A/N: I decided that this fic, the original one, Straight on 'til Morning, needed a rewrite. I liked where it initially went, but I felt that I took too long of a detour with Lorenzo, Azalea, Chloe, and Timmy.
I have since deleted the original, but it's up on my LiveJournal. (Since I never delete anything off my LJ)
I am on a FOP kick. Thank you for noticing.
Wanda closed her eyes and sighed, reclining in her bed. She had a headache that magic wouldn't fix; Timmy was doing his usual selfish routine again and Cosmo was, of course, encouraging him. She'd retreated from the scene because she'd been ignored the last five times she'd spoken. Poof was in Spellementary, which meant she was on her own. It was supposed to be relaxing, but all she felt like was a third wheel.
Sometimes, though she'd never admit it, she wondered whether Timmy and Cosmo would be better off without her. Of course, they might destroy the world without her balancing them out, but what did it matter if Timmy just ignored her?
She didn't want to cry, but she felt dull inside. This feeling had persisted for months now and she probably ought to seek a therapist. Or a more qualified doctor than Doctor Ripped Studwell, but that required energy she didn't have. Just getting through the day drained her. Unlike Cosmo, she wasn't ready and raring to go in the morning. She just woke up and sometimes wondered what the point of it all was.
They did the same things, every day, and every day, Timmy ignored her warnings until it was almost too late. Or tried to work his way around them. Maybe taking a good, long vacation would be best. They might not even notice she was gone, at this rate.
It felt like an arrow to her chest. She didn't want to think that Cosmo and Timmy would be so self-absorbed they wouldn't notice her absence, but she was realistic. And sometimes, being realistic was more painful than having her head in the clouds like Cosmo did.
She poofed out to cast one last look at Timmy's room. Neither male turned to pay attention to her, which both disappointed and didn't surprise her. She conjured up a suitcase, left a note by Timmy's bed, and disappeared to Fairy World. She ignored the way her heart lurched leaving Cosmo, but she told herself it didn't matter. For months now, they'd been having marital difficulties. He couldn't be surprised by her walking out, even for a short time.
She told herself that she'd come back once she had her head on straight. Maybe she'd spend time at home with Big Daddy…without telling him what Cosmo had done. If Big Daddy found out what Cosmo had done, he'd hit the roof. And Cosmo would probably follow soon after.
Maybe she ought to stay in a hotel. That seemed safer. She'd stay in a hotel, gather herself together, and figure out where she was going from here. She wouldn't abandon Timmy or Cosmo. After all, that wasn't who she was.
Wanda smiled bitterly. She wasn't sure who she was anymore and given her longevity, that was saying something.
"Hey," Timmy said, putting down his controller, "how come Wanda hasn't yelled at us for staying up late on a school night?"
"Wanda?" Cosmo called. He searched about the room for her and then his gaze settled upon a note. Frowning, recognizing her handwriting, he scanned the note. One read through wasn't enough, though, because the first read through made no sense. It sounded to him almost as if Wanda was leaving him, but that couldn't be right. Wanda would never leave him. They loved each other too much for her to even consider it.
They'd been fighting a lot lately, but he knew they'd get through it. They always did.
"What's the matter?" Timmy asked as tears filled Cosmo's eyes. "What's on the note?"
Wordlessly, Cosmo handed it to Timmy. The male faerie wept, tears shaking his small frame. Great wracking sobs replaced the tears a few seconds later, as if all of the misery couldn't wait to get out. Cosmo flung himself onto Timmy's bed and buried his face in a pillow.
"This can't be right," Timmy said in disbelief. Cosmo could barely hear him over his sobs. He sat down beside Cosmo on the bed. "Okay, dude, it's not that serious. She'd never ditch us. Stop crying. Stop."
"You don't understand," Cosmo wept, "she's never done anything like this before."
"She's never packed her bags and left you. Not once during your entire almost ten thousand year marriage?"
Cosmo shook his head and bit his lower lip until he tasted sparkling blood. Tears blurred his vision.
"Huh," Timmy said, which seemed to be an understatement. Cosmo grabbed his godson and shook him, though he could barely see him through his tears. He still tasted blood.
"We have to find her before it's too late," Cosmo said and tried to inject the urgency he felt into Timmy through sheer desperation. He was still shaking his godson and Timmy pushed him away, probably before Cosmo did any lasting damage. Cosmo couldn't help himself. Without Wanda, he was unmoored.
Hell, he was surprised he knew that word, without Wanda there.
"Where would she go?" Timmy said. "Fairy World?"
Cosmo was willing to try anything. He held up his wand and brought them to Fairy World. Unfortunately, as Wanda had once told Timmy a while ago, when he and Wanda weren't in sync, it was almost impossible to bring a human to Fairy World. Cosmo gasped, leaning against a street post. His vision swam and not just with tears this time. It felt like he had an elephant on his chest.
"Cosmo?" Timmy called and Cosmo tried to rally. He couldn't sense Wanda the way he used to, when they were in sync. They hadn't been lined up in a long time, now that he thought about it. It bothered him that he hadn't noticed it immediately.
Wanda was the smart one, but Cosmo was the emotional one. He felt his way through everything, which meant he should've known immediately that something wasn't right between them. Of course, the arguments hadn't helped, but he wasn't particularly bright when it came to things like that. Still, his emotional IQ ought to have been higher. He shouldn't have let Wanda leave and think she wasn't loved or wanted.
They needed to find her as soon as possible. She needed to know the truth.
Fear shot through his fatigue and he squeezed his wand to will more magic into his body. He needed to recover, but he didn't have the luxury of time. Closing his eyes again, he sought out Wanda's magical signature. Unfortunately, there was a lot of interference, especially since he and Wanda weren't in sync.
"You don't have the faintest clue where she is, do you?" Timmy asked flatly.
"Nope," Cosmo said. His lower lip quivered again and he told himself that crying wouldn't solve anything. He waved his wand and brought them to Mama Cosma's house. He could talk to her and maybe she'd have some ideas where his wife might've gone. Of course, he could also poof over to Big Daddy's house, but he was on Big Daddy's shit list for some reason.
Mama Cosma wasn't home. That was weird too, because she usually stayed at home and watched soaps. Not the one Blonda was on, of course. She'd always hated that soap, even before Cosmo had married Wanda. Bereft, Cosmo glanced around. There was a small slip of paper on the table and he stared at it.
"Another note?" Timmy groaned. It was more reading than the boy did in a day, except for whatever he scrolled through on the internet. Cosmo might've ordinarily felt sorry for him, except this was important. He picked up the paper and as he read it, his blood chilled.
"What?" Timmy said, staring at the note over his shoulder. "I can't read that."
"That's because it's written in ancient faerie," Cosmo said. "It's a contract with a demon."
"Demon? I didn't think those things were real," Timmy said, nonplussed. "What does this have to do with Wanda?"
"Nothing, I don't think…" Cosmo said, unable to put the pieces together. There were pieces missing and things that didn't fit. Why would his mother make a contract with a demon? And what was that about cutting someone's soul into fifths? He didn't understand.
Who did his mother hate so much that she'd want to destroy them like that?
True, his mother loathed Wanda and always had. However, he didn't think Mama Cosma could do that to her. It just seemed so out of character.
"Where do we go now?" Timmy asked.
"I don't know," Cosmo admitted. He was too tired to keep poofing around Fairy World, too. Instead, he slumped on the couch and stared at the TV. He wasn't in the mood to watch anything, not even Wanda's identical yet strangely hotter sister. Come to think of it, it might've been language like that which had gotten him into hot water with his wife in the first place.
Granted, it had taken him months to realize this. Cosmo was a slow learner.
"We can't just give up," Timmy protested. "Are you sure she isn't at her parents' house?"
"I don't know," Cosmo admitted. "I don't know where she is."
"Let's try her parents' house," Timmy said. "We can't just hang around here. It's not going to help."
"I don't know if I have enough magic left in me to keep poofing everywhere," Cosmo said. Timmy gave him a dirty look and raised Cosmo's wand arm. Timmy wasn't giving him a choice now, which wasn't fair, but Timmy often didn't think ahead. Or ever. It was what made them such good friends and quite possibly what had alienated Wanda.
He'd never felt this close to his godchildren before and he loved being around Timmy. But he didn't love losing Wanda because of it.
"Hello, Wanda," Mama Cosma said with a cruel smile. Wanda was checking into a hotel and wondered how her mother-in-law could possibly have found her. She turned, her hand on her wand, and apprehension stole over her. Whatever Mama Cosma wanted, it couldn't be good. Wanda still hadn't forgiven her for interfering in their marriage before and she wasn't liable to forget it any time soon. Sometimes, she thought Mama Cosma had an unhealthy obsession with Cosmo.
"Mama Cosma!" Wanda said with a fake smile. "What are you doing here?"
Mama Cosma gestured and behind her, a demon glided. It had black robes and its hood covered its face. Wanda's breath froze in her chest and she squeezed her wand. Forget checking into this hotel. Unlike Cosmo, she could put two and two together and get four. Mama Cosma didn't usually travel in the company of demons and demons were notorious for one thing.
Wanda reappeared outside of her father's house and her heart hammered between her ribs. That had been a close one. She looked down and realized she'd forgotten the luggage at the hotel. Her desire to retrieve it warred with her desire not to have her soul sucked out by a demon. She waved her wand and brought the luggage back to her…and Mama Cosma came too.
Damn it. If Wanda hadn't been so tired, she wouldn't have made such a rookie mistake. The demon loomed over Wanda and Wanda's heart pounded. She erected a barrier between them while she sought another escape strategy. She could return to Earth, Cosmo, and Timmy. It wasn't ideal, but Mama Cosma wouldn't possibly strike when her precious Cosmo was in the scene. Plus, Cosmo didn't realize just how much Mama Cosma loathed her.
Unfortunately, as Cosmo had found out earlier, when she and Cosmo weren't in sync, moving back and forth between Earth and Fairy World was a non-starter. Dizzy, she stepped back and Mama Cosma grabbed her in her wand's traction. Wanda struggled, not going down without a fight.
For the first time in months, she reached out to Cosmo via telepathy. She was desperate enough to appeal to him for help, not to mention terrified of the alternative. However, it was the mental equivalent of lacking a dial tone. Panic made her heart hammer between her ribs.
"I've wanted to do this for such a long time," Mama Cosma breathed, clearly relishing the moment. "Ever since I found out you eloped with my Cosmo-lolo."
"Big Daddy is going to totally kill you when he finds out," Wanda growled. Whatever strange accord Mama Cosma and Big Daddy had going on, it wouldn't survive Mama Cosma ripping Wanda's soul out. Frantic, Wanda tried again to reach Cosmo, but nothing happened.
Mama Cosma advanced on her slowly; the eerie demon matched her strides. An evil gleam suffused Mama Cosma's eyes and Wanda felt, in that moment, that whatever Mama Cosma intended for her had to be worse, by far, than whatever Vicky had ever plotted for Timmy. Timmy…why couldn't faerie godparents call for their godchildren the same way as it worked vice versa?
"I don't intend to let him find out," Mama Cosma said. Wanda struggled again, her fingertips brushing her wand. If she could just pull it out, she'd have a fighting chance.
Mama Cosma and the demon halted not six inches away from Wanda, who could hear her heart pounding and throbbing in her temples. Again, her fingertips brushed her wand and again, nothing came of it.
((COSMO!)) she screamed, injecting every ounce of her anxiety and distress into his name.
((Wanda?))
She thought she'd have a heart attack hearing his voice back in her mind. ((You have to help. I don't have much time-))
"I don't know what you think you're doing," Mama Cosma said and raised her wand. "But it ends here."
The magical equivalent of a sucker punch took Wanda in the gut and then another walloped her upside the head. Gasping for breath, loathing Mama Cosma more with every pant, she glowered at the older woman.
((Wanda? What's going on? What's wrong?)) Cosmo's voice was faint in her mind, like a badly tuned radio going in and out. She shuddered.
((You left me and Timmy!)) he accused.
((I-)) A searing pain ripped through her chest and, for a few seconds, Wanda beheld her soul floating in midair before them. It was pink and pearlescent, the size and shape of a large gem. It was beautiful…and the shock of her soul being torn from her body was enough to cause her to crash against the cement and fall into unconsciousness.
((You what?)) Cosmo demanded. ((Speak to me!))
Cosmo sagged back against the signpost. They were at the crossroads between Big Daddy's house and a busy intersection, which Cosmo hastily pulled them out of. He shuddered; the last message he'd had from Wanda, if he could call it that, was staticky and hard to make out. Telepathic messages were supposed to be crystal clear, like the person was standing right beside you. He didn't know what it meant that her voice hadn't been or that, now, he had no sense of her at all.
"What's going on?" Timmy asked, since he hadn't been privy to any of the telepathy. Cosmo's heart pounded. He was starting to think it might not have been a good idea to bring them to Big Daddy's house, even if it'd been Timmy's idea to begin with.
"I don't know…" Cosmo breathed. His heart raced. "I really don't know. I had her for, like, thirty seconds and then she was gone. And now…she's gone gone."
"I don't understand."
"Neither do I!" Cosmo wailed. He felt pathetic, which wasn't an unusual feeling for him, but usually, Wanda helped. He hadn't liked Wanda's abrupt silence or the feel of it, like of a door slamming shut. Or a coffin closing. The last thought was enough to send him into a spiral.
"Okay, okay, calm down," Timmy said, sensing Cosmo was about to fall off the deep end. "What happened?"
"I was talking to Wanda," Cosmo repeated. "And then I wasn't. She needed me, I know she did, but-"
"If she needed you, then why didn't you go to her?" Timmy said, sounding exasperated.
"Because…because…" Cosmo faltered. He couldn't answer and Timmy facepalmed. Now that Timmy said it, it seemed like it would've been the smart thing to do. Then again, leave it to Cosmo to take the stupidest route possible.
"Because you didn't think of it," Timmy finished. "What do we do now?"
"I don't know…maybe she'll turn up?" Cosmo said without much hope. He'd never heard Wanda so scared before and he didn't know the cause. Anything that was bad enough to terrify her sent chills down his spine too. No one in Fairy World would've threatened her with a butterfly net, so that wasn't it. She hadn't given him a lot to go on. Or anything, come to think of it.
"We have no clue where she went off to," Timmy pointed out. "Or how to find her."
"Like I said, maybe she'll turn up?"
"Are you going to be able to take us back home?" Timmy asked, which seemed a more important point to him than Wanda's current whereabouts. Cosmo wasn't sure he agreed. Wanda's desperation had cut him to the quick and he was disturbed that their telepathy was so weak. And now non-existent.
Maybe he could shrug it off, like he did everything else. But Wanda had never left him before. And normally, he felt something from her, even if it'd been fading away as it had been for months. This utter lack of connection was unnerving.
"Gimme a little time," he said. Big Daddy hadn't materialized, which was a good sign. Maybe he wasn't home. Cosmo could've caught a lucky break.
(But Wanda hadn't…and it was going to haunt him.)
((Wanda?)) he ventured and received no response. His chest ached, as if from a phantom pain, and he rubbed it self-consciously. It almost felt like someone had stabbed him in the heart, but that made no sense.
"What do we do in the meanwhile?" Timmy asked, already growing bored. It didn't take long for his attention span to shift. ADHD was a hell of a thing. Cosmo also had the attention span of a gnat, but Wanda was one of the few things that Cosmo had never really had trouble concentrating on. It felt like a double-edged sword now.
"I don't know," Cosmo said, feeling like a broken record. "Wait around, I guess."
Maybe she'd turn up. And maybe Mama Cosma would bury the hatchet and forgive Wanda for marrying Cosmo. Stranger things had happened, right?
Mama Cosma split Wanda's soul into three parts. The fourth part, unfortunately, still resided within Cosmo. It was what was keeping her daughter-in-law still breathing. It also meant Mama Cosma couldn't be accused of murder, just attempted murder. It was a technicality that Mama Cosma would gladly take.
Mama Cosma couldn't finish the job unless she possessed Cosmo's sliver. However, convincing him to give it up might prove difficult, especially once Cosmo found out what she'd done. She could tell him that it was for his own good. A dead Wanda was a relief to everyone, except maybe Big Daddy. Timmy wouldn't care. She thought little of Cosmo's godson, but she knew he liked Cosmo a lot more than Wanda anyway.
The three parts she sent into different universes. If Timmy and Cosmo really wanted to retrieve them, they'd have to play a scavenger hunt. As Timmy was so fond of saying, "What's the worst that could happen?" The best that could happen would be Cosmo and Timmy abandoning ship anyway and letting Wanda wither away. Faeries could survive without their souls, but not for very long. Cosmo's sliver would prevent Wanda's immediate death, but keep her in a vegetative state for eternity.
Mama Cosma smiled, satisfied with her day's work. She scoffed at Escholax.
"Dispose of her," she ordered the demon. "I don't care what you do with her, so long as it's not anywhere near her family. Or Juandissimo. Or anyone who might care what becomes of her."
The demon nodded, scooping up Wanda's cold body. Her chest rose and fell, but just barely. The color had drained from her features and she was white. Even her hair had lost its pink sheen, turning pale. Mama Cosma pointedly looked away as the demon did her bidding and then sighed, thinking it was time to break out the wine and celebrate.
She had rid herself of a pest that had plagued her for millennia. It was time to relax and enjoy the fruits of her labor.
In one universe, a deranged Wanda received a soul sliver of her counterpart and scoffed. She kept it close to her, regardless. Hopefully, Timmy and Cosmo would come calling for it soon.
In another universe, Azalea, a faerie with dangerous predilections, fingered the gift she had received and turned toward her partner in crime. She beamed at him and he grinned back. For years, Lorenzo had pondered a way to eradicate Wanda once and for all. This might be the first clue to it. He was looking forward to seeing where it led.
Meanwhile, in the last universe, Doombringer swung the crystal on its golden necklace. This should help her locate the faerie in question and help her complete her wall. After all, it was hard to have every faerie in the universe dissected if she couldn't get her hands on all of them.
And in the last universe, Timmy and Cosmo waited for Wanda to return. The day she did, the universe fell apart.