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Some friend!RedxCharming that randomly popped into my head after 1x15. Takes place right after 1x13.

Closure

Red swivels around, her eyes stinging from the impact of dust spiraling up as James' stallion gallops away from King George and his men, who are still hot on their heels-hooves. The old man's wrinkled face betrays no signs of fatigue, only dogged determination. "James, we're not going to be able to get away unless you have some trick up your sleeve!" she calls over the rhythmic canter as she turns back to face him.

"I have a bow and quiver in my satchel!"

Before he's even finished speaking, Red locates the weapon and grabs a handful of arrows. As she loads the first arrow, she reorients herself to get a better view of her targets. Confidently, she raises the bow, pulls the string back with a devilish grin as she glares into the King's eyes, and releases. The arrow darts through the air in a perfect line and sinks into the rider flanking the King's right. The knight's chain mail is no match for James' arrows, which she suspects are Snow's design, and the man crumples to the ground. She repeats for the knight on the other side, and without riders, the two lone horses disrupt the group's formation, causing enough mayhem to give her and James' a chance to speed away.

After an indeterminate amount of time riding alone through the forest (he made a loop to confirm they weren't being followed) James finally slows and speaks, his breath visibly warming the chilly winter air. "You know anywhere we can stay the night, Red?"

"We can stay in the tree where Snow and I used to live," she says. He stiffens at the mention of his missing love and, sensing his discomfort, she adds, "If you want."

James shakes his head, brushing off her concern. "That should be fine." He tugs on the reins to make a detour. Wouldn't want to pass those trolls again, he tries not to remind himself. But he still thinks of Snow.

When they arrive, James hops off his horse and offers a hand to help Red, but she shoves his hand away with a smirk and dismounts on her own. "Always the gentleman, James, aren't ya?"

He chuckles. "I try, but I always seem to forget that you never want help." He drags the horse over to a nearby tree and ties it off so the creature doesn't attempt an escape of its own. Then he doubles back to where Red still stood, reveling in the calm peace the woods always managed to bring her. The forest was the only friend that never abandoned them. "Sorry I couldn't get you back to Granny's, by the way, but the King is sure to search for us there."

Broken out of her reverie, she replies, "That's all right," with no trace of regret in her voice. "The tavern won't miss me for one night."

Snickering, James replies, "You mean you won't miss the tavern for one night. What would Granny say?"

Red shoots him one of her infamous scowls, flashing him back to the way she used to make all the boys cower in fear when they were young and stuck in that perpetual prepubescent stage where boys and girls only noticed each other when they felt like arguing. "You know I've always despised that place. And Granny will probably assume I'm doing some immoral, depraved thing she doesn't even want to think about, like she always does."

James raises his eyebrow with mock disapproval. "Well, you should tell her that you're simply an unmarried woman spending he night with an unmarried man who just left his fiancee," he says, a grin melting onto his face. "That would go over well."

"Ha, ha. Very funny." She huffs and turns her back on him with a swish of her cloak, gliding toward the entrance into Snow's home.

James wanders around nostalgically, inhaling the sharp, fresh air as Red struggles to push the boulder closing off Snow's tree. "The last time I was around here, I had Snow in a net, hanging from a branch above my head." He strolls over to Red and shoves the boulder away with ease. "Ironic how love begins, isn't it?"

Red gazes off into the distance, then turns with a melancholic sigh as she enters the hollow tree. She smiles sadly. "Yes, it is." Under her breath, she mutters, "Ironic how it ends, too."

She walks further in and exhales, relieved. "This place has always felt more like home to me than the tavern ever was." She rummages through the disheveled shelves in search of food and suddenly returns to the original topic, reminiscing, "She would get angry every time she told me that story. Couldn't believe she didn't notice your trap."

James follows her in, tiptoeing around the neglected rubble. "Well, I'm glad she didn't."

"I'm sure she's happy too, when she thinks about it." If she thinks about it. She quashes that thought and pokes through a few more containers. Eventually she turns to him and complains, "There is nothing edible here." She scans the rest of the tiny abode and her eyes fall upon a small cabinet tucked into the corner. "But," she continues, walking over to it and pulling out a bottle, "this doesn't spoil."

He looks back at her, incredulity marking his handsome features. "Whiskey? Seriously? You two drink that stuff?"

Red rolls her eyes at his naivete. "I didn't grow up working in a tavern for nothing, James. I'm sure you remember."

He cocks his head, pretending to think. "I do recall something about you providing the drinks for the parties our friends used to have."

She pops the amber container open. "Yes, well, we were saving it for a bad day." She drinks, relishing the burn as the liquid washes down her throat, and offers the flask to him. "I'm fairly certain today qualifies."

James shakes his head and smiles. He takes it from her and follows her lead with a wince. "I agree," he replies. "Wholeheartedly."

...

Night has long fallen in the forest and Red and James are doubled over in hysterics, their laughter echoing out into the woods and weaving its way through the bare branches. All familiarity and ease, just like old times. The two of them both have genuine grins on their faces, a phenomenon that hasn't occurred for either in a while. But as the laughter fades away, all that's left is the ominous storm cloud of unfinished business and suppressed emotion hanging in the air above them. And neither is quite sure how to go about getting rid of it. But you don't need to know. You just need to start.

Slumped over in a makeshift bed on the dirt floor, James curiously looks up at Red, who is sprawled out on the dull sofa, her curves meshing with the smooth fabric, and observes, "You've changed. I can't quite put my finger on it. You're more...cynical? Like the world's torn you apart."

"A lot has happened since you left."

He senses the bitterness in that simple statement, can tell from the way she refuses to look at him as she sends a pointed stare up at the rotted ceiling. He knows he could let it be, that they could go on pretending, but he's sick of it. She's sick of it. And he likes to believe he's never been the type to pretend, to avoid as long as he has. "I missed you, Red. I really did."

There's no trace of guile in his voice, no deception, only frank honesty as she expected, but she can't convince herself to forgive him so easily. And she knows it's unfair, but that's the way life is. Everything isn't always black and white, good and evil; it's not a fairytale. It's real. So she picks up the last, half-empty bottle from the gnarled wooden table and takes a swig. Icily, she mutters, "Says he who ran away at the first opportunity."

He sits up to look at her even though she's still glaring off into space, fury raging through him at the insinuation that he abandoned them, his mother, her. "That's not fair!" he flares up. "You know I had to leave. We were poor, barely able to get food on the table every night, and this man shows up and offers the possibility to never have to starve for the rest of my life, for Mother to be happy, to come home as someone more than a shepherd. Don't even pretend you wouldn't have taken it if you had been in my place, Red."

Red slams the bottle down on the table with a thud, the force rattling the objects around them. She glowers down at him, fire blazing in her eyes. "James, you know you could have come to us if you needed food. And that's not even it. Don't you remember that day by the pond, where we all promised each other that if one of us found a way out, we would go together? You didn't even tell us you were leaving! No, I come up to the farm to tell you about Peter and I, and I find your mother sitting in the fields, sobbing, barely coherent to tell me what happened." She pauses to compose herself, slow her breathing. "And then it hit me," she hisses, "that I would never see you again."

James' voice softens, as he looks at his best friend and almost wants to hurt himself for hurting her. "I could have died. It was better you didn't know."

"How 'bout after you didn't die?" she spits. "When you came back to tell your mom that you weren't coming back? I suppose over fifteen years of being best friends doesn't warrant a farewell?"

"You answered your question," he replies. "I wasn't coming back, so what was the point? You deserved to live a happy life with Peter, untainted by my memory."

"Untainted? You honestly believe I could have forgotten you?" she yells. "You taught me how to ride a horse. You broke me out of my own home whenever I needed you to. You and I used to race through the fields everyday and sneak into the forest simply because we were told not to. Even as we got older and it was considered inappropriate, I still told you everything." She gulps in a much-needed breath of air, somewhat calming herself before she continues. "And you don't tell me you're leaving!"

"That was the problem," he mumbles, looking away. "That you told me everything."

"What?" she asks, taken aback. She notices him scratch the back of his head. It's a tic of his; whenever he's nervous or embarrassed his hand jumps to run its fingers through his hair.

"I was going to tell you, but when I arrived at our usual spot, I saw you and Peter," he admits. "You two...I didn't want to be around for it."

"Why?"

"I was so envious of him, Red," he confesses. "All the time you used to spend with me you spent with him. I don't know, I knew it would happen someday, that you would find someone and settle down. I just, I guess I had hoped that it would be me." He scratches his head again. "But I had nothing to offer. I thought that I could take this deal, become a hero with piles of gold and then I could come home and steal you away from him. And even if I couldn't, at least I wouldn't have had my heart broken every time I saw you two. But then King George ruined that and Abigail became my betrothed. And then I met Snow."

He shrugs. The rest is history.

A million thoughts run through Red's mind in that one moment-you're a fool, I'm a fool, we're all fools, to name a few-but then she leans over and slaps him, a resounding crack echoing through the nooks and crannies of the hollowed home. He scrambles away from her, rubbing at the stung skin on his cheek. "What was that for?" he complains.

"For thinking that I cared if you had money or not."

Appearing rather comical with half of his face tinted red, he grins sheepishly. "I know."

Red lies back down on the couch and stares at the ceiling again, shaking her head. "I used to fancy you so much, you know. I kept Peter waiting for so long because I wanted you. Granny was so sure you would realize it someday. Ella used to rile me up by saying she would make a move on you if I didn't." She smiles as she thinks of the sweet blonde. "I miss her."

"Me too," he sighs, reflecting on their childhood moments spent with Ella. She was the most optimistic of their unhappy trio. "I haven't heard about her in a while."

"Neither have I," Red admits. "That bitter stepmother of hers kept her locked up all the time and Ella got desperate enough to make a deal." A grave exchange passes between the two at the mention of a deal. It's a simple word, really, only four letters, but ripe with so much meaning in their world. It shouldn't have to be. "Last I heard, she was seeing some prince and I am happy for her, but no deal ever goes well. And knowing her, I doubt she read the contract all the way through." She buries her face into one of Snow's pillows, the accursed, abrasive fabric muffling her voice. "Peter used to tell me he would do something about it the second he could. He never got the chance."

"You never told me what happened to him." When she doesn't respond, James snatches the pillow from her hands and tosses it across the room, where something topples over with a thud. He doesn't care.

She digs her face deeper into the cold couch cushions.

"Red."

She takes a deep breath, fearful of his reaction. "The wolf season," she says, "is me. I killed him. The hood stops me from changing. That's why Granny's always been so protective of me."

She speaks coolly, with no emotion, as if she'd simply been commenting on the weather, but James knows her too well; he knows that under the facade of indifference lies turmoil, fiery emotion she hasn't quite sorted out yet. And maybe she never will. But he's not leaving her again. James stands and sits down next to her, where she's curled herself into a ball. He takes her into his arms and strokes her hair, the way he always used to when they were younger and she had fallen and scraped her knees. Whenever she was hurt.

For a while he says nothing because silence is what she needs.

Eventually Red takes a shaky breath and says, "I'm sorry for choosing to blame you." She turns her head to face him, to find the flecks of fear in his eyes, the same ones she saw in everyone else who spoke of the wolf-her. "I'll leave if it scares you."

James tightens his arms around her. "I apologize, Red. About Peter, for leaving, for everything. I'm sorry. And I don't care what you are, because you're my best friend."

She leans into him and kisses him on his stubbly cheek. "Thank you." Then she straightens up and rests her head on James' shoulder. She's still tense, her muscles taut, and he can tell something's wrong.

"That isn't it, is it?" he asks rhetorically. "Us, Peter, but there's something else. Something else eating at you. Or someone."

She remains infuriatingly silent, shaking her head, but James knows her too well. He brings his palm up to his forehead in disbelief. "You made a deal with Him too. I never thought you would...you were the strongest. How?"

"A desperate soul will go to desperate measures," she mutters. "I'm not proud of it." Red shuts her eyes tight and covers them to prevent her tears from falling. "The whole wolf thing; I couldn't live with it. Even with the hood, I was just terrified that something would happen and I would kill someone else and after Peter-I just hated myself. So I made a deal to get rid of it. He handed me a bottle of white serum, no taller than a thumb's length. The price was that I could never fall in love."

She ignores his sharp intake of breath and waves a hand to silence him. "I had no idea how that would benefit Him, but I didn't think it would be so bad. I thought I wouldn't love anyone else, anyway. Peter was dead. So I signed the contract." She shrugs, squeezing the red cloth of her cloak in between her fingers. Then she looks back at him, searching for traces of disgust at her weakness. She finds none. "I still have no idea if it worked. I'm too afraid to find out."

"I had to safeguard myself against love," she continues, massaging her temple with her fingertips. "For a long time I pretended men didn't have feelings, treated them as things. What if I fell in love? What would He take from me? I returned to the tavern, buried myself in the mundane work. I made it so that no man would actually care about me, just what I could give them. Eventually, the good ones avoided me. They didn't want their reputations soiled."

She lies back on the arm of the couch and rests her feet in her best friend's lap, chuckling bitterly to herself. James shakes his head, tugs her hand away from her face and grasps her fingers in his. "You really thought you could live like that forever, Red?"

"I could have. But everything reminded me of Peter. Everywhere I looked there was someone I was afraid I would maul. So I ran away, took to the forest, stayed with Snow again." Red snickers. "She actually tried to rob me until she realized it was me."

James leans his head back against the wall, a silly grin plastered to his face. "Figures."

"We lived alone in the woods, hunting, gathering food. We would have gone on like that. Two women living in disgrace, two women who loved and lost, you know the score. One day Snow had gone to take a walk-I still have no idea to where-and dusk had fallen, so I went out to search for her. I knew that I was the reason the older women told us to stay out of the forest at night, but I was worried. When I went out, there was a wolf that seemed like it knew me, but before I could panic, or do anything, it crumpled to the ground with a spear lodged in its side."

"That's strange," he says. "Who threw it?"

"The hunter," she answers, smiling to herself. "Remember?"

"You mean the man who killed that filth in the tavern?"

"The same one."

"Tell me you shook his hand."

"No," she says as she twirls her hair around her finger, waist-deep in bittersweet memories. "I fell in love with him."

Finally she lets her tears fall freely. "Snow warned me not to, but I did. We fell in love. And now I can't ever be with him."

"Why?" he asks, like he's a stranger to not being with the one he loves.

"He belongs to the Queen. He's the Huntsman, James, the one who refused to kill Snow. We grew careless and he came more often, outside the hours of his business here. She found out."

"Oh, Red," he murmurs with sympathy, filling in the rest of the story in his mind.

She plunders on before she loses her nerve. "She's literally ripped his heart out and locked it away, so he'll be her slave forever. I'll never be with him. And He, after finding out, took the wolf figurine the Huntsman had fashioned for me to remember, said it would be useful someday. I have no idea what on earth for." She jerks away from James, not wanting him to see her cry, but he traps her in his embrace.

"Every day I try to forget, but I can't." Her voice trembling, she continues, "There are times when I feel like cutting my own heart out in the hopes that living without one would make life easier."

"You'll always remember his love, Red. In that way he will always be with you." James gently wipes the glistening tears from her face. Soothing, he adds, "Someday you and he will be together, whether in this life or in the next or in a different world altogether. True love is that powerful."

She rolls her eyes, still blurred by her tears, but she cracks a small smile. "You were always the hopeless romantic."

He casts his gaze downward and shakes his head. "Geez, Red, now I have to become King."

"Why?"

"So I can send the Royal Army after her."

The sobs lost, she giggles, and the ringing quality of her laughter is music to his ears. He plants a chaste kiss on her forehead.

She squeezes his hand, feeling the rough calluses from his lifetime of manual labor. The two of them are not perfect. They're broken. And that's okay.

"Me, you, and Ella, we were quite a team," he muses. "All the ridiculous things we used to do. We were so desperate to get out of here and make something of ourselves."

"We were," she agrees. 'And now we're all brokenhearted fools."

"My mom always used to say 'you reap what you sow.'"

They burst out into laughter again, not so much because of any humor in their predicament, but because it feels comfortable. Comfort. It's a feeling neither has felt in a really, really long time, and a feeling they're content to indulge in while they get the chance. Soon the two are sitting, basking in pleasant silence, listening to the chants of forest wildlife. Both have missed this, the easy camaraderie, now that they've unburdened themselves.

Sort of.

"So how is Mother?" he asks tentatively, like he's not sure he wants the answer.

"For a second there I thought you weren't going to ask." Red looks up at her best friend. "She'd doing well. As well as she can do without her son. We should go see her, if we get the chance before we go to wherever we're going."

"We?" he asks in mock surprise. "Red, it might be dangerous wherever we're going."

Red looks back at him, his blue eyes twinkling. She longs to slap away his self-assured smirk, but she doesn't, because that could be considered rude. "You said 'we' also, Prince Charming," she drawls, before playfully shoving him off the couch. "Go to sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a long day." She listens as James settles into a haphazard pile of scratchy blankets.

James douses the flickering lantern light, and when he lays back on the hard floor, he thinks of Snow, her laughter, the gentle curve of her smile, her spunk and sharp tongue.

...

After a period of attempting to sleep, James shatters the silence with the one question he's had on his mind all evening. He knows she's not asleep; he's used to the patterns of her breathing. "Where do you think she is, Red?"

"No idea," she sighs. "But you'll find her."

"I'll always find her."

"The power of true love?" she asks, and he can just see the smirk on her face, even though they're cloaked in the dim twilight glow.

"Something like that."

"Red?" he ventures uncertainly.

"Mmm?"

"I'm glad we never confessed our feelings back then."

She thinks of the Huntsman, his curly locks of hair, the sharp planes of his face that always softened when he was around her, his gentle demeanor a stark contrast against his fierce strength. "Me too."

Red grasps the scarlet cloak tight over her body. Both of them roll over and bury their faces in their sheets. Neither falls asleep.

Fin

A/N: I wondered about their relationship after we saw them running off, and this was the product of my fascination. Hope you liked it!

Reviews=love.