Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay on this chapter… got busy with homework…

By the way… I know there have been 40 hits on this story… but only a few reviews… those numbers don't match up guys. Come on, you know how cool it is to open your inbox and have a review. Click the little green button… you know you want to. =D

This chapter's fun fact is for my faithful friend Bella.

Random Fun Fact: The "Spanish Flu" of 1918, which killed at least 50 million people world-wide, originated in Kansas, not Spain.

Chapter 3!!!

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Almost 3 months later…

Terence woke up again with a smile… this had been the pattern for the past few months. Since Andy came, he thought. His smile grew, as it always did when he thought about her. Unfortunately for Terence, Rosetta had noticed the way his smile grew around Andy, and she was quick to point out that she was aware of his feelings for her.

Quicksilver had also noticed Terence's unspoken feelings for Andy, and she was much more vocal about her feelings. She would constantly badger Terence about telling Andy how he felt. Terence often had to invent stories to cover up her antics, as Quicksilver had an annoying habit of bringing up the subject as Andy was flying up to talk to Terence, and it made the issue far more complicated than it had to be.

Terence would always invent excuses for both Rosetta and Quicksilver, but he never told them the real reason. After what had happened with Tink, he feared rejection above all else. He may not have been so worried about Andy, as she did make a point of flying to see him at least twice every day, and she always seemed thrilled to see him, but there was one problem. Lysander.

Lysander was a light talent, nearly as old as Terence, and he was every shy sparrow man's nightmare. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with a deep voice, chocolate eyes, and a smile that knocked the wings off every fairy in Pixie Hollow. He was also very outgoing, and never missed an opportunity to brighten someone's day. Terence had seen them together often during the last few months, and they were always laughing.

All these memories of the past few months flashed through Terence's mind as he got out of bed and got ready to give out the morning's rations of pixie dust. He flew to the well and rummaged around his shelves to find a pixie dust cup.

"Boo!" Terence was scared so badly he fell out of the air and landed on the floor of the tree hard. He rubbed his back as he stood and said, "Quicksilver, you could scare my wings off doing that!"

She didn't answer for a minute, as she was doubled up in laughter. When she caught her breath she said, "I know, that's why I do it. No one jumps as much as you though," she added as an afterthought. "I'm so glad you noticed," muttered Terence. "Why are you here so early?"

"To convince you to finally sweep Andy up in your arms and confess your eternal undying love to her," she said in a high falsetto voice. Terence frowned, not amused. "Uh huh. Why are you really here?"

Quicksilver grinned. "Queen Clarion wants me to make sure the breezes for autumn next week will be perfect. I was kinda hoping for a little bit more dust than usual, but I didn't want anybody else to get jealous."

"What makes you think I'll give it to you?" Terence said with a grin.

"Because I'm your best friend," Quicksilver said, making her eyes sparkle and giving Terence her best pleading face. He groaned. "Silver, you know I can't resist the face… fine. I'll give you the extra dust. But I'd better not hear from anyone else that you got more."

Quicksilver batted her absurdly long lashes. "Would I do such a thing?"

"Yes."

She shrugged. "Fair deal." As Terence began to pour her daily dust plus extra over her head, she started talking again, but this time about Terence's least favorite subject. "Seriously Ter, when are you gonna tell her? I know you care about her, and don't tell me you don't. And don't walk away from me when I'm lecturing you." Terence did stop, but he turned back to Quicksilver with sad eyes. "You're right. I do care about her. But that's exactly what would make it hurt so much if she didn't feel the same way."

"Terence, when are you gonna stop being blind and see that she cares about you too? How many more times does she have to heal you?"

Terence grudgingly grinned. So Quicksilver knew that he did, sometimes, on occasion, intentionally hurt himself so he could go see her in healer's grove. No matter how busy she was, she always dropped whatever she was working on to help him, even if it was just a scrape.

Quicksilver's voice brought him back to reality. "For serious, Ter, she must think you're the clumsiest sparrow man she's ever met." At Terence's fierce blush, she added, "But she still seems to like you anyway. Terence, she left me once when I had a broken wrist to heal that scratch on your hand, I mean, what else does the girl have to do?"

Terence opened his mouth to retort back, but at the sound of other voices he quickly made a slashing motion with his hand. He did not want the rest of Pixie Hollow to know anything about this. For once, Quicksilver let the matter drop.

The voices were Andy and Lysander, coming to get their dust for the day. Lysander's was a completely level cup, but Andy's was a bit more. Quicksilver said it was because Terence had a crush on her, he said it was because she was a strong healer and due to her high work level, needed the extra dust. They both knew which explanation was the right one.

After Andy and Lysander got their dust, and Lysander left for the light fields, Andy stayed and chatted with Terence while everyone else came to get their dust. Andy and Quicksilver exchanged glances. Andy was the only one who knew that Quicksilver had a crush on Lysander, and the only reason she was hanging out with him so much, besides his natural charms of course, was to bring Quicksilver and Lysander together. In turn, Quicksilver knew about Andy's crush on Terence, and was doing everything in her power to get them together.

Andy looked upon the dust giving scene with mild anger, as she could count on her hands the number of fairies that spoke to Terence, and even fewer spoke to him by name. As sensitive as she was, she had a feeling that not many knew, or had ever bothered to learn Terence's name.

As the line thinned and disappeared, she gave Terence a tight hug and left for healer's grove. Quicksilver grinned impishly at Terence, but he wasn't having any of it. Soon he was alone again in the tree. This morning, he was glad of the solitude, as it gave him space to think about Andy, and the real reasons behind why he wouldn't tell her how he felt about her.


The day passed without any major event, good or bad, and ended with Queen Clarion's traditional pep talk. They had exactly one week left until autumn was to be brought to the world. The fast-flying talents, the art talents, and the harvesters cheered the loudest, as this was their season to shine.

During the ceremony, Terence's attention was split between Andy and Quicksilver. He thought about what Silver had told him that morning. Seriously Ter, I just want you to be happy. Andy really did make him happy. And she did put aside her own work to fix his problems, always. And she did smile every time she saw him. Always. The fear of rejection was certainly a potent threat, but Silver was right, he couldn't ever truly be happy unless he let go of that fear and took a leap of faith.

As Queen Clarion finished the ceremony, Terence got up, stretched his wings, and prepared to go to Andy and tell her the secret he'd kept under wraps for the last three months when he saw her stretch herself and yawn. He knew she hated yawning in front of others, for fear they would think she was bored with them. She must be extremely tired to be yawning like that, Terence thought. He sighed. I'll just tell her in the morning when she comes early for pixie dust. Besides, that'll give me time to figure out what I'm going to say. A little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Quicksilver said, How 'bout you say 'I love you,'? Keep it simple, stupid.

Terence shook his head to clear these thoughts. The last thing he needed was to be distracted by thoughts of Andy when he was flying. The last time that happened, he'd crashed into a tree, and it wasn't on purpose. That had really hurt. He'd cracked three bones on his arm and a couple of ribs. He'd been very lucky no hawks had been around, as he wasn't found until a few hours after the crash. It was also lucky that Andy was now in Pixie Hollow, because after a few hours, no other healer could have fixed him. But Andy had him right as rain in a few minutes. Quicksilver was right, she probably did think he was more that unusually clumsy. But if it meant that he got to spend more time with her, Terence was all right with Andy believing him to be the clumsiest Never fairy she'd ever met.

With thoughts of tomorrow morning churning his stomach, Terence made it home quickly, and got ready to spend the night trying, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep, but too nervous to actually relax at all. As he cleaned up his work from the day, he got the sensation several times that he was being watched. He shook it off, and attributed it to his nervousness about Andy, or Quicksilver's habit of jumping out from behind things to scare him for her own enjoyment.

After nearly a half hour of trying to rid himself of the feeling, he spun around expecting to see Quicksilver, but instead came face to face with three fairies he'd never seen before, but had heard much about.

They all had skin black as a stormy night sky, dark violet blue hair, and scarlet eyes. They were at least a half inch taller than he was, even though they were all female, and two of their upper teeth came to a slight point. These were night fairies. Dark, evil beings only known to Never fairies through the story-telling talents. There were believed to be only a few left on the island, as they were created when a baby cried in anger, and were rare. To Terence's knowledge, no one in Pixie Hollow had ever met one, let alone three.

He tried hard to keep himself from trembling, as he knew from a story talent named Tor that these fairies took advantage of fear. The one in the middle took a step toward Terence, and he flinched. "Look Nightshade, Vera, he moves." Her voice was like the purring of a cat, but far more dangerous. "Do not be frightened, little one. We have no intention of fighting you."

Terence looked up. "You don't?"

The middle one laughed, a sound that sent a chill up Terence's shoulders. "No. We don't. We come with a request. The blue rocket flower, our source of power, is becoming extremely rare on the island. We have two of our small coven that are extremely ill, and we need magic to heal them. All we ask is a small amount of pixie dust to save their lives. Sparrow man, will you help us?"

Terence thought hard and fast. He had been taught from his first days that these fairies did nothing but lie, cheat, and steal from everyone but their own. But the middle fairy had said that two of their kind would die if he didn't help them. Not to mention their wrath if he didn't. He was sure that these three could easily force him to comply with their "request" but so far they hadn't. This had to speak for the truth of their tale.

Terence took a deep breath. The fairy in the middle seemed to stand still as she waited for his answer. "All right. I'll help you."

"Thank you, Sparrow Man."

"My name is Terence," he said, without thinking.

"Thank you, Terence. I have one more request. We have no sack to carry the dust, as we were not sure if you would oblige us. If you could provide us with one, we would be grateful." At first, Terence thought it was strange that they had brought no gunny sack, but the explanation seemed to work for him. He flew up to the top shelf over his small, makeshift desk to get a sack he rarely used anymore, as it was old, and he had better ones. But, as he was unlikely to ever get this sack returned, he chose his oldest one. As he reached for it, he was suddenly spun through the air and crashed into the walls of the tree.

As he groaned on the floor, he heard a male voice. "Were you ever going to make your move, Eleonora?"

"I was waiting for the opportune moment, Fade." Suddenly, Terence understood. This whole bit had been a charade, a distraction, but what did these creatures want? He started to get up, but he found himself dangling upside down by one foot. He tried to fly away from the invisible grip, but he couldn't move his wings.

"They are frozen, little one," said the one called Vera. "My specialty," she smiled cruelly. Terence shivered, then searched for the male, the one called Fade. If he was going to have a chance, he hade to know where they all were. The force around his ankle suddenly contracted, making him gasp in pain. Fade came into focus, holding Terence's right ankle in his fist. Terence knew why this one had his name. Terence opened his mouth to give the dark fairies a reason to leave him alone, that undoubtedly would have sounded braver than he felt, but before he could get any words out, Fade drove his enormous fist into Terence's stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He pulled his fist back again, but Nightshade spoke up. "Enough, Fade. Let us take what we came for." Fade growled, but didn't hit Terence again. Instead, he dropped him to the ground. Terence felt the tip of one of his wings bend and crack beneath his own weight and grimaced. With his wings frozen, the damage would no doubt be greater. Then, Nightshade's words registered. The dark ones had come here to take something.

Before he could begin to think what, Nightshade snapped her long, thing fingers, and a coil of smoke quickly wrapped itself around Terence, from his ankles to his shoulders. He struggled, but it was impossible. Not only was it impossible to get a grip on the smoke that bound him, but every time he struggled, the smoke seemed to instinctively tighten painfully around him. His magic was useless against these.

He mustered up the last dredges of his courage, and said, "Whatever you've come to take, you won't get away with it!" He had meant to sound intimidating, but it was difficult to manage with frozen and cracked wings as he lay tied up on the floor. At this, all four dark ones laughed, and again Terence involuntarily shivered. That sound was evil. "Don't you understand?" said Fade. "Pathetic little sparrow man. We've come to take you."

Terence's eyes widened in shock, but before he could retort or yell for help, Nightshade snapped her long fingers again and another smoke coil appeared and wrapped itself tightly around Terence's mouth. Terence tried to alert someone to the kidnapping taking place, but no sound passed through the smoke, no matter how hard he tried. Nightshade seemed angry. "Fade, control yourself."

Fade seemed about to retaliate, but Eleonora stepped between them. It was clear she was in charge of this mission. Great, now I know I've lost my mind, referring to my own kidnapping as a 'mission'. I've got to get out of this while I still can…

Vera's foot came down on Terence's already sore ankle as soon as he thought this. She must have read his intentions. As much as he was in pain, from an objective standpoint, he knew these dark ones had been specifically chosen for this, and they'd been chosen well. Vera used her magic to lift Terence into the air, and the four dark ones took off into the night, Terence in tow behind them. Unable to move and unable to call for help, he looked back at Pixie Hollow, at his home. So far, what he knew of the dark fairies was true. If the rest was true as well, he knew he was not likely to ever return to Pixie Hollow. A single tear fell from his eyes as this realization hit. Vera must have felt it as well, for she shook him in the air, her way of crushing his spirit. It was certainly working. And his spirit wasn't the only thing that had gotten hurt. He certainly had a fair amount of injuries.

Injuries…Andy! he thought. What was she going to think when she discovered him missing the next morning? Would she even notice?