Hi, so I've worked really hard to finish the final five chapters and after too many nights where i should have been sleeping after my work shift i finished these chapters. i hope you enjoy this the ones before this and the one coming after.

Disclaimer-Nothing is mine however some quotes are borrowed from episode 1x02

Please read and review.

Also this story is a bit AU so if your looking for a stickler cannon based on the scenes in OUAT In Wonderland then your probably should have stopped reading this story at Chapter One. Just covering all of my bases.

And let me know what you think

If You Really Love Someone

Chapter 9-Cyrus-Santuacry

Events-Cyrus teaches Alice to defend herself leading to Alice taking another move that sees their relationship move forwards-Part One of a Two part finale to this story.

Cyrus woke up the next morning his arms aching slightly. Alice it seemed had fallen asleep on his arm and the whole appendage had gone numb. As it turned out she had curled one leg around his hip and her knee was brushing another part of his body that was certainly not numb. He swore in his head and stood up wincing at the feel of the aching flesh as he tried to pull his arm loose. Alice thankfully did not wake but Cyrus winced a little as he leaned his head back against the grass and thought over what happened.

Alice had spent the whole of the day learning how to wield her sword. She seemed to have a good grasp of how to thrust forwards and open herself up to attacks, her technique was somewhat sloppy, but it was improving, and her defences were now constantly raised which he knew from experience was a good thing. She was capable of defending herself against any attackers and she was also now capable of striking a blow, but it seemed she was not capable of killing. She had not said anything about leaning how to part a man's head from his body and Cyrus personally didn't think that he wanted to teach those kind of moves to her either. Alice had fallen asleep on his shoulder next to him when she had leaned against him after their dinner of slow cooked rabbit stew. He had used some of the gold to buy a chocolate pastry that they had shared-upon seeing Alice's eyes light up when he had seen the treat he couldn't help but use some money to buy it for her.

It was half in order to please her, half in calculation because when he saw her moan around the treat and then lick the sauce of her fingers the blood rushed to his groin so strongly it almost made him pass out. There was a second where he was sure that not only was she doing it on purpose but where he wanted to lean across and take the damn cake out her hand and press her back against the grass convinced that the chocolate would taste so much better when he kissed her.

He was fucked.

His reasons Cyrus thought that he had told Alice that he believed where strong and reliable where slowly falling apart and there was nothing that he could do about it. Slowly bit by bit, day by day she was chipping away at his resolve and it was becoming more and more difficult to say no to her and last night when she had sat down and curled her legs under her in her brown trousers and wiped the sweat from her forehead as she tucked her hair upwards into a knot so that there were only a few strands falling in her face Cyrus had honestly had to dig his fingernails into his trousers to stop himself from touching her in more than one inappropriate way.

His resolve was crumbling now his cards were all on the table. He was in love with Alice probably had been from the second he had seen her, and it was clear that she was in love with him because she had told him, and Cyrus did not believe that she was capable of telling a lie like that. She clearly did not want to talk about using her wishes or her future, but she wanted to live in the moment, in the magic with him and he found he could not think of a reason to deflect this ordinary common sense from an extraordinary woman.

Instead he had fallen asleep with her head on his chest a blanket wrapped around them and the starts surrounding them the bottle hidden from view while he tried to imagine the two lives that were placed in front of him. Both had their pro's, both had their cons, and both were clear cut and clean. Both would change his life forever because Cyrus knew intimately that the life he had had before Alice was gone to him forever and he was never going to live like that again.

So, he lay there wrapped up with the woman he loved, the bottle that he was cursed to bumping against his leg and too all the world he knew they looked like young lovers, newly married and unable to keep their hands off each other. The Gods knew that it was not a strange occurrence in Wonderland and he all he wanted was for it to be true.

One option was extremely good for him. He could choose to live with Alice in the moment. He could choice to be with her no matter what the cost was and he could be happy. They could even lose his bottle and all tying it to him would be Alice's wishes and if he made her his wife then nobody would know that she was the keeper of them. He could lie. He could live…he could have something resembling the life that his stupidity had cost him once upon a time ago. For he knew intimately that if Alice had ended up in his world…in Agrabah then he would have asked Alice to marry him and by now they would have had their own house surrounded by his family and they would have been happy.

And then there was another option and that was a bad option for him. He could leave. He could force Alice to use her wishes, he could be a bastard and wrap his heart, his broken, bleeding, icy heart in stone and ensure that she never got a chance to break it, but he knew he could do that. It had nothing to do with what was smart it was more to do with the fact that immortal or not…dead or not…if he was a bastard to a woman his father would find a way to make him pay for it.

And he didn't want to. This was Alice. He wanted to be with her.

So, when he woke that morning and saw Alice twisting her hair back of her face, so she could twirl around fighting him he made a decision. He wanted to be with Alice, or at least he if he didn't screw it up royally before with his attitude then he wanted to ensure that he did this right. If Alice gave him an opening that meant that he was welcome then he was going to take it with open arms and try and build a life even if it was built on a house of cards that could come tumbling down without warning at any day with any reason.

Alice turned to face him and smiled.

"Ready?" she asked and Cyrus nodded feeling like his throat was made of sandpaper. He could not screw this up again. He would talk to her after their training and see if he could be granted a reprieve and a shot at a sanctuary that wasn't his bottle.

They sparred with various degrees of success. Alice was a quick learner he would give her that and she was strong and easy to succeed at this endeavour and Cyrus ultimately was loathe to hurt her in any way because that wasn't who he was. He found himself toning down his skills somewhat and that was really not going to help him because in real life one of the Red Queen's soldiers or an agent of the Caterpillar would not be so generous if they picked up on a moment of weakness.

Instead he ducked a blow and carried on until they were near the tree packing her into it. Alice grinned showing her teeth and that smile. It was a combination of that look in her eyes and that feral kind of grin that made him want to do nothing more than push her further against the tree and carrying on that kiss that he had long ago interrupted.

"So Alice" he said beaming. "What now?" Of course the voice in his head supplied there were several things they could do that didn't involve using two swords to pin her to a tree. Several pleasurable things that he could use. But before he could give way to these thoughts Alice had grinned her eyes becoming wider and more innocent in a way Cyrus just knew was going to come back and hurt him in some clever way that he would not see coming.

"Well I think I know my opponent" Alice said her voice taking on that teasing tone even if her eyes still had that almost hungry look in them that made his stomach turn to knots that would take several days to unravel. "And I think I know his weakness" she said pulling him out of his rather good thoughts. He tilted his head to one side refusing to give in until the last second.

"Really?"

"I hope so" Alice said and then she kissed him. It was the opening he had been waiting for, had been praying for. He dropped his swords to the ground with a clatter and wrapped both arms around her waist tucking her closer to him as her hands framed his face. He turned as her arms roved greedily over his body and she pushed him to the floor pulling back once she had straddled him (and Gods above there was nothing more sexier than that-and he had dreamed about quite a lot over the last couple of months he knew) she pulled back her hair falling over her face and a confused expression etched upon it.

"I thought you didn't want this…I thought that…that you had reasons? I had a whole thing planned to dismantle bit by bit. If I did not die of…of…sexual frustration first" she said the last bit in a rush and Cyrus could see that the prim and proper Victorian girl had struggled to say the world sexual anything and didn't that do wonders for a man's self esteem. To know that he was burning Alice up in the same delicious heat that he had been suffering for too long.

"My apologies" he said finally and he meant it. He was apologising for a lot of things here as well and he knew that she knew the main one was not believing that he deserved someone like her. He still did not if he was being honest with himself but he wanted to believe and that was some sort of an improvement.

"You want me?" Alice said titling her head to one side as if she was placing her final card on the table. Cyrus nodded unable to put it into words. Alice looked at him as if she was making a decision and then she flipped them over so that he was on top of her and her legs were wrapped around his waist.

"Then take me" she said finally. Cyrus stared at her feeling his eyes and something else noticeably widen and harden. He swallowed his mouth suddenly feeling very dry and then he turned to look down at her.

"Alice are you…" he began to ask but she cut across him her hands coming to his hair and doing that little pull that made his eyes roll back in his head and his hips slam downwards so that it caused the most delicious friction that he had ever experienced in his life.

"Cyrus if I didn't want you to make love to me here on the ground then I wouldn't have asked you. I'm tired of being some good little girl that does what she's told and has to conform because if she doesn't then she's of to the asylum. I want to be loved, I want to be loved by you and I am burning with need for you. Please…"

And then she snuck her hand down and…

Well Cyrus was a man after all and he was also human.

"You are my sanctuary" he said in between kissing. "You, not the bottle, not Wonderland…you"

"Good" Alice said her laugh turning into a moan as he decided to suck a bruise on her neck. "Because I have a plan for that dratted bottle too"

Cyrus laughed into her neck. "Of course you do" he muttered into her skin breathing in Alice's very essence.

And they carried on locked in their own little sanctuary.

Enjoy. Final chapter should be following this one and it will be in Alice's point of view.