Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT and never will blah blah blah you know the drill.
A/N: Apparently the show decided to be funny and give us two consecutive episodes without Red or Ruby in it and then follow that up with a minute's worth of screen time in the next, so I wrote this to fill that Ruby-shaped hole in my life. Also Meghan's booked a pilot, which means potentially even less Ruby to come, and I just can't deal with that.
This is basically my stab at Red backstory and also writing a Red/Granny story because there's not enough of them interacting on the show. It takes place sometime after MM and Emma's return to Storybrooke but before Belle loses her memory. Also I have recently decided that in my headcanon Red's real name is actually Rose. Y'know because Snow White and Rose Red and all that.
Anyway, I've rambled on enough. Enjoy!
"Where's Ruby?" Mary Margaret asked as Granny neared the Charmings' usual booth.
"Hell if I know. You know Ruby... always late," Granny rolled her eyes, though Mary Margaret could hear the underlying affection in her voice. "The usual for everyone?"
"That'd be great," David answered with a smile, and the others nodded to confirm.
Mary Margaret, David, Emma, and Henry began their usual morning conversation as Granny disappeared to get their orders to the morning's chef.
"You know, Emma," Mary Margaret began. "French fries are not breakfast food."
Emma sighed, though Henry giggled appreciatively. Life had been so much simpler without motherly nagging.
David quickly changed the subject to avoid any sort of surly behavior on his daughter's part, and soon Henry was babbling on about his horse and trying to persuade Emma to join him in getting sword lessons from Gramps.
Mary Margaret and Granny exchanged smiles when suddenly Granny's head jerked towards the inn.
"What's wrong?" Mary Margaret asked, concern lacing her features.
"Ruby's back," Granny muttered as she took off.
Mary Margaret followed quickly.
"We stay here," David placed a hand on Emma's arm as she moved to join them.
Emma's eyes narrowed. "I'm the Sheriff. If something's wrong, I should be the one to investigate it."
"Not where Ruby's concerned," her father informed her gently. "Let Mary Margaret handle this."
Granny and Mary Margaret burst into Ruby's room.
"Woah!" Ruby - halfway through changing her shirt - yelped as she quickly held up her new shirt in front of her. "What are you doing?"
"Are you all right?" Mary Margaret asked quickly with Granny's question following quickly behind. "What happened?"
"Nothing," Ruby insisted in a way that told them nothing was actually something. That she was looking unnaturally pale didn't help either. "I'm all right. I just... I was out jogging and lost track of time."
"You lost track of time," Mary Margaret echoed with disbelief. The Ruby she knew was much better at coming up with excuses than that.
Granny's eyes roamed around the room. "I smell blood."
"Granny, I'm fine," Ruby quickly tried to assure her to no avail. As Granny began to track the scent, Ruby moved to stop her only to pause as she realized she was still holding her shirt in front of her. "Don't..."
Mary Margaret interrupted her. "Maybe you should put your shirt on."
"I will when you two leave, which preferably is now." Ruby just wanted the worrying to stop, and if these two found out what happened... well, it would only get worse, and she didn't want that, wasn't even sure she deserved that. She recognized the symbolism, felt perhaps in a twisted way that it was justified.
She deflated when Granny emerged from the bathroom.
Granny looked up in horror, bloody shirt in one hand and two halves of a snapped arrow in the other.
"Silver tipped."
A mere half an hour later, fever had started to set in.
Restless and growing increasingly agitated, Ruby paced about the room, ignoring suggestions from Mary Margaret and Granny that she lie down and take it easy.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Ruby asked suddenly, and it was clear from her angry gaze that her question was directed at Granny.
"Why didn't I tell you what?"
"About being a wolf."
"Ruby," Granny sighed sadly. She couldn't even begin to formulate a proper answer. There was so much to say, and yet none of it seemed right.
"If you'd told me, I wouldn't have eaten Peter." Ruby's accusatory tone was scathing.
"She was trying to protect you," Mary Margaret stepped in, trying to spare Granny from Ruby's wrath.
"Right," Ruby snarled. "Because I'm going to listen to the reason I killed my mother."
"Red," the former princess pleaded, the fairy tale land nickname slipping subconsciously between her lips.
"You are not my family."
And though she knew Ruby was not herself, Mary Margaret flinched. Perhaps this room wasn't the best place for her to be, not if all she was accomplishing was to make Ruby more agitated. "I... I'm going to go help David and Emma with the... I'm going to go help them."
As Mary Margaret fled the room, Granny looked back at her granddaughter. "Ruby -"
"You can leave too," the young woman snapped.
But Granny didn't leave. Eventually Ruby worked herself into such a state that she nearly fainted and finally acquiesced as Granny led her to bed.
Ruby whimpered.
Granny watched sadly as her granddaughter tossed fitfully in her sleep, and she thought back to the night she had taken over Ruby's care.
"What happened?" Granny asked as she stared at the blood-soaked woman in front of her. "I could smell the blood miles away."
During the nights of wolfstime, Rose's parents would take her over to Granny's, so she could look after the baby while they roamed around the woods in their wolf forms. The two women stood now in Granny's cottage, Anita dripping blood onto the floor and Granny half-way between concern and terror.
"Hunters."
"And my son?"
Anita's lack of response said it all.
"No," Granny whispered mournfully.
"He was too soft." Anita's voice was half exasperation, half despair. "He refused to harm the humans."
Having grown up entirely human, Granny immediately said, "We are humans."
"We are wolves," Anita barked back. "The humans don't understand us, but it doesn't matter anymore. I slaughtered them all."
And though she couldn't say she was entirely against revenge on her son's behalf, Granny asked, "To what end?"
"To what end?" Anita echoed with disbelief. "They were hunting us, and they will continue hunting us. I eliminated the threat."
Granny shook her head. "You've only ensured that they won't stop hunting you."
"Then I will kill the next set of hunters they send along," Anita vowed resolutely.
"And if Rose is a wolf?"
"There is no doubt she is one, and when it emerges, I will be there to guide it."
"Guide it... the same way you guide yours?"
Anita responded with an unabashed, "Yes."
"You will guide her to kill?" It was everything Granny didn't want for Rose. How could Anita?
"It is necessary."
"You will not raise my granddaughter in this way."
"That is not up to you." Anita began to walk away, heading for the room she knew her baby would be in.
Behind her, Granny continued to protest. "I will not have Rose growing up in bloodshed and..."
"Like I said, that is not up to - " She stopped abruptly when a silver arrow appeared in her field of view.
"Leave," Granny commanded. "And don't come back."
Anita's eyes flashed yellow, and she glared angrily at the woman standing beside her. She had just lost her husband, and now this infernal woman wanted her to give up her baby girl? The wolf in her considered attacking, but chances were the women would accomplish nothing more than killing each other and leaving Rose without a caretaker.
Reluctantly, Anita turned and stormed out the door.
Granny exhaled sharply. Putting her bow away, she headed into the bedroom to find baby Rose awake and standing in her crib.
"Mama?"
Wide, hazel eyes looked up at her.
"No, baby," Granny said lifting the toddler into her arms. "It's just Granny now."
When Granny'd heard about Anita's death, she'd been horrified to say the least. In reality, what she'd felt - that terrible mixture of horror, guilt, despair, and anger amongst other things - couldn't be put into words.
In the present, her own words floated back to her: "I am a fool, and I have cost so many lives."
She hadn't known then that one of those lives would be Anita's, but then again what was that saying from this world? Hindsight is 20/20?
"Mama," Ruby mumbled, pulling Granny out of her thoughts. Her granddaughter's voice was young, childish, and tore Granny's heart into a thousand pieces.
For a period of time after Anita left, Rose would look up at her grandmother with big hopeful eyes and ask for her parents. She never cried, never demanded to see them, never blamed her grandmother. She would just ask, head tilted just so giving her a puppyish appearance. That Rose didn't know her grandmother was partly to blame for her absent parents made her feel even guiltier.
Granny buried her head in her hands. She couldn't bear to lose her granddaughter too.
Granny stretched as she stared at the clock.
The afternoon sun shone brightly through the window, a sign of the hours that had flown by.
A lot had happened in that time. Belle had wrangled Mr. Gold into providing a cure. Mary Margaret, David, and Emma had caught the culprit: a teenage boy originally from Red's village whose father had been killed by Red's uncontrolled wolf long ago. It made sense, Granny supposed. In this world, there were much easier ways of killing a person. Only a victim of the wolf would take the time and effort to find or make a silver arrow in Storybrooke.
"Granny?"
Granny grinned widely. "You're awake."
Ruby tried to get up only to falter and groan.
"Don't get up," Granny rebuked her gently, as she helped her back down. "How are you feeling?"
"Slightly fuzzy," her granddaughter replied, and Granny couldn't help but think there was a wolf joke in there. Fortunately for Ruby, Granny didn't take advantage of the opportunity having been a wolf herself once upon a time. Instead she took one of her granddaughter's hands in her own.
Gazing blearily up at her grandmother's face, Ruby asked, "What happened?"
"How much do you remember?"
"I was out jogging and... got hit by... an arrow?" Ruby slowly responded, her mind trying to piece together the morning's events.
Granny nodded.
"Who...? Why?"
"Now's not the time for that," Granny deflected. If she knew her granddaughter (and she was pretty sure that she did), Ruby would take the identity of her attacker pretty hard. Red had never truly forgiven herself for all the innocent lives she'd taken, and Granny predicted Ruby would sympathize with this boy and feel guilty for ruining his life twice over now as he would undoubtedly be sent to jail. As Ruby looked up at her with as much suspicion as she could muster, Granny continued, "I'll tell you later. I promise. No more secrets."
"I'm sorry," Ruby said quietly as Granny's last words triggered a memory.
Granny immediately shook her head. "You have nothing to be sorry for."
"I'm sorry for what I said," Ruby pressed on. "About you and Mary Margaret..."
"I know, baby," Granny soothed, using the term of endearment she hadn't used since Ruby was just that. "And Mary Margaret knows that too. You should get some more rest."
"Stay?" Ruby mumbled as she began to drift off.
"Always."
fin
Thanks for reading!