Changeling: Timmy
Disclaimer: Don't own. Here is the ending to the Changeling series that has been bouncing through my head for the last year.
"…18 years old…"
"…fairies…"
"…No, don't take us…"
"…love…"
"…forget!"
There was a buzzing in his ears, a pounding pressure that made his teeth ache and his eyes refuse to focus. There was a woman, but her voice was tiny and faded, whispering from across a vast ocean.
"Happy Birthday, Tommy! Now that you're eighteen your father and I think it's time you get a job!"
Her smile was fake, stretching plastic cheeks wide, like a rubber band ready to launch.
He should know this woman, thought the boy. She looked familiar, like a forgotten lullaby hummed off-key.
Who was she? Where was he?
Who was he?
"Timmy?" asked a dark haired man, stepping into the room. His smile was wide, but the woman's was fading.
He thought he should say something, should move, should know who they were, but his head gave a throb that stopped him cold.
"Timmy? Son? Are you okay?"
The ocean lapping at his heels pulled, yanking him by the ankle beneath the thundering waves. He let himself drift.
Voices. Again.
Who were they again?
His mother and father. Yes. No. Maybe. His memory revolted, images of being nine and alone crowding him, making it hard to breathe.
His name was Timmy Turner.
He mouthed it, the waves of his mind unable to do more.
Hospital.
He was at a hospital.
A mental breakdown.
Who were these people?
His parents.
Timmy's head throbbed and he held it between his hands, keening as the watermelon shattered and released its seeds to the wind like a blown dandelion.
His nose was bleeding.
The bed was small. And soft. The room was much larger, but empty. Why was it empty?
He imagined the room filled with rocket ships and rhinos and comic books, great swirls of pink and green and a dash of purple.
When he opened his eyes his hand was leaking red and his mother was screaming.
The men before him called themselves Chester and AJ.
But they couldn't be.
Chester and AJ were children, seven years old and tiny.
Like Timmy was.
Or was he?
The waves threatened to pull him down.
Chester smiled, tentative and shy, while AJ only stared.
"My fault," barked Timmy, breaking the silence.
"That you don't have hair."
He was standing and panting without knowing why, a shattered bowl decorating the corner of the room. Fish flopped in the small puddle, gasping for air, while his mother shielded her face with her hands.
"You've had those fish since you were ten," his mother said uncertainly.
"Those aren't my fish," screamed Timmy, suddenly furious, remembering why he threw the bowl in the first place.
"Wake up!" chirped the woman as she opened his blinds, ignoring the fact that his eyes were already open. She started to take off his shirt, a clean pink one on the bed, when he stopped her.
"I'm not your son," said Timmy with certainty, knowing it, feeling the truth sing in his bones.
The woman's fake smile cracked and fell away, revealing a haggard looking stranger.
"No, you're not," confirmed the woman in a voice void of emotion.
She left the room without looking back.
The air was cold.
The air was cold, and it whispered, telling him secrets that he only half-heard and would forget seconds later.
His body ached, skin tacky and bruised, but there was a wad of bills in his pocket.
Timmy stared at the cash, unsure about how he got it.
The waves lapped at his ears, threatening to cover his mouth, and he dreamt about pink and green and a blob of purple.
He felt his wet cheeks and realized he was crying.
"Timmy Turner?"
The voice was hesitant, almost unwilling, but Timmy's head snapped up at the sound.
"Remy," he whispered in a voice raspy from disuse.
He knew this man.
The recognition danced on his skin, threatening to float away should Timmy try and remember how he knew him.
"What are you doing here, of all places? Timmy, it's been months! What happened to you?"
Months?
Was time real, or another trick from the ever rising water of his mind?
What was there, before there was here?
Who was this man?
"Remy," said Timmy, to remind himself as the other man pulled him up. Remy looked at him sideways, but said nothing, leading him away from the alley amongst the cat calls of the homeless.
The light was blinding, and the liquid burned him split lip no matter how carefully the blonde man dabbed. The hand on his face stung, and Timmy could see a boy in the mirror, more bruises than skin. He shifted and his back-side gave a painful twang that had him gasping.
Remy stopped and stood back, his aristocratic face twisted in something akin to horror.
"What happened to you? Where are Cosmo and Wanda?"
The names made his head pound and the water rise. Dizzy, he swayed, his vision fading to black even as he felt arms wrap around him to hold him steady.
"I know you," Timmy slurred as he sank beneath the water.
There was shouting. Voices that skipped across the ocean's surface and echoed in his head.
"Look at him, Juandissimo! What the hell happened?"
"What do you think happened? You know that when a child loses their fairy godparents they lose their memory of them! Timmy is eighteen now; he is too old for fairies."
"That doesn't explain the zombie in Turner's skin sleeping in my bedroom."
"People usually only have fairies for a year tops; the mind heals over the torn memories and creates false ones. Timmy has had his fairies for eight years; that's longer than anyone has ever managed. Jorgen had to remove eight years of memories; we all know that the longer a child has had fairies, the more dangerous the process. Hell, Crocker only had his fairies for two years, and look at him!"
"Then fix him!"
"I am not your godfather anymore Remy; I can't grant your wishes. Besides, Jorgen has forbidden Wanda and Cosmo from visiting earth, just until Timmy gets better."
"You saw him, Juandissimo. Tell me, do you think he is going to get better?"
The silence that followed was heavy, like a thick blanket. Try as he might, the words slipped from his grasp even as he treaded water to catch them.
The room was big, and a dark haired man hunched by the control panel. He looked familiar, like the ghost of a dream, but Timmy couldn't place him. He wiped his nose, and came back with a hand of red. The blonde man grimaced while the crocked man stared. His eyes were a pool of pity.
"Here you go, Turner. Good luck."
Colour swirled around him, and then he was on clouds, standing unsteadily before a sea of floating faces. A muscular man held a star over him, and thunder split the air.
"Timmy Turner, do you hereby forsake your humanity?"
His ears rang and the water covered his mouth, making it hard to breathe.
Humanity.
What was that?
He thought of the broken woman and wind up man, the flutter of butterflies in his head and the sting of a split lip.
Where was he?
Who was he?
He nodded, trying the shake the clouds out of his eyes before they floated them away.
The man dropped a star on him, and Timmy screamed.
He screamed as his body shrank and his back exploded.
He screamed as his hair burned and his eyes popped.
He screamed as the ocean was knitted to the shore and water flowed from his ears.
Then there was a swirl of pink and green and purple as three people shoved their way through the crowd and the world finally changed into colour.
"You," said Timmy to eyes of Green and Pink that were welling with unshed tears.
"I remember you."
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