Two sets of eyes watched in disbelieving silence as she cut a chunk from her third serving of pancakes and chewed it blisfully.
Possibly, it was not much because of the amount of food itself that Emma and Mary Margaret were staring like that, but rather for the quite unusual topping she had chosen to shower it with.
"Ketchup?" Emma said in utter astonishment, sharing a look with her equally astonished mother. "Ruby, seriously?"
Fairly unabashed, Ruby reached out for her cup of cappuccino and drained it in a gulp.
"It's almost that time of the month, you know," she explained, stuffing the umpteenth piece of pancake into her mouth. "My body is demanding extra energy for the shifting."
"By the looks of it, one might think you have two or three bodies to nourish," said Mary Margaret, taking a small sip of her coffee. "And you, dear, have not eaten enough," she added, glancing at Emma's plate, which was still half full.
"I've already had something with Henry before school. And I'm not very keen on scrambled eggs."
Mary Margaret gave a light, disapproving shake of her head.
"You should at least finish your orange juice."
Emma groaned and rolled her eyes, which made Mary Margaret point a threatening finger at her.
"Don't mum me!"
"What? I didn't say anything!"
"But you thought it!"
Ruby chuckled.
"You two are so lovely and hilarious, at times."
Both girls glared at her, but she was just feeling so happy and peaceful for no reason in the world that nothing could seem to bother her, today. This might have something to do with a certain doctor she just couldn't get out of her head for longer than a minute. He'd been in her life for only a few months and neither of them had realised how important they had become to each other until everything – the closeness, the friendship, the understandng, the mutual respect and sympathy – had finally collapsed into a long, feverish kiss.
It had happened out of thin air, one night after one of his shifts, when she'd surprised him by waiting for him outside the hospital with a coffee and some dinner brought from Granny's.
"Ruby," he'd said, all tiredness suddenly vanishing from his eyes, replaced by sheer marvel and pleasure. "What are you doing here?"
She'd approched him and handed him out the coffe and the bagged dinner with a smile so shy she'd have barely recognised herself.
"Well, what do you think, Doc?"
The look he'd given her had been so genuinely oblivious that she had literally felt her heart melt within her chest, along with the last few remnants of her defensive walls.
"C'mon!" she'd laughed, grabbing him by his arm and leading him down the street. "This night is too beautiful to waste it in front of an ER."
"Ruby, are you still with us?"
"What?"
Ruby blinked back into the present, shaking off a light dizziness as Emma waved a hand in front of her.
"You got all dreamy-eyed and we lost you."
Had she been any other girl, Ruby would have blushed, but had no problem with being caught lost in her sweet thoughts. It was no secret for anyone she was seeing Victor Whale and, frankly, it was all a bit new to her.
Things with Peter had been so different, so much more complicated – monster and human, quite an unfortunate pairing – but now it was another life, another herself, and the past was a closed chapter, something to learn from but not to mourn anymore.
There was a new story to write, now, and it had began with hope.
Monster to monster.
She wondered how it could sound so beautiful.
"Does all this dreamyness have anything to do with your beau, Ruby?" Mary Margaret inquired leaning forward, arms crossed over the table.
"Not that it is any of your business," she replied pleasantly, then shrugged. "I'm just feeling… you know, good."
It was true. Victor was just a part of it, but in the last period she'd felt this nice, inexplicable warmth grow within her day by day, like she'd never really been alive before.
"Dun dun dun, blame it on love!" Emma teased, elbowing her friend, who giggled sheepishly. She gulped her last piece of pancake, licked some ketchup off her fingers and stared down at the empty plate wistfully.
"I wonder if it would be so bad if I had some pizza, now?"
Mary Margaret and Emma eyed her speechlessly.
x
"Too bad I didn't bring a bottle of wine. It would have been a nice addition to the evening."
Victor had laughed gently, setting aside his empty coffee not regretting any wine.
"It was all perfect. Thanks. I mean, for even thinking about me."
They'd been sitting on the dock for hours, just in the spot they'd been that very first time they'd shared a real moment together. It had become a magical place, somehow. And Ruby would never stop wondering why Victor could not simply accept the fact that somebody could care for him.
They'd been there so many times she'd lost count. At first, in the very beginning of them, he'd bring this up so often she'd actually feared he would never be able to give in to her affection.
"You are so beautiful, so brave, so strong… how on earth can you be interested in a wreck like me, Rubes?"
There was no way of explaining. They saw things differently, on that point of view.
She thought herself to be some sort of weird creature burdened with moony mood swings and perpetual duality in her identity, let alone the monthly shifting and everything wolf-wise. He, however, saw her as something wonderful, special, he could see strength and courage where all she could see was inevitability of fate.
He thought of himself to be unworthy of anything good life could offer, and now she knew him – now she truly knew who he was and how he'd become it – she could see why. When your own father considers you a waste of space, how could you ever find yourself a place in the world?
And yet, what Ruby saw was an entirely different thing. She saw a man who'd fought for his own beliefs, who'd risked everything he had to try to do something good, something to make him worth people's respect and admiration, and this attempt itself, to her, was worthy of it all.
"We can do without the wine," she'd said that night, leaning in closer to him. The sea was quiet, the sky clear and starry. "Unless you believe I need to get you drunk to get somewhere with you."
And then he'd done something that, above his looks and charms, had won her completely.
He'd blushed.
"There," she'd half-sighed. "How can a poor, helpless girl defend herself from that?"
"You mean a poor, helpless werewolf girl against a foolish crazy scientist?"
His prompt quip had not helped. It only had made her feel even more at ease, more needy for a closer contact. She liked that he could joke at their conditions. It made it no big deal, nothing at all, really.
"You make it sound a bit kinky, now," she'd retorted, and then, with a bright smile due to his second blushing, she'd rested her cheek on the rough fabric of his jacket and whispered: "Maybe it's the wine."
"But we didn't have any wine."
"Oh, well…" She'd grinned playfully, her fingers interlacing with his . "Then I guess it's just us."
x
It was like a gift everytime, to him, coming back home from a long, hard day and finding her in his kitchen, humming random songs while mustering up something for dinner.
She was an awful cook, truth to be told, but he didn't care. He just loved the mere fact of her doing something for him with the only, wonderful purpose of pleasing him. Which was kind of needless, since her very existence was more than enough for him to be pleased, but she liked it, so he liked it, too.
"Smells eerie," he said, sneaking up on her from behind. "What have you burned me, today?"
Too concentrated on whatever she was cooking to notice he'd arrived, Ruby jumped.
"Very funny!" she snapped, swatting his arm with the spoon she was holding. "This is actually a nearly good ratatouille with chicken."
"Oh, so that's what the coal-like thing is."
He didn't leave her a chance to reply. He pulled her to him, back to chest, and dropped a light kiss on her neck.
"How was your day?" he asked before she could ask him the same question. "Is the upcoming full moon still affecting you?"
He was making fun of her.
They'd watched a rather cheesy film about chihuahuas in Beverly Hills, last night, and somehow she'd ended up crying her heart out over the even cheesier ending, leaving him a bit taken aback by such a sudden and unjustified excess of emotivity.
"Shut up, full moon is coming," she'd snapped, all flushed and teary-eyed, and he'd just indulged her, because, honestly, he found it quite cute of her.
"Everybody is laughing behind my back these days," she complained, turning the cooker off. "Just because I'm a bit… weird."
"It's weird for any of us to call another weird, here in Storybrooke," he argued. "Because of the weird Fairy Tale thing, you know. Not to mention the even weirder doubleness we all have thanks to the curse."
Her hands rose to run through his hair, grasping at it to pull him closer into a hungry kiss. He let his hands roam all over her back and hips, finally embracing her slender figure, holding her tight to himself like he never had to let go.
"Uh, Rubes?" he said tenetatively after a moment.
She pulled away only enough to allow him to speak.
"Did you… er… did you do something to your… boobs?"
She frowned.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I mean, they feel… weird. And… bigger?"
Ruby cupped her own breasts and cast him a resented glare.
"Are you by chance insinuating that I would butcher my body to have it surgically improved? Or only that I should?"
Victor immediately regretted he spoke.
Shit.
She'd gotten all teary-eyed again and he was afraid that anything he would say would only make it worse, so he didn't say anything.
Sometimes he was scared of how much this girl meant to him. It was still a huge mystery to him why such a gorgeous person, both on the inside and outside, would ever waste her time with a mess like him. And yet here she was, in his own arms, a priceless, underserved gift that destiny had dropped in his life right when he'd started to think nothing would ever be good again.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, leaning in to place a kiss on her forehead. "You know I have very poor social skills."
He swept her tears away with his thumbs, brushed her hair behind her ears and smiled to her.
"How about I take you out for dinner?"
She scoffed, but not without a small laugh.
"What a man wouldn't do to be spared the torture of a home-made meal."
"You're a terrible cook and you know that."
"You are an excellent one, on the other hand."
"Are you suggesting I make some dinner?"
She approached her lips to his ear and whispered mischievoulsy: "I am suggesting not to go too far from the bedroom."
He swallowed hard in anticipation.
"Let's just make something edible, first," she added. "I'm starving."
"You're starving all the time, recently. A little bird told me you ate five portions of panckaes, this morning."
"I'm going to kill MM."
"With ketchup."
"She'll die a horrible death."
"It was Granny who told me, by the way."
Ruby pouted.
"Are you afraid I'll get fat?"
"As in becoming a whale?"
Her eyes sparkled. They were bright and lively as he didn't remember seeing them before.
"Is that a proposal, Doc?"
He cupped her face with a hand and stroked her almost in devotion, his eyes lost in hers as his heart hurt for how deeply he felt he loved her.
"Depends," he said in a hoarse voice. "Would you like it to be?"
x
First kisses are supposed to be magical, to be soft and tender like the ones in fairy tales, the kind of kisses you get at 'and they lived happily ever after'.
Their first kiss had been nothing like that.
It had come all of a sudden, like a thunder, and just like a thunder it had shaken them both deep inside, jolting back to life a part of them they had almost forgotten they had.
Their hearts.
It had happened where and when it was supposed to, that wineless night at the docks, with the still lingering scent of Granny's lasagna mixed to the salty breeze coming from the sea, but t hadn't been like it was supposed to be at all.
It had been her who started it. Their eyes had met for a second and something had clicked. She'd literally felt the ground beneth her give in, throwing her into an abyss she was eager to drown in. An abyss called hope.
One moment she was staring into his eyes, contemplating his inner grief, the amazing grace of his dark fragilty, and one moment later all that she knew was the softness of his lips on hers, her arms reaching out seeking for something to hold on to, and she found him, solid and safe as much as she felt empty and adrift.
He was all around her and inside of her, his breath becoming hers as a new sense of life poured into her soul like it was catching fire.
A first kiss full of insecurity, desperation, loneliness and fear.
A beautiful girl with a beast within.
A good-hearted man drenched in mistakes.
Monster to monster, after a lifetime of stray feelings, they had stumbled – crushed – into one another.
And finally they'd stopped limping.
x
"Are you sure you're alright in there?"
"Positiv- urgh!"
It was like her stomach was turning insideout.
Ruby emptied the last few bits of her lunch into Mary Margaret's toilet and breathed in and out slowly, trying to ease that awful nausea. Maybe Granny had been right after all, she shouldn't have had so many french fries.
"Do you want me to call Dr Whale?" Mary Margaret offered from outside the bathroom. "Because it really sounds like you need a doctor, Ruby. Like, very badly."
"No need!"
"Please?" Mary Margaret insisted. "I'm concerned!"
"No - damn - need!" Ruby yelled back, before another wave of nausea took over her.
"At least let me bring you some lemonade!"
"Or a pregnancy test," said Emma, appearing next to her mother, who almost choked.
"What?"
"What?" called Ruby from behind the door.
"I said," Emma shouted. "That, rather than a lemonade, you might need a stick to pee on. Though the lemonade might help."
"What's the point in peeing on a damn stick when you're sick?" moaned Ruby above the sound of water running in the sink.
"Because you might be knocked up?"
"Emma!" Mary Margaret 's cheeks turned a bright pink.
"What?" her daughter said matter-of-factly. "She might be. You might be, right?" she asked to the door, raising her voice.
"I might be what?"
"With child, for heaven's sake!" Emma exclaimed impatiently. "Or with cub, or puppy, whatever werewolves call it."
Suddendly, all sounds from the other sides stopped.
"Ruby?" Mary Margaret called wrriedly after a while. "Ruby, are you still - ?"
The door flung open on their faces and Ruby appeared, her hair messy and her look flustered. She was deadly pale and appeared to be vaguely absent.
"Ruby?"
"I – uh – I have to go."
"Would you like to –" Mary Margaret began, but Ruby rushed past her and out of the apartment without a word.
The door slammed behind her back, leaving the two girls staring at it blankly.
"Do you…" Mary Margaret seemed too shaken to formulate a proper sentence. "Do you seriously think she's… uhm…"
Emma shrugged.
"Isn't that what we all are like when we're pregnant? Eating like dinosaurs, throwing it all up and acting like crazy bitches on crack?"
"That's a bit of a colourful expression, but…" Mary Margaret bit her bottom lip. "I guess… I guess it could be?"
x
Something had happened to the world. It was blurry and shaky and muffled all of a sudden, like a bad-quality movie.
It was difficult to make counts of days and happenings and possible consequences with her heart pounding so violently in her throat.
Why her throat, besides? Shouldn't her heart be in it proper place, in the middle of her chest? And yet, no, it wasn't there. First it had fallen into her stomach, heavy like a stone, and the nit had jumped up in her throat and there it was struck, swollen and even heavier than before, pulsing furiously and so loud she couldn't think straight.
Now what? Now what? Now WHAT?
Her pathetic attempt to convince herself this just couldn't be had miserably failed before she could even seriously consider the thought.
Ruby walked down the street with nothing but chaos hammering in her head. Chaos and something else.
Something sparkly and funny and even a little tingly. Something that made her feel proud and powerful and hopeful, and even scared to death.
It wasn't the possibility itself to make her panic. Not really.
She had learned long ago that being a werewolf was a curse only if you let it be. It was a condition and it coudn't be ignored, of course, but it was easily controlled. If there was someone to teach you. And she could definitely teach another person how to be a werewolf, and not to be a victim of it.
But this wasn't all about her or being or not being a werewolf.
This was ordinary craziness that any other girl in the planet would live just with the same fear and preoccupation as she did.
This was about the other person who'd done this with her, too.
Victor.
What would he think of this?
She had no clue. They hadn't even ever touched the subject, not even as a joke.
She looked up and had to blink a couple of times times to focus: the pharmacy was on the other side of the street, a few steps from where she stood. She briefly considered going in and buying one of those infamous sticks, but she didn't want to agonise over one, two, three stupid home pregnancy tests whose accuracy wasn't even one hundred percent reliable.
So she headed for the place she least would have wanted to go to, at the moment.
The hospital.
x
The house was unusually silent when he opened the door, that evening.
No light on in the kitchen, no Ruby dancing around on hummed songs while ruining some innocent food for dinner. There was nothing whatsoever, actually.
Not even Ruby, as far as he could see.
"Honey?" he tried, but no response came back. "Rubes?"
His heart sank a bit. Of course, there was no rule that she had to be there waiting for him every evening, but it had been like that for the last few weeks and he'd grown fond of the whole thing. He'd even started picturing how it would be like for them to have a real house for their own, maybe a dog waiting for him on the porch, the scent of the laundry drying out in the backyard, Ruby's shoes and coat in the entrance, next to which he would set his own, and maybe…
He dropped his scarf when he realised she was in the kitchen. She was sitting at the empty table, staring blankly at the flame of a candle trembling in the dim light coming from the street.
"Rube!"
He approached with a lopsided grin, thinking she had settled a romantic dinner, but then saw the bunch of balled up kleenexes scatterd around her, and the half eaten chocolate cake she'd set aside. She wasn't crying and she didn't look like she had very recently, but he just sensed something was wrong.
He couched next to her, put a hand on her arm and stroked her back soothingly.
"Hey?"
"Hi," she said croakily. "Sorry," she added, clearing her throat. "My heart is stuck in here and I can't push it back down where it belongs."
"And why is that?" he asked, pulling her up to face him. Even if she hadn't been crying for a while, her eyes were still red and vaguely watery. Nonetheless, she looked amazing.
Ruby licked her lips and grasped at his arms, her hands closing on his inner elbows, and looked at him with such grave intesity that he wondered if she was going to break up with him or something.
And yet it didn't look like there was something bad in the air.
All the contrary, actually, even if he couldn't explain why.
"Something has happened," she confessed.
"Something has happened," he repeated slowly. "Okay. What is it?"
Ruby inhaled as if the air she was breathing was her last.
"It was us. I mean, we did it. I don't how it could happen… well, of course I know how it happens technically, but…"
"Whoa, whoa, stop!" he half laughed. "Rubes, you're babbling."
Her attempt to laugh back sounded more like something between a sigh and a sob.
"Well, you'd better get used to it."
A series of wrinkles appeared across Victor's forehead.
"I know what I said about calling people in Storybrooke weird, but you really are acting weird."
"I know. Sorry. It's –"
"Almost full moon, I know."
"No, you don't… oh shit." Ruby rubbed her face between her hands. "You don't understand! We were wrong, it's not almost full moon at all!"
"Isn't it?" he said, starting to get sincerely confused.
"No, what I mean is: it is almost full moon, but it's not what's making me weird!"
Victor couldn't help but keep smiling, despite Ruby's evident dismay. She was just so lovely like this, and all he wanted to do was shut her up and kiss her, whatever it was she had to say.
"Don't look at me like that now," she whined.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm the most beautiful thing on earth."
"But you are."
She couldn't stifle a smug smile that lingered on her lips even after she tried to get rid of it.
"You're making this so much harder, you know?"
Victor put one hand on her hip and placed the other under her chin, guiding her face up towards him. He could see her nervousness, but couldn't imagine what was causing it. She had too many mixed feelings in her eyes.
"Just tell me, then."
She sighed and buried her face into his chest, finding comfort in his warmth, in the firmness of his arms embracing her.
"I can't just tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because it's huge."
"Alright, you're scaring me now." He gently detached her from himself to look her straight in the eye.
Ruby felt like she had felt that time at the docks, the night of their first kiss. She could drown in his eyes any moment.
She had admired and respected him because of his determinaton to redeem himself, his need to feel useful for the ones he cared about.
She had liked him because he liked her despite she was what she was and what she'd been through.
She had fallen in love with him when she'd realised he liked her because she was what she was and what she'd been through. And that was what true love was meant to be: no conditions, no ifs, no buts. Just it.
"Rube," he whsipered softly, stroking her cheeks. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know if it's wrong or right, yet."
"Will you quit procrastinating and just say it, please?"
His heart was pounding. Her heart was pounding. And, actually, there was another little heart beating between the two of them.
"I'm pregnant, Doc."
Victor's fingers paralised on her cheeks. All feelings drained from his eyes, all colour from his face. His lips froze into a flatering smile.
"W – what?"
A part of Ruby wanted to burst out laughing out of hysteria, and hug him breathless, and kiss him, and maybe cry a bit, but that was the fact: another part of her dreaded that he might just step back, turn on his heel and walk away for good. Because, really, life in Storybrooke was already messed up enough without Dr Frankenstein and the werewolf girl introducing their weird progeny.
"It wasn't the full moon," she said, barely audibly, trying in vain to swallow the lump in her throat. "It was – it is the baby making me weird."
She wished she could read Vicotr's expression, buti t was impossible. He was petrified. Only his eyes were still alive, wandering feverishly all over her face.
"Are you sure?" was all he could utter, and it wasn't much louder than a mere thought.
She couldn't but nod, silently begging for a reaction of any sort. This stillness scared her more than anything else.
It took a few moments – long, endless, torturing moments – but in the end Victor's face lit up like the sun had risen upon it.
"We're having a baby." His voice was shaky and so full of emotion it almost broke her. "We're having a baby!"
He pulled her into his arms and spun her around, laughing into her neck. When he put her back down, it took him a few seconds to be able to focus again.
"You're not mad?" sha managed to ask.
"Mad?" Victor's eyes shimmered in sheer joy. "How could I be mad for this… this…" He trailed off, shook his head and took her hand in his. "Don't you see what we did? How wondrous it is?" His smile widended as he placed his palms above her abdomen. "We created life! We did this, you and I! That's pretty remarkable for two old freaks, isn't it?"
He was happy. Truly happy. There was no lying in his trembling voice, in the way he hugged her tight and then relaesed her abruptly, afraid to be hurting the baby.
Finally, Ruby felt entilted to be happy herself. And there it went, the lump in her throat, her heart. It returned to where it belonged, now full of new emotions much easier to carry.
"I won't say I'm not scared," Victor told her. "I still think you made a terrible mistake by choosing me of all people you could have…"
She silenced him with a quick kiss.
"Been there a thousand times. It's getting annoying."
"It's what I feel."
"Then stop feeling it, because I'm not going to change my mind. Or my heart, that is. Besides," She enlaced her hands behind his neck and grinned. "We can't waste any time arguing over that, you know? We have much more important things to care about… Daddy."
"That sounds terrifying," he admitted.
"I know, right?" she agreed. "But we're used to terrifying things, aren't we?"
Ha caressed her face softly, then leaned in to kiss her forehead.
"Indeed we are. Monster to monster."
Their smiles became one.
"Always."
A/N: alright, here it is. I've been fighting against inspiration for a while, but I just couldn't help writing this little silly thing. My Frankenwolf feels bested me. Please, feel free to report any mistake or typo that I might have missed, and, of course, comments are candy for the author, so the mor,e the better. Thanks for reading!