AN~ SORRY SORRY SORRY I OWE YOU ALL TREMENDOUSLY SO VERY SORRY PLEASE FORGIVE ME I'LL MAKE IT UP TO YOU ALL NEXT CHAPTER, I PROMISE.

.

The Winner of Last QotD: Archer Princess. Because.

New QotD: What can I do to make up for the fact that I was gone for a month?

.

Epiphany:Epiphany on Toast? Yes? No? Maybe? Anyway, thanks! I like Tim. He's all snark. I will fix the errors! DO IT.

Purpleflower23:It's only fair, it's been a long time since I updated. Thanks so much for the compliments!

Bookworm2000: Thanks! Glad the title worked!

D.J: Make another dude? What?

Ysykaotwlsgotdys: I'm sorry. I did, though!

TheFuturesGrimm: Apparently we are. Weird, isn't it? Thanks!

Catnissmeows27: A st. Bernard Yorkie would be one funny looking dog...

Guest:I don't really like being ordered around very much. Just saying.

Paige:Sorry about the wait. I've explained it in the AN up there.

Tilly:Thank you!

Guest: It's not annoying until you review more than twice without telling me anything.

PenguinLoverGurl: It's fine. I also took my time doing other summer stuff. I'd actually rather you have fun outside than read my fanfiction. Glad you liked it, though! Part Two: I'm so sorry! I'll definitely be praying for you and your family.

karatequeen78: Why wouldn't I?

lovespuck: Then you win last week, too. What do you want? Also he kind of almost walked in on something but not quite. QotD: That's awful! Part Two: What's going on is explained above. And I actually felt more inclined to write before I read your peeved review, just so you know. I'm sorry. I can't fix it.

Guest: And what if she doesn't know? 'I love you' is a big thing to say, not something to rush into unless you're sure. I actually think it takes a bigger person to NOT say I love you than to say it.

Polkadotnotebook: Well, when you get here: hi! There will not be a sequel. Didn't you notice how LONG and in-progress there is? There's nothing left for me to do.

Gallifreyengal: Oops. I'll fix that. Thanks! QotD: Wow. Where are you getting a spare TARDIS?

Anonymous of 117: He is. I love her and him! Sorry. And don't get TOO mad.

Peter had left to find Wendy. This wasn't the first time he'd done that, but it was the first time he'd gone to find her sure that she was in danger, and that he might be in very real danger if he went after her.

It was the first time he realized she was worth it.

Wendy had been like a mother to him ever since he'd come back for Jane. He'd learned his lesson from Jane, and he was a lot better about keeping track of things, and paying attention, now. But suddenly, he was remembering (an odd thing for Peter, memories as clear as these. Most of the time his past was a fog while he was lost in the endless now) days with Wendy, their childhood together, her stories, her beautiful tales, their almost-kisses and thimbles, and he was thinking: thinking about how she must have waited for him at the window for days, years even, and he'd never shown up. He'd lost track of time. But that was no excuse.

"I failed you once, Wendy," He muttered to himself as he flew, "I'm not going to do it again."

But he didn't know where she was, and this was a problem, because two years in Ferryport Landing hadn't taught him everything about it, and he didn't know where Wendy might hide. He didn't know her well enough anymore.

He had two choices: he could search for her blindly, or he could swallow his pride and call on someone he hadn't seen in decades.

He knew what he had to do. He had to put her first. So he took a deep breath and shouted a name he hadn't used in far too long: "Tinker Bell!"

And she was there, as if it had been no time at all, a sparkling jingle of yellow glow and impish eyes.

She wasn't going to like this. She wouldn't like it at all. She'd never liked Wendy.

So he started with, "Hi, Tink," and a smile, and a 'how've you been?"

Tinker Bell responded with a long merry explanation of her time between him and now, tinkling and whistling and clanging and waving her hands about. He tuned most of it out- fairy lives weren't particularly eventful.

When she finished, he said, "That's great. I'm sorry I haven't seen you in ages. But, Tink... I need your help."

And he saw that she knew, somehow. She knew and she was... okay with it. She flew forward and smiled at him, jingling 'come on, then!'

Tink led him straight to Wendy with no side trips, to a basement buried under a mudslide by the river's edge. She even helped him dig a way in, and was surprisingly helpful for something not even six inches tall.

"Wendy!" Peter called, for the fiftieth time. He'd been calling her Mrs. Wendy for a while, but he'd dropped that when he was searching for her. Somehow it didn't matter that she was a grown-up right now. She was just his friend, and in trouble.

There was a cough to his right, and he and Tink immediately switched digging directions. It was the first time they'd had any response, and it spurred them to go even faster.

When they finally made it to Wendy, she looked horrible. She'd been pinned down by a large joist over her stomach, and the joist had had a pile of rubble about three feet high on top of it. It took Peter and Tink almost an hour to get it moved off enough to lift the joist off of Wendy.

By then it was dark, and Tink ordered Peter to go set up camp while she started using her whatever-it-was (Peter wasn't sure) on Wendy.

Peter went with no complaints, even though he couldn't stand taking orders, normally. When he'd finished setting up a sort of tent made of trees and garbage about half a mile away and had a fire started, Tinker Bell showed up with a sleeping Wendy without him having to call her, and sat down to steal his hot dog.

Even then, Peter didn't complain. He just stuck another one on a stick and poked it into his fire and asked, "Why are you doing this, Tink?"

She looked at him and jangled questioningly.

"Why're you helping me?" Peter asked. "I mean, I've been... I was an awful friend. And we haven't talked in ages, or even really seen each other. But you just popped up and went adventuring with me like nothing happened!"

Tinker Bell shrugged her tiny shoulders and told him, in a series of musical notes, that: 'we're friends, Peter. And I love you. So I forgave you, because you love her."

Peter wrinkled his nose at the mention of love.

Tink smiled and told him that he'd better not deny it, because she knew.

He didn't. Instead, he changed the subject. "When will Wendy wake up?"

Tink told him that she would probably be awake by noon the next day.

"Oh. Guess we'll get a late start back," Peter said, not really minding, even if he did miss his friends. They were probably off doing something grown-up. "You... wanna come with us?"

Tink looked at him quizzically and asked if he meant it.

"Sure," Peter said, "I owe you, Tink. I was an awful friend. And you'll like it there, it's fun. The lost boys miss you."

Tink tells him yes, and she smiles.

And that makes it worth it, somehow.

When Peter came back to the rest of the group on his own, with not just the comatose Wendy, but Tinker Bell, too, Puck groaned. Sabrina decided to just be grateful that he was keeping his complaining to a place where nobody else could hear him.

"Here I was hoping that if we left, we wouldn't have to see the half-wit knockoff me again," he muttered to her.

"Oh, hush up and walk," Sabrina rolled her eyes. "You don't hate him nearly as much as you pretend to. I mean, look! You've been living in the same town as each other for two whole years and then some, and you haven't killed him yet! Sure sign you're just pretending to hate him."

Puck preened a little at the suggestion that he was a murderous fiend, and grinned. Then he remembered what was going on and snapped, "Just because I haven't killed him doesn't mean I don't hate him. If I killed all my enemies, who'd be left to fight with?"

"Your friends," Sabrina said dryly.

Puck grinned again. "What makes you think you're my friend, Grimm?"

"What makes you think I was talking about me?" Sabrina shot back. Then she added slyly, "But if I'm not your friend, then who is? I don't see anyone else willing to listen to you complain."

Puck stuck his tongue out at her and muttered, "Pillowbutt."

Sabrina winked at him and said, "You like it."

"You wish."

"Where are we even heading, now?" Sabrina asked, changing the subject. "We've found everyone, and they're safe. So are we just going to wander around 'til we meet up with the Scarlet Hand and kick their butts?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Puck told her with a grin.

"Yeah, well, I don't like it!" Sabrina snapped. "It's too... aimless. I want to have a purpose! A destination!"

"Whoa there," Puck said, putting his hands up. "Let's not get too heroic here, shall we?"

"Hey, you're the one who told me I'm a hero," Sabrina pointed out. "And it's not my fault I want to know what I'm doing."

"What you're doing is consoling me because I have to deal with a horrible copycat and his two friends," Puck told her. "Feel better?"

"No, you self-centered jerk," Sabrina rolled her eyes. "I'm going to go talk with Mustardseed."

"But I'm not done yet!" Puck called after her as she kicked her horse faster. "I haven't even started ranting yet!"

"Rant to the horse!" Sabrina called back. "It cares more!"

When she reached Mustardseed, he turned away from Renee, who was riding next to him, and gave her an absentminded smile, still holding his girlfriend's hand. "What it is?" he asked.

Sabrina groaned internally. She'd almost forgotten about what Puck had told her that morning, but now she saw Mustardseed and Renee, and his voice came back to her head, repeating I love you. I love you. I love you, in time with the horse's footsteps. She shoved it aside and told Mustardseed, "I wanted to talk about what we're doing next. I can come back later, though, if you..." She trailed off, not sure how to finish.

"No, it's fine," Mustardseed said, looking at Renee for confirmation.

Renee nodded, and Mustardseed and Sabrina steered their horses to the side of the trail and stopped them, letting the others pass. Mustardseed looked at Renee the whole time, though, and Sabrina had to snap her fingers in his face to get his attention. She was lucky magical horses were calmer than real ones, even the real ones she'd ridden for her third birthday, the old tired dust-brown trail ponies her parents took her to ride.

"Sorry," Mustardseed said, looking at her finally.

"Do I actually have your attention now?" Sabrina asked, a bit testily.

"Yes, right, what we're doing now, sorry," Mustardseed said.

Sabrina rolled her eyes and asked, "So... any ideas?"

Mustardseed shook his head and said, "None whatsoever. At least, none that make sense. I suppose we could go storm the Scarlet Hand's fortress, but that seems like a bad idea."

"Yeah," Sabrina said tightly. "It does. And I don't have any better ideas. So I guess you can go back to your girlfriend after all."

Mustardseed smiled and said, "I still can't get used to calling her that. Decades of thinking she didn't care about me at all, and now..."

"Now she likes you back?" Sabrina suggested, once she figured out he wasn't going to finish.

"Now she loves me." Mustardseed said with the goofiest smile she'd ever seen him wear. "She told me so."

"And... you love her." Sabrina said. It wasn't a question. She was happy for them, really. But still. Now? Now, when she ought to be focusing on their next move, not trying to figure out her feelings? She detested feelings. They always got in the way.

"I do." Mustardseed's grin got, if possible, even bigger and goofier.

She hated herself for asking, but she couldn't help it, so she said, "How did you know? That it was love, I mean."

If Mustardseed had been more himself, he'd have given her a look, but in the state he was in, he just said, "I knew because I was willing to put her above everyone else, no matter what. I'm... I'm not normally like that. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all. But... for Renee, I would do anything."

Sabrina made a mental note to make sure that Mustardseed would be kept away from Renee if she was kidnapped, but nodded and said, "Wow. That's... big."

"I suppose," he told her, spurring his horse forward as he headed back to his girlfriend- his love.

Sabrina was alone for only a few seconds, and then Bella was there.

"Why were you talking with Mustardseed about love?" Bella asked.

Sabrina sighed, then explained, "Puck... Puck said he loves me," she whispered.

"Oh," Bella said. "So... what did you say back?"

"Nothing," Sabrina said, disgusted. "We got interrupted right after he said it, and even if we hadn't, I don't know... I don't... What would I say?"

"Um, normally you say 'I love you too', or something like that," Bella said. "Unless..." she peered at her friend.

"I don't know," Sabrina said in a quiet wail. "I mean, how do I know it's love? What's the difference between love and like?"

Bella shrugged and said, "I don't know. Maybe it's different for everyone. For me it's knowing that... no matter how much I want anyone else, I'll always want him more. And it's deciding that he's worth my everything, and that if I can't give it to him, he deserves his freedom to have someone else's everything."

Sabrina snorted and said, "You might be right about it being different for everyone. So far I've gotten a different answer from everyone I've asked."

"And why not?" Bella asked. "I mean, we're all different. So why should love be the same thing? That's like expecting a one-size-fits-all t-shirt to actually look right on everybody."

Sabrina snickered, then sobered up and asked, "So how do I know what my love looks like?"

Bella shrugged and said, "I think that's something you can only figure out for yourself."

Sabrina sighed and complained, "Why aren't there ever any easy answers?"

"That's being a grown-up, sweetie." Bella smiled at her.

"Then I want to go back to being a kid, after all," Sabrina muttered.

"Bit late for that," Bella said. "Should've taken Puck up on it when he offered."

"I was already too far gone." Sabrina told her. "I'd rather be all adult than partly grown up and partly a kid. It feels like trying to stand on two separate trampolines that both have people bouncing on them."

"That, my friend, is quite an analogy." Bella said, kicking her horse forward. "Good luck figuring things out!"

Sabrina sighed and sank back in the saddle. She had some things to mull over.

Her thinking time was doomed to die before it really began, though. She was just starting to sort things out when a shout came back along the line and someone called, "Sabrina!"

"What?" Sabrina groaned, looking up at Tiger Lily with a face. "Is this really that important?"

"I think so." Tiger Lily said. "There's a boy here. He's one of the Scarlet Hand."

Tom had watched his fellow Hand members for a while, while they bungled around trying to find Cricket. It was lucky for his friend that nobody else knew he could teleport to where someone was without knowing where that was, otherwise Cricket would be back already. But now they were getting close. It had been a long trail, but they'd finally found a genuine trace of Cricket.

This could end very badly.

Not that he really cared, of course. It was just a whim that he was heading to Cricket to warn him. It wasn't like he had a stake in things. And even if he did, he ought to be playing for the other team. It wasn't like Cricket's future mattered to him, really.

Still, here he was, jumping onto Cricket's head from his bedroom, even if he didn't care. Maybe he was doing it because he wanted to show the Hand that they didn't own him, even if they'd never know what he'd done.

And then- "Tom, what are you doing here?" Cricket, pulling Tom off his head and giving him a look that was half annoyed and half confused.

"I'm here to warn you," Tom said, "The Hand's coming to get you." Then he looked around. "Cricket, what are you doing with this many people? It's a stupid idea, it'll get you caught way more easily. I mean, this is almost an army! Or it would be, if it wasn't a bunch of kids."

"Excuse you, we kids are the ones who've been doing most of the winning in this war!" A voice snapped.

"Cricket, who's this?" Another voice asked, and Tom began to wish he was full sized. Not that he cared what any of them thought of him, of course. They were all idiots. But still.

"This is my friend, Tom." Cricket explained to the others.

"Isn't he in the Scarlet Hand?" another voice. Tom wished he could see clearly.

"Scarlet Hand? It's a trap! A spy!" someone else called.

"Go get Sabrina! And Mustardseed!"

The voices blurred a bit, and Tom was very confused for several minutes, even after Cricket set him down on the ground, and he jumped back up to full size. It's very difficult to feel yourself when you're surrounded by people giving you suspicious looks on horseback, and you don't know any of them, or even where you are.

The only face he really focused on was the girl, Sabrina. She rode up last and gave him a cool appraising look, the black scar around her left eye surrounded by a gray film over eyes that were a blue like lightning, and just as dangerous, her long blonde hair whipping around her face in a brief breeze, clear pale skin with a sunburn-red nose in the center of it all making her beautiful.

And just like that, Tom, the boy who disdained anything as weak as love, was hooked.