A Wing

She wants.

It had been so very long since she had let herself want anything.

Wanting was against the rules. Wanting didn't solve anything. Wanting only hurt her, over and over again.

Her kingdom, her home, her birthright. She couldn't have, so why waste time wanting?

Surviving was what mattered. Getting to her freedom, her escape... her oblivion, maybe. A place where she never again had to think of who she was and how much she had lost.

She'd made her peace with that. The princess long gone. The bandit holding on for dear life. She'd become a fighter, she'd give herself credit for that much. A survivor.

There was no time for wishes and fantasies in the life of a survivor. She knew this, accepted it; dedicated to a life focused on needs - basic needs - and no more.

She hadn't planned on Charming. Couldn't plan for Charming. There was no room in her life for him.

But, oh, the longing.

It wouldn't be so bad if she just wanted him. If she could just write him off as one more thing she can't have.

But this ache, constant and consuming, as if a little piece of her breaks every moment she spends without him...

It's got her feeling like maybe she needs more than she'd thought. Maybe she needs more than to just survive. Maybe she needs to live.

Maybe she needs him, even more than she wants him.

Unfolding the note once more, carefully - the paper having gone soft and thin after so many refolds - she stares at words she'd memorized hours ago.

Come to me, and show me you feel the same, and we can be together forever.

She wants.

It's reckless and insane and she doesn't care.

She'd given up on what she wanted a long time ago.

Charming hadn't.

He'd told her to come to him if she felt the same way. That if she didn't come, he would have his answer.

Hell if she's ever going to let him think, even for a moment, that she doesn't love him back. She refuses to hurt him that way. Recklessness and insanity be damned.

Hidden deep within one of the many passageways into King George's castle, she reads Charming's letter, and waits for dusk.

She's going for him.

Because what they want is a different story altogether.

It's easier to get to him than she thought it was going to be, the princess of her past aiding her greatly. No two castles are the exact same, no, but a castle is a castle. She knew a passage when she saw it, having spent her youth exploring her own home for the hidden pathways, secret places where she could hide from everyone and everything that might remind her of her mother.

She'd be willing to bet that she knew her castle's secrets better than anyone ever had in all its history.

And the lessons learned in discovering those secrets had helped her greatly here.

As did the strange but unquestionable gut instinct that she was getting closer to him guiding her through every twist and turn of his castle.

She could feel him.

So when she reaches an opening in the passage that she just knows leads to his chambers, she follows through without fear or hesitation. Only hope.

Seeing him the moment she opens that door, eyes drawn to him immediately, to the warmth and the light and the chance at real happiness he is to her. It's like seeing the sun again after a long and hard storm, this little moment of joy, and for a long while she stays quiet, watching him putter around with baggage, his back to her. Just taking him in.

It's a moment she's glad to have had, but when she softly calls to him, a gently murmured "Charming", and he spins and stares and lights up like the sun she'd just thought of him as, she decides never to delay going to him again.

She wants every second.

"Snow," he breathes, in seeming disbelief. "Snow, Snow, Snow," he croons, rushing to her, picking her up, spinning her around. "You came, you came."

Unable to help but smile at his joy, she holds tight, lets him exult in her presence, listens to his breathless promises, rattled off quickly, words stumbling into each other, as if there's too much he wants to tell her, wants to swear to her all at once.

There's only one thing she cares about.

"Charming," she finally interrupts, cutting him off in the middle of a sentence about now knowing she feels the same, and she shivers, just slightly, at the thought of that, because if he feels the same as she does, then nothing else could ever matter.

"What is it?" he asks.

She swallows. "You have to be sure," she manages, watching him, searching for every minute flicker of reaction in his face. "If we do this, if we run off together, I can't promise that you'll ever be safe again. My life, it's hard, and it's painful. It's constantly moving and it's nights with no sleep, and it's eating whatever I can catch and going hungry more nights than not. It's... it's weeks of feeling cold and uncomfortable and hurt, until you can't remember what it feels like otherwise, and then you just feel numb to it, to everything. Except for the fear, because on the run, there's this pervasive sense of absolute terror that never really goes away at all. And Charming, you've got a good life here, a safe life, and I don't want... I can't take it away from you if it's not absolutely what you..."

She loses the rest of her sentence when he kisses her, rushed words trailing off into a surprised squeak and then a moan unlike any sound she's ever known herself to make before.

She likes this, even more than she'd imagined she might; him kissing her, hot and demanding.

It makes her hope more.

"Charming," she gasps, breathing the name she'd given him into his mouth, his kisses; getting gentler now, softer, until he pulls away just enough to rest his forehead against her own, leaving them close, intimate, breathing each other in.

"I want you," he says, quietly and steadily, leaving no room for doubt. "I want a life with you. I want us to be together forever. I know it's going to be a battle. I know we're going to have to fight like hell for it. But I knew what I was doing when I sent you that note, Snow. I was picking you. I want, and need, and love you. I spent months in denial over that simple fact, when I couldn't stop thinking of you, dreaming about you. I'm not going to deny it anymore. I love you, Snow. I am so completely, absurdly, madly in love with you. And I've never wanted anything - never let myself want anything - as much as I want you, us now. We're worth anything to me. We're worth it, Snow. And all I need to know is that you feel the same, and if you do, I will walk out that door with you, and never look back."

Exhaling shakily, she pulls back, just slightly, enough so she can really see him, look him in the eye.

The sincerity she sees there sends her reeling.

He meant every word he said.

He watches her now too, admiring and affectionate and warm, so warm. A loving gaze if ever there was one.

She'd told him once that true love didn't exist, a caustic statement made out of self-preservation for a girl who'd been hurt too many times.

She'd been wrong.

Looking at him now, she knows that he would never, ever hurt her. She knows she trusts him, wholeheartedly, and that much is a little miracle she's been granted. She never thought she would be able to trust someone again.

She loves him, so much, for it.

This is it, then. She loves him and he loves her, and that's got to be enough, because she can't imagine walking away from him now, not even with the assistance of that gods forsaken potion she'd left behind back in the forest.

She's all in.

Smiling up at him, she watches as his eyes widen and her own joy spreads to him, leaving them grinning at each other, helpless in the face of a love neither one of them had seen coming.

"It'll be you and me against the world," she warns, somewhat ineffectively, given how thrilled she is with the idea, a delight she cannot hide, doesn't want to.

And he's beaming back at her, so big, so wide, and he reaches for her again, not to pull her into another kiss, but cupping her cheek in his hand. "I heard nothing else after 'you and me'. It's what I want, Snow. You, us, it's all I want, no matter what I have to do to have it."

She turns her head just enough to press a kiss to his palm, then nuzzles in further. "Me too, Charming," she says softly. "I'm not as good at... putting what I'm feeling into words as you clearly are. I've always preferred doing, showing, taking action. And I'm here. Charming, I'm here, I came. That's me telling you I want us too. I want to be with you, more than anything."

He's so lit up now, smiling in such a big, vibrant way; she never wants to look away, never wants to be separated from him. He is the sun, bringing light into her darkness and warmth into the cold.

She loves it, loves him.

It seems rather important that he know that.

Biting her bottom lip teasingly, playfully, she allows herself the pleasure of wrapping her arms around his neck, watching his eyes light up first with surprise, then even more joy, then a fierce kind of heat that she very much wants to see more of. Tongue firmly in cheek, she grins at him.

"And, you know, I was wrong, before," she starts.

"Mmm?" he prompts, looking up, away from her mouth that he'd been shamelessly staring at.

She grins. It feels like a dangerous thing; dangling at the edge of a cliff and ready to let go, ready to fly.

"In the net. I told you true love and first kisses, none of it was real. But that's not right. It can't be. Because the way I feel right here right now, I am so in love with you. That has to be real."

Looking at him now, there's no surprise in him. He's not stunned by her declaration of love, not the way she had been by his. His joy is obvious, and his love, but he's not shocked.

He'd known.

He'd believed in them. They should have been impossible, but he'd believed anyway. Believed in their chance - at love, at happiness.

It's so real.

"I love you too," he says again, an increased light in his eyes and slight waver in his voice at the 'too', amazement at being able to say it again - and yet so different this way - showing obviously. "So very much."

And she can see that, so clearly. The way he looks at her has her warm all over, and she loves the feel of it; has the sudden, feverish want to live in that warmth forever.

It's just so very rare that a person like Charming could exist. Someone who has such faith, such conviction; who would take something impossible, a nothing chance, and go for it anyway, because it's what he needs. It's stunning to her now to realize how much she needs it too, needs the sun to her moon.

She can't lose it, him, now, simply cannot. It's unimaginable, she's quite certain she would simply cease to be, unable to handle another loss.

They need to go.

She knows he sees the change that comes over her; the teary eyed awe and joy and absolute love giving way to the bandit's fierceness she'd long ago honed. It feels different now though, stronger; for now she has something to fight for, someone to protect.

It's not just going to be her.

She's not alone, not anymore. It's not her against the world.

It's them. And she likes those odds a lot more.

"We need to go," she insists, watching her love's expression change too, eyes somehow more intense when revealing his considerable determination. "It's not safe here, not for me, and not for you when you're with me. If we're going to run, we need to run now, there's not time to waste."

Charming half smiles at her, letting go of her for the first time in many minutes. "There's no 'if'," he reminds gently. "You need to go, and I am coming with you. I will not be parted from you, ever again. And I'm quite accustomed to getting my way."

She manages a smirk. "I can imagine."

He surprises her with a short laugh. "You have no idea, my darling. There's much I need to tell you, once we have left this place far behind and are reasonably safe. For now I'll just say that I think you will come to find I'm quite the fighter, much as you are."

Curious, she gazes at him appraisingly, before allowing herself the delighted, slightly sly smile she has quickly come to think of as only his. "We made a pretty great team, the last we met. At least, when we actually worked together, and I wasn't dumping you in the lake or being strung up by you in a trap," she teases, delighting in his quick to flash smile. "We work well together. I can't really see that changing."

"We're both survivors," he agrees easily, matter of fact in the same way she imagines he'd be were he to tell her the sky is blue. Watching him move back towards his bed, she can't help but notice the confidence in how he carries himself as he tosses the bag he'd been preparing aside in favour of another satchel he pulls out from under his bed. Glancing back up at her, he flashes that grin of his again. "And we certainly both have motivation."

She smiles back; finding his infectious. "Mmm?" she teases. "Motivation for what, may I ask?"

Standing back up, his smile vanishes into a serious expression that is no less compelling.

"A good life," he says softly. "And a happy one. I'd never thought I could have both at once. Then along came you, and I could see the possibility, and once I could see it, there was no getting it out of mind. I had to have it."

"Think we can?" she asks, needing to hear it.

"You're here," he says simply, and that shouldn't answer the question but does. "That's all I need to know. I'll take the rest on faith."

"I'm not good with faith," she admits. "But I am with fight. And I want this. I want our good, happy life. And I'll fight like hell for it."

"As will I," he promises. "I've been smuggling gold, food and supplies in here for days, on the off chance that you would come. I know it won't last long, but..."

"But it's a start," she finishes, proud of him, pleased with his thinking. "And that's more than I've had to go on in a very long time."

"It's us now," he reminds gently, an immediate cure for a brief moment of melancholy. "You're not alone anymore, Snow. You've got me. And we're going to make it."

Faith her strong suit, no, but she figures every once in awhile, it'll be okay to help herself to some of his.

"We're going to make it," she agrees.

She helps him gather some last few things of value from his chambers, but that takes only moments. He'd been prepared for her to come; had done his part.

Hers - to get them out of here, out of the castle, the kingdom, George's reach, into the relative safety of one of her hideaways - begins now, as she leads Charming into the darkened passage from which she'd came.

It's a fraught path to a good and happy life, but it's the only one they've got.

And as they walk hand-in-hand into the night, she allows herself the pleasure of looking up at the stars, and letting herself wish.

She wants.