Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable. I'm just playing in the sandbox.
This started as a Knalice fic and kind of morphed. I have not seen any of the fourth season of the main show yet, so this is slightly speculative and possibly slightly canon divergent. It is based at some unknown point between the third season's midseason finale and the premiere for the fourth season as far as timeline goes. Anyway, I would love some feedback! Enjoy!
Their fallout is magnificent.
He cannot put his finger on what exactly started it and if he is honest with himself, he does not particularly care.
There was a time when Will loved Anastasia more than anything else in the world. He stole from Maleficent for her. He defied her mother for her. He would have done more had she given him the chance.
He does still love her. It is True Love, but just because he truly loves her and vice versa, that does not mean that they can stand being around each other constantly anymore.
That is probably what did it, he muses.
If he is even more honest with himself, he knows why he and Ana keep falling apart.
He loves her. He truly does.
But she is not the sole owner of his heart any longer. Despite the numbness he remembers so clearly – despite his inability to love without his heart in his chest – he loves another just as much as he loves Anastasia Tremaine.
He will never say anything to anyone about how he feels about Alice. Mostly because he is not allowed to feel that way about her. He is not allowed to love her like he does Ana.
In some ways, that makes it worse. He has to face the reality that he can never be with her – he can never face her again – because she is finally, happily married to Cyrus. He cannot and will not come between them.
He may be the former Knave of Hearts, but even he is not that cruel. He spent forever helping her across Wonderland to help her find her genie. He helped her fight Jafar so that she could be with the man she loved.
He will never come between them.
That does not make it any easier to bear. He fell in love with her even when he was incapable of feeling anything.
He will never understand why it happened. He will never understand how. He just knows that he can never see her, never go looking for her, and most certainly never ask the White Rabbit to take him to that world. He will not disturb her happiness.
He will let her think that he married the White Queen and lived happily ever after.
Part of him still wants to.
Going back to Storybrooke is an easy choice to make. He and Ana will not be in the same place, much less the same world.
Part of him wants to make her regret what happened between them. Another part of him is raging, screaming at him to go back to her and beg for her forgiveness. His pride will not let him do that.
Storybrooke is easy. No one there knows who he is – not really. No one knows the women he loves, except for Ella, who never knew about him and Ana. Her sister and mother might still remember her, but they do not know who she became any more than anyone else.
He can almost push Alice from his mind, but it costs him the peace that he had found when everything was over and the dust had settled. Ana is not so easily removed from his thoughts because he knows where he should be and he knows that she should be by his side.
He loves her. Deeply, truly, painfully so. He loves both of them. But Alice is not his and never will be. He knows what reality looks like, and it was never him and Alice. Ana was his and he does not know if she will be again. He wants her to be.
Maybe eventually he will go back to Wonderland and hope that she has forgiven him. Maybe even sooner than eventually.
Wonderland is his home, after all. It might be a strange, unforgiving place, but it is no more unforgiving than anywhere else he has been. The world is harsh and he likes to think that few people know that better than Will Scarlett.
He will go back someday – someday soon – and this little tiff will be over.
Even though he is torn, Anastasia is the last thing he thinks of when he falls asleep and the first thing he thinks of when he wakes. Not a day goes by where she is not in his thoughts. He loves her. He truly does.
He just prays that she still loves him the same when he goes back.