Archie and Ruby sit on the couch in Archie's apartment, their hands clasped and their heads together. Pongo sits on his cushion in the corner of the room and remains quiet, as though he knows what's to come.

"Maybe we should..." Archie says, his voice low. He's afraid to break the silence, as though as long as they remain quiet the Snow Queen's curse will never find them. "Maybe we should ... lock ourselves in separate rooms … or something."

Ruby shakes her head, her forehead rolling against his. "Not sure how much good it would do." She pulls back from him, lifting her head, and sighs. "I don't want to hate you."

He lifts a hand to cup her cheek. "I don't want to hate you either."

Pongs whines from his spot in the corner as though to agree. Ruby smiles at him, wondering if the curse will work on animals.

"We've gotten through one curse," Archie tells her, fingering the engagement ring on her hand. "We'll make it through this one."

They don't speak again until they hear the rush of wind and feel the drop in temperature that has nothing to do with the current winter season.

Ruby turns to him, her eyes wide with fear as shards of glass as fragile as snowflakes fall from the ceiling. Archie clutches Ruby to him, bringing an arm around to shelter her head, trying to keep the glass from reaching her.

But the curse can't be avoided, and he can feel the cold seeping in.

Ruby lifts her head from Archie's sheltering arms. The curse has passed. But as she looks to her fiance, there's a coldness in his eyes she has never seen before.

"Archie?"

He pulls away from her, standing from the couch. Pongo growls.

"Shut up!" Archie snaps.

Ruby has never seen him snap at Pongo before, nor at anyone.

"Archie..." she tries, unsure of what to say. The curse doesn't seem to have taken an effect on her, though it clearly has on him.

"You know," he says, pacing the room with a nervous energy. "Maybe you should move back into your grandmother's place."

"We'd agreed we'd prefer the privacy of your place to moving in with my grandmother."

He shakes his head. "Not we," he says. "You."

She stares at him for a moment, then stands. "Archie, you're under a curse."

He waves his hands. "The only curse I'm under is you."

She knows he doesn't mean what he's saying, but that doesn't stop his words from taking her aback. It doesn't stop them from hurting.

"You know, things were peaceful here before you moved in." He steps to the couch and gathers up the throw pillows. "There were no feminine touches to be concerned over." He throws them at her, one at a time. She catches them in deft hands. "Pongo and I had our own little routine."

Pongo growls again.

"Shut up!" Archie snaps at him. He walks toward the dalmatian, shaking a finger. "If you can't behave, it's going to be another round of obedience school for you."

Pongo snaps at him, nearly nipping his finger.

Archie kicks the cushion where Pongo sits. The dog makes a yelp of alarm and retreats into the bedroom.

"Great," Archie moans, turning back to Ruby. "Now it's going to be as bad as sleeping in there with you. Do you realize how loud you snore?"

Ruby can only stare at him. She hadn't realized she snored, in truth. But what holds her paralyzed is Archie's behavior. She has never seen him act like this. And she knows if she were under the effects of the curse, she'd be just as bad. But that knowledge cannot help her in dealing with the changed man before her. She's shocked, saddened, and confused.

"I need a walk," Archie announces when she doesn't speak. He storms to the apartment door and leaves.

Ruby first checks in on Pongo. When he growls at her, she realizes his irritability hadn't been at Archie's changed behavior. He's under the curse as well.

She returns to the couch where she sits and tries to understand what is going on. She doesn't want to think about the other inhabitants of Storybrooke and the loved ones they might be turning on. How long would the curse last? What relationships might be destroyed in its wake? And why hadn't she been effected?

As she twists her engagement ring on her finger, she realizes that has to be the answer. It had been made from Archie's pendant as Jiminy Cricket to remind the two of them of the last curse that had parted them and how they had come back together, their relationship stronger than before. It was a symbol that their love was true and could overcome anything. And perhaps that symbol, one so strongly bound by true love, was keeping the curse from reaching her.

So, she might be safe, but what good did that do Archie or anyone else in Storybrooke? She knew Emma and Elsa were also immune to the curse. Maybe she could help them, though she didn't know what use she could be when they had magic powers to match the Snow Queen and she didn't.

Still, anything was better than doing nothing.

Storybrooke is in chaos. Citizens are fighting in the streets, some trying to kill each other with their bare hands. Others have weapons. She'd known the curse would be dangerous, she just hadn't realized how much. She walks the streets, staring dumbfounded at those around her as they take out their anger on one another.

She is halfway to the police station where she assumes she'll find Emma when she spots Archie and Whale with their hands around each other's necks.

"Stop it!" she shouts, running toward them. When they don't part, she runs into them, knocking them to the ground where they relinquish their hold on each other. They lay on the street, coughing and gasping for air.

"What is wrong with you two?" she shouts, though she already knows the answer.

Whale coughs on the ground beside her. "I still don't know how you picked that old four-eyes over me."

Ruby stares at him. She doesn't know how to even begin explaining how she'd never been interested in him and is halfway through telling herself it wouldn't do any good anyway when Archie gets to his feet.

"You want her, you can have her," he says.

She turns to look at him. His words shouldn't hurt, but they do.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," he tells her. "Don't think I don't know you wouldn't have left me anyway."

"Archie..." she has no idea where this is coming from.

"Back in the Enchanted Forest," he says. "Do you have any idea how hard it was for me when I was a cricket and couldn't speak to you? You didn't even try to make things work, just swatted me away like a bug, like I was an annoyance to you. You think coming back here changes any of that?"

She has to remind herself that he is under a curse, that he doesn't really mean what he's saying. But they hadn't really talked about what had happened when they'd all gone back to the Enchanted Forest. It had been hard on both of them. Their relationship had nearly crumbled.

They'd agreed once it was all over, that it was best to put it behind them, to look to the future and not how poorly they had treated one another. Was it possible the words he spoke now were ones he'd been repressing? Did he still linger on the hardships of the previous year and wonder if their relationship could survive?

Her ring feels cold on her finger, and she realizes if he might be repressing thoughts about them as a couple, she might be too.

"Fine," she says, playing along. "You know what? You're right. I'd be more than happy without you. You can have your ring back." She pulls it off her hand, grabs his, and shoves the ring as far as she can onto his pinky.

Archie feels something warm wash over him, driving away the cold. His head clears as though it had been in a fog. Ruby is standing before him, looking angry.

"What?" he says, unsure as to why he's out in the streets of Storybrooke.

"Oh, don't what me," she says. "We're through."

He stares at her, still confused. Whale comes up behind her and puts a possessive arm around her waist. She turns and punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground. "Psychopath," she calls him and then storms off.

Archie shakes his head. The memories are coming back now – how he'd shouted at Ruby and Pongo, how he'd stormed out into the streets and found Whale, how Ruby had shoved her engagement ring on his finger.

He looks at his hand where the ring sits between the top and middle knuckle of his finger. He would never have guessed that the symbol of their promise to one another could be strong enough to hold off the curse.

He turns, taking in the commotion of the people around him. There's nothing he can do for them. But he can go after the woman he'd hurt.

It takes forever to track down where she's gone. Eventually he finds her in the forest at the spot where they buried the wolf pelt. She is sitting on her knees and tears are running down her face.

"Ruby?" he says, unsure if he should disturb her.

She looks up at him. "Go away." Her voice is like a growl.

He hesitates, not knowing what to do now that he's here. She gets to her feet, her face will streaked with tears. "I gave up everything for you!" she shouts.

He jumps at the venom in her words. He's never seen her like this.

"I'll never be a wolf again!" she continues. "And it's all your fault!"

They hadn't spoken about her loss of the wolf since they'd buried the pelt. He'd thought she'd put it behind her. She'd assured him she was okay. Was this the curse talking or some hidden truth the curse had uncovered?

"I hate you!" she tells him. "I never want to see your ugly face again!"

She runs at him, hitting him with her fists. He holds up his arms, blocking most of her blows, all the while wondering if he had truly wounded her that badly.

"Ruby!" he says, trying to reason with her and knowing he can't. "Ruby!" He takes a step back, still holding up his arms, not knowing what to do or how to make her stop. At length, he grabs her forearms, holding her fists at bay. She cries out in rage, and struggles against him.

He's wondering what to do now when her struggling stops. She looks up at him, tears still rolling down her face, her forehead crinkled in confusion. "Archie?"

Snow is falling, fluffy flakes falling before their faces. Archie looks up to realize the dark clouds that had loomed over the town have dissipated. The curse has broken.

Ruby gasps as she realizes what she'd been doing. Archie let's her go, and she stares at him before stepping to him and clinging to the front of his coat. He puts an arm around her. Neither of them speak.

"Come on," he says at last when they've been standing for so long the cold has started to seep through his winter coat. "Let's get inside."

They walk back to the apartment where Pongo greets them by jumping up and licking their faces.

"We're sorry too, boy," says Archie, patting his head. He looks to Ruby, smiles and squeezes her hand, then lets her go to step into the kitchen and make a pot of tea.

Ruby takes off her coat and settles onto the couch where Archie eventually brings her a hot cup and joins her. They sit in silence, neither of them wanting to talk about what had transpired between them.

At last, Archie takes a deep breath. "Do you really feel I stole the wolf from you?"

"No," she tells him in earnest. Then she sighs. "I mean, I miss it sometimes... sometimes a lot. I miss running through the forest, the smells, the sounds..." She closes her eyes. "Sometimes I wish I could go back." She opens her eyes again and places a hand on his thigh. "But I don't blame you for what happened. It was out of our control. And if I'd had the choice, I would have chosen the same result." She turns back to her tea which she hasn't drunk.

But he still feels there's something unsaid. "You have thought that if you hadn't gotten involved with me, you wouldn't have lost it." It's not a question.

She sits down her cup, finding it useless. "Yes," she admits. "I have had the thought, and I've banished it because it isn't right. Archie-" She takes his cup from his hand, sits it on the coffee table next to hers, and moves herself into his lap where she takes his face into her hands. "I miss the wolf," she tells him honestly. "Sometimes it hurts to remember it. But I would have chosen you. And I do choose you, every day."

She kisses him on the forehead, then pulls back to look at his face which is shadowed in doubt and sorrow. "Do you really hate me for what happened in the Enchanted Forest?"

He sighs and looks down at his lap where she sits. She tilts his chin back up to look at her. "It was hard," he tells her. "It didn't feel like a man and a woman struggling through their differences. It felt like a woman and a bug that wouldn't leave her alone."

"That's not what it was," she tells him.

He stares at her with an incredulous look in his eyes.

"Okay," she admits. "Sometimes it felt like that."

"You had people you could talk to," he tells her. "I was a bug. I had no one who could understand me. No one even tried, except you, and..." He adverts his gaze, trying to hide the pain that flashes across his face.

"Archie..." she says, trying and failing to come up with words.

He pulls her to him in a swift motion. "I'm sorry," he says against her neck. "I'm so sorry. I just..." He kisses her skin, trailing his lips up and down from her jaw to her collar bone. "God, Ruby, I love you."

She lets him finish his trails of kisses before pulling away to look at him again. "I love you," she responds.

He takes her face in his hands. Eventually, he explains, "I had asked to be Jiminy Cricket, and at the time I thought it was a blessing. And then being here in Storybrooke, being a man and being with you... And then being in the Enchanted Forest and not being able to touch you, or kiss you, or speak to you, or love you like I wanted... it was the most lonely and demoralizing experience of my life.

"But I don't blame you," he continues. "And I don't hate you... and I don't think you're going to leave me," he adds, recalling his earlier comment. "It's just painful to remember."

"Then don't remember it," she says, feeling they've said all they need to say for one night. She leans forward and kisses him.

He responds by wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer. His mouth captures her in a fierce kiss.

"Do you really hate the throw pillows?" she murmurs against his lips.

He groans against her mouth. "Forget the throw pillows," he says, his hands circling her waist as he kisses her again.

"Archie," she prompts when she pulls away.

He sighs. "They're useless, and they get in the way." He pulls one from behind his back that had ended up on the couch after he'd left. He throws it to the floor.

"Then they're gone," she says, kissing him again.

"They're just pillows," he murmurs against the kiss.

"Shush," she says, capturing his lips again.

Neither of them speak, their hands and lips seeking each other's bodies as they work to repair the curse's damage. Ruby's shirt is off and her bra unclasped when Pongo whines from his corner as he usually does when things go this far, like he's telling them it makes him uncomfortable when they do these things in front of him.

Archie remembers the ring he's still wearing on his finger. He holds up his hand for Ruby to see. "Do you still want to marry me?"

She smiles. "Do you still want to marry me?"

"Yes," he tells her.

She holds up her left hand and splays her fingers. "Yes."

Archie removes the ring from his hand and places it on hers. Then he takes Ruby fully into his arms, and she wraps her legs around his waist to make it easier for him as he carries her to their bedroom and deposits her on the bed.

"Do I really snore?" she asks after his shirt is off and he's just kissed her. She lies underneath him as he hovers above.

"Yes," he admits. "You do." And as though he doesn't care, he lowers his head to drop kisses along her shoulder.

"You mumble in your sleep," she tells him.

He lifts his head. "I do?"

"Yeah. And you hog the covers."

They stare at each other, then laugh. When he takes her lips again, they both know they're going to be all right.

Author's Note

I'm all about the happy endings, but I felt my previous stories ended a little too happily. There wasn't space to dwell on how Ruby handles losing the wolf or on Archie's side of what happened in the Enchanted Forest. The Shattered Eyes episode granted the perfect opportunity to explore that more along with the issues of a couple who are still working out how to share space together. And I always love returning to these two.

This fic is part of my ongoing RedCricket series, which you can find on my profile.