A/N: Honestly thinking of rewriting TOS P2's remaining chapters after this. Also, blame my iPhone for randomly putting on "Welcome to My Nightmare" by Alice Cooper and it fitting so well with this chapter.


Timmy sat in the bus and waited for the light to change. Meanwhile, the window was rolled down beside Timmy's seat and a song drifted in, "Welcome to my nightmare...I think you're gonna like it. Welcome to my breakdown-I hope I didn't scare you. That's just the way we are when we come down."

Timmy blinked, not recognizing the song. It sounded vaguely familiar, in the way a lot of songs did.. He shrugged, aware of something inside him that was paying close attention to everything. He was likewise scrutinizing his surroundings, mostly because his parents were rocking out in the car beside him. They didn't see him on the school bus above them.

Timmy pounded on the windows, but of course, they couldn't hear him over their music.

The inside of the car was filling up with smoke, albeit so slowly, he didn't think his parents would notice. He pounded harder on his window and then the bus took off, leaving his parents' car behind. He could only see it distantly.

"I wish-" he started and then stopped, realizing Cosmo and Wanda were still absent. Where the hell were they? It wasn't like them to be gone for so long, excepting the day that they'd been in training with Jorgen and he'd been screwed over at school. The day he'd made his wish to become a faerie. He shuddered, feeling history repeat itself. It was eerie and he did not like it.

"Cosmo and Wanda!" he called. "Where are you guys?"

The smoke filled the windows until it was impossible to see his parents. The front of the hood was smoking and, just as Timmy was more than a bus length away from it, his parents' car exploded. The bus swiveled away from the raining car parts...and other, less savory things. Timmy screamed, drawing other people's attention to him and the exploding car. Of course, it was hard to ignore the exploding car anyway, seeing as parts had rained down onto the school bus' top and slammed into windows. One metal shard cracked the rear door.

"I wish Timmy's parents were okay!" Tootie whispered hurriedly to her brown paper bag. Cal held up his wand, to no avail. It only deflated. He looked at it and then back at her and shook his head. Tootie whimpered, rushing over to Timmy. Despite the many threats Vicky had made regarding Timmy's life and livelihood, Tootie couldn't resist comforting her beloved Timmy in his time of crisis.

"Why didn't it work?" Tootie whispered to Cal.

"I don't know..." he whispered back. "The only thing I can think of is that it's a fixed moment in time."

"Like in Doctor Who?"

"Yes, like that. It was meant to happen, which means it can't be reversed."

Timmy whirled on Tootie and her godparent offering commentary. "It wasn't supposed to happen! I wasn't supposed to watch it!"

A voice cackled in Timmy's head and Timmy froze, tears tracking down his cheeks. He was sobbing and Tootie hugged him tightly. The school bus stopped as police surrounded the area and prevented egress either way. Chester and AJ hesitantly approached Timmy and Tootie held him tightly, defensively, as if they were going to steal him away. He was inconsolable in her arms.

Timmy didn't care that his friends were here. He only cared that Cosmo and Wanda were absent. Where were they? Why weren't they answering his summons? They were honor-bound to respond to him.

Tears choked him and the police banged on the bus doors. Timmy wanted both to run and confront them and to hide somewhere, wish this all away, and wake up today with his parents in the kitchen and Vicky nowhere to be seen. As far as he was concerned, starting the morning with Vicky had ruined everything.

In his bag, Cosmo's wand glowed, radiating heat, but it went unnoticed by Timmy. He was too horrified to notice anything beyond himself and Tootie's arms around him.

"Dude, are you okay?" Chester asked and his words came from far away. Timmy choked, whispering his faeries' names over and over. No one responded. He tightened his grip on Tootie, because she was the only one who was here for him when he needed someone. For fuck's sake, where were his faeries?

"Of course he's not okay," AJ said, scoffing. "Those were his parents."

Timmy wondered vaguely how they knew that. Then he glanced at the wreckage of his parents' car. Something within him took malicious glee out of seeing his parents' decapitated heads lying there, staring sightlessly up at their son.

Timmy's chest was so tight it was hard to breathe. He pressed his face into Tootie's shoulder and she stroked his back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trixie approach. For once, he didn't want her. It wasn't that he disliked her suddenly, but that he feared she'd repudiate him when he was at his most vulnerable.

"Timmy," Trixie said and her eyes welled with tears too. Tootie looked ready to breathe fire at Trixie's proximity. Her grip tightened on Timmy until he felt squished against her side.

"I'm sorry," Trixie said and she sounded sincere, for all the good it did him. She'd remembered his name, she reached for his hand to hold, and all Timmy wanted, more than anything else in the whole world, the universe, even, were Cosmo and Wanda.

So, the question became: what was keeping them for so long?


Cosmo and Wanda heard their godson crying for them and desperately wanted to answer his calls. Unfortunately, they weren't given that option. The Fairy World Council was holding them in custody until they answered questions about wishes missing from the logbook, wishes Cosmo didn't remember granting and Wanda only recalled dimly. Wishes she was positive were not as consequential as whatever was happening with her godson right now. The fact that they were being denied Timmy was infuriating and made her give terse, one or two word answers when she could get away with it.

She was afraid of the Fairy Council. It superseded her fear of Jorgen von Strangle (toughest faerie in the universe). She ought to have been more circumspect in her replies or at least more polite, but she couldn't manage it. Through her wand, she saw the fiery wreck and Timmy's despondency.

"Can't this wait?" she snapped finally, at her wit's and patience's end. "Our godson needs us."

"Yeah, and no offense, but who the heck cares about a wish granted on a Tuesday at eleven o'clock about tuna salad?" Cosmo said. He wasn't pulling this information out of thin air-the Fairy Council had indeed asked a question regarding Timmy's wishes on Tuesday, October 2nd, of last year. Wanda was surprised Cosmo remembered the particulars, but then again, when he wanted to be, he could be an idiot savant. ("You're half right!")

"We care," one of the council members said. He was hooded, so it was impossible to tell which one had spoken. Wanda was over this procession. Her heart was breaking for Timmy. She was this close to reminding them whose daughter she was. Big Daddy could intimidate almost anyone, although she'd never invoked his name against the Fairy Council before.

"And no, it can't wait," the Fairy Council member spat. "Your godson will have to go through his day without you."

Wanda wanted to wrangle someone's neck. She was so angry, she was literally spitting fire. She trembled and Cosmo looked torn between trying to calm her down (not always the best strategy) or hiding and hoping she'd calm down on her own. As a coward, he usually picked the latter option. Today was no exception.

"His parents just died," she snapped. "Do you really think he should be alone?"

The Fairy Council stared; or, at least, she presumed they did. It was hard to tell with those damn hoods. She glowered back.

"How did they die?" someone on the Council asked and Wanda bristled.

"Why does it matter?" she snapped. "I didn't actually see them die-I just saw the aftermath. You have to let us go to Timmy. We can do the rest of this afterward, if you want, but first, our godson needs us."

Her lower lip quivered, both with rage and misery. She could feel Timmy's pain quite keenly, despite not being there. It cut at her sharply and she didn't know how much more of this she could take. Unfortunately, with the Fairy Council, no matter how infuriated one was, it was impossible to leave without being dismissed. They temporarily halted all magic in and around the chamber, excepting whatever they permitted, such as Jorgen leaving and returning.

"Did they die by magic?" the council member asked.

"How could they have? It's against Da Rules to hurt someone, much less kill them," Wanda said, taken aback and aghast at the insinuation that they might've had something to do with it. They weren't necessarily saying that Cosmo and Wanda had something to do with it, she reminded herself. It sure seemed that way, though.

"Yet it was your magic I sense about him now," the Council said.

"...what?" Cosmo and Wanda said in unison. "That's impossible."

Their faerie dust, yes, that was possible. But their magic? Impossible.

"Your magic and...your repercussions," the Council continued.

Wanda shook her head so hard it felt like it might fall off. "We can't have. We never would've hurt his parents, much less do anything like that."

"And yet, here we are," the Council said. "I believe it's time to talk to your godson."

"Hasn't he been through enough?" Wanda said sharply, her lower lip quivering again, but this time definitely with suppressed tears. Cosmo floated over to her and hugged her. She hugged him tightly back. Her tears precipitated his, like always.

"Not nearly enough, since you clearly haven't told us everything," the Council snapped. "Because the other magic I sense around him is anti-faerie magic."

The Council member waved a hand dismissively. "Spare us your denials and pretext. We're bringing him here. Now. I don't care what kind of state of mind he's in."

"You have to let us talk to him first," Wanda pleaded. "Please. Let us prepare him, if nothing else."

The Council appeared to confer. Wanda trembled in Cosmo's arms. Her earlier rage had faded, replaced by sorrow. She couldn't hold onto her anger if she was about to see Timmy again. Moreover, she couldn't feel anything except passionate sympathy for Timmy. She'd lost her mother at an early age and she knew the anguish of losing a parent, though not two at once. And not through foul play, either.

The Council slammed their wands down in unison.

Timmy Turner appeared, sans Tootie and Trixie. He was a basket case until, suddenly, he wasn't. Instead, he straightened, looking in his twenties rather than a twelve year old boy. It was faerie glamor, but that didn't mean it was ineffective.

"You rang?" a deep, male tenor asked. It had a musical quality to it, which nonetheless put Wanda on edge.

"And who are you?" the Council asked and the person who was clearly not their godson beamed back.

"My name is Lorenzo de Medici, Timmy's Other, and I haven't had the pleasure," Lorenzo said, grinning wickedly. "But I soon will."

"Pleasure of what?" Wanda asked, staring at the man who had stolen Timmy away.

"Making your acquaintance, of course. And maybe a little retribution in the process."

His grin sent chills down her spine. Cosmo had gone still beside her.

"You're not Timmy..." Cosmo said slowly.

"Ding ding ding, and the moron gets one right!" Lorenzo said. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"Guys," Timmy gasped and the figure vanished, replaced by their godson. "You've gotta help."

"No," the Fairy Council spat. "You've got to explain. Now."