A/N: I'm back with another chapter! Hope you enjoy!
"Wayne!" Amanda exclaimed. Finn was already crying too hard to say anything.
The two of them ran at the old man, who was standing up from the golf cart he'd arrived on. After making sure he was steady, and receiving a smile, they sandwiched him in a hug. He let out a laugh before they broke away from him.
"How are you here?" Finn asked, finally managing to speak.
"Well you changed a lot when you meddled with time," His voice was stern, judgmental, and Finn felt small, until the edges of the old man's mouth began to lift playfully, and Finn let out a laugh with a breath of relief.
Amanda placed a hand on Finn's back and he looked to her before returning the gesture. They laughed and smiled at each other and, now that Wayne's stern façade was down, the three began exchanging remarks: how much Finn and Amanda had missed Wayne, how much they'd grown, how happy he was to see them, how proud he was of them. Through it all, Finn couldn't stop crying, and, watching him, Amanda began to feel herself tear up as well.
"Hi!" a voice said from behind, bringing them back to reality. They turned to see Mattie with her arms crossed and Jess with her hands on her hips.
"This is lovely and all," Mattie said. "But uh…who is this guy exactly?"
"And how do you know my name?" Jess asked, more than slightly creeped out.
"Ah: Jessica, Matilda, I apologize," Wayne said. "In all the excitement I ignored the fact that you wouldn't recognize me."
Jess and Mattie stepped back, unnerved again by the stranger's seeming familiarity with them. Meanwhile, the old man smiled softly, and Finn and Amanda turned to face them, their faces looking like they'd just won the lottery.
"Guys," Amanda said. "It's Wayne!"
"Yeah; that doesn't help," Mattie said sarcastically, but Jess' face was tight with observation now.
"How did you know we were here?!" Finn exclaimed. "How do you even know who we are?"
"I'll be elated to explain everything to you," Wayne said. "But first I think it's important we continue this reunion somewhere more secluded. I may know you're the Kingdom Keepers, but security certainly doesn't."
"Right," Finn said.
Wayne motioned them over to the golf cart he'd arrived in. Finn and Amanda began to go without question, but Jess and Mattie still stood in the same spot. Amanda stopped and turned, realizing they were not following.
"Come on," she insisted.
"Amanda, we don't know who this guy is," Jess said. "Or where he's taking us."
"Just trust me," Amanda said.
Jess was still hesitant. She still wasn't sure what exactly had happened on that island, or who to trust; this could all be a trap. But then, she looked into her sister's eyes. Any tension or anger or fear that had built up in the past years was gone. She saw her sister looking back at her, just the way she was when they first became friends. A smile crept onto her face.
"Okay," she said.
Mattie still looked scared, but Jess gave her a slight nod. They walked over to join Finn and Wayne, where the all five squeezed into the golf-cart.
"Alright," Wayne said, looking back at them. "Everyone hold on tight!"
With that, he sped off towards Main Street.
Five minutes later, Wayne unlocked the door to an apartment above the fire station.
"I didn't even know this was here!" Mattie said.
"Most people don't," Wayne said, pushing the door open.
Finn and Amanda, who had been holding hands since they'd gotten on the golf-cart, looked around in awe.
"I haven't been up here in years," Finn said.
His voice was on the edge of crying.
Wayne led them over to a living room area, where there were a couple of couches. He indicated for them to sit down.
"So," he said. "I'm sure you have questions."
Finn leaned forward to say something, but Mattie cut him off.
"Not to be rude or anything," she said. "But Jess and I still don't know who you are."
"Well who do you think I am?"
Mattie looked annoyed, but Jess stared him up and down, squinting. Something was familiar about him. Before she could figure it out, Mattie beat her to the conclusion.
"You were in that vision Jess and I had at the castle," she said. "The one that I was in."
Wayne didn't say anything, but smiled cryptically and leaned his head forward toward her.
"Wait," Jess said. "You're Richard aren't you? From the books."
"That is the name I gave myself, yes." Wayne said.
Finn was smiling when it dawned on him what had just been said. Both his and Amanda's heads turned sharply toward their mentor, who was acting as if nothing strange at all had just happened.
"You wrote the books?" Amanda asked.
Wayne leaned back in his chair.
"How do you think someone knew enough about your lives and your adventures to record them all in a series of novels?"
"I don't know what I thought," Amanda said. "I hadn't really started to process all of this yet."
She clutched her head and began rubbing her temple. Finn placed a hand on her back and began rubbing circles on it before turning to Wayne.
"How did you know?" he asked. "I mean…how did you remember?"
"Well, some things I've always known…even the first time around," Wayne explained, leaning back on the couch. "You do recall that we met 60 years ago?"
"You always knew," Finn said, coming to realizations. "Because even before we went, we had been there."
Wayne nodded and Finn fell back on the sofa, overwhelmed by this entire thing.
"But we didn't tell you everything," Amanda said. "Maybe the basics, but not nearly enough for you to write what you did. And you knew that we switched timelines, you…"
"You're a seer," Jess said, cutting Amanda off and speaking for the first time since she'd learned who Wayne was.
Wayne smiled at her and nodded his head.
"I don't forget things like that," she explained. "I've thought about it all the time since I read those books: the idea that there might be someone else out there like me."
Wayne met Jess' eyes and hers brightened. There was something deep in the exchange, something that only the two of them shared.
Amanda held her head in her hands. She wasn't quite sure how to handle it all: Finn being the Finn she knew in her real life, Jess being the Jess she knew in her other, Wayne being someone in-between. Add that to the two sets of memories battling in her head and the continued lack of understanding of what exactly had happened, and it all became the worst headache she'd ever had.
"After you all left on the carousel that day, everything seemed to be normal," Wayne explained. "Hollingsworth was defeated, you were back in your own time, and we all went right back to Imagineering. It was after Walt passed that things started to seem off.
"I began having these dreams, much like yours Jessica, of all of you and our times together. I would have discounted them, but they began to become too frequent to ignore, and they were more vivid than any other dreams that I'd had."
"So you remembered?" Amanda asked.
"Not exactly," Wayne said. "It took me a while to even process the dreams, and eventually, Wanda was born, so I had different priorities. First I thought I was dreaming the future, because I was an old man in them, and then I recognized that the other people with me were you and the others."
Wayne scanned the room to watch for questions, but the group was silent, focusing in on him and listening carefully.
"After a while I thought about everything that had happened, and what I was seeing, and it started to become clearer. I knew I had to do something, but I wasn't sure what it could or should be, so I started telling everything to my daughter as bedtime stories,"
"So you don't even completely remember now?" Finn asked.
"You didn't let me finish. A few years before I published the first book, I was working as a greeter on Main Street one morning, and my eye was for some reason drawn to this young boy walking through with his family.
"Who?" Amanda asked.
Wayne turned and looked right at Finn.
"You."
Finn's eyes widened.
"Me?" he asked.
"You seemed so happy and in love with the place, even more so than all the other kids your age: I suppose that's why you caught my eye. You were holding your sister's hand, pointing things out to her, explaining them with the biggest smile on your face. I remember thinking how happy Walt would be to see his dream still affecting people in that way."
Finn blushed as Amanda smirked at him.
"At first I just started to recognize you as the boy I'd met all those years ago, even though you were so much younger than when I'd known you. Then I started realizing that you were one of the people in my dreams. And then, in all my thought, something came over me. I had to excuse myself from my position for a moment just to process it."
"You remembered," Amanda said.
Wayne nodded.
"And so you wrote the books?"
"After a while, yes," Wayne said. "First I had to realize what had happened, because it at first seemed that I'd just gone back in time somehow. But once I remembered my past life, and realized that certain things didn't match up, everything started to come together. But I knew that no matter how or when they were stopped, the Overtakers would find a way back into power. I didn't know how they would, or when, but I knew I needed to reach you before that time came."
"But what if we never picked up on it," Amanda asked. "I mean, even now it's only Finn and me who remember. You couldn't have counted on all of us coming together."
"Ah, but you did, didn't you?" Wayne asked her.
Amanda stared at him with wonder.
"When you all were chosen, it was not done randomly or lightly, including you three." He pointed at Amanda, Jess and Mattie. "I knew that it could only be you, not just because of your individual abilities, or your power as a team, but because of your connection to each other. I knew, somehow you would find each other, and that when you did, your memories couldn't be too far off. You all have something very special. Don't forget that."
Finn felt a lump in his throat, and for the millionth time that night, he thought he might cry. To hear a man who meant so much to him speak in this way affected him in ways he never knew he could experience. Even more than that, he thought of his friends, who he was still processing his memories of. He missed them terribly, he realized now. Though he'd known how much they meant to him for a long time, this was the first time he'd truly realized the extent of it.
He looked over Amanda, but her gaze was locked on the floor. She'd just now picked up on something that Wayne had said earlier, and it was bothering her.
"Wait a minute," she said. "You said you told the stories to your daughter….you mean Wanda?"
At the mention of the name, Jess perked up. Wayne exhaled and his face grew serious, as if he too was just now remembering the topic that Amanda was bringing up. Finn and Mattie, completely unsure of what was going on, looked back and forth between the two of them.
"Yes," Wayne said. "After all of the stories I told her, Wanda does believe, though she doesn't remember as I do. I knew when I remembered that I would need to keep tabs on all of you as best as I could without drawing suspicion to myself, but I knew that that would be hard when it came to you and Jessica. I also knew that, in these circumstances, things would not necessarily be good for you two, but I didn't know how to reach you. I saw you in town one day though and instructed Wanda to reach out to you, that way I would at least know that you were well taken care of."
Amanda stared at him for a moment in shock, but soon her face scrunched up and she burst into tears. Unable to contain herself, she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around the old man. Wayne exhaled and closed his eyes, allowing her the comfort, and not long after, Finn saw the slightest smile find its way onto his face. Not far from them, Jess looked exactly the same as her sister.
They broke the embrace and Wayne checked that Amanda was alright as she wiped her tears. She walked back to Finn and immediately grabbed his hand.
"So what do we do now?" Finn asked, jumping straight back to his old self. "I mean clearly there's been Overtaker activity, but we don't know where they are, and no one else has their memories. We don't even know completely what happened and now we're living in a world that we don't even recognize!"
"For now I think we are safe from the Overtakers for a while. The last time, it took months for things to progress from this level of activity to the first severe attack. Of course, that's not to say that it couldn't be different this time. But I think the most important thing now is to keep your friends together while we continue to think of a solution. Just as I told you years ago Finn, it needs to be all of you. We're only going to solve this if you're all together."
A/N: I am 2 chapters away from finishing the writing of this story(though there is a lot more left to publish) and I am so emotional. Thanks for reading! Everything and anything is appreciated. Stay magical and see you next time!