True Love
As long as I can breath,
I can love you.
And as long as I can love you,
I can breath.
She doesn't believe in true love, 10 year old Snow White thinks, as she sits in a bundle of thick wool blankets and and pure white sheets. She can't. If true love existed, he wouldn't have ran away. He would have fought for her, he would have stood up to the king, to her Father, and he would not let Regina marry a man who wasn't him. He wouldn't have run off into the forest, allowing the woman he loved ever so much to suffer an eternity of pain and sadness, her heart empty without him by her side.. If true love really existed, Daniel wouldn't have left Regina. He would have fought for her.
Her face is tear-stained. She doesn't really understand why she's crying. She should be happy, happy that Regina will be her step-mother, happy that she would have someone to talk to, someone who cares about her. But all she can think about is how Regina is going to have to live without the one thing she loves most, how she has to deal with the fact that he's gone, and he's not coming back.
True love. If she could think of anyone's love who was good enough to be 'true' it would have been Regina and Daniel's. But it's not. True love doesn't exist. And she has to remember that. There is no such thing.
Snow wonders if her parents truly loved eachother. She sits at her bedroom window, her ebony curls falling around her shoulders, her emerald green eyes fixed on the millions of tiny snow-flakes that drift to the floor that is covered with new-fallen snow. Her arms are wrapped around her legs, her knees up at her chest, her chin resting on top of them.
She had always assumed that her parents were in love. She honestly believed that they were, that they had married for love and nothing else. But they didn't. They were engaged since birth, their wedding planned, their kingdoms joined before they could even speak a word. That wasn't love. They didn't meet at a ball and fall in love as they danced. They didn't fall in love the first moment they saw eachother, like she had often dreamed of. They didn't.
She wonders if they eventually learned to love eachother. If one day, her Mother woke up, and thought, "Yes, I love this man," or if they never loved eachother, atleast not in that way. She can't help but wonder if she would still be here, if her parents hadn't been forced into a marriage. She wonders if they would have found eachother anyway. She wonders if they would have met other people.
She doesn't hear the door open, but soon she feels a hand on her shoulder.
"Snow, I wondered where you got to," a gentle voices says from behind her.
She turns, and sees the kind face of Johanna, her servant, smiling at her.
"I just wanted to.. think," Snow says quietly, her eyes drifting back to the window.
"About what my dear?" Johanna asks her softly.
"My parents. True love.." she trails off, biting her lip. "Did they.. did they ever love eachother? I know they didn't marry for love, I found that out today, but they did fall in love eventually, didn't they?"
Johanna sighs, her hands rubbing Snow's shoulders.
"Of course they loved eachother Snow," she says quietly after a moment.
"But it wasn't true love, was it?" Snow asks, drawing her knees closer.
"I doubt you rarely find true love in arranged marriages," Johanna says, her fingers beginning to stroke Snow's hair.
"You rarely find true love anywhere," Snow replies, blinking away the tears in her eyes. "Because it doesn't exist."
"Snow," Johanna starts.
"It doesn't exist," she repeats.
Her Father dies. Regina has her taken into the forest to be killed. The Huntsman lets her go. She survives. But life in the woods is hard. She gets use to it eventually; she steals a bow and a pack of arrows from one of the Queen's gaurds, and teachs herself how to shoot. She gets the hang of it eventually, but it takes a while for her to grow comfortable with killing a deer or bird to feed on. They don't seem afraid of her. When she pulls her arrow back, aiming at the deer, they never flee. They stand there, staring at her, and she wants to scream, she wants to shout, because it would be so much easier if they ran, so much more of a challenge, and less chance of her killing them, less chance of her killing something so innocent,
Soon, she has to do it, and she kills one. She watches it die; it's eyes blink, and then go unfocused, and she feels so bad, but she knows she had to do it, that she has to survive. She has to get her kingdom back, she has to. Someday.
She visits the village; she has to see her people. She hides herself, her hood up over her face. She sees her face up on a wanted poster, and her heart breaks:
Wanted for crimes against the Queen
Snow White
Murder.
Treason.
Treachery.
She's being accused of murdering her own Father. She's never known anything worse.
One of the villagers spots her. They shout, "Snow White!" and her head shoots up, her hood falls off, and she drops her bow because she could never raise her hand to the villagers, to her people. Her green eyes search them, scanning the faces of children, adults, Mothers, Fathers. None of them move towards her.
"Are you gonna get it back Snow? Are you going to take the kingdom back?" Someone calls. She isn't sure who.
"We still believe in you Snow!" Another person calls.
"We're on your side Snow!"
"We know it's all lies Snow!"
"You're our leader Snow!"
She looks at all of them. They all believe in her. No one wants to hand her in. No one wants the Queen, they all want her.
She smiles, and nods to them. She doesn't say a word. She picks up her bow and arrows, and she holds a hand in the air, a sign on hope, a sign that she's not finished fighting. They all cheer. A man raises his son above his head and places him on his shoulders, another man grabs his wife and kisses her, telling her how he told her everything would be alright.
If there was such a thing as true love, this would be it, she thinks. But true love doesn't exist, she knows that better than anyone.
Snow had robbed every carriage that passed on that road, not missing a single one, and every carriage had been one that belonged to the Queen. Until then. She doesn't pass up the oppurtunity though, as jewels as precious as the ones that old prince were carrying were quite valuable, especially that ring. She sold them to the trolls, and she made quite a bit of money out of them, nearly enough to buy a ticket on a pirate ship and escape to another realm; she has nothing left there anymore. And oh, everything had been going to plan. Until old Prince Charming decided to pay her a visit.
And he wants his ring back, the exceptionally pretty one she had sold. He wants it. For his precious fiancee.
"Good luck with that," she tells him, wondering how on Earth he is going to put up with that hideous hag. "You must have agreed to something pretty impressive to have agreed to that union."
He looks downright shocked, and she can't help but love the look on his face. How funny.
"Excuse me?" He says, staring at her.
"I know how this works. True love? It doesn't exist. It's all arranged marriages and busines transactions." And she tells him, she tells him how love at first sight and first kiss, and true love, how it's all fake and not real. Business. That's why you get married. Because your parents want you too, because they want to join with that kingdom, because they need gold or because they want a bigger empire, or for anything except love.
And she's right, as his wedding is for a 'merger', not because he's in love with that old tree branch, but because the kingdom's are joining.
He goes on about his ring, and eventually she has to help him get it back because he knows who she is, and he has her at an advantage, and there's nothing she can do. So he cuts her down, and she's proud to see the cut she had given him still on his chin, a reminder of how she had beat him even if she is now at his mercy. His clear blue eyes never leave her, his body constantly stuck to her side, and she hates it. She doesn't enjoy company.
True love isn't real, she thinks, as she watches him walk away. Her eyes cling to him, her heart hammering in her chest and she wonders why on Earth she feels like this, because it doesn't make sense. How could she feel like that for him? For old Charming?
She tries to forget but she can't. She can't forget the way his ring fit her finger, the way he looked at her, the way her heart soared when he told her that he would always find her.
It gets too much. She hates it. She hates thinking about him, her heart breaking each day she spends without him. She can't deal with it, with any of it. It's hard, the wound in her chest deeper then any other, and she has no choice. She just needs to get rid of it. She goes to see the Dark One, Rumpelsiltksin, and he gives her a potion, that will take all her memories, all her.. feelings for Charming away, and she wants to drink it but she can't, atleast not yet. She wants to remember him first. Just remember.
Remembering gets too much, and she gets ready to drink it, when his letter falls into her hands. She reads it, over and over, her mind spinning. He wants her. Charming wants her, not Abigail, and even if it isn't true (it doesn't exist) she wants him too. She's never wnated anything more in her life. She wants to hold him, to have someone that cares about her, and that person is him.
And she almost gets him. Except, she doesn't.
King George stops her from telling Charming that she wants him too, and she can't disobey him no matter how much she wants too. He makes her break her Charming's heart in two, and the only reason she does, the only reason she tells him that she doesn't love him is because she can't let him die, and she knows he'll get over her. He'll forget about her eventually, about the girl who stole his ring, about the girl who saved him, about the girl that broke his heart. And she knows she'll get over him. Her potion will do that.
She lives with the seven dwarfs, and they constantly help her, they constantly stop her from taking the potion.
And it's all going well, until she sees banners and posters celebrating the wedding of Charming and Abigail, the wedding that's going to be happening in barely a few weeks, and she can't stand it.
True love.
It doesn't exist.
She drinks the potion.
She pulls back an arrow in her bow, her gaze locked on the Queen. She hates her, the women who killed her Father, the women who falsely accused her off murder, of treason. She fires the arrow.
And then, oh, the lovely Prince Charming jumps in front of the arrow, and it goes straight into his shoulder, and the Queen rides on pefectly unharmed.
"What do you think you're doing?!" She says, half angry and half concerned as she runs towards him. He groans, his eyes tightly shut. "Why would you do this?"
She doesn't understand why he doesn't leave her alone. She doesn't remember him. She doesn't love him.
"Well, because.. you said you appreciate.. actions more than words," he mutters, his face twisted in pain. She sighs angrily, staring at him as he gets up. "So now, you're going to get both. I love you, Snow."
His words are soft, kind, filled with love and tenderness, yet she doesn't feel the same way, and she can't bare it, but she's told him, and he just won't listen.
"But I don't love you," she says, shaking her head, and he sighs in defeat. "I don't even remember you."
"Well, I don't care," he says, wincing. "The only think I care about is that you don't forget who you really are. I would rather die than let you fill your heart with darkness."
She stares at him, stunned, his words hitting her in the chest like a ton of bricks. He closes his eyes, resting his head against the tree trunk. Her heart races.
"You would really die for me?" She asks him, her voice soft.
He opens his eyes and stares at her. "Does it really look like I'm making this up?"
"No one's ever done anything like this for me before," she whispers, her eyes fixed on him. She takes a breath. "No one's ever been willing to die for me before."
"No one you can remember," is his response. He falls back into the tree, his eyes closed, his face full of pain.
She stares at him, a single tear rolling down her cheek. She realises why she must have called him Charming, and it shocks her. He cares for her, he genuinely cares, and she wants nothing more than to show him that she believes him, that she trusts him, because how can she not trust him, when he continues to fight for her evem though she has tried to push him away? And she knows somewhere inside her, a part of her must love him, and she doesn't know what else to do but to honor that, to honor him.
She steps towards him, placing her hand on his shoulder, her head titled to one side. His head raises, and she looks at him, looks deep into his warm blue eyes, and she reaches out, taking the side of his face in her gloved hands. He looks at her, as she gently leans in and kisses him.
It's the first time she's ever kissed anyone; well, aside from the time Charming forced himself onto her to try and get her to remember him, but she doesn't really count that. Her eyes flicker shut, and she feels him kiss her back. It's magic, she thinks. Heaven. She's waited so long for this, she's waited so long to feel his lips on hers. Ever since she put his ring on, she knew she wanted to grab him and ki-
Wait. Ring?
Her eyes flicker open, and she pulls back in shock. The ring. Troll Bridge. The Potion. King George. It all comes rushing back, memories flowing into her brain like a river. His eyes open, and he stares at her, as a smile break across her face, tears running down her cheeks. She remembers him.
"Charming," she breaths, her hands on either side of his face, holding it close to hers. How could she forget him, how could she?
"Yes," he replies, his eyes filled with happiness. "It's me."
Her breathing gets stronger, her smile growing wider, as she stares at this man, this man she loves so much, and sees him staring back at her, love shining out of his eyes.
She grabs him and kisses him quickly, and then again and again, not able to get enough of the feel of his lips against hers. She kisses him for longer, holding him close to her.
But like everything in their lives, it ends too quickly.
King George's army ride into the woods, and they're seperated, Charming forced into a cage, and her left on the ground after being shoved by one of the soldiers. She gets up, and watches him disappear from view, her eyes wide, and she calls after him, she tells him that she will find him, that she will always find him.
And she isn't sure if true love exists anymore. All she knows is that she loves him, and she won't stop loving him, and if that counts as true love, then she must have it. She wants true love to be real, and she hopes it is, she hopes she has it.
They lay side by side, his fingers playing with her hair. He isn't used to it short, but he's told her he likes it, and she believes him because she can see the truth in his eyes when he tells her she's beautiful.
Emma and Henry are upstairs asleep. They returned from Granny's an hour ago, the welcome home party eventually coming to a close. Henry was tired, and so was Emma, but Snow had so much she had yet to catch up on with her husband, that they forced themselves to stay awake.
"You know," he whispers, his fingers sliding down her face, stroking her cheek. "You were wrong. Entirely wrong."
"About what?" She asks, raising an eyebrow in question. "If you're talking about when I said we would have enough time this afternoon, I truly thought we would, I was expecting them to be out longer than that."
"I'm not talking about that," he replies, grinning. "I'm talking about what you said, over 30 years ago; 'true love; it doesn't exist.'"
She rolls her eyes. "I told you, ages and ages ago, that you were my true love. Waking me from the sleeping curse proved that."
"I know, it's just.." he sighs, thinking how to word it. "It's just, thinking about it, you not believing in true love when we first met.. it kind of shows how far we've come; how far you've come."
"I know," she tells him. "But finding the right Charming man helped my realise I was wrong."
"You were wrong."
"Very."
He smiles at her, and leans in to gently kiss her. It's soft and and sweet and warm and it makes her brain go all fuzzy, and makes her stomach get butterflies. He leans further into her, rolling on top of her, the kiss still soft, and entirely loving.
"I love you," she murmurs into his lips. "You're my true love."
"And you're mine," he mumbles in response.
She believes in true love, she thinks, as she lays there in the arms of her charming husband and warm wool blankets. She just does. If true love didn't exist, he wouldn't have found her. He wouldn't have fought to be with her. But he had. And he had proved her wrong.
A/n: Thanks for reading! I just want to say, at the beginning of this story, Snow doesn't believe in true love because she thinks Daniel ran away into the woods instead of fighting to be with Regina. We know this isn't true, but after Daniel had died, this was what Regina had told Snow when she was a child, so that is why she thinks that. Also, for those of you who have read/reviewed my other story, thank you! Update should be soon! Maybe today or tomorrow (: Thanks!