Disney's Tinker Bell in Storybrooke
A Disney Fairies / Once Upon A Time Crossover
Season 1, between episodes 7 and 8

STORYBROOKE, MAINE

"Anonymous?" Regina asked. "Who is Anonymous? I'll have him arrested?"

"There is no 'him' or 'her' to arrest, Madam Mayor," Emma told her. "It's not a person, but a group."

Anonymous is a loose knit group of international hacktivists. The organization, if you can all it that, has no real leadership or hierarchy and their politics are all over the map depending on the individual members. Some choose to engage in large scale pranking, while others prefer to make political or social statements. Their primary targets are large corporations, organizations and government entities.

The closest thing to an agenda that can be attributed to Anonymous is that they oppose cyber-censorship and cyber-surveillance. The individual members, called Anons, see themselves as freedom fighters, using the internet as their field of battle. Governments, corporations and law enforcement agencies view Anonymous as vigilantes at best and cyber terrorists at worst.

The group and its membership use a stylized Guy Fawkes mask as their symbol. A white mask with a grinning countenance, a thin moustache and slender goatee from the lip to the chin. Some members will even wear the mask in public to hide their individual identities while protesting in person.

The mask is derived from Guy Fawkes, the most widely known member of The Gunpowder Plot of 1605. A failed attempt to blow up the House of Lords and King James the First. The purpose was to install a Catholic monarch to the Protestant English throne. The plot was reported to the authorities by unknown individuals. The stash of gunpowder was located and Guy Fawkes was the unlucky soul who was found with the gunpowder, tasked with guarding it.

"So why would a large group of cyber activists want to attack our hospital?" Regina rightly asked.

"I don't think they did," Emma replied. In the instant after seeing the image of screen, Emma began asking that same question of herself. The only answer she could come up with was that Anonymous had no involvement in this attack. Whoever did this used the Anonymous name to cover their true identity and lead any investigation in the wrong direction.

"Anonymous always does things that are large in scale and attracts positive attention to themselves," Emma elucidated. "Launching a cyber-attack against a small town on the coast of Maine isn't high profile enough. And a hospital, where innocent people could die, wouldn't garner them any sympathy. Plus, their main form of cyber-attack is a Denial of Service Attack, flooding web servers with so many fake requests that no one else can access the websites. But if they were to erase data, it wouldn't be a little bit here and there. They would wipe everything. No, this is all wrong."

"What are you saying, Deputy?" Regina asked.

"I think this is a cover up. Someone hacked into this network to erase sensitive information and had to wipe out thousands more files to conceal their true intent."

"Are you telling me this could be a local crime?"

"I'm sure of it."

~O~

Claire had just delivered Tina to school and had to turn back around to collect some clothing for Valerie. It felt like she was going in circles. She had been taking her high blood pressure medication everyday as prescribed, but her days were filled with so much stress that her blood pressure was still well above normal. Every night she checked with a wrist monitor she purchased from the Darkstar Pharmacy and every night it was the same. Both systolic and diastolic numbers were too high for comfort.

Her home life was coming apart, her oldest daughter had lost her memories and money woes plagued her every day. Other than the work awarded from the city, good paying jobs were hard to come by. She was deep in debt owing money on her credit cards and to Mr. Gold. And suddenly it seemed that her youngest was beginning to act like a hormone crazed teenager. She was dating Clarence AND taking an interest in an older man who had no business courting a young teenager.

Valerie's extended hospital stay and subsequent upcoming trial was going to bankrupt her. What else could possibly go wrong? In a few minutes, Claire would wish she had not asked that question.

Halfway back home the cell phone rang. Hartley Winter was calling. Claire thought it was a good sign.

"Hello? Oh, good morning, Hartley. How are you today?"

Hartley didn't spare much for pleasantries, a foreboding tell. "Claire, are you at the hospital?"

"No. Why? What's wrong?"

Hartley quickly told her that his business partner Ned had come to visit his girlfriend in the hospital. When he had arrived the hospital was in a tizzy. Files had been erased from their computer system, including many sensitive patient files.

"Is Valerie still in the hospital?"

"Oh dear, she is," Claire sighed, feeling that the other shoe had just dropped.

"You had best get to the hospital with all due haste. I will meet you there."

"I'm on my way now, Hartley. I'm meeting Emma Swan there to discuss Valerie's discharge."

"I doubt it will happen anytime soon," Hartley commented. "From what Ned told me, the hospital is in shambles with the loss of so many files."

Claire thanked him and hung up. She pushed the gas pedal down a little harder and arrived home a few seconds quicker to gather what little remained of Valerie's clothes in the event she could come home. Or be taken to jail. Either way, the girl needed more than just a hospital robe and pajamas.

Most of her clothing had been lost in the motorcycle accident Thanksgiving night. They had been dispersed throughout the woods where she crashed and small animals began to tug and pull at them, tearing and damaging the clothes beyond practical repair. She gathered in a small suitcase two pairs of underwear, two brassieres, one pair of jeans, two black shirts and two pairs of black jeans.

Claire looked at what remained of Val's wardrobe. Most of it was black. She began to wonder if Valerie was preparing to become a Goth. It worried her even more. Worse yet, she could not get any answers. Vidia wouldn't know what Valerie was planning.

~O~

Emma and the mayor were talking off to the side. "What do you intend to do?" Regina asked her acting sheriff.

"We have to find some way of recovering those lost files," Emma replied. "That's our first priority. I'll worry about finding the culprit once the hospital has been restored."

"Well your little tool didn't seem to work, who do you suggest?"

"We need to find the best computer nerd in town and ask him or her to work on this," Emma stated.

"Do you intend to bring in an outsider to work on these system?"

"Can your network administrator recover what's been lost?"

"I think he can. Thank you for your input, deputy. I'll take it from here."

Regina walked back to the wall of servers. Emma felt slighted and used. The mayor seemed to be that kind of person. She took what she wanted from others and then glorified herself with that information and the success that followed. No wonder Henry thought she was the Evil Queen.

Her cell phone rang. Claire had arrived at the hospital. She was anxious and scared. "I'll be right up," Emma told her. She swiftly exited the server room and returned to the hospital entrance where she found not just Claire, but Hartley Winter, as well. He was holding the frightened woman in his arms. Her hand and head laying on his chest. Are these two joined at the hip? Emma wondered.

Deputy Swan greeted the two and filled them in on what was happening. She told them that whoever had done this was using Anonymous as a cover for their true intention. "The pretrial hearing is scheduled for this coming Monday and Valerie has to be arraigned before then. This couldn't have come at a worse time."

"Can she come home?" Claire asked.

"I don't know. Her files have been wiped out. There are no records of her even being here."

"Fine, then I'm going to take my daughter back home where she belongs," Claire stated forcefully.

"You can't," Emma said, blocking her path. "Valerie is still under arrest. If she leaves this hospital it's for a jail cell in the Sheriff's Station. I'm sorry."

"But what will happen to her? Will she get food, are they going to give her medicine she doesn't need? I'm not leaving my baby girl here when no one even knows what in God's name is going on."

Emma sighed. She could sympathize with Claire's distressed mood. "I might have a way around it all. Go to Valerie's room and tell her to get dressed. I'll be right back."

Before she could leave, however, Hartley caught her by the arm and told her, "I might know someone who could recover those files for you."

"I need assurances, not suggestions," Emma replied. She knew that Mayor Mills was overseeing the recovery and wouldn't let just anyone into that room.

"Do you have any other options?" Hartley asked her. Emma didn't immediately respond. She just pulled away from his grasp and left the hospital.

~O~

On the fourth floor Claire directed Valerie, or rather Vidia as she preferred to be called now, to shower and get dressed. She explained what was happening and why the staff was acting so strangely today. However, Vidia had no idea what she was being told. Her response reminded Claire that Vidia was from the year 1905 and computers had not yet been invented, much less networks or hackers.

Nonetheless, Vidia did as told. She brushed her teeth with the funny tasting paste she had been given. Then showered and dressed in the clothing Claire had brought.

"By the way, when are they going to serve breakfast?" Vidia asked. "I'm getting hungry."

Another problem Claire was concerned about. Who would feed all these poor souls trapped in the hospital?

~O~

Upon her return, Emma Swan managed to track down Dr. Whale. While he was even more overwhelmed than she had imagined, Whale was at least open to the idea of letting Valerie go home. There was little else the hospital could do in its current state and the staff needed to focus on the more critical patients. "I'll call the nurse's station and have them fill out discharge papers."

Whale directed the nurses there to print out an empty discharge form and fill it in by hand. The nurses used the bar coded bands on Valerie's wrists to complete the forms as best they could. Claire offered any other information needed, such as home address, phone number and the like.

Emma Swan came into the room and offered up an alternative to taking Valerie to jail. She knew that this Vidia personality wasn't going to understand everything going on around her. Putting her in jail and separating her from her family or friends would be cruel. So instead she found a different option.

"Okay, kid, this is a tracking monitor," she said holding up a small, black box with a large loop attached. "It goes on your ankle and I will know where you are at all times. I don't want to put you in jail, but you are still in custody for the crimes Valerie committed. The monitor is completely waterproof so you can bathe in it. It is also loose enough to wear socks or stockings. But don't try and pry it off. Do that and I'll get an instant text to my phone and I'll hunt you down. Got it?"

"What does this mean, Deputy?" Claire asked as Emma placed the device on Vidia's ankle.

"I'm putting her under house arrest," Emma explained. "Now she doesn't have to be confined to her home, but she cannot leave the town of Storybrooke." Emma Swan turned her gaze to Valerie, now Vidia. "I'm counting on you to not be a flight risk.'

"Oh don't worry. I'm not leaving," Vidia responded, almost as if licking her chops. "Not after the threat your mayor made to me and my queen."

"What threat?" Emma asked. Vidia explained to her that when Mayor Mills paid her a visit a few days she looked her right in the eye and declared Vidia to be lying. "She told me that she was going to prove my deception and run all of us, me, Tinker Bell and Queen Clarion, of out of town."

That's when it clicked for Emma. This event had Regina's fingerprints all over it. The threat, setting the pretrial hearing date so quickly and the loss of so much computer data from the hospital, especially Valerie's MRI scans, the very evidence needed to prove Valerie was not competent to stand trial. The coincidences were hard to swallow. Too hard in fact.

"Why would Mayor Mills want to run you and your family out of town?" Emma asked Claire.

"I don't know," she replied. "I barely know her."

There had to be a reason. Regina wasn't the type of person to do something like this without cause. Emma turned to Hartley Winter and told him to bring in his friend. Instantly, he opened his cell phone and placed a call. "Penny? It's Hartley. I have a job for you at the hospital. Their data has been erased by a hacker. Can you recover it?" There was a brief pause. "Excellent."

Hartley hung up the phone and announced to the room, "She'll be right over."

Things are starting too look up for Vidia and Claire. And now Emma seems to be on to who did all of this. Can she prove it? Or will this prove to be as elusive as everything else?

Stick around to find out. Thanks for reading and please leave a review.