A/N Your very welcome, faeriefan. I also think I'm going to add Quantum Leap in this more, but you can all think of it as a Author Character...but it's not.... Also, I changed some stuff in the last chappie and it's kinda confusing in this one if you don't know, so to summarize; Nana is referred to as Pearl (I'll explain why), and Pearl changes into someone or something else every time she goes near someone (I'll explain that, too). Oh, and if I switch my spelling of faerie a bit, please forgive me, I'm trying to train it out of me.
Cosmo and Wanda stared at their long time acquaintance in interest at her reaction to Timmy's mind, and even more so at the brief conversation they had just heard. Neither her or Cosmo wondered who had been the second speaker, they both knew perfectly well. Pearl sat numbly on the floor for a few minutes, oblivious to everything else until Cosmo broke the silence.
"Uh," he asked tentatively, "what's wrong?" Pearl turned to him, still in a daze. Cosmo noticed the look of horror deep in her eyes and felt thje pit of his stomach fall. For her to be this troubled, it had to be something disasterous.
"His Dream," she whispered. "He's missing." Wanda materialized a chair for herself and sat down heavily.
"So you know him?" she asked. "Why did you come then?"
"I told you," she gritted at her pink friend. "I thought it was Cosmo. You know as well as I do that heavenly beings don't have Dreams."
"Lilith did," was the hissed reply. Pearl huffed at her.
"That was a mistake."
The two glared at each other hatefully for a minute before brushing the matter beside. Cosmo was glad. He hated it when them and their friends fought, though it happened often. Almost all of them were hot tempered.
"Oh, Wan-wan," the Dream Sprite sighed wistfully. "We've been friends too long to let that get in the way. Besides, she's happy now." Wanda nodded.
"Your right," she agreed as she conjured up a cup of tea and a table in front of her. "She's got quite a following now." Cosmo made a chair for himself at the table and sat down as well. Pearl came over to them, shedding the guise of Mrs. Turner as if she were walking through a curtain, and went to sit down. A chair formed beneath her, flowing out of her body in a wisp of smoke and into solid form. Neither faerie seemed to notice as they brought forth an entire setting for tea with their wands. The three completely forgot about Timmy as they caught up on each other's lives.
"So how's Mage?" Pearl asked. "I haven't heard from her in, what, a good five millennia?"
"Oh didn't you hear?" Cosmo answered. "She was put on level 18 probation for causing the ice age. I don't know how she did it, but they blame it on her." Pearl smiled over her raised cup at him before taking a sip.
"As I recall," she ventured, "we were all a tad bit drunk that night, am I correct?" Her two comrades looked at each other, searching for the answer. "Let me refresh your memory," she said as she split into two curls of smoke, each heading for a different faerie.
"NO!" they exclaimed. Pearl reformed into her normal redheaded figure, one arm reached out to either faerie as the mist had been. She looked slightly disappointed, but the faeries let out a relieved sigh.
"I mean," Wanda covered, "we remember just fine, Nana." Pearl glared at her vehemently.
"My name is Pearl!" she barked.
"Just 'cause your mother gave you a stupid name doesn't mean you have to take it out on us," Cosmo complained, coming to Wanda's defense.
"And just 'cause your smart doesn't mean your stupid pills should kick in at the most inopportune moment," Pearl bit back. Neither faerie seemed to have understood her statement as they gave her blank looks.
"How did you know about Cosmo's stupid pills?" Wanda asked. Pearl rolled her eyes.
"Guys," she sighed, "I've known you since we were born! You couldn't keep squat from me even if you tried!"
"Um," Cosmo interjected, getting rather uncomfortable with the conversations direction, "back to Mage."
"Oh," Pearl said. "Yes, about Mage. So you haven't seen her since then?"
"Oh no," Wanda corrected, "we've seen her. She's a teacher at Timmy's school." She poured herself another cup of tea and began to add cream and sugar. "First grade, right?" The last was directed at Cosmo, who shook his head and swallowed his mouthful of scone.
"She's a substitute," he amended her. Wanda nodded and lifted the cup to her lips.
"Oh," Pearl stated. "I see." Wanda snatched the last scone before her husband could. Cosmo pouted at her as she scowled at him. Pearl smiled fondly at their subconscious antics.
"So what's going on with Rorin and Guinness?" Wanda asked as she scraped butter on her pastry.
Pearl became quiet and a distant look drifted over her face. She held her cup to her lips for a moment, not taking a drink or even noticing that she was holding it. She seemed to be weighing how much information she could safely tell them.
"Well," she sighed, biting her lip, "Rorin's on level 15 probation for forced entry into a Guardian's mind and tampering. He'd better get his act together soon or else he'll be on level 16, and I don't think we could function if that happened. He's the only transportation we have between our Dreamers and each other. Guinny, on the other hand..." Pearl put down her cup and folded her hands in a formal posture. She let out a breath as if trying to steal herself against some inner turmoil. "Guinness has the Plague."
"Oh my gosh!" Cosmo exclaimed. Wanda dropped her cup, shattering the fragile porcelain. Pearl winced at the sound.
"I thought they'd just made that up," Wanda admitted. "Oh, Pearl, I'm so sorry." Pearl regained her composure and smiled at her friends.
"It's alright," she assured them. "We warned her not to take that one, but she insisted. I've been the one taking care of him since he was a baby, anyway. She just couldn't handle the bad things. You know how frail she is; she's dreadful with anguish." She smiled a little as she lifted her cup to drink, only to realize it was empty. She shot a look at Cosmo and saw him playing innocent. Pearl found herself chuckling at his antics.
"So who's Dreamer was that that I saw you in inside that mountain?" Wanda asked. Pearl took a second to judge whether she should answer or not, but gave in at last.
"Guinny's," she answered with a shrug. "So tell me some things about your godchild. Maybe it would help if I knew what's been going on lately."
The faeries caught on to the change in topic and decided not to push the topic of Pearl's issues and farther.
"That's the thing," Cosmo replied. "He hasn't been acting strange at all. Nothing other than the usual problems with school and parents; you know, kid stuff." Pearl grunted an affirmative. Wanda guessed that to mean one of her three charges was a child.
"So," Cosmo hinted hopefully, "does this mean you're going to help us?" Pearl grinned.
"No," she responded flatly.
One colour blind coot and a child. Wanda thought. I wonder what the third one is. And in the New Mexico time zone...
"Wanda?" Pearl asked, disrupting her thoughts. "It's almost seven o'clock. Shouldn't you wake your charge?" Wanda looked around and noticed the sun beginning to filter in the window. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and stretched with a yawn.
"He has an alarm clock that wakes him up," she explained. Pearl nodded.
"Well, that leaves one last question to be answered," she said casually. Wanda felt a sense of dread creep over her.
What if she asks something we can't answer? She panicked. Or something to make us look bad. She is kind of mad at the moment.
"What's the date?"
Wanda let out the breath she'd been holding unawares.
"November, A.D. 2003," she replied. Pearl convulsed in her seat.
"You didn't tell me you were going to take me out of my time zone!" she exclaimed. Wanda felt her heart sink. Not because of Pearl's reaction, but because she realized what Guinness had meant by 'time zone'. But she understood why; you were not supposed to give out information about your charges to anyone, especially someone of a different kind. Wanda being her ever nosy self, however pushed the subject for more answers.
"What time zone is that?" she asked. Pearl looked at her calculatingly.
"New Mexico," she answered.
Damn, Wanda cursed at herself. She never drops a hint unintentionally, does she?
Just then, Timmy's alarm started to go off. All three of them ignored it, knowing that the boy would need some answers that they probably couldn't give in each other's presence, and that would mean taking turns being in the room with each other. A thought occurred to the pink faerie and she made to voice it, but was cut off by Pearl.
"No," she assured, "he can't see me. Ignore him until he comes to us," she commanded as Cosmo began to get up. Cosmo sank back down into his chair as she had bid him to do. "So," she continued as if nothing had happened, "nice weather you're having."
Timmy woke up to his alarm clock's shrill ring. He groggily slapped it to turn it off and groaned. It took him a second to realize that he hadn't waken up because of a nightmare for the first time this week.
Hey! He thought to himself. No nightmares! I'm cured!!!
"It hasn't rained all month," he heard Wanda saying. He sat up a little to see where his godparents were, and located them at the far side of his room, taking tea.
"It hasn't rained all month," he heard Wanda saying. He sat up a little to see where his godparents were, and located them at the far side of his room, taking tea. Wanda seemed to be listening to somebody speaking to her, but Timmy couldn't hear anything.
"I think it's nice," Cosmo replied to the unheard voice. "Rain is so dismal."
Since when has Cosmo known what dismal meant? Timmy questioned. He jumped out of bed and headed toward them.
"Hey guys," he greeted. "Who're you talking to?"
"Oh, hi Timmy!" Wanda chirped, avoiding the question. "How did you sleep last night?"
"Fine," he answered. "Who are you talking to?" Timmy noticed the look she cast toward an unoccupied corner of the room close beside her.
"Uh," she bluffed. "No one."
"Yeah right," he scoffed. "Who is it? Some one I'm not supposed to know about?"
"We can't tell you," Cosmo answered. Both faeries looked to the empty corner for a moment in concentration.
"Could you?" Wanda asked the empty corner. A second later Timmy felt something brush the corner of his mind. As it touched him a sense of happiness overcame him. It lingered for a moment after the thing had left, then was quickly replaced by misery as his parents burst into his room with a battering ram.
"Oh Timmy!" His parents chorused through his now busted doorway. Cosmo and Wanda quickly turned themselves into goldfish and dropped into their fishbowl.
"Your mother and I had a strange dream last night about going to the beach and having a blast," his father explained.
"So," his mother finished, "We're going to the beach without you to have a fun-filled afternoon! Vicki will be here any minute." Timmy sighed woefully as his parents left. The two faeries appeared by his side again as soon as it was safe.
"Man, this stinks," he complained. Downstairs the doorbell rang. He heard his parents leaving and headed to the window to watch them go. "Why don't they ever take me with them?" Behind him Vicki's voice made him start.
"It's normal," she dismissed. Timmy spun around to see his most hated enemy standing behind him. He panicked. He hadn't heard her enter the room, and Cosmo and Wanda were in plain view. Suddenly he realized that neither Cosmo nor Wanda seemed surprised at Vicki's materialization in his room, and neither was making any move to hide themselves.
"What's going on!?" He squeaked. "Cosmo, Wanda, why aren't you..."
"Oh it's fine, Timmy," Wanda reassured him. "This is a very good friend of ours. She's here to help."
"But it's Vicky!" he exclaimed, waving his hands at his dreaded babysitter. She seemed unfazed, and settled back on her feet, crossing her arms as if waiting to hear how the conversation would go.
"No, that's just what she looks like to you," Wanda said. "That's what she does." Timmy looked at her in confusion.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Is there a form you would prefer over this?" Vicky's voice sent him into a fright, his mind forgetting that this Vicky who was in the room with them apparently wasn't really Vicky. "Maybe..." the thing he had felt earlier brushed his mind again, he felt the same sense of happiness and then suddenly Vicky was gone, and standing in her place was none other than Trixie Tang. "Is this better, Empty Bus Seat?" she asked.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?!" Timmy shouted after getting over his shock at Trixie's appearance and Vicky's disappearance in his bedroom.
"She's a Dream Sprite, honey," Wanda tried to explain. "Her job is to make your dreams good ones, and keep the bad ones away."
"So why does she look like Trixie Tang?" he asked. "And Vicky before that?"
"Well..." Wanda mumbled.
"She's not your Dream Sprite, Timmy," Cosmo interjected. "She's just standing in. She doesn't know your mind, so when she touches it, she just assumes the first form she sees in it. You couldn't see her if she didn't assume a form from your mind." Timmy stared at him quizzically.
"How'd you get so smart?" he asked. "And while that was an interesting bit of information. It didn't answer my question."
"Ah!" Cosmo exclaimed and fled to the castle in his fishbowl. Wanda watched as he left, then turned to their godchild as he closed the door to their home.
"I look like this because you can't see me unless I assume a form you know," Trixie answered.
"Besides, we've grown up with Pearl since we were born," Wanda explained. "Of course he'd know."
"Pearl?" he asked. He turned to the impostor Trixie. "That would be you?" Trixie smiled at him.
"You sure are smart, Tommy," she praised. Timmy felt his heart flutter, but forced it to stop.
This isn't really Trixie, stupid! He admonished himself.
"Yeesh," Trixie huffed. She rolled her eyes as if she was exasperated with herself. "Does she really call you those things, or are you just sick?"
"No," he answered. "She really calls me that. And why do you say I'm sick?" Trixie ignored him as Cosmo returned from his house. She looked up at the green faerie and cocked an eyebrow.
"Pills?" she asked. Cosmo gave her an empty look.
"What pills?" he queried. Trixie just nodded. She shrugged and took Timmy's hand suddenly, heading for the door.
"Wait!" Timmy said, trying to offer some resistance, but finding it hard to fight against his crush on Trixie, even though it wasn't her.
"Home made breakfast is better for you than poofed up breakfast, and you need to eat," she replied, not even waiting for him to voice the question.
"How do you do that?" he asked. She just smiled.
"I'm in your mind, Timmy," she answered sweetly. "I know what you're going to say or think before you do." Timmy turned to his godparents who were trailing behind them with a look of panic and confusion.
"She means your subconscious, honey," Wanda assured him, reading the look on his face for one coming from Pearl's last statement. "It knows before your conscious does, and that's where Dreams live." Timmy excepted the answer, but it was evident he still didn't understand. Wanda ignored it; she couldn't explain it any better.
The four of them headed downstairs to the kitchen, where Pearl disconnected herself from Timmy and headed for the stove. As she neared the counter she walked out of Trixie's body and into his mothers. Timmy turned ashen as he watched; his faeries took no notice of the strange action. Pearl herself didn't seem fazed in the slightest by the abrupt change in size and height. It was almost as if it was common place for her. Pulling down the pancake mix and taking some milk and eggs out of the fridge she began to mix up the batter and scramble some eggs. She poured the batter into a greased skillet and returned to the fridge for bacon. As she bustled about she began sing to herself. It was a tune Timmy had heard once or twice on the radio station his mom loved so much. It was an old song that he had thought was pretty stupid, but his mom always cried when she heard it. Listening to his mom sing it, though, left him feeling different than it normally did when he sat through it in the car. He felt as if he was about to dry as he listened to her pour the words out from her heart:
Imagine
there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below
us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for
today...
Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to
do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all
the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no
possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or
hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing
all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not
the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world
will live as one.
As his mom finished the end of the song she looked up at the ceiling and smiled. Timmy, coming out of the stupor the song had cast him into, figured it was some personal thing and he decided not to push it. He looked over at his faeries and saw that they were coming out of the same enchantment he had been in.
What was that? He wondered. He turned back to where his mom was standing at the counter. She was shaking her head and then she turned around, arms laden with food. Timmy resisted the urge to drool as he stared at the mounds of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. All queries about what had just happened fleeing his mind. His mom set the plates on the table in front of him and smacked his hand as he reached out for the bacon.
"Have you no manners," she joked. She turned and brought back three plates, setting one in front of each fairy and one in front of Timmy. She then created a plate and a cream jug and placed them in front of Cosmo and Wanda. On the plate he saw a stack of thin yellow pancakes that smelled sweeter than the fluffy ones she put down in front of him. Wanda merrily picked one up and put it on her plate, pouring the contents of the cream jug over it. Thick cream with blueberries mixed into it drizzled out of the container and onto the strange pastry as Wanda's eyes lit up hungrily.
"What is that?" Timmy asked. Wanda handed the plate to Cosmo and took the empty one for herself.
"They're crepes," she said as she put another one of the thin pancakes on the second plate. She repeated the process of pouring the cream over it, then wrapped it up into a cylinder and began to cut into it. "It's a personal favorite of ours." She leaned forward over the table toward Pearl, who had returned to the form of Trixie. Timmy still found it unsettling, but he wasn't quite so jumpy anymore. Wanda was smiling at Pearl as she excitedly reminisced.
"Remember our wedding?" she asked happily. Timmy listened closely. Neither of his godparents had ever spoken of the event, and he had never really thought about it before.
"You mean the crepe disaster?" Trixie egged. She turned to Timmy, knowing he hadn't a clue. "This oh-so graceful faerie you see before us," she said as she pointed to Wanda, "was so nervous. All the girls went to MoirĂe's for breakfast, it's a French restaurant where we come from; and she spilled the whole jug of blueberry cream on herself! She was such a wreck! We literally had to drag her back to the chapel to get hitched. She was so sure that she just couldn't get married after having ruined her breakfast." Pearl turned back to Wanda and wrinkled her nose in a smile.
"Hey!" Wanda defended gaily. "Don't forget about Cosmo! He was no better!"
"What happened with Cosmo?" Timmy asked. He was beginning to feel like he needed a drink when suddenly a hot cocoa appeared in front of him. He was startled, because he hadn't wished for one. He looked at his faerie godparents who were completely oblivious to him, and then to Trixie. Trixie winked at him, acknowledging his question, and then answered his first inquiry.
"Cosie-kins went missing," she snickered. "We spent three hours looking for him, and finally found him in the rafters, holding on to one of the central support beams for dear life. It took us almost two hours to get him down once we found him!" Timmy laughed so hard he began to choke. Wanda reached over quickly and tapped his shoulder blades with her wand, making the offending food particle blocking his air vanish. Timmy smiled through his gasp of breath and noticed Trixie was sitting nonchalantly at the other side of the table. He hadn't really been aware of the fact that she hadn't been eating until now, and he voiced the thought to her. Trixie just smiled at him.
"Oh I don't need to eat like you do," she replied as she leaned back in her chair. "My Dreamers are my food." Timmy didn't like the sound of that. He studied her warily, trying to place what she was saying.
Is she, like, a cannibal or something? He wondered to himself. Trixie laughed, causing him to jump a bit.
"Oh what an imagination you have!" she cajoled. "No I don't eat them, I feed off of them like Cosmo and Wanda feed off of you."
Trixie suddenly realized what she had said as she watched Timmy's eyes get wider by the second. Cosmo and Wanda glanced at each other and then to her in panic. The atmosphere around the table suddenly became very hostile. Trixie sat back farther in her chair bringing it up on two legs, trying to remain as laid-back as possible. She didn't want this to get out of hand. It was obvious by Timmy's reaction that his godparents had never told him about how they functioned, and her suspicions were confirmed by their own words as they admonished her for telling.
"We never told him because we thought it would scare him," Wanda explained.
"No duh!" Timmy shouted. "What do you do? Suck my blood when I sleep?" Trixie snorted at the comment and leaned forward onto the table.
"Oh don't be daft!" she snorted at him. "They would never do anything like that to you, even if that was how you do it."
"Then what do you do?" Timmy shot back, rubbing his neck, searching for bite marks. Trixie rolled her eyes. She was really starting to get annoyed with this kid.
"Emotions," she replied with a flick of her wrist. She settled back in her chair again, resuming her indifferent air. "I'm sure you've noticed how your mood affects them." She gestured at Cosmo and Wanda. "That's because they feed off of your happiness. It makes them happy, and that sustains them, like food and drink sustain you."
"And you?" Timmy asked. "You said you weren't my Dream, so what are you getting your emotions from?" Trixie let out an amused laugh.
"I get mine from my Dreamers," she said. She shot a dirty look in Cosmo and Wanda's direction. "Thankfully their still alive," she snapped at them. Both looked abashed and turned away from her glare. Timmy felt very lost. He had no idea what the statement or the look was for, but he guessed that his godparents had done something wrong by the way they were acting. He opened his mouth to ask but got the impression he should just let it be. Instead he thought of something else.
"Who is my Dream?" he asked rather abruptly. Cosmo and Wanda started as they turned to him, but Trixie remained reclined.
"I can't tell you that, Tommy," she said. He jumped down from the table and went over beside her chair.
"Why not?" he demanded. She looked at him and smiled.
"Because it's against The Regulations," she answered. Timmy just stared at her, befuddled. "It's like Da Rulez, only it's for Dreams," she explained, understanding his look of confusion.
"Jeeze!" he whined, throwing his arms in the air. "Does everybody have rules?" Trixie got down from her seat and stood beside Timmy. She smiled at him, something Timmy was starting to realize she did a lot. She took his hands in hers, patting them softly.
"Oh Empty Bus Seat," she soothed, "of course we all have rules. I do, Cosmo and Wanda do, angels do, even Guardians and humans do. And we have to abide by those rules or else serious repercussions will ensue."
Timmy stared at her for a second before stuttering. "What's a repercussion?" Pearl just stared at him and began to sweat. Cosmo and Wanda came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.
"He's ten, Pearl," Wanda reminded her. "He doesn't understand big words any more than Cosmo does." Pearl nodded in understanding and restated her sentence.
"You'll have to pay the consequences," she said. "And," she continued from Timmy's thoughts, "A guardian is a being sent to protect a way of life at a major turn in events."
"You know," Wanda added, "like with Hitler in World War One."
"He was a guardian?" Timmy concluded. Trixie laughed heartily for a moment, then wiping a tear from her eye she continued.
"Oh no," she giggled. "Though, he did act like it. Guardians are one of the more complex of the heavenly beings. It's not easy to explain. You see, Dream Sprites take care of your thoughts, hopes and dreams and take care of your subconscious. Faeries take care of your physical needs and your conscious. Angels take care of your astral needs and your spiritual needs. Guardians, though, they take care of an entire planet as a whole. When something drastic happens that sways the entire planet, plane, or something other that's of large significance, guardians are deployed to take care of the problem. There are always at least two, one for each side of the conflict. They fight it out in whatever way they feel adequate, and whoever wins the fight determines the outcome of the milestone."
Timmy stared at her, trying to absorb all the information that had just been given to him and decided that he might as well stop trying. Trixie nodded at his inner turmoil over the knowledge and patted his hands again before releasing them.
"Someday you'll understand," she assured him.
A/N Okay, so it's not the best place to end, nor is it the best chapter I've written so far, but hey, I tried. R&R! I hope I explained enough to take away some of the confusion that has riddled you all. See you next chapter!!!
