This is another one of those forgotten stories I found in my computer. I've only uncovered one chapter, though I think I remember writting more, so for now I'll leave it as a oneshot. And... well, let's just say it isn't one of my lighter works. (-_-) This is set in a slightly twisted version of the future we saw in the fifth book, "Magic and Other Misdemeanors," where the war with the Hand is still going on. I'm nervous about posting this... I'm not sure what you'll think of it.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Sisters Grimm, or any of the characters and places mentioned below. This is just a bit of fun, really.
Sabrina's heart clenched at the sight of him. So many emotions –anger, betrayal, hate, sadness… love –hit her like a freight train. She drew in a sharp breath as she watched him, her hands trembling uncontrollably. He stood in her old room in their abandoned home, draft and house noise darkening the swirl of memories that drifted through her mind as her eyes wandered through Relda's old things.
Puck's back was to her as he fiddled with trinkets on her desk, ghost like reminiscences of the time before the thirteen year long, and counting, war with the Hand had started. She watched him drag his thumb across the pages of a Family Journal, the paper whirling at his touch, before his shoulders tensed and he set the book down.
"Are you here to kill me, Sabrina?" He asked, not turning around.
Sabrina gripped the knife in her hand, trying to keep the trembling in her voice at bay. "Yes," she bit out, "I am."
"Well, that's unfortunate," he sighed, turning to face her. His face was washed pale from the moon, green eyes a stark contrast against his blonde hair, and at the age of twenty-six he had grown to where he was half a foot taller than her. "And on our anniversary too?"
She narrowed her eyes, voice bitter. "We didn't get married today."
"No," he agreed, leaning back on the desk. "But this was the first day I met you. I remember it clearly."
Sabrina stepped further into the room, keeping the knife in her hand only partially concealed. "Were you working with the Hand back then, too? Or was that after you gained my family's trust?"
He winced, his head ducking for a second before he looked her in the eye, his hair casting his gaze in shadows. "It's not like I had a choice."
"A choice?" She parroted, voice raising and bouncing off the peeling walls. "You had a choice. You didn't have to keep reporting to them everything we were doing; you could have lied! Apparently you're really good at that," She spat.
Puck opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off, "You had a choice to tell us about their plot to kill my sister. You had a choice to save her life!"
He stumbled forward as if he'd been slapped. "Daphne's… dead?"
"An arrow came from nowhere and slammed straight into her heart. She was gone before she hit the ground."
He shook his head, "They never told me what they were planning. If I'd known I would've stopped them!"
"I find that hard to believe considering that you've been working with them since the beginning!" Her hands were shaking in anger as she tried to keep her voice lowered. "All this time you've been stabbing us in the back. We trusted you -I trusted you!"
"I… I'm sorry," He gave a nervous laugh, hand reaching up to his mouth and covering it. "And you know I don't say that unless I have to."
"Are you really going to try and laugh this off?"
"I thought about it. I mean, you're going to kill me anyway, right?"
Sabrina almost lunged at him, but the quiet resignation in his eyes stopped her. "An eye for an eye, Puck. If you hadn't told the Hand where we'd be before you left, Daphne would still be alive."
"I didn't know," Puck said, voice tight in desperation. "You have to believe that!"
Sabrina brought her weapon out to full view, turning the grip over a bit so that the knife was comfortable in her hand. "Why should I believe anything you say when everything's been a lie?"
"Not everything." He took two steps closer to her, his hand reaching out slightly and she could see the glint of the wedding band on his finger.
She pointed the tip of her knife at his chest, the blade hovering inches from his heart. "Don't tell me," she scoffed, "You actually love me?"
"Yes."
She closed the distance between them, the tip of her dagger pressing harmlessly into his shirt and the heat from his ragged breath trembling across her face. "More lies."
"No," Puck shook his head, "I wasn't supposed to fall in love with you. That was a mistake-"
"I'm a mistake?"
"-An accident. And… I'm sorry."
"That doesn't make it better, Puck!" she practically screamed. Her hands started to tremble again, the knife in her grip unsteady as she clenched her teeth. She just had to stab him, a quick jab in and he'd be through. She'd done it plenty of times to plenty of people, and every blow had been a killing one. Yet, no matter how much she wanted to hate him, she couldn't plunge the knife into his heart.
Puck glanced down at the weapon, then back at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears. As if he'd read her mind he whispered: "Do it."
She tried to get a grip on her breathing but her body wasn't responding. The knife stayed, shakily, at the center of his chest.
He stepped closer to her, the tip digging farther into him and making her step back before she drew blood. "Do it." Puck gripped her wrist and tried to move the handle back to his chest. His voice was resigned, it wavered with the tears that glinted in the moonlight that shone through the window. "Do it."
Her eyes started to sting and she tried to hold back her own bitter tears as they threatened to spill down her face. "Why are you here?" She demanded, voice quivering. "You knew I would kill you. Why did you come back?"
His eyes caught her own, his voice so low it felt more like a breath whispered deep inside her chest. "You can't figure that out, Sabrina? You can't?"
"Don't call me that," she threatened, the trembling knife the only thing between them as tears blurred her vision.
"Sabrina-"
"No!" She yelled, voice choked.
And then -as she wanted to hurt him or hold him or do anything to calm the whir of panic inside her chest -he slapped the knife from her grasp and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her to himself. His mouth was on her lips hard and fast, practically inhaling her as he pushed her against the old walls of her forgotten room. It wasn't a gentle, tentative kiss either, like their first had been so many years ago, or even a slightly sad kiss like the one he'd given her before he'd disappeared on the night the Hand had attacked Daphne.
No, this kiss tasted of desperation and regret, of missing her and needing her; and as he pulled her tighter, she needed him right back. His scent was like the forest after it rained, and his lips tasted of everything she'd remembered and more.
For a second she did nothing. Didn't move, didn't breathe. Just tried to sort out her thoughts of how she could hate him and love him so much at the same time.
Then, it didn't matter. He wrapped his arms around her, she curled hers around his shoulders, and she let herself kiss him with everything she wanted and everything she'd lost, deepening her kiss and forgetting how infuriating and hurtful and negligent and-
Oh… oh no.
Sabrina broke the kiss with a gasp, her hand clutching at his face and her eyes alight with fear. Her heart hammered in her chest, echoing in her ears, and her breathing was clipped as she felt his own heart beating just as hard.
He held her tightly, tucking a kiss away at her temple. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry for everything…"
No… no, no, no…
"Puck…" the words died in her throat, choking out everything. A shimmer in the moonlight that streamed through the window made her heart clench, and the pain of indecision ripped her mind to shreds.
He pulled her into a hug, his chin resting on her shoulders, "I'm leaving the Hand, I promise. I don't care what they try and do to me. You're too important and I-"
The window shattered and the sound of a projectile cutting through the air rang into the room, the thud of it hitting its target deafeningly loud.
Puck's body went rigid and he slowly pulled away from her. His green eyes looked at her in confusion, accusation, pain, before he slumped forward and to the floor. An arrow stuck out from his back.
Sabrina stared, frozen, at his body for long time as the trembling in her hands eventually ceased. All the emotions that had swelled in her drained away as her heart shattered, and it was all she could do not to collapse to the ground.
Looking into the hole left in the wake of the arrow, Sabrina saw the shooter. Daphne, grimness and weakness, with her magical bow slung around her shoulder and a large bandage covering the wound from an arrow that had almost hit her heart, stared back with a hard gaze. Sabrina could just make out the tears that caught the moonlight as they fell.
Henry moved from his position down the hall and wrapped his arms around his daughter, averting his eyes from the body that lay on the floor in a gradually growing pool of blood. Sabrina held her tears back and buried her face into her father's shoulder, allowing herself one more moment of weakness before heading back to camp to tell the soldiers of their triumph.
Triumph… that's what it was, wasn't it? The camp would be happy. Heck, she should be happy. The Hand had failed in killing Daphne and had lost its mole, the one thing that had kept them going this whole time.
…But she had lost so much more.
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