Happy Birthday, Cls2011! I hope you enjoy this. :D Based on a prompt that asks: What if your two central characters met 10 years ago, but only one remembers the meeting?
I don't own Ouat, in case you were wondering. Hope you have a lovely day, and your feedback is cherished.
It's her.
There's no denying it—can be no mistake. He can never forget that face, those eyes, the feel of her pressed up against him, the sting of hot tears dripping on to his chest. Then the acrid smell of smoke and destruction wafts through his nostrils, leaving a taste in the back of his throat that strands him paralyzed in time.
"Mr. Locksley?"
Her voice snaps him out of his trance, and he blinks repeatedly, squeezing Roland's hand a bit too tightly for the boy's comfort.
"Ow, Daddy," Roland protests, pulling his hand from his father's grasp, the principal quirking her head to see if something is wrong.
"I'm sorry," he mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's just…"
Sirens blare in his memory, muted tones muffled by debris and brick.
"It's difficult to let go, isn't it?"
Her voice is soothing, her expression serene, so very different than what he remembers, worlds apart from the broken woman whose memory is pressed into his soul. He then looks down at his boy, eyes alight with excitement as he stares down the hallway leading to the Kindergarten wing.
"It is," he returns, and she smiles at him, a smile that lifts her eyes and cheeks as she offers her hand to Roland. "They grow up too fast."
"That they do," she agrees. "My son just turned nine not long ago. He'll be in the fourth grade this year."
"Here at this school?" Roland asks, gazing at her as if she were his fairy godmother.
"Here at this school," she answers, her smile doing something to his heart—wringing it, caressing it—he's not certain what, exactly, but it hurts and soothes at the same time. Her child is alright—a son, a boy of nine.
Thank God. He'd wondered about her child for nearly a decade.
"Come with me," she instructs, his son happily falling into step beside his new principal. "I'll introduce you to your teacher, Ms. Blanchard."
"Is she nice?" Roland questions, practically skipping between the two of them as Robin fights to keep his mind firmly in the present. Ms. Mills laughs, and his gut cinches, remembering very different sounds coming from her body ten years ago.
"She's so nice that her nickname is Snow White," Ms. Mills answers, and Roland throws him a look of wonder.
"So you can't bring her an apple," Robin manages, Roland's brows drawing together in confusion as the principal tosses him a mild eye roll. "It might make her nervous."
"Bring her whatever you like, Roland," she corrects, shooting him a glance over the boy's shoulder.
"Ms. Blanchard loves anything her students give her."
A pleasant brunette meets them at the door—Ms. Blanchard, Robin discovers, and he stares into a classroom that has been decorated to resemble an enchanted forest, complete with a treehouse reading loft, a puppet theater, and a gray castle painted on the far wall. Roland bounds in the door, turning back to hug him hurriedly, and Robin can't blame the boy for his excitement. What child wouldn't want to attend Kindergarten in a set-up like this?
"The evaluation takes about an hour," Ms. Mills explains as they retrace their steps. "It's standard for all entering Kindergarten students, and it simply allows us to see what Roland already knows and where we can best assist him this year. Ms. Blanchard will work with him and three other students this afternoon, and then they will get some time on the playground and be fed a snack. You're welcome to wait here for Roland or return to pick him up at two o'clock."
"You don't remember me, do you?"
His question flies out unhindered, and he wants to kick himself as suspicion flickers across her features.
"Have we met before, Mr. Locksley?" she asks as they round the corner to the front offices. "I'm sorry, but I meet so many parents in my line of work.."
"I'm a fire fighter," he blurts, and he sees her body stiffen instantly. "I was there when…"
"Oh, God," she whispers, her lips moving independently of sound. "Your voice…you're….you're him."
She looks ashen now, somehow shorter, and he nods towards her office, feeling her take his arm and lead him in wordlessly. She shuts the door behind them, her hand still attached to his forearm, her breathing uneven.
"You're the one who pulled me out."
He nods, the sickening sound of timbers crashing behind them echoing in his mind, his eyes tearing with the remembered sting of smoke. He'd held her afterwards, after they'd given her oxygen, after they'd stripped him from part of his suit to tend to a gash in his shoulder. He'd held her because he had to hold her, because she'd been so small and fragile, because she'd just watched the building collapse on the life she'd been planning, a life with the man who'd fathered her child. Her sobs had shaken his ribs, her unborn baby had kicked against his palm, and he'd held her as closely as he could, never knowing her name, always knowing she'd be with him forever.
"Yes."
He can't think of anything else to say.
She leans into him then, her arms moving around him slowly, her breath catching as her cheek presses into his shoulder, the very shoulder that had been injured ten years ago. They are silent as his arms draw her closer, as her tears dampen his shirt, as his hands shake with the force of what is happening.
"Thank you," she breathes, tightening her grip. "For my life. For my son's life."
He can only nod and pull her closer.
He is shattering inside, brilliant shards refastening themselves into an odd menagerie of hope and life renewed. Suddenly, everything seems different, his own loss no longer so acute, his spirit refreshed, raw and glorious as a reborn phoenix's first flight. And he holds her through it all, just as he had before, a new memory pressing into an old one, fusing something together so complete and perfect he knows that he will hold on to this woman for the rest of his life.