Wanda was blitzed for the first time in centuries. She didn't remember having time off, not like this, not for a long time. While she knew there was a chance Timmy might call them, he had given them the night to themselves. Hopefully, he wouldn't rescind it because Vicky did something stupid or he'd antagonized her too much. Sometimes, she swore it felt like Timmy existed just to irritate Vicky. It wasn't a charitable thought, but Wanda was sick of Vicky picking on her godson. Yes, she and Cosmo had the gig because of Vicky, but that didn't mean Wanda appreciated Timmy's parents putting him through this for years.
Over the years, she'd grown more protective over her godson. She expected to return home to discover him in a situation, perhaps of his own devising, which she would need to reverse. However, she wasn't expecting a complete disaster, which was what greeted them when they popped back into Timmy's room.
Timmy was naked and bound to the bed with a gag in his mouth. His eyes bulged when he saw his faeries. Wanda didn't need to wave her wand to dispel her drunkenness. She was stone cold sober now. Even Cosmo went still beside her; he might be stupid, but even he couldn't fail to read the room.
Wanda, mute, waved her wand, restored Timmy's clothes, though she feared his dignity was already gone. Timmy straightened up, rubbing his wrists. His gaze seared right through them and Cosmo and Wanda exchanged unsettled looks. Wanda swallowed past a lump in her throat. Timmy had needed them tonight, needed them badly, and they had failed him. She didn't know what to say.
"Are you okay?" Cosmo asked in a low voice. He ducked behind Wanda, as if he feared Timmy might explode in outrage at his inane question.
Timmy didn't answer, which was, to Wanda's mind, infinitely worse. Instead, he turned toward the window and opened it. A cold night breeze came in and she shivered. Timmy had barely acknowledged their presence and now he stared out the window and avoided looking at either of them.
"Sport, I…" There was no defense for what she'd done. Yes, Timmy had told them to take the night off, but she should've known better. While she hadn't thought Vicky would ever do anything like this, she should have known something was amiss. For heaven's sake, she should've checked in on him at least once during the night instead of enjoying herself like an idiot.
An awkward silence descended upon the room. Cosmo and Wanda were at a complete loss. This wasn't the first time they'd encountered someone who had been sexually abused, but it was the first time it had happened more or less on their watch. She was disgusted with herself when she really ought to be disgusted with Vicky.
Cosmo and Wanda swooped down and hugged Timmy. Wanda stopped when she noticed he wasn't hugging them back. Disturbed, she floated backward and then Timmy lurched, hugging them so tightly that they could barely breathe. Stars appeared before her eyes.
Tears fell and he shook with suppressed sobs. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor with them in his arms. She was grateful for one thing, at least. Timmy now sat with his back to the window, which meant Cosmo and Wanda were concealed again. For all she knew, someone nosy like Crocker was hanging around hoping for a glimpse at his faeries. That was the last thing they needed tonight.
However, Timmy was sobbing soundlessly, as if his heart was broken. It reminded her of an exchange from Doctor Who.
"One little girl crying. So?"
"Crying silently. I mean children cry because they want attention. 'Cause they're hurt or afraid. When they cry silently it's 'cause they just can't stop."
Timmy seemed to be in the latter category and it sent chills down her spine. Or that might've been the lack of oxygen getting to her brain.
"You need to ease up, sweetie," Wanda gasped.
Timmy didn't respond. He was still crying, still silent. It painted a very disturbing mental picture. She exchanged a look with Cosmo, who was completely out of his depth. He'd always been the one to lighten the mood, but there was no lightening this mood. There was nothing to do but sit here and stay with him.
Wanda took her wand and squeezed it so that Timmy's arms relaxed just enough for them to breathe again. She loved her godson, but she didn't feel like suffocating tonight, thank you very much.
Jorgen materialized without any of his usual flair. He, too, looked subdued. For a moment, he didn't speak. Instead his gaze went from the faeries to Timmy and back. Cosmo's lower lip quivered, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself, for once.
Wanda's lip quivered, because seeing Cosmo cry usually set her off. Under normal circumstances, it did. There were a few extenuating circumstances she'd rather not think about now, such as when they'd been having marriage difficulties. That was neither here nor there, however.
"We need to speak in Fairy World," Jorgen said at last, looking as uncomfortable as they felt. "But I do not know if it is wise to leave tiny Timmy Turner alone for so long."
Wanda didn't think it was wise, but she didn't want to contradict Fairy World's enforcer, either.
"Go ahead," Timmy said in an emotionless voice. "What else could possibly go wrong tonight? You want to take them from me, don't you?"
"I do not," Jorgen said. He gave Cosmo and Wanda significant looks and although Cosmo could have missed his intention, Wanda read it loud and clear.
"Where's Vicky now, sport?" Wanda said in a quiet tone. She didn't want to risk upsetting him further. Tears streaked his cheeks and continued to fall.
"She went home," Timmy said in that same, curious flat tone that unnerved them.
"Five minutes," Jorgen said. "We'll be back in five minutes, puny Timmy Turner."
Despite denigrating him, Jorgen's voice was soft and compassionate. Wanda seldom heard him so caring. Yes, Jorgen was Fairy World's enforcer, but he had to have a soft spot for kids somewhere deep down. It turned out severe trauma in a godchild brought it out. She wished it could've been something, anything else. Anyone else.
As soon as she thought that, she recognized how selfish it was. She cupped Timmy's cheek with her palm.
"We'll be right back," she promised. "It'll be okay, hon."
"No," Timmy said and released them. He turned back toward the window. "It won't be."
Cosmo and Wanda exchanged helpless looks and followed Jorgen back to Fairy World. They arrived in his office and, for once, he ushered them to sit down. Once they had settled themselves, he launched into the conversation without preamble.
"The way Vicky pounced, erasing Timmy's memories wouldn't help," Jorgen said. "She was just waiting for an opportunity."
"But if we were there-" Wanda started.
"She would wait until Timmy was unprotected and try again," Jorgen said.
"So what do we do?" Cosmo asked and his voice trembled.
"You will need to remove Timmy from the situation," Jorgen said. "If Timmy cannot convince his parents that Vicky has attacked him and does not have his best interests at heart, then we will have to take extreme actions."
He started pacing. "As you know, all children lose their faeries at age eighteen, unless there are extenuating circumstances. We believe this may be one of those."
"'We'?" Wanda repeated, frowning.
"Myself and the Fairy Council," Jorgen said. "Report back to me once Timmy's parents have responded to Timmy's recollection of tonight."
"They won't believe him," Cosmo said.
"You have to realize that," Wanda said.
"I know, but there are formalities that must be observed," Jorgen said, grimacing. "I hate it as much as you do."
"Wanna bet?" Wanda muttered, her mood further souring. Timmy's rescue was contingent on his parents believing him? That was never going to happen. If Timmy's parents hadn't believed him the ten million times he'd warned them about Vicky in the past, they weren't about to change their tune now. If anything, they were more inclined to believe Vicky. It incensed Wanda. If Poof had come to her with such a tale, she'd have torn the perpetrator limb from limb. She still wanted to do that to Vicky.
Something of her thoughts must have shown in her eyes because Jorgen shook his head.
"You cannot go after Vicky yourselves," he said and then clarified. "By which I mean, Wanda, you cannot go after Vicky. Cosmo is too much of a coward to act."
"Why not?" Wanda snapped. "She hurt our godson."
"You cannot be seen. And you know Da Rules. You cannot harm a human being," Jorgen warned.
Wanda gritted her teeth. Perhaps it was a result of being raised by Big Daddy, but violence, especially against her family, infuriated her. She wanted to retaliate. You hurt the mafia don's family, your family pays the price.
Family. Tootie. Wanda blanched.
"What are we going to do about Tootie?" she asked.
"What does Tootie have to do with anything?" Cosmo asked. Wanda pressed her lips tightly together. She hadn't told Cosmo about her infrequent ventures to Tootie's bedroom to teach her how to control her rogue magic and she hadn't intended to do so. She pleaded with Jorgen silently not to let anything slip.
"We'll talk more about this in private," Jorgen said and Wanda's chest loosened, though she knew Cosmo would be asking questions later, probably more than she was willing to field.
"In the meanwhile, stick to Turner as closely as you can," Jorgen ordered. "And if Vicky gets anywhere near him again, stop her."
Wanda opened her mouth and Jorgen added, "Without harming her."
Wanda glared, but reluctantly nodded. She wasn't about to go against Fairy World, especially with the situation so uneasy.
As she'd expected, they hadn't even reached the front gates before she and Chloe were turned away from Trixie Tang's exclusive bash. Trixie had hired bouncers at the gates to deter anyone. Tootie knew she might be able to magick her way in, though poofing/teleportation was a skill she had difficulty with. She didn't want to end up splitting anyone in half. Not even Chloe Carmichael.
"Should we go see Timmy now?" Chloe asked and Tootie scowled. She wasn't going to give up that easily, but she wouldn't teleport them. She'd create a diversion instead.
"I have another idea," Tootie said and grinned wickedly. Unlike Wanda, she was a rogue element, unbound by Da Rules. This was partly why Wanda had been assigned to check in on her from time to time, probably to prevent her from doing exactly what she was doing now. What Wanda didn't know couldn't hurt her.
The first bouncer was bald, but the second one reacted predictably to discovering his hair was on fire. He screamed like a little girl and rushed off. The first bouncer rushed after him and left the gates unattended. Tootie grabbed Chloe's hand and hauled her through while the bouncers were distracted. There would be other bouncers at the front door, or at least Trixie's bodyguards, but Tootie felt confident she could handle them.
"His hair shouldn't have caught fire like that," Chloe said, frowning.
"Spontaneous combustion?" Tootie suggested. For this particular spell, she couldn't rely on Timmy's old standby of "the internet".
Chloe's eyes narrowed; she was suspicious, but she had nothing to pin it on. Tootie shrugged and ignored the second bouncer's mad attempts to reach Trixie's water fountain to put his hair out. Tootie felt a twinge of guilt for what she'd done, because she didn't really intend to hurt anyone. Unlike Vicky, she didn't get a kick out of it. However, perhaps as a result of Vicky, Tootie didn't feel as badly as she ought to, either.
The bodyguard at the front door was, like Chloe, suspicious. It probably didn't help that the second bouncer had finally extinguished his head by dunking it underwater, thus creating a spectacle.
"How did you get in here?" the bodyguard demanded. Tootie wasn't ballsy enough or confident enough in her magic to conjure up counterfeit tickets. Moreover, that would lead to more questions from Miss Perfect over there. She'd have to try something else.
"We're the party-crashers Trixie ordered," Tootie said, telling the lie with a straight face.
"She didn't order any…" The bodyguard paused and turned to look into the room. "Wait a minute. I need to go talk to Trixie. Don't go anywhere."
Tootie snorted, pulling Chloe into the room with her once the bodyguard's back was turned. They'd be fine so long as the bodyguard didn't start looking for them among the crowd. It was time to get lost and hope no one would out them.
"Sod that," Tootie muttered.
Chloe was drifting over toward the punch bowl and she looked shocked. "Someone spiked the punch!"
Tootie groaned, facepalming. They weren't going to last very long at this rate.
"Hey, aren't you that Carmichael girl?" Veronica snapped and Tootie groaned. Of all the people to discover their whereabouts, it was the very worst, besides Trixie herself. "And that loser who stalks Turner. What are you two doing here?"
Veronica had been standing next to the punch bowl the whole time. Tootie had just noticed her. She could hit herself.
Unfortunately, through experience, Tootie knew Chloe was a bad liar. She'd been awful when she'd had Cosmo and Wanda and the intervening years hadn't improved her skills. It was a good thing Fairy World had become somewhat lax in enforcing their rules, because if they hadn't, poor Timmy would've lost his faeries years ago.
"We're crashing the party," Tootie said with a brilliant smile. She'd gotten her braces off a couple of years ago and used every opportunity she could to flash those pearly whites.
"Security!" Veronica said.
Goddamn it. She should've gone with something other than the truth. Then again, Trixie would've known they hadn't been invited; she'd sent out the invitations personally.
The music pounded in their ears and the crowd, thick enough that if anyone had been sick, it would've been a super-spreader event, blocked sound. Veronica's cry went unnoticed, to Tootie's relief. Still, they'd better get moving before Veronica found Trixie and demanded their immediate expulsion.
Tootie scanned the room and looked for the stairs. Unfortunately, they were right behind the front door, which meant getting in the bodyguard's vicinity. It was no good. Tootie's mind raced. She'd been clever when it came to stalking Timmy, but she also knew both her prey and her surroundings. Trixie Tang's mansion was foreign, since she'd never been able to get inside before.
On the plus side, it'd take a while for anyone to move through this throng. On the minus, Tootie didn't feel like tasting whatever the girl next to her was drinking. They were packed in that close. Whyever had she thought this was a good idea? And she'd already lost Chloe. Someone had borne her away before Tootie blinked and thought to look to her side.
Tootie shrugged, wondering whether she was better off without the towheaded girl cramping her style. Chloe no longer had any potentially explosive secrets, not as far as Tootie knew. Of course, if Fairy World had screwed up her mindwipe that Tootie expected, then she was about due for something stupid. Tootie sighed. For the time being, what Chloe didn't remember held firm. She'd worry about it if and when the situation changed.
Now that she was here, Tootie wondered why she'd bothered to come in the first place. The music rocked through her body, the haze of smoke hung heavy in the air, and other drugs were probably being passed around. Tootie wasn't surprised Trixie was a party girl. She was young, rich, and bored. They were a terrible combination.
If she was smart, she'd find Chloe and scram. Finding Chloe might be more akin to finding a needle in a haystack, though.
Screaming Chloe's name wouldn't accomplish anything, even if she could be heard over the mayhem. Tootie would have to resort to more extreme measures.
Someone pushed through the crowd and it parted like water for them. Trixie Tang was here instead of in one of the upstairs bedrooms getting wasted or whatever it was she did during these parties. Tootie's throat tightened. Things were going from bad to worse. Veronica might not have the clout to throw them out, but this was Trixie's party. It was well known in Dimmsdale that what Trixie Tang wanted, for the most part, she got.
This wasn't about to be a rare exception. Tootie knew the time to make a graceful exit had passed, if it had ever existed.
Dare she risk trying to poof them out of here? That would expose her secret and be such a blatant breaking of Da Rules, even Jorgen couldn't fail to notice. There were too many people here not to realize magic was happening, although they might also be stoned out of their gourd and/or too drunk to tell reality from fiction. She gnawed her lower lip. No, she had better stay beneath the radar. Sadly, that meant letting someone throw them out. Oh, well. It wasn't like it'd be the first party she'd been thrown out of.
Oh, wait, yes, it would be. She didn't get invited to parties normally and she didn't know what had possessed her to crash this one. Maybe it was the raw magic surging through her veins.
Tootie squeezed her way through people and into what she hoped was either a bathroom or a small closet. With any luck, it'd be vacant, regardless of whether she walked into a mop or a possibly befouled toilet.
In retrospect, Tootie should've remembered she had no luck. The door she opened led outside, onto a private patio with a hot tub. Trixie Tang was there and she was making out with someone. Through the steam, it was impossible to tell who or even what gender they were. Tootie didn't think it mattered. She tried to sneak back out, hoping to find another, safer exit.
She walked straight into the door and cursed.
So much for staying incognito. Maybe they wouldn't hear her. They were rather occupied.
Trixie jerked away from her companion and Tootie fumbled for the door.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Trixie demanded. She pulled away from her lover and climbed out of the hot tub. Tootie, in her terror, was pulling to no avail. Did the door latch? Was that what she was missing? She didn't know.
"Leaving," Tootie said. "I'm leaving."
"If you tell one soul who I was making out with, you're dead," Trixie said. "Security!"
Tootie finally managed to get the door open as security guards converged upon the patio. They took no notice of Trixie's topless state-perhaps they were trained to ignore it. Before Tootie had a chance to readmit herself to the house, the guards grabbed her and hauled her back down toward the gates. She didn't struggle. She figured she was in it deep enough already.
After dumping her outside of the gates, Tootie peered through them to see when Chloe would get busted.
"Five, four, three…" she counted.
The same security guards who had hauled Tootie down the driveway shoved Chloe after her and slammed the gates shut, locked them, and glowered at the duo.
"We'd better go," Tootie said. "Before someone calls the cops."
"Judging by the amount of suspicious substances being passed around, I'd say the cops are likely to show up soon anyway," Chloe said and coughed. Her eyes were red, but Tootie didn't think she'd been smoking anything. Chloe was, sadly, too straitlaced for anything remotely interesting.
"They won't call the cops. Or, if they do, the cops won't do anything," Tootie said, rolling her eyes. "It's Trixie Tang. She can afford to pay them off."
Chloe frowned and coughed again, this time barely able to catch her breath. Tootie had known this was a bad idea from the start. She shouldn't have roped Chloe into it.
"Wanna go home?" Tootie asked, though she didn't want to abandon the idea of adventure, even if it was getting late.
"I still want to see Timmy…" Chloe protested, albeit weakly.
"We can always see him tomorrow," Tootie said. "Besides, what makes you think he'd even want to see me while my sister's torturing him?"
"You can't help being related to her!" Chloe said and Tootie smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"Believe me, I know," she said. "Let's head back to your house and watch the ball drop. It's not like anything interesting ever happens to us, anyway."
She rolled her eyes. "Besides, I'm sure Timmy will be glad we left him alone. The last thing he needs is a crazy girl all over him."
"You or me?" Chloe asked with a spark in her eyes and Tootie mock-growled.
"Oh, the kitty has claws," Tootie said and nudged her. "Besides, you're not in love with him. That's my territory and I don't share."
"I'm not interested in him like that," Chloe said and pulled a face. "He's more like a brother to me. Or he would be, if I could remember more of our time together."
Tootie grimaced, feeling awkward. While she was glad Chloe didn't remember Cosmo and Wanda, she didn't begrudge the girl her missing memories. She put a hand on Chloe's shoulder.
"Good. More for me," she said and squeezed Chloe's shoulder. "Let's go."
Chloe looked troubled, but nodded. "If only I could remember…"
