The Music Sounds Better With You - Wintumn One Shots

Once Upon A Time...

A/N Thank you to The Council for letting me run with this...

Well, there's one thing

They can't order me to stop dreaming
And perhaps, someday...

No one would ever believe it, but Autumn loved fairy tales; and growing up in the 90s, of course she had a soft spot for Disney's adaptations. Her mother had always been a fan of classic Disney growing up and had gifted her children her complete collection of Disney tapes. Autumn would watch those movies for hours, completely entranced as she saw characters face challenge after challenge but always come out with their happy ending. 

Some of her earliest memories were of girls' days with her mother going to see the newest Disney release. They would get all dressed up, go out to lunch, go shopping, and watch the film. The whole day would be just about them. When her mother left, Reece continued the tradition taking his sister out anytime he had enough money saved to treat her to a movie.

As she got older she started seeing more and more of herself in the protagonists and the trials they went through. Her father always hated that his daughter would waste all her time watching fairy tales, insisting that she take life far more seriously. So she stopped, it was just easier to just give in to her father's demands instead of fighting back. 

But when she was safe in the comfort of her own room, she would spend hours imagining a life for herself that mirrored those in her favorite fairy tales. Where everything she went through in this house led her to her happy ending. Sometimes that happy ending was just escaping with Reece to finally live a peaceful life and sometimes that happy ending involved finding the love of her life. She filled page after page of her diary with hopes and dreams for the future.

Now I see that if I were truly to be myself
I would break my family's heart

From the moment her mother left, Autumn learned that the best way to keep herself safe and to earn any affection from her father was to change everything about herself. To become the "perfect child" her father insisted he needed. She was not able to be the little girl who danced around the living room, playing pretend with her older brother; she had to be the quiet obedient daughter who got good grades and never complained. Her father would yell at her anytime she showed an emotion and berate her every time he caught her daydreaming. So she started to change.

She started to make all of her decisions based on an image that her father wanted her to project. The image of the perfect child. Her appearance always had to be perfect, she had to keep her attitude in line and her emotions in check so that she reflected well on the family, on her father. For years, striving to earn her father's approval influenced everything she did. How she talked, how she dressed, the activities she joined at school, all of them were carefully chosen in a feeble attempt to earn her father's respect. If she had stayed the same girl she used to be, her life would have been even harder than it already was.

But as she got older, the ramblings in her diary became nothing more than stories. Time and again her heart was broken, leaving her with less faith that someone would ever be able to fix it again. By the time she came to work at her father's nursery she was sure that her life would be spent alone. Just her and her cat, Caddie, and that was enough for her. If she stopped putting herself out there, she wouldn't get hurt. Her life was comfortable, it was quiet, she was content. Until one man changed it all. 

I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream
I know you
That look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

The second that Autumn laid her eyes on Winter Fortune she couldn't shake the feeling that she knew him from somewhere but she couldn't place why. She'd seen his CV and knew that their paths would not have crossed at school or university. He grew up on the complete opposite side of town and worked at a competitive nursery for years. There was no way they had ever met before. But she still couldn't put the thought out of her head. Winter also found himself wondering why he felt so drawn to the woman. He'd heard nothing but bad things about her from the other employees and yet he'd still find his mind wandering to her, wondering if there was any reason they would have met in the past. Both of them found themselves spending more time than they cared to admit thinking about the other.