I needed to get away from Daphne and my parents and him and—"
"And from me." Puck finished.
Sabrina looked down, suddenly not trusting herself to reply.
"I don't understand. One second you were grinning up at me and ready to run off together, and then the next second you actually did run off, alone. "
"I told you, I don't have an explanation for you. I just needed to get out of there."
"Weren't you happy to see me?" Puck pressed. "You wanted meto come, right?" His voice faltered.
Frustration colored her tone. "Of course I wanted you to come. Actually, I wanted you to come five years ago, Puck. But instead of doing that, you decide it's a convenient time to return on my wedding day! And now I've hurt a perfectly decent person."
Sabrina turned away, furiously blinking away tears that she didn't want Puck to see. She wasn't even sure why she was crying.
Puck, either unwilling or unable to reply to her first three sentences, opted instead to respond to the fourth. "Well, technically you didn't end up hurting him. We had to forgetful dust the whole lot."
The blonde whipped her head around dangerously fast. "What did you tell them?" Her voice was quiet. "What did you erase?"
When Puck responded, her shoulders sagged with defeat and she sat down on the edge of the bed. "All memories of me? All of them?"
He nodded regretfully. "Your parents thought it would be easier if you had just never existed to him."
"That wasn't their decision to make!" Sabrina cried, but even as she said the words she knew her parents were right. It was easier this way.
Puck was silent, waiting for her to continue.
"I don't know what to do." She confessed. "I don't know what to think, where to go from here, anything. It's been such a long time, Puck."
"Do you still—?" His voice trailed off.
"Of course I do." She answered softly.
He took a step towards her and her breath caught in her throat as the light illuminated his features. His blonde hair curled in soft ringlets against his forehead, stopping just above the flecked emerald of his eyes. When he took another step, she could see the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, the perfect curve of his cupid's bow. His third step brought them millimeters apart. She marveled at the broadness of his shoulders, the sharpness of his jawline, the exquisiteness of his cheekbones. Sabrina closed her eyes…
…and Bradley's face appeared behind her eyelids. "Puck, no. I can't." The fairy's face fell and he moved back a few paces, reopening the space between them.
"I mean I can't right now. I can't yet." Sabrina clarified. "It's too soon and I just need some time."
"Time for what?"
She took a steadying breath and met Puck's gaze. "If this, if us, is going to happen again, it has to be for real this time. We both need to be sure."
Puck started to protest but Sabrina stopped him. "Maybe you're sure, but I'm not. You said you were sure last time and look what happened."
Not missing the way her voice cracked at the end of the sentence, Puck let out a long exhale and nodded. "Okay. Whatever you want."
"Let's just start over?" Sabrina suggested. "Pretend we're eighteen again and you just came back from your travels with Uncle Jake for good and it's the summer before I go off to college."
"Ooh, are we roleplaying?" Puck couldn't help himself. Thankfully Sabrina didn't get angry with him for ruining the moment; she merely rolled her eyes in mock annoyance.
"No, dingus. I just meant that we're older now and more mature—" Puck snorted. "—and maybe things will work out differently this time." Sabrina glared at Puck for his interruption, "but then again, maybe not."
Puck raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. We'll start over. And things will be different." He looked at her solemnly for a moment to prove his point, and then gave her a crooked smile. "Now, Grimm, I've been back for almost seven hours now and you still haven't given me a welcome home smooch. What's up with that?"
She frowned. "I thought we were starting over? When you came back it took you much longer than seven hours to kiss me."
"Yeah, well, as you so carefully pointed out, we are not roleplaying." He countered.
Sabrina hesitated for a minute and then grinned. "Fine, you can have your 'welcome home smooch'. But just one."
It took Puck roughly one-third of a second to stride from the doorway to where she was standing and pull her body towards his.
"Thank goodness" he murmured as he dipped his head to meet her lips, first tentatively, and then fiercely, as if he were trying to fit five years of absence into one kiss.
One of Puck's hands rested on her waist, gripping her to him, and the other cupped her cheek. After an initial vacillation, Sabrina decided to let go of her reservations, if only for a few moments, and rake her fingers through his hair, resting them at the nape of his neck.
Their kiss was not urgent, like the last one they had shared five years ago, nor was it particularly chaste, like their first one almost a decade and a half before. It felt, Sabrina realized, like coming home.
Puck didn't even bother to hide the expression of relief upon his face as they pulled apart. "I'd say that was a pretty good start."
Sabrina couldn't help but agree.