Unexpected Meetings
by Inspirationbynight
A.N. Edit 2/7/08: I just realized I was half concious when I ordered these so this is a new re-order in which to read these fics which are under my developing series of Revival. This plot line takes place at the end of November 1996 after A bit of Magic . This is Fic #2.
Disclaimer: Gargoyles belongs to Greg Weisman and licensed to Disney and other rightful property owners so and so forth et al so I don't get sued.
Unexpected Meetings
In the nursery of the castle was a young infant boy of four months old playing with a well-worn stuffed gargoyle-bear by the light of the full noon sun, his bright green eyes lit up with amusement at first to see his gar-bear levitating seemingly on his own. He turned around in his little crib, able sit up at his age, to find the puppeteer behind his levitating companion.
Amusement left the child's eyes as he let out a cry--a call for someone who was not there. He turned to his bear, reaching out before it vanished from it's hovering place in the air. It only took the child a few seconds to realize that his garg-bear was not going to appear again before let out a howl that sent his mother and nanny running.
"Alex, baby, what's wrong?" his mother, Fox, asked as she ran in. Picking up her crying baby, she cradled him to her chest, looking around the large nursery for signs of a break in. She shouldn't have left the door open.
Owen Burnette checked a hidden tv panel to investigate what had happened in the past few minutes. "Madame I think you'll find this interesting," the major domo called, pausing the footage on a levitating bear. He played the tape to show Alexander searching for someone and then the bear vanishing before the tape was paused on a wailing Alex.
"All this for his bear?" his mother asked in relief that it had not been an intruder or worse.
Then..."Wait, you didn't do that?" Fox asked Owen, tensing at the thought of a possibly-unknown fay or magic-user having located her son.
Owen too appeared worried, in his professional way of doing so. "No Madam, I was currently on my way to see Mr. Xanatos when Alexander called."
Alex was reduced to sobbing as he looked at his disguised mentor with an unconstraint pout.
"Don't worry Alex, we'll get your bear back," Owen promised, showing a rare endearing side to his otherwise wooden and distant persona. He and Fox exchanged a wordless glance that said their worries were more beyond the recovery of a missing toy but at least it satisfied the baby.
"So how do we find the toy?" Fox asked lightly to code: how do we find out who's behind this?
"I simple lesson in recovery should solve the matter,"Owen replied before turning into his true form.
Puck hovered in the air, a mischievious grin pasted on his face. Alex reacehd out for him with a giggle, and was promptly handed over to his teacher. "Not to mention the lesson we'll teach them about taking other people's possesions, what do you think kid?"
Alex clapped his hands in agreement. He was going to get his garg-bear!
Somewhere on the farther end of Central Park in a brownstone, a teen brunette girl of 16 held a bear with wings in her hands.
"Well this is random," she commented to herself, being alone in the living room of her home. Just as she was thinking of what to do with the strange plush bear she was englufed in a flash of bright green light.
Looking around wildly for a few seconds, the teen realized that she was no longer at home. In fact, it looked like a baby's room.
"Mmm!" Alex called to the girl his teacher had magicked into the room.
The girl's grey eyes widened in surprise to see a floating man holding a baby but otherwise, Fox noticed, she was keeping herself calm.
The teen glanced at the bear she still held and held it out to the infant. "This must be yours," she said softly, another sign of her surprise being held in check.
"Interesting, interesting!" Puck exclaimed, floating around the teen girl with Alex in his arms before stopping a few inches in front of her.
Megan shifted her view to Alex and silently handed him the bear, which he took joyfully getting a small smile from Megan.
"Your a sorceress!" Puck exclaimed, jumping back in the air to Fox's side. "You've got human magic all over you!"
Megan was labeled at first glance as a quiet non-sociable girl who liked jewelry and purple make-up. She wasn't quiet once she had an inkling about the fay's character.
"You're one of Oberon's brats! And hey, you've got magic all over you too!" Megan said, mimicking Puck's false astonishment, complete with facial expression. Settling into a teen expression of boredom and 'whateverness' she folded her fishnet covered arms across her bright blue T-shirt and raised a brow at the fay. "So you summoned me, got the bear back and found out my 'secret" she accompained the word with a little movement from her fingers to resemble bunny ears, "So you probably want to know how I got the bear."
"Well since you're on a roll..." Puck said sarcastically with a flourish of his hands for her to continue while still managing to balance Alex.
Megan explained that she had been practicing a simple summoning spell. "I didn't specify, just for it to be a soft toy and around the Central Park area. I got the bear like 5 seconds before you summoned me. Cool bear by the way," she said to Alex, earning a shy a look from the boy who cuddled his bear closer.
Puck wagged a finger at her. "Don't you know you could blow some one up with that kind of random magic? Kids these days! They think they know everything," he confided to Fox.
"I restricted the area," Megan retorted, taking offence to Puck's implying that she didn't know the first thing about magic.
"Yeah, casualty numbers would have been greater if you hadn't," Puck taunted.
"Like your kind cares what happens to people so long as you get what you want," Megan shot back.
"And just what do you know about my "people"?" Puck asked her with curiosity. His hidden amusement at her supposed knowledge of fay was not hidden.
"More than the average occultist thinks he knows," Megan responded. She dropped the stubborn teen appearance and swept her grey eyes around his form.
"Well you're a charmer aren't you?" Puck teased, flying about the room once more.
"Takes one to know one," she threw out. Her brows creased slightly but her face was readable enough to Fox and Owen, who had changed back into Puck, unable to keep his fay form any longer lest he risk coming into Oberon's radar.
"You're chained," Megan said, confusion and a touch of sadness in those two words.
"How do you know?" Fox asked before Owen could say anything to move the conversation away from those dark waters.
"I can see things," Megan told her, shifting her eyes to the red-haired woman. "Energy, auras...I see green dust around you, but it's very faint." Fox instinctively knew Megan was refering her smothered fay half and was struck by curiosity.
"My son?" she asked the teen sorceress.
"He has a really bright cover of that green energy, like he's covered in a blanket of it," Megan told her.
Owen cleared his throat. "I believe Alex is ready to eat."
Fox nodded somewhat absentmindedly and sent Owen to make Alex his second lunch of the day, ordering something for herself and David. Owen stoicly walked out of the nursery, giving Megan just the barest of glances.
Megan sensed that Fox wanted to ask about Owen but beat her to the question. "Why is he chained?"
Fox blinked in surprise, not expecting the question and unsure of the answer. "It's a long story..." How had she been caught up with this stranger who she almost revealed Puck's secret to? How much danger had she put her family--and the clan--into?
"It's alright," Megan said, keeping a passive expression. "It's none of my business anyway. It's just...sad. They're not birds to be kept in a cage, you know?"
By they, Megan meant fay in general but her tone carried the implication that she specifically meant Puck, the only fay she had somewhat officially met.
"Why don't you stay a while? I can have my driver take you back home," Fox offered, ushering her out of the nursery.
"Thank you," Megan said, accepting the offer. "I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about. Who would believe me?"
That last line usually calmed people but Fox hadn't lived as long as did in show biz and business to let casual words determine what she would do. And aside from the magic, Megan had had plenty of time to know the layout of Alex's room, where she was, and who she was dealing with. In the wrong hands, it was dangerous information.
"Actually, I am worried," Fox admitted through an air of professionalism as if she was talking to another share holder at a board meeting. "We haven't exactly started on the right foot with magic or the people that use it."
"Well whatever makes you comfortable. Would getting Goliath to validate for me help?" Megan asked, metaphorically pulling out one of her trump cards. It was, in her opinion, best to end things quickly.
Fox halted in their walk to the dining room. "How.." Fox closed her mouth with a snap. Megan though she had better move fast.
"I've met him, twice now actually, it's been a few weeks since I've seen him," she said conversationally, trying to keep her cool. Her aunt would skin her alive if she found out about today and ended up with a memory wipe. Megan was sure she'd be skinned if her aunt only found out about the improper use of the summoning spell, let alone the events that followed. "Then again, those Quarrymen are a real pest. I used to like walking around Central Park but they keep having their meetings there." She waited for Fox's response.
Fox felt she had been lead to a corner and the only way out was to host the trapper. "What would you like for lunch?" Fox offered, the wheels in her spinning.
So the sorceress and business woman sat down together for lunch with little Alex lightening the mood with his infant antics.