Fiona literally rolled out of bed to thump on the floor. Ma was yelling, "Alban! Boyd! Calum! Time for breakfast! Fiona? Was that you making that noise? Hurry up, sweetheart! You'll be late for the buh-us!" The last word came out sing-songy. Fiona could hear the triplets giggling over their latest 'trick'. She untied the bathrobe tie from her ankles, stifling her scream of anger. Bloody useless gits. There was no point in telling on them. Ma would just shake her head and make the boys sit in the corner for 5 minutes; one minute for each year of their irksome little lives. Da would shrug and say, "Boys will be boys!" As if maleness was somehow an excuse for being brats.

Fiona dressed quickly in her favorite outfit: a black mini skirt (that she'd yank just a wee bit higher once she was at school), a royal blue sweatshirt with the neckline cut out of it (just like in Flashdance; the best movie ever!), white bobby socks, black heels (not as high as she'd like, but then Ma insisted on approving her clothing choices) and a ribbon, blue to match the shirt, as a headband that she tied into a neat bow over her right ear. It held back some of the red mess from falling into her face. She pulled on a curl and watched it spring back. My hair is even more of a mess than Annie's. But at least she had Daddy Warbucks to get her to a proper hair stylist. Someone other than her mother. I should just shave it like Annie Lennox. She pulled back her hair tightly to her skull. Ma and Da would flip.

"Fiona Greer MacDonald get a move on!" Why couldn't they have named me after Mary the bloody Queen of Scots instead of my great-grannies? Mary's a normal name… Oh crap. If Da was calling, she was late, but if he was using her full name….. She grabbed her pile of books, sprinted down the stairs, barely refraining from tipping over in her heels, grabbed the Pop Tart Ma was holding, and ran full tilt out the front door to the waiting bus.

Peter Johnson patted the seat beside him. "Hey, Fee," he greeted her as she slid in. He politely looked out the window while she adjusted her skirt and sweatshirt.

"Hey, PJ" He had a copy of the Daily Mirror on his lap. "Do you mind?" she asked pointing to the paper. The bus passed by the library; the clock hands in the tower were stuck at 8:15.

"Go ahead. I read it already."

Fiona flipped it over to the front page. Mr. Starsky (Fiona giggled to herself, wondering yet again whether or not he had a friend named Hutch), the history teacher, was going to give a 'pop quiz' on current events today. Although why he called them pop quizzes when he gave them every day was a mystery. She perused the page: Sunday October 23, 1983. Marines will be staying in Beirut, something about a missing dog. Wait…. Sunday?

"You ready for the science test today?" PJ asked.

"Yeah," Fiona answered, immediately forgetting her confusion about the date. "Newton's Laws of Motion are easy."

0-0

Fiona was fuming as she left her first period maths class clutching a detention slip. This is shite! Like I'm going to just, like, cheat off some, like, blooming idiot who, like, knows less, like, about derivatives than I do! She hadn't had a problem with straight polynomial derivatives or even the trig functions, but the Chain Rule was kicking her butt. She marched into study hall where PJ, Cassie, Robby and Bobby and the rest of the gang were hanging. "Like, I could like, totally freak out!" Bobby exclaimed. "PJ told us all about it! That was so totally not fair! Like you'd ever cheat!" SNAP! Cassie blew a huge bubble with her gum and snapped that one too. "Stop that Cassie!" Bobby ordered. "Anywho!" she trilled. "Come see! PJ thinks he can get his dad to help pay for a rental for prom!" She shoved the car magazine at Fiona. "A cherry red 1986 T-top Firebird Trans-Am… Isn't it awesome?" Fiona could see PJ and Robby practically drooling over the car. "It's even awesomer than KITT…." Now Bobby was practically drooling.

"KITT from Night Rider? Man that car rocks!" Robby and PJ started arguing the finer points of the '82 Trans-Am versus the '86; Cassie and Bobby discussed the finer points of David Hasselhoff.

While Fiona struggled silently. This morning. On the bus. It was October 1983. Wasn't it? Not April 1986? She looked down at her white men's style dress shirt that had a thick black leather belt tied around it, blue jeans, and white Keds. What the bloomin 'ell is going on?

"So, Fee," Cassie snapped her gum again. "Who do you think is hotter?" Fiona looked up; she had no idea what they were talking about. Cassie took pity on her. "Andrew or Jon?" she asked gently. "Personally I think Jon. Duckie was in love with her all along. Blane was… was just a stuck up snob." Oh, Pretty in Pink. Fiona happily joined in the conversation. As someone who was 'madly in love' with Andrew McCarthy's shy smile, she had plenty of fodder to rebut Cassie's inexplicable defense of Jon Cryor's awkwardness.

0-0

Third period history's current event 'pop quiz' was easy. As usual Mr. Starsky (giggle) took the questions directly from the front page of the Mirror. As he droned on (and on) facing his notes on the board about the importance of the Gettysburg Address, Cassie furtively passed a note across the aisle. Fiona hid it quickly in the pocket of her vest right as their teacher turned around to glare at the boys who were not as fast at hiding their Car and Driver magazine. While Starsky lectured the boys on the relative importance of Civil War history versus the improbability that any of them would come near enough to the '01 Mustang to view it through a telescope, Fiona opened and quickly read the note. 'Did you hear?' the note read. 'The Mayor adopted a baby boy from Boston. That creepy pawn shop guy got it for her.' Another piece of paper was deliberately placed on her desk as the note was snatched away. "Detention, Miss McDonald and Miss Calhoun. There is no note passing in my class." Bollocks. Mr. Starsky read the note out loud to the class. And then he changed the length of the detentions on their slips. "Mr. Gold may not be the most personable man in town, but you should show him a bit more respect than to call him 'creepy'."

Fiona slammed her notebook shut and slumped in her seat. Another detention. Ma's going to kill me. She stuck her Puma hightop sneakers on the bar of PJ's chair in front and gave a small shove. He turned and shrugged. 'Meet me at three for ice cream?' he mouthed. 'If I don't get another one,' she mouthed back. She took her feet off his chair and crossed her legs, putting the right ankle on the left knee. She started coloring in the sneaker (black on black so Ma wouldn't notice and throw a hissy fit). Wait… I was wearing Keds last period… The bell rang; Fiona plucked her backpack off the back of her chair, threw one strap over a shoulder and hurried off to the locker room for gym.

0-0

Fiona strode along, Sketchers hitting the track in time to the song on her iPod. "And I'm on tonight you know my hips don't lie, And I'm starting to feel it's right" she sang.

Bobby tapped her on the shoulder. "Hell-ooo-ooo! Earth to Fee! You in there?" Fiona took off her headphones and wrapped them around her neck. "So, your brothers are complete dufusses, you know that right?" Fiona nodded. She wasn't giving her full attention; The Mission Impossible theme song was now playing and she was having shivers about Tom Cruise (so hot in Mission Impossible III!). But Bobby didn't notice and kept talking. "So Mike told Harry who told Mom who told me that Alban tripped Henry at recess yesterday. And then Boyd and Calum fed him mud pies."

Sounds like my brothers. I hope they got suspended. Can you get suspended in kindergarten? "Who's Henry?" Fiona asked, not really caring, but it seemed the right question to ask.

"Who's Henry?!" Bobby's mouth dropped open. "Henry Mills? The Mayor's kid? I'm just surprised she hasn't ground them into minced meat yet…"

0-0

PJ and Fiona walked through the hallways from the cafeteria to the science lab. "You ready?" he asked.

"Yeah. Newton's Laws of Motion. Easy peasy..."

"Lemon squeezy."

She smiled. "Do you know what Bobby told me during gym? She said that the gits tripped the mayor's kid and made him eat mud pies during recess yesterday…. They are sooooo dead when Ma and Da find out."

PJ stopped her in a quiet-ish section of the hallway. "You OK, Fee?" She nodded. He put a hand on her back, half on her jean skirt waistband, and half on the bare skin bared by her peach crop top, to pull her in from a pair of freshmen on Heelys racing by. "You sure? 'Cause usually you're smarter than this…."

"What are you talking about?"

"Henry Mills? He's in Marc's class. Second grade. They don't share recess with kindergartners…. They couldn't have fed him mud pies…."

0-0

"Peanut butter fudge: your favorite."

Fiona dropped her book bag and plopped onto the empty stool next to PJ. "I think I love you," she laughed.

"Detention that bad?" he asked through a mouthful.

She pulled down her Red Sox tee. "You have no idea. A bad end to a horrible day." They ate in silence for a while, enjoying how the ice cream chased away the summer heat. Summer? How is it summer? It was October this morning!

"You OK, Fee? You look like someone stepped on your grave…."

"PJ? I need you to do something for me, OK? Don't ask questions; just tell me what happened to me today. Don't leave anything out."

"You're scaring me, Fee…" PJ looked long and hard in Fiona's face. Whatever he saw seemed to worry him, as he started to frown. "Well, you were late for the bus. Again," he began. "You borrowed the Mirror for the current events quiz. We had a quiz in Calc, and you got busted for cheating, which you didn't do."

"A quiz on what?" she asked eagerly.

"Chain rule. Then we went to study hall. Robby and I talked about The Fast and the Furious cars. You guys talked about movie dudes you think are hot. You got busted for passing notes in history. Bobby trolled you with some story about your brothers pranking the mayor's kid. You told me about it on the way to the science test. You really shouldn't have fallen for that one; you know the Mills kid's a year older than Marc. And kindergartners don't interact with third graders…. You almost got knocked over by freshmen running races in the halls after lunch. We took a test in science. Newton's Laws. Dunno whatcha did last period, but I'm guessing you went to detention after, and here we are."

Fiona shook her head, corn row braids swishing over her back. "No, the freshmen were wearing Heelys… And you told me Marc was in the same grade…. Something's wrong. Something is very wrong." She slid off the stool and left the ice cream parlor leaving her backpack and a protesting PJ behind.

0-0

She had no idea how long she wandered, but it was past dark. Ma's going to kill me. If Da doesn't get to me first. Storybrooke was a pretty safe town, but even it had it's rough spots. She sank to the pavement, dizzy from alcohol, one hand clutching a copy of the Mirror, and the other a paper bag some short, old, bald guy had handed her saying, "You look like you need this more than me, Sister." She huddled into her Patriot's sweatshirt and took another pull on the whiskey inside the bag.

"Well, that's something new," an amused voice called out from the darkness. "I'm sorry, dear, but you're going to have to move."

"Ah, a fellow Scot!" Fiona raised the bag in salute. "Inverness. But I'm not sheeting. I checked. Iths from Virginia. Whas the date?"

Two legs and a cane walked out of the darkness. Fiona tried very hard to see if they were attached to a body, but she couldn't see one. They should belong to Mr. Gold; he was the only Scot she knew of who walked with a cane. But he never spoke to teenagers…. The voice spoke, "In reverse, October 23rd, 2011. Inverness is not in Virginia. And I grew up in Glasgow."

Fiona peered at the paper; the date matched the one the voice had given her. "Good." She hiccupped softly. "The wishkey isn't sheeting. It's not skoth, skoth, sko-shhh wishkey. Iths from Virginia. I'm from Inverness." She tilted her head up to look up into the sky towards where the head that should belong to the legs, or voice, should be. Still wasn't there. She looked up so high she banged the back of her head on the car bumper behind her. "Ow."

The voice let out a low chuckle. "And just why is drinking Virginian whiskey not cheating?"

"Iss 'gainst the law for sc-hots to drink Irish whishkey." Fiona wrenched her gaze from the sky; the chuckling voice had some really nice shoes. Her stomach lurched a bit. "Oooh," she whispered, holding onto her mouth. The legs came closer revealing the torso and head belonging to them.

"Oh, no," the voice warned. "You're not going to get sick on my car." He bent over and gently helped Fiona to her feet. He helped her stagger a few feet around his car so she could slump on the sidewalk. "Stay here. I'm going to get you some coffee."

When Fiona heard the man (was it Gold?) come back a few minutes later, she was absurdly proud that her stomach had remained inside of her body instead of running off down the street like it had threatened to do. Repeatedly. "Drink this. Slowly," he commanded handing her a take-out coffee cup. "It will help with the nausea and clear up your head a bit." She took a careful sip of the overly sweet brew; her stomach let out a sigh of relief as the sugar and caffeine went to work.

A few more sips and Fiona felt better enough that she could sit up cross legged. "What day is it?"

"Same as it was ten minutes ago: October 23rd, 2011." Fiona closed her eyes in relief. Thank God! "You seem overly obsessed with the date." Fiona opened one eye to peer up at the man. Man? Men? There were two standing over her, but she could have sworn there was only one before…. She closed that eye and opened the other. Nope, still two men. So she closed that one, too.

"You wouldn't believe the day I've had," she whispered. "I woke up this morning in 1983. I went to school wearing bobby socks and a cut up sweatshirt." She extracted an iPhone 4 from her jeans and held it up. "This was an iPod with Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie' on it during gym class." She dropped the iPhone into her lap. "I'm going crazy."

"So you decided to get drunk."

"No…," she hedged. "Some old dude gave me the bottle, and I figured the day couldn't really be any worse drunk than it was sober. Whiskey sucks, by the way."

"Only the cheap stuff," he retorted. "Can you walk to my shop? I think you and I need to have a little talk."

Fiona had never been inside the pawn shop before. But here she was in the back room, sitting on a little bed with a trash bucket between her knees. And firm instructions from Mr. Gold that she was to be sick in the bucket or not at all. The man himself was in the front room leaving a message for the sheriff about someone giving teenagers whiskey bottles and helping them to get drunk.

Gold parted the curtains and limped over to the bed. Fiona felt a frisson of fear as she sobered up enough to realize that no one knew she was here. She was alone, more than slightly drunk, and sitting on a bed belonging to the man the whole town acknowledged to be cold and calculating. Ruthless. She was in trouble with a capital T. He pulled over a stool and sat on it. "Stop looking like a frightened rabbit!" he snapped. "I'm not going to hurt you." He paused, waiting for her to absorb that statement. "I'm also guessing that your parents would rather you came home past midnight and sober rather than in the back of a police car, drunk, at nine." This time she nodded right away. Ma and Pa will kill me for drinking. "Good. First: what's your name child?" She told him. "Now. Think carefully. How many times did you wake up?"

"Huh?"

"You woke up in 1983. It's now 2011. It has been twenty eight years." He drew out the last three words. "How many times did you wake up?"

"I don't know. How? I woke up once, this morning, when the gits, otherwise known as my brothers, tied my legs together and I fell out of bed. It can't have been twenty eight years! I'm only seventeen!" Fiona was starting to hyperventilate. What was Gold talking about? How many times did she wake up? Twenty eight years times 365 days plus a few extra for leap years?

"No, no, no," he scolded. "You've told me about three times you woke up. Once twenty eight years ago. Once with the iPod. And once tonight. Was that it? Or were there more?"

"You mean how many times today when things seemed weird?" He nodded, and she noticed his knuckles going whiter as he gripped his cane. She took a sip of the now rapidly cooling coffee and thought back. "This morning, study hall, history, gym, science, ice cream, and now," she said slowly holding out a finger each time. "Seven."

"Seven times…." His eyes looked soft, lost as he was in introspection. For a moment he looked almost kind. But then his eyes narrowed and his voice became harsher, "How did you do it…?"

Fiona's stomach decided just then that it really didn't like where it was and decided to go elsewhere. Gold let out an exasperated snort, but walked the short distance to the bed so as to hold the sick teenager's hair back as her body attempted to get rid of the alcohol poisoning it. When it was over, he brought over some tissues and a cup of mouthwash and water so she could clean up a bit. Then he gave her a glass of water and some saltines to take while he disposed of the vomit.

"Better?" He asked when he returned with a cleaned trash can.

She nodded weakly. "Sorry. Thanks, appreciate it." She laid down and curled her knees into her belly. "How come no one else noticed?"

Gold considered for a minute. "Can you keep a secret?" She nodded. "You can't tell anyone: not your parents, not your boyfriend, not your best friend. Not a teacher. Not even the sheriff. No one." Fiona bit her lip, but nodded again. "This town has been living the same day over and over for the past twenty eight years. The little things change, like eating spaghetti instead of chicken for dinner. And you bought new clothes as fashions changed. Cars wore out and got replaced. But your day to day life? That was the same. But the beauty of it was that no one realized it. So your English lesson today? You've had that same lesson, or a minor variation of it, every day for twenty eight years. Including summers and weekends. And not one of you realized it. Except for you. Seven times you woke up just long enough to realize something was different, something was wrong…. How did you do it…."

"Who else is awake?"

"Myself, one other. We both woke on the first day. But she doesn't know I'm awake, and I intend to keep it that way."

"I won't tell. I promise." Fiona drew a little x over her heart. "What happened to us? How can we live for so long and not age?"

Gold looked down at his cane handle. "I can't tell you, Dearie. There are some secrets I have to keep. But tomorrow?" He looked up. "Tomorrow should be a new day. Time should start moving again. Look to the clock tower. And soon enough, everyone will wake up and all will be made clear." He moved over to a table and wrote something down. "In the meantime, put this somewhere safe tonight. Some place your parents won't look, but you will. It's the number to the shop. If time gets weird again in the next few months, call me, OK?" Fiona nodded and tucked the paper into her back pocket. "Now. Let's get you home shall we? I'm sure your parents are quite worried by now."

0-0

Fiona was mostly asleep when she felt something soft on her nose. She brushed it away, only to have her face splashed by water and a bowl bonk her in the forehead. Ma was yelling, "Alban! Boyd! Calum! Time for breakfast! Fiona? Are you awake yet?" Fiona could hear the triplets giggling in the hallway. She unwrapped the string (that was connected to the hole punched in the bowl on the other end) from her wrist and wiped most of the water from her face with her nightie. Stupid gits. She went to get her jeans from the night before. There in a back pocket was the phone number to Gold's Pawnshop. 'To be used when Time is wrong.' the paper said.

Fiona dressed quickly and wolfed down a bowl of cereal. She ignored Da's glare and Ma's comments about being dealt with after school. She was at the bus stop before it came and plopped down onto the bench next to PJ when it arrived.

"You look better, Fee," he observed. "I brought your back pack…."

As PJ talked about how he thought he did on the science test, Fiona looked at the date on The Mirror: Monday, October 24th, 2011. The bus passed by the library; the clock hands read 8:22. She smiled; time was moving….

A/N: Had to edit this this morning. Yes, I can do Calculus, but apparently I can't add. I took 1983 and added 28 to get 2013. I then used 2003 as my ending date and worked backwards from there to get what happened. It's been fixed now.