Disney's Tinker Bell in Storybrooke
A Disney Fairies / Once Upon A Time Crossover
Season 1, Episode 11, Chapter 6

STORYBROOKE, MAINE

Emma was so pissed over the brake lines being cut by Regina that when the tow truck dropped her and Sydney off at the Sheriff's office she immediately piled into her old, yellow Volkswagen Bug and made for the Town Hall building. It was all Sydney could do to keep from being left behind.

It was Emma's goal to find out what Regina intended to do with that plot of land she bought from Mr. Gold. The problem? Those secrets were likely kept secure in the mayor's office. To acquire them meant entering a secured building in the middle of the night. Now it was Sydney who was having second thoughts. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked Emma Swan.

"Yeah, I've got her alarm code," she replied. As it turned out, Emma's "alarm code" was a brick through the French doors.

"What are you doing?" he asked her, incredulous that she, he sheriff of Storybrooke, had gone so far as to engage in a criminal act.

The way she figured it out in her head was that the alarm company would take two minutes to contact the police, which was her. Another two minutes before Regina found out and two more minutes of driving time. "We have six minutes."

Immediately Sydney began sifting through any and all documents and drawers. Emma went for the computer. She plugged in her USB drive with the data recovery program and did a search for anything relating to the property Mr. Gold purchased. In seconds the search recovered more than half a dozen documents which were for what appeared to be a luxurious new home that looked suspiciously like a castle complete with elaborate towers.

Emma printed out the documents. While the printer was warming up Emma began searching for something else: Henry's book. The first thing she came across was a giant key ring with several old time keys, as if they had been fashioned centuries ago.

"Emma, we aren't looking for that book," Sydney protested as he took the printed papers and stuffed them into his trench coat. "We've got what we needed, let's go before Regina gets here."

"No," she rebuked. "You might have come for those documents, but I'm here for that book and I'm not leaving until I find it."

Seconds later the lights flickered on. "What are you doing here?" Mayor Regina Mills asked. She scowled, looking as perturbed as Emma had ever seen her.

Emma's response was that she had seen two boys throw a brick through the window, so she came in to investigate. "I'm Sheriff, remember? I'm just doing my job," Emma said, throwing back Regina's words from the other day.

"And you brought a disgraced reporter with you?" the mayor asked, looking directly at Sydney. Her sharply pointed description of him clearly irritated him. It was a clear reminder of why he was here this night. Regina had ruined his career and left him an empty shell of his former self. Doing to her what she had done to him would be a soothing tonic for that humiliation.

"He's a witness," Emma answered. "Sydney was in the neighborhood and saw what happened."

"What did you see, Sydney?" Regina questioned, disbelieving Emma's story.

"Uh…, two boys tossed a brick through the window," he told her. "We came in to investigate."

Regina sensed something amiss, but couldn't put her finger on it. When Emma asked if the mayor wanted her to continue, Regina declined instead asking them to leave.

This was fine with the duo, who were eager to escape now that Regina had arrived. Emma was upset that she hadn't recovered that book, but it clearly wasn't in the mayor's office. However, it was now quite obvious what Regina had in mind for that stolen money. When the next council meeting took place Emma and Sydney would be ready. They would finally reveal to the populace what Regina was doing with their money and exposing her arrogant abuses of mayoral authority.

~O~

THE ENCHANTED FOREST

Nighttime. King Leopold was fast asleep. Genie slipped into the king's bedchamber where the regent slept alone. The man of magic stood over his benefactor and quietly paid his respects before opening the chest. The two vipers instantly left their box and slithered under the covers. They each bit the king, waking him with a start.

"I'm sorry," the genie told him. Genie was eternally grateful for his freedom, but admitted he was the one who was in love with Regina. The genie believed it was his duty to free the woman he adored from this loveless union. This disclosure shocked and infuriated Leopold even as he drew his last breaths.

As the fast acting venom coursed this his veins, the king's complexion turned dark, his skin and flesh necrotizing in seconds. With his last breath Leopold looked into the eyes of the man who had betrayed him and slurred out the words, "You were right. I should never have made that wish."

It was a rebuke that unsettled the magic user, recalling the very warning he had given this man not long ago. Leopold did not gracefully accept his fate, nor the apologetic explanation from the visitor he had so warmly embraced. Instead, those last few words exposed the very depths of the betrayal he felt. A treachery the genie could not fully comprehend, so beguiled was he with Leopold's wife.

But the deed was done and Genie justified his actions with the love he felt for the queen. In his heart and mind, he wasn't killing a man but rescuing a helpless woman from her ugly fate. This wasn't an assassination, but an effort of great heroism. All that was left was for his lady fair to come running into his arms, grateful for his service to her.

~O~

STORYBROOKE, MAINE

It was late the next morning in Storybrooke. Yesterday Claire was feeling very good about herself. Her relationship with Hartley hit another milestone. Then last night Tina had a mood whiplash that sent Claire into panic mode. She slept rather fitfully from the anxiety and felt drained this morning. Everyone rose late after the job at Dave's ended so very early this morning. The spring in Claire's step was obviously missing. She dragged around the kitchen and it was so obvious that even Vidia, the first to come down, commented on it when she opened the kitchen door.

"I'm worried about your sister," Claire told the brunette. "What happened at the restaurant worries me."

"Me, too," Vidia answered while putting out the plates and silverware. "It was like she was two different people last night. Something's just not right."

"Hi, guys!" Tina cheered as she walked in the kitchen door. "How is everybody this morning?"

Claire and Vidia shared a stunned look. They were expecting that Tina wouldn't want to leave the comfort of her room this morning. That she might need to be coaxed out of bed. But here she was, a huge smile on her face and bouncing around with a chipper attitude. "Boy I slept good last night. What about you?"

"Uh…, are you okay?" Vidia asked, broaching the subject quite bluntly. "Last night you acted like you didn't want anyone saying a word to you."

"Oh, right. Sorry about that. Whoo, I must have been really tired. That exhaustion can really get to you y'know." Tina took her plate from the table and held it out waiting for Claire to fill it with eggs, bacon, ham and hash browns. "Mmm… smells good, Mom. But you've always been a great cook." She then grabbed some toast, added butter and a bit of jelly and filled a cup with orange juice before sitting down to eat.

Tina ate with gusto until she noticed that both her mother and her sister were staring at her. "What? Is something on my shirt?"

"Honey, are you okay?" Claire asked sweetly. "You weren't yourself last night and I'm worried about you."

"Oh yeah, I'm okay. Hey, ready for the Super Bowl tomorrow? I am. Go Patriots!"

Vidia noticed something most peculiar. Tina's cheeriness came without a twinkle in her eyes. When she mentioned this Super Bowl thing, however, the sparkle instantly appeared. In fact her body language changed subtly. She immediately sat taller in the chair and the smile in her face looked more genuine.

"Well, I need to do some shopping for snacks and drinks," Claire answered somewhat hesitantly. "Do you want to come along?"

"Uh…, if it's okay with you, I would like to spend the day with Penny," Tina remarked. That twinkle in her eyes disappeared again. "She's right, I could use her help getting ready for all of those tests. The state test can be real murder. And I want to be ready for the SAT next year."

"What's a… S-A-T?" Vidia asked.

"It's a standardized college admissions test," Claire explained. "High school students take it to assess skills in math, reading and writing. How well a student performs on the SAT can determine which colleges and universities will accept that student as a freshman."

"Freshman?"

"First year student."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Tina chirped. "The Pre SAT is this year so we can study and be prepared for the real thing next school year."

Claire smiled a bit at Tina. "I'm glad you're taking your future so seriously, honey."

"Thanks. Anyway, that's partly why I disappeared last night," Tina told them both. "Thinking about my future, how things are going to change soon, well I panicked and it took a lot of energy out of me. Sometimes you just feel alone."

"Oh, sweetie, I understand that perfectly," Claire admitted. "I felt the same way when I graduated high school and went to college." She sat down next to her youngest daughter, running a hand through her blonde, pigtailed hair. "I can remember being so excited to leave for college thinking 'I was a big girl now.' But when I left my house and parents behind I cried all the way there. It changed me in so many ways."

"College life can be very challenging for a young woman. No mother or father to comfort you and at school you're pushing against boundaries that are more firm and unforgiving than anything back home. I matured so much in those four years. I can understand why it would make you feel sick to your stomach. But don't worry, sweetie, you're a strong person. You'll be fine. You've got a full year and a half to prepare for it. And I'll be by your side every step of the way."

"Thanks, Mom. I needed that."

"I'm so glad to hear it," Claire replied with a big smile on her face. This was a great relief for mother. Her worries seemed so justified last night. Now that her little girl was preparing to face a brave new world she wanted to yell from the rafter just how proud she was for her.

Instead of yelling, Claire grabbed her youngest and gave her a big, motherly kiss on the side of her temples.

"Aww, Mom!" Tina protested. "I'm eating here. Can't you see I'm eating?"

She did the same to Vidia who just recoiled in horror.

"I'm so lucky to have such two such wonderful girls in my life," Claire told them both. She then proceeded to hug both which sent Tina into fits while Vidia put an empty plate between herself and her queen in a brazen act of self-defense.

~O~

PIXIE HOLLOW, NEVER LAND (The Late Georgian Period on the Mainland)

Marianna sighed. She had been sitting on a rock observing Silvermist who was at play in the pond. How exactly did this flighty, unfocused girl accomplish such a complicated water form was beyond her ability to comprehend. This was the eighth day in a row that Marianna had sat on that same rock, waiting to learn if someone else was helping her achieve this exercise. Yet she witnessed no one assisting Silvermist over the period of one week. Finally she had to assume that Silvermist had just stumbled across such an advanced work of magic through sheer dumb luck.

To find out exactly how this happened, Marianna finally decided to approach the young water fairy.

"Hello, Silvermist," she greeted quietly.

"Huh. Oh!" When Silvermist realized who it was that had spoken to her she nearly panicked. The water bridge collapsed and several fish were left to splash around angrily at being unceremoniously dropped.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," the instructor said. "I was just wondering how you were able to do that… thing."

"The bridge to the stream?"

"Yes. Did someone help you? Was it an accident?"

"No, of course not," Silvermist answered. She smiled pleasantly and remembered how it began. "One day I was admiring a bridge over a trickling stream. You know, the one the mice use to pull carts over? I had seen that bridge at least a dozen times, but that day I decided to take a closer look at it. That's why I thought that if it could work for mice, it could work for my little fish friends."

Marianna was taken aback by this answer. "You saw a wooden bridge and thought it would work for the fish?"

"Yes."

"And you thought of this all by yourself?"

"Uh huh."

"No one else helped you?"

"Uh uh."

"When did you find time for practice?"

"After I dragged all the water up to your fountain," Silvermist admitted. At the end of each work day Silvermist would bathe, have a light meal and then returned to the pond to play with the fish by helping them overcome the waterfall and continue their journey upstream.

"Play?" Marinna asked, unsure what to make of Silvermist's use of that word in this context. "It's work."

"Oh no. It's only work if you let it, but I never think of it that way. It's just too much fun."

"Fun? Why is it fun? Why do you think this is so enjoyable?"

Silvermist scooped her hands into the pond and pulled out a ball of water, inside of which was fish. She held it up to Marianna. "See? Isn't that such a cute little face?" Silvermist described.

"Cute?"

"Yeah. I mean, how can you say no to such a cute little fishy." Silvermist turned the ball of water so the tiny fish inside faced her. "Yes you are! You're a cute little fish. You are such a cute little thing aren't you?"

Silvermist drew the ball of water closer until she put her lips on the cheeks of the fish inside it. The little water creature did a backflip and bounced around with utter joy. The water talent fairy then deposited the tiny thing into the stream above the water fall. The fish then bounced around, doing backflips and wearing a broad smile on its face before it finally swam upstream.

Centering only on the joy that Silvermist took in working with the marine life, Marianna determined that Silvermist was either too naïve or too oblivious to realize that work shouldn't be fun.

Just my luck!

~O~

STORYBROOKE, MAINE

Tina finished her morning meal quickly and then excused herself from the table. "I'm going to call Penny and see if she wants to help me study today. Bye." The girl stepped out of the kitchen, a content smile on her face. When the swinging door closed behind her she stopped and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was following.

Tina sat on the sofa in the living room and sighed. Last night at the restaurant she had thrown up again. That was why she was gone for so long, why she was sapped for energy afterwards and why her eyes were so bloodshot. To cover up that fact the girl had carefully removed her shirt and put it aside to avoid any backsplash stains. Afterwards, she carefully cleaned up the toilet seat so no one from Dave's would call the next morning complaining about the mess.

Worried, she ascended the stairs to her room and set about searching Google and WebMD, but the results were so varied that the long lists her search returned enumerated some very scary diseases. So disturbing in fact that it put a good fright into her. "It's probably nothing," she told herself. "I'll wait and see what happens. Hopefully, I won't have to see a doctor."

The young blonde gathered her wits about her and called up her friend. "Hey, Penny. Can I come over today? I need to get out of the house for a while."

Thanks for your patience. Enjoy.