A/N: Note to self: next time, finish the chapter before a year has passed. JFC.
In For a Penny...
Deborvak awakened to discover breakfast lay out on a table floating in the air and Magdalene and Tootie already chowing down. He pushed himself into a sitting position and immediately collapsed. Groaning, he reached for his wand and didn't find it. He whined, almost considering calling his wife to him. This was pitiful. He felt like the nearest breeze could send him flying. Lying back against the pillows, he stared at the ceiling.
"You're awake?" Magdalene inquired. She held a platter of eggs and bacon. Pushing a button on his stretcher, she turned it into the upright position and offered him a tray. He eyed her and she rolled her eyes.
"It's not poison," she promised. "I think we got off to a bad start yesterday. It was a rude awakening for everyone."
"You're not kidding," he grumbled.
"Jorgen isn't going to let me godparent unless I can prove myself changed…and the only way to do that is to serve with you," she said.
"How noble," he scoffed. "You just want my job."
"I want to be close to Tootie, yes," she confirmed. "She's the only family I have left."
"What about Vicky?" he asked. At the breakfast table, Tootie choked and Magdalene waved Deb's wand to clear her airways. That explained that mystery. However, that didn't explain why Magdalene no longer possessed a wand.
"Vicky doesn't count as family," Magdalene commented darkly.
He inclined his head. There were quite a few relatives he shared that sentiment for. He picked at his food and closed his eyes again. There were things he had to do and none of it would get done while he felt so weak. He was a burden and his village had made it clear what happened to burdens.
Shuddering, he tried to sit up again and couldn't push himself forward. Tears sprang to his eyes and he couldn't wipe them away. With a sigh, he whispered, "Fuck it."
"You're going to need help," Magdalene commented.
"Not from you," he hissed. "Jorgen will probably just reassign me or dump me in favor of someone else. I failed Tootie, after all. And my family. And probably a fuckload of other people I can't think of right now."
Magdalene ran her fingers through her curls. "I've been doing some thinking. I wasn't acting rationally yesterday. What I encountered with Vicky and seeing Jorgen again stirred up bad memories, memories of Nathaniel dying. I've never been cruel, not like that. But it's being alone."
"I know," Deborvak croaked. "Especially when you realize that you could have died and your lover would have had no idea."
Magdalene stiffened and curled in on herself. She drifted back to Tootie after a minute and he tuned out their conversation. He'd never felt so tired in his life. He wanted to drift away, far away, to a world where none of this mattered. He wondered what had happened to that sorceress. Perhaps his mistress had murdered her. So long as she hadn't gotten to his family, everything would be all right.
"You're awake," Jorgen remarked, appearing in a gigantic dust cloud. Deborvak coughed and then winced, opening his eyes. He'd coughed up blood.
"After you are done answering my questions, you will be transferred to Fairy World's infirmary," he announced.
"I dunno if they can do much for me," he muttered. "S'not like I'm the typical fairy they meet."
Jorgen produced a giant chair and Tootie vacated the table to sit next to Deb on the bed. Magdalene floated, hesitant, and then joined Tootie and him. Last night, he had tried and failed to reach her mind and this morning, she opened it enough for him to sense her sincerity. Perhaps after a night's sleep, she had reached some conclusions. He wanted to distrust it, but he was too tired and too feeble. It felt like he hadn't slept at all.
"What happened that you were unable to fulfill your duties as a godfather?" Jorgen intoned.
"Nobody told me there was a quiz," he replied weakly. "I didn't study."
"He said—"Tootie started and Jorgen glared.
"I will hear this from him," he snapped.
"You wouldn't listen to me when I wanted to tell you what happened," Magdalene whispered. Against his will, he found himself sympathetic. She and Tootie were curled up near his feet and he could, if he could move, reach out and touch them.
"There isn't much to tell," he hedged. He stared at Fairy World's ruler. "I'm guessing dragging it out of my head isn't an option, right?"
"We do not do that here," he replied. "But it is rare to encounter such grievous injuries to a fairy."
"You're tellin' me," he muttered. Louder, he said, "All right. I told Tootie and Magdalene most of it, but I guess I can repeat it again. S'not like I'm going anywhere in a hurry.
"A few months ago, I stumbled upon dragon eggs. They were laying there, a clutch, abandoned. I brought them to my mistress and she found them very curious. She permitted me to adopt one while she tended to the rest inside the castle. Around this time, I received a summons from a dark sorceress intent on recruiting me.
"Not sure if you're aware of this, but I straddle two different worlds. While I perform my duties as Tootie's godfather, I'm also beholden to my mistress. She considers data gathered from this world useful. She also thought it might be a good idea to see what this sorceress wanted with me…
"And then I started getting threats. It'd been a couple weeks since the sorceress began trying to recruit me an' I guess she was getting desperate. If it were just threats against me, I could've handled that. But the threats were against my family. She threatened anyone and everyone I cared for.
"She was close to finding the portal between my world and Dimmsdale. If she had glimpsed Tootie, she could have done her grievous harm, to say nothing of my flesh and blood who wanted to flee there. I had to step in and volunteer to be trained to prevent damage. So I did.
"When I say she was 'evil'…I mean it. The things she forced me to do—" he gulped and shook his head. "Not gonna talk about that. The point is that eventually I realized, too late, that she intended to kill my firstborn, take her power, and use me like a puppet to get what she wanted. She knocked me out and would have killed me if my mistress hadn't stepped in to save me.
"After she saved me…" he exhaled shakily. "She hauled me back here, under the condition that—actually, I dunno what she said. I wasn't really cognizant of much at that point."
He stared at the bed. "I know what you're gonna say. 'This is what comes of splitting your responsibilities.' The Empress taught me magic and I was taking time away from Tootie to learn it and try to be both things at the same time. It's backfired on me in the past too. Things got out of control an' I'm sorry—so do your worst. I'm sure it's waiting for me back home too."
After he had finished, there was silence. He turned his head and Jorgen looked profoundly uncomfortable. Emotion was not his strong suit. Magdalene was looking at him and reached across to squeeze his hand. Loss weighed heavily on her and he shied away from the idea of them being kindred spirits, despite mentioning it yesterday. He didn't want to think about it now.
"I need to choose," Deb continued. "That's what you're going to say. And I have. But I'm not sure the choice is mine anymore."
"You must either serve as Tootie's godfather or return home," Jorgen confirmed and frowned. "You should have come to me before it reached this point."
"I should've told my mistress, too," he said and couldn't make eye contact. "She had no idea either. Neither did my wife or my family. I thought I could handle it. I thought…I thought giving in would be weak."
"Asking for help when you need it is not weak," Jorgen said. "You said you have reached a decision."
"Yes," he said and inclined his head. "I think…The gist of what the Empress said to me…is that she's releasing me from her services until such a time as my duty here is done. So I'll be here if you want me."
"You will not be able to serve in any capacity for a while," he scoffed. "However, when you are recovered, we will discuss this in greater detail."
"Wait, so are you removing me or not?" he asked.
"I am not," he replied. "We will talk about it later."
Waving his giant wand, he removed Deborvak from the premises. Sleep descended over Deborvak again, as quickly as Magdalene's spell yesterday, and he found himself sinking into it. Curling into a ball, he whimpered and reached out. He yearned to be in the soft arms of his mother or his wife...but when he reached, he encountered nothing. He was alone, so pitifully alone.
Nathaniel settled himself down to watch the only remotely entertaining thing he could find on TV. Occasionally, either by design or by accident, cameras from Fairy World caught glimpses of Earth and other fairy domiciles. He still remembered the horrible Timmy TV month and grimaced. This place, however, looked like a location in Fairy World that Jorgen used for interrogations. Nathaniel recognized it from his own experiences.
Sometimes Fairy World TV broadcast this as a warning to people like him not to mess with those in charge. Nathaniel reached for the remote and then stopped, spying something out of the corner of his eye. The camera showed Jorgen sitting across from a fairy and a child sitting on a hospital stretcher. It gave a bird's eye view, hardly the best for the circumstances, but he'd know those purple curls anywhere. They were streaked with white now and she was smaller than he remembered.
"Magdalene!" he cried.
Curling in on herself, the former fairy godmother glared at Jorgen. "Saying that you've been withholding information is an understatement."
"It was necessary," he said. He glared back. "You also withheld information from me, crucial information."
"If I had told you, you would have locked him up!" she protested. "Like you did with all the others! I don't even know why you let Tootie live on Earth!"
Uneasy, Fairy World's leader looked to Tootie and then back at Magdalene. He waved his wand and Tootie vanished too.
"Hey!" Tootie had yelped before she disappeared into thin air. Jorgen shifted, hands on his knees, and looked at Magdalene. Magdalene stared after the human girl and looked back at Fairy World's leader.
"That information is not for her to know," Jorgen said gravely. "How much have you told her?"
"Not all of it," she confessed. She looked morose and chewed on her bottom lip. "I might've tried to shove her godfather out of the picture and take his place. I hadn't planned on intervening, but she's the first descendant I've had who has shown such promise in generations. And she's so miserable. You can see it."
"I know she is," Jorgen conceded. "However, we have worse troubles."
"You always have worse troubles than Tootie," she muttered.
"Her sister Vicky tried to destroy Timmy Turner's fairies in an attempt to repeat the wrong that was done to her," he intoned. "His parents consider her their babysitter. Timmy can only wish that away for so long before the fairy claiming influence over her strikes back. The latent magic within her leaves her susceptible."
"And you can't remove all memory of her and remake her," she echoed. "She's too pervasive."
Jorgen frowned. "You're serious about wanting to help Tootie?"
"What else do I have?" she replied. "I have no one to take care of and no one to look after. I've been alone for centuries."
"You were only exiled for a hundred years," he reminded her.
"You forbade me from godparenting," she replied. "And Nathaniel died in my arms. I had no desire to return to Fairy World."
"I died in her arms?" Nathaniel repeated, staring at the TV set in numb disbelief. Rage built slowly and he breathed through clenched teeth. "You let her think I was dead?"
A shadow passed over Jorgen's face, but he didn't correct Magdalene's misconceptions. Looking outside and then above them, to where the camera was, he inclined his head. Nathaniel was incensed. Balling his fists on the seat, he hissed and strangled a cry. For her to think he had died and then to suffer alone on Earth for centuries was unbearable. Powerless to reach her, Nathaniel screamed.
Outside, the security guards who kept an eye on him glanced at each other. He could see them through the window. Flipping them off, he resisted the urge to indulge in the magic Magdalene had given him. It was hard, though. His vision had turned to red and he was panting. He jumped off the seat, spun around, and for a few minutes, all he saw were things flying. Items flew past his head, shattered into pieces, and cascaded around the room.
"If you can apprehend Vicky and this rogue fairy, I will permit you to assist Deborvak," Jorgen said.
"What about me?" Nathaniel choked. "Aren't you going to tell her about me?"
"What I don't understand, after all these years-" she bit her lip and blood trickled down her chin. "Why did you kill him?"
"I'm not dead!" Nathaniel railed. Around him, the bookcase had upended and its contents everywhere. Paintings and posters were in ruins; he'd knocked over the game consoles and controllers, and tears streaked his cheeks. He couldn't feel himself crying, but when he brushed his face, he felt the wetness.
"Tell her I'm not dead!" he demanded. "Tell her the truth!"
"The magic you gave him was too powerful," Jorgen replied.
"No, no, no!" Nathaniel screamed. He stared at the TV screen. Magdalene's face fell and she folded in on herself. Bowing her head, she gasped a sob. He was letting her think she'd killed him. The monster was making her believe that she'd killed her lover. Nathaniel screamed again and a burst of pure magic sailed through the windows and knocked the guards down. It, however, had no effect on the magical prison. The windows remained as they were, even if the guards were unconscious.
"It was my fault…" she breathed.
"I'm not dead!" he screamed. "How could you...how could you do this to her?"
"I will give you a little while to collect your things and make a plan before returning to Earth," Jorgen said, not responding to Magdalene's distress. Pounding his giant wand on the floor, he disappeared. Nathaniel could barely hear her sobs through the pounding in his head. Snarling, he destroyed the chair he had sat upon in a towering inferno. If he had to, he would burn everything in his path, if only he could meet her again.
"It's not fair!" he cried.
"Of course life isn't fair, youngling," he heard Magdalene from centuries ago say, "but that's why you have me."
Devastated, he collapsed onto the loveseat and buried his face in his hands. He didn't understand. Jorgen knew the truth. Why withhold it from her? What could he hope to gain from this? What was he hoping to gain by keeping Nathaniel in isolation in Fairy World while doctors and scientists ran a battery of tests on him? Or was he just shunting away his problems like Magdalene had told him Jorgen did with half-fairies?
"I bet that's why he let Magdalene stay on Earth in exile," he muttered. "Because then he wouldn't have to deal with her."
Nauseated, sick with anger, he stared at the door. If he tried to open it, it was like steel. Only others could open it and if he attempted to dash past them, the shield repelled him. There had to be a way to break it. He had thought there was in the past, only to be thwarted, but he had a concrete reason to want out now. Cocking his head at the door, a painted wooden door that looked so ordinary and yet had caused him grief, he imagined it on fire. That didn't happen, but he knew it wouldn't be so simple.
Things seldom were.
Still standing in his inferno, he barely noticed Jorgen's entrance. The smoke and flames dispersed and Fairy World's ruler towered over him. Nathaniel looked up; only disdain shone in his eyes. Jorgen, however, looked remorseful.
"We must talk," he said softly.
"There is nothing to discuss," he replied curtly. "You've done everything you want to do to me and more. I've become your human lab rat."
Ignoring him, Jorgen continued. "Once Magdalene passes her training, as I have no doubt she will, I will tell her the truth."
"And you really think she'll trust you after that?" he sneered. Jorgen waved his wand and repaired Nathaniel's living room. The sight of it back together again infuriated him. Everything in Fairy World could be repaired or replaced, but the one thing he wanted more than anything, escape, was beyond his reach. He stood there and fought a scream.
"That will be up to her," he responded. "I will offer her back her old job…and I will offer her marriage to you."
Nathaniel's head spun. A sarcastic reply flew to his tongue and he bit it back. Dizzy, he stumbled into his chair. Stunned, he gaped at the large fairy.
"I don't understand," he protested. "You've lied to her. You've removed her from everything she cared for and destroyed her happiness. Why would you offer her this?"
"Why would I offer both of you this," he corrected. "We nearly lost the only fairy willing to train a half-blood in hundreds of years. Were it not for Magdalene's interference, we might have suffered worse. And Deborvak's 'mistress', Empress Utah, is not someone Fairy World can afford to antagonize."
Nathaniel frowned. Someone was more powerful than fairies? He'd known about alternate realms for a while now, though most lacked magic. Fairies were traditionally stronger here, but in other worlds, dragons took the forefront. Empress Utah must be a dragon and a dangerous one at that if Jorgen feared upsetting her.
"Are you doing this to help or to appease someone you consider a threat?" he asked.
"Empress Utah has nothing to do with this," he answered. "I am doing this because…"
He hesitated and grimaced. "Cupid has never forgiven me for breaking you two apart. Evidently, I went against Da Rules hundreds of years ago and separated true love. As you well know, only Bonded couples can experience telepathy and shared emotions. And Bonds only happen between true loves in this world."
"If you knew about this hundreds of years ago…" he started, glowering.
"I could not locate Magdalene for hundreds of years," he said. "And I may have overlooked your condition."
Nathaniel balled his fists. "Overlooked" was a fancy way to state that he'd disregarded him and experimented with him. Magdalene's disappearance surprised him less than Jorgen's behavior. Magdalene had never been a public person. She held her wounds close. He could only imagine how her guilt had wracked her over the years.
"You tell her before she starts godparenting," he informed him. "As a measure of good faith. You've hurt her enough."
Jorgen hesitated and stared around him. At length, he spoke again.
"I will permit you to leave this cabin and work alongside her; you will serve as a teacher at Timmy Turner's school. You will not reveal your identity. However, if she can divine it, then I will permit you to reunite before her probation. If she does not, I will reveal it to her afterward. Are we agreed?"
So he was to leave Fairy World in disguise. Nathaniel frowned. It was better than lingering here, although he ached that Jorgen planned to pull the wool over Magdalene's eyes again. Hundreds of years imprisoned here and he had never stopped loving her. And for hundreds of years, Magdalene had paid the price for her affection.
"I can tell Tootie who I am," he replied.
"You can tell Deborvak," he answered. "Tootie has not proven effective enough at keeping secrets."
"Deal," Nathaniel said, though he had no idea what sort of person or fairy Deborvak really was. He could have agreed to cooperate with the devil, for all he knew. Nonetheless, he shook on it and, in a cloud of fairy dust, Nathaniel Bernhardt finally left his prison for Earth.
And Magdalene. Tootie as well, as his living descendant. But mostly Magdalene.
Vicky, morose, stared at her bedroom walls. She felt completely drained and utterly useless. Generally, when she had an inkling that she might be depressed, she hurt someone. That usually made her feel much better. Now, she could barely muster the strength to get out of bed.
"You failed me," a disembodied voice called and Vicky winced. "You let the fairies best you."
"It's not my fault!" she protested. "How was I supposed to know how powerful the twerp's fairies are?"
"You underestimated the potential of parents to protect their children," the voice replied derisively. "You cannot be allowed to fail me again."
"I don't want to fail again," she replied, sitting up in bed. Her limbs felt like they were weighed down. She missed the ease she had moved around only yesterday. It felt like she'd been hit by a boulder.
"That's right. You don't," the voice suggested nastily and Vicky froze. She cocked her head and listened to noises within the house. Tootie, along with her stupid parrot, had vanished yesterday. The faint indications of magic that she typically ignored were gone. She hadn't even recognized them for what they were until yesterday, when she'd encountered Timmy's fairies at full strength.
"Yes, I've awakened your powers," the voice continued and then sneered. "What little there are."
Vicky balled her fists and pushed to a standing position. She needed to get dressed, grab a shower, and deal with the problem. It felt like her head was stuffed with cotton, though, and moving too fast made her dizzy. She looked around for the source of the voice, for where the magic must emanate, and found an area in a corner that shimmered faintly.
"Stop condemning me," she protested. "I'll get it done."
"See that you do," he snapped. "I'll give you some additional help, but I won't tell you what it is or how to use it. That'll be up to you."
"Basically, you're dumping shit on me and then not telling me how to handle it," she scoffed. "Thanks a lot."
"If it weren't for me, you would have no knowledge of your powers at all," he snapped back.
"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have cared," she muttered and then shivered, recalling the frightened little girl waiting for her late parents on the swing set. Images assaulted her and she shoved them away. No longer weighed down, with the fear and resentment galvanizing her, she glowered at the corner where she believed the fairy to be.
"Don't blame me for seeing what you needed to kick start your potential," he replied. "If you cannot hurt this boy, then I will have to do something else with you, something decidedly unpleasant."
Stomach roiling, she snarled and dove at the corner. She collided with the wall and hissed, rolling over and flipping the air the bird. Her chest was tight and she seethed, screaming obscenities. Her parents, who could have heard her, already knew better than to intervene. Her parents were useless, anyway. Everyone was useless. The only one she could count on was herself.
After grabbing a shower, dressing, and sitting down for breakfast, she became aware of a presence at her back. Infuriated that the creature had returned, she flung her cereal in that general direction. A woman materialized; she was middle aged, with curly pink hair and a yellow sunflower dress. Vicky recognized her though she couldn't have said from where. The woman had an otherworldly aura that instantly put her on guard.
"Who the hell are you?" she spat. "And how did you get here?"
"This has gone on long enough," the woman said. "You need to leave Timmy alone."
Vicky scoffed. "Lemme guess. You're one of his lame ass fairies come to warn me about the dangers of hurting him, right?"
The woman's eyes narrowed. Vicky had the impression that this woman could be very patient and loving with the right person. However, she was not the right person and the look the fairy gave her was coldly furious. She supposed she ought to care that someone more powerful than her could best her. But the encounter with that fairy this morning had given her back her ruthlessness and callousness. Let this fairy take her best shot.
"Since you know who I am and I'm still here," the woman said, though the color had drained from her face at Vicky's statement, "I assume that you have some sort of magic at your disposal."
"That's right, bitch," she sneered. The woman's face tightened and her glower dropped a few more degrees. The kitchen, too, seemed to lose heat.
"Don't call me that," she snapped.
"I'll call you whatever the hell I want to call you," she retorted. "I don't give a shit. You're in my way."
"It's unfortunate that you feel that way," she replied. "Not that we could have been friends or reached an agreement because I know you too well to expect that. However, I had hoped you would have realized what you're up against."
"Some haughty bitch, her stupid husband, and a runt?" she scoffed. "I wish you had choked on that plunger."
The woman bristled and stood up from her chair. When she stood, she was the same height as Vicky. Vicky ignored her pounding heart and told herself she wasn't afraid. This woman didn't scare her. Besides, she had come alone. What could she possibly hope to accomplish by herself?
"I don't wish ill on other people," she snapped. Her eyes narrowed. "But I hope you get what's coming to you, eventually."
In a cloud of pink fairy dust, the woman disappeared and Vicky waved the dust away from her eyes. She couldn't believe this woman thought she had the right to lecture her. She glared at the cereal she'd wasted, decided she wouldn't bother to clean it up, and stomped off up the stairs to grab her things. She needed a new battle plan. She could only let things stand for so long, after all.
The voice had intonated but hadn't given any useful suggestions. Clearly, Timmy's fairies were on their guards now. Disabling them hadn't worked yesterday, either. She had to find a way to remove them from the picture. In order to do that, she needed to learn their weaknesses. Blackmail, she figured, wouldn't do any good against supernatural creatures that she barely knew.
Irritated that her plan would require further research, she searched for fairies' weaknesses. One website suggested iron, although she wasn't sure whether that would work, given that the site spelled fairy "faerie". Everyone knew that didn't look right. She pushed that idea to the junk pile and continued on.
Another website, one that Denzel Crocker had produced, said that butterfly nets could catch fairies. If that was the case, why hadn't he caught anything? She closed that window too and found another site, one written by a woman called Doombringer. Vicky grinned wickedly. Someone called Doombringer had to know what she was talking about.
She'd seek this woman out and figure out her plans from there. After all, the woman had boasted capturing fairies and torturing them before their untimely deaths. Right now, all Vicky wanted was to do the same to Timmy's fairies. Then she'd move onto Timmy, Tootie, and that asshole that had ruined her life.
Doombringer, according to her blog, was substituting at a local high school. Everyone knew you only needed 60 college credits to get a sub license…or intimidation. Vicky figured she could cozy up to her and share her magic. Then she'd bite, hook, line, and sinker.