Archive of Our Own

Snow perched on the worn blue chair in his apartment, one knee tucked into her chest, a bottle of nail polish in hand. He watched her careful strokes, blue covering up the pale pink of her nail. The smell was sharp and acrid, but Bigby just lit another cigarette to drown it out. 

Neither spoke, as if they were in two separate rooms. He smoked. She painted her toes. Two people with some invisible wall between them. In a past life, his strength had brought down a house of brick. But here, he couldn’t tear it down. 

He wanted to. If he could, Bigby would pull it down brick by stubborn brick until he could go to her. He would kneel before her and paint her nails, blow the polish dry, then maybe, finally, stop feeling like she was always just out of reach.

Despite the years they had worked together—despite everything they had been through—he couldn’t reach her. He didn’t know how.

All he could do was watch.

With practiced ease, she dipped the brush into the bottle, wiped the excess on its lip, and painted her smallest toe. She looked like she belonged here, in his despondent apartment. Like she brought sunshine into its impenetrable shadows. 

Why was she here? Why had she knocked on his door with the offer of dinner and a bottle of his favorite whiskey, like a white flag of surrender? 

They had solved the case. The Crooked Man was gone. Crane was gone. His days had returned to paperwork and minor squabbles amongst the Fables. She had buried herself in the Business Office, poring over reports, untangling Fabletown’s finances, meeting with Bluebeard, and making time for the Fables who lined up in the hallway. 

Just up the hallway from him. Unreachable.

Snow looked tired. Deep shadows dulled her eyes. Her hair was limp. Her shoulders slumped beneath her jacket like an invisible weight pressed down on her. He wanted to take that weight from her, but she wouldn’t give it to him. 

“You’re staring,” she said after a long stretch of silence. 

Smoke curled from the end of his cigarette. “Am I?”

“You are.” Snow sighed, shifting her foot to the ground before drawing up her other leg. “You’re wondering why I’m here.”

“Not that I’m complaining but…yeah.” 

She never came to his apartment. Not unless she was knocking on his door to tell him a decapitated head had been found on their doorstep. Or he was almost dead, getting stitched back together by Swineheart. Dinner and drinks and painting her nails? No. They didn’t do that.

Snow didn’t look at him. She just kept painting her toes. “I don’t know.” 

“So you just thought it’d be a good place for a pedicure?”

She sighed. “I just figured…no one would look for me here.” 

“That’s true. But that doesn’t tell me why you’re here.”

She paused, the brush held over her toe, a glob of polish threatening to fall. It felt as precarious as this. Bigby waited.

“It’s so much,” she said at last, her voice barely above a whisper. “I thought…”

“That it would be easier?” Bigby stamped out the butt of his cigarette in the ashtray. 

Snow hung her head. “Yeah.”

Finally, she brushed the polish over her nail before the droplet could fall. Her mouth pressed into a tight line. 

“I just feel so disgusted,” she said, anger tight in her voice, “by how long Crane got away with it. Years. He neglected Fabletown to the point I’m not sure how—”

She sucked in a breath, then shook her head. 

“We’ll get through this, Snow,” Bigby said. “It’s gonna take time. Everyone will understand that.”

“No, they won’t. They already don’t,” Snow said. “They come to me, and I listen to them, but they want it now. And I want to give it to them. I do. But Crane left Fabletown’s finances in such a mess, and Bluebeard isn’t willing to help unless I give him something in return, and I just can’t—”

Bigby bristled. “What does he want?”

Snow met his gaze, her brows furrowed with anger. “More power.”

“We can’t give it to him,” Bigby said.

“Don’t you think I know that?” she snapped. Her eyes closed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“It’s okay, Snow. I know you’re under a lot of pressure.” Bigby paused. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Her expression neutralized, the tension slipping from her shoulders. But it still lingered there, in the lines of her body and in the coolness of her eyes. Maybe no one else would see it, but Bigby did. 

“No,” she said. “You’ve done enough.”

In those three words, he felt the things that were left unsaid: the trail of blood and bodies he had left behind. The wolf had come out, and it had been ugly and devastating. She had asked it of him. Not directly. But she had asked him to finish this, and he did. These were the consequences. 

But still, he had to try. He deserved a shot at redemption. At least in Snow’s eyes, if no one else's. Everyone else would stay afraid of the big, bad wolf. 

“Come on, Snow,” Bigby said softly. “There has to be something. Things have been quiet lately in the sheriff’s office. Let me help you. You don’t have to do this alone.”

She didn’t answer right away. Snow finished painting her last toe. She screwed the cap back on the bottle. Let her bare feet rest on his floor—inadvisable, really, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Her hands lay limply in her lap. She stared through the window into the dark night. 

“I let this happen,” she said quietly, the slightest tremble in her voice. “For years, I let them down. Shuffled them through the Business Office like an assembly line. Not like people who deserved help. Care. This…this fracture is on me.”

Anger roiled up inside of him. Bigby jabbed his finger toward the window, at the city around them. “That’s bullshit. This is Crane’s fault. He wouldn’t let you help these people. He didn’t care about any of them. You cared.”

“It isn’t enough, Bigby.” She shook her head. “You know what everyone thinks about me. That I’m some spoiled princess. That I’m exactly like Crane or Bluebeard. They think I don’t care.”

“So show them that you do,” Bigby said. 

She looked up at him, eyes wide and pleading. “How, Bigby? I’m seeing them. I’m listening. But the money isn’t there. I can’t fix anyone’s problems. I can’t even fix my own.”

She stood up suddenly, wrapping her hands around her elbows. She walked toward the window. Bigby remained near the table, watching her. 

“I can’t stop seeing Lily,” she admitted. “In my clothes. My body. My face. Knowing what he did to her. Knowing that we created the system that allowed this to happen. When Grendel came to me, I didn’t even file a report with you.”

Bigby stilled. In the back of his mind, he knew that had to be true. Gren said that he had come to the Business Office and no one had cared that Lily was missing. But Bigby hadn’t even known. Snow didn’t tell him. If she had, maybe he could have found Lily sooner. Saved her, even. 

“You can’t let it eat you up,” he told her. “You made a mistake. A bad one. You can’t change it. All you can do now is do better.”

Snow didn’t look at him. She remained at the window, holding herself tightly as if it was the only thing keeping her from falling apart. 

Slowly, Bigby walked over to her. He gently set his hand on her shoulder. For the first time all night, the distance between them felt less solid. 

“You have to forgive yourself, Snow.”

Now she did look at him, her eyes bright with grief. “How, Bigby? I can’t even look at myself in a mirror.”

“Time,” he said. “Being honest with yourself. Look at yourself in the mirror, Snow. You’re one of the best people in this damn town. It kills me to see you be so hard on yourself when you don’t need to be.”

She closed her eyes. Bigby admired the thick fan of her eyelashes, the soft curves of her lips. Her perfume mixed with the cigarette smoke and fresh polish. He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t. 

But still, hesitantly, he pressed closer. He felt the heat of her body. Could hear the nervous rhythm of her heart. 

“If the big bad wolf can be forgiven, so can you,” he murmured. 

She huffed out a breath. “That’s a terrible way to convince me. People are still afraid of you.” 

“Maybe,” Bigby said. “But I know they’re grateful to me, to us, for what we did. We showed them that we care, that we listen. We just have to keep doing that.”

Slowly, she opened her eyes and tilted her head back. She was so close. Close enough that he could feel her warm breath. His hand tightened slightly on her shoulder.

Then Snow stepped back, pulling away from him. “I should go.”

She walked back to where she had left her things and began to pack it away. 

“Shouldn’t you wait for your polish to dry?” Bigby asked. He didn’t want her to leave yet. “I wouldn’t trust walking around the building in bare feet.”

She sighed. “That’s a good point.” 

Bigby took a step toward her. “Hey. You don’t have to run from me.”

“I’m not running from anything.”

“You are. And that’s okay. Just don’t run from me, alright?”

Snow turned to face him, offering a small smile. “Thank you, Bigby.”

“Any time, Snow,” he said. 

The wall felt a little weaker now, like he could break it down. Slowly. Carefully. 

Until he did.