Hey guys! It's been too long! I hope y'all have been having a great week/weekend! Thanks for all the awesome reviews, as always. Here's a nice, long, plot-filled chapter to tide you over! I hope this makes up for the long wait! Enjoy! :)

Chapter 37: Ohana Means Family

July 31, 2015
Orlando, Florida
Alcott Residence

6:15 P.M.

Willa knocked on the door a few times. She was here right on time, as instructed in Wanda's email. She took a deep breath and stepped back from the door.

In her left pocket, the note from Finn was crumbled up in her fist. Well, at least she thought it was from him. She had woken up this morning from a bad dream only to find that her husband had not come home from his adventures with Maybeck last night. She had called his phone at least ten times before the underlying message sunk in: Philby was missing.

On her way out the door, she noticed a piece of paper lying on the ground, stuffed under the door sometime during the night. It was a torn piece of notebook paper. The ink was blue, but fading—an almost dead pen. On the note was a simple warning, but yet it confused her greatly.

"Throw everything you know about the OT's out the door. Hold them off until I can get there. –FW"

That was the moment where she had decided to leave her daughter at her mother-in-law's and go find Jess. If there was anyone who could have known anything about his disappearance, it would have been Jess.

But she hadn't had any dreams lately. Something highly unusual for her. Which took them to Amanda's house, where she learned that Maybeck was stuck in the top of Cinderella's Castle, waiting instructions on a missing Charlene.

After helping save Maybeck from pirates and other OT goons, she was supposed to meet up with Finn's mother—who, according to Charlene, wasn't even his real mother—but she called Willa asking for a rain check due to her being bedridden with some stomach bug.

And if that wasn't enough to call today a bad day, Amanda called her around 2 in the afternoon, sobbing and ultimately distraught over her sister's disappearance as well. Something about Jess butt-dialing her while it happened? Willa still wasn't sure on the details. Personally, Willa doesn't consider herself fluent in crying girl. She should be, after all those nights with Charlene over the years, but she wasn't quite there yet.

Wanda called her around three, asking if she could come to dinner at precisely six fifteen. Which brings her to the present.

Maybeck and Amanda were over at his apartment, where they were both majorly freaking out about their missing loved ones. Willa was still worried one of them was going to do something rash and get themselves into more trouble—especially after Maybeck explicitly threatened to kill every OT in his way to get to Charlene—but she had promised Wanda this dinner.

Willa was hoping for a nice evening with an old friend, but she had this feeling that she was wrong.

Willa was about to knock on the door again, when Wanda opened it.

"Willa! My dear! Come in." Wanda pulled her into a hug and ushered her inside, where Willa immediately smelt the food. She followed Wanda into the kitchen and was amazed. Wanda had gone all out on this meal: steak, already cut into smaller pieces, white rice, freshly cut vegetables, water filled with ice.

Willa sat down in one of the chairs. "Wow, Wanda. This looks great!"

"Thank you," Wanda said with a smile as she sat down herself. Willa began to take the first bite when Wanda started up the conversation.

"So you must be wondering why I called you here tonight."

Willa nodded, since her mouth was full of the best steak she had ever tasted. She didn't want to make a fool of herself, so she kept her mouth shut.

"I have something to tell you, that I fear you might already know."

Willa finally swallowed and took a sip of her drink. "And what is that?"

"I…well…there's no easy way to say this but—"

"You're my biological mother…aren't you?" Wanda seemed taken aback by Willa's question, so she continued. "Charlene found out that both Finn and I were adopted from the same mother and that we were twins. She couldn't find any records on my birth mother, but, after spending some time thinking about it, you were someone who came to mind."

Wanda, confused as to why her daughter knew about her, still seemed taken aback. "And why is that?"

"You introduced yourself as Wayne's daughter, but your last name isn't the same. No ring on your finger, but you do have a tan line where one used to be," Wanda glanced down at her left hand, "and no mention of children, except for the one time you told me you had kids."

"When did I ever—"

"You visited me before I gave birth to Lizzie," Willa smiled at the memory. "You came in and helped me out while Philby was out of town. You kept telling me about how great of a mom I was going to be. And…you let it slip that you used to have kids, but that they got away from you. Your words exactly, if I recall correctly."

There was at least four minutes of silence before either of them spoke. Wanda took a deep breath. "So…you're not…mad?"

Willa sighed—maybe a little bit too loud. "No. I…I just have a lot of questions."

A smile grew on Wanda's face. She was eager to answer any questions of her daughter's.

Willa had about a million different questions in her head. She didn't know which one to start with. So, of course, she started with the most obvious. The one question every adopted child—or in her case, adult—wants to know.

"Why did you give me and Finn up?"

Wanda took a big interest in her food. It took her a minute to swallow the piece of steak and take a sip of water. She cleared her throat, placing her silverware down with gusto.

"That, I'm afraid is a long story." She stood up. "Let me go get something…to…to help me explain." She left the kitchen, leaving Willa feeling as if she had just struck a nerve. She didn't touch her food as she waited for Wanda—or should she start calling her mom?—to come back. Wanda came back in with, what looked like, a scrapbook tucked under her arm. Wanda pulled her chair around the side of the table so that she could sit right beside Willa.

Willa pushed her plate away from her to make room for the scrapbook.

Wanda placed the scrapbook on the now cleared area and opened it to a random page. She pointed to a picture, a wedding picture to be exact. It was obviously of a much younger Wanda and a handsome man with brown hair and green eyes.

If Willa was being honest with herself, the man looked just like Finn, just a few years older than he was now—assuming he was still alive, that is.

"That, is Jacob Alcott. He was my husband for six years."

Willa was about to ask what happened to him, but she noticed the pained look in her biological mother's eyes and decided not to ask. She'll tell when she's ready, she reminded herself.

"It was 1987 when your father died. So that was twenty-seven years ago—"

"Twenty-eight," Willa corrected her.

"That's right," Wanda chided herself. "You obviously got the brains from your father." She laughed at herself coldly—a joke that Willa would never understand, for she never met her biological father.

"My father, your grandfather, Wayne was in trouble. What's new, right? The Norway Pavilion was in construction and the Maelstrom ride was being built and there were a lot, and I mean a lot of complications. You now refer to those as 'Overtakers.' But back then, they weren't as organized. After their first attempt back in 1956, they were thought to have been destroyed all together—something that is obviously not true."

Willa remembered hearing bits of the 1956 Disneyland war from Wayne. Even the minute details were horrifying enough to bring on nightmares.

"It was the night after I had just found out I was pregnant. Jacob...he was so excited. He kept talking about what the names should be. He wanted to name our first son after his late dad, Lawrence, and our first daughter after his best friend from high school, who had died in a car accident at a young age. Her name was Isabella." Wanda offered Willa a smile.

So that's how Finn and I got our first names...

"Jacob…he was worried about his father-in-law…and he decided to help him out one night at Malestrom keeping the peace. Wayne and Jacob were trying to defend the ride against 'Overtakers.' That night in particular had been rough, according to Dad. Lots of fighting. Lots of unexpected visitors. And somewhere in the chaos, the two of them had gotten separated."

Willa froze. She knew where this was going. If there was one thing she had learned very early on in her experience as a Kingdom Keeper, it was that you never go alone. Anywhere. Ever.

Wanda wiped away a tear. "Your father died at the hands of a villain we had never seen in EPCOT up to this point."

Willa waited patiently for Wanda to finish the story—a story, Willa unfortunately already knew the ending too.

"Maleficent had stabbed him. Dad…Dad…he…he found him on the floor of the polar bear room. D-d-d" Her voice broke. Even after all these years, it seemed to still be a touchy subject. Willa knew that if she never got Philby back, she would be the same way. This must be how Amanda has felt for the past year, Willa finally realized.

"He was dead," Willa finished for her mother.

As Wanda was trying to compose herself, Willa reached over and put a hand on her mother's back, trying to soothe her, despite how awkward it felt.

Wanda wiped away one last tear. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I…I've personally regretted giving you two up every second since. I…I didn't want to do it, but…but…without Jacob's income…I couldn't support a baby, especially not two. I…I just knew that I was giving you two your best chance by giving you away."

It was Willa that was quiet this time. Wanda focused in on the scrapbook, mindlessly flipping through the pages.

"When Dad called me the day before he disappeared all those years ago—I believe you all refer to that day as the 'Animal Kingdom Incident'—telling me all about you, he never mentioned I would be meeting my two children."

"Then how did you know it was us?"

"Finn looks just like your father. There…there was no mistaking it." Wanda wiped another tear and turned to the last page of the scrapbook. "And Wayne told me a few months after that. He had wanted me to come back into your lives, but…but I was afraid if you two knew the truth, that neither of you would want to talk to me or even want me in your lives."

"Oh Wanda," Willa pulled her mother into a hug. "I would never do that."

And for a moment, it was a beautiful reunion of mother and daughter. And then that moment ended.

Wanda pointed to the last page of the scrapbook. Taped there to the page were a series of envelopes. She ripped them off and searched through them, handing every other one to Willa.

"The day before he died, he wrote these. Whether we had a boy or a girl, he didn't want to forget all the great things he wanted you two to learn from him, so he wrote them down in these letters."

Willa looked down at them. There were seven and they were labeled: daughter's first day of school, daughter's first date, daughter's 16th birthday, daughter's high school graduation day, daughter's first day of college, daughter's 21st birthday, daughter's wedding day.

She looked over to the stack that Willa had kept and noticed that they all said the same topics, just with the word "son's" instead of "daughter's."

"These…these are for you…read them…don't…I don't care. I just feel like Jacob would want you to have these now that you know." She eyed the letters written for Finn in her hands and hesitantly handed them over to Willa. "Will you…give these to Amanda? For…for when Finn comes back?"

She took them in her hands and nodded, not looking at her biological mother.

"How come we still got the same names? I mean, we were adopted and all that. Wouldn't our adopted parents choose our names?"

"Your adopted mothers both knew each other beforehand, college I believe. Mrs. Angelo wanted a girl, but did not want to risk going through pregnancy again, since she had already had three boys at this point. Mrs. Whitman thought she couldn't have children, which we all know is false now. Together, they decided they would adopt a set of twins. I met the two when I was eight months pregnant. I let it slip that that's what your father would have wanted you to be called. I never knew they would keep those names."

Another moment of silence.

Willa swallowed the lump in her throat. "Why tell me about all this now? Why not just continue on like always?"

Wanda closed the scrapbook and looked over at her daughter. "Because…because…well…I've been trying to gain the courage for a long time now. Now…now just seemed like the right time."

Wanda stood up and pulled her daughter into a hug. "Please let me help find your husband and the rest of your friends."

Willa smiled, even though her mother couldn't see it. "I was hoping you'd ask."

And for the first time in a long time, Willa was never happier to be hugging her mother. All those years of fighting between her adopted mother and herself had left her hurting and ready to leave home. And now, here she was, with a loving, caring woman who just happened to be her biological mother. Was she a little hurt that she was given up in the first place? Yes. Did she understand why Wanda had done so? Yes.

The first thing Willa wanted to do after letting go of Wanda was to read her biological father's letters but she refrained when she heard the sound of her cellphone. The caller ID told her that it was her mother-in-law.

"I'm so sorry, I have to take this. She's watching Lizzie." Willa said, grabbing the letters with her free hand.

"That's fine with me. Just keep me updated on your search for the rest of your little group," Wanda added with a smile.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow," Willa promised.

Wanda nodded and escorted her daughter out of the front door. Willa gave her one last hug before finally hitting the green answer button on her phone.

July 31, 2015
Wispy Sunny Pines Mental Institution

8:53 P.M.

Charlene wasn't sure where she was, but she knew it was dark out. It seemed like ages since she had gotten out of the back of the van.

Hans pulled her out and pushed her along toward the door. He had untied her hands, but he was holding them together in a firm grip. He hadn't ripped out the gag yet, which puzzled her. Wouldn't somebody question a guy walking around with a girl with a gag in her mouth? She glanced behind her and saw that where she was happened to be fenced in…with a barbed wire fence. Great, she thought to herself. Just great. I'm trapped.

Charlene turned back to face the front and got a good look at the building Hans was leading her too. It was a tall brick building that had been worn down by the years. Most of the windows had no light coming out of them, but the ones that did only emitted faint glows—probably because the windows looked to be covered with thick curtains. Hans pushed her up the front steps and pressed a button the door, the kind of button you see in apartment complexes. On the door, the words: Wispy Sunny Pines Mental Institution were written in bold black letters.

Charlene's eyes went wide with recognition.

Hans took the gag out of her mouth slowly, waiting for Charlene to act, but she didn't. She had never been to this place but she knew it all too well.

It was where her brother had been taken when she was eleven. He was six at the time. Sixteen years had passed since she had last seen him. Would he even remember her? He barely remembered anything after the horrible accident. Why would he remember his older sister?

The door opened and Hans pushed her through. The inside was starch white. Nothing out of place. Walls, floors, doors, ceiling…everything white. If any light would have been turned on, Charlene would have been blinded.

Hans pushed her down a hallway to the right and leaned in close so that their conversation could not be heard.

"Turns out, that little insane brother of yours might have some use after all."

"Why are you bringing me her?" Charlene said through gritted teeth. Nobody called her brother insane. He was just…different. The accident had changed things.

"To show you your fate, if you do not cooperate with me."

Hans stopped at the fourth door on the right and pushed Charlene through. He closed the door behind her, not coming in herself. Charlene found the light switch and flipped it on. On one of the two bunk beds laid a young man, who just had to be Thomas. He had Charlene's blonde hair. He was probably an inch or two taller than her now. The light switching on suddenly woke him up.

Something didn't feel right, but Charlene couldn't put her finger on it.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes before focusing in on her.

"Charlie?"

Charlene took in a sharp breath. "Thomas?"

Thomas broke out into a smile. "You finally came! I knew you would!" He ran up to her and gave her a hug. She hesitated before hugging him back. He let go of her and she got a good look at him. He was about six-foot one with her blonde hair and sparkling green eyes that had come out from some strange genetic combination. He looked good for being raised in a mental institution.

"You knew I was coming?" Charlene asked, confused as ever.

Thomas moved over to sit on the bunk bed and motioned for her to sit with him, which she did. "I've been having these crazy dreams, Charlie. I was worried about you. I knew you would show up eventually."

Charlene wanted to cry. The horrible car accident hadn't ended well for her or her brother. She had resulted in a nasty concussion and a broken leg. He had been in a coma for two days and had serious brain damage. When he woke up, he claimed to have weird dreams. Dreams about things that happened not long after his confessions. Her brother was institutionalized for talking about the crazy dreams he had, but yet Jess got to live out in the real world and have a life. They were the same type of dreams. Charlene found that out quickly after meeting Jess. That was her initial reason for not wanting her around. Her parents pushed her brother away. He never got to grow up like she did and it made her so angry on the inside.

"What kind of dreams Thomas?"

Thomas closed his eyes and placed a hand on top of hers. "There's…a…dragon. It's big and black and purple…and…I see…a sword." Thomas opened his eyes and smiled. "The good witch will bring the sword."

"The good witch?" Charlene knitted her eyebrows in confusion. "Who is that?"

Thomas shrugged. "I don't know."

As Charlene let that sink in, her eyes wandered across the bedroom. She noticed his drawings were taped to the wall across from the bed—the one wall she couldn't see when she had walked into the room only minutes earlier.

Charlene pointed to the wall of pictures. "Mind if I look—"

"Oh yeah!" Thomas stood up with her and walked over to his pictures. "You've had an interesting life Charlie."

She saw pictures of her drawn all over. There was one of her winning Prom Queen senior year and dancing with Prom King Bradley, the captain of the football team. There was a drawing of the first time Maybeck tried to kiss her—back when she was under the OT spell—in the dessert shop at the Norway Pavilion. There was a perfect painting of Maybeck, in his army uniform, proposing to Charlene in her gymnastics leotard in London.

Then she saw a drawing in process. It looked like one of those story board drawings she saw in the Imagineering headquarters that one time. It was a perfect drawing of Maleficent in dragon form, this time instead of Prince Philip facing her with a magic sword, she saw her friends. Some of the picture was colored in, so she could at least tell who was who based off hair color. Willa was handing a glowing sword to Finn. The only other people were just blobs, waiting to be drawn in. The background was white. Either Thomas was unsure or he hadn't had the time to color it in yet.

Charlene touched that one with her hand. "Thomas…is this your newest one?"

He nodded. "It's the most confusing one yet. I haven't seen this guy—" He pointed to Finn "—in any of my dreams for a long time. I assumed he was dead."

Charlene wanted to jump for joy. If this was their future, that meant that Finn wasn't dead, like they were all beginning to think. He was alive and coming back to help them. "He was missing for a long time." She pointed to the drawing of Finn and smiled at Thomas. "But this means he's coming back."

"Is that your new fiancée?"

Charlene was confused. Thomas pointed down at her left hand, where her engagement ring was gleaming under the fluorescent light. "Oh, no…Maybeck gave that one to me."

"Wait…" Thomas searched through the pictures. "Maybeck…he's this guy, right?" Thomas pointed to the picture of Maybeck throwing a javelin. Charlene recognized that scene from the night Finn and Willa had jumped off the ships. He had thrown that javelin and hit a hyena, hoping it would let go of the flash drive Finn had purposely tried to save.

Charlene nodded.

"Is he treating you right Charlie?"

Charlene laughed. "I haven't seen you for sixteen years and you're worried that I'm not getting married to the right guy?"

Thomas rolled his mesmerizing green eyes, placing his hands on his hips. "I know you're going to get married to him anyway. I have to ask these questions as your little brother."

"How come you haven't left this place, Tommy?" She asked in all seriousness. He seemed perfectly fine to her.

"The doctor won't let me. Something about mom…" He shook his head, choosing not to finish the sentence.

"Mom's not in charge of you anymore. How old are you now? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?"

"Twenty-two in two weeks."

"It's not fair that you're still here. You were just a scared little kid."

"I was different. Mom doesn't do…different." His tone of voice changed to a darker side that she had never seen on him, though she imagined he had. She would be furious at Mom too, if she had kept her here for sixteen years just because she was "different."

But Mom had told me that Thomas was dead not long after he came here...Charlene reminded herself. Why...why would she make that up?

"I know someone who has the same ability as you. She can dream the future too," Charlene tried to calm her brother down. She remembered how long it would take him to cool down once he got made. She didn't want anything bad to happen.

"Is it a curse to her as well?" His bitter tone was cooling down slowly.

Charlene smiled. "That's what she says. It's saved our lives countless times." She pointed to the wall of pictures. "They look a lot like this, actually. Her pictures, that is. But she's a little bit better than you, I suppose."

Thomas looked generally hurt by her statement. "What makes you say that?"

"Because she got captured because of her ability. You didn't do that." Charlene smirked, obviously joking with him.

"And she…she gets to have a normal life?"

Charlene nodded and took a step closer to her brother. "I could get you out of here, you know," she whispered. "Mom's not in charge of you anymore. You could come live with me and Maybeck until you got onto your feet."

Thomas looked down at her, since he was taller than her now, and she saw a spark of hope in his green eyes. "You would do that?"

Charlene nodded, giving him a hug. "Of course. You're my little brother. I don't care how tall you are. You'll always be that." She let go of him and held out her hand for their super secret handshake, one that she hoped he remembered.

"Ohana means family," he whispered, starting their childhood handshake with her.

"And family means nobody gets left behind," Charlene finished.

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. A memory flashed back to her childhood. Charlene and Thomas were ten and five, respectively. They were doing the same handshake. But one thing was different beside their ages. His eyes. Thomas had blue eyes. Not green eyes. Nobody had that shade of green in their eyes naturally.

Charlene gasped.

"Are you okay, Charlie?" Thomas asked.

Charlene decided to play it off cool. "I'm kind of…uh…in a predicament here…" She pointed to the door. "so I'm not sure when I'll…uh…be able to come and get you…but I will…I promise."

Thomas glanced over his shoulder to the door. "I can get rid of him, if you like."

Charlene offered him a sympathetic smile. "Thanks, Tommy, but if I don't go with him—"

"Maybeck is in trouble."

"How did you—"

Thomas pointed to another in-progress drawing. She saw Maybeck trapped up in the Cinderella Castle apartment with two pirates. She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Oh."

"I believe you, Charlene. I know you won't leave me like Mom did."

Charlene wondered why her brother had been picked by Maleficent. His prison sentence in the institution made more sense now. It wasn't because he was insane. It was because he had the same gift Jess had. Only one thing was different: Maleficent had gotten a hold of him. She could keep him from telling anybody about his dreams. Charlene gave her brother one last hug, savoring the moment, before walking out the door.

She wanted answers. She wanted her brother's freedom. And she wanted those things now.

But for now, she had to play the "good prisoner." She would find those answers and free her fiancée and her brother. She was just as much of a hero as Finn. Finn wasn't around at the current moment, so she was determined to step up and take charge. She had to. She didn't have a choice.

She saw Hans glaring at her and she held her head up a little higher. "I'm ready to leave."

Hans chuckled. "Time in the loony bin too much for you?"

"My brother is not crazy."

Hans rolled his eyes. "Just know that if things don't go the way they're supposed to. You'll be in the same eternal prison as Thomas in there. Trapped forever. With no knowledge of time or space. Just a prisoner of Maleficent's." His evil laugh echoed throughout the hall. He motioned for the exit. "Time to go. We've got to lock you up where your friends will never find you."

Charlene walked out the front door of Wispy Sunny Pines with her head held high. If she was going to be kidnapped, she was going to do it on her terms. She was going to keep her dignity despite her circumstances. Once she had been placed in the back of the van and Hans had started driving, she decided to say one last thing.

"Maybeck will find me, you know. I'd watch your back if I were you. He's not someone you want to mess with."

Hans snorted. "I'll believe that when I see it."

So this was more of a answering questions/filling in plot holes chapter. The Willa/Finn sister/brother thing has been answered for good. Thomas' role in Charlene's life has been answered...well to a point ;)

Will Charlene be able to save all of her friends and her brother?

Find out, in coming chapters. The last ones...to be exact. Here's a little spoiler alert for the next chapter, if you want: An anonymous source is going to be giving away the locations of the missing Keepers. I can't tell you who it is...yet ;) Any guesses?

Please review! I love reading them! I'd love to know what y'all thought about this chapter. Even if it's one word. I'd also love to read who you think the "anonymous source" is.

I'll try to have the next one up as soon as possible. No guarantees on how fast that'll be, but I'll try! Have a great rest of the weekend and a great week! :)