Thank you all so much for the responses in form of follows, favs and comments. They mean so much. YIKES, my first time writing Rubes... Bear (or wolf?) with me... Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Two: Seeing Red

Ruby;

`Emz, just… don't'

'Rubes, I…'

'Red, it's time to…'

'Oh Gran just… Stop! You all have got to…'

The growl came from somewhere deep inside of her, so wild, so feral, it scared even herself. She saw her grandmother take a cautious step back, still clutching onto that fucking hood she hated almost as much as her fate.

'Stop…'

It surprised her that Emma didn't withdraw, but then again, she had never seen her in wolf form. She had not been there the last time she had changed and all hell had broken loose. So yeah, the killing hadn't been her… THAT time. But all the other times still haunted her, not only Peter. Or her mother which also was pretty fucked up if you stopped to think about it, which she preferred not to. But all those people who had died, hunting the wolf… Before she had known. Because Gran had chosen to hide her underneath that damn, fucking cloak…

'Listen I am sorry about Regina, she shouldn't have said…'

Another growl rose from her throat as she thought about the words her friend was referring to. The words that had been accompanied by the weirdest kinda reassuring squeeze in her arm she didn't understand.

'She was right though, wasn't she?'

And also the only one who knows what I become and was not, not for one moment, afraid of me just now.

'I am a fucking public safety hazard!'

Shutting her eyes all she could see were those light ones, the ones that had mesmerized her since the moment she had first seen them… Struck her to her very core.

And now, as she had entered with that… that… man again… it had crawled under her skin, the feeling so much stronger than usual when she'd seen her and it had been then and only then her eyes had fallen on the calendar she always avoided looking at...

She'd inhaled, tried to control, but all that had done was make the smell that was just her, intoxicate her so much her knees had buckled. And she'd had to let go of the coffeepot that permanently seemed to be attached to her freaking hand, as a reminder probably, of her basket or something.

It was instinct that made her take it all in, from her peripheral vision as her main focus remained on the woman with the gentle look, in the blue dress, who smiled her greeting and seemingly had no idea of the struggle going on inside of her. Gran's sounds in the kitchen, Emma's eyes, the one who, these days, seemed to know her best, linking it all together, the Dark One, looking at her through narrowed, cautious eyes. And then, the one she had spent half a lifetime running from. The one who had set a price on one of her best friend's head. Who was breaking her other best friend's heart. That one had simple fallen against her while her body had trembled in attempt to control the pain that came with suppression, with trying to deny the wolf what it wanted, what SHE really wanted, so desperately.

But the Queen… No… Regina had looked at her with eyes full of purple Magic and something else, something soothing, something that, whatever the fuck it was, had made it possible for her to focus, for a split second, on something else but the delirious smell entering her nostrils. Had given her a short break, a moment of letting go. And as she had felt the spell, the invisible protective wall surrounding her and heard the woman's words about no one being able to hear, the rumbling growl in her chest had set itself free, shortly liberating her wolf from its selfset prison.

Ruby kept her eyes shut tightly as a shivery breath escaped her mouth. She had thought she knew this, knew how it worked. When she had felt like this, so many years ago, running and fleeing through the enchanted forest with a woman she secretly loved, she thought she had learned to control her feelings, the wolf's desires.

But this… HER… Ever since Belle first entered the dinner she had felt it, the tremble in her chest, the connection, the thing she'd off-handedly called 'click' when she'd been just Ruby and wanted to get rid of some guy. The thing neither Red or Ruby had never believed in until her. The day she became everything without even knowing.

So different. No matter how many times she'd cried, or howled herself to sleep at night over Snow, the moment she had entered everything was different and it had not been so difficult to figure out why.

True fucking love.

Halleluya.

But hers…. Hers was HIM. The slime, the sleazebag she couldn't help but want to rip apart with bare teeth even when it wasn't a full moon. Not just because he was with her. Or maybe just because he was with her. Because he would never deserve her goodness.

But then again, the wolf wouldn't either.

Yet everyone seemed to know. Gran's damn knowing look, the one saying 'Girl, what are you getting yourself into?'. Emma's understanding but helpless one, as she stood there, hands in pockets mumbling empty words about how it was all gonna be ok. Snow as she looked at her with pity in those hazel eyes, always from a distance these days… Even Regina, who had hid her feral outburst by pretending to need her help, which meant fucking something cause the queen never accepted any help from ANYONE. Red would know as she had tried to talk to her about the whole Emma thing.

They flashed in her vision before she quickly closed her eyes again, the red circles taunting around the numbers representing days on that stupid piece of paper, the red of the cloak that was supposed to keep the 'hazard' under control.

And suddenly she knew where the expression 'seeing red' came from. She was sick of this, so utterly sick of being who she was. Of knowing it was not something she could ever change. Of the people surrounding her, having either no faith in her at all, or too much of it. Of not feeling in control of the wolf with all these feelings raging through her…

Because wolfish nightmares haunted every night. Of her knowing, of her laughing, of seeing red and attacking. It always ended the same. Once again a killer, something in her blood, in the aura around the moon as it rose high above the river she could see the wolf reflected in.

Red… She saw. Not just Ruby, not just the wolf… Just Red.

Grasping the cloak out of her grandmother's hands she didn't even stop to mumble the apology she felt in her heart. She just ran, her long legs with the velocity of the wolf following a human desire.

To disappear.

For everyone, especially herself, to stop seeing Red…

Once Upon A Time in The Enchanted Forest:

'I want you to stop any interference, what so ever, in my life, to break any connection… I want you, Rumple, to leave me alone…'

'Now why, dearie, in the name of Magic, would I do that? When you remain the perfect solution to… Everything?'

He flicked his wrist and the mirror image she had so perfectly procured seemed to simply dissolve. His long fingers found her hand and closed it around the key, his high pitched laughter echoing against the walls.

'You are going to keep her safe for me… Here AND there. Make sure she won't meet this, won't be with this socalled 'twue loww'. Oh, no dearie, you… you cost me much too much to procure.'

'And why, Rumple, why would I do that? You forget that I know now… That there is nothing left for me to win, nothing left for you to take. What do you want? My castle? My kingdom?'

My life?

But that was just what he seemed to want. Not to take, but to own. She saw it in his dilating pupils, saw the reflection of light, of images flashing behind her and half-turned, confused, as she had thought he had magicked the vision away…

'Take it, take it all! I refuse to play by your rules any longer… You will rue the day you have decided to come after all I held dear. Because now! It's time for me to do the same.'

But as she turned her head and found her own image. Her clothes and hairstyle odd and unfamiliar but her eyes looking more her own than she never thought they would again. And then, as the vision became clearer, she saw why…

The child in her arms could not be more than months old, but the trust in its eyes as it smiled at her mirror image melted her instantly. She stood stock still as the image merged into others in rapid succession. She drank in the pictures of her tucking in a young boy, of playing with him, hitting a white round object with some sort of stick and laughing, actually laughing when she failed to catch it. She watched herself, amazed how this person could possibly have anything to do with the one she had become. He had made her become. She had let herself become.

She couldn't help but hope, feel the echo of it quiver low in her abdomen.

And then, she saw it…

Crouched down, like would an ordinary peasant, she was adjusting some sort of odd knapsack strapped to the boy's back, as if it would detach if it was not in the exact right position. He wiggled from her grasp and for a moment her eyes looked exactly the way she had seen them in the mirror for so many years now. Empty. Tortured. Forlorn. But then he turned around and threw his tiny arms around her neck, pressing kisses all over her face as he embraced her tightly…

She saw it and a tear escaped her as she caught sight of the love in her eyes.

It swirled and merged together with the one thing she had never allowed herself to hope she could regain.

Happiness…

TBC

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