AN~ This is the chapter you've probably all been waiting for. Except that you won't like me soon.
The Winner of Last QotD: I just kind of want all of them. But Sunny99's Howlaspykes were pretty awesome.
New QotD: I made a Pottermore, so I'm on a Harry Potter kick. Which house would you like to be in and why?
Agd: But if you can still get into FANFICTION, then you can change your email. Chapter: You think Mab trusts Moth with things like that? Hah, you're funny... QotD: I would love that, except if you met up with a person with allergies. It'd have to be a hypoallergenic chameleon cat.
Ninjabunny: Hmm... I'd never have guessed there'd be ninjas or bunnies in yours... XD You didn't actually respond to the chapter, you know.
Wendy: They're like Sabrina and Daphne, the descendants of people who knew about everafters.
Christine daa: Thanks!
PenguinLoverGurl: I think mazes are cool, partly BECAUSE of those things. Lol. QotD: That seemed like a bit of overkill, you know?
Day Night A.K.A. Dat Girl: I like puck stressing, but not angst, because it gets boring after a while. Have you read ALL the books? I love Gale in the first two. QotD: How does a racoon panda get fire breathing powers? MY name for this at the moment is NGHC.
DontMesswiththePrincess: Good thing you don't know where I live. :) Thanks!
Unfortunately, not all the parents were unaware of their kid's nighttime wanderings. Wendell had been caught on his way back, and Hamelin and his wife had called all the other parents. By the time Sabrina, Puck, Bella, Red, and Daphne were in the kitchen, their parents had heard, and were waiting for them.
"Uh-oh." Red whispered, seeing the expressions on the adult's faces. Even Uncle Jake was giving them a stern look. Or at least his attempt at one, which wasn't particularly effective, and made the older ones want to chuckle a bit, because Sabrina could do a better quiver-inducing glare than her uncle.
"How'd you find out?" Sabrina asked, cutting to the chase. She figured being honest was less likely to get her grounded forever.
"Mrs. Hamelin called us at about five this morning and told us that her son was out with you all last night getting up to dangerous things." Henry said sternly. "Care to elaborate?"
"Not really." Daphne said. "It'll probably just get us in more trouble again."
"You're already in pretty big trouble, young lady." Veronica said. "Being honest will maybe get you out of some of it."
"Actually..." Bella interrupted. "We have the right to remain silent to avoid incriminating ourselves. We also have the right to a fair trial and an attorney, but I doubt we'll get those. You didn't read off our Miranda Rights, so technically you're not allowed to arrest us."
"Except that you're all minors, knew the rules, and chose to break them." Granny said. "As children, you fall under our control first, then the government's."
"We still have the right to remain silent." Bella shrugged. "And I choose not to incriminate myself further by confirming or denying whether I left the house last night."
"You're all grounded for two weeks." Veronica said. "I don't care why you left, or that you all got back safe, we've been over this already, and you can't sneak out just because you want to! It's dangerous! I thought you'd learned your lesson last summer."
There were various groans and protests, but the adults would not be moved, and eventually the kids stopped trying and gave in.
Puck was the last one to do so, and he said, "Well, OK, but at least we got the swords back!" He held up his sword with a grin.
Sabrina groaned, and the adult's expressions darkened as the figured out where the children had been. That had been the wrong thing to say.
"Four weeks!" Sabrina complained. "Twenty-eight more days weeks of being stuck in this house all the time! Thanks a lot, Puck!"
"Hey, it's not my fault I was looking on the bright side!" Puck protested. "It was word vomit!"
"I hate you." Daphne told Puck. "It's your fault I even went, anyway. And now I'm grounded."
"Aw, come on, Marshmallow, you don't hate me." Puck cajoled.
"I hate you." Daphne said stoically. "Go away and leave me alone."
Puck sighed and put his chin in his hands. The kids were all standing on the porch, and Puck was leaning on the railing, looking out towards the woods. It was a gorgeous day.
"At least we can still go in the yard." Red pointed out.
"Yeah, well, fat lot of good that'll do us." Bella muttered.
"Maybe we can make the best of it." Red suggested.
"How?" Daphne asked.
Red shrugged. "I guess we could... umm... explore the house."
Sabrina's brow furrowed. "This isn't The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Red. It's a pretty small house."
"Well, do you know everything that's in it?" Red asked.
Sabrina smiled crookedly. "All right, you win. But I doubt it'll take four weeks."
It didn't. It took about two. Then they were bored again, even though they'd found a great deal of exciting and useful things in the attic and basement, including some multicolored egg-shaped stones that Granny said were petrified Phoenix eggs. Sabrina harbored a fantasy that they weren't quite petrified, but she knew better.
Right about the time the kids finished rummaging through the boxes in the house, the adults got called away to discuss strategy at the Golden Egg.
"I don't think you should go." Daphne told them nervously. "I've been getting some bad images, and I think you should stay home."
"Relax, Daphne, we'll be fine." Uncle Jake said breezily, pulling on his coat.
"Okay..." Daphne said doubtfully. "But this is a bad idea."
"We'll be careful, I promise." Veronica said, kissing Daphne on the forehead as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door. "Back by suppertime. I expect the table to be set and everything ready when we walk in the door."
"Not my job." Daphne said, trying to smile, but it was obvious she was still worried.
"It'll be ready." Sabrina promised.
"Good." Granny smiled. "Have a nice day, lieblings." She waved and headed outside.
The door closed behind her, and the kids were alone in the house. It should have been a good time to relax, maybe sneak out and go see some friends, or have some over (that was forbidden because of their grounding, though they could still make phone calls), or just sit in the sunshine and take a nap, but everyone was tense.
"Anyone else feel like this is just a bad idea?" Bella asked. "The Scarlet Hand's been attacking more and more, and they just walked out like nothing's up."
Sabrina nodded. "They're going to run into trouble somehow. You know it."
Daphne had her eyes closed and was concentrating. She opened them suddenly and snapped, "Dangit!"
"What is it?" Red asked.
"I can't see their future if I can't see them." Daphne explained. "I'm trying to figure out what's going on with them, but it's not working."
"You guys could try one of those full-on prophecies." Puck suggested. "The ones you need all three of you there for."
Sabrina shook her head. "It's not like we can pull those out of thin air, Puck."
Puck shrugged. "Try anyway?"
They did, to no avail. Sabrina and Daphne held hands with Basil, eyes closed, and thought hard about their family, but nothing happened, so they tried everything they could think of (which, albeit, wasn't much), but nothing worked.
"Told you." Sabrina sneered at Puck.
"Well, hoity-toity to you." Puck stuck his tongue out at Sabrina.
"Uh-oh." Basil said quietly.
Everyone's heads spun to look at the three-year-old boy, whose eyes were glowing gold.
"What's wrong, Base?" Daphne said, squatting down next to her brother.
"Uh-oh." He said again.
"What is it?" Sabrina asked, picking him up.
"Bad." Basil said, and his eyes grew wide, shining that golden glow on Sabrina's face.
"Bad what, Basil?" Sabrina asked. "You need to tell us. Now."
"Mommy an' Daddy." Basil whimpered, his eyes fading as he looked at Sabrina.
"No, Basil, you need to hold it!" Sabrina said harshly. "Keep looking at Mommy and Daddy. Tell me what you see, though, OK?"
Basil nodded, and stared at nothing. "Dere's pe-pull." He said, his eyes brightening. "Mean pe-pull. Udder Daddy's dere."
"Other Daddy?" Daphne asked, stricken. "Mirror?"
"Basil, are they OK?" Sabrina asked, staring intently at her brother. "What are they doing? Can you tell me what they're doing, buddy?"
Basil opened his mouth, concentrating, but as he began to speak, his eyes faded, until he was left with his regular green eyes looking into Sabrina's blue ones, both sets full of fear.
"Dey gonna be OK?" Basil asked his sister, his mouth quivering.
Sabrina suppressed her very strong desire to shake Basil until he told her what she needed to know and took a deep breath. "I don't know, Base." She said, hugging him tighter. "I just don't know."
Daphne had pulled out her sword and called into the gem for any of the adults, but she wasn't getting a response. She was shouting now, calling for her parents, demanding they answer her.
"Maybe they'll make it out OK." Red suggested tentatively. "They're all brave and strong and smart. They can fight. Maybe they'll be all right."
"Maybe." Bella whispered, looking at Sabrina worriedly. She took Basil out of her friend's hands, and Sabrina collapsed onto the couch, her head in her hands.
"I can't..." Sabrina whispered. "I can't..."
"Can't what?" Puck asked, sitting down next to her.
"Can't go through this again." She finished, her voice barely audible, even to him.
Daphne threw her sword across the room, where it crashed into a pile of books and sent them flying into the end table. Thankfully, it was solid, and there was nothing there but more books, so she didn't do any permanent damage. It made a loud noise, though, and that's what she'd wanted. "Dammit!" She shouted.
"Whoa, language, Marshmallow." Puck said.
"I don't care!" Daphne snapped, pacing. "We have to go after them."
"We should wait." Bella said, trying to put Basil on the floor. He resisted, clinging to her and whimpering. She continued, "At least until tonight. Give them time to work their way through."
Daphne stood glaring at Bella for a minute, but looking at her brother, who turned his big-eyed worried face to her, she relaxed a little and said, "Fine. But if they're not back by nightfall, I'm going after them."
Sabrina still hadn't moved. Puck was getting worried. This wasn't like her, this complete lack of action or passion. He was a bit afraid she was going into shock, just sitting there and occasionally saying, "I can't do it again."
"Grimm." He said. "Snap out of it."
Sabrina ignored him, her face still buried in her hands. Puck looked at the others desperately.
Red stepped up, knelt by the older girl, and pulled her head up out of her hands, saying, "Sabrina. Look at me."
Sabrina looked up at the little girl in front of her, biting her lip. Her expression scared Bella and Puck. It would have scared Daphne, too, if she'd seen it. But Red ignored the look on Sabrina's face.
"I know." She said. "We all do, you know."
Sabrina laughed a little and shook her head.
"We do." Red said. "We've all lost our families, too. I don't want to lose Mamma Briar and Daddy Jake any more than you want to lose your parents again. But you can't fall apart. We need you to be strong. Basil needs you to be strong."
Sabrina looked at her little brother, then back at Red. The younger girl looked back at her, gaze worried but steady.
Sabrina took a deep breath, then nodded. "All right." She said. "Let's get to it."
Puck grinned and sighed in relief. It just wouldn't be right if they were going to go out and do something stupid and risky without Sabrina leading the way.
They spent a good portion of the day planning, though they also made sure to do their chores, holding on to the faint hope that the adults would come home. It was decided that if the parents didn't come back, the kids would leave in the morning, at dawn. They would take as many weapons as they could find through the day, magical and otherwise, and if the adults weren't home by dinner, they'd contact anyone else who might be available to help to see if they at least knew what was happening, even if they didn't want to come help. Bella would stay home with Basil.
"The shield around the house will keep you safe." Sabrina promised. "Nobody- and no magic- can get in who wants to hurt someone inside, and as long as something's alive inside the barrier, you'll be fine. It doesn't work if you all go inside Puck's room, though. Someone has to stay out here."
"All right." Bella nodded. "As long as they don't bring a cannon or something."
Sabrina smiled. "The house has its own protection against stuff like that."
"We should talk to the kids in there." Daphne said suddenly. "All their parents are missing, too. They might want to go after them. And at the very least they should know something's up."
Sabrina nodded. "Take Basil with you. He can play with the little kids."
Daphne nodded and walked off.
Once she'd seen her sister heft Basil onto her hip and walk off to what used to be Puck's room, Sabrina turned to Bella and, lowering her voice, said, "If we... don't come back... You'll be all right, right? You can set up a garden in with the kids, grow yourself some food. It's always summer there, and we have seeds someplace. As long as some of you are in the house all the time, you can do it. All right?"
Bella nodded. "I'll be fine."
"Promise you'll take care of Basil?" Sabrina asked.
"Like he was my own brother." Bella says.
"Thanks." Sabrina said. "And... listen, if we don't come back, Basil's gonna have to stay in the house all the time, 'cause he might be the only Grimm left, and he needs to stay in the town to keep the Barrier up, and Puck's old room isn't inside the Barrier, exactly."
Bella nodded. "I've got it. Just... come back, all right?"
"I'll try." Sabrina said. "Weird that last night the most important thing we talked about was boys, isn't it?"
Bella nodded. "And I'm not done talking to you about them, so you better be careful."
"All right." Sabrina grinned. "I promise."
Dinner had sat on the table for an hour, growing cold, before the kids gave up waiting and ate anyway. Nobody had cleared the adult's plates away, though Bella had covered them. Daphne had gone back to talk with the other kids about strategy, taking Basil and Red with her. And Sabrina sat on the porch roof, thinking, preparing herself for the events of the next day.
"Boo."
She turned to see Puck, his head poking out the window. "Hey." She said.
"What are you doing?" He asked, climbing out the window to join her.
"Just thinking." Sabrina shrugged. "Tomorrow's a big day."
"Yeah." Puck agreed.
Sabrina looked over at him an snickered a bit. "It's a good thing I didn't want to be alone." She said. "You join me out here half the time."
Normally, Puck would have said something about how he'd have liked it better if his being there annoyed her, but tonight was different, so he said nothing.
"Did you ever think," Sabrina said suddenly, "What would happen if you died?"
"Yeah." Puck said. "Made a will and everything. It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself."
Sabrina blinked at him. "Seriously?"
"Yeah." Puck responded. "What? Is that weird?"
"Just a bit." Sabrina said. "Most people don't make a will until they get old."
"I am old." Puck said. "Four thousand years old."
"Right." Sabrina said. "Forgot about that." They were silent for a minute, then she asked, "So what's on your will?"
"Nothing important." Puck shrugged. "I want everything I own to go in a museum of awesomeness. But you probably don't want to hear about that."
"No."
"Why do you ask?" Puck asked. "If I think about dying?"
Sabrina shrugged. "'Cause we could. Tomorrow. It's weird."
"A bit." Puck agreed. "We don't normally get time beforehand to prepare, do we? Normally it's just bam! We're being attacked. Not 'oh, let's plan this battle out."
"Yeah." Sabrina said. "It makes you think, you know? About whether your life is what you wanted it to be or not. If you did what you should have. If there's stuff you should fix. Mistakes you wish you hadn't made. People you should apologize to. Things you never got to do."
"Like what?" Puck asked, looking at her with raised eyebrows.
Sabrina could never say what made her do it, if it was the heat of the moment, or the fact that Puck hadn't cracked a nasty joke, or if it was just pre-battle jitters and the fact that she didn't want to die without doing this. But the fact was that she closed her eyes, leaned in, and kissed him on the lips.
Of course, about halfway through the kiss, she realized what she was doing and shoved herself backward, panting. Eyes wide, she scrambled backwards on her elbows to the window and clambered through it in a rush, slamming it shut behind her.
Once inside, she leaned against the wall, hand over her mouth, breathing heavily with wide eyes. What had she been thinking? What was Puck thinking? She couldn't know that on the other side of that wall, Puck stood, too, looking up at the night sky and wondering the same things she was.