Hi so here is another side to the story Everything's Different, Nothing's Changed. While that one was from Alice's perspective this one from Cyrus. You don't have to read that one first to understand this but it does kinda help.
Disclaimer-Nothing is mine just Lily.
Please Read and Review.
History Repeating.
Once Upon A Time in Wonderland/Once Upon A Time AU. Sequel to Everything's Different, Nothing's Changed from Cyrus's point of view. He's not a genie anymore, just a bartender sharing an apartment with his best friend and his girlfriend and a silent, long, one sided love affair on the single Mom with the stunning looks and the adorable daughter living in the complex opposite him.
How they get to the Enchanted Forest Cyrus honestly doesn't know. It's a combination of Wonderland's magic, the Genie's magic and the Rabbit's magic that seems to be combining the four of them into one mad force. Will seems to think its fates way of screwing them and Cyrus cannot help but privately agree.
However Will knows his way around and Anastasia seems to also recognise the place and Cyrus has Alice's hand in his so it's not the worst thing in the world.
They sleep that night in a barn. The farmer had took one look at Anastasia, white and shivering still recovering from her resurrection and the recent time jump to Will whose keeping her standing and seems to jump to some conclusion, either way it gives them some blankets, some milk, a bit of bread and cheese and a bed for the night and even though it's windy Alice presses herself close to him under the blanket and Cyrus really cannot complain.
The next day Will gets them horses and Anastasia grips his hands and even though she is shaking still she manages to nod when he mentions a place called Sherwood. Alice shakes her head when he asks them to accompany them and Cyrus knows why because he too is sick of moving from place to place. He wants a life, here is needs be.
With Alice.
They get married after Will and Anastasia leave. Alice's skirt is muddy and her hair is a mess and there are no flowers or whatever English Weddings are supposed to have but she smiles at him nonetheless and kisses him like she's dying.
Finally. Alice is his wife.
They make their way to the Inn the Priest pointed them out to and the older couple give them a room.
"Newlyweds" the old man snorts waving aside Cyrus's promises of payment later. "Go spend some time with your bride son" he says looking irritable but yet soft around the edges. "Love's a hard to come by thing in this kingdom"
That night he and Alice make love for the first time. Cyrus has been with woman before but none of them mean as much as Alice does and he is gentler with her than perhaps she likes because she tells him, her legs wrapped around him to move "Harder" and "Faster".
He also sends out a silent prayer of thanks to anyone out there in Victorian England or Wonderland who had told Alice how to please a man. He had never needed anything other than Alice but he couldn't help but fist his hands in her hair as she buried her face between his legs and took his cock into her mouth.
They buy a cottage on the edge of the town. They have a bed and four walls and a roof and Cyrus sells one of his mother's rings and is able to comfortably provide for his family.
Family.
That's a not really something that he has touched on. He knows what he wants. Cyrus wants a family. He wants a little girl and a little boy who share Alice's looks and her bright disposition. He wants to come home at night and see his children tucked up in bed and tell them stories about all the adventures that came from Wonderland.
He thinks for a while about how to probe the right questions. He knows Alice's father remarried and he knows that she has a little sister and he also knows her feelings on the matter. Family is a tough subject for Alice, unlike him who grew up with three brothers, a mother gifted with magic and an absentee father.
He keeps his mouth shut and works in the Inn and comes home to his young and pretty wife who attracts more attention in their small village than he likes.
They kiss until their mouths are bruised and Cyrus moulds his hands over Alice's skin, on it so that when they reach their climax he feels like their one in the same.
Nothing...nothing can top this.
Cyrus wakes up in Storybrooke.
The noise in the kitchen indicates that Will is already up and by the feminine laughter that follows the smell of coffee it appears that after shift Anna spent the night. Will and Anna have a rather...interesting relationship that Cyrus doesn't understand nor does he want to, it seems to involve a lot of yelling and a lot of sex and a lot of Will drinking at his shift at the Rabbit Hole to take the edge off.
Cyrus personally likes Anna. She is pretty and perfectly nice to Cyrus whenever he sees her and she makes pretty good coffee. Cyrus knows that she has a difficult relationship with her verbally abusive mother whose stepfather is the reason why Anna was stabbed a few years back, the reason Will nearly went out of his mind with grief, anger and worry and the reason for the long sloping scar that covers her stomach.
He also knows that her step-sister Ashley has already left five months pregnant. Anna is out the door but she seems to be constantly coming back for whatever reason and always upset whenever she does.
He dresses in his jeans and green jumper and grabs his brown coat off the chair. They don't live in a great part of Storybrooke but the rent is cheap and their apartment is clean and they have a nice view of the town and more importantly (or more importantly to Cyrus) a nice view of the street where the young mother and the little girl walk to school.
The young, stunningly beautiful, incredibly gorgeous mother and the little girl whose hand she holds. Cyrus has seen her face only in profile, she has tons of long blonde hair with streaks of brown and high cheekbones and the most incredible pair of legs he's ever seen.
It's pathetic but Cyrus thinks he might be in love with her. He's never met her, never spoken to her and never really seen her around town but he thinks that from somewhere and someplace he knows her.
So here he is waking up half an hour early so he can carefully, artfully mess up his hair and use some of the expensive aftershave and grab some of the decent tea.
Anna is in the kitchen, she's pouring the coffee, it appears Will has already slunk back to bed seeing as its Cyrus that opens the bar and takes deliveries this week. They alternate between one of them doing the night shift and one of them doing the morning shift weekly. Cyrus prefers the morning shift and it has nothing and yet everything to do with the pretty woman that walks by his route with her small daughter.
He slips out tucking his coat around him because he is cold. The weather is windy and the sky is overcast and he ducks along the side street keeping his head down.
He can see her coming this way and then he ducks his head down. Cyrus feels so utterly pathetic that this is the way that he has to get a girl's attention but desperate times call for desperate measures. The woman whose name he doesn't know but is too stunning for words is looking down at her daughter as Cyrus steps out and not so innocent bumps into her sending her sprawling...right into his arms.
She rights herself almost instantly but not before Cyrus gets a face full of her hair (which smells like vanilla) and the feeling of her body pressed up against his. She's tiny and skinny but Cyrus thinks that she's not breakable in the slightest. She smells like fresh linin mixed with something that smells like lilies and after working the Night Shift at The Rabbit Hole and all that cheap perfume floating around Cyrus thinks this smell might be the purest thing of all.
Cheesy but true.
He forces himself to speak as she looks up to speak to him with her wide blue eyes framed by lashes that are long and framed with mascara that makes them pop. She stares at him as if she's stunned by what she sees or maybe that his wishful thinking.
"Are you alright?" he asks and then he takes a second to be rather pleased with himself for that great moment of speech.
"Oh...yeah...err...thank you" she says standing up a little bit straighter.
"Sorry" she says pulling away and he suddenly feels cold, he forces himself to laugh.
"Don't worry about it" he forces out though he thinks it sounds a little manic and probably disturbing. This is one of the conversations that he's going to go home and pick over between a mug of the good tea and a piece of really sticky chocolate cake.
"Momma" the little girl's tugs and those blue eyes force away from Cyrus's. His eyes follow downwards. The girl couldn't be much older than five with wavy black hair stopping at her shoulders, though most it's contained in a French plat. Her nose is the same as her mothers and her skin is slightly darker than her mothers the same shade as his and her eyes are brown.
"School" she says tugging at her hand impatiently.
"Alright let's go" she turns back to him and smiles a blinding smile at him that makes his brain short circulate. "Thank you" she says before ducking her head down and brushing past him. She leaves him there, her scent in the air, the wind blowing and Cyrus's for some feels like his knees are knocking with an aching need that he doesn't understand and the feeling that all of this is familiar he just cannot place it.
The sickness comes out of nowhere. The two of them are living perfectly happy in their little cottage safe and sound and the nightmares that plagued them in Wonderland finally begin to stop. The relationship between him and Alice has grown and even though they live in a kingdom run by the Evil Queen he is happy.
So happy.
Then the sickness starts. Alice starts throwing up without warning. She cannot touch the cheese that she usually loves, when Cyrus's hands brush her breasts she stiffens as if she's been hurt. Her belly and breasts are tender and some days she burns up with fever and Cyrus takes time off work to smooth back her hair and watch her eyelids flutter from time to time.
He's terrified because this is the first time he has seen Alice sick. She has always been so strong and dependant and he cannot believe, cannot think for terror that he might lose everything having for once everything he's ever wanted.
Jemma the old woman in the village and her sister Daisy who is a healer comes over and Cyrus paces outside his cottage pretending that his worst case scenarios aren't played out behind his eyes. This is like the Rabbit's House all over again with Alice's blood on his hands and him desperately trying to remember childhood prayers, begging the fates for the woman he loves to live.
The woman come out after a while and Cyrus gives them the coin and they pat him on the shoulders but he cannot read their faces. He has no idea what he is walking into and he feels sick to his stomach as he pushes the door open.
Alice is beaming, her eyes overbright. "Are you Ok?" Cyrus says sitting down onto the bed. Alice swallows and manages a smile. "Turns out I'm with child"
Cyrus stares at her for a second. A child? A symbol of all they have gone through, a symbol of everything and anything, a symbol of the future and for a second Cyrus finds he cannot breathe until he can and he's happy beyond words.
His hands find her flat stomach where their baby is growing safe and sound in her belly. His fingers cover the skin and he grins so wide he thinks it might split his face in two.
"Oh Alice" he says catching her smiling eyes. "I love you"
"I love you too" she says back and then he covers Alice in little kisses and letting her giggle in her ears.
The pregnancy continues rapidly and smoothly. Alice stops throwing up eventually and takes a great craving to the fresh bread and butter they get at the market, her belly gets rounded and the little baby inside of her starts kicking frantically. Alice in some ways gets more demanding and personally Cyrus thinks one of the best things to ever happen is that she's become more needy sexually, some of the best moments is when she wakes him up in the middle of the night with that wicked grin on her face that makes him want to sink to his knees and bury his face between her legs and feel her hands scratch at his curls.
One day in the middle of November with the wind picking up around their cottage Alice goes into labour. Jemma packs him off to the Inn claiming he'd be more of a hindrance than a help and the Innkeeper pours him a drink, mutters something about woman's work and pats him on the shoulder everytime it looks like he's going to get up and run back to his house at the sound of his wife's screaming.
The midwife comes back after what must be twenty four hours or more. By this time Cyrus has taken to walking around and outside his house and is a nervous wreck. He manages to calm down once Alice's screaming stops and then his heart bursts again when he hears what sounds like a thin weedy cry of a newborn baby.
The midwife comes out carrying a bundle wrapped in a white sheet.
"A girl" she says shortly smiling at his expression. "A fine healthy girl" she passes the bundle to him and then nods going off to the Inn. "Your wife is fine too" she says turning back to him. "Passed out due to the pain and there was a fair bit of blood but she'll heal and live. I'll come over tomorrow and administer a tincture"
Cyrus is so agog at all of this information that he only manages to gape at her retreating back before staggering into his house.
Alice is passed out on the bed, her face clammy and her eyes shut but she's breathing and that's all that matters Cyrus thinks determinedly as he manages to find a chair.
As he sits down the bundle in his arms moves ever so slightly and Cyrus jolts with the realisation that he is now a father to this little girl in his arms.
The baby is looking up at him with dark eyes, eyes he realises with a jolt are the exact same shade as his. Her nose and other facial features are Alice in miniature but the few hairs on her head are the same dark colour as his.
Her small hands reach out like tiny webs as if to grab him and Cyrus totally enchanted reaches out to grab them with one of his fingers.
"Hello" he says tugging the little warm bundle closer and the baby blinks up at him. He realises his throat is tight and his eyes are wet and he has to blink rather rapidly because there is a feeling in his chest that makes him want to cry and scream and shout and laugh all at the same time. This little thing in his arms is so pure and precious after all the damage that came with Wonderland that he doesn't understand what he's done to deserve this.
But he knows like hell he is going to fight to keep it.
Him, Alice and his baby girl.
Cyrus wakes up again in Storybrooke and considering the kitchen is quiet this time it appears Anna didn't stay over and she and Will are now fighting again. God he wishes that they would get a move on and just get married or break up or something...
He forces himself out of bed swearing. He's running late and either Will is at Anna's or she's not and he doesn't care either way. All he cares about is perhaps trying to run into the pretty woman and her daughter again.
This time he grabs his nicest black jumper and his nicer pair of jeans and tells himself sternly that's because he got in late last night and therefore didn't have time to do a load of laundry and not because they are the nicest things that he owns. He grabs his boots and maybe leaves his coat open so that his shirts is on show and runs a hand through his hair.
He is so glad that he's managed to make it outside because the pretty girl and her daughter are there again. Her hair is scraped back showing her ears and she's smiling. She turns and then she bumps into him again.
For a brief second there is the smell of fresh linin and lilies and what smells like chocolate mixed in with some perfume that makes his head swim and then it's gone and again the warmth that comes with her is gone and Cyrus is once again left in the cold almost shaking with want.
"Sorry" she says blushing a delightful colour and Cyrus swallows harshly forcing himself to smile back as if nothing has happened.
"Don't apologise" he says swallowing again and working his jaw in a way he hopes looks natural.
"I'm glad to see you" he slips out before the words catch up with him and he feels like kicking himself. Of course...well...it was nice while it lasted, a little one sided crush on the prettiest woman alive was only going to last so long before he ruined it.
"Momma" says the little girl pointing up at the clock. "The clock is moving"
Cyrus does turn then because the clock hasn't moved since he's been in Storybrooke and he's lived in Storybrooke...and...well...he doesn't remember actually when he moved in here. It's like he's been here forever and time doesn't really move...at least not by the Tower Clock.
"Huh" the woman says looking as stunned as Cyrus knows she feels.
"Sorry again" she says turning back to him in a wave of blonde hair and Cyrus has to blink again because that is a lot of hair and not so much time to absorb it.
"We must be off before Lily is late for school" she says and then she's gone ducking her head down and leaving him standing in the dust.
But that conversation gives him some insight. The little girl is called Lily.
Lily. He thinks later than night. It's such a pretty name. it's the name that he thinks he'd want to call his own daughter.
But that doesn't mean anything because he knows that he doesn't have a daughter, and certainly not one called Lily or with that woman that he keeps bumping into.
They live together their own little family of three for five years. Five wonderful, peaceful years. They pay their taxes and ignore the wanted signs of Snow White and they pray the Evil Queen doesn't bring down hell on their doorstep.
Cyrus works at the Inn all day and then he comes home and teaches Lily to read and write. Alice tries to help but Cyrus is the one that thrives on teaching his daughter to read and write and do sums.
Even though Lily still remains an only child, Cyrus never judges her and makes sure that she knows it. Cyrus had been one of three however Alice has been an only child her whole life even more so after she was sent back to England the first time and she had so little time to bond with Millie.
While he wants more children, he thinks of Lily and looks at her sleeping in her crib one night and thinks that if she was an only child and it was just the three of them until they died then he would be perfectly content with that.
On one night the wedding of Snow White and Prince Charming the village parties are in full swing. Cyrus is working all afternoon and way into the night but Alice and Lily come to the party and Lily plays with her friends as Cyrus serves them all night and scowls at the men that seem to not notice the fact that Alice doesn't leave his side all night.
The next morning things change. There are whispers of a powerful curse coming that will take all of them to a new prison where time will not be a factor. Where they might not even remember each other.
The thought makes his stomach turn.
He and Alice talk about what's coming but the truth of the matter is, is that they don't even know what's coming until it does. This curse has never been heard of even when he was travelling as a genie, even before Wonderland. He isn't sure about what this means.
He and Alice decided the main course of action is to not speak about the curse, that way it's like they can carry on their normal lives. Only they both know that time is going to be the killer in the end.
The rumour has it at twenty eight years before a Saviour can be born or found or whatever and therefore they are stuck in whatever prison the Queen cooks up for them.
Cyrus cannot think of worse than what she's doing. Because God Damn it he was finally happy.
One night the curse hits them with a full force. It's dark and powerful and Cyrus has his back to it covering Alice and Lily as best he can but that doesn't stop the terror in Alice's eyes and the fact that Lily is shaking like a leaf against her. Cyrus thinks that he will move heaven and earth to be with these two girls again even when he doesn't know where or when he's going.
He thinks as the darkness presses in around him and Alice's hand is yanked out of his that he will never stop looking for his girls, will never st...
Cyrus wakes up in Storybrooke again.
A woman called Emma Swan has moved to town.
One day he's going to Granny's the need for a cup of Earl Grey and a grilled cheese sandwich dripping with grease into a brown paper bag almost consuming.
One day he runs into the girl again, without her daughter for once and exiting the shop. She's in ripped jeans this time and high boots and Cyrus takes a moment to appreciate those jeans and those legs before he drags his face up to meet her eyes.
"Hello" he says keeping his voice low.
"Hi" she says brightly grinning that same bright and dazzling grin.
"You work at the Rabbit Hole" she says pointing at the logo on his shirt.
"I'm a bartender there" he says simply "I'm on the lunch run"
Somehow he finds the courage to hold out his hand and say quite politely, "My name is Cyrus"
She takes it in her own and Cyrus has to blink at the jolt of electricity that seeps through his veins.
"It took a lifetime to meet you but seconds to love you"
The words resound in his head for some reason as the woman lets go of his hand.
"Alice" she says back and Cyrus has to stop himself from smiling at the name. Finally after so long wondering he has a name. Alice. God it's a perfect name.
"You have a very cute daughter" he says and Alice laughs a pure sound that shoots through him like a bolt of lightning.
"I do" Alice says back smiling again.
"Do...err...do you wanna go out and get a drink sometime? I mean...i don't know if you have like a boyfriend or a husband or..." he trails off feeling utterly pathetic and rather embarrassed of himself. She has a child who presumably has a father and it would be idiotic to think that that man wouldn't mind him taking out the mother of his daughter.
Though he thinks pensively. That man must be an idiot to let someone like Alice go.
He manages to think all of this in the two seconds that it takes for Alice to reply which is a remarkable feat of achievement.
"No" she says flatly.
"Good" Cyrus says bluntly. "Nobody will attack me for asking you for a drink" he blushes once he's said it but Alice grins wider.
"I...err...i have a kid so going out is not really a big thing for me" she explains shaking her head. Cyrus swallows and pretends that this isn't a rejection and therefore he has no right to be heartbroken.
"Coffee" she says perking up. Cyrus grins. "I'm more a tea person" he says confessing his guilty pleasure.
Alice lifts up her take out cup up. "So am I" she confesses and Cyrus resists the urge to practically sweep her up into his arms.
"Tomorrow at four?" he asks but Alice shakes her head after a second.
"Saturday?" she asks. Cyrus carefully considers. Friday night and most of Saturday morning he's going to have to work unless Will grants him a miracle and actually does all the shifts without him and since when has that happened?
But for Alice he thinks he will make it work.
For Alice he thinks he will make anything work.
He arranges a time and a place and comes away for a date that makes no sense and yet makes perfect sense and then he goes and covers Will's morning shift. He makes sure that the deliveries are in before he goes back to Granny's because Anna is there calming Will down after another row with her mother and Will is furious. So Cyrus goes to grab his tea, Will's black coffee with his horrific amount of sugar and in a moment of weakness finds himself buying Anna a skinny vanilla latte because if he can stop her crying then he will consider himself a lucky man.
He's staring at his hands waiting for the coffee to come when he turns at the sound of that bell of pure laughter. It's Alice sat in the corner booth with her daughter her hair loose around her shoulders. Her daughter, Lily has her hair tied in two plats and has one of Granny's chocolate cheesecake muffins in front of her as Alice adds milk to her tea. The sight of mother and daughter having tea together warms something in Cyrus's belly.
"Hey" he says to Ruby when she deposits three cups of takeout beverages. "Can I get another chocolate cheesecake muffin?" Ruby stares at him. "For Anna?" she guesses but Cyrus shakes his head.
"For Lily" he says jerking his head in the direction of the mother and daughter. Ruby blinks but then nods her lips curving into a smile that Cyrus doesn't feel like returning because he thinks that it gives too much away.
He leaves before he knows whether the gift has been well received.
He likes to think that it has.
Cyrus carefully doesn't check his appearance in the mirror more than four times in the mirror the day afterwards simply because he doesn't think he could stand the mocking that would come from an amused Anna (damn Ruby) and a oblivious but still intelligent Will.
And then he fucks it up.
He knew that he would. He just didn't think that it would be this fast. He thought it would last at least a few more dates before he inevitably fucked it all up.
He insulted Alice. Honestly he didn't intend it to come out the way it should have done but it did. He thought that he didn't mind that Lily didn't have a father in the picture but then he got angry because why shouldn't someone like Alice get her Happy Ending? Why shouldn't someone like Lily who seems like an extraordinarily sweet and kind little girl get a father that cares about her?
And Cyrus made his intentions perfectly clear that day. He tells Alice that he wants a relationship with her, he wants her in his life, in his bed if it ever progresses to that, he wants her with him since he's seen her and he doesn't for the life of him understand probably what makes her want to run up and jump and leave the room like she did. The entire conversation plays on loops and loops around his head even when he goes home and sits in his room and tries to figure out where it all goes wrong. It's a conversation that he thinks is going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
He stays away from Alice for the remainder of the next few months. He stays away from her when Mary Margaret Blanchard is arrested and then released without warning. He tries not to wonder if Lily was in the class that that teacher teaches at and tries not to wonder what Alice's opinion about everything going on is. He tries very hard to forget about his irritatingly, pathetic relationship that seems so one sided that it seems borderline stalker-ish.
He knows that he tries to forget, but that he doesn't think he gets very far in the few and far between nights where he wakes up hard as a rock, sweaty with the sheets tangled up between his legs.
And then one day everything changes.
It's a gust of wind that blows through him as he sips his tea and walks to the Rabbit Hole to open up.
And he remembers.
He remembers the bottle, the endless nights in Wonderland, he remembers Alice, he remembers her touch and her kisses and the way she felt in his arms, he remember the warmth and the way that she smelt.
He remembers Lily, he remembers being handed that little bundle wrapped in cloth and helping his daughter to read, he remembers the ache in his back as he helps Lily to walk up and down the floorboards of the cottage in The Enchanted Forest. He remembers promising himself as the curse hit that he would make sure he would find Alice and Lily again, that he would at some point reunite his family.
And he wants to laugh, the tea slipping from his hand and falling on the ground carelessly. He wants to scream and cry all at the same time. Because it doesn't matter what world there in it seems. He and Alice were made for each other and nothing can change that.
And now, he wants his family back. He wants his girls back. He wants Alice and Lily and he wants his wife in his bed.
Cyrus doesn't have to wait long for his family, for his girls to appear it seems. They turn up through a side street in right in front of the Rabbit Hole, Alice is holding Lily's hand and Lily's dark hair is loose and she looks confused but scared. She looks utterly confused and Cyrus takes a second to wonder how many more kids out in this town have woken up this morning as one person and now have their lives ruined by one gust of wind.
Alice turns around and sees him and Cyrus takes a long moment to feast upon the first real sighting he's had of his wife for the first time in twenty eight years near as damn it. Her hair is blonder than he remembers and a good couple of inches have been cut off with the curse so her blonde hair rests just above her breasts. She's wearing a worn out grey jumper and blue jeans that make her legs go on for miles and brown boots with small heels and her eyes widen when she sees him as if she cannot believe her eyes.
"Papa" Lily cries and it's probably the most beautiful sound Cyrus has ever heard in his life. He finds himself on his knees as Lily runs to him and he sweeps her up into his arms his own shaking with the need for human contact with his daughter.
Lily smells exactly the same, her hair feels exactly the same and she buries her face into his neck like she used to do whenever she was scared in the Enchanted Forest. She's unnaturally quiet but Cyrus chalks it down to the events of the last five minutes. It's been hard for him to wrap his head around never mind what it's done to his daughter.
He looks up as Alice comes closer. She looks just as stunned and lost as he does and shock and love mars her pretty face. Her face is wet just like he knows that his is and he drops his head to her hip and breathes in the scent of her skin.
With a great effort he pushes himself to his feet still holding Lily. He curves one hand around Alice's cheek and then finally after nearly two and a half decades and his mouth finds hers.
It's...enthusiastic...to say the least and Cyrus pulls away abet reluctantly because even though the street is deserted he's still in public and he's still got his daughter clinging to him with everything she has and this is neither the time nor the place. There is a hell of a lot of shit to work through and that's just the three of them. The town is going to be a dangerous landmine of people all searching for scores and that's before they get to Will and Anastasia.
Typical he thinks unable to stop smiling. That Will and Ana have a relationship as toxic and confusing in this world as the one that they had in Wonderland. And given what Will and Ana know in this world their reunion is either going to be explosive or something defiantly not for a five year old's eyes. Still this piece of information doesn't trouble him because they've survived.
"My girls" he mutters into Alice's hair. "My girls" he says again and Alice tucks her head under his chin leaning into him and allowing her eyes to flutter shut.
"I love you" he says simply his eyes going misty again even as Lily shifts a little on his hip he turns and sees her eyes fluttering. A combination of the day's adrenaline and shock and what he suspects magical elements have wiped her out.
And Cyrus has a feeling that doesn't even begin to cover the rest of the day's events.
"I love you more" Alice says simply grinning her dazzling grin that makes his mind go blissfully blank.
"Let's go home" he says his voice trailing off with longing. A home not the one that they had in the Enchanted Forest, not the one they had in Wonderland.
"Yours or mine?" Alice asks carefully tilting her head back to look at him. Cyrus takes a second to consider. Will and Anastasia he thinks grimly will appreciate their privacy at least until the novelty of being together wears off and he wants privacy too.
"Yours" he says finally pressing another kiss into Alice's hair and slowly they begin to wonder back up the street and back to Alice's apartment.
Cyrus knows this isn't the end. The next few weeks will be filled with chaos and danger and confusion but right now he has his wife and his daughter in his arms and a place to sleep tonight and honestly, he doesn't have the time nor the inclination to worry about anything else other than the fact that he's found his family.
It's the same bone deep relief he imagines other families are feeling right now. It's the same bone deep relief that he felt when he was told in Wonderland that Alice was going to live, when she survived childbirth, when they survived Jafar, when they survived all of the obstacles that surround them in their day to day lives.
And throughout all of this he and Alice have always found their way back to each other.
As they say...History Repeating.
And let me know what you think.
