Notes: Here is the next chapter, this time from Ruby's perspective. Enjoy! Next on in a few days.

Standard Disclaimer: The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Also, please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately so I can correct them; you will be doing me a great service!

Chapter 3 – A Bad Day Gets Worse

It had been a very bad day for Ruby Lucas. Things began going sideways from the moment she rolled out of bed last night and they had not improved very much since, which would have made for a very long and trying night at the station even if things had been normal – which they were not. Rubbing her forehead tiredly as she leaned over her desk, Ruby wished for all the world that she could just have a do over.

First of all because she was working far too much of late, she was still bone weary when she woke up. Wanting nothing more than to sleep away another half day, the simple act of peeling her eyelids open had required more effort than ever before. The only way she was able to motivate herself to move at all was by remembering the objective she was striving toward, and that rest would come later after it was achieved.

Without even bothering to leave the comforting warmth of the bed, she sluggishly fetched her phone from the nightstand. Upon checking it, she noticed a text from Granny that came in while she was asleep, informing her that yet another wolf was found dead near the dens to the south of town.

For the past six months and change the wolves of Storybrooke were being preyed upon by a very skilled poacher who was for some unknown reason collecting only the canines and leaving the carcasses behind otherwise undisturbed. The senseless slaughter seemed to serve no purpose, which made it all the more infuriating.

As a werewolf, Ruby considered the wolves to be kindred of sorts, so she took their deaths personally. With each new incident, her anger mounted, lingering for days and keeping her awake at night, wondering what could possess someone to be so needlessly cruel. Over time, the mystery came to occupy a fair portion of her free time, which she utilized to hunt for the perpetrator on her own. For countless hours she had searched, roving the forests relentlessly in her pursuit, yet even in her wolf form she had been unable to ferret out the culprit. Her lack of progress served as a source of immense frustration. The wolves needed her help and the shameful fact that she was unable to give it made her feel like a complete failure.

And then to compound her general misery of late, there was also the fact that two months worth of working two jobs – both of which could be in very high stress environments – was beginning to exact a marked toll on both her mind and body. Increasingly tired all hours of the day, uncharacteristically short-tempered, and emotions unpredictable at best, she felt as if her life had become a perpetual flight aboard a stunt plane, haywire and frantic and with little rhyme or reason.

As if that weren't bad enough, her precious time alone with Regina had been limited to the every other weekend Henry stayed with Emma, which is not to say that she begrudged her girlfriend whatever time with her son she could get. She didn't. Quite the opposite in fact.

Ruby loved spending time with Henry and Regina as a family unit. Some of the best times of her life were had during outings in which they simply enjoyed each others company on an outdoor adventure. Whether horseback riding or swimming in the ocean or Ruby's personal favorite, ice skating under a gently falling shower of snow, sharing those life affirming experiences with the people she loved most gave her a sense of fulfillment that little else could.

And even when they just decided to lounge around at home instead of going out, they found ways to have fun. Playing board games was a particular joy, especially when Regina was losing and got all adorably flustered. One thing Ruby could say she knew about Regina Mills was that the woman hated to lose – at anything really – so whenever she fell behind Ruby or Henry in a game of Monopoly or even a stake-free game of Gin Rummy, she became extra competitive and really buckled down on her focus in order to, as she described it, "wrest victory from the jaws of defeat." Ruby thought it especially cute how she would knit her brows together and worry her lips as she studied her hand.

Sometimes Regina would get so lost in concentration that she would poke her tongue out, completely unaware that she was doing it. Whenever that happened, Ruby and Henry would trade conspiratorial grins with one another while she wasn't looking, enjoying the brief glimpse into the less buttoned up version of the woman they both adored. It was the little things like that which made her feel like she was part of something real and vital, something bigger than herself that she had been missing for most of her life.

Because Granny was only one woman and had worked so much, she had little time for frivolous things like playing games. As a consequence, Ruby had grown up, much like Regina had, not knowing the carefree joys of being a child. Youth in the Enchanted Forest could be harsh even for members of the upper crust, and in ways that children in this world could comprehend due to the general abundance they so took for granted.

For instance, isolated as Granny kept them, Ruby had no peers to play with as a child, and to entertain herself had resorted to venturing through the woods with only the animals for company. Her four legged friends served as companions of a sort, but the dearth of human companionship created a void in her life she hadn't known was there until Snow hid in Granny's chicken coop. Once, Snow had remarked about how sheltered Ruby was, and though it embarrassed her, she couldn't refute the truth that she was a poor and backward girl who hadn't even tasted a cultivated strawberry until Granny made a little extra money the summer of her fifteenth year and had decided to splurge for them both. And though Regina had lived a very comfortable life relative to Ruby, she had suffered her own hardships as well.

It was due to this lack in their own childhoods Regina made a concerted effort to set aside time for such things with Henry, which Ruby wholeheartedly supported. And even though it meant they had to sacrifice time together to do so, as far as Ruby was concerned, the memories she gained from every single activity made it all worthwhile. Henry was worth it.

And besides, it wasn't as if it had been a secret that Regina was a package deal. Ruby had known going into things that a relationship with Regina meant sharing her life with Henry also. Under the Curse, the thought of joining a ready made family would have given her ample cause to run for the hills, but having since been a sideline observer to the complex but meaningful relationship between Henry and Regina, she found that the idea was not so distasteful as it once would have been. In fact, the challenge was one she had been prepared to accept, and had done so eagerly.

With the passage of time, she grew increasingly glad she had made that brave choice, especially since Henry turned out to be so much more fun than he was when she used to babysit him. That Henry had been withdrawn and sullen, still caught between his warring mothers. But as a young man who had at last found his place in the world, he lost enough of his introversion to extend his comfort zone for her sake, something she was more than glad to reciprocate.

Though Henry was a bookish boy who preferred reading his comics or playing video games to an afternoon traipsing through the woods, he accommodated Ruby's outgoing, adventurous side by accompanying her without complaint. In fact, most of the time he had just as much fun as she did, and in doing so learned that he was not quite so athletically hopeless as he had once thought himself to be.

At the same time, Ruby made sure to practice up on Henry's favorite video games and spent endless hours catching up on all the comics he was interested in so that she could engage him whenever she could by indulging in lengthy discussions about who the greatest Avenger was or by having marathon gaming sessions with him that lasted well beyond bedtime (which Regina would invariably chastise them both for, and Ruby in particular because she was the adult and ought to know better). It did not take long at all for Ruby to consider Henry a part of her pack, one of her own. She loved him with the same ferocity as she did his mother.

Still, despite the fact that she harbored no regrets about choosing a woman who already had a kid, after two weeks with no sex, she had accumulated a debt of ache that was screaming to be relieved. Her need for Regina that was always there, present but tolerable because they were together so often, now seemed to have grown nearly intolerable, serving as a source of distraction that she could not afford when going out on a call with Emma.

The entire purpose of her taking a second job was to save up for a very important purchase that she was deliberately keeping secret, but she had never imagined that it would nearly ruin her sex life. Yet it very nearly had. Weeks had passed since she was last intimate with Regina and she was starting to get desperate. That she had held out as long as she had was only because it was not a wholly unfamiliar feeling.

Even though Ruby had always run a little hot blooded (which Peter could have attested to had she not eaten him alive), while on the run with Snow, she was forced to learn how to deny herself for extended periods of time. Feeling as if she owed it to her friend to provide protection to the best of her ability, she set aside her own needs, a sacrifice that Snow could not have understood at the time being as pure as she was.

To compensate, Ruby would spend Wolf's Time running almost non-stop, hoping to burn off her desires through draining herself physically. While it worked for the most part, sometimes the pent up energy would accumulate to an extent that even running herself ragged during Wolf's Time could not fully expend it. In a comprise with herself, she developed casual relationships with a few understanding lovers over the years that she could visit when her needs became unbearable.

Apparently her healthy sexual appetite had translated through the Dark Curse to an extremely exaggerated degree that she would never be able to account for, resulting in Ruby Lucas, the town's resident slut. In Storybrooke, her cursed self was well known not only for her gaudy dress and contentious relationship with her grandmother, but also for her unbridled passions and crazy excesses during the days leading up to the full moon.

Usually during those days, Ruby wound up at The Rabbit Hole where she would proceed to drink herself into a stupor and then pick out the most attractive person she could find to go home with. On the occasions she could remember the events the next day, she would revel in her freedom and the memories of some very, very good sex, but more often than she liked to admit, upon waking the next day in some strange bed she would be unable to remember what had happened and would slink home in shame.

And though those urges remained when the Curse broke, Regina had very fortuitously cursed them into a land that was remarkably liberated and impressively inventive where sex was concerned. In the years that followed, Ruby managed to make due by taking care of the excessive tension on her own through leveraging those boons, but once she became intimate with Regina, such measure were no longer needed. Under the skilled diligence of the Queen, those urges fled to the background of her consciousness, no longer perpetually pressing in on her as they once did.

Unlike Ruby's other sexual partners, Regina was the kind of woman took care of her lover in every way possible, and to Ruby's delight, she plied her efforts in ways that Ruby had never imagined were possible. In Regina she had found an addiction from which she would never fully recover, as every touch was like fire upon her skin and every kiss from like oxygen, sparking up an inferno in her heart that never seemed to wane. A simple smile from Regina was adequate to fill Ruby with warmth from head to toe and one heated gaze from those dark, expressive brown eyes was enough to leave her jelly-legged and breathless with anticipation. Hell, just hearing the woman's voice all smoky and sultry could work Ruby up to the point of discomfort, even when passing through the sound distorting speaker of a phone. And the worst part was that the wicked temptress knew exactly what she was doing and enjoyed every moment of it.

But above all, far beyond how much Ruby desired and longed for her better half, she loved being loved by Regina. Never in her life had anyone loved her the way that Regina did, and as a matter of fact, she didn't believe it was humanly possible for anyone else to live up to the august standards her Queen had set. As such, Ruby considered herself practically ruined for anyone else, because no one else could give her what Regina could: fulfillment in body, mind, heart, and soul. The plain fact of the matter was that she needed Regina much more than Regina had ever needed her, and likely always would. And while she probably should not be okay with that, she was.

Thus the source her infinite frustration. Regina's love was her own personal slice of heaven and she had been denied it for far too long. The typically iron grip she kept on her temper was beginning to slip, so it was just a matter of time before she lost control of completely, and when factoring in the impending full moon in 2 days time with the fact that her working two jobs was a choice and not an absolute necessity, Ruby knew she wouldn't last much longer. If she wanted to prevent a total meltdown, she was going to have to find a way to spend more time together as a couple, for Regina's sake particularly, if not for her own.

The only saving grace of the present trial was Regina's remarkable patience, and really, Ruby could not have asked for more from her girlfriend. As she admirably tolerated the excessive time apart, Regina had also demonstrated enormous restraint in putting up with Ruby's increasingly erratic moods. It was a kindness Ruby would never forget, though she knew Regina deserved better. As it was, she hated that she was asking so much of her girlfriend, but were it not for how important her end goal was, she would have caved long ago. Now that she was so invested in her course of action, all she could do now was make things work however she could, whatever she had to do, and hope that Regina would not lose her patience altogether before it was over.

People had accused Ruby of being many things during her life, and she was many of things things, but she was no fool. It was increasingly obvious that Regina was beginning to grow tired of both the bristly behavior she was having to endure from Ruby and more specifically, the extended absences that were keeping them apart. As evidence of that fact, more and more often Ruby was finding herself on the receiving end of frightening glimpses into the Queen's legendary temper.

Life in Storybrooke and raising a child had taught Regina the very difficult lessons of patience, but even though she had changed since her days as the Evil Queen, Ruby knew that her girlfriend's volcanic anger always bubbled beneath the surface, ready to spill over at a moment's notice. Eruptions didn't happen very often, but when they did, Ruby typically got seared by the unbridled heat of Regina's rage. While enduring such assaults, she often thought that it was a good thing she was as tough and stubborn as Regina was, else she might have broken under some of the pointedly cruel barbs that Regina thrust her way. The fights never lasted for long, but they left an impression on Ruby that made her skittish when Regina was clearly teetering on the edge, which she had been the previous night.

Under normal circumstances, 11 pm would have been the time in which they would be snuggling up together in bed, but since the odd hours at the Station kicked in, Regina would typically spend a few minutes talking before Ruby headed off to work. Last night, however, had been far from typical. After receiving Granny's text, Ruby had flopped back into bed and dozed off once again, but was aroused by the sound of the bedroom door closing. Instead of being met with her girlfriend's lovingly patient smile, Ruby was met instead with a frigid and angry gaze that was very reminiscent of days gone by.

Hoping to avoid confrontation, Ruby tried to play the innocent victim card, but the gambit hadn't worked. Regina just stood there implacably, leveling her with that withering, patently lethal glare that could reduce steel to liquid and which never failed to twist her insides into knots.

"C'mon, Regina, don't be mad," she had whined with a sleep roughened voice, holding the covers up to her chest as if to shield herself from her girlfriend's very justified anger. "It's not as if I like this any more than you do. I want nothing more than to stay here with you tonight."

"Then why won't you?" was Regina's terse rejoinder.

Ruby just shrugged evasively as she tossed the covers aside and then swung her legs off the side of the bed. Fixing her eyes downward to avoid all eye contact, she toed the cold surface of the highly polished hardwood covering their bedroom floor, intent on continuing her prevarication. While she couldn't see the look that crossed Regina's face at the unsubtle deflection, she was not shielded from feeling Regina's eyes burning holes in the side of her head.

Truth be told, the circumvention was getting old for Ruby as well, but it was a necessary evil for at least another week. And yet she also knew that nothing outside of the whole truth would pacify Regina's discontented aggravation. Caught in what she felt was an impossible situation, she was reduced to forlorn acceptance to stay the course no matter how angry her girlfriend got. Having managed to keep her secret for this long, she was not about to give in so tantalizingly close to the finish line.

"You know I can't answer that right now," she had then sighed, running her hands through her hair which was pathetically messy from having fallen into bed without bothering to pull it into even a haphazard ponytail. "For the moment, I need this job, and I need for you to trust me when I say it's for a good reason."

When Ruby had finally chanced glancing up, Regina's face was twisted in barely restrained fury. The vein in her forehead prominently pulsated as an indication to the severity of her temper. Ruby was almost cowed by the sight into whimpering out a confession, but held back, reminding herself that the end goal was so close that she could almost touch it.

"Oh, please," Regina then spat, her dark eyes smoldering as if made of coal. "We both know we've no need of the additional income. It's not even necessary for you to work at the diner. I make more than enough to comfortably support our family."

Having lived with the woman for 3 years, Ruby had known Regina was baiting a reaction by pecking at a sore spot. Their wage disparity was something Ruby struggled with from time to time. While she was beyond happy with Regina and well-adjusted to their lifestyle, she was still human. Her pride compelled her to continue working lest she feel like a mooch or even worse, a kept woman. Sadly, the comment worked as intended.

Ruby found herself almost growling as she shot off the bed to stand in front of Regina. Almost in her face, she then shot back, "That's not the point and you damn well know it!"

The stress and guilt of her secret had temporarily eaten away at her reserves of control, resulting in an outburst that was as idiotic as it was brave. Though confident in Regina's abiding love, Ruby had not forgotten the Queen who lived somewhere inside her, and no matter how tolerant Regina was with those she loved, the Queen was not someone to be trifled with. In that moment Ruby had realized that she was closer to standing before Queen Regina than she had been in over 30 years.

Upon her subsequent realization of her position and of the way she had spoken, she clamped back down on her emotions tightly. Regina, however, was still feeling confrontational.

"I do know that!" was the almost shouted response. Regina then paused to take in a deep breath as she pinched the bridge of her nose between the thumb and index finger of her left hand. Letting it drop, she regarded Ruby with a mountain of hurt in her eyes that did not belong to the Queen at all, but to a confused and worried woman who did not understand why her partner was pulling away from her. Seeing it up close filled Ruby with inexpressible shame. "I both recognize and respect your need to be active and productive," she then went on. "That's why I hold my peace...to accommodate you. But honestly, Ruby, what you're doing right now is ridiculous. My patience is wearing thin."

Ruby hadn't known what to say, so she had stood there like the idiot that she was, pleading for understanding through liquid green eyes. Regina had merely shook her head in resignation, sighing heavily as she moved over to the bed and plopped down on the corner of the mattress.

"You say to trust you, Ruby, and I do. That is all I've done for the past 3 years," she added after a moment, her voice inflected with a sad resignation that revealed the depth of her sadness and weariness. Ruby's heart clenched knowing she was the cause of it all. And then Regina looked up at her with tears in her eyes. "I love you, but you've got to consider things from my perspective. Our life together is...has been so good. You make me happy every single day, unbelievably so in fact. I thought we had reached a place in our relationship that I didn't think it possible for me to arrive at with anyone.

"But then, out of the blue, you mysteriously need to take a second job. You won't tell me why, and you're being evasive whenever I remotely press you about it. We barely get to see each other anymore other than the weekends and the goodbye kisses as we pass each other like ships in the night. We haven't made love in weeks, Ruby, so what am I supposed to think? Because I feel like I'm losing you and I really don't want this to be going the direction that I'm afraid it is."

Upon deciphering Regina's subtle implications, Ruby had blanched. "No. No, no, no!" she blurted out as she scrambled over to her downtrodden girlfriend, half-panicked at the intimation that she was hiding an affair. Gingerly kneeling down before Regina, Ruby knitted their fingers together. "Please, don't think that! I'd never cheat on you. Never. You believe that, don't you?"

Regina did not answer audibly, but rather looked at Ruby with pain-laden eyes that were now swimming with tears. Clearly she had been trying to rein in her emotions but was having little success, and the struggle rent at her resolve.

At that moment, Ruby felt as low as perhaps she ever had since the day she had slaughtered a helpless Peter. That, however, had been very much involuntary while her current situation was by choice, and that had made it so much worse. No one had forced her down the path she was taking. She had chosen it freely, and in doing so hurt the one person she loved more than anything and anyone else in the world. It ate her up inside knowing that her voluntary actions had caused the love of her life to feel so insecure as to doubt her fidelity. And considering Regina's very understandable trust issues, the duplicity was doubly affecting.

After placing lingering kisses on each of Regina's hands, Ruby gazed up at the person her heart beat for, baring her soul through her expression and willing Regina to recognize the depths of her feelings.

"There's no one else, Regina," she had earnestly declared. "I love you, and only you, with all of my heart and all of my soul. I swear it by my very life. I could never love anyone else after having been loved by you. You're it for me. This job is temporary, but this?" She gestured between herself and her distraught girlfriend. "Us? I want us to be forever. I'm in this for the long haul, so please believe me when I say that I will make this right. One more week and I promise it'll be over. Just be patient with me for a little while longer. Do you think you can do that?"

Regina had looked at her with a measure of hesitance in her eyes that Ruby had not witnessed in a very, very long time, which made her quite deservedly feel like the world's biggest heel.

"Only one more week?" Regina asked, her tone inflected with hope, though it remained skeptical.

Nodding enthusiastically, Ruby replied: "One more week, then I'll be back to the boring old waitress you know and love."

In response, Regina had worried her lip adorably and then nodded in acceptance. She sniffled as she wiped at her eyes.

"You're never boring, dear." Though the smile on her face was a weak one, Ruby clung to it for all she was worth. She was living on hope lately, so she needed all she could get. "But, I think I can do that," Regina then said, giving a sharp nod. "One more week, but that's it. After that, things have to change."

Instead of replying, Ruby slowly leaned in, giving Regina time to decide if she was amenable to acts of affection at the moment. To her pleasant surprise, there was no hesitation to her advance, and they shared a sweet, fulfilling kiss that made the tips of her ears tingle. But as she had tilted her head to deepen it, her cellphone inopportunely chimed.

Forced to part from Regina, Ruby gave a groan of utter frustration. After giving her girlfriend an apologetic smile, she then stood and retrieved her phone from the nightstand. Upon glancing down at the text on the screen, she groaned yet again.

"It's Emma."

Regina sighed loudly through her nose and averted her eyes. "You had better hurry up then. You don't want to keep Miss Swan waiting."

Unwilling to part with things still so tentative between them, Ruby took Regina's hand and knelt before her girlfriend once more. Biting her lip with worry, she studied Regina's eyes, finding them shuttered off. It worried her. "Are we okay?" she asked, not bothering to hide her fear.

"Yes, we're okay," Regina answered after a deep breath through her nostrils. Though her face was a bit less strained and more open, her tone reflected a latent wariness that would take time to fade. It made Ruby a bit wary to leave with things as they were, but she reminded herself that in a weeks time, everything would get better. Or so she hoped. "Just be careful and get plenty of rest tomorrow afternoon. As you know, it's Henry's weekend with Miss Swan and I have plans for us. I'd hate for you to be too worn out to enjoy them."

Grinning at the innuendo, Ruby leaned in for another lingering kiss before sauntering over to the bathroom to get changed. Lingering in the doorway, she turned back for one moment. "Wouldn't miss it for the world." With a parting wink, she then moved into the bathroom to get ready for work.

About fifteen minutes later, Ruby emerged to find Regina curled up on her side, the covers drawn up to her neck. The deep, even rhythm of her breathing told Ruby she was sleeping, but it was anything but peaceful judging by the telling creases of stress that were prominently displayed on her forehead. Even in her sleep, Regina was worrying about her, and although Ruby was aware that stressing to the extreme was a part Regina's nature, knowing that did nothing to alleviate her guilt.

Unable to curtail the re-emergence of her self-loathing, Ruby lingered at the foot of the bed. Sure, they had sort of hashed things out for the moment, and Ruby believed that Regina still trusted her, but she hated the continued secrecy, particularly knowing how badly secrets had hurt Regina in the past.

Still, the temporary pain they were both being put through was not without reason. There was an underlying purpose, a lofty goal driving her actions, one which Ruby hoped would prove to be worth the mess she had made of things. It was with that thought in mind that she was at last able to force herself to move. She set out for her shift at the Station soon after.

As she drove through town, Ruby had prayed for an easy night, but sadly fate had other plans. Although Emma's text had told her to hurry up, Ruby had just figured that her friend and co-worker was bored and wanting for company, which was nothing unusual of late. Things had been relatively quiet at the station during Ruby's tenure there. In fact, there hadn't been any major problems in Storybrooke for almost a year, not since Jafar had escaped his prison and managed to worm his way into Storybrooke searching for Will Scarlet.

Aside from external threats, Storybrooke was a relatively small town, so there was not a lot of crime committed that warranted lengthy investigations. As was par for the course with any population of human beings, there was petty crime here and there, but because Emma was very good at her job, it was dealt with rather expeditiously. And with Ruby's keen senses now at her disposal, the speed at which they caught criminals had only increased. Somewhat unfortunately that often left a Sheriff and her deputy with very little to do.

As such, it had been well within the realm of likelihood that Emma's text was merely a product of her boredom. In fact, it wouldn't have surprised Ruby at all if Emma had been reduced to playing trashketball while waiting for her to come in to work so she would have someone to talk to. While it would have annoyed Ruby that her moment with Regina was interrupted by Emma's lack of self-control, almost anything would have been better than what followed.

From the moment she walked through the glass doors of the Station, her already inauspicious day was immediately worsened by an order of magnitude. As soon as she entered the building, her ears had been assaulted by a sound so obnoxious it could only have one source: Leroy and his cohorts. Surely enough, he and half the other dwarves were in cells, drunk as skunks and rowdy after a night at the bar to celebrate Doc's hatching day.

Inside the confines of the station the outrageous noises produced by shouting, agitated, angry, and inebriated dwarves was nearly deafening, which explained why Emma was literally banging her head against her desk in exasperation when Ruby came in. The sight would have been comical if the cacophony of 4 drunken dwarves was not so maddening to her extra sensitive ears. As it was, there was no humor to be found in the situation.

For nearly two hours after that, they had been forced to listen to the seemingly endless arguing. Nothing worked to quiet the dwarves, and they had tried every conceivable tactic, including resorting to threats of additional of jail time and implicating impending physical violence. Ruby had even not-so-subtly implied that she was about to unleash her alter ego if they didn't shut the hell up. It was all to no avail. The dwarves continued cursing and arguing for over an hour without interruption until they suddenly and mercifully passed out.

Grateful for the reprieve, she and Emma shared an impromptu celebratory dance, prancing enthusiastically though quietly about the Station in a bout of immaturity that would have had Regina's eyes rolling in haughty disgust. But the victory was short lived, for soon thereafter the snoring started. Now, the sound of one dwarf snoring was enough to rattle a sane person, but the simultaneous snores of four drunken dwarves was utterly intolerable. The ungodly nature of the racket had both women pulling at their hair before Emma regained enough of her wits to suggest they put in earplugs.

And then about 30 minutes later, an emergency call came in. After that, things got serious in a hurry. As it turned out, someone had robbed the new 24/7 convenience store that a man named Cienzo had built after being brought over in Snow's much tamer version of the Dark Curse. The robber had shot the night manager, Evan Waters, and then fled the scene. Because Emma needed Ruby to investigate with her, she had been forced to call her father in to watch the Station and the unconscious dwarves held inside.

The 10 hours that followed after arriving at the scene were long and tedious. The crime scene was fairly grizzly as far as crime scenes go in Storybrooke. In addition to the shattered glass panes of the storefront, the entire area of the cash register was in complete disarray and there was blood all over the counter and puddled on the floor behind it where Waters had fallen. Whoever had robbed the store had only taken as much food as a they could carry, leaving behind all the money in the till and several isles full of discarded wrappers and broken jars. The evidence led Emma to the initial conclusion that it was the work of a desperate amateur, which would later be proven as accurate.

After collecting all of the evidence, Ruby put her wolf senses to work and began sniffing out the offender's scent in order to track his movements as best she could. A tiresome search ensued which lead them all over Storybrooke. The shooter had taken an extremely convoluted route through town that cut through darkened alleyways, avoided areas of high activity, and eventually lead them through a couple of sparsely populated neighborhoods. The intelligently planned route revealed that the perpetrator was both practiced at remaining hidden and adept operating in the shadows.

The search itself wound up taking almost 7 hours, as they were required to interview every possible witness along the way. As suspected, no one had seen anything. Eventually though, the trail Ruby was tracking lead them to an old abandoned farmhouse about half a mile from Zelena's place.

When they arrived there were signs of squatting everywhere around the property, which indicated that someone had been living there for quite some time. The well lived in state of the house blindsided both Ruby and Emma since they both had assumed that the Merry Men were keeping a loose watch on the area. Still, since the place was in a very remote location, they were able reconciled their surprise rather quickly.

After searching the house and finding nothing, their last hope was the storm cellar much like the one on Zelena's property in which she had kept Rumplestiltskin captive. When they breached it, they found their culprit. To their equal shock and dismay, it turned out to be a young boy no older than 10 or 11, painfully scrawny, dirty, and bedraggled, with tattered clothes, dirt-smudged skin, and sad, old, world-weary eyes. It had not been easy on either Ruby or Emma to arrest him, but they had no choice since it was clear he had committed the crime by the blood on his clothes and the discarded food wrappers all around the cellar. Seeing as he was just a kid, though, they took him in as gently as possible.

When they got the kid back to the station and began to question him, he folded with little resistance. It was understandable. He was scared and tired and all alone. As he related his story, Ruby was nearly reduced to tears, and she could tell that it was having an even greater effect on Emma.

They boy's name was Christopher and he was a former Lost Boy who came to Storybrooke after the affair in Neverland. One night while Pan was distracted he had managed to sneak away from camp. After making his way to the dock where Hook had anchored the Jolly Roger, he hid below decks, secretly stowing away until the party returned victorious.

Once the ship had docked in Storybrooke, Christopher waited two days before disembarking to avoid capture and slipped away into the forest as quickly as he could. He had been in hiding ever since. As the days, weeks, months, and years passed, the kid had somehow managed to scrape and claw out a living on his own by stealing and scrounging for his basic necessities. In the process of relating his woeful tale, he admitted to squatting at several other locations before he stumbled across the abandoned farmhouse about six months ago.

As far as the shooting went, Christopher explained that at that point, he hadn't eaten in a week and was desperate. During one of his initial excursions about the farmhouse, he had discovered a gun hidden underneath a loose floor panel in the bedroom, and that day he had taken it with him on impulse, not expecting to use it.

No one had been at the counter when he arrived at the store, so he went about stealing as much food as he could carry. He hadn't known that Waters was merely in the back doing inventory, so when the man returned to the front, he interrupted the theft and sprang at the boy. Out of a desperate instinct of self-preservation, Christopher had reacted and shot him. Scared out of his mind, he gathered up the food and bolted.

It was at times such as hearing Christopher's story that Ruby did not envy Emma's career choice. The job of catching criminals was hard enough when dealing with wicked people, but when it came to cases like that of a stowaway Lost Boy just trying to survive, it was tough to garner any sense of satisfaction at pursuing justice. In such situations, justice seemed like such a subjective term that it lost potency.

As far as Emma was concerned, she seemed to deal with the difficulties well for the most part, though that incessant pain in her eyes never went away. Emma's personal experiences during her childhood had colored nearly every interaction with the boy, and it hurt Ruby to see her friend go through such turmoil and be unable to help.

Over the years, Emma had confided a lot of things to Ruby, but even as close as they became she remained closed off about her time in the foster system. She had bravely tried to remain detached as Christopher related his heartbreaking version of events, but there was no hiding the depth of her sympathy for the boy. After all, Emma knew firsthand the pain and loneliness that could drive a person to such extreme acts of desperation.

And though neither of them wanted to punish Christopher for acting on pure instinct, their hand was forced. As unintentional as it was and as understandable as the kid's motives were, he had shot a man, and because of that was facing severe consequences. The only positive about the situation was that the night manager made it through surgery, thus things were not compounded.

After the questioning was concluded, Emma, Ruby, and David convened to discuss at length what course to take. The conversation that followed was highly uncomfortable for them all. Having understood that while Christopher had certainly done something terribly wrong, what had happened to him was almost equally horrible. So the question they wrestled with was how could such a young kid be punished for something largely beyond his control? Christopher had not been asked to be abducted by Pan's Shadow, hadn't asked to be kept against his will in Neverland so long that his family was long since dead. Christopher was a victim every bit as much as Evan Waters, if not even more so. It was wrong that he had been put in the position he was in the first place and seemed equally as wrong to condemn him for being a casualty of his own circumstances. As Granny loved to tell Ruby after an inappropriate reaction to something bad happening, "two wrongs don't make a right, girl." Colloquial wisdom was Granny's specialty, but in Christopher's case, it seemed especially relevant.

Unfortunately, beyond their shared sympathy for the boy, there was no consensus to be found, for it seemed there was no good solution available to the dilemma they had been presented with. There was, however, a less savory solution that David brought up. Due to the indisputable fact that Storybrooke lacked the proper facilities and resources to truly help the kid, and since the barrier around the town was safely permeable, the option was available to send him away to a state juvenile facility.

"What would happen to him then, though?" Emma had pointedly asked. After letting the point sink in for a few moments, she then went on to remind them that the world outside of Storybrooke could be cold, cruel, and merciless to an orphaned child, a painful allusion to her own personal familiarity with both the foster and criminal justice systems. As such, that option had seemed almost unconscionable, yet no viable alternatives were presenting themselves.

Ruby had recognized as time wore on with no clear answers that this was a case that required input outside of the three of them. At her suggestion, they had agreed to directly address the town council in an attempt to seek better localized solutions for non-law abiding citizens of the town, such as a penitentiary and a rehabilitation program for juvenile youth. For now, however, they decided that the only palatable option for Christopher was for him to go back to the farmhouse where Will Scarlett and the Merry Men could watch over him, so having thus decided, they immediately contacted Will and Little John who both agreed to take the boy into temporary custody.

And that was how Ruby currently found herself sadly observing as David shepherded Christopher out the door of the station to deliver him to his custodians. The former Lost Boy had already looked pitiful when he had been arrested, but as David lead him out of the Station, he looked less like a terrified kid and more like the condemned walking the last terrible paces toward an inevitable doom. The tragedy of the situation in that moment was suffocating.

So no, it was most definitely not a good day for Ruby.

For a long time after David had departed with Christopher in tow, the station was engulfed with a weighty silence. With a deep frown marring on her features, Emma sat morosely behind her desk, slouching back heavily in her chair as she absently fiddled with a pen. As for herself, Ruby was leaning over Emma's desk with her head in her hands, lost in her own dark thoughts. Even the dwarves – who had awakened during the deliberations – stayed quiet out of respect for the tragedy they had just witnessed. After all, no one with a heart could enjoy a kid's suffering.

Minutes passed during which no one dared to speak. At such times, it only seemed appropriate to Ruby to take stock of her own life, to weigh her own choices and count her own blessings in the face of such human suffering. On the whole, she hoped her ledger was in the black, but sometimes she doubted it. No one really knew just how much blood she had on her hands because it was something she much preferred to forget.

Most of her friends knew of her calamitous discovery of her condition and of the battles she fought at Snow's side, but few were aware of the scores of men she had slain during her occasional week long sojourns during Wolf's Time. Despite learning control from her mother, the bloodlust she felt as the wolf never completely left. It was always there in the back of her mind, lurking in the mind of her counterpart, ready to be unleashed at a moments notice. More than once while trekking through the vast forests of the realm, she had willingly given into the wolf upon spotting a patrol of Black Knights, attacking without provocation and exulting in the experience of tearing a dozen or more men apart with little effort.

Ruby was far from the innocent victim most believed her to be, and she wondered at times if she deserved the happiness she now had. Most of the time Regina (who was the only person aware of Ruby's indiscretions as the wolf) was there to comfort her, but that was not the case at present. Without Regina there to remind her that life just sucked sometimes, it was easy to lament the injustice that existed in the world that could conspire to see an innocent like Christopher fall under judgment for what he had done out of desperation when Ruby remained free of condemnation for crimes she had willingly committed. Guilt clawed at her throat.

But then the shrill ringing of the phone cut through the silence, causing Ruby to nearly jump out of her skin due to the tense aura pervading the room. And as her eyes snapped up, she saw Emma had reacted in a similar manner.

"Hello?" Emma answered tightly without preamble upon picking up the receiver. She then listened intently for a moment, after which her brow deeply furrowed. "Dr. Lord? What's going on?"

Ruby's ears perked up at the name of the caller. Dr. Lord was a resident at Storybrooke General. He was an eccentric young man with legendary mood swings that lead many to believe that he was bipolar, but for all of his eccentricity, he was a very intelligent doctor whom Victor believed would some day make a fine surgeon.

Because Ruby could not hear the conversation between Emma and the doctor (out of her wolf form, her senses were heightened, but even those had their limits sometimes, particularly when she was so exhausted), so she watched curiously as several emotions worked their way through Emma's face at whatever was being said. It began with confusion and then transitioned into shock before Emma suddenly recoiled in abject horror.

At first, Ruby thought it might be about the night manager, Evan Waters, and dreading the disaster that would inevitably follow she worried that he might have unexpectedly died. Even more so, she hated the thought of having to break that news to Christopher. But then Emma glanced nervously and worriedly in her direction, which prompted an immediate tightening in her throat and chest. Whatever Dr. Lord had said, it wasn't good.

"Yes, I understand. We'll be there in five minutes," Emma then replied to Dr. Lord. In an instant, her expression grew almost thunderous. "Listen to me. Are you listening? Good. You do everything you can. Whatever it takes, you save her! You save her life, Doctor, even if you have to call in the cavalry, and if you don't know what that means, talk to Whale. Yes. Yes! Goodbye."

Ruby blanched and gripped the arms of her chair until her knuckles turned white and the metal strained in protest. There were only two women whose harm could cause such reaction in Emma and she didn't want to consider either option.

"Dammit!" Emma suddenly shouted, slamming the phone down on it's cradle, which jolted from the violence of the impact. Ruby jumped out of her chair as Emma then snatched a stapler from her desk and in one fluid motion stood and hurled it across the room with all of her might. It smashed into a framed painting of the town hall, shattering the glass and knocking the frame to the floor. In the nearby cells, the dwarves all yelled obscenities as they scattered for cover.

Seeing such an uncharacteristically violent reaction from her friend had Ruby fighting panic.

"Emma, what's wrong? What's going on?" she asked frantically.

When Emma looked up at her, her eyes were filled with an apologetic devastation that made it very easy for Ruby to translate the meaning. As it registered in her brain, her head started swimming and her throat constricted even more painfully than before. Unable to hold herself up, she collapsed heavily into her chair.

"No!" she gasped, clutching desperately at her chest. Her eyes sought out Emma's, imploring for her deduction to be corrected. "Please, Emma, no. Oh God, please!"

No correction came. Instead, Emma's face crumbled as her hand flew to her mouth to smother a choked sob. Ruby looked on helplessly as her friend struggled to compose herself. Several agonizing seconds passed before the Savior suddenly straightened, reining in her emotions, something Ruby knew she had learned to do as a child.

"I'm so sorry Ruby, but we don't have time," she said with a trembling voice as she grabbed her keys, badge, and gun off the desk. She then stood and looked pointedly at Ruby, her face poker straight but her green eyes radiating intense waves of distress. "We need to go...right now. Something's happened to Regina."

With those words, Ruby's world teetered dangerously off axis. She sat there dumbly for a time, having understood Emma's words, but unable to process them into actions. Prevented from speaking due her throat finally closing up completely, she could only nod numbly to indicate she had heard what Emma said.

After a moment of numb shock, Emma approached to gently grasp her hand, helping to pull her up out of the chair. With an arm around her shoulders, Emma then proceed to guide Ruby towards the door of the Station, and though she remained silent as she was lead toward the door, inside the screaming confines of her mind the wolf began to howl in misery.