The Golden Egg was empty. For that, Allison was grateful, as she lay on her back, arms folded across, on one of the booth benches in the restaurant. Anyone who might've been eating there was at the Everafter meeting. It was just her. Quiet. Finally.
She closed her eyes. For a moment, she could imagine that it was still yesterday, that she was just lying down on her normal bed in her normal room on a very normal day. Just for a moment...
"If you wanted to sleep, you could've just said so. Faerie has hundreds of guest room with nicer beds than that, and I'm not exaggerating when I say hundreds."
Allison's eyes flew open. Hovering above her was her dad, slightly frowning, with his arms folded as well.
She shut her eyes again.
She heard him sigh and then land, pulling up a chair next to her. "Closing your eyes doesn't make me disappear, Allstar."
"I don't care," she mumbled, eyes still squeezed shut. "Go away."
He didn't go away. Instead he leaned back and kicked his legs up on the table.
"You know, I think you sort of hurt your mom's feelings back there."
She opened one eye. "She doesn't understand."
"Come on, Allstar. What makes you say that?"
"You're not listening!" she suddenly exploded. "None of you understand me! Emma is too young to understand what's going on, and you and Mom are too busy to notice what I'm going through!" she glared at Puck furiously and then looked away sharply. She exhaled loudly. "So this is your idea of normal, is it? Is this where you go to 'work' everyday? Talking and hanging out with all the other freaks here?"
"No," Puck responded quietly. "I spend every day protecting my family from anyone who threatens us, freaks or not."
Allison went silent. Then she huffed again. "I still don't want to be a fairy," she grumbled.
"You are just as stubborn as Sabrina," Puck remarked. "You know you are just like her, to tell you the truth. Did you know that?"
"I'm not at all like Mom."
"Yeah, kid, you are. You know what she did when she first met your grandmother?"
"What?" Allison asked impatiently.
"She took your aunt Daphne and the two of them tried to run away from home."
Allison gave her father a look. "And then what? Did she suddenly realize that she was wrong, and brought Daphne home, and then everyone made up, and then blah, blah, blah, happy ending?"
Puck grinned. "Actually, that's when I sent my pixies off to attack them."
Allison sat up and looked at her father like he was crazy. "You did what?"
"Ole Canis had to nail up all the windows in the house," chuckled Puck. "In fact, I don't think the wooden boards were ever taken down after that."
"You're lying," she protested.
"Nope," he said cheerfully. "Ask her yourself. I think it was the next day that I also tried to drown her in a swimming pool-"
"You tried to do what?!"
"But that didn't work out too well," he remembered, frowning. "I think I somehow ended up slipping..."
She tried to suppress a smile. Her mom was tough. Allison couldn't see anyone, not even her dad, trying to bully around Sabrina. "Right. She pushed you in, didn't she?"
He made a face. "...Possibly. She couldn't get rid of me," he laughed. "I was the constant thorn in her side."
Allison shook her head disbelievingly. "What does this even have to do with anything?"
"You know what? I really don't know. I was planning on coming in and making this great speech or lecture, but that's really not my thing. That's a Grimm thing."
Allison looked down at her feet. "Why didn't you ever tell me? Why now?"
"We wanted you to have a good childhood," Puck explained. "Mine was pretty messed up if you haven't already guessed that. And Sabrina remembered how hers was taken away so violently-she wanted you and your sister to experience the kind of life that she once had. A happy one. One without any danger or stress or... magic."
She stared at Puck curiously. "What do you mean, hers was taken away violently? I thought she was always like... this."
Puck closed his eyes. "Well, it's a long story, Allstar..."
"I'm listening."
"See, Allison... A lonng while ago, there was this group called the Scarlet Hand..."
"And then when all the king's horses and all the king's me, told me that they couldn't put me back together again, I was livid! 'You fools' I yelled at them. 'There's a hospital right down the street, take me there, you idiots,' I screamed. But it was too late- I was put back together all right, but I've never been able to get rid of that nasty scar on my back, here..." The giant talking egg stopped to point and a spot on his back where a thin, white line extended from his arm to waist.
Emma clapped a hand on her mouth. "Gosh, that's terrible! But I heard that you were never put back together again!"
"They never tell the story right," the egg said gruffly. "Do I still look cracked to you? Wait, don't answer that..."
"That's very nice, Mr. Dumpty," Sabrina told him distractedly. "But I apologize; we need to go." She took Emma by the hand and led her to the back of the room where a short, sturdy woman was sitting on a chair, surrounded by Mustardseed, Titania and her pixies.
"I told you already, Titania, I don't know how the portal gate was changed," Ruby pleaded. "I'm just a bartender at the Golden Egg!"
The Queen eyed her sternly. "Were you not aware that a meeting was being held in the conference Hall for all Everafters?"
Ruby shook her head. "No! You know I never go outside to see the State Building, how would I know?" She quickly spotted Sabrina and visibly relaxed. "You can ask her, your majesty. I've been in the restaurant the entire day, ask her yourself."
Titania turned and raised an eyebrow at Sabrina. "Miss Ruby here claims to have no knowledge of how Puck ended up... where he did... nor does she acknowledge she knew of the Everafter meeting."
"I didn't!" she begged. "I had no clue of the meeting. If I did, surely I would have directed Sabrina to the Conference Hall first?"
"There are over a hundred Everafters in this Hall." Mustardseed remarked, frowning. "Surely some must have passed through your restaurant to get to the Hall?"
"Why, yes, your majesty, but none of them bothered to tell me where they were going, or why-"
"Hold on a minute," interrupted Sabrina, stepping up to look at the bartender. Ruby's hopeful smile faded. "Ruby, when I first came in, you told me that your restaurant had been empty all day..."
Ruby opened her mouth to reply, and then closed it again.