AN~ This chapter references back to chapters 77 through 82. If you don't remember what happened in the Puck betrayal plot arc, go back and skim. Also, I'm trying out a new format that I'm not sure I like with short snippets, so tell me what you think.
If I forgot to answer your review, I'm sorry I missed it. FF forgot to send me the emails, apparently.
The Winner of Last Question of the Day: LittleMissRockerChick with the ability to make cheese out of thin air. They were all pretty creative, but that one just won me over. I'm thinking of stealing all those and making a league of 'super' heroes called the exes.
New Question of the Day: You have a lampshade, a mail truck, and a penguin. What do you do with them? Be creative.
Jenna: Thanks! The sickness is the next plot arc, and Sabrina listening in on Puck idea: She's mad at him all the time in the books, too, and I think sometimes he kind of deserves it 'cause he's a bit of a jerk and kind of thickheaded, you know? Also, you're review number 1400. Would you like a prize? Has to be free, in character, and internet transferable.
civicprincess322994294: The sheep idea is pretty awesome. However, you didn't respond to the story at all, which makes you ineligible for the competition.
tasleem: Thanks for the review! I think I've mentioned that the Puckabrina picks up in two or three more plot arcs.
ISI 8D: Thanks for the review! That would be an ANNOYING superpower. Your clothes would always look nice, though! I know several people who share your opinions on Aquaman.
silverwombat: Thanks for the review! :D :D
Kathie: Thanks! :D That line was me playing around with syntax. I know it looked weird, but I did it on purpose. QotD: That is pretty lame. It would only be useful if you could make them rainbow and swirly and then you could hypnotize people.
Not soLittle Girl: It would be weird, but useful. I'm sorry, you won't win this time, because I've decided you have to respond to the chapter in some way to be eligible for the QotD.
QN: I don't THINK you've said 'le gasp', though it is a cool phrase. Glad I surprised you with mah plot twists. That WOULD be kind of lame. Like... toxic farts. What would you like because you won last chapter, by the by?
The disease spread like wildfire after that. Within the first week, half the Emerald Foot was down. They stopped quarantining the sick people and started quarantining the ones who were well, meaning that the Grimm's house suddenly became a lot more crowded. However, none of the Scarlet Hand got it.
"They must have started it." Veronica said.
"Well, obviously they started it!" Jake snapped. "None of them are sick, they've got two mad scientists in their midst, and it's a disease that targets Everafters!"
"All right, don't get snippy with me." Veronica rolled her eyes. "I know you're stressed, but don't take it out on us."
"I'm sorry." He apologized.
Jake, Nurse Sprat, and Morgan Le Faye had been trying to find a cure, or at least the cause, for the entire time, but so far, they hadn't had much luck. When Snow got sick, though, Charming demanded what information they had as soon as they could give it to him, if not sooner.
When the three were in front of him, all heavy-eyed and sagging, He said, "Well?"
"We don't know much." Nurse Sprat said, rubbing her temples.
"That's not good enough!" Charming snapped. "I need-" His voice cracked. "I need a cure."
"We don't know if we can find one yet." Jake said, putting his head in his hands. "We know the Scarlet Hand has one, but short of storming them in search of it, we don't know how to get it."
"Well, what do you know, then?" Charming asked.
"It gets in your magic." Morgan said. "So it affects everyone differently, though everyone has the same cough and general weakness. And the more magic you have, the stronger it hits you. People like Art get sick bad and fast. And people like Sprat, who are pretty much just immortal, will get sick more slowly."
"What do you mean, gets into our magic?" Charming asked.
"It finds your powers, your abilities, and it twists them." Morgan said, her voice bleak. "It makes you explode with your powers sometimes and seem like they're gone the next second, and it turns them into something different and wrong. And once it's done with that... It destroys them."
"What do you mean?" Charming's eyes were wide, and he was sitting up straight as a pine tree.
"Hamstead is speaking French at the moment, and Bess can't speak at all." Nurse Sprat said. "And Arthenius appears to be aging against his will."
Charming sighed, and he looked small, frightened. "Just... do the best you can." He said. "Save her."
The three decided that it was a better idea to leave without saying anything than to make a promise they couldn't keep.
Sabrina caught it on the eighth day, right after Snow.
She was scared, of course, and not enjoying herself, but she thought she was coping pretty well, all things considered.
"The worst part," She confided to Thumbelina, when she came to visit, "Is that I can't do anything. I can't fight this, and I hate just having to sit here."
Thumbelina made a very uncomfortable face, running her tiny hand through her hair. "I can." She said. "Do something, I mean."
"Why haven't you, then?" Sabrina asked, bursting into a fit of coughs.
Thumbelina sighed. "I could heal you. And maybe a few other people. But then I wouldn't be able to help anyone else. This way I can do a bit for everyone. I wish I could fix everyone, but... it wouldn't work."
"Ooooh." Sabrina hissed sympathetically, coughing. "That must be almost as bad as not being able to do anything."
"It does." Thumbelina said. "I can help you a bit, though."
She laid a minuscule hand on Sabrina's and a cool blue light spread from her fingers through Sabrina's arm.
Sabrina's cough subsided. "Thanks." She croaked.
"No problem." Thumbelina smiled. "I wish I could do more."
Puck joined Sabrina the next day. He looked worse than she did.
"You've been hiding it." She accused. "You've been sick longer than me."
"Possibly..." Puck muttered.
Sabrina coughed. "Not- a good plan- buddy."
Puck shrugged. "What-" He coughed, "can they do for me here, anyway?"
"Good point." Sabrina agreed, then coughed again. "Not like they have a cure, anyway."
Puck nodded, too busy coughing to respond.
When Veronica left the hospital tent, she tried very hard to concentrate on how it managed to seem white and sterile with a dirt floor. It didn't work.
"Ronnie?" Henry asked, peering at her downturned face.
Veronica sniffed, trying to compose herself.
"Ronnie, are you all right?" Henry asked, turning her face up to him.
Veronica lost it. She threw her arms around her husband and sobbed, "Oh, Henry, my babies!"
"I know, Ronnie, I know." Henry said, and his voice was angry.
"I was all right when it was just Sabrina, but now that it's all three of them..." Veronica trailed off. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost them all."
"We have to fix it." Henry said firmly.
"That means going to the Scarlet Hand and getting their cure." Veronica said slowly.
"For our kids, I'm willing." Henry told her.
"We have to wait until a good time, though." Veronica said. Now that she knew there was something she could do, she was almost composed again. "When they're all- or mostly- gone."
Henry nodded. "I can wait." A few coughs made their way through the wall of the tent, and he said, "Not too long, though."
Art got better first, but not all better. His voice was much scratchier than it had been before, thanks to the burns in his throat, and his abdomen was very uneven: the muscles on the right side had bulged out from their normal large defined position to something huge, hulking, and abnormal, and his left side was shriveled. He could still walk and act normal, and was working on building the muscles back to normal, but he stood unevenly, and it was hard for him to breathe.
"I'm just glad it wasn't my whole body." He told Daphne, who nodded without saying anything, too busy coughing. "And that I didn't... you know, die or something."
Daphne smiled at him, and while he watched, her face grew feathers.
The first death was Mother Gothel, Rapunzel's captor/mother. A fairy in the bed next to her coughed, and even though the flame went nowhere near her, she burst into flame. It was brilliant to see, even as it was horrible. Puck would have enjoyed it if he hadn't been too busy being an infant. Sabrina, who was relatively normal at the time, was horrified.
The worst people to watch were Hamstead and Bess. They'd been losing their magic slowly and steadily, and now they were barnyard animals without the capabilities of speech. They still made it evident that they loved each other, though, through touches and looks.
The day Bess didn't respond to Hamstead's call was the day he gave up. He couldn't talk, but everyone who was still well knew that if he could, he'd say it wasn't worth it to stay human inside without Bess.
Strangely, Charming and Mr. Clay didn't get sick. Neither did Little John, Cinderella, Morgan Le Faye, Red, or Nurse Sprat. A few others stayed well, too, no matter how much they came in contact with the diseased. The 'team', as people had begun calling Jake, Morgan, and Sprat, were running tests to see if they could find a cure in these people's bodies.
So far, they hadn't come up with anything.
Three weeks into the epidemic, the Scarlet Hand began attacking. That was when there weren't enough well people left to fight.
"Now is when we have to go." Veronica told Henry as Charming led the few who weren't sick out to do battle. "They won't be expecting it."
"You need me." Sabrina said.
Both parents spun around, staring at their daughter, who was suddenly standing behind them, perfectly healthy.
"Sabrina?" Henry asked, carefully keeping his voice flat.
"Don't look at me like that." She said. "I'm from a week from now. I came back to help."
"Oh." Veronica said, her voice trembling. "But... why did you come?"
"You need me." Sabrina said simply. "And don't bother arguing. I've already done it. I remember."
The two adults looked at each other, then back at her. "And do you remember getting hurt?" Veronica asked slowly.
Sabrina shook her head. "I get out just fine. So do you both."
"I think we should let her." Veronica told Henry. "It might be the best thing to do."
Henry sighed but nodded. "Fine." He muttered.
"Great." Sabrina said. "Go get your stuff together, there's some stuff I need to do.
Sabrina's newest symptom was that she spent more time looking at the past than the present, and that she would see both of them at the same time, which was very confusing. When she finally managed to get out of the latest of someone else's memories, she wasn't sure she had, because standing in front of her was... herself.
"Are you actually here?" She asked, sitting up.
"Yes." The other her said, looking straight at her.
"So I survive, then." She said, deducing that this her must be from the future.
The other her didn't bother to respond, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"What's the catch?" She asked. There had been a cost for everyone who survived. Art's disformity, Beauty's wrinkled, ancient-looking hand, and Peaseblossom's burned lips were just a few examples. None of those who lived were unscathed.
"The past." The other Sabrina said. "It never really goes away. I can always see it, like a shadow over everything... All different pasts..."
"But I deal with it?" Sabrina asked.
The other Sabrina cocked her head to the side, then nodded slowly, once up and once down. "It's hard. But it's going to get better."
Sabrina nodded, too, then started coughing. "Why are you here?" She asked, once she could breathe again. "You can't have come back just to talk to me."
"Our parents need me to help find the cure." The other Sabrina said. "And talking to you means we'll be able to do it. To make sure we remember it happening, and working out right. So there's no kinks. Like parents."
Sabrina nodded. "Makes sense. Do you need anything? From now, I mean."
The other Sabrina shook her head, standing. "I'm good."
Sabrina was going to answer, but she coughed hard and suddenly found herself floating outside her body. "Dangit." She mind-muttered.
The other Sabrina looked up at her and said, "I have to go now. You'll be fine."
"Wait!" Sabrina called. "Who else-"
But the other Sabrina was gone before she could say 'dies'.
"Where are we going?" Veronica asked.
They were walking through the woods, Sabrina wearing a borrowed sword (she still didn't have hers back), jeans, and sneakers, Veronica and Henry both heavily decked out with weaponry. This would no doubt be useful when they got there, but at the moment it was making it difficult to walk through the dense, budding spring woods.
"Mab's castle." Sabrina said, stalking ahead of them and slashing at branches. "It's kind of where they keep everything."
"Good point." Henry said. He was finding it hard to think of this calm, confident, completely in-charge girl as his Sabrina, who let him do whatever he wanted. He was calling her 'the other Sabrina' in his head, because she was acting so out of character for what he knew of her.
They walked in silence for a while, until Henry asked, "Do you know the way to get there?"
"Of course I... maybe I need to go do a fly-by and check." Sabrina corrected herself, and now she seemed like his daughter again.
He chuckled as she flapped up above the tree line, wrapping an arm around Veronica as they waited. Their swords clanged against each other.
Sabrina returned a few moments later, a smug look on her face. "I did so know where we were going."
Veronica snorted and said, "Let's get going, then. We're wasting daylight."
They walked through the woods for a good hour- or so it seemed. The light didn't seem to change. After a time, Henry got suspicious. "What are you doing?" He asked Sabrina.
"Nothing." Sabrina said, but she wasn't looking at him when she said it. "We're here." She wiped a thin sheen of sweat off her forehead.
They were. Henry and Veronica stepped out of the woods to see the huge white monstrosity that was Mab's castle and tried to conceal their awe. It was magnificent, even it was overdone: columns and towers and frescoes and very few windows and a huge roof covered in gold leaf, set in the center of a green lawn.
"So... that getting in part." Sabrina said, inching for the back door while her parents stared.
Her parents nodded, and they darted across the vast open lawn to the nearest door. Henry expected arrows or fireballs to come raining down on them from the high, narrow windows, but none did.
Veronica pushed the door open and paused, listening.
The building was silent.
"They're all gone." Sabrina said. "They're chasing after us. They think that 'cause we're all sick it's a good time to kill us off."
"They why did we bring all these weapons?" Henry complained loudly.
"Just in case?" Sabrina shrugged. "I didn't tell you to get them."
"Guys." Veronica said. "Focus."
The two snapped their mouths shut and Sabrina walked in front of her parents.
"Do you know where you're going this time?" Henry asked.
Veronica didn't say anything, staring at the painting on the walls.
"Yeah." Sabrina said, and pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. "Puck gave me a map."
She led the way forward confidently, and the three walked through the house, Sabrina looking as if she owned it, and Henry and Veronica staring, awed. When they reached the X on the map, Sabrina stopped, looking at the door distastefully.
"We're here." She said, shuddering.
"What's wrong?" Veronica asked, looking from Sabrina to the door- no different than the others- and back again.
"Nothing." Sabrina shook her head and pushed the door open.
The patterned cream of a room she would never forget met her gaze, and she watched for a few seconds as shadows of herself and the people who had tested her flickered through the space. It was these shadows that kept her from noticing Doctor Jekyll's presence until it was almost too late.
It was Henry that saved her. His sword jumped between the dagger coming for Sabrina's throat just in time. Doctor Jekyll cursed and turned to the new threat, his dagger, dripping with something sickly green, flashing quicker than Sabrina would have thought possible, but Henry, dropping his sword, grabbed a knife of his own and fought back. If she'd had time, Sabrina would have stared at her dad. She'd had no idea he could fight that well.
"What are we looking for?" Veronica whispered in Sabrina's ear, pulling her away from the men.
Sabrina looked around for the bottles that had healed her three weeks ago in her time, three hours later in this timeline. "Something like that." She pointed at the ice blue bottle on the counter, half full of an even lighter blue substance that almost seemed to glow.
"So where will it be?" Veronica asked tensely.
"I don't know!" Sabrina snapped. "You didn't tell me! Or don't tell me. Whichever."
"Well, we'd better get searching, then." Veronica said grimly.
They did. Sabrina was the one who found them, in one of the cupboards underneath the bench she'd sat on so often. She and Veronica began piling the blue jars into the bag Veronica had brought for just that purpose, and Henry kept fighting Doctor Jekyll.
"Henry!" Veronica shouted once they had all the bags and were heading for the door.
He spun around and, seeing they were good, ran for them, slamming the door between them and Jekyll's shrieks of rage.