Where There Are No Happily Ever Afters
Author's Note: This, kids, is exactly why you don't smoke weed while watching Disney movies. I had been dying to write an AU fic (As in, where one of the characters actually goes to an alternate universe, not in the "I need an AU to make my ship work" kind of way.) and then the movie, Enchanted, came on ABC Family today while I was smoking up, Thus, the premise of this story. There's no canon proof that Arlene Cuddy is an evil witch, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she isn't. And I know the promos for the next new House show her life in peril, but I'm guessing that she's going to be fine because they have already had our favorite diagnostician lose a patient that matters to someone he cares about.
Disclaimer: Do not own House, Wilson, Enchanted, or Narissa. All I do own is what is evidently an overactive imagination.
Nathaniel: Where, my most adored queen, did you send her?
Queen Narissa: To a place where there are no 'happily ever afters.'
In a small house, just outside of Princeton, NJ, a woman worked tirelessly in her long, rectangular kitchen. She wasn't cleaning (no, she did that every day so that there was never leftover mess to take care of) and she wasn't cooking, though to the most casual observer it would likely appear that that was exactly what she was doing. And it was true she had a large pot simmering on the stove, just like it was true that she was continuously adding ingredients to the concoction. However, it wasn't salt that she was shaking into the boiling liquid, but ground-up Jimson Weed. To her right, her cell phone vibrated and she paused to check the caller I.D. Her daughter, Lisa. But no, she couldn't talk to her right now. She was in the middle of making this potion, and talking on the phone while mixing dangerous herbs was never a good idea - and she'd had to learn that lesson the hard way. She would call her back later.
Truthfully, it was a little uncanny for Lisa to be calling her now – after all, Arlene was doing this for her.
Arlene hadn't liked Greg House when she met him. He had been rude, abrasive, and everything negative she had ever read about him, and that was just during the first two minutes of their first conversation. But she really did believe that he cared for Lisa in a way that, quite honestly, few other men had. And, okay, he would make a really terrible father, but maybe under his girlfriend's watchful eye . . .
Arlene sighed, slicing off three-inch sections of Comfrey Root before adding them as well. The first visit, when she met House, had also been the visit when she met James Wilson.
The men's friendship had immediately set her ill at ease. Certainly it wasn't normal for the two men to move in such perfect sync. When one stepped right, the other stepped right. At the exact moment Wilson reached forward to take House's glass for a refill, the diagnostician held it out. Neither had noticed, as though this happened all the time.
When eight minutes had passed, she quickly inspected the color of her creation and smiled when she saw that it was clear. The instructions said that one drop would suffice, but just to be safe she added three additional ones to the bottle of water she had placed on the counter. Then she resealed it as best as she could, feeling fairly confident that the oncologist wouldn't realize that it had been opened before.
As if on cue there was a hesitant knock at the door.
"Coming," she called, in a passable impression of a hostess. She switched off the burner, untied her apron, and then quickly strode to the front door. "Wilson," she cried at the sight of him.
He flashed a brief, tired smile, then entered the house when she stepped back. "I was surprised that you called me," he said. "You were a little vague on the phone."
"My apologies. Why don't you come inside and have a drink?"
Turning her back to him, she wordlessly led him through the front hall and around the living room so that they wouldn't pass the stove. When they reached the kitchen table, she gestured to the first chair and he slowly took a seat.
"There was just something I wanted to run past you," she told him, twisting the cap off the water bottle as though for the first time, and then she poured some into a glass. She placed the drink in front of him, and when he continued to stare at her in confusion, she impatiently nudged it in his direction.
With one last doubtful look at his best friend's girlfriend's mother, he took a large swallow.
Arlene wasn't too familiar with this potion so when there was a sharp pop, and Wilson's head fell abruptly onto the table, she jumped, slightly startled. Then there was another pop, Wilson vanished from sight, and Arlene Cuddy continued to grin.
The first thing Wilson noticed, as he drew closer to consciousness, was how hard the ground was. Well, he assumed it was the ground that was the long, flat surface he was lying on. There was also what felt suspiciously like a gentle breeze that seemed to be blowing through his hair. But he didn't feel dirt or blades of grass between his fingers. He would have to chance a look at his surroundings.
He took a deep breath, then slowly opened one of his eyes, barely wide enough to see.
It was hard to differentiate between objects, but he could easily tell that it was nighttime. And the ground was hard because it wasn't ground but, rather, Cobalt Street. He was lying in the middle of the road. Dimly he knew that now would be a good time to get to his feet, but his head felt like it was going to explode any minute.
He quickly did a mental review of all his extremities and found nothing broken. Well, that was a relief. He could just imagine the look on . . . But just like that, his thought ran out, and the mocking face he had just seen in his mind's eye disappeared. A wave of unease swept over him, though he wasn't sure of the cause.
"Maybe because you're going to be road kill in about 30 seconds," he muttered to himself.
Carefully using the asphalt as leverage, he gingerly stood, then gripped his head with both of his hands. He needed to get home and take some Ibuprofen.
Ibuprofen.
Automatically goose bumps shot up his arms, but he halfheartedly attributed it to the icy breezes. He glanced around for his jacket, but to no avail.
Ooookay. What the hell? Actually, now that he was thinking about it, what was he even doing outside? Last he remembered he had been . . . sitting at . . . his kitchen table . . . right? If he didn't know better he would have thought he had been drinking, but he was certain the last thing he'd drank had been water.
The face of his watch was cracked, but the second hand was still moving, so he assumed the time was correct – which meant that it was just after midnight. So why was he still wearing his work clothes?
With a deep sigh, and knowing he needed to get home regardless, he crossed the street before halting at a two-storied brick house, and withdrawing a set of keys. Automatically he reached for the gold one in between the two silver, and used it to unlock the front door. There was a protesting creeeeek when he pushed it open, and he gritted his teeth at the noise.
There was the kitchen to his right, no different than he remembered, yet somehow this realization annoyed him more than it put him at ease. He stopped walking to stare at the room in silence, trying to put his finger on what was bothering him. The hand towel hung on the door to the oven, just like it had that morning, and the magnets on the refrigerator hadn't changed.
He shrugged, trying to push aside his worry.
The bedroom was dark when he stepped inside, but he didn't bother with the light. He loosened then removed his tie, then took off his shoes and over shirt. As he slipped under the blankets on the bed, he felt the cohabiter shift beside him.
"Work late," came the tired voice.
"Yeah," Wilson answered, though he still wasn't sure if that was the case. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." He lightly kissed the back of her head before rolling onto his back.
"It's okay." Then she was facing him, looking completely different than what he had been expecting, but in what way? "I know how you can make it up to me."
And Bonnie captured his lips with her own.