§ § § -- September 26, 1999

When the dwarves came home late that afternoon, they found Caroline and Andy seated in the living room, watching a "Gunsmoke" rerun on TV. Doc propped his fists on his hips and glared; Grumpy roared, "Bashful, you big fake!"

"He threw up, and after that he was just fine," Caroline told him. "That happens sometimes, you know. It was probably just something he ate."

"Your potatoes, most likely," Grumpy barbed.

"Whose potatoes?" Caroline retorted. "If I remember correctly, it's your potato patch, Sourpuss, so if I were you, I'd think twice about who I was accusing!"

Doc sighed. "Probably had some green spots on yours, Bash. You should be more careful about what you eat. In any case, Snowy, I thought you were planning to give the green ones to Grumpy here." For the first time he cracked a smile.

Caroline shrugged and said, "It was an honest mistake. Frankly, I'm glad it turned out the way it did. Bashful's been much better company." Andy, back in character, gave her a shy smile and blushed, and she patted his arm.

"I'm glad Bashful's feeling better," Dopey said. "Can we eat now?"

"Your name should be Glutton instead of Dopey," Sneezy observed. "Although, come to think of it, I could sure use a nice, thick juicy steak right about now."

"Oh, yeah," sighed Happy blissfully, rubbing his little pot belly. "It's been ages. I'd be in seventh heaven just from the taste."

"Well," Caroline drawled a little sarcastically, "since I couldn't get to the nearest supermarket, steak's out. You guys might have to settle for TV dinners."

"No, I can handle it," Andy offered, hopping off the sofa. "Stay there, Miss White, and I'll take care of supper." He headed off to the kitchen; at the same time there came a knock on the door. The other dwarves looked at one another; Sleepy shrugged and answered it, since he was the closest. His yawn was rudely arrested when they all saw the queen standing there, and hurriedly everyone bowed, except Caroline, who didn't see the need.

The queen zeroed right in on her. "You!" she screamed. "You're still alive, you little brat?" She shoved Sleepy aside and stormed in, her attention now on Grumpy and Doc. "You two told me you'd take care of everything for me!"

"What were we supposed to do, Your Cruelness?" Grumpy snapped. "You're the one who wants her dead. We personally couldn't care less if she lives or dies."

"Then it shouldn't have been such a trial for you to try again," the queen yelled.

Caroline got up from the sofa and strolled toward the kitchen. "Oh, come on, Stepmom, you can't really expect these guys to do all your dirty work for you. They had to work, anyway, so they could pay your stratospheric property taxes." She idly picked up one of her cookies from the counter and bit into it.

"You'll spoil your dinner," Dopey warned her solicitously.

"No I won't. All I've had all day was an apple…and that turned out to be poisonous," Caroline said with an accusing look at the queen.

"Oh sure, blame me for your forgetting to eat," the queen said, staring at the cookies. "Hey, brat, you never made any of those at the castle. No one ever knew you could cook."

"You never asked," Caroline replied innocently, picking up another cookie and holding it out in her direction. "Want one?"

"They're really good, Your Nastiness," Dopey said. "I took some to work with me. Yum, yum, good." He smacked his lips.

The queen eyed Caroline suspiciously but accepted the treat anyway, inspecting it carefully. Andy, carrying a stack of plates to the table to set it, caught Caroline's eye for a second, and she gave a slight nod.

"Hey," yelled Happy, the indignant look on his face a surprising departure from the normal giddy disposition that had given him his name. "How come that rotten woman gets cookies and we don't? Especially since there isn't any steak!"

"Yeah, come on!" clamored the others, while Andy calmly set the table and the queen kept turning her cookie over and over in her hands, as though looking for something. Caroline sighed loudly and threw her hands in the air.

"Okay, okay, fine, help yourselves. Just don't ruin your appetites," she said. The dwarves promptly rushed the counter and started grabbing cookies.

The queen bit into hers, chewed for a long minute, then finally swallowed. "Huh. I suppose you can bake, at least," she said grudgingly, then dropped in what appeared to be a dead faint.

"Gee, look at that, the queen fell down," said Dopey.

"Too bad," Sleepy said mildly.

"Isn't that nice?" Happy queried in a bright voice. "Let's finish these before she wakes up and takes any more." With that, the dwarves proceeded to resume gobbling cookies.

"I guess it worked," Caroline murmured to Andy. "What was in that cookie, anyway?"

Andy smiled slyly and replied in a mock-mysterious voice, "Oh, just some extract of a bit of local Fantasy Island flora I was messing around with. I promised Mr. Roarke I'd test a couple of plants he hasn't had time to get around to yet." He grinned. "Looks like it works. Let's see if she wakes up. I tried to dilute it—I don't want Mr. Roarke arresting me."

"What on earth…a banquet, and no one invited me?" demanded an imperious voice from the doorway. The dwarves paused and turned to stare at Prince Charming, who bent his knees enough for his head to clear the doorway and stepped inside.

"Don't give that frosted flake any of my cookies," Caroline warned the surprised dwarves, "or so help me, I'll break the neck of whoever does."

Sneezy held up his hands. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, Miss White…we're done eating them all anyway." He sneezed, making the prince shrink back.

"Yeah, and they were real good," Dopey added, rubbing his protruding stomach.

"Don't trip over the body there," Doc warned absently, then let out a silly-sounding, high-pitched burp that made all the other dwarves giggle, particularly Happy. "Excuse me."

"You have a problem with my eating your cookies?" Charming demanded, before Doc's comment registered and he looked down. His face went slack and his mouth gaped open. "Where did this incredibly beautiful creature come from?"

"Hell, probably," offered Caroline. Andy snickered, but Charming seemed not to have heard. He knelt on the floor and gave the queen a protracted kiss that made the dwarves hoot loudly.

"If she wakes up," Andy muttered, "I don't think even Mr. Roarke's gonna believe me."

Charming lifted his head and directed a black glare at the dwarves, who subsided quickly and mumbled insincere apologies through their grins. "Mind your own business, you miserable little runts," he snarled.

On the floor, the queen stirred, stretched and let out a long, loud yawn. "Well, that was a nice nap…the mattress could've been better though," she mumbled.

"My gorgeous vision come true, wake up," Charming said. "It's me."

The queen cracked open one eye and peered at him curiously; then both eyes popped wide and she bolted into a sitting position. "Where'd you come from? You're the best-looking guy in twelve realms!"

"I know," the prince said smugly and beamed at her. "And I see I've finally found someone with the sense and the brains to see that."

"Wait a minute, you must be Prince Charming," the queen exclaimed. "So that's what you look like. I've heard of you for ages and always wondered. Say, how'd you like to come back to my castle for a little roast heart?"

"I was just waiting for that very invitation," Charming said and arose, assisting her to her feet. "How 'bout it, sweet lady of my dreams?" Caroline rolled her eyes, while the prince hoisted the queen off the floor and carried her out the door. The dwarves crowded into the doorway, Caroline went to the window, and they all watched Charming deposit the queen onto his horse, climb aboard himself, and canter off.

"Aaaawwwwwwwww," the dwarves crooned happily.

"Unbelievable," Caroline muttered to herself. "Some fairy tale this was!"

She felt somebody tap her arm and looked around at Andy. "Hey, look at it this way: it's still a happy ending. The obnoxious prince and the cannibal queen were evidently made for each other…and you and I met. What's not to like?"

Caroline thought about it, watching the dwarves scuttle back into the kitchen and make short work of the few remaining cookies. "Well, it would've been nice to have had the chance to knock Grumpy upside the head and maybe shoot Doc with one of his own needles for the way they sided with Her Evilness against me…but I guess two happy endings in the same fairy tale are too much to expect. And anyway, my mother taught me never to hit anybody smaller than me."

Andy burst out laughing, and Caroline joined in; they were still chortling when there came another knock on the door. "Don't tell me Prince Not-So-Charming came back," said Caroline quizzically.

"I'll get it," said Dopey eagerly and trotted over to the door, which he opened to reveal an older man, dressed in worn work clothes and wearing a stern expression. "Uh-oh…uh, hey, fellas, it's the supervisor," he said uneasily.

His fellow dwarves stopped eating and stared at their latest visitor. The supervisor squinted at each dwarf in turn till he spotted Andy; then he stuck out a long finger and pointed it right at him. "You, the little man wearing the apron," he growled. "Come out here, I want to talk to you about shirking your job."

Andy cleared his throat, removed the apron and draped it over the back of a chair, and meekly stepped out the door. Caroline, indignant, followed. "Hey, mister, just a minute here!" she began hotly. "Bashful was genuinely sick this afternoon. You must be some kind of cruel slave master to make a poor sick man work even when he can't keep his food down! Shame all over you!"

A ragged chorus of snickers and giggles erupted from the doorway behind them, and they looked around to find Dopey, Doc, Sneezy, Sleepy, Grumpy and Happy crowded into the small space again, unabashedly watching. Caroline lost her temper completely at that. "You nosy little rats, get back inside and shut the blasted door!" she shouted. "Aren't there any cookies left for you mini-hogs to scarf down?"

Even Grumpy looked astonished at her outburst, and for once Happy had an expression on his face that wasn't happy at all. Sleepy yawned. "Might as well," he said. "This is putting me to sleep anyway, and I didn't get my nap today." Reluctantly the dwarves backed into the cottage and shut the door.

"Much better," said the supervisor in a curiously warm voice, removing his hat and a bushy gray fright wig. "Thank you, Miss Shaw."

"Mr. Roarke!" Andy and Caroline exclaimed.

Roarke grinned. "It appears you two have made enough of an acquaintance that you feel comfortable coming to Mr. Holloway's defense," he remarked to Caroline.

Caroline shrugged. "Aw, well…"

"She's a good egg, Mr. Roarke," Andy spoke up. "And you know something, I think we both got the fantasy we wanted—even if it turned out differently from what Caroline was looking for, and even if I didn't know I was looking in the first place."

"Excellent," said Roarke, looking very pleased. "Shall we?" He gestured at the path behind them.

"Yeah, let's go back," Caroline agreed. "I think I've had just about enough of this silly fairy tale anyway. You?"

Andy nodded. "Enough for a lifetime. Wait till Tessa hears this."

§ § § -- September 27, 1999

Roarke and Leslie watched Caroline Shaw and Andy Holloway stroll towards the plane, hand in hand and clearly very happy. "So it seems Miss Shaw's fantasy came true after all," Roarke said, "however unexpectedly."

"Suits me," said Leslie cheerfully. "I like her ending much better than the original." Roarke laughed agreement and patted her shoulder.
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Coming next will be a tale involving Christian…who has a shock for Leslie. Good or bad? … stay tuned!