She's still asleep when he wakes up, so he slides carefully out of bed, disentangling himself from her limbs. Then he goes into the kitchen to make breakfast.

She comes in as he is nearly finished and sits at the table. They smile good morning at each other. She looks stunning in his old white bathrobe which she seems to have exchanged her evening dress for. He can't quite tell, but the robe is slightly too big for her and hangs open at the top. He thinks she might be naked underneath.

He turns away to keep his thoughts from straying and flips the eggs in the skillet. "I guess I should change into something more comfortable," he says. He's still wearing his dress clothes from the night before.

"You go ahead," she says. "I'll watch them."

So he goes to his closet and realizes there's nothing he could wear that would come close to as good as she looks in his robe. So he dresses for comfort, as he had said he would, and puts on a pair of sweat pants and an old t-shirt.

"How do I look?" he asks as he reenters the kitchen. He notices she has put the eggs on plates along with the toast and bacon.

She brings her hand to her chin and turns her head in a mock study of him. At last she brings her hand down and smiles. "You could take off the shirt."

He lets out a breath of laughter. Then he realizes she's serious, still in the mood from last night.

"A-all right," he says, not willing to turn her down.

But even as he removes the shirt, he's self-conscious. He's never really liked his body, and considers himself to be pretty average in build and physique. No real defined muscles, a stomach that doesn't stick out far but is still there. Perhaps what bothers him most are the grey chest hairs.

But nothing seems to bother her, her smile unfading, continuously loving. She steps toward him and runs a hand up his chest.

He inhales sharply. "Breakfast is probably . . . getting cold," he says. It's not that he's not interested in this continuing. He's just extremely nervous and the words come out.

"It can wait," she says. She's still smiling, not coy or sensual, just warm, inviting, like she wants to give him everything.

He looks down into her gorgeous face and realizes that he never wants to leave this woman, that he wants her by his side always, that with all the crazy stuff happening in Storybrooke he'd die to protect her if it came to that. He loves her so much.

He takes her face in his hands and kisses her. Her lips are soft and warm and they draw him in. For a moment the world is perfect, and then she's pushing him away.

"Did you feel that?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "Feel what?"

He's confused now, alarmed. There's concern, slight panic across her features. She looks around, confused. She raises a hand to her nose.

"It's gone," she says.

"What's gone?" he asks, but she's brushing past him into the bed room.

"Ruby," he follows her into the room where she is putting on her shoes. "What is going on?"

"I have to talk to Granny," she says and brushes past him again, down the hall and out the door.

He scrambles for his own shoes. But his tie up and they take longer. He almost forgets his shirt as he heads out the door. He pauses to grab a sweater jacket.

It takes him a little while to jog to Granny's Inn, but they are both there. He opens the front door and sees them standing in the dining hall. Ruby has her back to him, he can't see her face, but Granny's lights up as she sees him.

"Oh, Archie!" she says, joy ringing in her voice. "I had hoped, but I had never truly thought-" She turns toward Red. "My dear, you're free."

Ruby clasps a hand to mouth to stifle a sob and flees from the room, brushing past him yet again to climb the stairs.

"Wha-?" He looks after her, decides she's too distraught to chase, and turns to Granny. "What is going on?"

"True love's kiss can break any curse," she says happily, her own tears falling down her face. "You broke it, both of you."

Realization dawns but it doesn't sink in. "What?" fear clouds his voice.

"The wolf, Archie," she explains. "It's gone. Red is free."

He gapes at her, struggling to find words. "She loved that thing!" he finally says. "It was a part of her."

"It was a curse, Archie," she says, wiping at her eyes, her normal serious tone back in her voice. "Red just made her peace with it. Now she can live her life without fear."

Archie takes a step forward, forcing down the anger that has risen within him. Granny clearly doesn't understand the betrayal that has just occurred. "You should have told her. She wasn't prepared for this."

Just as Granny is about to speak, Ruby's sobs break the tension, floating in through the ceiling.

His feet are moved into action and he sprints up the stairs. It might be that she doesn't want him right now, but he isn't about to listen to her cry while he does nothing.

The door to her room opens easily. She sits on the bed, sobbing into her hands, still dressed in his bathrobe. He joins her on the mattress and takes her into his arms. She doesn't resist and she cries into his sweater jacket.

He fights for words to say to her. All he can think of is that this is his fault. "I am so sorry," he says as he cradles her.

"I would choose you over the wolf any day," she says, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

He pulls back to get a look at her and nearly wishes he hadn't. Her face is red and soaked with tears. He brushes aside a damp stand of hair as she takes a gasping breath. "But it should have been a choice," he tells her. "It never should have been forced on you."

She dissolves again into sobs and he holds her, rocks her, tries to sooth her as she cries. Her grip on his arms slowly lessen and she falls asleep. He lays her down gently and kisses her cheek, wet and salty from tears.

Then he walks downstairs to face Granny. She's standing at the welcome desk, organizing some papers.

"You should have told her," he says again.

Granny sighs and looks up from her work. Her face is worn with fatigue. "When was I going to tell her, Archie? After she killed that boy, when I told her everything else? How was I supposed to say that if only it had been true love he'd still be alive?"

He remembers the boy, the one Ruby said she had loved, and he agrees with Granny that would not have been the right time. But she is far from finished talking, and he can tell he isn't going to like what she has to say.

"And then she ran off with Snow," she continues. "Was I supposed to tell her then? 'Hope you find a nice man while you're out in hiding?' And all those years she spent on her own? How was I supposed to tell her that maybe if she just stopped trying to protect everyone, she might be able to find the right man and settle down? Even after Snow took back the kingdom it wasn't any different. And then the curse happened and then it un-happened, and she had that episode where she completely lost control and thought she'd torn that poor boy apart. That would have been the perfect time to tell her! And then, while she's trying to distance herself to keep everyone safe, she starts showing some fleeting interest in you, and I sure as hell was not about to scare her off by bringing up true love. When?" Her face is contorted now, the pain she's fighting to hold back clearly visible. "When was I supposed to -?" Her voice catches in her throat. She brings her hand to her mouth and turns away from him, clearly fighting back her own tears.

He sympathizes with her. He feels the pain he knows she feels toward her granddaughter. He agrees with everything she's said to him. But still he knows what would have been the right thing to do.

"You should have found somewhere to slip it in."

She sniffs, turns back to him, and dries her hands on her blouse. "Well, I didn't," she says. "And you may think me cruel -"

"No," he breathes, shaking his head in all sincerity.

"I have always done what I thought was best for her," she continues, emotion flooding her voice. "I might not have always done the right thing, but I tried. And hindsight is only twenty-twenty. She not have ever found the right one, anyway. Her mother certainly didn't. And I . . . well, some things don't end the way you hope they will."

He leaves them both, feeling miserable. He can't help Red while she sleeps, and he's pretty sure Granny doesn't want his company.

She's right. He knows she's right about what she said. She did the best she could do. But still, he had to tell her she was wrong, that the best thing to do, the right thing to do, would have been to tell Ruby the truth, even though he knew telling Granny the best thing to do wouldn't help the situation.

Some days it sucks to be Jiminy Cricket.

Breakfast is cold on the counter when he gets home, but he forces himself to eat it. It's tasteless after the morning's events, but he's starving.

It's a weekend, and he doesn't have any counseling scheduled for the morning. He desperately wants to slip back into bed, but he has to take Pongo for a walk.

The temptations of the morning and the night before seem very far away.

She doesn't come by that later that day or the day after. He doesn't bother her because he figures she has some things to work out with Granny. But on Monday he gets an idea. He doesn't have any appointments until later in the evening so he shows up at her door, carrying an object with him.

"It's a . . . wolf pelt," she says uncertainly, still dressed in her night clothes.

He feels almost embarrassed for bothering her so early. He had just been so excited. Now though, it seems a little insensitive. "I thought . . . we could . . . burry it," he tells her. ". . . so you could say goodbye."

She stares at him for a moment, and he worries that he's done the wrong thing.

"Where'd you get it?"

"Gold's shop. Belle let me in - I didn't ask where it was from," he adds quickly. "I didn't want to know."

She stares at him again, and he's about to tell her it was a stupid idea when she tells him she'll be out in a minute and comes back again ready to face the morning.

They go out into the woods where Ruby liked to run. He lets her pick the spot.

It's the same area she'd woken up in the night she'd lost control. She says she's returned to the spot both in human and wolf form to rest. "It's just a comfortable spot," she tells him. "It seems appropriate. Like going to sleep . . ."

He hands her the pelt while he digs the hole. She pets the fur like it was a beloved pet and nuzzles her face against it. Once he's finished, she lays it in the hole he's dug and covers it with dirt by hand. She's near sobbing by the end of it.

"It was a curse," she says. "It shouldn't have meant so much."

"It was a part of you," he tells her.

"Do you miss Jiminy?"

He takes a deep breath, in and out, and thinks of the talk he had with her grandmother two mornings go. As Jiminy, he wouldn't have felt so much guilt at her pain, he wouldn't have emphasized so much. Life was easier as a cricket.

"Yes."

He can't hold back the two tears that fall, and she leaps up and throws her arms around him.

"Your grandmother-" he starts.

"She was right," she says, releasing him. "I was angry. But she was right. She did her best." She turns back to the "grave" they dug and wipes at her eyes. "She's always protected me. I guess I should be thankful for that."

She turns back to him. "I meant it, you know? I would have chosen you over the wolf."

"I know," he tells her, nodding. "I know."

She comes up to him and kisses him, and there's salt and tears in it from both of them.

Then they walk hand in hand back into town.

He has counseling for the rest of the day, and she has to work at the diner. They part ways, but she's back at his place once work is done. She happier, noticeably. And a night of talking and laughing and lying together on the couch after dinner leads them back to bedroom.

And when her hands slip under the fabric of his shirt to remove it, when they come together with loving arms and gentle kisses, when they tumble onto the bed and make love for the first time, it's perfect.

This story is continued in "Curses Unbroken." You can find it on my profile.