Once Upon a Time Fic: So This Is Love?
Title: So This Is Love?
Fandom(s): Once Upon a Time
Rating: G
Word Count: 576
Summary: “Please don’t leave me.”
Characters: Ashley/Sean, Mr. Gold
Author’s Notes: Response to this prompt. Spoilers for “The Price of Gold.”
So This Is Love?
It happens all of a sudden, comes as a complete shock. One minute, she and Sean are doing fine, she’s raising an eyebrow at his choice of a name for their baby, his face lights up every time he feels her kick. The next, he’s walking away from her with harsh words lying in the chasm between them. Dying sunlight bounces off his fair hair, giving him an almost angelic appearance.
But in appearance only.
“Wait,” Ashley calls, hurrying after him as quickly as her swollen belly and feet will allow. She touches his arm; it’s stiff, unyielding. “Sean, please,” she says. His face is blurry through unwanted tears. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this alone.”
At first, she thinks he’s going to pull out of her grasp without so much as a second glance-he almost does-but then, his face taut, breathes, “Yes, you can.”
Ashley drops his arm as if burned, staring up at him, at a stranger. She has no idea how everything went so wrong so fast. How he went from unadulterated love, to…this. The time before is almost like a half-remembered dream, really, but how she felt is true as the being growing inside her. She knows he loves-loved-her, yet there’s all evidence to the contrary standing in front of her now. She can no longer read his face, not like she used to.
She considers slapping him, inflicting the same amount of pain on him as he did her. Sean looks at the pavement for a moment, then turns to leave.
“Sean!” Ashley yells, his form nearly a shadow by the time she does. Sean stops again, the tension in his shoulders visible even beneath his jacket, beneath the dusky light. Her voice is ice as it reaches his ears. “Sean, if you leave now, so help me, you’ll never see her. I’d rather she have no father than one who doesn’t want her.”
She can’t see his face, but if she could-pained, eyes shut, hands curled into fists as he fights every instinct to run back to her, halted by some force he can’t feel but by which he’s compelled. Ashley has no clue why he’s being like this, but she meant every word.
“Please…” she murmurs. She doesn’t know if he heard her, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference, because a second later, Sean starts once more walking away from her, slowly dissolving into the murky sunset.
Unlike the famed Orpheus, who checked behind him to make sure his love was still there and that they wouldn’t be separated, however, Sean doesn’t. He continues walking, and Ashley continues staring after him with her hands protectively on her stomach, tears tainted by anger and devastation dripping onto the cracked asphalt.
She’s not sure what will happen going forward, just that now she has no one left.
She barely makes her way to a bench in the nearby park before she completely breaks down, her own emotions plus her wacky hormones getting the better of her. She jumps when she feels a hand touch her shoulder, and she looks up, an errant hope that it’s Sean springing forth.
It isn’t.
She’s abruptly aware of another presence, and jumps when she looks up to see a man by whom she’s always been unnerved standing there. His skin looks green in the twilight, and he leans towards her, head canted sideways.
“Whatever is the matter, dearie?”
Fandom(s): Once Upon a Time
Rating: G
Word Count: 576
Summary: “Please don’t leave me.”
Characters: Ashley/Sean, Mr. Gold
Author’s Notes: Response to this prompt. Spoilers for “The Price of Gold.”
So This Is Love?
It happens all of a sudden, comes as a complete shock. One minute, she and Sean are doing fine, she’s raising an eyebrow at his choice of a name for their baby, his face lights up every time he feels her kick. The next, he’s walking away from her with harsh words lying in the chasm between them. Dying sunlight bounces off his fair hair, giving him an almost angelic appearance.
But in appearance only.
“Wait,” Ashley calls, hurrying after him as quickly as her swollen belly and feet will allow. She touches his arm; it’s stiff, unyielding. “Sean, please,” she says. His face is blurry through unwanted tears. “Please don’t leave me. I can’t do this alone.”
At first, she thinks he’s going to pull out of her grasp without so much as a second glance-he almost does-but then, his face taut, breathes, “Yes, you can.”
Ashley drops his arm as if burned, staring up at him, at a stranger. She has no idea how everything went so wrong so fast. How he went from unadulterated love, to…this. The time before is almost like a half-remembered dream, really, but how she felt is true as the being growing inside her. She knows he loves-loved-her, yet there’s all evidence to the contrary standing in front of her now. She can no longer read his face, not like she used to.
She considers slapping him, inflicting the same amount of pain on him as he did her. Sean looks at the pavement for a moment, then turns to leave.
“Sean!” Ashley yells, his form nearly a shadow by the time she does. Sean stops again, the tension in his shoulders visible even beneath his jacket, beneath the dusky light. Her voice is ice as it reaches his ears. “Sean, if you leave now, so help me, you’ll never see her. I’d rather she have no father than one who doesn’t want her.”
She can’t see his face, but if she could-pained, eyes shut, hands curled into fists as he fights every instinct to run back to her, halted by some force he can’t feel but by which he’s compelled. Ashley has no clue why he’s being like this, but she meant every word.
“Please…” she murmurs. She doesn’t know if he heard her, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference, because a second later, Sean starts once more walking away from her, slowly dissolving into the murky sunset.
Unlike the famed Orpheus, who checked behind him to make sure his love was still there and that they wouldn’t be separated, however, Sean doesn’t. He continues walking, and Ashley continues staring after him with her hands protectively on her stomach, tears tainted by anger and devastation dripping onto the cracked asphalt.
She’s not sure what will happen going forward, just that now she has no one left.
She barely makes her way to a bench in the nearby park before she completely breaks down, her own emotions plus her wacky hormones getting the better of her. She jumps when she feels a hand touch her shoulder, and she looks up, an errant hope that it’s Sean springing forth.
It isn’t.
She’s abruptly aware of another presence, and jumps when she looks up to see a man by whom she’s always been unnerved standing there. His skin looks green in the twilight, and he leans towards her, head canted sideways.
“Whatever is the matter, dearie?”