Note: Update! I'm so happy that I can keep up with this ficcy, you've got no idea. I was scared I'd drop it. I don't think it'll be too long, though…maybe past ten chapters, but shorter than twenty. Shorter than fifteen, if I'm being brutally honest. Thanks to all my inspiring reviewers and readers, and please enjoy chapter four!

Chapter Four: Mayday

"I wish we had some wine."

I chuckled, Timmy being terribly predictable. In a peace offering, I had suggested we go to the Resort Realm by means of my not-so-new airship, and in a bit of geeky nostalgia that I find adorable, my husband insisted we send her maiden voyage off with a bottle of wine like in the olden days.

"We haven't even named her yet," I laughed, shaking my head. "What good will it do without that?"

"It's your ship, honey. The name is your choice."

So I pursed my lips in thought, a thousand suitable titles coming to mind before coming up with, "Anticipation."

"That's it?" He adjusted his glasses in thought, clearly stunned. "What about the Tecna Express?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "The Anticipation will do. I figure…I'm in a hurry to get to somewhere I'm not, right? So Anticipation."

Snuggled close beside each other on our ride, I kept my eyes glued to the windows, fighting the urge to look at the keypad. Timmy was driving, and I didn't feel as if I had any right to ask to be co-pilot; not after these past few days. But we smiled, we made small-talk; we pretended this giant elephant of discontent wasn't sitting between us.

"Hey, Tecna?"

"Mhm?"

Timmy licked his dry lips, turning towards me before ducking away. "…Ah, nothing. I just, I thought we were there, but we're not."

"Understandable." Terribly fidgety today, wasn't he? I crossed my legs and without realizing it began to swing one left to right, a steady pendulum of impatience going back and forth. "Um, Timmy, you know…" No. No, no, no, I was not going to badger him about his driving. Not after all the progress I had just made. "Try and go left at the river, okay?"

Drat.

Luckily, Timmy took my advice with a light heart, and we continued through the sky with a fairly decent mood. "So, when we get there, what do you want to do?" I asked finally.

"The Resort Realm?"

"Yes."

He scratched his chin in thought, eyes squinting as they stared ahead. "Well, gosh, Tecna, I don't know. We'll set up the tent, and I guess we'll see what happens next. But I'm sure we'll have fun." He paused. "Hey, Tecna?"

"Hm?"

"About Musa…she's, um, okay all by herself?" Something darkened in Timmy's expression. "She seemed a little out of it. Are she and Riven okay?"

"O-oh…well." I squeezed my husband's hand and bit my lip. "They could be better, Timmy. Much, much better."

The glasses slid down his nose. "Ah."

When we landed, neither us were brave enough to add: Just like us.

The Resort Realm is, basically, a woodland area dotted with beaches. My husband landed the Anticipation in a sunlit clearing, a short distance away from the shore. Immediately a feeling of nostalgia coupled with a strange ache settled within me as I remembered, vaguely, the aftereffects of this place—something I had learned all too well my sophomore year at Alfea.

For any magical being, the Resort Realm is a pleasant break from not only the everyday world, but magic as well. Only a full-fledged fairy can withstand the restraint on magical ability this dimension has, and even though I did indeed have my Enchantrix, the power I possessed weakened all the same.

Still. I wouldn't need my Winx to save my marriage, now would I?

Timmy had parked and I, ever practical, had decided to take it upon myself to set up the tent. When I say set up the tent, I mean, basically, that I pulled out a tiny box that popped up into a clean little shelter at the push of a button. (Layla would be ashamed of my lack of rugged outdoorsman-ship, but I, for one, don't think she needs to know about it.) I circled the makeshift home impatiently as Timmy continued to do Magix-knows-what by the airship.

I rehearsed the conversation in my head: Timmy, now that we're alone, what do you want to do? But for the life of me, I couldn't picture his answer. Hadn't it been ages since we'd bothered to do anything outside of technology and videogames? I watched him struggle with our luggage and wondered, briefly, what my husband loved that didn't involve metal or electricity. There had to be something, surely.

Like me.

"Your heart is absolutely beating with love, Tecna! It's wonderful!"

Immediately I froze, the shrill voice from behind awakening me from my reverie with startling speed. "Who's there?" I demanded, and instead of a sharp gasp of fear, a giggle reached my ears.

"Can you believe her? She doesn't remember, not even after all we've been through…I expected her to think more logically than this."

"Tee-hee! Well, love isn't always logical."

"That's Tecna's problem."

And suddenly it hit me with the strength of a thousand convergences; my guard fell, and I turned, in wonder, to see two familiar tiny faces. "Digit?! Amore?!"

Indeed, the little pixies were there, Stella's little carrier of love floating behind my very own Digit. Why, I hadn't seen Digit ever since marrying Timmy—she and the others had moved back to Pixie Village when all of the Winx Club got married off, save Bloom. Now, to see her there, with her adorable heart-shaped face and intelligent eyes…

"Digit, what on Magix are you up to?" I accused. All the same, I returned her hug when she tackled me in an embrace, and ran my hands through her soft blue locks. "You silly little pixie, why are you all the way out here?"

"Isn't it obvious, Tecna?" my pixie insisted, rolling her eyes. "Think about it. What would I be doing here, at the same time as you and Timmy, with the pixie of love?"

Amore nodded sagely. "It's a very special mission, Tecna. Why, Flora told us everything."

Immediately the warm fuzzies at seeing Digit faded, and I held her at arm's length, incensed. "Flora…Flora told you to…to…?!" I couldn't even form the words.

"Why don't you just say it, Tecna?" Digit replied, smiling. "We're your chaperones!"

I could blame the heat, or the long voyage, but I think it was the fact that I was a married, full-grown, intelligent, and influential woman being babied by pixies that made me faint in the sun.

"Tecna? Are you okay?"

Groggy and disoriented, I blinked my eyes open, the world still a foggy blur. A kind face stood before me, and I smiled lazily—of course, I was home now. "Timmy?" I murmured. "Oh, Timmy, I had the worst dream. You and I were arguing, and I had to lie to get you to go on a marriage-renewal posing as a vacation with me, and then, oh, Digit and Amore showed up to supervise us—it was dreadful, dreadful."

"Oh, I don't know about dreadful." A giggle.

A shove. "Tecna, get up. You're acting like a lunatic, not a valedictorian."

Little hands nudged me, and to my complete disappointment, Digit was the one shoving me, and not my husband. Of course everything was real. Drat. Sitting up, I noticed I was inside the tent, and Amore was drinking tea with Digit by her side. "I must say," Stella's pixie announced, "this whole thing is terribly romantic. Swooning is in all the novels—but it would have been better timing if you'd swooned when Timmy was here. Well, either way, he carried you inside, so I suppose it worked."

For a moment my heart fluttered. "Timmy carried me inside? Really?" Then just as quickly it shattered. "Now he'll know I've gained weight. Fabulous."

"You see?" Digit insisted, poking me. "Something's wrong with Tecna! Weight is something that, logically, should only be worried about in regard to health. Tecna is being illogical! No wonder Flora called us. This is serious."

"Now, hold on a moment," I retorted, stung. "I love you, Digit, but one day when you find a boy pixie to love and to hold—"

"And now she's forgetting that pixies are all girls!" Digit moaned. "Amore, this is terrible, terrible! If we don't fix their marriage—fast!—the Tecna we know and love will be gone forever! Oh, my poor brain just can't take this, Amore, not at all."

"Drama-pixie," I muttered as Amore patted Digit on the head. I was being completely logical. Absolutely logical. When hadn't I been? Why, I had reasons for being mad at Timmy, didn't I? And reasons for fighting, calling in sick when I wasn't, lying to Musa and then my husband, and…

Suddenly I wasn't too fond of my mental list.

"You've been quite irresponsible," Digit accused, crossing her little arms. "Bloom has been worried sick about you, and—oh, yeah, she thinks you're sick. She's called you precisely sixteen times, and if my calculations are right, she'll be calling in three….two…"

Ba-da, ba-dum! Ring ring ring!

Annoyed, I flipped open my phone and snapped, "What?!"

"O-oh. Tecna. You're, um, sounding better."

I felt slightly guilty at Bloom's stunned voice, but my pixie's attitude had already begun to rub off on me. "Well, I am. And now I'm on vacation. So expect me in a week or two."

"A vacation? But you were just sick—"

"I'm better. Hear me breathing evenly? I'm wonderful. Incredible. I could lift ten weights." I paused as I reconsidered the number, all the brownies I'd swallowed recently adding up in my brain. "Fine, maybe two."

"Well, sure, Tecna, I'm happy you're better, but I'm just surprised you're on vacation. It's, um, unexpected."

"Sorry about that, Bloom. Now, if you don't mind, I need to go now."

"You do?"

Digit glared at me as I continued, "Why yes, Timmy and I were about to go collect seashells. Bye, Bloom!" Click.

"I want to see seashells and I want to see them now," Digit declared.

I rolled my eyes; poor, innocent Digit still didn't understand the necessity that was lying just yet. I, too, had once considered it to be an evil, but the more you lie, the more it doesn't affect you. You realize maybe there is some logic to bending the truth. "I wanted to hang up. This was easier than telling her that."

"Lies breed more lies," my pixie stated.

"So I suppose you're my conscience now?"

"As a matter of fact, yes!" Digit shouted. Blood rushed to her little face as she balled her hands into fists. "Whatever you've been doing, it hasn't helped you, Tecna! And according to my research, the only way you can save this marriage is if you're willing to change what you've been doing. That, I believe, includes lying. So stop."

"Since when did you become an expert on relationships?" I quipped.

Flicking back her auburn curls, Amore fluttered her eyes at me and winked. "Oh, don't worry, sweetheart! Love is something I know all about. And I know one thing for certain."

"What?" I replied weakly.

"That you and Timmy still love each other, after all this." The unexpected warmth of her words startled me, and I surprised myself by hugging the two meddling pixies close, grateful that they could voice that one assurance my doubts failed to whisper. So what if Digit and I were arguing? So what if I felt patronized by the pixies' presence? This surpassed that.

He loves me. He loves me.

"Where's Timmy?" I insisted, smiling so hard it hurt my jaw. "We haven't got a moment to lose!"

Reconnecting with Timmy, oddly enough, felt like a mission. I didn't have to find any artifacts, or battle any monsters, or outsmart any villains, and yet I knew I needed a strategy, a game plan if you will. So, when I approached my husband on the beach, I attempted to keep that plan in motion.

"Tecna?" Timmy exclaimed, standing up so quickly that sand clung to the seat of his pants. "You're awake! That's wonderful."

"Sorry I, erm, fainted," I apologized, drawing a circle in the sand with my toe. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Amore cheering me on from behind a palm frond. "This…isn't exactly the start I wanted us to have." I debated inwardly whether or not to ask if he knew about the two pixies patrolling us, but held my tongue in the event that he had no idea. Things were suspicious enough between us; no need to complicate it further.

Timmy didn't say anything. His little lop-sided grin pulled at his mouth and he held up his arms, awkwardly, before wrapping them about me in a stiff embrace. "I'm just glad you're okay, Tecna. I mean, gosh, if you had hurt yourself I don't know what I'd do."

I could feel myself melt at the sincerity of his words. "Oh, Timmy…" How is it I had fought this man, I wanted to know, as I wrapped my arms around his neck in return and peppered his cheek with kisses. "I'm absolutely fine now. Really."

"Are you sure?"

"Mhm." I planted a kiss on his mouth in assurance, sticky and sweet in the heat of the sun. "So…what do you want to do now?"

Maybe, in retrospect, we shouldn't have chosen the jet skis. If we wanted to really spend time together, well, there was a sleeping bag at the ready in the tent. On the other hand, jet skis are fun, they're fast, and they're an excuse to snuggle close as can be.

All donned up in his gear, my husband resembled something more Martian than man, but his shy little wave assured me that, indeed, this was Timmy and not a storm trooper. (Bloom and her Earth movie nights…) I had nothing but a simple helmet strapped on my head, and I waited as Timmy checked the gas. "Well?"

"We're good to go." He adjusted his glasses and frowned. "But where are we going, Tecna?"

"Anywhere," I announced, grinning. "We can go anywhere we want."

We boarded his levabike gingerly, he grabbing the handles and I pressing myself into the small of his back. He smelled crisp, clean, comfortable. Familiar. "Are you ready?" he called. I pulled down the visor on my helmet and nodded.

The hum of the engine echoed through the forest, and I trembled along with the bike, exhilaration sweeping through me as we glided over the water, leaving waves in our wake. Together we sped through the woodland and the waters, our breathing the only constant as the world about us kept changing colors, sights, and sounds. I pretended not to notice the two tiny bodies behind me, clinging to my waist. I pretended to not hear Amore's advice being whispered in my ear ("Just tell him how you really feel!") or Digit's complaints ("If he goes any faster, I'm going to fly off this thing!") and just concentrated on me, Timmy, and the ride.

Nothing had changed, I forced myself to admit, even as my body was thrilled by the electric touch of his body so close against my own. No problems had been resolved, no conflicts unraveled. Still, this just so simple, so innocent, that I could have sworn our past disagreements didn't matter. Everything, now, was as it should be.

That is, of course, until a giant bird swooped in the middle of the river, and with a loud scream—mine, Timmy's, or the pixies', I'm not sure—the bike swerved away towards the mountain range, crashing neatly into a pile of useless rubbish by the shore.

With our luck, what else could you expect?

End Note: I'm happy I got to sneak some pixies in. See, they're usually so hard to stick in fanfic, especially with so many important characters to juggle. We've got the six Winx gals, and then their pixies, which makes it difficult to have big scenes (can you imagine writing a twelve person conversation? O.o) so I'm happy I at least got to use two. So thank you for reading, and if you wanna, leave a review! C'mon. You know you do. :D