A/N The cover image is a photomanip I made for this fic

"What are you doing?"

As he carefully laid the sleeping princess in the farthest chamber of his castle, Mollysuddenly appeared at the other side of the bed. He's used to it by now, her materializing out of thin air. They've been together for months, ever since she helped him during a crossroad ambush. Ghosts can drive even burly men into running like spooked village idiots.

However, she was different.

"Sherlock, we had a deal!" Her voice filled the room but he ignored her as he pulled the duvet over the sleeping form, which he isn't even sure could feel coldness.

Or if the body could feel at all.

"You said that if I could alleviate you from boredom, you'd break the curse." She wisped to his side. Frustration was flowing out of her words. "Wasn't this enough? The long travel, the gigantic thorns, the hidden castle, the witch, the dragon…weren't they enough?"

Satisfied that the princess' ebony hair formed a perfect halo around her peaceful face, he stood up and stalked towards the door, fully ignoring the apparition beside him.

"Sherlock!" She appeared, this time in front of him and effectively stopping him midway. Anger and desperation etched in her face.

He wasted no time to look at her.

"No." He said before walking through her. That made her dissipate, but it brought chill in his bones.

"Liar!" She called behind him as he moved past the door. "You promised Sherlock! I gave you an adventure. I kept the end of my deal, now you have to -"

"Silence!" He turned back to her as he tightly gripped the handles of the brazen door. "I never agreed to anything!" He violently slammed the door at her face.

Taking the key off of his neck, he twisted it in the golden hole until he heard a reassuring click. With the room secured in front of him, he felt as if part of his anger was locked in it. A defeated sigh escaped from him and for a moment, his forehead almost rested on the wooden fixture. "I will not break the curse."

'Not for now.'

When he turned back, she was in front of him. This time however, he wasn't able to avoid her eyes. They shined with disappointment and pain.

"Why?" Defeat curled around her voice. "If you don't break the curse. I'll stay like this forever."

"Then stay like that!" He was always able to control his emotions, but not around her. Never with her. "Haven't you seen Molly? You were there! Tell me, what was outside the princess's chamber?"

If he could touch her, he would have tightly gripped her shoulders, maybe almost to the point of bruising. He wouldn't care though, because if pain would make her understand, then he would inflict pain.

It's not like he was a stranger to it. No, pain was his constant companion ever since he met her.

"What was sitting beside the princess's bed? What was lying on the ground before the gates?" He stepped closer to her. "What was sitting around the table? In the chariot? At the throne?"

Her face morphed into sadness, but he wasn't done.

"What filled the entire abandoned castle?"

He stopped and waited for her to answer. But she didn't. She can't.

She was stunned into silence.

So, he answered for her.

"Skulls, bones, skeletons..." He threw each words like daggers. "…remains of the dead!"

If she could cry, he was sure that tears would be falling at the floor already.

Her gaze wavered, but she held on. "But it had always been like that." Her words were almost whispered.

"And yet you don't understand." At first, he didn't too. When he walked into the legendary castle, he thought that he had discovered the fairy tale.However, when he saw the derelict courtyard, he realized that it was not like the stories.

Far from it.

"That place wasn't frozen like the tales said. That place was a graveyard."

She on the other hand, barely gave notice to it. As if she wasn't even looking at her surroundings. Instead, she went ahead and floated to the princess's room. He thought her apathy was brought by the knowledge beforehand of the state of the place.

Now he knows why.

She doesn't understand.

"But if the curse is lifted, everybody would come ba-"

"Time catches up with everything Molly!" He didn't want to have this conversation with her. He tried avoiding it by quickly lifting the sleeping princess and leaving the old castle before Molly could object. He ignored all of her protests as they made their way back to his kingdom. Even when she sporadically appeared in front of his horse, he never stopped. It was a good thing that Duke wasn't scared of her. Sherlock barely looked at her all throughout the journey.

Now, as he look at her grief-stricken face, he knows that there is no escape.

"Time catches up with everything and everyone." He repeated, as if doing so will make it less true. "Especially for a princess that had been sleeping for a hundred years."

He watched as realization dawned on her.

"Sleeping was the only thing that is keeping her from Death." It was the first time he said that out loud. He never knew that hearing it, could actually make it hurt more than knowing it.

Her eyes were now trained on the floor. He wants to look at them, but it would just ground him to this situation. He needs to be free if he wants to succeed in finding another way to break the curse. So instead of doing anything else, he simply walked away.

"Sherlock." He can't recall a time when she sounded this small. She was always so courageous, so different.He kept his back towards her. "I don't want to be like this."

He doesn't want her to be like that either, a fleeting presence that is barely seen by everyone else other than him. But the alternative is much worse.

"I'd rather that the curse stay, than watch you disappear..."

For her, for him.

"… and your body rot."