Author's Note: June 24th is Fairy Day and, in honor of that, I decided to update this fic! Yay!

I'm sorry if it's meandering. I never write outlines and I stopped plotting this one out because I'd lost interest in FOP.

Also, movie July 7th. Yay or nay? Nay for me. Yep.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fairy Day

Timmy was dizzy. The last thing he knew, he'd been about to fend off a giant dragon ready to kill his parents, all the while rescuing his future god brother and keeping him from being eaten. He knew this, along with the idea that he had magic to exploit, and then the universe tilted on its side, upside down, and flung him onto the floor. Not literally, but it felt like that. Normally, he was the one rewriting the universe and it didn't feel like someone had kicked him around first. Also, normally after something clearly magical had happened, his faerie godparents were there to tell him what was going on. Or offer commentary in case they didn't.

Timmy was alone in his room and it was so weird, because everything that had happened was competing with the idea that it hadn't happened. His head hurt and he staggered over to the bathroom. Staring at his reflection, he saw the same silly pink hat, same pink shirt and black pants, and the same buckteeth he always had. But there was still something wrong. He should be fighting a dragon and saving his parents. He shouldn't be here.

"Mom?" he called, opening the door and standing at the top of the stairs. "Dad?"

"What is it, sweetie?" his mother said and stood at the bottom. Her brow creased and she frowned. "Did you do your homework yet?"

"Homework?" Timmy repeated. "Mom, it's summer!"

"I know, but if you don't pass math this summer, you'll be held back," she remarked. "You don't want to be twenty three and still in the fifth grade, do you?"

Timmy blinked. "Uh…"

"Those problems aren't going to answer themselves, you know!" she said and then, in a gentler voice, added, "if you need help, I'll be down in the kitchen…fixing what your father 'repaired'."

Thoroughly confused now, Timmy returned to his room. Great, now he felt like Cosmo. Speaking of Cosmo, where had he and Wanda gone? He certainly wasn't going to do his homework feeling like his brain was about to fall out. And he didn't know what else to think about, because it felt like he'd gone through about thirty chapters of something only for it to mean nothing.

He flopped onto his bed and groaned. In a few seconds, Cosmo and Wanda reappeared. He rolled over onto his back.

"Your hair still has black in it!" he exclaimed. In fact, both faeries had black streaks and pale, they sank to the bed.

"You know, some people open with 'hello'," Cosmo said grumpily.

"Sport, we don't know how, but Doombringer helped create a paradox," Wanda said. "And until we fix this, we're not going to be at full strength."

"But what happened to the dragon? My parents? And Poof?" Timmy said. Cosmo and Wanda exchanged mystified looks.

"Poof?" Cosmo repeated. "What's a 'Poof'?"

"I don't know," Wanda said. "All the magical repercussions are still in effect, however. Cosmo and I are both tainted with dark magic and you, Remy, and probably Tootie too, can perform magic. But everything else we have no clue."

Cosmo stared at his wife. "You're tainted too?"

Timmy ignored this. "What the heck are we supposed to do about it? Doombringer's still out there and she's still going to try whatever it was she wanted to do."

"Until the paradox is resolved, she can't do anything," Wanda said. "She's the nexus of it."

"The what?" Timmy said and she sighed.

"The center. She can try to coral back her forces, but it won't work," she said.

"Then we don't have anything to worry about," he said.

"Not quite," his godmother said. "There are two different versions of us around now. Normally, when that happens, someone is either from a different time or it's anti faerie/faerie. We're naturally balanced. Now we aren't, because there are two dark equivalents to the light."

"So?" Timmy said.

"So…" Wanda swallowed. "If this was what Doombringer meant to do, it won't work. Without checks and balances, one of us will have to go away forever."

This announcement was met with profound silence. Licking her dry lips, she continued. "If we became truly evil, our counterparts would have to be light. Doombringer might have been trying to manipulate the scales and make us her evil servants."

"But why are there two of you?" he asked.

"Tootie has us too," Wanda said. Timmy jumped up from the bed and stared through the window down to Tootie's house. There was a storm building and thunder boomed. Cosmo jumped and dove under the bed, only for Wanda to drag him back up. Timmy's hands were glowing softly pink and green.

"I wish she didn't!" Timmy said.

"Faeries can't be wished away by other faeries," she reminded him. "And we're forbidden from magically interfering."

"You are," Timmy said. "But I'm not."

"I really don't think that's a good idea," she warned.

Timmy grinned. "I'll just get her to wish away her godparents and then everything will be back to normal, right?"

"Would you wish away your godparents if you were her?" she replied, scowling.

"Especially if you had us?" Cosmo said, batting his eyelashes. Timmy folded his arms across his chest and stared at his godparents.

"Okay, new plan," he said and frowned. He almost suggested causing her to lose her godparents, but he couldn't do that to her. Shaking his head at himself, he said, "What if I just talked to her? How bad is that?"

Wanda frowned. "We're not allowed to talk to our counterparts, but…"

"But no one said we couldn't be in the same house!" Cosmo finished.

"I wish you two were buttons on my hat and I wish we were at Tootie's!" he exclaimed.

"That falls under 'magically interfering'," Wanda pointed out. He groaned.

"You mean I have to walk all the way there?"

Wanda stared at him and he grimaced. "Can't I at least wish I was outside so Mom didn't notice?"

"That we can do," she said and they held up their wands. Although it worked, it took a few seconds longer than normal and both faeries hissed, holding slightly burned fingers. Cosmo sucked on his injured fingers while Wanda blew unhappily on hers.

"Using Fairy World's magic hurts after being tainted," she explained.

"And how long does it last?" he said, grimacing.

"No idea!" Cosmo piped up. "It could last for the rest of our lives, for all we know!"

"Got any more good news, Cosmoron?" Timmy huffed.

"Not yet!" Cosmo said.

Timmy rolled his eyes and set off. Overhead, it rumbled threateningly and he saw lightning flash. His mom would probably kill him if she knew he was walking around in a thunderstorm. Or a magical storm, which was probably what this was.

The closer Timmy got to Tootie's house, the more she was aware of her counterpart. She had strange, disconnected emotions. She heard things as if through a tunnel. Had she been walking, she would have stopped in her tracks. The next distant murmurings she heard were telepathy. Wanda B still had telepathy with Cosmo. There were probably no marriage jokes or hurtful comments. Tears filled her eyes.

"Sorry," Cosmo murmured and moved further away from her on Timmy's cap. He probably thought he'd jabbed her.

A sudden, sharp sentiment occurred. What's so bad about not existing? At least that Wanda and Cosmo are happy.

But no, she was the 'right' Wanda, which meant she was supposed to go through this. That was a depressing thought. She righted herself on Timmy's hat and felt the air grow tense. The closer they got to Tootie's house, the harder it grew to breathe and more emotions bled through from her other self. The telepathic echoes were driving her crazy and she shut her eyes and wished she could shut them from her mind too.

Timmy stopped and Cosmo and Wanda looked down at his hat bill, since they couldn't see him.

"What is it, sport?" Wanda asked.

"I just realized this is the first time I've ever gone to Vicky's house voluntarily," he said.

"There's a first time for everything," Cosmo said. "First time to die-"

"People don't usually survive their first time of that one, hun," Wanda remarked dryly.

"Zombies do!" he said and she rolled her eyes.

Timmy advanced, knocked on the door, and Cosmo and Wanda shuddered. It felt like a brick wall had clamped down on their magic and slammed right in front of their faces. They exchanged uneasy glances- perhaps Jorgen had also meant not going to Tootie's too, even if he hadn't said it explicitly. It felt like she and Wanda B should merge, except they were two different jarring notes and the wrongness resonated throughout her button body. Judging by Cosmo's whimper, he felt the same.

Tootie opened the door with streamers in her hair and two familiar looking dogs at her side. Cosmo started to speak to Cosmo B and Wanda jabbed him.

((Wow, they look just like us!)) Alternate Cosmo said and Wanda moaned. It reminded her of how much had gone wrong lately and she shut her eyes for a moment.

"I think we need to talk," Timmy said.

"Talk? About what?" Tootie said. "Cool pins."

"Can I come in?" Timmy said, eyeing the living room. "Vicky isn't here, is she?"

"She's, uh…about a million miles away right now," Tootie said and smiled innocently. It was odd for Wanda to be confronted with her own power, particularly when it rubbed her the wrong way. It had never been like this before, not with herself cloned and not in a separate timeline. It was because of the taint, she knew. The light would continue to burn until the taint was driven out.

"Great," Timmy said. "Can I come in?"

Tootie was wary and she stiffened. "Why do you want to speak to me all of a sudden?"

"It's not something I want to talk about on your porch," he said urgently. "I wish you'd-"

"No!" Cosmo and Wanda exclaimed in unison. Timmy flushed.

"Oh, right," he said. Tootie's eyes narrowed and she focused on the pins; they had gone completely still and pretended to be normal pink and green pins.

"She's onto us…" Cosmo whispered.

"Those aren't normal pins, are they?" Tootie said suspiciously. Sweat trickled down Timmy's neck and Wanda stared at the pink dog at Tootie's side. Wanda B stared back; her fur was perfectly pink, without a hint of black. She wasn't sure she hated her or wanted to be her.

"Let me in, I really need to pee," he said and pushed his way in. Wanda groaned and Timmy looked around before staring at the alternate Cosmo and Wanda. He shut the door behind him.

"You're here to take my faerie godparents away," Tootie said flatly. Timmy blinked.

"How did you know? I mean…what? No," he said.

"I remember everything too," she said. "But it's getting dimmer."

"I'm not here to take them away," he said. "Can we just talk?"

"You never talk to me unless you want something," she said. "I know I lost them and that's how you got them. But I got them back."

"But you aren't supposed to have them," he said exasperated. He stepped out of the doorway and sat down on the couch. Cosmo and Wanda B walked at Tootie's side.

((She isn't supposed to have us?)) Cosmo queried.

"No," Wanda said aloud in response and everyone stared at her. She blushed and sunk lower on Timmy's hat.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

The alternate versions were looking at her and Cosmo with increased interest and she wished she could sink to the floor. At least it prevented them from using telepathy. She found herself wondering what had driven out theirs. It couldn't completely be because they were Timmy's godparents. Hadn't Cosmo said something cryptic about a statue? It was hard to think critically here, especially with the magical pressure like a barrier on either side.

"Do you know how miserable I am?" she said. "I'm at least ten times more miserable than you. And at least you have friends and family who care about you. Vicky drives away anyone who wants to be friends with me and my parents are terrified of her. You don't have to live with her."

Timmy hesitated. In every contest, he had come out the clear winner for needing his godparents. He had never had to defend himself before. Wanda slipped off his hat and onto the couch as a blanket. She wasn't supposed to use magic to interfere, but this was shapeshifting, which required very little energy.

It wasn't until after she'd done it that she realized she'd acted without her wand. She cursed.

"Obviously, Fairy World thought I was miserable because I got them," Timmy said.

"You were the next miserable person," Tootie shot back. "And you only got them because I lost them."

"Maybe if you weren't so careless, you wouldn't have lost them!" Timmy countered.

"I lost them because Vicky tried to hurt them!" she shot back. "Because I almost let her!"

There was a stunned silence. Cosmo fidgeted on Timmy's hat. Cosmo B sniffed at her experimentally and Wanda realized they wouldn't have had the briefing because Jorgen had been briefing Fairy World about them. They didn't know they weren't supposed to talk to them, but in order to tell them, they'd have to speak. There was another paradox.

Timmy didn't have a good response, or, it seemed, any reply. He tried again, in a gentler voice. "I'm sorry you lost them, but you can't keep them. We can't both have Cosmo and Wanda."

"Mine don't have black streaks," Tootie said.

"We have to undo what Doombringer did, but before we can, we have to eliminate the paradox," Timmy said and blinked. "Or something like that."

"But why should I have to give up my godparents?" she scowled. "Why can't you lose yours?"

Timmy inhaled shakily. "I don't want to lose them."

"I don't want to lose mine either," she said and stared at him defiantly. "And faeries can't wish away other faeries. It's against Da Rules."

"Maybe we can work something out with Fairy World," he said.

Tootie eyed him dully. "No. I'm way more miserable than you are. That's why you loaned them to me before."

Timmy choked. "You aren't supposed to remember that!"

"When I realized Cosmo and Wanda were mine, I wished I remembered everything I'd forgotten," she said.

"If you're not going to do it because you shouldn't have them, can you at least do it because you love me?" he said and batted his eyelashes.

"No," she said. "I may love you, Timmy Turner, but I love Cosmo and Wanda more."

Without quite knowing how they'd gotten there, Timmy, Cosmo and Wanda found themselves outside Tootie's house. There was now a magical barrier around it and Wanda's head spun. Cosmo, likewise, twirled around dizzily on Timmy's left.

"What the heck just happened?" Timmy said.

"I believe you call that a stalemate, sweetie," Wanda said.

"I don't feel so good…" Cosmo groaned and vomited. After a few seconds, Wanda followed suit.

"Uh, are you guys okay?"

"No," Wanda admitted. "But hopefully, it won't get too much worse."

After Tootie had magically escorted Timmy and company out, she sat and stared at the TV, which was currently off. She didn't know what to think. If Timmy was right, then she had to lose Cosmo and Wanda again. But it wasn't fair. Cosmo and Wanda were more her parents than her own. Why should she give them up?

But why had countless other children given them up too? Why should anyone have to lose them?

This wasn't like growing too old. She'd been gypped.

Her conscience gnawed at her. What if she was making the wrong choice?

Timmy ate dinner and Wanda ate silently with her husband. She finished and went to the storage room, where they kept all their odd knickknacks and items they'd acquired after living for nearly ten thousand years. In the corner of the room, buried behind a bike and Cosmo's lucky nickel, was a bust. She frowned, rubbing her chin. On either side of the bust were bookshelves with rare, valuable, and well read books. There were also old editions of Da Rules and picture albums. But it was the bust that drew her gaze.

The ceiling here was low and it reminded her of a cavern. The bust was carved from stone and bore Mama Cosma's face, but Wanda didn't remember getting it. She also didn't remember Cosmo mentioning it, and since they were together nearly every minute of the day, this struck her as odd.

Mama Cosma's eyes were green jewels and they glowed oddly. She felt vaguely threatened, and she didn't know why.

"That's what I wanted to show you," Cosmo said and Wanda whirled, holding her wand out for a half second before she put it down. Cosmo flinched.

"Wanda?" he said softly, uncertain.

"When did we get this?" she said. Her voice trembled.

"Uh…about six months ago," Cosmo said. "I think. I dunno. It was here one day."

"It gives me the creeps," she said and rubbed her arms. "It feels like it's watching me."

"Mama's watching all of us," Cosmo said. He stared at her and it went right through her. "Wow, I didn't realize using dark magic made you fat."

The comment caught her off guard and she blinked. Slowly, she turned around and stared at the statue and then again at her husband.

"Your mother hates me," she said, feeling the pieces click into place but not completely grasping the puzzle yet.

"And she was right. I should have held out for the Tooth Fairy," he replied. "Ooh. I wonder if your sister's still available."

She ignored the pain his words caused and focused instead on the way the bust's eyes gleamed when Cosmo spoke.

"How often have you come here to see the bust?" she said.

"Uh…" he hesitated. "A couple times a day. Maybe more. It's a lot more interesting than you."

"You don't remember anything that happened right before the bust appeared, do you?" she murmured. "Any wishes you and Timmy might have made? Any visits to your mother?"

"I hardly remember what I did last week!" he said and then thought about it. "I dunno. Shouldn't you remember better? You're old and that's all old people do."

"You wouldn't care if I took the bust away, would you?" she said. "Or dumped it somewhere? Why would you need a bust of your mother?"

"Because I love my momma!" he exclaimed and then hugged it. The bust's eyes gleamed and she saw a thin tendril of magic wrap around Cosmo. She yanked it out of Cosmo's arms and Cosmo whined, reaching for it. The brief contact with her bare lower arms burned and she dropped it. It cracked on the edges.

"No! Momma!" he cried and cradled it.

"Cosmo, it's not real!" she said. "And I think it's been hexed."

"So?" he said and hugged it to him until the sharp edges cut through his shirt. "It's better than you."

She reached for it once more and he held up his wand and vanished. She popped into Timmy's room, but Cosmo was nowhere to be seen.

"Have you seen Cosmo?" she asked Timmy.

"Which one?" Timmy said dully, looking up from a comic book. Wanda glared.

"You know which one," she said.

"No," he said. "I wish Tootie would just give up her faeries."

"She can't and you know it," Wanda said. "And don't you dare try to trick her. I'll be right back- I need to find Cosmo."

"He's probably at a corn museum or something," Timmy scoffed. He went back to his comic book.

Wanda had an ominous feeling about the bust.

The darkness hiding within Cosmo was intrigued by the bust. It had a wonderful mix of light and dark magic, which should serve as a good springboard. Plus, it was already wreaking havoc with certain magical Bonding connecting Cosmo and Wanda. If it could force the hex to its natural conclusion, it could finally fully realize its potential and turn Cosmo completely to its cause. Yes, the bust would do nicely.

Mama Cosma had no idea what she'd done, but that suited the being just fine. Faeries were stupid, foolish creatures.