#will our dashing heroes reunite before it's too late?

[mosquito-queen]

"Hey," Robin began as Nancy walked out of the market, “About earlier?” Robin is perched on a folded leg while the other dangles off the retaining wall, bouncing her foot off the rock. Her spine is curved forward, and her fingers are playing tug of war. There's something sad in the quirk of her lip. Nancy doesn't meet her eyes. Robin is oddly quiet, leaving room for Nancy to decide if she wants to continue this conversation.

A pause. Nancy fixed her gaze on the distant treeline, jaw clenched and arms crossed. She could feel Robin looking at her. She could feel Robin lingering too long on the blistering scabs adorning her arm. There were so many things she wanted to say to the freckle-faced girl. There were a hundred thoughts desperately clawing behind her teeth and her throat felt like hot gravel.

In the end, Nancy only said, "I'm going to Lerna."

"Oh, weird, me too."

"Alone." She still isn't looking at Robin. She knows the minute she does, her resolve will melt on the tip of her tongue. Doubt will creep in. Nancy tries to keep herself grounded by biting her nails into the backs of her arms. Her shoulders are squared and her face is turned away from the temptation of looking at the girl that would be her undoing.

"You're not going alone, Nancy." Robin has slipped off the wall. She's a step closer but mindful to keep a distance- as if Nancy would run at any sudden movements. She might. "That's where the hydra is; it's too dangerous. Your arm isn't even healed up. I could ask Hermes for help, he would know another way. There's got to be another way." Robin had moved closer. Her hand was raised to touch Nancy before she thought better of it. She frowned, letting her hand drop, and repeated, "There's another way."

Nancy's face was still turned away. She felt something warm roll down her face the longer Robin spoke. She furrowed her brow, the lack of clouds meant it wasn't raining. She swiped at her cheek. Oh. The tears rolled heavy and slow down her face. She smeared them with the back of her hand, flushing with embarrassment. Anger whipped up in her chest, her throat tightened, and she turned with the force of a storm gust.

"There isn't another way." Her voice was low, a warning. Robin blanched, surprised at the animosity she saw flickering in eyes that had been such a fond shade of blue just yesterday. "Dionysus said the gate at Tenarus was closed, and Avernus is too far now. Besides, Hercules killed the hydra with this very sword." Nancy's lip curled as she spit, "I've lost too much time already to stroll my way to the Underworld." Robin winced, the words thrown carelessly. Nancy meant she should have chosen the sword on the cliffside.

Nancy felt a pit loosen in her stomach, an endless void of grief that would consume her. She clamped down on the guilt that bubbled up from its depths as she watched tears spring to Robin's eyes. Nancy could not risk Robin's life anymore. She was selfish for leaning on the girl for so long. She forged on, digging for the words that would sever the tie, "Hermes? What makes you think you're worthy of a God coming to your aid?"

They beheld each other. The priestess stood in that same stiff posture Robin had initially met her with, but now desperate exhaustion clung to her. Her eyes were ringed red, smeared green bruises marred most of her skin, and a swatch of angry red scabs held her arm together. The slick gold of the sword's hilt, poking out between Nancy's head and her cloaked shoulder, mocked the mortality of the body that wielded it. The merchant's daughter was an equal eyesore. There was an out-of-place grimace shadowing her face. Her eyes were glossed with betrayal and deep purple bruises waxed up her exposed flesh. The gash in her side, supposed to be her undoing, was now bridged by a puckering scar, one jagged edge peeking out from the top of her tunic.

Nancy held her ground. When she looked at Robin and thought about what awaited her in Lake Alcyonian, she felt resolute in her decision to part ways. The priestess dug into the thought that she was doing this to protect Robin. She held tight to the image of the girl's crumpled body after they defeated the Harpies. That moment where Robin wouldn't open her eyes. That moment when Nancy let herself exist outside her minimal circle of control. She couldn't lose Robin again. At least in this way, she would know the other girl was still alive.

Robin was bristling. Gone was the playful hope that Nancy had grown so fond of, now the cold dread of winter swept in to take its place, "I am worthy enough for a God to ask for my help." It was barely audible, wrapped in the scratchy tone of hurt and anger. Robin roughly shoved past Nancy, "You're no use to Max if you're dead." 

And then she was gone.

[anistarrose]

Stan and Ford Vs. The Future - Chapter 4

Summary: The elder twins struggle to set aside their differences as they battle their younger selves in gladiatorial combat.

Warnings: none

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/17353937/chapters/40832153

Aaaaand here’s the final chapter! This was a ton of fun to write, but I’m not going to lie, I’m also really glad that I can finally live without this unfinished WIP haunting me like a ghost seeking vengeance on the one who abandoned it.

For @stanuary Week 4: Fight.

***

TIME CHALLENGE 1

OBJECTIVE: Venture into the mirror maze and shoot the Time Target with a Time Laser Gun! There are two lasers to be found, but only one target, so whoever hits it first wins!

Both pairs of twins stand facing entrances on opposite sides of the formidable looking maze, and make a mad dash inside as soon as the buzzer sounds.

“We’ll find what we’re looking for faster if we split up. Why are you following me?” the old Ford shouts.

“I’m not following you! You’re just looking at your own reflection!” the old Stan yells back.

“Wait, really?” Ford turns around, squinting suspiciously, only for Stan to trip him and rush ahead.

“Of course not! Now move aside, slowpoke!”

“Fuck you!” Ford leaps to his feet and gives chase.

“Aha!” Stan stumbles across a pedestal with a massive metallic laser gun plugged into it. “Now, where’s that target —”

“Hand that thing over right now, you knucklehead!” Ford orders. “You’ve never shot a laser gun in your life — I have!”

Stan ignores him and adjusts his grip on the gun, only for Ford to tackle him and knock them both onto the ground as a stray laser blast shoots into the sky.

“I got here first, asshole!”

“Only because you tripped me!”

“Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have been so gullible!”

“Call me gullible one more time, and I swear —” Ford tries to wind up for a punch, but he’s hopelessly tangled in the laser gun’s power cord, along with Stanley. “Shit!”

The two older twins watch helplessly as Ford’s younger self darts by, pausing every few feet to adjust the angle of an individual mirrored panel in the wall.

“Wait, you can move those?” the older Ford gasps. “I didn’t even realize —”

“Yeah, of course you didn’t, Mister Gotta Be the Big Hero Who Shoots the Cool Gun and Saves —”

“Alright, Stan!” young Ford hollers, cupping both hands to his mouth. “Fire away!”

A red laser beam whizzes over the older twins’ heads, ricocheting off mirror after mirror. A fraction of a second after it zooms out of view, a fiery explosion erupts from near the middle of the maze, and the cannons atop the walls launch neon streamers and confetti into the air.

“We did it!” young Ford cheers, rushing off into the maze again to reunite with his brother.

“Great job, poindexter,” Stan mutters. “Ya think they’ll cut us out of these power cords for the next challenge, or are we just gonna be at a handicap for that one?”

Ford groans. “As if we’re not already at a handicap with your pathetic excuse for teamwork!”

“Says the guy who hit me with a flying tackle that almost made me shoot my eye out!”

TIME CHALLENGE 1 COMPLETE

YOUNG: 1, OLD: 0

*

TIME CHALLENGE 2

OBJECTIVE: Navigate the obstacle course while trapped in a bubble with your teammate!

Each pair of brothers is enclosed in their own translucent sphere, which robots then roll onto a downwards slope dotted with obstacles ranging from bowling pins to Cosmic Sand pits.

“What even is this? Some kinda hamster ball?” the older Stan pants, running in place inside the bubble so he doesn’t fall. “Wish I had Mabel on my team instead — then we might actually be winning some of these games.”

Ford body-slams him and their sphere veers off course, rolling straight into a grid of lasers that shred it to bits. As the laser beams momentarily flicker, Stan and Ford dive to safety — just in time to get run over by their young opponents, who are cheering and practically bouncing off the walls like they’re having the time of their twelve-year-old lives as their sphere rolls between the two flags that mark the end of the course.

YOUNG: 2, OLD: 0

*

*

TIME CHALLENGE 5

OBJECTIVE: Cross the finish line first on your team’s Time Bike!

“Stanley, this isn’t working.”

“I dunno, what makes you say that?” Stan shoots back, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “No shit it’s not working, Ford!”

“I’m serious! We need to start putting aside our differences and working together, lest those kids wish their own personal fountain of youth into existence —”

“So you’ll be a better teammate? Cool, cool, I’m up for that.” Stan gestures to the neon motorcycle at his side. “You can start by riding in the back and letting me steer.”

“Are you kidding? You’re the one who needs a major attitude adjustment —” Ford cuts off, interrupted by the roar of an engine behind him.

“Hurry up, you old geezers! We’re already on our victory lap!”

The young Stan drives his team’s motorcycle right between the old twins, sticking his tounge out at the older Stan. Young Ford is standing atop the handlebars, smiling smugly and flipping the bird with two fingers on each hand.

“I always wanted to do this, and as long as I’m here, there’s no way Mom will ever find out and ground me for it!”

YOUNG: 5, OLD: 0

*

*

TIME CHALLENGE 7

OBJECTIVE: Cross the pit of deadly Time Traps to simultaneously press the buttons on each side!

All four contestants are unceremoniously dumped onto a floating clock platform, nearly tripping on the spinning minute hand. Other circular clocks of various sizes float next to their central platform, forming two distinct paths that each lead to a glowing red button — one on each side of a giant pit, lined with spikes and infested with hissing snakes that coil in the shapes of infinity symbols.

“You go left, I’ll go right!” the old Stan shouts, and for once, his brother listens, vaulting over the slowly rotating hour hand and onto the next platform with ease. Stan heads in the opposite direction, followed by the young Ford — but Stan keeps a solid lead thanks to his height advantage, while young Ford quickly gives up on jumping over the clock hands and starts just ducking under them instead.

“You ready, Sixer?” the old Stan calls, his hand hovering just a few inches above the button. “In three, two — oh, come on! What are you doing?”

The old Ford stands at the edge of a platform close — but not directly adjacent — to the goal, and he leans precariously over the edge. Stan is seconds away from cursing his brother out when he sees who Ford’s holding onto for dear life — the young Stan, hanging off the edge with his feet dangling just inches away from the fangs of three massive, uncoiled snakes.

“Look out!” the old Stan shouts as the minute hand whirls around towards his brother and younger self. Just in the nick of time, Ford heaves the young Stan out of danger and lets the two of them tumble backwards onto the platform, landing on their backs and barely fitting into the space underneath the minute hand as it whirls by.

“Well,” the old Ford says quietly, “that’s going to hurt tomorrow.”

“Why did you save me?” the young Stan whispers. “I thought — I thought you hated me…”

“What? I — you’re my brother! I don’t hate you…”

“But you will.” Stan turns over on his side, facing away from Ford to instead stare at his older self on the other side of the pit. The old Stan immediately looks away. “You hate him.”

Ford takes a full revolution of the clock to reply. “I’m angry with him. I hate what happened to my life, because of things that you — things that he did. But… I don’t hate him.”

“Then prove it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Start acting like you don’t hate him. Give me a reason to believe you.”

Stan gets to his feet, jumping to the final platform and then to solid ground before Ford can even stand up. He swings his fist towards the button — but a second before pressing it, he hesitates, and glances to the young Ford, who nods.

“You guys deserved this win,” he tells the elder twins, backing away from the button. Across the pit, the young Ford does the same. “But we’re not showing mercy again, got it?”

The old twins press the buttons in sync, and the clock platforms plummet into the pit, shattering into neon-colored shards on the spikes.

“THAT CHALLENGE USUALLY HAS MORE CASUALTIES!” Time Baby pouts. “AT LEAST THE NEXT LEVEL WILL MAKE UP FOR IT!”

YOUNG: 6, OLD: 1

*

TIME CHALLENGE 8

OBJECTIVE: Cross the Time Bridge without falling into the tank of hungry Time Sharks!

In stark contrast with the rest of the arena’s sleek futuristic look, the two parallel bridges look ancient and decaying. The young twins immediately dash across theirs, paying no mind to the rickety planks or fraying rope, and the old Stan hesitantly puts his first foot forward onto his team’s bridge. It sways, but seems to hold.

“This is unfair!” the old Ford complains. “The kids only made it across because they weigh a mere fraction of what we do!”

“Finally, something comes out of your mouth that I can agree with,” Stan mutters as the sharks below take notice of his struggle and start swimming towards him. “Oh, come on! I’m sure I taste terrible!”

“Be careful, Stanley! You need to take lighter footsteps —” Ford shouts as Stan breaks into a run, but Stan ignores him — and sure enough, one of his feet punches straight through a rotten plank. He manages to grab the rope again and lift himself barely out of range of the sharks, even as they jump out of the water and try to chomp down on his legs, but the bridge is swaying too much for him to get much further up.

“I didn’t save your treacherous twelve year old self from snakes just for you to get eaten by sharks, you knucklehead!” Ford yells as he races onto the bridge. “Hang on, I’m coming —”

“Wait! Ford, it can’t support us both —”

This time, it’s Ford who heeds his brother’s warning too late as the ropes finally snap and he plummets into the water. Blinking salt out of his eyes as he resurfaces, he spots a ladder out of the tank just a few meters away and starts paddling towards it as fast as he can, even as he spots a dorsal fin peeking out of the water as it effortlessly glides towards him —

“Not so fast, Jaws!” Stan falls from the sky like a descending meteor, body-slamming the shark from above and no doubt catching it completely off guard. Ford takes the opportunity to scramble onto the ladder, kicking an approaching hammerhead in the nose as it tries to lunge after him, and then extends a hand to Stan, who accepts it and follows him up to safety.

“Thank you,” Ford gasps as he catches his breath. “I… I probably didn’t deserve that…”

Stan ignores him at first, concentrating on wringing out his suit, but finally speaks up.

“Well, to quote a pretty intelligent guy I know… I didn’t save your ungrateful ass from an interdimensional portal powered by radioactive waste just for you to get eaten by sharks, Brainiac.”

Ford can’t help but smile. “Alright, that’s fair enough.”

YOUNG: 7, OLD: 1

*

TIME CHALLENGE 9

OBJECTIVE: Defeat the killer Time Robot in a Time Basketball match!

“You know, Stanford,” the old Ford tells his younger self, “the world has made a lot of scientific progress since 1963! Would you like to hear about the sixteen new elements synthesized since then, or perhaps all the strides we’ve made in space travel?”

“Would I ever!” The young Ford’s eyes light up, and he drops the basketball he was holding. “Has anyone landed on the moon yet? Have scientists discovered an island of stability among heavier nuclei? How’s the theory of relativity holding up?”

“Don’t fall for it, Ford!” The young Stan grabs his brother’s arm. “He’s just trying to distract you while — aw, dang it!”

With his brass knuckles, the old Stan reflects the killer robot’s laser back into its eyes, then uses the opportunity to dunk his basketball directly through its flaming hoop, deactivating it.

“Nice one!” the old Ford shouts, and Stan shoots him a thumbs up.

“BZZT. YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DUNKED ON ME,” the robot buzzes. “NOW YOU MAY MOVE ON TO THE NEXT ROUND.”

“Does the next round have a football robot?” the old Stan asks.

“NEGATIVE. NOW COME ON AND SLAM, AND WELCOME TO AN UNFORGIVING GLASS PRISON YOU WILL EITHER ESCAPE FROM, OR SUFFOCATE WHILE TRYING.”

YOUNG: 7, OLD: 2

*

TIME CHALLENGE 10

OBJECTIVE: Find the Time Key to escape the Time Hourglass!

As the young twins frantically sift through the sand in their hourglass, the old Ford whispers something to his brother, who gets down on his knees and grunts as he lifts Ford up. Ford unlocks the lock with a skeleton key, removing the mesh that covers the neck of the hourglass and scrambling up and out, pulling Stan after him.

“Where did you even get that skeleton key?” Stan asks, eyeing it curiously.

“A necromancer in another dimension enchanted it for me, actually!” Ford tucks it away before any Globnar officials can notice it. “As you can see, it’s made from actual bone and changes shape to fit any lock!”

“You know any necromancers in this dimension? Asking for a friend.”

“As I’m sure banks everywhere will be relieved to know, I do not.”

YOUNG: 7, OLD: 3

*

TIME CHALLENGE 11

OBJECTIVE: Scale the pendulums of the Time Clock!

All four competitors cling to the circular bottoms of identical brass pendulums, holding on for dear life as they swing in uncoordinated rhythms.

“Why does everything have the word ‘time’ in front of it in the future?” young Ford complains. “What else would an hourglass or a grandfather clock measure? It’s so redundant!”

The old Ford, while not disagreeing, focuses on unraveling a spool of rope from his utility belt and throwing the weighted end to the old Stan. He catches it, and quickly wraps it around his own pendulum.

“Now pull it taut!” Ford calls out, and Stan does as commanded. The swinging of their adjacent pendulums slows to an almost unnoticeable wobble, and the older twins make the climb with ease.

“You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Ford admitted as he reached the top, “but I’m having fun.”

Stan tossed the rope back to him. “You know, I can’t believe you’re saying it either, but I’m glad.”

YOUNG: 7, OLD: 4

*

TIME CHALLENGE 12

OBJECTIVE: Be the first team to complete the Three-Legged Time Race!

Each pair of twins have their legs cuffed together, and the old team takes an early lead even as obstacles rise out of the racetrack in front of them — that is, until a spike bursts out directly in front of them and Ford dodges right as Stan dives to the left. Their cuff catches on the obstacle and they tumble to the ground, too stunned to get to their feet until long after the younger twins have overtaken them.

“Nice going, team!” Ford groans, but there’s no real malice in his voice.

“That was just a cheap shot,” Stan grumbles as he gets to his feet, offering a hand to Ford. He starts walking to the right, only for Ford to step to the left, and they can’t help but laugh as they accidentally headbutt each other.

“How did we mess that up twice? In two entirely opposite ways?”

“It’s rigged against us, I’m telling you!”

YOUNG: 8, OLD: 4

*

TIME CHALLENGE 13

OBJECTIVE: Embark on an Epic Time Quest using your Time Character Sheets and 38-Sided Time Dice to defeat the Evil Time Lich Overlord!

The young twins’ miniature fantasy avatars advance across the table, approaching a skeleton cloaked in translucent gray robes, but with a flick of its hand, it pulverizes Stan’s sword and Ford’s wand. They turn to dust that scatters in the cold, howling wind, and the young twins turn tail and run.

“You’ll have to do better than that to scare a veteran DD&MD player like myself!” the old Ford boasts, and in an overdramatic character voice, he adds: “Time Lich! Your reign of terror ends now!”

The skeleton readies another disarming blast, but Ford summons an antimagic field to surround his avatar, and he approaches the lich without fear as every one of its attacks bounce off the barrier.

“You underestimate me? I am the most powerful wizard in the land!” Ford bloviates. “It is my destiny to free this world for your tyrannical rule, and I have been training towards that goal for the entirety of the three hours I’ve been playing in this campaign!”

The lich’s eyes light up yellow with fury, but it remains oblivious to the old Stan’s avatar sneaking up behind it with a massive sword, carved from light blue crystal and imbued with divine might.

“Go ahead, fire more death bolts at me!” Ford taunts. “See how much good that does you!”

The lich plunges a bone-carved staff into the ground, and cracks begin to extend towards Ford. Yellow smoke with a rotten, sulfur-y smell pours out of the newly formed chasm at the lich’s feet, and the groans of the undead echo from deep inside the earth —

But they all go silent as Stan slices the skeleton cleanly in two with his enchanted sword. “Never turn your back on a rogue, sucker!”

The digital tabletop blinks, replacing the crumbling mountaintop setting with a congratulatory message: CAMPAIGN OVER. YOU WIN!

“That was pretty fun!” the real older Stan says, a smug smile still on his face as he retrieves the die he’d used to strike the game-ending critical hit. “You say there’s a version of this game that exists in our time?”

Ford notices the gum on the bottom of the D38, but decides not to bring it up. “There sure is! We’ll have to play again when we get back to our time!”

“I bet Dipper and Mabel would love to join — they’re nerdy and creative enough to have a ton of fun with it!”

“Wait, when does the game come out?” young Ford asks, grabbing his older self by the arm. “Where will I be able to buy it?”

“And who are Dipper and Mabel?” asks young Stan. “Are they friends of yours?”

The old Ford smiles. “What happened to you two not wanting to know what the future held?”

The young Ford is at a loss for words, but the young Stan looks at him in the eyes and smiles back.

“You gave me a reason to believe what you said before.”

YOUNG: 8, OLD: 5

*

*

TIME CHALLENGE 18

OBJECTIVE: Knock out the mighty Timeclops!

The young twins scatter out of the way of the Timeclops’s fire breath, watching in awe as the older Stan jumps on its back and socks it in its clock-shaped eye. It roars and shakes, but Stan keeps a tight hold on.

“You want me off, you’re gonna have to try harder than that!” he taunts.

The Timeclops bucks backwards, mismatched arms flailing, and Stan jumps off just in time for the old Ford to taze the monster in its exposed soft underbelly. It collapses to the ground, unconscious, and the victory bell rings.

Stan raises his hand for a high-six without thinking, and Ford very nearly completes it without thinking, barely stopping himself and dropping the taser in time. He starts to apologize, but Stan laughs it off and throws an arm over his brother’s shoulder.

“You know, Stan,” the younger Ford whispers, “I’m starting to think that growing up and becoming those guys might not actually be so bad.”

“Yeah…” Stan agrees. “But we’re still gonna kick their asses and win that Time Wish anyway, right? Just to prove that we can?”

Ford nods. “Oh, absolutely.”

YOUNG: 10, OLD: 8

*

*

TIME CHALLENGE 34

OBJECTIVE: Win the Time Arm Wrestling Match!

“Oh, this’ll be a breeze,” the old Stan boasts, flexing his muscles, but then narrows his eyes as he sees the young twins exchange identical knowing smiles.

“Not so fast!” the young Ford tells him, pulling a small marble Time Baby statue out of his pocket. “Back while you two were fighting the Timeclops, we found this hidden Time Idol, and now we’re gonna use it to turn the tables!”

He presses the hourglass emblem on the statue’s head, and its eyes light up green.

“FOR ONE ROUND ONLY, YOUR AGES WILL BE REVERSED!” a robotic voice announces, and the elder twins watch helplessly as they shrink back to the size and stature of twelve-year-olds, while the younger twins age decades in a matter of seconds.

“No!” the previously-older Stan wails. “My beefy arms! How could you steal them from me?!”

The previously-younger Ford rolls back his sleeves, examining his muscles. “Hey, I’m not a weak nerd anymore! …Not sure how I feel about these tattoos, though.”

The previously-younger Stan makes a fist, punching the palm of his other hand. “So, who’s ready to arm wrestle?”

“We forfeit!” the old Ford in a young body shouts, and his brother frantically nods in agreement. “You can take the point! Just put us back at our normal ages again!”

YOUNG: 17, OLD: 17

ONTO THE FINAL ROUND!

*

TIME CHALLENGE 45 — WINNER TAKE ALL TIEBREAKER

OBJECTIVE: Claim the Time Wish from the Time Serpent!

The four twins sit on a dock, watching as the arena slowly floods in preparation for the final battle.

“Cool!” young Ford exclaims. “Just like in Ancient Rome!”

“The more things change, the more things stay the same,” the old Ford adds. He awkwardly shifts in place, looking between his smiling younger self and his two equally content brothers. “Hey, kids? There’s no way to say this that’ll end up making much sense, but… thank you.”

The old Stan turns away from the others, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. No, don’t cry, not now and not here in front of thousands of people…

“Stan, are you all right?” the old Ford asks. “I think we’re starting in just a few moments…”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” Stan collects himself, turning back to face his brother. “I’m ready for —”

He blinks, and his voice cuts off. Bobbing on each side of the dock are identical boats, equipped with massive harpoon guns but otherwise not at all unlike the Stan O’ War back home.

The old Ford seems equally stunned. “Oh, right. They flooded the arena, so we’ll be sailing. Of course. Should have expected that…”

The young twins gleefully hop aboard their vessel, lacking any context that might make boats emotionally confusing, and get right to work raising the sails and loading the harpoon gun. The older twins procede onboard much more slowly and carefully, like they’re floating just above an underwater mine that could explode at any moment.

I have to bring it up to him now, Stan thinks. This is the least pissed he’s been at me since we were in high school, and we’re already right here on a boat, so it’s relevant…

But before he can summon the courage, Ford beats him to it and asks: “Stan, when we get back home… would you like to go sailing with me after the end of the summer?”

“More than anything else in the world, Sixer,” Stan finally manages after a long stunned silence.

The buzzer sounds, the boats raise their anchors, and a dark shadow uncoils beneath the waves, but most importantly of all, Stan feels alive in a way he hasn’t in years.

“Glad to hear it —” Ford tells him, interrupted as a wave from the serpent’s tail strikes the boat, but he laughs loudly and heartily even as he staggers backwards to regain his balance. “Now turn starboard, quick!”

Stan heaves the rudder to the side as the serpent’s glistening green-scaled head bursts out of the water. It opens a mouth lined with fangs and breathes a spray of brine directly into Stan’s face, blurring his vision, but with commands shouted by Ford every few seconds, their ship still navigates the waves with ease, dodging blow after blow from the serpent.

The other ship trails from a distance, unable to breach the unpredictable patterns of waves, and the young twins watch with wide eyes as the old Ford aims the harpoon gun and fires from point-blank range. The harpoon doesn’t pierce any scales, but its sheer force causes the serpent to reel backwards and gag, coughing up a glowing yellow orb that sails through the air and lands neatly on the deck of the old Stan and Ford’s ship.

Ford is poised to pick it up, but he pauses at the last moment, and waits for Stan to join him. Then they both throw their arms over each other’s shoulders and reach for it in unison.

The rotating hourglass symbol inside spins faster and faster, glowing brighter and brighter until the blinding golden light that emanates from it envelops the whole colosseum. When it subsides, the serpent dives back beneath the waves, and the older team’s score shoots up to the maximum.

YOUNG: 17, OLD: 999

TEAM 2012 WINS THE TIME WISH!

*

“YOU HAVE CLAIMED THE MIRACULOUS POWER TO ALTER TIME PARADOX-FREE!” Time Baby congratulates the older twins. “NOW WHAT WISH SHALL YOU MAKE, AND WHAT FATE WILL YOU CHOOSE FOR THE LOSERS?”

The old Stan and Ford look at each other, and then at their younger selves.

“We’re not going to wipe your memories, that’s for sure,” the old Ford assures them. “But I’m not too keen on letting you stay eternally young, either.”

The young Stan sheepishly rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, it was kind of a bad idea anyway…”

“If my Ford and I had kept being stubborn assholes, I almost wouldn’t have blamed ya,” the old Stan admits, “but I think we’re done with that whole grudge thing, right, Ford?”

“It’s about time we did,” Ford agrees, before turning to address Time Baby. “Is it within your power to create two separate, coexisting timelines?”

“OF COURSE IT IS — I’M TIME BABY! I DROP MY PACIFIER, AND A NEW TIMELINE SPAWNS INTO EXISTENCE!”

“Well, then —” Ford places his hand on the Time Wish floating at his side. “We wish for our younger selves to be returned to 1963, but in a new timeline where they aren’t required to follow our path, while my Stan and I go back to our timeline in 2012. Is that alright with you, Stanley?”

“Almost. Just gotta do one last thing.” Stan points at his younger self. “Hey, you — be careful around your brother’s science experiments, don’t listen to Dad when he says you’ll never make a fortune, and invest in cryptid-based tourism as soon as you can. Should do pretty well for yourself as long as you remember all that.”

“Oh, that’s wise,” Ford says. “Stanford, you should absolutely visit the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon because it’s full of incredible anomalies previously unknown to science, but you should absolutely never read anything you find inscribed on the walls of the caves there. Also, just to be safe, be extremely wary around snappily dressed triangles or anyone with slit yellow eyes. Don’t build any interdimensional portals no matter who tells you it’s a good idea! Cryptozoology is more than enough to make you famous — not that you even need fame to prove yourself as a scientist. You’ll also do perfectly well for yourself as long as you’re careful around the supernatural, and stick by Stanley’s side.”

A glowing golden portal appears behind the younger twins, and they both nod.

“Thanks, guys,” the young Ford tells them. “See you — well, I guess we won’t be seeing or becoming you now that we’re not the same people anymore…”

The old Stan shrugs. “Look, I’m no scientist, but being parallel timeline versions of each other sounds close enough to being the same. At the very least, we’ll always be thinking of you guys, and you’ll always be thinking of us.”

The old Ford nods. “That’s a drastic oversimplification of the workings of the multiverse, but not necessarily a misleading one.”

“Goodbye, grumpy old us.” The young Stan gives them one last wave, and he and Ford step through the portal. “Have fun sailing around the world.”

***

The old Ford and Stan awaken on the porch of the Mystery Shack, the night still just as young as it had been when they’d first been arrested.

“Okay, Dr. Science, do you know why my watch hasn’t move forward even though I still feel exhausted?” Stan asks.

Ford sighs. “Just Time Baby having one last laugh, I assume.”

Stan gets to his feet and opens the door. “I’m gonna go crash in the living room. Not sure these old tired legs can make it upstairs.”

Ford follows him. “Glad I’m not the only one whose adrenaline has thoroughly worn off. I’m not sure I could make it downstairs.” He pauses. “Stan, in a day or two from now, after we’ve gotten some rest and maybe played some tabletop RPGs with the kids, how would you feel about exploring an alien spaceship with me?”

Stan collapses onto his chair in the living room. “Ask me again when my back isn’t killing me, but the answer then will definitely be a ‘hell yes.’”

Ford sits down in a chair at the table, pulling off his trench coat and folding it into a makeshift pillow. “Good night, Stanley.”

“Goodnight, Sixer.”

***

End notes:

In the prime timeline, Stan and Ford succeed in getting the alien adhesive from the spaceship, and use it to seal up the rift permanently — and then, just for good measure, study the Zodiac and use it to permanently banish Bill from the dimension. They spend the next few years sailing around the world, and meet up with the kids every summer for DD&MD sessions and other family bonding activities.

I think that the Ford from the new timeline doesn’t get into West Coast Tech, but does get a full scholarship to a school much nicer than Backupsmore. Stan is careful around Ford’s experiments, including the many inventions inspired by things Ford saw in the future — but Filbrick is still an asshole, so he kicks Stan out the day after he turns eighteen. Luckily, this coincides with Ford moving into his college dorm, so Stan semi-legally lives with Ford in his dorm room for a few months until Ford convinces him to apply to the college’s art program, and Stan’s comics about time travel start to garner a lot of attention. Somewhere along the line, they meet Fidds, and many fun Mystery Trio adventures are had in Gravity Falls without any Bill involvement whatsoever.

[bigherosixfeels]

Fred the Fugitive REVIEW

With our heroes still having to lay low, Fred has developed a serious case of night patrol fever. He attempts to fake multiple catastrophes, but to no avail. After Mini-Max sprays the tongue of his Fredmeleon suit so it won't get dry, Fred takes this as an opportunity to go on a secret night patrol to test it out. Despite the lack of logic, Mini-Max agrees to go with him. Once suited up, Fred teaches Mini-Max self-narration techniques. The duo travels through the city all while Fred uses his invisibility to stay hidden. Unfortunately, his suits' tongue gets caught on the end of a bus. This eventually results to him being catapulted in front of a Noodle Burger where a police officer happens to be eating. The two make a run for it and the entire police force goes after him.

In the meantime, Cass gets ready to go out to dinner with a "friend". It's actually a date with Chief Cruz who shows up at the Lucky Cat with Megan. The two avoid embarrassing heart rate diagnosis' from Baymax and head off the a fancy restaurant called The Waitlist. The two attempt to catch up, but Cruz gets a call from a police officer about Fred. He decides to take off and Cass assures him that she'll get Megan home safely.

Fred and Mini-Max try to outrun the police, but their luck only lasts for so long. They eventually get cornered in an alleyway where Mini-Max leaves, promising to return with help. Between Cass coming home and mentioning something about a "lizard guy" and Mini-Max showing up to report a catastrophe, the team suits up, staying hidden while Cruz and the police confront Fred. Cruz tries to get Fred to surrender, but he naturally refuses. Getting closer, Cruz attempts to unmask Fred, but ultimately fails due to the head being stuck as a part of a malfunction. Cruz decided to cut him out at the sation and begins to drag him out of the alley. Since they can't let that happen, Hiro and Baymax decide to keep the police busy while the others get Fred.

When Baymax makes himself noticed only to take off, Cruz ends up going off in a helicopter to chase him on his own. With the plan backfiring, the others jump into action, fighting the Buddy Guards. They end up successful in freeing Fred from a police vehicle and take off. However, Cruz is still on Hiro and Baymax's tail as they head into Muirahara Woods. Thankfully with Bessie being a monster bear now, tech isn't affected in the woods...unless Bessie hits them directly. It's a risk Hiro is willing to take. The two manage to fight off some Buddy Guards, but eventually encounter Bessie. The try to get away, but Bessie hits Baymax directly, causing him to crash and both their armors to stop working. Bessie gets distracted by the helicopter lights, directing beams at it. This leads to Cruz falling out of the helicopter.

After making sure Baymax stays hidden, Hiro is back in his regular clothes. Trying to avoid everything nature throws at him, he bumps into Cruz. It's not long before Bessie finds them and the two run away. They eventually fall into a puddle of mud which thrills Hiro since he now knows that mud can cover their scent. He convinces Cruz to trust him on this and following along, Bessie doesn't find them. Hiro tells Cruz that he's seen her before, but was nicer and wonders what could be bothering her. Cruz is impressed that Hiro isn't panicking, but frustrated because Big Hero 6 put them in this mess. Hiro asks why he hates the team and Cruz reveals his backstory; his father had been killed by a super villain when he was child and Boss Awesome came too late to save him.

Meanwhile, the police are chasing the nerd gang all through the city. They manage to get to the roof of an abandoned building. There, Fred admits he has a problem, but right now they need to focus on finding a way out of their situation. Acknowledging his mistakes, Fred volunteers to take the heat while the others slip out. Although the others are against this, Fred goes through with it, jumping off the roof. He's ready to make things right and be taken away...only for Mini-Max to fly in and fix his suit. Fred is able to turn invisible again!

Still being hunted by Bessie, Hiro and Cruz are laying low. Hiro is trying to convince Cruz that Big Hero 6 has helped a lot of people. Cruz does believe they have good intentions, but still feels that they harm more than help and will do anything to protect his daughter and the city. The idea of protecting family makes something click in Hiro's mind and he goes through the woods searching. He doesn't stop until he finds three small monster bear cubs playing in the mud. Bessie is a mother! She was only upset due to being unable to find her cubs. Hiro and Cruz help return the cubs to her. The family happily reunites and Cruz notes that him and Hiro make a good team.

The episode ends with the team calling an "emergency" meeting for Fred. They tell him how impressed they are with his act of responsibility and get him Cock-a-Noodle-Doo breakfast burgers for him. Fred is about to self-narrate again when Gogo slams a burger in his mouth.

Things I Liked:

FRED’S IMPERSONATION OF OBAKE. I had to pause the episode because I was laughing so hard!

Honey Lemon helping Fred with the “alien catastrophe”

Baymax diagnosing Cass and Cruz’ heart rates

Fred’s self-narrating running gag

Hiro jumping and blocking the screen on Baymax’s belly when he was about to diagnose Hiro and Megan’s heart rates.

Fred making a reference to his comic books in the middle of being cornered by the police

The fight between Gogo, Wasabi and Honey against the Buddy Guards was so good!

Hiro swatting away moths and running from bees in the woods

Hiro remembering the mud technique he learned from Krei to mask his scent! And Cruz listening to him!

FRED TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS ACTIONS AND TAKING THE HEAT SO HIS FRIENDS CAN ESCAPE!!!

Cruz’s backstory at least explaining why he lost his trust in heroes

Mini-Max fixing Fred’s suit!

Cruz at least acknowledging that Big Hero 6 has good intentions

THE MONSTER CUBS!!!! THEY’RE SO CUTE!!

Bessie being reunited with her cubs!!

Hiro’s facial expression when Cruz told him that he can see why Megan likes him

The others being appreciative of what Fred did for them

Things I Disliked:

Listen. I give Fred the benefit of the doubt. He loves being a superhero so not being able to live out his dream and having to lay low all the time must be really difficult for him. And of course if hadn’t decided to go on a secret night patrol, this wouldn’t have happened. But come on. Even if the police are looking for Big Hero 6 they know “the lizard guy” is a part of it! And whether or not you’re with the others or a “dashing superhero duo”. At least he owned up to his mistakes.

Cruz’s backstory. Again, I will say that knowing why he dislikes superheroes and how his character was overall in this episode has made me less salty towards him. But it is still an overdone trope. I feel bad for him. He was a child when his father was straight up murdered by a villain which had to have been a really traumatizing event for him. And of course this explains why he became a police officer and why he’s so protective of Megan. And yeah I suppose his only reason of hating BH6 is because he still has the belief that they attract villains which leads to him worrying about everyone’s safety. I just hope that overall he realizes that it’s supervillains that cause superheroes to show up. And that while superheroes can’t save everyone, neither can the police. And that Big Hero 6 can do a lot of things that the police can’t do and they can work together.

CAN CASS JUST HAVE ONE NICE DATE

On a scale of 1 to 10...I’d rate Fred the Fugitive an 8.1!

[madison02me]

Our Greatest Adventure Yet

A prequel to my other fic, Reunited. Hope you guys like 

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524296

Reunited link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453522

Summary: It was a normal day for Eugene. He was hungry and had no money. Well, it looked like it was that time again.

Time for some pickpocketing.

He never thought that it would be the day that he would meet his future parents, let alone them be two guys.

Eugene was hungry. No, hungry wasn't the right word. He was utterly starving. But had already had breakfast at the orphanage, if you could call the slop they serve breakfast. He knew that the staff who worked there tried the hardest they could to feed everyone, but they couldn't make something at least edible?

Not to mention that he had given half of his share of food to one of the younger kids because one of the bigger bullies had stolen his. He would have got it back for the kid if the bully hadn't already scarfed it down like the pig he was, so he gave away half his own and made up an excuse of not being hungry. The look on the little guy's made him feel good inside but it did nothing to quell his growling stomach. Well, looks like it's that time again.

Time to do some pickpocketing.

Eugene got up from his sitting position against the stone wall of the orphanage and let his face break into a small grin. Eugene loved the rush of pickpocketing, he had never been caught, even on his first try. Though it might have had something to do with the fact that the guy was drunk...and asleep but it didn't matter to Eugene. To him, he was living out the life of his Hero Flynn Rider. A dashing swashbuckler who had an abundance of thrilling adventures wherever he went and besides it wasn't like the money was going to be put to waste. He just needed enough to buy an apple or something which was 2 coins at most and if he so happened to grab more than two coins, why not buy some more food for some of the other kids?

Eugene stuck his hands in pockets and walked down an almost hidden alleyway that would lead to the main market place; where there were so many people that going unnoticed was almost too easy. But when he turned a corner he quickly jumped back behind and pressed his body against the cool brick wall, he waited before peeking around the corner to get a better look at what made him jump back, he saw that there were already two men with their backs facing Eugene near the exit of the ally who stood behind some large crates before they quickly ducked them as the sound of people running drew near. He didn't have time to think before he saw some guards running past the ally but one came back and looked down, Eugene hid behind the wall as he held his breath, hoping that the guard would just move on.

After a few moments of silence, he heard a deep voice in an accent he didn't reorganise from around the corner. "Ok, I think they're gone." He heard another voice let out a relieved sigh before speaking. "That was too close..."

"Don't be so dramatic Tulio, we got away and with the gold no less!" The first voice piped up once again.

"Yeah, which we would have more than if you hadn't distracted me."

"What are you talking about? The deal was that I would play and you would gamble, you were the one who got caught with those dice of yours. I was smart enough to put all my earnings in my bag, while you scrambled to get what you could."

"Don't you dare act innocent, you distracted me with those eyes again."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. What about my eyes detracts you?~"

"Y-You, you know exactly what they do to me..."

"Well, elaborate Darling, I'm not a mind reader~."

"M-Miguel, Stop. We'll get caught."

"No one can see us, you worry too much."

Eugene was enraptured by the two men's conversation, it went from bickering to flirting almost no time. It was a common occurrence for Eugene to see people flirting, hugging or even kissing in the streets but has never been two men before. Nuns come to the orphanage and talk to all the kids there about what they should do if they wanted to go to heaven, Eugene doesn't actually believe in any of that stuff but he would never tell the Nun's that, but one thing that was always very strongly against was what the Nun's called Homosexuality. It was a wired lecture and lots of the little kids couldn't even say the word but they explained as 'To love a man love another man as they should love a woman is a sin, an abomination, they have the devils blood in them and they are all pure evil'. Eugene wasn't sure if that was true, he always thought that Love was a good thing and it couldn't be wrong no matter what.

The more he thought about it, the more curious he got. So he slowly poked his head around the corner before turning back at almost lightning speed, his face scarlet red. One of the men, who was wearing a red shirt and had golden blond hair was holding the other man, who had dark hair and a blue shirt up against one of the crates, with their arms warped around each other and one of the dark-haired man's legs were loosely wrapped around the blond's waist. They were clearly kissing. Eugene was a little grossed out at first then he thought about the conversation that the men had just had, they mentioned they had Gold, a whole bag of it.

Eugene had no idea where they got the money but they wouldn't notice a few coins missing would they? Sneaking a peek at the two, they were still very preoccupied with each other but another thing caught his attention, a bag that was hanging off the blonde man's shoulder and he could just see a glint of something shiny. 'Jackpot!' Eugene thought in his head.

It wouldn't be too hard to sneak up, get a handful of coins and then sneak away and/or run away. At least that's what Eugene thought.

Eugene then began to creep forward on his tiptoes, keeping an eye on the two men. He smiled a little smugly as he noticed that the two individuals were too invested in each other to notice anything going on around them, he slowly reached up for the bag and grabbed as many of the small coins in his little fist as he could, hoping that the slight clinking noise of the gold wouldn't draw their attention as he pulled his had back gradually.

Eugene thought that he was in the clear, that he had committed the perfect crime, he and the other kids would be eating good tonight!

... That was until he felt a sturdy grip on his wrist.

Eugene squealed in fright and he looked up to see both of the men had stopped and now we're currently standing over him, looking down at him. "What do you think you're doing kid?" The one with intense blue eyes asked as he kept a firm grip on Eugene's wrist.

The coins dropped from Eugene's hand as he felt his face grow hot and his eyes stung as fresh tears weld up in them. Eugene was at a loss of what to do, he had never been caught before. He had overheard what people did to thieves, he heard that they cut their hands off. He tried weakly to pull his arm free but he knew it was no use, he was a goner.

Eugene let out a sob as he pleaded, "Please don't cut my hands off. I'm sorry, I'll never do it again. Please, don't hurt me." Eugene cried his little heart out, he was stupid to think that he could steal from these too, he knew it was risky but he tried anyway, now he was going to pay for it.

He was no Flynn Rider, he was just a dumb kid...

"Cut your hands off? That's a little extreme don't you think? Oh come on now, don't cry. We're sorry we scared you." Eugene was more than surprised when he heard the comforting voice and a hand his shoulder. He looked up to see grass-green eyes, full of warmth.

The same man was crouched to Eugene's level, he then reached his other hand up. Eugene flinched back and closed his eyes, expecting a slap to the face but what he got instead was a slightly callused hand brushing the tears from his cheeks When the man pulled his hand back Eugene rubbed his eyes against his wrist to clear his vision and look up at the two men. Now that his vision was clear in the men were right in front of him, he could get a good look at the men who had caught him.

The one in front of him was average height, broad-shouldered, and handsome, with shoulder-length, golden-blonde hair and green eyes. He had a muscular and toned body. He had a beard that seemed to be darker than his blonde hair. His outfit consisted of his a red loose tunic, khaki pants and brown shoes. He looked somewhere between his late 20s or early 30s.

"What's your name kid?" The man who still had a group on Eugene's wrist asked. Eugene then looked the other male up and down.

The other man was tall and slender with blue eyes. He had long, wavy black hair, tied back with a purple ribbon in a low ponytail, and a goatee. He wore a blue collared long-sleeved shirt under a brown vest, green pant's with a black belt with a golden buckle on a black belt, and brown shoes. The man appeared to be in his mid-20s to early 30s.

"U-uh, um... E-Eugene... My name is Eugene." Eugene answered. "Y-your not gonna cut my hands off?"

The black-haired man rolled his eyes, letting go of Eugen's arm and proceeded to talk with his hands. "Kid, that just something the church tell you to get you to behave. No one cuts off hands any more. The worst you will get if your caught stealing is either your killed or you get a beating, it depends on who you steal from and what you steal."

The blond then stood up and swatted the other. "Tulio! Don't tell him that!"

"Well, do you want me to be honest or do you want me to lie to the kid, he needs to learn now or he'll get himself hurt or worse."

"You could have said it a little better, he's just a child."

"So were we when we set off on our own. We were lucky, he might not be.

Eugene again watched the two argue, "Wh-What are your names'?" Eugene wanted to know who these men were and what they planned to do with him.

The two ceased their fighting and once again looked down at him.

"Oh right, well I am Miguel and this is Tulio." The blonde- no, Miguel said as he gestured to himself and then Tulio.

"... Really?" Eugene asked.

"Huh?" Tulio replied. "Yeah, that's our names. What about them?"

"Those names are wired and what up with your voices, why do you guys sound like that?"

"Oh! Well, you see we're from Spain. Ever heard of Spain?" Miguel said as he leaned down slightly. Eugene shook his head, he didn't know much about the world outside of Corona. "Well, in Spain we speak a different language called Spanish, that is why we have these strange accents."

"Our names are Spanish too. Our names are considered common there, to use your names is weird, what kind of name is Eugene anyway?," Tulio followed along with the conversation, only to get another swot from Miguel. "What? Don't tell me it doesn't sound weird to you?"

Eugene wanted to be offended but he didn't like his name that much so he agreed with Tulio.

"No, you're right, it's a dumb name anyway. If I could I'd change it. to something cooler" Eugene said as he stuck his hands in his pockets, kicking some gravel around.

The two men exchanged a look before Tulio let out an almost inaudible sigh and leaned down to Eugene's level, "Well, why don't you?"

At the question, the boy perked his head up. "Huh?"

"If you could have any name, any name at all, what would it be?"

Eugene didn't even need to think. "Flynn Rider!"

Tulio arched an eyebrow, "Flynn Rider? Like the guy in the book?"

Eugene was surprised that Tulio knew of his favourite book of all time. "Yeah, him! He's my favourite character of all time! I want to be just like him. I just wish I could read the book myself, I always have to ask someone else to."

"What? You can't read? Haven't your parents taught you how to yet?"

Eugene fell silent and his gaze found the ground refusing to look the dark-haired male in the eye. For a few moments, there was utter stillness, even the sounds of the nearby market couldn't break through the silent ally.

"... You're not out living on the streets are you kid?" Tulio said in a slow but soft tone. Eugene shook his head and pointed at the opposite entrance of the ally.

"No, I live in that orphanage over there. But they don't have the time to teach anyone to read, there just too many."

Miguel, who had remained quiet for most of the conversation suddenly sprang forward, wrapping an arm around Tulio shoulder.

"Tulio could teach you! He taught me how to, so you should be no problem." The blond said with a huge grin on his face, not understanding the impact of the statement he had made.

"Uh, no, no, no! Miguel, we've talked about this. The little voice, remember?" Tulio said as he stepped back, removing Miguel's arm from his shoulder, making frantic hand movements as he talked, "Come on, I know you have one, you just never listen to it. What is it saying right now?

The blonde paused, looked thoughtful for a few moments before speaking, "You're right. We should bond first, you like ice cream, Eugene?"

At the very mention of ice cream, Eugene was willing to accept the wired situation that he had been up into, he had never had ice cream before but he had heard about it from other kids.

"I don't know but I wanna try some!" He didn't know how the treated tasted but he somehow knew that he would love it.

"Miguel, oh dios mio. No podemos tomar este niño por helado, ¡no eran sus padres!" Tulio said as he grabbed onto Miguel sleave, stopping him in his tracks.

Eugene's face melted from exhilarated to deeply confused, he couldn't understand a word that Tulio was saying. This must have been how they talk where they came from.

"Bueno, si no quieres helado, está bien, pero no lo arruines. Puede ser el único regalo que recibirá." Migule fired back as he glanced to Eugene then back to his partner. There was a breaif silence before Tulio let out an annoyed sigh. "Bien, bien... Just stop with the face. Come on kid, let's get this over with."

Eugene watched the man start to walk away before stopping at the exit to the ally before looking both left and right, Tulio was probably looking for any guards that would still be patrolling the area. "It's clear, now come on before we get caught again."

Eugene didn't move a muscle, he just looked up at Miguel, who was staring down at him. "What's the matter? Don't you want any ice cream?"

Eugene was embarrassed about what he was about to ask, "Can I hold your hand?... Please?" Eugene didn't want to get separated from the two men and the market was always super crowded.

Eugene could have sworn that he saw Miguel's eyes well up before he smiled the brightest smile he'd ever seen. "Why of course, but I can do better!" Eugene didn't have an opportunity to ask what he meant before he was being swept off of the ground by Miguel's strong hands. He let out a screech of shock that moulded into fits of laughter as he was lifted onto the blond man's shoulders.

Tulio could only watch as his partner lifted the little boy onto his shoulders, his face breaking out into a fond smile as he watched the two. He knew that Miguel had a huge soft spot for children, especially the poor ones since he grew up in that environment. Tulio was not as fond of children as Miguel was but he didn't discourage Miguel's enthusiasm or stop him, he knew that Miguel had always wanted children of his own, sometimes he would spend whole days just talking about what he would do if he and Tulio had one, what they would look like, what he would teach them and who they might grow up to be... But they both knew that could never have one.

Tulio had confessed to Miguel before that he always felt a little guilty for not being able to give him the family he always wanted, Miguel comforted him and told him that he would always be enough for him no matter what, that he was the only family that he needed. It was an incredibly emotional night for both of them, Tulio never forgot his words but he also never failed to notice how Miguel would look at young children with their parents without longing who look in his eye.

Maybe having the little brat around be good for both of them.

"Hey, come on you two! We only have so much daylight left," he called to them "The last one there's a Pendejo!" he yelled to them before he took off running.

"Oh no, you don't!" Miguel called after the taller man as he also took off running after Tulio.

"Yeah! Come on Miguel, let's get him!" Eugene said as he leaned down to the one man's ear. "What's a Pendejo?"

Miguel cringed a little, "Uh, you don't need to know..."

----- Eugene was 100% positive this has been the best day of his life. Tulio was surprisingly fast I knew she was a little disappointed when he found out that he had beaten them to the Ice Cream cart that was parked in the middle of the market but it was OK since Tulio gave him the chance to pick a flavour first. There were so many flavours that Eugene didn't know what to choose before he settled on one named 'Rocky Road'. Miguel chose strawberry and Tulio chose blueberry.

While they were enjoying their frozen treats, Miguel insisted on telling him a story. A story in which he and Tulio were accidentally mistaken for God's in a legendary city made of gold. Eugene was hanging on every word that the blonde said, he had heard of the mythical city of El Dorado but he never thought it was real. He said he wanted to find himself but Tulio told him not to bother, as they had sealed the entrance to keep away greedy people who only wanted to destroy it, Eugene was a bit disappointed that he missed out on an amazing adventure but the way that Miguel told it to him, it was like he was there the whole time.

They also talked about a woman named Chel, how she had helped them get through the situation that they had put themselves into you without being caught and sacrificed by the evil Tzekel-Kan, who also led the greedy people back to his home, thinking they were the gods that he was looking for. They spoke very fondly of Chel, how they were the Three Amigos for almost a year until they came across a great Empire with a young emperor took an interest in her and she took interest in him. The three parted ways after her and the emperor got married, he could tell that they miss her very much and that she means a lot to the two. Eugene wishes he could have met her, been with them on their amazing adventures.

After the story was done, Eugene wanted to know more about the two men. He learnt that the reason the two had been hiding in the ally in the first place, was because they had been caught gambling in the streets with loaded dice, they had performed a fake duel, to distract the crowd while they got close enough away to run and had ducked into the alley to hide.

It was also then that Miguel pulled out a strange instrument that Eugene had never seen before, Miguel called it a mandolin, a very popular instrument in Spain where he came from. He then started to play it, it was like nothing Eugene had ever heard before. It started softly before the tune got more upbeat and he started to dance to his music, Eugene then followed, it took a little convincing but Tulio eventually danced with them as well. He danced differently, it was mostly made up of hand clapping, percussive footwork, intricate hand, arm, and body movements. Eugene tried to follow to Tulio's example but he just ended up tripping on its own feet, he expected the dark-haired man to laugh at him but he just picked him up and showed him the moves; he wasn't perfect but at least he didn't trip up anymore.

It wasn't until he noticed that it was getting dark that he even thought of going back to the orphanage. Eugene didn't want too but he knew that he would get in trouble if he didn't.

"It's getting kind of dark, I should be getting back now..." Eugene said as the three of them walked through the streets of Corona. Eugene could tell by the looks on the two men's faces that they too were apprehensive and disappointed to hear this.

"Yeah, it does seem to be getting kind of late. We'll walk you back, things can get pretty dangerous on the streets at night kid, it's never safe to go alone." Tulio said as he absentmindedly grabbed the young boy's hand, keeping it in a soft but firm grip.

"Did you have fun today?" Miguel asked as he gently ruffled Eugene's hair before grabbing his other hand.

"Oh yeah! Today has been the best day of my life! I don't think anything could make it better, you guys are fun. I wish I could hang out with you guys all the time, you're not like any of the other adults around here. They always look at me either with disgust or like they're sorry for me. I don't want them to feel sorry for me, if they feel so sorry for me why don't they help me or any of the other kids at the orphanage? I just don't understand the world..." Eugene ranted as the three of them strolled down a familiar alleyway.

The two older men stayed quiet while they listened to the child, they understood exactly what he meant.

"I'm sorry son, I wish the world was simpler, I really do. But unfortunately, there's nothing you can do about it, sometimes to make it in this world you have to do things that you don't want to or do things that aren't technically legal." Miguel said softly as he rubbed Eugene's hand with his thumb.

"That's what I and Miguel do have to do, being criminals is no fun, conning people is dangerous and we always have to worry about people finding out that we're together. Plain and simple kid, the world sucks. But if you find people that truly care about you, people that would do anything for you to keep you safe and happy, then the world doesn't seem so bad sometimes." Tulio said in an earnest honest voice as he gripped Eugene's hand a little tighter.

"...I'll keep that in mind. Thank you." It was the only thing that Eugene could think to say as he listened to the wise word of two people beaten down by the world but just kept getting back up because they had each other to lean on.

Eugene hoped that one day he could have a relationship like the two men before him.

The three of them soon stopped at the entrance to the orphanage, none of them made an effort to let go of each other. Miguel was the first one to make a move but he did not let go of the child's hand, he leaned down on one leg and looked Eugene in the eyes.

"Here," Miguel said as he brought up a small leather pouch and held it out to Eugene. "we want you to have this." Eugene and slowly let go of the blonde hand and took the pouch, he didn't even have to look inside of it to know that it was full of coins. "I don't understand, why are you giving this to me?" Eugene asked in a small hesitant tone, this had to be the kindest thing anyone has ever done for him. Miguel did not answer him, he did not need to answer as he felt Eugene already knew why.

Eugene could feel his eyes welling up with tears. He then felt a hand on his shoulder, you looked up to see to that Tulio had also leaned down, with a gaze full of warmth. "Hey kid, if you really want, I can teach you to read." It was then that Eugene remembered that there was the whole reason that he had gone with the two men in the first place, he had completely forgotten.

"Really? Do you promise?" he asked, trying his hardest to keep his composure.

"I promise next time we meet I'll teach you to read that book. If you promise to bring it to me." Tulio said in a lightly teasing tone.

"Yeah, yeah, I promise. I won't forget I swear!" Eugene said slightly excited, learning to read never really appealed to him before but if he was going to be taught by Tulio then he would be glad to.

"Would you like to see us tomorrow? Same time early morning?" Miguel questioned. Like he even needed to ask.

"Yeah! Can we meet in the alleyway? I'll bring the book and everything." Eugene just couldn't explain why he felt such a connection with these two men that he had known for less than 24-hours.

"Well then, that's settled. We'll see you tomorrow Eugene, sweet dreams." Migule said as he brought the child in for a hug, Eugene didn't hesitate to hug the blond man back. When he let go he quickly turned and hugged Tulio, who hesitated somewhat out of shock before hugging him back.

The hug lasted about a minute before Eugene pulled back and walked up the steps of the orphanage, as he opened the door to walk inside he looked back to find the two men with their arms around each other waving goodbye at him, it made Eugene's heart swell and he waved back at Miguel and Tulio before shutting the door.

[cutegirlmayra]

Premise: The team is in a pickle. Sonic is bent on going ‘solo’ against his enemies and complete his own adventures, there was apparently some ‘dispute’ that created this tense circumstance between him and Amy Rose. The team hasn't addressed what it was yet, but when a portal to another world appeared, and this new mysterious power called Infinite began to side with Eggman’s new reign over the world; more than ever do they need Sonic to work with them to preserve the world and join forces together!

Sonic Forces Prompt: (Some Sonamy?) (originally meant to be a collab, so whoever wants to- they can finish this prompt! -SEND ME A LINK IF YOU DO I’D BE PUMPED-) Part 2 (x) collab, part 3 (x) me again.

Classic Sonic raced through the stages alongside his other self, watching him loop-de-loop and burst through a horde of robots.

Something was off, but Classic didn’t mind.

He simply kept up and even at times, challenged him with a silent race, but the two never really felt the need to talk or interact much.

They were both solo-artists in their own rights. They could beat against the wind and carry themselves far passed known lands and places…

Why would they need company?

However, when they noticed Tails’s plane in the distance, they smiled and waved, being cheerful.

“Tails!” Sonic cried out, as Classic bounced and posed in the air, greeting what looked to be the older version of his friend.

Landing near them somewhere off the combined zones around the ruined city, Tails hopped out of his plane and happily ran up to his life-long friend and idol, and excitedly grinned up at him.

His tails waved as he spoke, “Sonic! Am I glad to see you! Where have you been-...” He slowly turned his head to Classic, who stood confidently by Sonic’s side and placed his hands to his hips, sticking a cocky toe up.

“….Hey, isn’t that…?” Tails began, pointing to him and tilting his head in curiosity.

“Yep! It’s little me! Picked him up back that way.” Sonic confirmed his suspicions of the familiar looking friend and then gestured another thumbs up for him.

“He’s decided to stay and help.” Sonic patted Tails’s back as he walked by, before suddenly looking slightly annoyed as he scanned the plane.

“…Are you alone?”

“Huh? Of course I am. The others are fighting off the badniks near our hideout.” Tails turned around, feeling it odd that Sonic would ask such a thing.

Sonic kept quiet… his narrowed eyes suddenly turning soft.

He looked down at the ground and pressed the tip of his shoe against the rumble.

“…Everyone?”

Was he trying to ask about someone?

“…Sonic…” Tails bent his eyebrows back in concern, really worried now that something bad had happened…

“We’ve been wondering about… well, about what happened between you and…”

Tails looked away.

“She’s been awfully diligent in her work lately… as if avoiding everyone. She dodges our questions and keeps a smile on her face… but we can’t help but think it’s a cover for something.”

Sonic about-faced his friend, but he didn’t move or say anything in response.

Tails peeked back over to him and silently seemed to gasp at his indifference.

Or what looked to be so.

He frowned and looked away again, “We’re worried about you two….”

Sonic then folded his arms.

“…There’s nothing to worry about…” it was a bit cold, but there was a hint of care in his words.

“…Amy will be Amy.” He then walked on, patting the plane and letting his hand skim under it as he ducked his head to pass through it.

“Come on, me! We’ve got some Eggs to scramble.”

Tails lowered his eyes, not looking directly to Classic but turning his head more to show he was addressing him.

“Please…” he stated, “If you can… help figure out how to get your older self to join up with us again. Something happened between him and Amy… And… well… it’s not easy putting something broken back together again if it wants to remain broken.” He then looked back to Classic, who was giving him a confused expression.

“..Hmm?” he suddenly spread his arms out a moment, “You do know who Amy Rose is… Don’t you?”

Classic put a hand to his chin…

Amy…

Ah!

His face lit up with horror.

His arms spread out and then he smiled, nodding to his fox friend and lifting an open hand and fist up, popping it down onto each other to show he got it.

“Phew. That’s a relief.” Tails looked grateful he didn’t have to explain that awkward and complexed relationship to him, before nodding with a spark of hope.

“So you’ll help us? We’d really like Sonic to come back and work as a team!”

Classic didn’t know about that… looking like he was thinking, he turned to look down and then back up at Tails.

He shrugged with a sigh.

“Guess you’ll do it, huh?” Tails smiled and happily nodded. “Good! Then I’ll leave it to you!” He fist bumped him and then added a high-five and handclasp.

“Little me?” Sonic called, turning back now, bored of waiting.

Classic Sonic spun up into a ball and zoomed out to be side by side with him, as Tails raced back to his plane with his twin-tails propelling him forward.

He flew up to the cockpit and looked out to see them speed off in a streak of blue.

“…I hope he convinces them to play nice together…” Tails sighed and turned on his plane. “Instead of going off and doing his own thing… he should consider working as a team... with everyone.”

Later on, Classic randomly noticed after a battle with a huge boss-bot in the middle of the ruined city square, that the forces had broken through another area. They exploded some rocks to detonate and create a route for them to travel through.

As the teams came, they cheered when they saw Sonic, and some even recognized Classic too.

Sonic rubbed behind his head, seeing they were so excited to be reunited with him and began to gather around him for a quick reunion.

“Has it really been that long..?” Sonic muttered to the side, but only Classic picked it up as his smile faded and he turned to look curiously up at his older self.

What did he mean by that..

That’s when it hit him.

Classic Sonic got down to business, turning his head left and right and seriously looking for any strand of pink in the crowd.

He decided to wind through it and finally popped out beyond the crowd, still looking around as sneakily as he could.

No one seemed to care about him walking off from the group huddle around his other self, so he seemed pretty scott-free to try and figure this riddle out.

The Amy Rose he knew was a bubbly girl with no sense of self-control when it came to rushing up to him and glomping him with a death-hug complied of love, strength, and speedy reflexes.

However…

As he scanned around, his eyes fell on a pink shade hiding in the shadows.

She excitedly leaned out, gripping the side of the building she was hiding behind and seemed to clench her heart.

But when her eyes rested upon another blue shape, off from the crowd and to the side. She grew skittish and her smile faded, dipping back into the shadows.

He tilted his head.

This was the Amy Rose of this universe?

He quickly looked serious in his expression, leaning forward and narrowing his eyes, tapping his foot and folding his arms.

Why wasn’t she greeting her hero like usual?

Everyone else was doing it…

What kind of quarrel did these two have that would cause her to cower back, away from her supposed ‘true love’ in a side pocket-corner of a ruined building?

He huffed, growing frustrated that she continued to hide after she clearly noticed he saw her.

He gestured with his head for her to come out.

She looked down… before back at him.

She shook her head.

Now he was getting even more mad.

He stomped his foot down, revealing he would point her out with noise if she didn’t come out.

She freaked out and twitched back, having her teeth bare through her frown and shaking her hands about.

Oh? So she didn’t want to be found out?

He smirked and sucked in some air as if threatening to holler her out.

She once again flinched and worriedly put her hands to her head, before darting off.

He blinked, amazed she would just dash off like that.

That’s no fun...

This Amy certainly was different. It was usually her chasing him! Not the other way around..

He shook his head to let the built-up air out and dashed off after her.

It wasn’t long until he was able to ram her knees, causing her to fall, but he caught her up over his head from behind, lifting her up to stay there as she struggled to get out of his grasps.

“W-wah-wha!?” she had worried marks spray out in tears around her head as she looked down and wagged her arms and legs around.

“P-Pu-pu-put me down!”

“….hmph.” Classic huffed to the side, his nose flaring slightly by her ignoring him before.

“I’m sorry, okay!? But really! Sonic can’t see me!” she tried to explain, and then finally withdrew her arms and legs close to her. “Please just put me down!”

He looked up and cocked a suspicious eyebrow up to her.

“I promise! I’ll tell you what you want to know! Just don’t take me back to Sonic…”

Strange request.

He felt something in his heart ache at her words… like a sudden dread as he gently put her down and then looked sternly at her, as if scolding her for asking such a thing.

“Phew…” she placed a hand on her chest and then turned around, worriedly dwindling her fingers.

“I.. It’s kinda complicated…” she admitted and looked away.

“Well… Sonic was… U-um… you were… well…” she rubbed behind her head.

He tapped his foot a few times as if reminding her not to stall any longer.

“You see…” Sweat dripped nervously from the side of her head before she gently smiled and nodded in resounding defeat.

“We disagreed on a matter very important to me.” She moved her hands down to her knees, making sure to look directly at him now. “I told him it was okay not to want to do things my way… but that I was still going to do what felt right to me.”

She seemed more herself now, tender in some way.

“Sonic-er,… you? Wanted to go off and let everyone fight the way they wanted too. The problem was, we had so many people… I was worried someone would get hurt. I thought it was best to organize everyone and have Sonic be the leader, but he refused…”

She fully turned away from Classic, straightening herself out and seeming ready to cry…

“We started bickering more and more after that… We just started to get so mad around the other… one rude comment led to another and suddenly- it was like we were at each other’s throats. Sonic felt I was being controlling and I thought he was being uncaring. We… We ended up kinda snapping at one another… I feel horrible for yelling at him… It wasn’t right. But the worst part is… he hasn’t talked to me since then.. we’ve just… been avoiding each other. I think he may never want to see me again…”

Classic Sonic’s eyes lowered then.

That didn’t seem right to him.

He remembered his older self asking about ‘everyone’… was it Amy he truly wanted to know about?

He felt that may be true, and something in his heart told him it wouldn’t be ‘too’ difficult to try and set differences asides for a greater good.

But then he looked at Amy.

She clutched her fists and bent her head down, sobbing…

It started with slight trembles and built to a terrible quake.

Her shoulders bounced and all power from her suddenly drained, as Classic unfolded his arms and looked to her hand.

A sudden compassion overcame him as he noticed her hands could barely remain tightened into fists by her sides, but were slowly loosening in her anguish.

“I’ve stayed away… Thinking when he’s ready he’ll…he’ll...-!!!” she squinted her eyes shut, but then felt a hand grip her own and shot them open again.

She scooted back to look down at Classic Sonic, who had taking her trembling and weary hand, smiling lightly, but warmly up to her.

He pulled her a little down by him and walked in front of her.

He then opened his arms, letting her hand go as if offering her a hug.

“…You… he does care about all this… about me… don’t you?” her tears were like pools of sorrow, and the light was simply condemning him at every glimmering glance or shining flare from her glossy eyes.

He took a silent breath and tilted his head into another apologetic smile.

She bent down and scooped him up, making him squirm a little, but allowing her to embrace him as he patted her head, trying to soothe her.

He then looked up.

Sonic stood motionless by the straight between the two ruined buildings, watching them hug...

He looked away.

A sorrow there too, he knew he needed to fix this mess.

Before it started to affect the rest of the Sonic Forces.

[dragonnan]

Big, Ginormous, Awesome, Epic Fic Rec!!

I’ve decided to share a pile of some of my favorite fics from multiple genres.  There’s no way I’ll get them all here but I’ll do my best to fill this post with as many as possible!!

Also, I’m gonna include a few of my own works at the bottom :D

**************************

Anime:

The Lucky Ones by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (Inuyasha) Sometimes Fate hands you a gift you never thought you’d ever get, and it’s up to you to accept it for what it is. [Hand’s down the BEST Inuyasha post-series fanfic I’ve EVER READ!!! One note - this series was begun before the anime was completed so there are a few canon divergences.  As it is, I prefer the way this story brought things to a close so I have no problems with that.  Also, this is a MATURE story with good reason! Lots of sexy times throughout - but wonderfully written and absolutely crucial to the story progression.  I never felt the sexy parts were thrown in purely for the smex.] 

The Coyote Child by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (Inuyasha) Sequel to The Lucky Ones. Inuyasha and Kagome are asked to adopt a coyote-hanyou baby from Arizona. [WIP but worth it!!!!]

You're not Alone by Of Memories Past (Inuyasha) After the final battle with Naraku the well seals, forcing Kagome back to her time for good. Only Inuyasha knows a way for them to be reunited again, and it doesn't involve the well...

Always My Soul by dragonfly-rising (Inuyasha) Why is it always my soul people mess with? Kagome asked herself in a moment of hopeless annoyance.The attack had come with no warning. And in the end Kagome could find no reason why she, Inuyasha, or Miroku should have seen it

Stricken by Scribe Figaro (Inuyasha) A single blow fells Sango and reveals to Miroku a nightmare to which the Kazaana cannot compare.

Purity by Sueric (Inuyasha) Naraku is gone. Kagome has the jewel. After seeing InuYasha's torment, Kagome faces 'the truth' of his feelings. Kagome does the unthinkable, and in a final act of love, Kikyou offers InuYasha one chance to fix it. But is he too late? [Explicit rating but not pwp.  Excellent first story in a long series.]

Two Good Legs by Harukami

Balance of Power by multiple writers (Fullmetal Alchemist) Full disclosure- I am one of the writers, though I joined the project well into its creation.  Look, this thing is MASSIVE.  And still has 3 arcs to go - though its been on indefinite hiatus.  Still, what is there is basically complete and SOOOOOOOOOOO worth the read!! I assure you!! Time travel. Conspiracy theories. Leylines. Pop culture crack and bad movie references. Hackers, ghost hunters and detectives, oh my! When crossing the gate, be sure to look both ways...

Taken by Confusedrambler (Fullmetal Alchemist) An Ed!Torture fic with actual plot; A hurt-comfort story that explores the underbelly of Central. No Yaoi/Yuri. No inappropriate language. Rating changed to 'M' as of Chapter 6 "Turn" for violence and mature situations. Brotherhood/Manga-verse.

Giving Tree by Chrissy (Fullmetal Alchemist) ‘“Can you give me a house?“ asked the boy. “I have no house,” said the tree. “But you may cut off my branches and build a house. Then you will be happy.” And so the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house. And the tree was happy.’ –The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

Heroes Don't Exist by Brigidforest (Cowboy Bebop) A multichapter story following the oneshot: It's 2072, four years after Faye woke up to find out the world of Cowboy Bebop was all a dream. Ch 12: Spike Spiegel hated Earth.

The Story of Us by ChiisanaAnisa (Cowboy Bebop) This is a sweet song written from Faye's point of view on one year she spent with the members of Cowboy Bebop.

Avengers (and related MCU films):

Best Laid Plans by Sholio (Guardians of the Galaxy) Post-Vol. 2 fixit fluff, with blankets and huddling for warmth.

Hugs in the Aftermath by F-117 Nighthawk (Avengers) Following the Battle of New York, Tony Stark ends up with a penthouse full of Avengers and a damaged arc reactor. But everything's instantly bearable when Pepper arrives.

Break by blewoutthestars It’s Thursday and the last time he looked at the clock it had just gone three in the afternoon, but the rainclouds are making it dark and it feels later in the day than that. Tony’s been sitting in this armchair by the window for a good two hours, flipping the pages of a book but not really reading anything. Hell, he doesn’t even know what book it is, but turning the pages gives his hands something to do as he stares at the words and then stares out of the window and doesn’t see a damn thing in front of him.

Of Directions and Morning Runs by DinerGuy Alternatively titled, “Why Only Natasha Will Work Out with Clint Anymore"

Something Old, Something New by Sokaless It's been weeks since Sokovia and Tony has accepted that JARVIS is gone. Really, he has. Barring a few nightmares and sleepless nights, he's fine.Or, he thinks he is. And then, one night, the Vision shows up in his tower with an offer that's too good to be true.

Unscheduled Meetings by roboticonography A chronicle of the early years of the career of one Virginia "Pepper" Potts.

Finite by cat_77 (Avengers) It was right and logical and the math, as always, worked. That, at least, was something he could rely on when all else failed.

Human Resources by OracleGlass Perhaps she should have asked what the nice man at Stark Industries' HR to define what he meant by "eccentric."

Blind Opening by Skysalla When Clint's undercover assignment goes to hell, he finds himself thrust into a new mission without SHIELD's permission or approval.

Remaking by MusicalLuna I bet Clint was on a mission.

Next New Message by fabrega "YOU HAVE THIRTY. SEVEN. NEW MESSAGES," Clint Barton's phone announces. That can't be good. Spoilers for The Winter Soldier.

Comrades by Nefhiriel Five times Thor defended his friends from people who should've been on their side, and one time his friends defended him.

Give You Shelter by MusicalLuna Tony doesn't really understand what Steve's doing.

What Here Shall Miss by sheafrotherdon Tag to Iron Man 3: spoilers throughout. Warning for description of anxiety attacks and discussion of PTSD.

Gone Too Soon by Zelos A victim should not grieve his murderer, however unsuccessful the attempt.Tony Stark, and the process of grieving Obadiah Stane. (Or, five times Tony grieved for Obadiah, and the one time he stopped pretending to.)

9/11 by spockside Pepper Potts had only been working for Tony Stark six months when she found herself running away from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

All the Anger That They Eat by ClawR Tony agrees to see a therapist for his, you know, fairly obvious issues. No one is more surprised than he is. Written pre-Avengers, but remarkably canon-compliant.

Live Through This (Every Day) by tessercat (nekonexus) Tony Stark lives through a lot of shit, every day.

Survival Instinct by roguewrld When Tony leaves to get coffee, Bruce is eating breakfast. When he comes back, Bruce is gone and the Hulk is sitting on the floor.

Take a Drink by cydonic Tony's always wanted to prove to his father he was worthwhile. He never got the chance.

Five Times Pepper Potts Took Care of Tony Stark (and One Time Tony Stark Took Care of Her) byzauberer_sirin In Pepper's defense she really did try to keep things professional.

come on friends, get up now by jumpfall It won't be easy and it won't be pretty, they don't say. You're going to hurt faster than you heal and lose more than you win. The Avengers have one thing in common. They all sign on.

Eleven Other Bathrooms by PutItBriefly "It's our five week anniversary," he says, like its the most plainly obvious thing in the world. It isn't even true. They agreed to try this experiment in romance on a Saturday and today is Tuesday. Their five week anniversary was three days ago.

Leader of the Pack by windscryer During a fight, Steve goes down and Tony has to step up. It’s about as hard as he expected it to be (which is not hard at all) but he’d still rather never have to do that again, is that understood, Steven?

Crossovers:

The New New Yorker by kattahj (Doctor Who & Beauty & the Beast original series) The Doctor and Donna visit New Earth and are saddled with a responsibility they don't quite know how to handle.

Holosuite Avengers by marmolita (Star Trek DS9 & Avengers) Julian has a new holosuite program that he wants everyone to try.

Pay No Attention to the Men Behind the Curtain by JeziBelle (X-Files & Avengers) Phil Coulson died to save the world. Now he needs a place to start over, a cold beer, and some eggs.

Fishing Job by amcw177 (Burn Notice & Avengers) Michael gets some help and an unexpected offer.

It Starts Out Like an A-Word (As Anyone Can See) by Amy (Avengers & Sesame Street)  This fic is brought to you by the letter Y, the number 12, and the Avengers' decision to help fix what Loki and the Chitauri did to destroy parts of Manhattan. (Mostly that last part.) [No, seriously, this is precious!!!!]

Blown Away by Maryilee (X-Files & Early Edition)

Patchwork by Lynse (Quantum Leap & Doctor Who - has multiple sequels) Sam's leaped again, but this time things are different. The original history's in flux, and Sam is left trying to puzzle out the mystery of one Doctor John Smith who seems to be caught up in the middle of it.

An Unexpected Partnership by Riverfox237 (Kim Possible & Danny Phantom) Kim gets a mission one morning to find a stolen 'interdimensional portal'. She ends up getting more help than she expected.

Like Paper In Fire by Calico (X-Files & Silence of the Lambs) Agent Starling is asked by an old friend in the FBI for some help. It may or may not lead to Dr. Lecter.

Danny Phantom:

Beyond Beasts by CatalystOfTheSoul Danny's abilities are getting less reliable by the minute, Tucker can barely keep up with damage control, and it doesn't help that Dash decided to tag along. There's something fishy about this vacation, and it's not the lake. The forest is playing tricks, water is appearing in places it shouldn't, and evidently there's a vacancy expected at Algernon's Summer Camp for Boys.

Phantom of Truth by HaiJu Locked away in a secret government lab with Phantom as her subject, nothing stands between Maddie and the truth... except, perhaps, herself. 

Shadow of a Doubt by HaiJu The truth was supposed to save Danny. Fix things. The lab, the experiments, the lies, those were all in the past. Weren't they? Sequel to Phantom of Truth.

Doctor Who:

Time With Mother by Laurawrzz The newly regenerated 10th Doctor finds himself trapped and injured with Jackie in the stairwell of a shopping centre on Boxing Day, where they find they've got a little more to talk about than the sales. Maybe Jackie doesn't come at face value.

A Step in the Right Direction by flutterflap Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor needs a rest after the events of “Midnight.”

Voiceless by Veldeia "What if that thing took his voice with it? What if whatever it did was permanent?" An AU that branches off from Midnight.

Beneath the Midnight Sky by HiddenTreasures for badwolfrun The Dimension Cannon finally locks onto the Doctor’s position. When Rose makes the jump to him, she finds herself in for more trouble than she bargained for.

Vacation, Interrupted by shyday He closes his eyes, wishing for the TARDIS. Wishing for Donna. In his mind, the creature that was Sky screams as she's torn out into space. Missing scene for Season4 "Midnight."

Novi et Veteris by IuvenesCor She had the shadows of memories from times when every face he wore was hers, but not this face. Not whomever it was that she would now discover behind those beautiful, sad eyes. Change is a shockwave— and Clara is caught in its wake.

Spinach Shock by Goldy, mrv3000 The Doctor has a bad reaction to spinach.

Were He Not Romeo Called by Butterfly Human society does require a name more specific than 'Doctor'.

The Devil You Know by rosa_acicularis Better the devil you know. Rose and the Doctor after Journey's End.

The Difference by themuslimbarbie "He isn't you!" Rose cries. "He looks the same, sounds the same, usually he acts the same, but he isn’t you. He isn’t the Doctor. Not really." The Doctor suddenly looks so very old. She can see all of the love and pain and regret flashing in his eyes. "But," he answers slowly, "I'm not him."

The Old Have Bad Dreams by kashinoha Rory makes a late-night discovery. Takes place in season six, some unspecified time between Night Terrors and The Girl Who Waited.

Transfixion by tardisjournal After their latest adventure nearly gets him killed, the Doctor goes into a healing trance, but neglects to tell his Companions what he's up to. Nurse Rory tries to help. Things go terribly wrong.

What Is Essential by eve11 Rory has to put his trauma skills to use when he and the Doctor are trapped on the front lines of a planetary conflict.

Let Her Under Your Skin, Into Your Heart by starlingnight  Someone’s figured out a way to save lives that involves painkillers, regeneration, and a lot of surgery. It’s not much fun for the Doctor - but it's saving people, and isn't that always worth the price?

Balance of Power by eve11 The Doctor has a plan to save a xenophobic society from itself. If only he could remember what it was.

The First Attack by DW_NuTs The Doctor is bitten and suffers excruciating mental attacks, but he doesn't know who his attacker was. As he grows weaker, it's up to Rose to find the cure. 

The Scientist by orange_crushed He can barely remember that apartment; just the sensation of the neon lights from the deli across the street, glowing green and blue through the bedroom windows at all hours, soaking into his eyelids and coloring his skin.

How to Train Your Dragon:

To Save a Rider by  nightfurylover31 

Leið by AvannaK Astrid and Hiccup's "romantic flight" comes to an abrupt end when the Red Death follows them out of the nest. Following an unexpected and desperate fight, Astrid finds herself stranded on an island, injured, with a crippled and comatose Hooligan heir and his overprotective Night Fury. She's going to get them home—all three of them—or die trying.

Occupational Hazard by MidnightEternal During the failed siege of the Edge, Hiccup is hit with an arrow. Stoick knew his son was reckless, brave, but reckless. He just didn’t know how much. Until he saw the scars.

A weary leader by MidnightEternal Hiccup’s leg is hurting after a busy week, Snotlout is there.

Get Well Soon by Eastofthemoon Since arriving on Dragon’s Edge, the teens of Berk have had to face many challenges...but none as hard as attempting to care of a sick Hiccup.

A Normal Snoggletog by wingedflower When Hiccup somehow manages to break his other leg on Snoggletog Eve, he is sure the holiday is ruined. But that's what friends are for, right?

Small, Thin Fingers by LenleG Hiccup, 20 and suddenly the chief of Berk - exhausted, bruised, overworked and just generally having a really, really bad day (the whole ridiculous yak problem notwithstanding). He can't help but think his Father would have handled all this so much better. He tries to hide from it all in the forge, but he was never counting on Gobber being so... Gobber.

Growth Spurt by Eastofthemoon After getting a growth spurt, Hiccup had to make a new foot to go along with it. However, the kids realize that's not the only thing that has changed about Hiccup.

Lost and Found by sanctuary_for_all He had to make sure he wasn't dreaming.***Spoilers for "How to Train Your Dragon 2"***

Most of Him by Elfpen The battle is over, the day has been won. The Green Death is dead, the three-hundred year long war has finally ended. But even the greatest of victories always come with cleanup, and sometimes it can be rather gruesome. Follows directly after the battle sequence in the movie. Rated for gore.

Psych:

Latent by InsaneTrollLogic (deathfic) In Shawn Spencer’s six-year tenure as SBPD’s psychic detective, they’ve solved cases that wouldn’t be closed anywhere else in the country. But in a missing persons case with no leads, it looks like their luck might have run out… with Gus.

Never could get the hang of Tuesdays by Liviapenn The thing about Shawn is that he's brilliant, but you can never tell him that.

There’s A Sixteen Percent Chance That At Least One Of Us Is Going To Die by lapsus_calami The bad guy from their recent case forces Shawn and Gus to play a game of Russian Roulette. It’s about as fun as it sounds. Which is to say not fun at all. 

There's A Thirty Two Percent Chance That At Least One Of Us Will Need Therapy by lapsus_calami In the weeks following the events in the basement Shawn finds his usual coping methods less than effective and struggles to admit that he might actually need some outside help.

The Last Man At The End Of The World by watanuki_sama It's 3:30AM and yet again, Carlton has no idea what Spencer is talking about.

A Whisper to the Living by Xparrot Ten years after the Psych agency closed, Shawn Spencer returns to Santa Barbara.

You Say My Brain's Bleeding Like It's a Bad Thing by Kansas42 This is what Shawn would be saying, if Shawn wasn't too busy having his skull sliced open.

For more of my Psych faves, visit the following link to Psychfic

Star Trek (various series):

Lessons by pimpmypaws As much as McCoy appreciated being given a project, did it have to be this one? Someone in Starfleet had gotten the damned fool idea that a machine would make a better doctor than a human. aka McCoy contributes to the EMH program by teaching him to be grouchy.

Is This the Real Life by halloweenjack21st What might have happened as a result of the events of the episode "Eye of the Needle".

New Beginnings by Jacks Post-Endgame, the Doctor finds life in the Alpha Quadrant very different from life on Voyager.

The Price Of A Memory by Marauder-In-Disguise There's only one thing in the world that the Doctor really wants...

Circle by VesperRegina Communications officers. A look at Hoshi Sato and Nyota Uhura.

Sisters by Orangeblossom If you took all the recurring female characters from TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY, you'd have a whole command crew. Wouldn't *that* make an interesting show?

Supernatural:

Until It Sleeps by Scribblesinink (Scribbler) Who knew cravings for Cheetos and a turkey sandwich could be dangerous? When Sam and Dean stop off at a gas station to stock up, they pick up a teenage runaway – and a whole heap of trouble.

Lost by CIFan812 (PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO WARNINGS) This was the only way to make sure that Sam lived and that they would both be okay without me dragging them down. *Final Chapter is up.* Rated for sexual & nonsexual violence, rape & language. No Wincest.

The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep by Zatnikatel (WARNINGS FOR NON-CON) Missy Bender was three things. She was obsessive. She was insane. And she was in love – with a tall, beautiful stranger who looked real purty when he was hurting. But unfortunately for Dean Winchester, one thing she wasn’t was still locked in the closet…

One Night In Pasadena by Tempestt A woman targets Dean, but they soon find out who is the more dangerous predator. Rated for violence and sexual content. DARK FIC

X Files:

The Ghost in Her Life by Joyce (Alysswolf) An accident radically changes the partnership between Mulder and Scully while opening Scully up to extreme possibilities.

Seasons: Fight The Future by: BeshterAngelus The work of five years for Dana Scully and Fox Mulder is gone. As they face what this means for their partnership, Scully becomes a tool yet again to strike Mulder the final blow in his quest for the truth.

My Works:

Asgårdsreia by dragonnan (How to Train Your Dragon WIP) Berk is preparing for the annual Fyr Bal. With the Dragon Riders back home for the festival, it's sure to be fun for everyone! However, between Stoick's awkward prying into his personal life and the pure boredom of being away from the Dragon's Edge, Hiccup needs a vacation from his vacation! Turns out, there are, actually, worse ways to take a break.

The Big Stink by dragonnan (Supernatural WIP) Monsters, demons, rouge angels, the Devil, freaking Leviathans. Whatever comes down the pipe, we can handle it. Gank it or box it up for later. This is no different. Same crap, different day, man. But, dude, for the record? This freaking sucks.

How You Get There from Here by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) A collection of missing scenes from Avengers and related films. Many will be Tony-centric. I write a lot of hurt/comfort so expect a lot of those types of stories.

Fades to Gray But Never Away by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Written for a prompt/request involving Tony Stark and sexual harassment.

Did You Make it to the Milky Way to See the Lights all Faded by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) If anything it was peaceful. All that black filled with stars. This other world. And vicious eel riding aliens. Couldn't forget those. Like literally couldn't forget them.

Simple Math by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Had Obadiah hated him that long? Years? His whole life? Or was it an absence of emotion? Was he just... inconvenient?

Obie's Dilemma by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Never should have let others do the job for him. This was his responsibility. He'd been there at the start. It only followed that he should end it too.

Not the Hero Type by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Maybe that was why he hadn't been paying attention. Or, maybe he'd been looking for this. He didn't know. He rarely cataloged his reasons for anything. He fired from the hip and most of the time it struck dead center. But when he missed, oh it was a spectacular miss.

Of Bonding and Baking by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys. Here's a cookie.

Play Me Some More of that Old Blues by dragonnan (Cowboy Bebop) Some things forgotten, some things remembered. Faye and Jet thought they were all that was left. Something from the past returns.

Find all of my Psych stories HERE

[nelsonsledge]

"Right"?!!!! o2 oK jUS breeeath i-K-no-W=oOW-twenty uNo YEARS of remembrance, the flying times, the Y-2 soon, hey BooBoo! & "HeyYouGuys"! Electric/"StaticCompany" un'RealizED. 💡 (ideas) RIPed. Little bit liquid 📺,a dash of heatED.D-Bait ~hookED. On phonics-vs-Ebonics (Norton)ed. Spoon Feeding G-MazZ & oG'z POP'ahhs A-DasHe'dD of Voc. BreakING down on the YIN-YangG stage like cCrOss-firED. Heated freedom debating with the black|white line drawn down the center of Hot-Topics, meltdown transitions via be back in two&two wit luv connections CHuck-abbey or ObBey that Giant Client Art Biz- compared and contrasting facts vs FAX, guess sponsors lead Mr Whipples squeezing addictions, Carols Mop vs Mob Closets after the shows Bloopers Gone WildER. MadDad plots to snagG the Bad Guys with the help of a few good fellows re-Union reunited (and it feels so good, need a razorback haircut:fellas bring in the boar'dD. NeverC c music factory members only free passAGE to FEAR INC. breaking down the Benny's for any whistlers that can name that tune before the SOAP Sands of time and the hourglass runs out, with Bill Nye and Tyson DeGrassE calls Spider Man, or Dr Phil, heck House,StrangeLove, since we got the Motts, and a time machine made from a GTO, and one from a Red and White Chevy Coop, WhoopWhoop, is that the CarRrrrrrrrrr Maaaaaaaa, Poes bedtime dittys, and Huey Lewis backing up the new with guest anchor Howard the Duck, Donald telling Nephews Huey it to late for little duck rogers and that half century in frustrations, still waiting on McFlys Release, cameo and name drops like Dexakota Droopy Daddy , and fill in the blank do it yourself at home you idioms, are you smarter the a K-12 these daze all blurRed and confused, no good stuff for the kid in you, prenatal Vitaminwater and a splashing, dunk in the question-able controversial drinking waters of standardized practices, ethics redefined methods and the playDoe response time of law and order. Hopefully get the ]aS[sist with pats and handshakes of the S.Green and BlessedD by McFarLandERs crew to take on those big bad data hoards of hidden monopoly monsters in the attic,the cellars and Hey Carol Berrnet, can you get the dustpan out of the hidden good riddance closet company, those under the rug sweeping package deal-e-O , find a sewer,find a leak, find the little god and dam em'all so one day we may be able to sleep in peace without the horse head found in a poor mans bed, with color crazied observers waiting their turn to deep freeze their own heads for future-Roma dunce shelving, next to their favorite dead presidents, what a tall drink of water, the hippie hip of fresh, and who needs to breath on Mars anyway, haven't they seen Arnold's , Hey Around (cartoon btw) how'dD your eyes feel after you got sucked out that Mission Two Mars, throw the mutant out the window, oh what, wait he is one of ours, nobody likes the other guys color red for catch-up, Hunt for something intelligent out there first before you bother opening that door markED d-Secret stash of Pandora and her that's Incredible Show by choice, or force, by dreams or those Hunts while sleeping Deeper in REM version of TommyBoys and Girls all watch the ball and sing a long, hey JOE, where are you going with that... It's a Jimmy thing in your hand, fix the ball that doesn't bounce, or be a better aim with the Nerf BB gun bully bullets with butterfly wings in Malaysia, that grrrreat, find me another Tiger for Tony, we are leaving the big aA 4 Montana, getting all the good dads on file, and we are going camping, shipping in like Ellis Island a game reserve, tagging predators with Chips, have me holding Swiss cheese signs reading To New York (Tony), badD guys are forever named Tony's uNo, unless they are Grandfathered Inn, Escapes a Far Cry after paranoia plays havoc with insiders trading listSinER, for get about it, smile your on candidate candid camera, with A World gone crazy, and family Funtime is lacking, after schools demanding the united to sit down with the kids and let them teach you what they did learn in school, every home no longer a gun but a stick, a bigG stick worth a full 316 bald guy inspired Austin TX. Your welcome, last stand, attention pleas, who ever gets the history lesson questions right before 3 strikes get a 10min Rampage with full screen HD envy the rest, the new and improved SORRY mad-e by POPS with a little love from Sam the Uncle, and the Butcher Too. Feeding the hungry Yogie Bears of the Rockys and any other don't get lost out there, family fun night alternating and mandatory, like the census or taxes, Neison rates the statistics and AOL digs deep in those lost and found, B-ing gets the S-Wing while Yahoo! Gets firsts dibs after the from this point on moral fabric of the Matrix gets all calls and filtering powers MSN gets to go darker than Dark after hours, Jeckle gives Hide the ok to Seek in the forbidden areas of commerce, spy vs spy gets grey and redrawn by daybreak the lines of right vs wrong, this vs that, who get to purge, who fasts til the neXt night time showing, Rodger the Rabid Rabbit shows Rodger More secrets then any pre-or post double 0's ever wanted to know, Redefined Epic spoofing of SpyHard get a legit static stasis, absurd becoming relevant , idiots getting FaceTime on NotFOXYenuff trilogy enuff realizes finally that it could never be... enough. Bob cat Screams "Hey You Guys" Bane is the Hero that says nothing in anticipated camE-O-S and Martin Larance sound bite starts it off, "WELLCOME TO HELL BITCH" Little Suzy gets the Uzi, and mom and dad flip. for drone cone control. And somewhere in real time, Bill Mare is Shaking his head in disbelief, as he is ask to guest star as Host to Host , Mike to Ike and Space Ghost drops the Mic on the Sprint vs Verizon cage match at the center of the black and white, fine print fair or festival, live and let die fine line ? About %and Y set up, upgrades and Southpark is the best way to feed you family the GoodBadUgly truth, in the next episode of this is you life, brought to you bye the letter ((•Y•)) & U , F-like andDdick crashing always everywhere every time, Y-K"not" You A Funny Guy Co U Sin Vinnie , What happened to Spider 🕷, you hate bugs I know, rats even more so, moles are not voles, get an enPshcoLaPeezDeeAhhh Webster get of MJs lap, you way to old you know better , exceptionalism's will be considered in drawning the weekly contestants from the official offensive offenders list. Shock and aweSHIT will be redefined by the best that no money can buy. Droned head start programs will be offered free at your local anaconda or library. Futures so bright, a little birdie told me, whistled actually so absurd 80s tune not picked in the GTA soundtrack anyway, Gotta Ware Shades, n0 respect, Tall and Fat , help me Rodney Dangerfield, (BACK TO SCHOOL) can I keep Pauly , got some things in the basement I gotta figure out, sickining me something awful, perhaps if I could go beat some carcasses, frozen side-shows of Moo-B's Ink. Dance to the aAbBcC's on the rooftops with the cast of friends and Kevin Smith and get the kick in the as by a better human then most, AMY the mars cat will help Arnold put his eyes back in his head, red blinders won't be all seen in the end of show, tantrums will fade out to a happy toon , maybe classical and instrumental versions at a slower role/ tempo Sunday Monday happy days, Tuesday Wensday happy days trursday Friday happppy daze SATERNDaY what a day got some ring for you... Ohh Henry / winkler vs Rolland's (Cane vs Able) Netflix playing he didn't die, I believe u&i..DK

[secret-captain-swan-blog]

Castle on the Hill

English Literature PhD student Emma Swan just needs money to pay for her last semester of grad school tuition. Killian Jones has always dreamed of opening a bookshop but has never been able to afford it. So when the small principality of Misthaven is looking for their lost princess, the pair decide that this might just be the perfect money making scheme. 

A Multi-chapter Modern Day + Lost Princess (think Rapunzel/Anastasia-esque) + Book Lovers in a Coffee Shop AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 9810/ ?

Read on: Ao3

--

1995 JFK Airport, New York

It’s late when they find her. The airport is slowing down for the night. A vacuum is buzzing not far away and the corridors, once noisy and busy, have turned cavernous. A TV is humming nearby and those who do remain in the airport are gathered around it in rapt attention.

She is tucked in a corner, between a chair and drinking fountain. Knees pulled to chest, her arms wrapping around herself. Her tiny body can’t stop shaking.

She gazes up at strange faces, two men, dressed in blue who surround her. If she could read, she’d understand that their badges read Police. But where she is from, guards dress in more elaborate wear.

Guards like Liam. Wherever he’s gone off.

“I’ll be back soon, Princess. I’m just running to the toilet. Stay here,” he had said.

But that had been hours ago.

“Do you know where your mommy or daddy are?” The pair of men ask her.

She shakes her head no.

“Did you come here with a granny or granpy? Maybe an aunt or uncle?” They ask again.

She nods a little, “Uncle Liam.”

She knows he isn’t really her uncle, but she misses him all the same. She thinks of her mother helping her pack a bag a few days before. “Sometime soon my dear, you’re going to go to on a holiday with Uncle Liam. Mummy and Daddy won’t be able to come with you. We’ll find you though, we always do.” She’d given her a kiss and tucked Emma’s favorite, embroidered blanket into her bag.

But as soon as Emma’s airplane landed, she’d lost track of Liam. He’d simply gone and never returned. Feeling alone in the airport, she’d hidden away in the corner hoping her parents will come find her. It’s been hours now and she hasn’t seen them or Uncle Liam. All of her life, she’s been surrounded by people- dressing her, serving her, playing with her, taking care of it- but now she feel so so alone.

“What’s your name?” Asks the man.

“Princess,” She says.

The two men exchange glances.

“Sweetie what’s your real name?” The other man asks, his face sympathetic.

“Princess,” She says.

“Do you think?” The one man asks to the other, wild disbelief in his eyes.

They’d seen the news earlier that day: the small principality of Misthaven, a tiny country lodged between Belgium and the Netherlands, had been host to a violent revolution. The Royal Family slaughtered, a malevolent dictator replacing them. The images from the television have been haunting, streets covered in the dead, flags being ripped, and the fearful faces of those trying to escape.

But this tiny, innocent little girl… she can’t be…

“She’s been sitting next to the TV all night,” He replies, “She probably just picked something off of it. You know kids and their imaginations. Besides, reports say the princess died.”

The other man shakes his head, as if trying to rid it of a thought.

“You’re right,” He agrees, finally.

“Let’s take you to go find your parents or Uncle or whoever,” The other man says, tugging her away.

They don’t find her parents. Or any trace of Uncle Liam. After a week of searching, she finds a place in a foster home in Boston.

2000, Boston, Massachusetts

When Emma is nine she goes to the movies with the other kids in the group home.

In the film, a dashing hero rescues a princess from her tower. She goes on a brilliant adventure and finally reunites with her family. She lives happily ever after, with her family and handsome hero in a big and beautiful castle.

Emma thinks about that movie all day. She thinks about it on the drive home, her face pressed against the car window, her eyes closed in daydream. She thinks about it as she does her daily chores- sweeping the kitchen, cleaning the upstairs toilets. She thinks about it when they all sit down to eat dinner- 14 grubby hands clawing at the night’s offerings. Its spaghetti, which makes Emma’s tummy hurt. She takes a piece of garlic bread and sneaks up to her room- the one she shares with three other girls. She sits on the cold windowsill, wrapped in the thin blanket from her bed, and watches the snow fall.

He must be out there, she thinks, my hero.

She imagines what he might look like. And for a moment she can almost picture him, like a face from another life. Dark hair, blue eyes, freckles, and a smile so white and pure that she trusts him just for that.

She wonders if he is walking down the snowy streets, checking in every house looking for her. “Is there a princess here?” He might ask. “I’m looking for a princess.” Because surely there has to be a place in the world for her that is less painful than the one she is in.

When Emma was younger, she used to imagine herself a princess all the time. In fact, the social workers used to tease her for it. Apparently she’d been found in airport claiming to be a princess. The adults had exchanged concerned faces. When she was older, they’d explained to her that she must have had something so traumatic happen to her that she’d invented a different reality for herself. If this was her imagination, Emma didn’t want to remember the truth.

She dreams of it often- a castle with grey stonewalls, brilliant tapestries, and warm fireplaces. A place where there would be balls and feasts. She wakes from these dreams always convinced that they are real, they must be real. It’s only when she opens her eyes and takes heaping gasps of air that she gets hit by reality and knows that she is far from being a princess. She’s started to dread these dreams.

Emma doesn’t let herself think of it much anymore. There’s been so many times that families have come to group homes, inquiring about who to adopt- but it’s never been her. She knows that she is nearly too old to find a family willing to take her in. The king and queen have clearly never arrived.

But tonight, she lets herself indulge in the fantasies. She’s thought about the king and queen a lot before- but never a hero. Tonight she thinks about the knight in shining armor- the one who will find her and finally bring her home.

The door opens and a face peers in. It’s Kennedy, her older foster sister. Emma likes Kennedy. She has coppery skin and thick, dark, curly hair that sticks out in all directions. Kennedy is seventeen. Next year, she’ll be free to leave the system. Emma sometimes wishes she would stay. She’s the closest thing Emma’s ever found to a sister in this home.

“There you are, Em,” Kennedy says kindly, crossing the room to sit by her in the sill. “I was worried about you. I didn’t see you at dinner and I know spaghetti always hurts your tummy.”

“I didn’t have any,” Emma told her, lifting the last bit of the roll, before tossing it in her mouth, “Just some garlic bread.”

“I see,” Kennedy says, “So, you just escaped to brood?”

“Brood?” Emma asks.

“Think, angstily,” Kennedy defines.

Emma files the word away in the dictionary in her brain.

“Then yes, I’m brooding,” Emma tells her.

“I see,” Kennedy says, giving her a smile and squeezing her hand, “Penny for your thoughts?”

“I was thinking about the movie earlier,” Emma says.

Kennedy nods.

“I was just wondering if there was a prince coming to save me,” Emma tells her, feeling silly and childish when the words come out of her mouth.

Kennedy frowns and bites her lip, as if thinking of the words to say.

“Emma, no one is coming.”

Emma knows that was what the answer was going to be, but it still hurts her.

“But he could be,” She says emphatically, her fantasy appearing before her eyes again, “He could be out there, right now. He could be looking for me. He could be ready to whisk me off to our kingdom to meet the king and queen.”

“What kingdom is that?” Kennedy says, her voice is kind, but sensible.

Emma shrugs, trying to keep the tears at bay. But she can feel that tell tale dryness in the back of her throat.

“Emma,” Kennedy says, “I’m going to tell you some very important things. You are going to have to listen very carefully and never forget them. Do you promise me?”

Emma nods, not sure what respond to that.

“Emma, fairytales are pretend. There are no fairy godmothers, no knights in shining armor, no wishes on a star,” Kennedy tells her.

Emma lets out the sob she’s been holding in. Kennedy moves closer to wrap her in a hug.

“But listen to me, Em, you can be that for yourself,” Kennedy continues, “You have to be your own hero. In this hard life we’ve been given, you can’t rely on anyone else but yourself. You have to work as hard as you can. Promise me you will. You have to work harder in school than anyone else you know. Read as much as you can. Study, ask questions, stay afterschool for extra help if you need it, join clubs, run for class president. Do everything you can to get into college. Because once you have a degree, you can get a good job, make a life for yourself. Promise me you’ll go to college.”

Emma doesn’t really know what college is. She’s never met anyone who has been to one. But she admires Kennedy and knows that she’ll do whatever her clever big sister tells her to.

“I will,” Emma sniffles.

“Do you remember Quinn who lived here last year?” Kennedy asks.

Emma nods. She remembers the older girl with long raven hair and big lips.

“Quinn didn’t have a plan when she left here. She got involved with a bad guy. She started stealing. Now Quinn is in jail,” Kennedy tells her.

Emma’s heart drops. She tries to picture her former foster sister in a black and white outfit and shackles like she saw on the cartoon on TV once. It only makes her cry harder.

“I can’t have that happen to you,” Kennedy tells her, “I care too much about you Emma to let that happen to you. Do good in school. Go to college. Be your own hero. Do you promise me?”

“I promise.”

It’s that moment when Emma stops believing in fairy tales.

2001, Misthaven

When Killian is 12 his gran dies.

He can still remember when he used to live in a castle. He and Liam lived in a small room in basement. It was a good life. There was always lots of food. There was always dancing and laughter and music. He took lessons with the royal tutor.

He can still remember the night when everything changed. He remembers running across the palace grounds in the dead of night- him and Liam and the princess. He remembers how Liam and the princess, a small girl, his friend, not yet five, had turned in one direction towards the airport and the flight that would take them to safety in America. He remembers Liam begging him, “Go to our grans house and hide. Don’t come out till I call you and tell you it’s safe.”

But Liam has never called. Killian stills thinks of him and the princess. He supposes they must have stayed in American and forgotten all about him. Does he tell people that the princess is his sister now? Does he think of him at all?

He can still remember how things got much worse after the King and Queen were murdered. A man name Gold had declared himself the ruler. He remembers how they began rationing food. He remembers how the schools got shut down for weeks, before reopening with different teachers. He remembers how they learned different history, read strange books. He remembers the way everything seemed a little more gray, a little more bleak- or maybe that was just because Liam was gone.

So when his gran dies, Killian has nowhere else to go. He’s never had parents. He hardly has friends. So he just leaves.

She’s been sick for weeks, so he knew it was coming. He’s had a bag packed just in case. A few days clothes, a bottle of water, a granola bar, a toothbrush. He thinks about taking his picture of Liam, but he leaves it on his nightstand instead. Liam has forgotten him, so he might as well forget Liam.

He tip-toes out of the back door and into the cold night air. It’s windy, which is good, because it lets him pretend he isn’t crying. It blocks the sound of his sniffles and it lets him convince himself it’s just the sharp, icy sting that makes his eyes water. It cant’ be his heart breaking. He is trying to be brave and deal with this as best he can. But he has never felt so alone in all his life.

He knows exactly where he is going. The docks. He is going on a ship. Killian has always liked ships.

It is easier to sneak onto the cargo hold than he imagines. While there are strict locks on the borders, not allowing people to come and go, no one seems to be looking for a little boy. After all, he is small and fast, able to duck into the hold and curl up in a corner unseen.

The ship leaves port and he is bound across the channel to England. The water churns and it makes Killian’s stomach heave, something he didn’t expect.  He eats his granola bar to try to settle it, but instead ends up expelling it into a corner of the ship. It is cold in the hold, so he takes all his clothes out of his backpack and lays them on top of himself as a makeshift blanket. It doesn’t make him much warmer, but he feels resourceful for it nonetheless.

In the morning, he sneaks out when no one is looking. He realizes that he doesn’t know where to go. He decides to use his money to buy a bus ticket to London. In school, they read a book a boy who lives in an orphanage in London. The boy got in lots of trouble, goes on loads of adventures, but ends up with a happy life and a family. This is what Killian wants.

When he arrives in London, he doesn’t know what to do. He buys himself chips wrapped in newspaper and sits by the river and watches it flow by. It reminds him of the river that flows through Misthaven. For a moment, he feels like a king himself. The whole city is his and he can do anything he wants. He buys five chocolate bars from a nearby shop, indulgent that they don’t ration chocolate here. He buys himself a copy of the book he read in school. Oliver Twist. The cover is shiny and he rereads the whole thing as he sits in a sunny park where there are lots of ducks.

He walks to one castle made of austere grey stone that scares him. It’s tucked a long the bit of the city with the tallest buildings, alongside the water and by the bridge he’s seen in a geography book. He touches it’s walls and shutters, memories of his past dancing before his eyes. As he looks at it, he thinks about the night the castle was attacked.

He still remembers what it sounded like when the Queen screamed.

He leaves this castle as quick as he can.

He walks to another castle on the other side of town. There are guards that walk back and forth in front of it in silly hats. It makes him think of Liam and that is all the more painful. It leaves him feeling empty. It leaves him thinking about the hole in heart that never got to heal.

It’s on that day that realizes he has run out of money. He is no longer a king. He is foundling.

So he sits in a park reading Oliver Twist. He supposes that is what he needs. He needs to find an orphanage.

He starts listening to the accents of the people around him. In his country, they spoke English, French, and Dutch. His accent is different than theirs, but he practices it over and over that night, once the park has cleared and his stomach rubbles, till he gets it perfect. He can’t be sent back home. That’s all he knows.

In the morning, he goes to a police officer.

“I’m sorry, excuse me sir,” He says, “I’ve seemed to have lost my family.”

“That no good, you little chap,” The officer says. Killian imagines him like a character in the book. “What happened?”

“Well, it’s rather funny really, you see I fell and hit my head and I can’t remember anything,” He tells the officer.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but he has always been a good liar.

“Are you going to put me in an orphanage now?” He asks later, when he is at the police station, when they’ve given him a juice box and some crackers, and searched a computer to find his family.

The police officer chuckles at Killian’s naiveté. “Son, we haven’t had orphanages here since the 1950’s.”

That is the moment when Killian realizes that he is not going to be Oliver Twist. He is not going to have a raucous adventure and then find a new family. He is still alone.

2001, Boston, Massachussetts

Kennedy moves away two weeks after Emma turns ten.

“I’m going to college in New York,” Kennedy tells her, “At New York University. They call it NYU. I got a full ride- that means I can go for free.”

A few weeks after she’s left, Emma receives a package in the mail from her. Inside is a letter, telling her about her adventures in college. There is a picture of her room, a dorm she calls it. Emma imagines having a room all to her own. It seems too good to be true. There is a picture of Kennedy and few other girls. “Look,” she wrote on the back, “I made friends!” The last thing in the package is a book called the Red Fairy Book.

“I know we’ve agreed not to believe in fairy tales, but that doesn’t mean you can’t read them,” Kennedy writes.

The Red Fairy Book changes everything. It makes Emma learn to love reading. Not all the fairy tales are pretty, not all of them have happy endings- but she likes that. Some of them are gruesome and horrific, while others are sweet and charming. It has lots fairy tales she’s read before, but many more new ones. She likes the new ones, especially the ones that no one has heard of. They feel like her own discovery. Her own secret stories.

The Red Fairy Book leads her to discovery the library. Allie, the new oldest girl in the home, takes her. She shows her how to get a library card. Emma feels greedy at all the books she can take. No one has every let her take anything before.

She reads her way through the Blue Fairy Book. Then the Green one. Then the yellow. When she’s finished that, the librarian shows her a book called Ella Enchanted, which she reads in just one night. The next day, she goes back and gets three more books, which she finishes by the end of the week.

Before she graduates middle school, Emma Swan has lived in 12 different homes, but she has read 2,678 books. She is very proud of that (the books, not the number of homes she’s been rejected from). The first thing she does when settling into a new home is ask where the library is and if someone can take her to get a library card.

It’s when she’s in eighth grade that she finds herself in her 13th home. 13 is always an unlucky number in fairy tales, she thinks.

She’s knows that it’s a bad fit as soon as she moves in. She asks to be taken to the library, but her new foster father refuses.

“We don’t do libraries here,” He tells her, “They’re a distraction from chores and work that needs to be done.”

She sits idly in her room, flicking through her worn copy of Red Fairy book her first night. She think of a book she read, Matilda, about a little girl with magical powers who escapes her horrible family with the help of a wonderful teacher. Emma imagines herself to be Matilda and spends hours staring at a book on the shelf trying to will it to move. Nothing happens. Emma is not Matilda.

She soon realizes that this new house is worst than her imaginings. Her foster father assigns her an endless list of chores, threatening her with violence when she fails to do them to his liking.

She retreats into herself, becoming withdrawn. It wasn’t like she had tons of friends in the first places, she’s moved around too much for that. But the ones she does have, she pulls away from. She doesn’t want them to know how horrible her life has become.

She stops doing her schoolwork. There isn’t any time and she’s too afraid of her foster father’s fist. Her books, which were once her sanctuary, sit unread of her shelf. Her postcards from Kennedy get chucked in the trash. How can she think about college when it takes all her energy to just survive?

Emma thinks time and time again about running away. But where would she go? Who would she turn to? She would only get in more trouble if she takes off. She can only imagine the pain that would take place if her foster father would catch her escaping. So she stays.

Emma may not have a Miss Honey, but she does have a Ms. Waverly. Ms. Waverly notices when Emma fails time after time to turn into her assignments. She notices how Emma has become quiet and sullen. It’s after class one day that she beckons her over to her desk.

“Emma, is there anything wrong?”

“No, mam,” Emma mutters, “I’m fine.”

“Why haven’t I received your composition yet?” She asks, “You are usually one of the most gifted writers in your class.”

“I just haven’t time,” Emma says.

“Haven’t had time? Emma, you’re 13, what can be taking up so much time?”

And that’s how Emma starts sobbing at her teacher’s desk. Later, she shows the school counselor the bruises on her ribs, the black-eye she’s been covering up with her hair and a bit of make up.

She gets removed that night, taken to a woman in upstate New York. They’re gentle with her. No one touches her anymore, not even hugs, without asking for permission first. The social workers are making her feel safe again and she appreciates it. She has to repeat eighth grade, she finds out, too many incomplete assignments. She feels farther from her dream of college than ever before.

But then she walks into her new house in New York, to a woman named Ingrid, with blond hair and rosy cheeks. She gives her a mug of hot chocolate and a room of her own. And a library card. Emma might just like it here.

2003, Bradford, England

It doesn’t take Killian long to realize that the life he read about in books was never going to happen. He is sent to a group home with the promise of finding him a family that never comes. He is fine without one, he thinks. He never had much family anyway: Just a brother who never came back for him, a gran who died too early. He’s probably better off without a family, he thinks.

They move him out of London and to a town called Bradford, farther north. He immediately misses the freedom and excitement of London. Between the pace of the town, the overcast weather, and loneliness- there is a dreariness that settles inside of Killian.

At the beginning of secondary school, he meets some boys in class. Peter and Felix are clearly up to no good, but after two years of feeling alone and bored- he needs someone, something. And the petty crime the boys partake in- well, it’s the closest thing Killian has had in years to an adventure.

It starts with sweets from the petrol station, slipped into his pocket when no one in looking. Later, it’s little things from PoundLand, knick knacks and small treasures nicked easily. He does it for the rush, the feeling as if he is getting away with something. He has to admit, the stolen chocolate tastes better than anything he ever paid for.

A few months later, it starts to escalate. They realize how easy they can get away with their easy swipes. So why not try for something of higher value?

They start picking pockets. It’s easy, really, to snatch a wallet out the pocket of the man sitting beside you. Or take of the phone of the woman who just happens to be looking away. They get a fair bit from these swipings. Killian starts to dream of things he’ll buy for himself with the money- maybe a DVD player or a device to play mp3s. He imagines the faces of the other kids in the home when they’ll see him with one.

There is a warmth to the camaraderie of the boys. After they’ve collected their treasures, they sit in the alley together drinking hot chocolate bought from the money the boys have tugged out of unwilling wallets. They count their loot, watching their riches unfold before them. Killian feels a bit like he belongs. Killian has not felt like he belongs in a very long time.

It’s after a few more months that they decide to set their eyes on something bigger. Felix has been keeping his eyes on some watches at a local jewelry store. He knows when they’ll lock up each night and when the alarm kicks in. Peter thinks if they time it right, they’ll be able to make off with the watches. Killian starts to picture vacations on tropical islands, maybe a car when he’s old enough. He pictures riches he’s never dreamt of before.

So he agrees to the plan. It takes a few weeks of preparation to get the timing right, the roles assigned. They decide to execute their plan on the last day of school, that way they’ll have their riches to spend all summer.

At first, everything goes to plan. That is, until a man turns around and Killian is caught red-handed holding the watches. He watches Peter and Felix slink off with quiet smirks- leaving Killian to take the fall.

He get eleven months in a Young Offenders institution.

When he arrives, he is angry. He’s mad at Peter and Felix for leaving him behind. He’s mad at himself for ever believing that he could belong to anything, for ever believing that he meant something to anyone.

As he falls asleep in a locked cell room, he finds himself angry at Liam. None of this would have ever happened if Liam hadn’t left. If Liam hadn’t decided that things were better in America, if he hadn’t decided that the princess made a better sister than Killian made a brother- maybe Killian wouldn’t be here. There is a pit in his stomach that knows that Liam would be so so disappointed if he ever found out what had become his brother.

In the middle of the night, when Killian awakes with the old nightmare of the castle under siege, he finds he is angry at the Princess. The princess stole his brother from him. The princess who is off in America living an easy life. The princess who must be too young to remember the terror of that night in the castle. The princess who is too young to remember the family she lost. Killian thinks that not remembering would be a lot easier that living as he does.

2005, Syracuse, New York

At first, Ingrid is the nicest person who has ever fostered her. She is gentle with Emma, probably alerted by social workers about the previous abuse. She lets Emma read as long as she wants and brings her cocoa. When Emma starts high school, she drives her to the extensive array of extracurricular activities she signs up for- student council, debate team, chorus, Model UN, and the book club she starts herself. Ingrid even takes her on a trip to New York City to visit Kennedy, where she is going to law school.

“Look,” Emma says, pulling out her all A report card and showing it to Kennedy, “Look I’m doing everything you said. I’m studying as hard as I can. I’m going to go to college.”

“I’m proud of you, Em,” Kennedy tells her, “Don’t let anything stop you. Be your own hero.”

When Emma is a sophomore, she gets an award for being the best English student. She starts volunteering at the library when her counselor tell her that volunteer hours look good on college applications. She and her debate team win States.

By the time she is a junior, she’s earned a reputation in the school for her braininess, but she couldn’t be happier. She becomes treasurer of student council. She wins an essay contest in the local paper.

She wishes she could say she has friends, but she doesn’t. She has acquaintances on student council and in chorus, but no the type of friends that she’d hang out with outside of school. She’s never had a boyfriend, but it doesn’t bother her. Boys are only a bigger distraction from academics. She lives by Kennedy’s rules- be your own hero. Save yourself.

As a senior, she is class president and captain of the debate team. She begins to fill out college applications. She thinks of going to a college in New York like Kennedy, but if she is going to be her own hero, she wants to have her own adventure. She spends hours pouring over college pamphlets that come in the mail.

She settles on Duke as her top choice. It’s highly ranked and Emma has never been to North Carolina before. She knows that it is sunnier there, with less snow. There is a tiny part of her that secretly likes that it sounds like royalty. She’s long given up any princess dreams, but she still has a fond place in her heart for it.

When she fills out her application, she wonders what to check off as her major. It doesn’t take much thought, as she reflects on all the books she’s read and how much she loves to read, she checks off “English” without a second thought.

In the end, she is waitlisted at Duke, but receives a full ride scholarship from a small commuting college down the street. She could save money and live at home. Ingrid says she is welcome to stay.

Emma is certain that is what she going to pick- when everything changes. Ingrid starts to become strange. She starts asking Emma questions about her childhood, becoming frustrated when Emma can’t recall anything before the arriving in a foster home in Boston. She starts pouring over books on royal histories. Then begin strange calls in the middle of the night. Emma’s not sure what is going, but it unsettles her. She’s known Ingrid to be a solid person, a reliable and trustworthy parent. But now she doesn’t know.

It’s one day when Emma comes back from school, ready to dive into some last-minute AP test studying that Ingrid suggest that they move to Europe for the next year. She says it in a menacing tone and Emma wonders if she’ll have a choice. But she can’t just get up and move, she has to start college. She promised Kennedy. She promised herself.

But where does she have to go?

There must have been a fairy godmother out there for her somewhere because she gets a call from Duke that night, telling her they have a place for her off the waitlist. She’ll get some financial aid, but she’ll need to take out some loans. Emma doesn’t care, she accepts immediately. The sooner she can leave the better.

She works at a sleep away camp in the Catskills that summer because it has free room and board. She makes enough money to pay for a one-way ticket to Durham and for a semesters worth of books.

Emma Swan doesn’t look back. But she’s good at that now.

When Emma tumbles into her dorm room bed the first night of college, all she feels is gratitude. She knows she’s lucky. That’s the only reason she’s made it so far. She was lucky to have Kennedy’s pep talks to get her life on track. She’s lucky to have had Ms. Waverly to pull her out of the horrible, abusive home she found herself in. She’s lucky to have known about library cards. She’s lucky to have fallen in love with books. She’s lucky to have Ingrid even, before she went crazy. Emma knows that there were a million things that could have fallen into place to make this not happen. Emma knows that the average foster kid doesn’t end up at Duke. She thinks of all the terrible turns that her story could have taken and she feels grateful that this is the one she’s been given.

2004, Leeds, England

The Young Offender institute leaves Killian feeling hollow. The parts of him that used to feel alive have turned numb and cold. He wishes he could be angry, because then he would feel something, anything.

Because he now has a criminal past, he’s placed in a different sort of foster home, one for troubled kids. It’s in Leeds, a few towns over from Bradford. He has less freedom here, stricter rules. It makes him feel only more isolated, more depressed. None of his old friends are nearby, but he is happy without them. He hears from a few acquaintances that Peter and Felix have gotten themselves tied up in a drug ring in Bradford. Killian decides he is far better off without them. After all, he’s learned over and over again that he can’t rely on anyone but himself.

He spends as much time as he can lying in bed. He’s tired in a way he’s never been tired before. It’s not just that he wants to sleep, it’s just that he doesn’t want to do anything, doesn’t see the point in doing anything. His homework assignments are half done- just the minimum he needs to not get in any more trouble. He wonders if one of the foster parents will notice the hollowness in him and reach out. No one does.

Sometimes he feels thin. As if he is made of nothing. As if someone blew on him, he’d flutter away.

His only solace comes from the library. He is assigned community service hours there and quickly comes to treasure the time among the books. It’s silent and peaceful. He likes the neat order that comes with shelving books. He likes the adventures he finds inside them, when he can tug some off a shelf and disappear into a corner for a while. He is old enough, hardened enough to know that he’ll never have the adventures he reads about in books, but he has enough of a heart to enjoy them anyway. When he is reading, he feels less alone than he does in the rest of his life.

It’s on a Friday, when he’s waiting for another round of shelving to begin, perusing the stacks to find something to read in the meantime, that one of the librarians approaches him. He’s seen her before. She has warm eyes and straight black hair. She’s young enough, especially compared to the other librarians who border on crypt-keeping.

“You’re from Misthaven, aren’t you?” She asks.

Killian’s eye bulge. No one knows about that. No one knows that he isn’t from around here.

“Shhh,” she says, “Your secret is safe with me.”

He can tell from her voice she has a trace of Misthaven accent as well. Maybe he isn’t the only one who has sought refuge in a different country, trying to make a new life.

He wants to ask her about her past, how she got here- but he thinks better of it. He doesn’t want her to question his past and see how much of a disappointment he has become.

“I just thought you might be interested in these,” The woman says, guiding him over to a series of books lining the shelf. “They’re pretty new, written under the penname of Blanche Neige. She takes classic fairytales and sets them in Misthaven.”

Killian picks one up from the shelf and turns it over in his hands.

“They’re all about people in Misthaven fighting for their freedom,” The librarian says. “They are quite good. I think you’ll like them.” She pauses and for a minute he feels as if she knows how hard things have been for him, “They give me hope when it seems hard to find.”

Killian blinks up at the woman, struck by her kindness. It isn’t much, to recommend a book to him, but it’s the nicest thing anyone had done for him in a very long time. People don’t notice him or his sadness. It feels nice that someone has.

“Thank you,” He mumbles, taking the first few books in the series and heading to an armchair to curl up with one.

Once upon a time, in a land called Misthaven, there was a princess…

As Killian sinks into the story, he feels hope for the first time in a very, very long time.

2009, Durham, North Carolina

Emma is all business from the moment that college begins. She can’t afford to lose her scholarships. She can’t afford bad grades. She’s made it this far by her own grit and she isn’t going to back down now. She’s all lists and planners, coffee and extensive reading lists.

It’s hard work. The hardest, really. The first essay she writes gets ripped to pieces by the instructor. She cries herself to sleep that night, wondering why she thought she was good enough. But then she goes to her professor’s office and they work together to fix her paper up. She gets an A on the rewrite.

Emma isn’t very good at asking for help, but she eventually discovers the Writing Studio and Library Resources and Peer Tutoring. She realizes early on that she needs to reach out if she ever wants to succeed.

She joins The Archive, the university’s literary journal staff. She dreams of eventually joining the staff of one of the school’s academic journals, but she has time to work up to it.

She tutors at risk kids in the neighborhood. She sees herself in them and hopes that the hour a week she spends with them is enough to make a difference.

She doesn’t do well in making friends, but she’s never been particularly good at that sort of thing. Emma doesn’t do frat parties. She’s far too busy studying to get meals with other students in the dining halls, instead preferring to eat by herself and read a book. She gets invited to a few things, going to see a play with some kids from the literary journal, a dinner out with some students from the tutoring team, but she feels awkward around them. She feels so different from them and their easy lives.

She doesn’t try to make friends with her roommate. Belle is sweet and studious, but she finds a boyfriend very early into the year and spends all her time with him. Emma doesn’t mind the quiet dorm room; it’s easier to study that way. And anyway, Emma has always done better on her own.

That is, until one night, when Emma notices her roommate coming back late, nursing a black eye. Emma is quick to respond with an icepack and blanket.

“It’s the boyfriend, isn’t it? He’s hurting you,” Emma asks, tentatively, beckoning her roommate down onto to the futon and wrapping her in the blanket, “How long has it been going on?”

Belle starts to cry, “A month or so.”

“You have to end it,” Emma says sharply.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Belle says, hiccupping a sob, “He’s threatening… he’s saying it’ll be worse if-“

“Shh, I know, I was there before,” Emma says, “Look we can call the police. We can get a restraining order on him so he won’t hurt you anymore. It’s going to be okay. You’re safe now.”

It’s a few weeks later, after things are truly broken off with Belle’s boyfriend, that the two become friends. Turns out, they both have much more in common than they thought. They both are studying English. They both like to study with warm beverages and acoustic playlists. They both really like libraries.

When Belle asks Emma her plans for Christmas break, then subsequently finds out that she has no where to go, she invites her home with her for Christmas. Emma is immediately fond of Belle’s home, a small town in Pennsylvania, where her father owns a flower shop. Belle and her father tell Emma about the different flowers they grow.

“Poisettas for the holidays,” Belle explains.

They invite her to help decorate their Christmas tree and buy her presents on Christmas morning. It’s more than she can ask for. But slowly realizes that is what friendship is.

Their friendship grows over the spring. It’s build on late night study sessions and a Saturday morning yoga class they both sign up for and an endless supply of hot chocolate packets. Emma gets a student job at a local coffee shop and Belle goes and studies there during her shifts. They stay on campus for spring break, taking a few days to drive up to DC, which Emma has never visited before. By the end of the year, Emma has decent grades, her scholarships in place, and, for the first time ever, a friend.

2008, London, England

After Killian finishes secondary school, he doesn’t know where to go next.

He thinks about maybe working at a library, especially after how much he found refuge in his volunteer work there. That is, till he finds out that he’ll need a master degree in library science. It took all the energy he had to finish school and he knows he isn’t cut out for anything with the word science in it.

He eventually decides to head to London on a whim. He liked it there last time and he’s had enough of smaller towns. He craves the big city.

When he arrives in London, he realizes that he can’t actually afford to live there. So he rents out a tiny place with a few other lads on the very outskirts, in a crappy place, in a dodgy area. He gets a job at a bookstore. It’s a good compromise. It’s similar enough to the library: books, shelving, giving recommendations. It also has a café inside so on the odd day he’ll end up serving up cappuccinos instead, which he doesn’t mind. It’s a warm, welcoming place and he likes the way he feels at home there.

This is closest things have ever been to good for Killian. Two years pass here gracefully.

He meets a girl. She’s tiny, thin, with blonde knot on the top of her head. She’s beautiful, but sassy. He likes that. It doesn’t take much at all for him to fall in love with her. He’s never been one for love stories, but he’s never really given them the chance. He thinks he likes this one.

They date for a few months, just little things- dinners, walks in the parks, nights at the cinema. One of those nights turns into an invitation to his apartment. He can’t deny that he enjoys their coupling. Foster homes never made for a romantic place to take a lover back to, so he relishes the privacy he has now.

It’s after a few more months of dating that she admits she’s pregnant. He doesn’t know how to react. He never planned for it. But at the same time, it’s been forever since he’s had a family. He wonders if he would be good at it. All of a sudden he is longing for one in a way he hasn’t in a long time.

But she’s scared. She’s a year younger than him and she says that she isn’t ready to settle down. She really starts to panic. She breaks up with him and says that she is heading home for a while, to spend time with her family. She cuts off all contact with him and it’s crippling, heart breaking.

Finally, he gets a text a few months later saying, The baby was born dead. It’s probably better this way.

A part of him breaks. The hollow part of him that knew when he was fifteen comes back full force. This time his remedy is alcohol. He binges on a bottle of rum till the pain fads, till he lies on the kitchen floor in his own vomit. Who was he to ever think he could have a family?

“Hey, wake up,” Says one of his housemates, waking him with a jab of his toe. His voice is harsh, “You’re nasty. Go take care of yourself.”

Killian lifts himself groggily from the floor and begins to stumble towards his room, thinking murkily of a shower, when his eye catches the TV screen in the living room.

“Breaking News: Revolution in Principality of Misthaven; Country Freed of Dictator”

He sinks onto the couch and watches the feature.

While he was passed out drunk, mourning the family that would never be, the citizens of Misthaven had surrounded the castle. They’d ambushed the place, taking off layers of guards till eventually the dictator, Gold, killed himself.

It was violent, brash- but they were free.

There are people talking about forming a parliament and using a democratic system to elect a new prime minister. There is talk of creating a memorial for all those fallen so that the country could be free. There is talk of reforming the education systems. The borders are to be reopened, free trade re-established. Across the world, families are able to reunite, after being separated for years.

Most astonishing of all, the queen reappears. For years, everyone, Killian included, has thought she was dead. He’s relived the sounds of her screams for years and years in his nightmares. But here she is, alive and well. She’s been hiding out in rural Norway all this time.

It boggles Killian’s mind that he’s spent a whole lifetime thinking someone was dead, only to realize they’ve been alive the whole time.

He watches on the news screen as families reunite, hugging in Misthaven’s main square. There is footage of the Queen visiting families in the hospital, thanking those who fought for Misthaven’s freedom. It’s all surreal.

He pulls himself out of his stupor. He knows what his next step is. He is going back to the place that is his actual home. He is going back to Misthaven.

2010, Durham, North Carolina

“So Emma,” Professor Shepherd says, turning his desk chair to face her, “Have you given any thought to your thesis?”

Two years at Duke have passed in no time. With intense planning and overloading, Emma has managed to arrange it for herself to graduate a year early. After all, she needs to keep the loans down and this way she can get started on a career earlier. Whatever career she decides on, that is.

The only thing that she needs to graduate is a senior honors thesis, which is seemingly harder than it looks. It isn’t that she doesn’t know what to pick, it is just that she can’t decide. There are so many interesting things to study that she is having a hard time narrowing it down to one work or author. She’s always cared about fairytales, things of myth and legends. But as she’s gotten older in her studies, she’s developed an interest in world literature, but also in post-modernism, but also in contemporary fiction. It’s hard to choose just one subject to base her thesis on.

So, she shrugs.

“I was kinda hoping you’d do that,” He says, lifting his eyebrows, “Because I’ve stumbled upon something that’s right up your ally.”

Now it’s Emma’s turn to lift her eyebrows as he passed her a stack of novels.

“Have a look over them,” He says, “I know you are particularly interested in folk legend and fairytale. This contemporary author, Blanche Neige, which is obviously some sort of penname, takes traditional tales and transforms them into resistance narratives. She writes about Misthaven. Have you heard it?”

“It’s like some sort of principality right? It was in the news lately because of some sort of revolution,” Emma rattles off the top of her head, trying to think of when she’d heard of it.

“Exactly,” Professor Shepherd replies, “They had a dictator murder the royal family and take over a little less than twenty years ago and they’ve just gotten their freedom back. This means it’s an ideal time for you to study this actually. The country will be back open, so it will easy to communicate with scholars there if you need information or to borrow things from their libraries.”

Emma nods, as she picks up one of the books.

“Her writing is relatively new,” He explains, “And there has been no academic work yet done it. So you’ve got an open canvas. It’s the kind of thing you could build a career off of.”

“Oh, wow,” Emma says, flattered and exhilarated at the prospect, “that’s so generous of you.”

“Have a read, see if you like her work,” He says, spinning in his chair, marking the end of the meeting, “After all, you and Blanche Neige will spending lots of time together if you make her your thesis topic.”

Emma retreats home with the stack of books in her hands, depositing them in a pile next to her favorite reading arm chair and settling in with a cup of cocoa to devour them.

Emma loves Blanche Neige’s books. She falls in love with them straight away. They’ve got the plot and charm of old world fairy tales, the thrill of a resistance narrative, the slight bit of post-modern absurdity, and a politically intriguing contemporary setting. It’s all she wants in a book. It takes her one weekend to read all of Blanche Neige’s work.

On Monday, she returns to Professor Shepherd’s office to declare her thesis topic.

And her life takes off from there.

She dives into the research, enjoying each moment of dissecting the work. As months go by, her thoughts drift back to Professor Shepherd’s words, “you could build a career off of it.” Well, maybe she could.

Literature, writing papers, academics- those are her favorite things. What if she just keeps doing it? If she can get funding for graduate work, if she can build a career in academia, if she just keeps reading and writing- she can build a career out of this.

So Emma starts studying for the GRE. She starts working on grad school applications to places all over the country; whichever ones have the most funding. She borrows a suit from the career center for her interviews, as well as accepting some donations from professors to pay for airfare.

In the end, she’s offered several places in wonderful grad programs, which shocks her. She isn’t really expecting anything. But it seems that once again, she’s lucky. The final offer she receives is from Duke. It means keeping Professor Shepherd as her advisor, as well as staying with Belle who would be at Duke for her final year.

She submits her acceptance as soon as she can. So thus, begins her life as a Ph.D student.

If she thought undergrad was hard, of course, it just seems to get harder. But Emma relishes it. She likes working hard. It’s all she knows how to do at this point. She likes that it gives her more independent research time, more time to pour over books, more time to write and revise her papers. She indulges herself in every moment of it.

She and Belle get an apartment together in Durham. Belle’s decided to stick around for a masters at Duke and Emma is thrilled she doesn’t have to say good bye yet. Emma’s still surprised she hasn’t managed to mess up this best friend thing yet, but she doesn’t let herself dwell too much on it.

As she focuses on finalizing her plans for her dissertation, one thing becomes astoundingly clear, in order to finish this thing, she’s going to have to spend a semester in Misthaven. She needs to interview some people there, to help piece together the experience of resistance and revolution they experience in contrast with those written in the novel. She also needs access to the Misthaven University library, where she can examen the source texts for the fairy tales that Blanche Neige has adapted.

Emma is excited, she’s been dreaming of Misthaven for years now. She’s read about it, wrote about it, and imagined it since she first started reading Blanche Neige. She’s excited to finally experience it. For years, books have been her only way to explore, but now she’s finally going to take an adventure of her own.

2010, Misthaven

Killian buys a ticket back to Misthaven. This time, riding the ferry legally. There is a bit of him that will miss his job in London, the mates in his apartment. But he knows that he needs a new start now. He thinks that something has always been calling him home.

His stomach feels in knots when he sees it come into view. The towering castle reminds him of a life he can hardly remember, a brother who he has nearly forgotten. Echos of a scream of a queen who never died. Echos of the footsteps of a running princess as she escapes across the lawn.

But it is sunny here now and Killian begins to see hope for the first time in a very long time. It’s a different kind of hope. Not the kind he found in a book, or empty love, but the hope that is found in home. Home.

When he arrives, the whole nation is in the spirit of renewal. All across the small country people are coming back to once forgotten homes, to friends and family they thought they’d lost. For his first few days Killian wonders if he’ll see Liam again, but he doesn’t. There is a bit of him, deep down, that knows he isn’t ever coming back. Sometimes he wonders if he and the princess ever even made it to the airplane.

For his first few weeks, he works odd jobs. There is a lot of work to be done in a healing nation. He helps people fix their houses after years of disuse. He paints fences. He repairs roofs. He tends to gardens. After years of feeling like a burden, Killian likes the feeling of helping.

He daren’t go back to his old house. It sickens him to think of how he left his grandmother’s corpse lying in the bed, sneaking out like a thief in the night. Instead, he rents a room above a small bar and restaurant in city center. After a few nights sitting at the bar, the owner offers him a job as a bartender.

Seeing as he has little other options and most of Misthaven has been restored, he accepts and takes to the job immediately. He loves talking to the patrons, hearing their secrets, listening to their stories. He has a lot to catch up on since he left and the bar is always filled with gossip. Everyone is trying to reconnect after years of oppression. Everyone is searching for someone. He likes listening to it all, trying to put together the pieces from the life he has missed for so long.

He won’t deny that he misses the bookshop. There is something about being surrounded by stories that he finds immensely comforting. He thinks often of opening one of his own, but he doesn’t know where he’d get the money. It’s the sort of idea he files back in his head for a rainy day- the sort of rainy day where he wins the lottery.

Two years pass under the new regime and things are good, peaceful even. A woman named Regina has been elected Prime Minister. She’s severe, but has a compassionate side. It’s the combination needed to turn the country around, but also make it a more loving place. The Queen no longer rules the country, but has a sort of advisory role.

It’s then that some investigations begin as to the deaths of the rest of the royal family. Everyone had waited to see if they would show up, but alas, it seems the queen was the only one to survive. That is, however, how Killian discovers the news of Liam’s death. His remains are found in the Hudson River. It takes dental records and DNA tests to prove it’s him, but it is. After years of wondering his brother’s fate, he discovers that he died helping the princess escape the castle. Liam would have wanted to go that way anyway, protecting his country, protecting the crown. His remains return to Misthaven and Killian is able to bury him with honor. The Queen even comes the funeral. Killian blushes as she dotes on him, remembering seeing Killian in the castle as a boy. She thanks Liam’s memory for protecting her daughter. If she’s out there.

Because that is the thing. The daughter, the princess, her remains were never found. She very well might exist somewhere, out there. She probably wouldn’t remember being a princess. She might not know she is a princess.

So it doesn’t surprise him when he turns on the news to see:

Queen Announces Official Search for Princess Emma. Anyone With Any Information of her Whereabouts Should Contact the Following Number…..