Hi everyone, it's been so long! Sorry about this pause in the story, I thought I would be able to finish it this past August, but I ended up traveling more than I had planned. No excuses, I took this time to rest from writing(and from everything) , and then when I came back I found out my account wasn't working right. Anyway, I already fixed it so here's the chapter you've been waiting for! I hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to leave your reviews! :)

Unconscious feelings

Morning woke her up in her room, which was weird. Not weird to be in her room, but weird to have the sun wake her up. "I guess I really overdid it this time." she thought. Her right eye, still covered with a bandage, itched a little, although there was no pixie dust left in it, Lonny had had the doctor check it up at least a thousand times. She stood up from her bed and went to face the mirror. She could hear the guards outside, talking to each other. Prisoner in her own house -that actually pissed her a lot. "That stupid Lonny, how dare he goes to work without waking me up?"

Things the day before had been a bit messy, and Ria had to admit that Lonny had his reasons to be worried, but locking her up was too much. And still, that's what he had done, even putting those guards to block the door. She undid the bandage from her head and checked her eye. It was still a bit red, but nothing to worry about -after all, she always had it covered, so no one was going to notice. She would have expected such an abnormal vision as the one she had had the day before to leave a bigger impact, but her purple iris seemed to be recovering quite fast. She stared at her reflex and thought about the words she had given to Queen Clarion: Only the red fairy will be able to save us… Not even she knew what those words meant. Could Paige be the red fairy? That was the most probable answer, but why? She sighted at herself and covered the right side of her face with her hair.

The doctor may have said that she needed repose, but there were a lot of interesting things going on that day, she could feel it, so she was definitely going outside. She went to the door and gazed at the living room -no one in sight. She quickly flew to the lab, where she kept her pixie dusts. If the guards got stubborn, she could always make them fall asleep or something. But when she arrived at the door she found it locked -Lonny had been faster. "Oh, so this is what you want, huh?" she thought. "You shouldn't underestimate a vision fairy."

Ria set her hair aside and watched the door carefully. Every fissure, every hole, the purple scanner registered it all, until she found what she was looking for: a weak point. She went to the kitchen, grabbed a big and large spoon, and put it on the small space between the door and the knob, pushing a bit to the right. The knob fell off and the door creaked open.

Some knocks from the inside made the guards stop their conversation. Melvin, the taller one, opened the main door they had been guarding to find Ria standing at the other side.

"Good morning, miss." he said.

"How's your eye?" asked Nami, the other guard.

"Where's Lonny?" retorted the fairy, not willing to waste more words on an injury that was almost cured.

"He went to the Factory. He didn't wan't to wake you up since the doctor said you had to stay home all day." explained Melvin. It was clear that they weren't going to let her escape, so she just smiled at them and returned inside. A few seconds later, pink pixie dust started to leak from the window above the guards, right over their heads, and they soon fell asleep. The door opened again, and Ria passed cautiously between the two pixies before flying away.

…

A new day had started at the tinkers settlement, and Tinkerbell, Clank and Bobble were waiting for Fairy Mary to call them. The snow machines were ready, the baskets too, so they had no idea what she had to ask them, although for the time of the year it was, the most probable were winter related jobs. Any other day, this perspectives would have thrilled Tink, since she loved to visit her sister at the Winter Woods, but that day she was too worried with other matters to even realise that.

The day before, when Burrell had arrived at the settlement, still cursing Glowen as loudly as she could, Tinkerbell had quickly flown to the Factory to see what had happened and help Zarina in any way she could. But when she had arrived, her friend was nowhere to be seen, and neither was James. For what she had later learnt, the two of them had spent all the afternoon together, no one knew where or on what. This could either mean good news or very bad ones, and Tinkerbell was more into the second option. She had already noticed that for the past days since James had become an alchemist, whenever they met all Zarina talked about was James, James, and more James. She usually talked about how stupid he was and how he was falling into her trap, but still, it seemed to be the only topic stuck in the alchemist's head.

"Tink… Miss Tinkerbell!" exclaimed Fairy Mary while Clank and Bobble sweat-dropped. Their friend looked around with a surprised face and when she noticed her superior glaring at her, she quietly blushed. "I didn't think this job would look so boring to you." pointed the fairy with sarcasm.

"Sorry Fairy Mary, my mind just wandered off." replied Tinkerbell. Truth was, she hadn't even noticed that they had entered the fairy's office until just then, and she had no idea of what the blueprints Fairy Mary had on her desk meant.

"As I was saying…" resumed the chief with parsimony. She started to explain what materials they would need for whatever she planned on employing them, but Tinkerbell's mind had wandered off again. After helping the alchemists cut the enormous flowers that had grown in the middle of the main hall, the tinker had spent all the past afternoon looking out for Zarina, but she hadn't been able to find her. In the end, she had only managed to find James when he returned to his house at night, and he had made up all kind of excuses as for why he had ran away from the Factory. It was really frustrating, but she hadn't been able to do anything else. She didn't trust the pirate one bit.

Fairy Mary ended her explanation and the three tinkers exited her office and went to the courtyard to start the tasks she had given them.

"Well then," started Bobble, addressing an absentminded Tinkerbell. "Me and Clank, we'll go to the storage room to get the tools we need, and you can…"

"Um… guys." interrupted the fairy, who hadn't even heard him. "I need to check on something at the Factory, so I'll leave this to you." And before they could add something, she flew away.

"She wasn't even listening, was she?" said the tiny sparrow man with resignation.

"Bobble…"

"Well, someone has to do the job or Fairy Mary will kill us. Let's go, Clank."

…

Ria arrived at the Factory, but she didn't enter. Instead, she started to search the surroundings, until she found what she was looking for -or better said, what she was looking for found her.

"Ria, I thought you were at the Hospital." said a voice before dragging her into some bushes. "Were you looking for me?" asked Paige, amused to have surprised the seer.

"The doctor said I could go home as long as I promised to stay put."

"Got it." replied the scouter. "I won't tell Lonny. But be sure, he'll end up finding out."

"Did you watch over James yesterday's afternoon?" asked the alchemist. She liked to economise on words, and Paige preferred directness, so they were good at communicating.

"Oh, you mean after you talked with the Queen. I've been wanting to ask you, when you told her the red fairy was our only hope, were… were you talking about me?" It was cute how Paige could get shy despite her job. She blushed a bit when she noticed she had gone off topic. "Ah, yes, sorry. James. Yes, they went to the Autumn forest and started to race between the trees, although they weren't too serious about it. I don't know… I'm not supposed to judge what I see, but I'm pretty sure they were kind of… sweet? To each other." Ria seemed like she wanted to say something, but then they heard someone near them and they hid deeply between the branches. Two pixies passed by them. Guards. After a few seconds, they heard shouting inside the Factory.

"What do you mean she left the house?" That was Lonny. Ria bit her bottom lip while Paige sweat-dropped.

"Come on, Lonny. You knew this would happen." And that was Mina. "If you wanted her to rest, you should have let her come, instead of sneaking away and putting two guards on her door." Ria nodded as if to say that she agreed with Mina, which made Paige chuckle.

"I just wanted her to get well…"

"Don't be so harsh on him, we were all worried." said Zarina. "If she went out she must have had a good reason." she added.

"You are the reason." whispered Paige, even if Zarina couldn't hear her. "As I was saying, after the races they went to the river and found a spot where no one could see them. I think it had something to do with the pirate not having a bath in two weeks… I don't know. Anyway, James took a bath and Zarina tried to, or at least that's how it looked, although I doubt a fairy could swim. In the end she just wet her feet. All the evening was like this, actually -all small games here and there. They even went to the library and played some pranks on Cathy and her worm. I had never seen Zarina like this." This last words seemed to worry Ria, either Zarina was advancing her game on purpose, or it was James the one who had started to move.

"Thank you." said Ria.

"You are going already? What about Lonny?" But Ria just winked at her before flying away.

…

Noon arrived and Claude couldn't be more grateful. Not because he wanted to see Gleam, although it was also a reason, but because he was fed up with seeing Zarina and James flirt all day. Something had happened the day before while he was with the snow machines, because that day the two enemies were teasing each other much more exaggeratedly than normal. He had tried to intervene, but Zarina didn't seem to mind the pirate's darings, so he hadn't been of much use. And he hated not being part of the game.

For two years now, he had been Zarina's companion in piracy, the only one to fully understand her wildest side. They had trained swords together, they had taken walks around the Hollow, made the craziest experiments with alchemy… But now that James was here, she seemed to have forgotten all about it. Please understand, Claude wasn't a resentful fairy, quite the opposite, but it made him feel sad. That's why, when he noticed it was time to go to the garden fairies, he couldn't be happier. Seeing Gleam always made his day.

He was taking a stroll to the Summer Season, already savouring the picnic, when someone tackled him down and pulled him out of the road.

"Wha… who… Tinkerbell!" exclaimed the sparrow man when he saw the tinker. "What are you doing?"

"We need to talk." replied the fairy.

"I was headed to the garden fairies to have lunch with them. Can we talk there?"

"I suppose we could…" agreed the Tink, smiling apologetically for the sudden attack and helping Claude stand up.

When they arrived at the picnic spot Rosetta seemed thrilled to have her friend join them too. Apparently, she had gone to visit Sled that morning, and she had a lot to talk about. The four of them sat together, Claude, Gleam, Rosetta and Tinkerbell, and once the brunette had finished her fully detailed explanation of how perfect love had to be what she had, Tinkerbell exposed her point.

"I'm worried about Zarina." she said.

"Oh sugar, again with this?" exclaimed Rosetta, who at the moment was still convinced that love had to be respected in any way it came.

"I know I've said this before, but I don't trust that pirate one bit. Zarina may think she has everything under control, but lately she seems to have forgotten what James is capable of."

"You have to recognise he hasn't been at his top this last weeks." pointed Rosetta with sarcasm, but she stayed quiet when Tinkerbell glared at her.

"You were also worried, weren't you?" asked Gleam to Claude.

"Yes." agreed the sparrow man. "She's started to spend a lot of time with him, even leaving her job unfinished, something she had never done before."

"See?" exclaimed Tinkerbell. "And can't you do something?"

"I've tried, and at first it worked, but yesterday, when I asked Zarina where she had been all afternoon, I also told her our worries, and she told me she didn't need my help, that she had all under control. I would gladly keep James away from her, but I can't do anything if she's the one to search for him." He seemed quite frustrated, and Gleam hugged him softly to cheer him up.

"How can she be so stubborn!" exploded Tinkerbell. She had started to turn red like a tomato.

"Honey, you are not one to talk." pointed Rosetta, making her even angrier.

"I think," said Gleam. "that the best thing you can do is trust her a little bit longer. I mean, maybe she's right, maybe she does have things under control. And if she's not, what's the worst that could happen? I doubt James would go too far with the blue powder."

"That's not what we are worried about, sweetheart." said Rosetta.

"We thing Zarina's falling for him again, and if he's lying…"

"And he surely is…" added Tinkerbell.

"…then she'll be back to square one, just as when she returned from her pirate life." said Claude. "I don't want to see her crying like that ever again."

"Still, I think your best option is to wait, and to keep an eye on her." said Gleam, and anyone discussed it -they all knew it was the only option.

…

Lonny was the last to leave the Factory. The sun was about to set, and everybody went home or to reunite with their friends. He had volunteered to close the doors because he was hoping that by the time he got home Ria would already be there, but when he arrived at her house there was no one inside.

He was starting to feel guilty about that morning. He had wanted the best for her, but maybe running away like that and leaving her locked up had been the worst of the ideas, he saw it now. Ria knew what she did when she acted, but he had gotten so scared with the accidents the past day, that he had overreacted. Now he had one fairy into the run, who was probably angry with him.

"Let's see… Think like Ria." he told to himself. "What would be so important to make her disappear an entire day?" and then an idea popped up in his head. It had to have something to do with a friend in danger, and the most probable fairy to be in danger right then was Zarina. It had to have something to do with the pirate.

James and Zarina had left the Factory together, and they were probably headed to the Great Tree's top, so that's where he would start. He quickly left the dust keeper's homes behind and flew to the Hollow's centre. He noticed a light shining at Zarina's house, so he flew directly to there. When he arrived he searched for a place where he could hide while listening to the two persons inside the apartment, and then he noticed Ria hiding between some short branches. He approached her, ready to apologise, but when the fairy saw him she looked really happy to have been found, and she just hugged him tightly. Then she dragged him to where she had been spying and pointed at one of the house's windows, where James was standing. She was still holding his hand as if nothing had happened, so he squeezed hers lightly and listened.

"I'm telling you, I'm sure fairies could learn how to swim." said James, trying to tease Zarina even more because she hadn't dared to step into the water the day before.

"We can't wet our wings, James." retorted the fairy while entering some bags into her lab.

"Excuses." replied the pirate. "You can just dry them afterwards."

"Not that simple…" sang Zarina from the other side of the lab's door.

"Then invent some powder to prevent the wings from getting wet."

"That's actually a good idea, you know?" replied the fairy, opening the door again.

"I told you, I was born to be an alchemist." said James with mockery.

"Yeah, a traitor and liar alchemist."

"But alchemist in the end." Zarina giggled and shook her head, but she was actually enjoying their conversation. She looked out the window and smiled.

"Come." she said, entering the lab again.

"You sure?" asked the pirate with precaution. He was too close to his objective to allow any mistakes.

"Hurry up." replied the fairy. He followed her across the room. "Don't touch anything." warned Zarina, who had already reached the door that lead to the terrace. Crossing the lab was the only way to get there unless you used the path that surrounded the house.

"Amazing…" said James, walking to the railing to take a better look at the sea. The sun had started to set and the sky shone in orange, reflecting in the waves.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked Zarina at his side. "Today is particularly stunning."

"That's because I'm here." said the pirate, smiling playfully.

"Sure." replied Zarina with sarcasm, giggling at the joke. She seemed to be having a good time. "Great." thought James -his plan was finally progressing. All the time they had spent together for the past days hadn't only served to recover her trust, but also to obtain some interesting information, like, for example, that she kept the code to open the blue dust's box in one of the books in her lab. This piece of information had been harder to obtain than everything else, but he had his tricks.

"So, what did you tell Claude yesterday? I heard he'd been asking about our getaway."

"Yeah, he didn't seem too happy." agreed Zarina. She seemed to feel guilty for a second, but she quickly recovered. "But he knows I wouldn't let you trick me again."

"Ah? And how is he so sure?" teased James.

"He knows I'm smarter than you. All my friends know." replied Zarina.

"If that's so, why did they seem so uncomfortable when you decided to let me work as an alchemist?"

"That was…" started to reply Zarina, but she hadn't noticed that she had been baking while talking, and she suddenly hit the railing at the other side of the terrace. It wasn't meant to prevent any falls, it was a small railing, so she lost her balance and tripped over.

"Ah…" she screamed as she flipped over it.

"Careful!" exclaimed James, running to her, and he was just in time to grab her hand. In a second, all the magic from that afternoon had banished. Now Zarina was hanging outside her terrace, and the only thing that held her was… James. She didn't usually use much pixie dust on herself, and they had walked from the Factory, so she had no pixie dust on her wings. If James let go of her, it was free fall until she reached the ground. A considerable heigh, although not enough to kill her. Probably. Behind some low branches, Ria and Lonny tensed up.

"We have to do something!" exclaimed the sparrow man. Ria looked really troubled, like she didn't know what to do. She saw her friend was in danger, but she couldn't decide what James would do. He was having the messiest internal fight.

"Pull her up!" said a voice inside the pirate's head.

"Don't be stupid, this is our chance!" exclaimed the other voice.

It was true, with Zarina out of the picture all he had to do was run back to the lab and get his hands on some powders, and the victory was for him. There wasn't even a risk of Zarina getting hurt, because that red haired fairy was surely observing them, so she would run to save Zarina, giving him time to reach the lab. It was all perfect, and yet he felt like something was wrong. After all, every time he had rushed his plans, everything had ended up going wrong. He looked at Zarina and saw that she knew what he was thinking, because her eyes were creaming danger. She was afraid, of him, and that made adrenaline flow through his veins.

"Get ready." said Ria to her friend -James was reaching a conclusion and she wasn't sure what it would be. But then, to everyone's surprise, James raised the fairy up as if she had no weigh, past the railing, to make her step on the terrace once again. Ria wasn't understanding a thing, she watched James's mind and she could see that he was still thinking about his plan, so why… well, maybe the reason was that his head hadn't been the one to make the choice.

"That was a good fright they gave us." said a voice from behind them. They turned around and saw Paige smiling at them. "Shall we go?" she said.

"What?" exclaimed Lonny. "Don't you have to watch them?"

"Technically, yes, but I doubt he'll do anything bad after seeing this, and I don't want to be here when they start getting all intimate." They turned around again and saw what she was talking about. James and Zarina were staring at each other and they were very, very close.

"She's right." said Ria, pulling Lonny to follow the scouter.

"But…" protested the sparrow man, who was still a bit worried.

"Don't worry, I'll come back later to check on them." assured Paige, and so they flew away.

Meanwhile, Zarina was still trying to slow down her heartbeats. The tripping had scared her to death, and seeing the pirate's doubts had been even worse, but honestly, she would have sworn he was going to let go of her, and she still couldn't believe he had pulled her up. And how he had done it, raising her with such easiness and pulling her close to him, as if to prevent her from falling again. She could see that James himself still didn't understand all that had happened in that small fraction of time, but what she was feeling was so intense that there was no way he wasn't feeling it too. It was like a warm flow of energy that flowed between them both and burnt at the place where their hands were still holding. She slowly leaned in, but then he backed.

"What would your friends say of this." he said with his usual smirk, their faces still as close.

"They don't need to know." replied Zarina, smiling playfully.

And they kissed.