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Put ten songs on shuffle, strung them together, and made a story. Gave me a newfound love for Ruby x Graham and also taught me that I have the weirdest musical taste ever.
Fear
It only has as much power over you as you allow.
Boston by Augustana
Hands of Time by Rachel Diggs
You Can Do Better Than Me by Death Cab For Cutie
I Won't Give Up by Jason Mraz
Blame It on Me by Chrisette Michele
Like We Used To by A Rocket to the Moon
Every Breath You Take by Sting and the Police
The Reason by Hoobastank
Jersey by Mayday Parade
It Happens Every Time by Dream Street
Sometimes Ruby wonders if she's cursed to only want things she can't have. She wants Granny to be proud of her, she wants to remember what her parents look like, she wants to get out of this wretched town and drive far, far away to Boston without a look back.
She wants to go places where no one knows her, she wants to see the world and do everything, jump out of airplanes and swim with sharks and see all the larger-than-life places she's only dreamed of, only seen in the glossy travel magazine pictures she's hung on her wall.
But she'd settle for being anywhere, as long as it's not here. She hates this town and everyone in it.
Except the Sheriff. He comes in for coffee long after night has fallen and listens to her complain about everything and everyone, everyone who refuses to listen, everyone who tells her she should be happy she has a roof over her head and people who love her. They don't care. They don't understand.
He does. He's the only one who doesn't laugh at her dreams of escape, the only one who seems to understand what it's like to be young and hate your life. Who gets how glorious it would be to live anywhere, as long as no one knows you.
Perhaps that's because he hates his life too.
She sees his tired smile, his gray pallor as she hands him his morning coffee, black, and the way he flinches when the Mayor comes in and pats him on the hand, a deadly smile plastered to her face.
When he leaves Ruby winks at him-hang in there-and somehow she knows she's given him the energy he'll need to last the day.
...
Sometimes he finds her knocked out on a stool at the diner, a nearly empty bottle of vodka on the counter before her. Usually he drinks the rest of it and holds her as she vomits her sorrows out into the bathroom toilet.
Tonight he finds her lying in the back seat of her car, crying as she gazes up at the stars and realizes she'll never make it out.
He hoists her into his passenger side and takes her back to his place, where she collapses on his bed. He grabs her an extra blanket and sits down beside her.
"Why?" she whispers, her voice hoarse.
He looks at her tear-stained face, pale and eerie in the sparse light cast by the full moon. "Why do you think?," he murmurs. "Why do you think that whenever you try to run for it, Granny gets sick or your car stalls at the border or a fucking hurricane strikes? Why do you think Regina's been mayor for longer than even Granny can remember?"
"It's not fair."
"Nothing is fair here." He swears her eyes flash a hue of gold as he tucks her hair behind her ear. "You can't turn back time, but it's time to fight a war. Killing yourself slowly isn't going to help us win."
...
Graham knows he takes her for granted. He knows he assumes she'll be at the diner after a long day, that she'll welcome with loving eyes and open arms-and lips.
He knows that she deserves better. Someone who'd show her off. He knows that meeting her only in the dead of night makes him no better than the rest of them.
Everyone knows how he's Regina's slave, and even though they never say anything to him, he feels their judgment, their stand up for yourself loser, glares. Ruby's the only person who ever looks at him like he's worth something. And he treats her like shit.
He wishes he could be better for her, except-Regina.
There are days when he's thought of letting Ruby go and lead a life of bliss with some guy he doesn't know yet already wants to strangle, but he never does. He has no idea what he'll do without her. He has no idea how he'll be able to forget, or function. He's forgotten how to be alone.
So when they're in the diner or at the inn or in his house and he's kissing her like there's no tomorrow because-face it, there might not be, and she asks him why the hell he's settled for her, he responds, "You're the one who's settled."
...
He tells her he won't give up on her, on them, not today or ever. He tells her he'll always be by her side no matter what happens. It's cliché, it's the tired plot of tons of made-for-TV movies, but she loves listening to him. She can't help it.
Looking into his eyes makes her feel like the possibilities are endless, like fairies could exist or science can give her wings or someday her happy ending might come, or maybe he'll be her happy ending.
She gets the thing between him and the Mayor, too-she's suspected it for years. You don't work at the local watering hole without picking up on tidbits of gossip. She just thought she could deal with it.
She's not so sure anymore.
She's so tired of him leaving as soon as the Mayor pages him, tired of having to be careful about how she acts around him in public, tired of not getting to have him all to herself.
Ruby vaguely recalls Granny warning her not to play with other people's toys without asking-action figures back then, but still-and Granny probably meant that stealing would hurt other people. She never realized that theft affected the thief, too.
"Ruby, I've told you so many times not to mess with Regina's pawns," Granny sighs one morning after catching Graham's figure retreating through the window. "You're playing with fire; you're going to get burned."
She doesn't need Granny's pearls of wisdom. She already knows.
She still sneaks looks with Graham behind the Mayor's back, still drops marshmallows in his hot chocolate even when he forgets to ask. She still ignores Granny's huffs of disapproval, but the sentiment isn't lost.
Maybe he won't ever give up. It doesn't mean Ruby won't.
...
He walks in on her for the third time. He usually pretends it doesn't hurt, seeing her glued to another man, usually acts like it doesn't fucking rip his heart to shreds, but he doesn't have the energy anymore.
"Why, Ruby?" he asks, after he's thrown the guy out of the diner. "Why?"
"No different from what you do," she hisses. "You and Regina."
He opens his mouth to defend himself, to spit out the same excuse he's given since the beginning of time, but words fail him. She doesn't deserve the same crap he gives everyone else.
Ruby smiles sadly. She understands. She always does.
"Ruby-"
"Look, Graham, it's okay, you and her. It can be my fault, I'm used to that. And it is my fault-sort of. I thought we could work out. But I can't see you with her, after everything with us. I just can't."
"I don't feel anything for her," he says. "I love you."
His cell phone rings and he ignores it. It rings again.
She eyes his hand halfway to his pocket, and replies, "I love you too." Then she turns away. "Sometimes, love isn't enough."
"Ruby-"
"Just go, Graham."
He walks out into the bitter cold, alone, wondering how long ago it was that his life ceased to be his.
...
He remembers the days when he would sit and listen to her talk about music, when he would help her escape from work and take her for a ride in the squad car, sirens blaring as they woke the quiet wood. He remembers walking in at midnight for a few drinks, just a few, he swore. Somehow, three shots always turned into ten and she'd end up on the counter with his lips pressed against her neck.
He remembers waking up next to her at dawn and planting kisses upon her palm.
She'd place her fingers on his chest and ask, "Why doesn't your heart beat?" as the rays of red and pink and orange and gold shone on them through her window.
"Why don't we ask Henry?" he would respond before she'd roll on top of him, warm and soft and human, and they'd collapse in a fit of giggles, oblivious to the world around them.
They were lovers, but they were more than that. They were best friends.
Now he watches from the sidelines as her dreams of escape are crushed, as she self-destructs, as she drowns in the suffocating waves of monotony and Granny's smothering presence. As different men take his place in her bed. All this because leaving Regina will make Ruby's life a living hell.
He thumbs through the stack of paperwork on his desk, his fingers smudged with ink.
Five jerks complaining about cars with busted tires and broken windshields.
The stir of a shredder.
The sigh of a sheriff.
He wonders if living in hell is much worse than this.
...
She catches a glimpse of him sitting in the squad car as she closes up the diner for the night, ready to paint the town red for the weekend. She hasn't talked to him in-she doesn't remember, actually, but it's been a while since he started calling in his lunch order instead of eating at the diner.
He's usually on patrol around the diner in the evenings; he gave Granny some crap about it not being safe there. Never mind there hasn't been any real crime in Storybrooke in-well, ever.
She attempts a smile, but she's sure it comes out more like a pained grimace and looks away.
Billy's perched himself on the steps just outside the diner. He grins, the perfect lovesick schoolboy, when he sees her come out.
"Ready to go?" he asks, extending his arm for her to take.
He's so noble, gentlemanlike, devoted. Exactly the type Granny would like her to marry. Exactly the type she once thought she wanted.
Maybe that's what scares her so much.
Ruby doesn't think and glances across the street, where Graham pointedly looks away.
She turns her gaze back on Billy, whose grin has faded. Ruby's struck with a pang of regret, and guilt, over how long she's strung him along, using him to forget even though she knows she won't. Even though she doesn't want to.
"I'm not feeling well, Billy, maybe next time?"
He nods, kisses her on the cheek, and drives home. He knows there won't be a next time.
...
Graham,
I regret a lot of things. You aren't one of them.
I'm starting over, for both of us.
Love always,
Ruby
...
It hasn't stopped raining in Storybrooke since she left.
He realizes now that, for all their talk about leaving, he'd never thought her leaving without him.
Every day he worries that something's happened to her, that one day he'll wake up and her picture will be on the front page of the paper, UNIDENTIFED WOMAN, 20, and a lot of other details, but the only important one will be that she's dead.
Dead. Gone. It's all the same. He can't wrap his mind around it.
He knows that Emma Swan, the new deputy, watches him, but it's days of snow before she says, " What the hell are you waiting for? If you love her, go find her."
"Fear."
She snorts. "You're letting that stop you?"
He has to know. He just has to know that she's okay.
He asks Emma to help him. Somehow he's sure that things won't go wrong if she's involved.
Graham speeds off to Boston, and after a fair bit of old-school sleuthing, he finds her bartending at a restaurant far beyond his paygrade.
"Ruby," he breathes out when he sees her.
"Graham."
"I just-I just had to see you," he stammers as he reaches out to take her hand, unsure of himself. He's surprised when she doesn't let go. "I miss you."
"I miss you too," she admits. She closes her eyes as he pulls her into his arms. "Graham, I'm not coming back. I've made it. I've beat everyone's expectations. I'm happy here."
"We don't have to."
"We?"
"I'm not leaving you this time. If that's okay with you."
She grins and leans her head against his chest. He tightens his arms around her, and in his warm embrace, she feels the missing piece of the puzzle click into place.
Storybrooke is just a town. Boston is just a city. He is home. And as long as he's with her, everything will be okay.
Graham kisses her on the top of her head. They will stand together when the storm comes.
...
They choose not to go back, in the end. It's kind of a tough decision, but Jefferson promises Graham and Ruby that he'll visit often, magical hat in tow, and Emma chooses to stay too and Henry gets to live in both worlds, and the decision's not so tough anymore. She still cries when everyone leaves, though.
Graham and Ruby continue to ignore everyone who tells them to get married, to have children, because the last thing they want is to screw up a kid and settle down. But their love becomes one with Boston, and if they haven't settled, the city has settled in them.
Years pass and Henry goes to high school and the Charmings give him an uncle, Regina and Emma make their weird interworld long-distance thing work, Grumpy reunites with Nova, Hook returns to Neverland alone; in short, some old friends refuse to get old and others embrace it, but life goes on.
The day after Granny's funeral, Graham comes home to find Ruby out on their tiny balcony, eyes closed as she soaks in the moon.
He sits down beside her and takes her in his arms.
"Loss still scares me."
He guides her fingers over to his chest and presses down, so that she feels his heart beating, the blood pulsing in and out and giving him life. "It belongs to you. And it's not going anywhere."
fin
A/N: It's been so long since I've written anything! School's been keeping me busy. Anyway, I hope you guys like this. Reviews = love.