Brave It Broken
by misscam
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.
Author's note: Post 2x05, with flashbacks to a slightly AU and prolonged end of 1x16.
II
Charming isn't entirely surprised when he gets a knock on the door in the morning, given the events of the day before. Still, when he opens the door to Regina, the stark pain on her face is enough to make even him feel a moment of sympathy. Broken heart. He knows that feeling. He knows it all too well.
"Is Henry...?" she asks.
"Henry is fine," he assures her. "He's got a few bruises from yesterday, but he will be fine."
She nods, not quite looking him in the eye. He wonders if she is reluctant to show him just how human even the Evil Queen can be, and if he is equally reluctant to see it. Easier when she is the Evil Queen. Harder when she is also a woman who's been forced to see her beloved die and then have to kill him again herself.
"Did you tell him what happened?"
"No," he says and she looks up in surprise. "I told him you would explain it when you were ready to."
She exhales, then looks him straight in the face, her expression unreadable. "May I come in?"
Reluctantly he opens the door, feeling a strong urge to evict her instead. It's not that he minds or wants to hide how much he misses his family, that she'll notice that he is sleeping in Mary Margaret's bed and hasn't changed the linen; it's more that this is Snow's place and Regina has already taken far too much from his wife.
"I am sorry about Daniel," he says after a moment.
"What do you know about hearts breaking?" she counters. "What could you possibly know?"
"You educated me," he says sharply. "As David and Charming both. You took her from me more times than I can count. You tore us apart. You put everything you could think of between us. You broke my heart and hers countless times."
"You seemed to find your way back to each other despite my best efforts," she says, a dark glimmer in her eyes.
"Yes," he agrees, taking a small pleasure from seeing how little that pleases her. "I will always find her. I will get my wife and daughter home this time too. What will you do, Regina? Break the world because it broke your heart again? You already cursed us all because you couldn't leave anything else whole when you were in pieces."
"You have no idea," she says, her voice dark.
"I do," he says, remembering another woman, another time – and most importantly, another outcome. "I once knew someone who didn't remember love at all."
II
"But I don't love you," Snow says, and the words hurt as much as the arrow in his shoulder. "I don't even remember you."
"Well, I don't care," he replies, a lie and a truth at the same time. "The only thing I care about is that you don't forget who you really are. I would rather die than let you fill your heart with darkness."
"You would really die for me?" she says, wonder and disbelief in her voice.
"Does it look like I'm making this up?"
"No one has ever done anything like this for me before. No one has been willing to die for me."
"No one you can remember," he says, the pain of it somehow making the pain in his shoulder amplify. It hurts, it all hurts.
"Come," Snow says suddenly, digging her fingers into his shoulder and then taking his hand. "The birds. Something has spooked the birds. Something's coming this way. Come."
Horses, he realises. King George's army maybe, or the Queen's. Either option is not particularly enticing.
He lets himself be led almost in a daze, following Snow into the forest she knows so well – that she apparently still remembers, because soon he finds himself deep into the forest with the sound of horses gone. Still Snow doesn't let up, pulling at him until he finds himself inside a sort of earth-hole smelling of moss and old trees.
He staggers when she lets go of him, sinking down to the ground less gracefully than he would have wished. The pain has grown more dull, at least until he feels Snow's fingers move across the wound and then yank the arrow out.
He makes a noise, but it's muffled by her hand as she moves it to his mouth. He nods as she gestures him to be silent, knowing as she does that pursuers can be very persistent.
They sit in silence for a long time, listening to the forest and their own breaths. Snow's hand has moved down to his chest, he notes, lingering just above his heart. It makes him ache and feel a little hope at the same time.
Maybe she doesn't remember him, but she can get to know him all over again. Fall in love with him all over again. Maybe.
"We'll stay here till nightfall," she finally says, her voice a whisper but still strangely loud after the long silence. "Then you can return to your charming princely duties and I have to start all over again."
"No," he says firmly. "I'm not leaving you. You can tie me to as many trees as you like. I will always find you."
She makes a frustrated noise, and for a moment he can see her consider leaving him tied up again. "Then will you help me kill her?"
"No," he says simply.
"I loved my father and she took him from me," she says, her voice for a moment fragile and sharp, almost like ice. Ice can break. Ice can also do a great deal of damage first.
"It won't bring him back," he points out, forcing the words out even knowing they will hurt her. "He will still be lost and you will lose yourself as well."
"I loved him," she repeats.
"Then love again," he suggests softly.
"Love again? Love you?" she says, voice mocking. "Love the charming prince and live happily ever after?"
"Yes," he says, tilting his head and kissing her. She does pull away after a moment, but at least she doesn't knock him out this time. That's progress.
"No," she says, but without any venom. "You can hunt game for us while I figure out another way to deal with the Queen. You might not be willing to help me, but you won't stop me either, or I swear I'll tie you to a troll."
"Agreed," he says, not mentioning that he is agreeing to being tied to a troll when it comes to that; he won't let her be lost to revenge.
When he holds out his hand, she takes it and shakes it reluctantly, but still let her hand linger in his just a fraction longer than necessary.
II
"Your precious Snow," Regina says, watching his face. He knows she can see the love for Snow there; he does not care. "Always Snow, fairest of them all, even to her father. He never loved me. He even married me for her."
"Couldn't you have loved her?" he counters. "You could have made that choice. You could have loved her as a daughter, as you wish to love Henry as a son. She would have loved you as a mother. You could have had that."
Regina is silent for a long time, he can almost see the struggle across her face.
"Yes," she finally says, almost choking on the word. "I could have chosen differently."
So could Snow, he remembers, the thought making him cold with dread.
II
They hide in the woods, avoiding the odd search party that comes. Charming knows they won't give up until they find him; he just hopes he gets enough time first.
He can't lose her to this. He won't.
The first week Snow plans three more attempts on the Queen's life; he thwarts all 'accidentally'. He doesn't end up tied up to a troll for his troubles, just get increasingly frustrated tongue lashings from Snow that eventually just turn into a sort of resignation.
He doesn't trust that, though, and is wise to; one night he wakes to find his hands being tied together with Snow leaning over him. He quickly rolls over, trapping her underneath his weight.
"No!" she protests, fidgeting. He doesn't let go though, putting his tied hands around her neck, her forehead pressing against his. "I have to do this. I have to kill her."
"And then what?" he asks. "Will you stop there or go after everyone else who hurt you? Break the world because it broke your heart? Forget you have a heart altogether rather than face the pain of it?"
"What do you know about broken hearts?!" she snaps. "What could you possibly know?"
"Snow," he says softly. "I know. King George separated us, made you lie to me and break my heart. He is hunting me for the crime of loving you and not being what he wants me to be. He hurt you. He made you want to forget me, he made you into this. Part of me wants to break his heart too for that alone and more. Part of me want to hurt your step-mother for all she's done to you. I know, Snow. I know."
"It's all I have left," she says, her voice sounding so devoid of emotion he knows she must be feeling too much. "She took everything else. She would even have taken you if given the chance. It's all I have now."
"It's not all you can have," he counters, willing her to understand what she once knew so well. "Snow, you're braver than anyone else I know. You saved my life rather than hold on to the means of revenge once. You made that choice. You're making that choice again already. Your heart's not in this. You're letting me stop you far too easily."
"Am I?" she says, and then he gets the all too familiar sensation of a rock to the head and darkness.
II
"It's easy for you. I can't get him back," Regina says savagely. "You still have Snow. I don't have Daniel. I will never have Daniel. I tried so hard to bring him back. I chose that first before everything else."
"There is still Henry," Charming says after a beat, thinking of the boy who loved his mother Emma unseen, who loves Regina enough to want to see her live, who loves him and Snow with such eagerness already. Such bravery. Such heartbreak to come. "You said to him that you didn't remember how to love very well."
She looks at him, the Evil Queen and the woman with a broken heart both. "Yes."
"Love doesn't always need memories. It can make do with courage."
II
He wakes up to a dark sky and dimmed stars; and for a moment he just watches them, wondering how whole the world still seems when his feels a little broken. He's failed. She must have decided to do it after all, kill the Queen and kill herself in the process.
"I didn't do it," Snow says, and he turns to the left to see her sitting just a few feet away. She has untied him too, he notices. "The Queen, I mean. She's still alive so you can wipe that puppy look from your face."
"You didn't?" he says, hope rising. "Why?"
She ignores the question. "I'm sorry I knocked you out."
"Not the first time," he says lightly. "It's how we first met."
"I knocked you out?"
"Robbed me first," he says proudly, and she rises to look at him.
"What a love story for the ages," she says sarcastically, but she is smiling despite herself.
"It can be," he says as she takes a step closer. "Why didn't you kill the Queen, Snow?"
"You would have stopped me at the last minute anyway," she replies glibly and all too easily. "You seem the type to."
"And yet you've helped me hide all this time. You haven't given me up to King George's army. Why?"
"Because I don't want to see you dead," she says.
"Why? What do you care what happens to me? You don't remember me," he points out.
"I care," she says sharply. "I don't have to remember you to... I care."
"Why?!" he demands, and she looks at him. Something like a sigh escapes her lips and she reaches for him, but he pulls back, capturing her hands and pressing them against his chest. "Why, Snow?"
"Because...!" she says angrily, her whole body tense as she presses herself against him, clearly frustrated. "Why do you care why?"
"Because I love you," he says softly, and she closes her eyes for a moment as he watches her with joy and pain both. As love always is, he thinks. Reject one and you reject the whole of it. To have a heart you must also brave having it broken. "Why, Snow?"
"Because," she says, her face the loveliest he has ever seen as something dark seems to leave it and something else seems to take its place. "Because I could love you."
He lets her pull him to her and kiss him then, the relief in him so strong it almost staggers him. She can love him. She can love him again, without memories but with her heart still in it. Still Snow White, still the heart and bravery and brashness that he loves. Still hope, and they can be together, will be together.
"Charming," she gasps, and it takes him a moment to realise she's saying it with affection again, with familiarity, with... Memory. She remembers.
"Oh," he says, realizing true love's kiss does seem to work after all; it just needs hearts open to love to do it. "Snow."
"It's me," she agrees, kissing him as he lifts her up and spins her around, feeling so much joy and love he's almost afraid it will make his heart break.
(It will eventually. Love always breaks hearts; but it is what makes hearts too.)
II
"Henry," Regina says the moment the boy opens the bedroom door. Her voice is filled with affection and slight fear, Charming notes. "I am sorry about what happened in the stables."
"Was it because of you?" Henry asks, straight to the point (as kids are so good at).
"Not exactly," Charming interjects, which is about as close to the truth as he can get in one sentence. Henry seems to accept that, opening the door more fully and sitting down on the bed. Regina moves to sit down as well, leaving Charming to watch them both from the doorway.
"Daniel didn't mean to hurt you," Regina says. "He was in so much pain."
"I wanted to help him," Henry says earnestly, looking up at her.
"I know. You were very brave."
"Did he hurt you too?"
"Yes, Henry," Regina says, closing her eyes for a moment. "He didn't mean to, but he broke my heart."
"Tell me about him," Henry says and so Regina does, telling the story of the stable boy and the girl and the true love while Charming listens in, remembering another story of a prince and a girl (or woman, as Snow would insist) and true love. There is another tale too, still ongoing, of the prince and the princess and their daughter and her son, and the Evil Queen and desired redemption and her son also, but how it ends he does not know.
All three have broken hearts as love stories must; may just have to brave it for there to be a happy end.
FIN