ONCE One Shots

The Toll of Being Separated By Sleep

Rating- PG

Tease- Just a short one shot about Charming's struggle with the sleeping curse. (I wrote this one shot right after the AU episode so it's based then)

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The Charming's had fallen into a routine of sorts, unfortunately they were becoming quite comfortable in it too. It had been over 2 weeks since the Evil Queen had put her spell on the infamous pair. The pattern was to switch out every other day. This was supposed to insure that neither of them felt behind on current events, and of course in Storybrooke even missing a day at a time required some catching up.

Things lately had gotten a little out of hand with Emma getting lost in the dream world, and her long awaited fight with Gideon. Charming had done exactly what Snow asked him not to do, keep her in the dark. He wanted to wake her, to let her see Neal who still wailed for his mommy often at night, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't wake his wife up only to be told by a recording or video message that the world had turned upside down once again.

Now that Emma had won the fight against Gideon, and things had calmed down a bit, Charming knew what he had to do. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and started writing the letter to his sleeping beauty. He tried to keep everything brief, everyone else in town could catch her up on details, instead he wanted to focus on how much he missed her, and their family not being complete without her. He wasn't nicknamed Prince Charming for nothing, the letter was exquisite. He could only hope that she would like it.

He folded the letter up, placed it on the side table along with a fresh glass of water. He stopped himself from kissing Snow awake, as he thought of his letter. He reached over to the side table to get the letter, and took hold of her hand as he recited the note.

"I don't know how much more of this I can take," he began. "Neal shouldn't have to live like this either, he deserves both his parents. I'm sorry for not waking you earlier, I just couldn't bare waking you to deal with that mess. I know you're strong enough for it, and I know that's exactly what you said in your head as you read that last line. I know you well Snow. It's not at all that you couldn't handle it, you probably would have done better than I did, but my love for you kept me from waking you. Just because you can handle it, doesn't mean you should have to. With all that happened with Emma and Regina disappearing, to a dream world apparently, and Emma's fight with Gideon I realize how different my life could be. In this dream world we defeated Regina before she could cast the curse, and we raised Emma. Just imagine that. This reality we missed all those moments with her, but somewhere in other worlds we are still King and Queen of The Enchanted Forest with a lovely daughter, a castle; a seemingly perfect life. But in this life, we weren't the people we are now. Regina was exiled, Robin was a petty thief, Emma was a princess who frolicked in the forest singing and picking flowers, and our son was never born. This life isn't perfect, far from it for everyone, but it's what we got and I wouldn't change it. I will always find you Snow, you know that, and I promise we will find a way to break this curse. I love you, and I hope you could picture me reading this to you as I sat by your side, because that's exactly what I did."

With that David finally leaned down and placed a feather light kiss on Snow's lips. His eyes slowly slugged shut as Snow's fluttered open.