AN~ Halfway between a oneshot and an actual fic. Plot bunny that came to me in the shower last month.
Disclaimer: This is just me playing around with the idea that there IS a sort of secret Everafter society someplace else. I don't own anything.
Several decades after Sabrina had become a lawyer, she decided it was time for a career change. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with being a lawyer, per se, it was just that she needed a break. She wanted an adventure.
And when an Everafter calling himself Jack the Hedgehog (he didn't look much like a hedgehog to Sabrina, but she'd read the fairy tale, so she was prepared to work under the assumption that he might be telling the truth) claiming to be from a a group of Everafters called The Copenhagen Convention or something like that, came up and offered her a job, she decided she might as well check it out. After all, she didn't have to say yes, she just had to go to Denmark and have a meeting.
So that night at dinner, she dropped the bomb: "I'm going to Denmark. Maybe quitting my job if things work out." She looked at her husband and asked, "Coming?"
Puck just smiled and said, "Sounds fun. When do we leave?"
Her daughters, on the other hand, who were visiting for the evening, had a far more violent reaction.
Emma choked on her food, bursting into a fit of coughing. When she could talk again, she exclaimed, "Mom! You can't just drop stuff like that on us! You need to ease into it!"
Allie didn't choke, but she did drop her fork. This much of a loss of composure from Sabrina's oldest daughter (in the years since she'd turned twenty-nine and stayed there, just as her parents had) was a pretty violent reaction, and when she asked, "Are you having some kind of mid-life crisis? I mean, quitting your job? You don't even speak Danish!"
"Most of them speak English over there, or they did last time I visited," Puck said. He grinned at his daughters. "I mean, that was before you were born, so they could have gone back to the pre-internet age and started speaking just one language again, but I doubt it."
Sabrina rolled her eyes and said, "I'm nowhere near the middle of my life yet- unless someone's got an assassination planned. I've wanted a change for a while, and someone offered me a job in Copenhagen. I'm going for an interview. If it seems like a good fit, I'll stay."
"Oh, you're going for a job," Puck said, wrinkling his nose. "That sounds way less fun."
"We can still have fun," Sabrina said. "I'll just need to be around my interview. Pass the cornbread."
And that was the end of it. There was more to work out, sure, but she was going. Three weeks later, Sabrina and Puck boarded a flight to Copenhagen Airport, armed only with two carry-ons each. One of Puck's carry-ons happened to be a small trunk that was a portal into his old bedroom, and Sabrina was currently using it to store her weapons (hey, you never knew). They arrived safely, and for the three days until Sabrina's interview, just did touristy things.
Then, at nine o'clock in the morning on the fourth day, Sabrina made her way to the specified address, which happened to be a small abandoned greenhouse. She shrugged and went in, rolling her eyes as she muttered, "Everafters."
Not surprisingly, the inside of the greenhouse looked nothing like the outside. Sure, it was still a glass building full of plants, but it was enormous, well-kept, and suspiciously regal looking.
She found the place she was supposed to go, had her interview, and was told what her duties would be. Apparently the Copenhagen Everafter Convention was a sort of European Everafter support network that made sure everything ran smoothly. She'd be bringing people who broke the Convention's rules for trial.
Honestly, it reminded her of Faerie, only more far-reaching and about twenty times as effective.
So she agreed to a trial run. What the heck, after all, right? She'd be doing some good, and from the sound of it, she wouldn't have to quit her old job.
"Come in the same time next week for your trial assignment," Jack who was not actually a hedgehog told her.
Sabrina left, and spent another week hanging out with Puck, just goofing off and doing touristy things in Copenhagen. It had been a while since they'd been on a vacation, and she was enjoying this one, even if it was technically a business trip.
She left Puck to have fun and went back for her assignment. This time she found herself in front of a council of Everafters, one of whom was definitely a fairy (she recognized the golden blonde hair and the defined cheekbones that her entire husband's family shared), and stood waiting for them to tell her what to do.
The fairy woman, who looked to be in charge, handed her an envelope and said, "You will find your target in there, along with any details we have about where you might find him and what problems he might give you. Bring him back here and we will give him a fair trial."
Sabrina nodded absently, already opening the folder. She sort of wondered if they expected her to leave and let them get on with their business, but she didn't feel like moving. They'd called her here, after all. They could wait.
When she saw the picture in the package, though, she stopped short.
It was Puck.
"Um... may I ask what he's done?" Sabrina asked, fighting to keep a straight face.
A troll on Sabrina's left shuffled through some papers and said, "Robin 'Puck' Goodfellow: supposed king of the false kingdom of Faerie, charged with marrying a human."
Sabrina laughed. Everyone stared at her.
"Excuse me," she said, pulling out her cell phone.
Everyone in the room let out a collective gasp and stared at her phone as she dialed.
"Puck?" Sabrina said, ignoring them and putting her phone on speaker. "Listen, sweetie, I need you to do me a favor and tell me something- have you ever married anybody except me?"
"Dangit, who told you?" Puck gasped.
Sabrina rolled her eyes and said, "This is serious. It's about work. Answer the question honestly, otherwise we're both going to be in big trouble. You never married a human, right?"
"'Of course not. Far as I know, the only one who's come close to marrying a human in our family is-"
Sabrina hung the phone up before Puck got her in trouble and turned to the council. "See, that was my husband. And he isn't married to a human."
"But- but that's impossible," the troll said, shuffling through his papers. "Our records clearly state-"
"I was born human," Sabrina interrupted. "I'm only like seventy. One of the youngest Everafters on the planet."
"How-" someone asked.
"Sabrina Grimm?" Sabrina said. "Descended from Wilhelm Grimm, the man who brought thousands of Everafters to America to start a new life? Fairy-tale detective? Saved the world a couple times?" She rolled her eyes. "I kind of figured that's why you wanted me to do this job."
"You're human?" the fairy woman who seemed to be in charge demanded. "This is a problem."
"No, I was born human," Sabrina said. "I haven't been human since I was twelve years old."
"How did you become an Everafter?" Jack who was not a hedgehog asked. "There haven't been any new Everafters since the turn of the twentieth century!"
Sabrina told the story, glossing over as many of the details as possible. She didn't want to be here for hours.
When she was finished, the woman in charge demanded, "I will need to see your grandmother."
"You can't," Sabrina said tightly. "She's dead." Relda had died decades ago, but it still stung to think about it, some times more than others. Right now was one of the more difficult times.
"Well, I will need you to find whoever is responsible for introducing your family to Everafters, then," the woman said, not seeming to notice Sabrina's emotional turmoil. "We can't have humans finding out about Everafters, even if you're not a human any longer."
Sabrina stared. "You don't want any humans to know about Everafters ever?" she demanded.
"Secrecy is imperative for our survival," the fairy woman said.
"Well, what if you need to access something only humans have?" Sabrina asked. "Like a hospital. It's way easier to get into one if you have a human ally who knows about Everafters."
"Humans cannot keep secrets. If one knows, they will all know."
Sabrina laughed. "That's a good one. I know plenty of humans who know about Everafters, and it doesn't look like your secret's out."
"You- you what?" Jack demanded in a strangled voice.
"Um... I know humans who know about Everafters?" Sabrina said, giving him a funny look.
"And how did they find out?" the fairy woman demanded.
Sabrina shrugged. "I'm guessing they saw something on accident, or maybe somebody needed a human hand for something. I never really asked."
"How could you not-" the fairy woman cut herself off and said, "This is a threat to our entire survival! We cannot stand for it. I will need you to bring in all these humans, as well as the Everafters who told them about us."
Sabrina gave the council a look that suggested they were all a little strange and said, "Okay, but it might take me a while."
"As fast as possible," the fairy woman ordered. "We don't want to have a crisis on our hands."
Sabrina refrained both from rolling her eyes and from pointing out that if they were going to have a crisis, it would have happened decades ago. Instead she just headed out of the building and made a few calls.
Three days later, everyone was gathered. The list of Everafters Sabrina knew who'd told a human about magic at some point almost directly mirrored the list of Everafters Sabrina knew, so it was a big gathering.
"Thank you all for coming," Sabrina said, smiling at them all.
"You're welcome," Snow said. "This has honestly been coming fora while. We were all hoping it could wait, but I suppose it could only be put off for so long."
They all went in to the council.
The council stared at them all in silence.
"Well, let's get on with it," Sabrina prompted, folding her arms and staring back at them.
"Very well," said the fairy woman in charge (Sabrina had learned that her name was Mab). "We have gathered you here today because you are all accused of breaking one of the cardinal Fey laws: telling a human about Everafters. If you are guilty, you will face our punishments."
"Oh, please," Mr. Four said, rolling his eyes. "We aren't even in your jurisdiction anymore. We're Faerie citizens, and Faerie law is completely different."
"This is an international statute!" Mab declared.
Mr. Two shrugged. "Take it up with Titania. That is, if you really want to go against her again. I seem to recall that it didn't end too well last time."
"Titania and Oberon ran from me!" Mab snapped.
The other members of the council were watching the proceedings with interest. Sabrina had no idea what was going on, but it made her very happy to see these men, no more than four feet tall, talk back to this beautiful, imposing fairy queen on her dais.
Mr. One gave Titania a look that implied if you say so and said, "Regardless, we never agreed to your rulership. You just declared the council to govern all Everafters and didn't take no for an answer, even though the Everafters in most of the continents had never even heard of you before now."
Snow had crossed her arms and spoke up now, looking every bit the princess she was. "We left Europe to get away from you as much as to get a fresh start where we wouldn't be persecuted by people who knew about us," she said, "And if you think we're just going to let you run our lives again..." she smiled. "A lot's been happening that you haven't paid attention to. We can fight you. And maybe we won't win, but are you really prepared to take that risk?"
Everyone on the council was staring at the crowd below it, dumbfounded. Apparently, Snow and the dwarves were the spokespersons for the group, because nobody else spoke until Mr. Six did.
"We do not recognize your authority," he said. "And we're going home, where we will tell whoever we damn well please about Everafters."
The group turned as one and walked out, except for Sabrina, who had not been included in these plans, and Snow.
Snow looked up at the whole council, meeting all their eyes, and said, "The world has changed. We're learning to change with it. Maybe you should, too."
Then she left. Sabrina took one last look around the room, and when nobody said anything, followed her.
"So how'd it go?" Puck asked afterwards, leaning off the balcony of their hotel room to toss spitballs onto people walking on the street below.
Sabrina shrugged, leaning on the railing next to him. "I don't think it's the job for me."
"Good," Puck said. "I don't like Europe too much anyway."
Sabrina smiled and wrapped an arm around her husband. "Let's go home," she said.
"Let's," Puck agreed, and kissed her.