Chapter 1

"Does anyone remember what we used those puzzle pieces for in the escape room?" Krystal asked, looking up from her laptop at the kitchen table of the Pigeon Forge cabin.

"It had something to do with that map of France, didn't it?" Joni answered from one end of the couch.

From the other side of the couch, Jen looked up from her laptop where she was busy editing. "Yeah, it led us to that big map on the wall I think."

"Oh, that's right," Krystal said, going back to her typing.

Across the room, Marta sat in the armchair, trying futilely to keep her eyes open.

It was the last day of their second annual girls' trip, during which they'd crammed as much into the first three days as was physically possible. This last day had been more relaxed. They'd spent the entire day writing what was turning out to be an epically long fictionalized version of their adventures.

Now, it was closing in on midnight, and though they were all tired, no one was quite ready to call it a night. After all, tomorrow morning they had to check out of the cabin and head back home.

For long moments all that could be heard was the clacking of laptop keys as Krystal finished writing her scene while Jen and Joni continued with their editing.

Marta lost her battle with the sandman, and her hands relaxed after which her laptop clattered to the floor.

"You can go to bed if you want," Joni said.

Marta shook her head. "I don't want to miss out on anything."

Jen grimaced. "At this point, I think all you'd be missing out on is the loud music our neighbors seem to be intent on blasting. An hour and a half past the noise ordinance." As though to emphasize her point, there was a loud cheer from the neighboring cabin followed by even louder music.

Marta chuckled but shook her head again. "I don't know what it is, but I just have this feeling, if I went to bed now, I'd be missing something. Something big."

No sooner had she stopped speaking than there was a crackling, fizzing sound and a formless puff of grayish smoke in the center of the living room. When it cleared, the ladies found themselves face to face with none other than the smirking face of Isaac, the author before Henry.

For a moment no one spoke, mouths hanging open, brains trying to catch up to the fact that the impossible had just happened to them.

Finally, Jen spoke. "Seriously? Of all the OUAT characters who could have visited us on our girls' trip, it had to be you?"

"Could be worse," Krystal said. "It could have been Neal." She spat the name as though it was the foulest of curse words.

"Might as well be," Joni pointed out. "After all, the author is the one who made Neal the way he is."

Isaac rolled his eyes. "Everyone's a critic. Look, is anyone actually interested in what I'm here for, or do you just want to sit around criticizing my life's work?"

"I'm interested," Marta said, raising a hand.

Meanwhile, Joni mumbled "Why can't we do both?" under her breath.

Isaac rolled his eyes dramatically once again. "So here's the deal. Every writer emits a…for lack of a better word…energy, and fanfiction writers are no exception. When someone works with an author's original source material, that author can feel the energy. Normally, I feel nothing but a ripple, but you, ladies, have been working together ALL DAY on your story, and to keep it brief, I felt a tidal wave."

"Sorry?" Jen said.

"You fanfiction writers!" Isaac continued to rant as though she hadn't spoken. "Always so critical of little things like plot holes and timelines and character development. Always so sure you can do my job better than I can. Well, I'm sick of it! It's high time I put you all in your place."

"By… monologing us to death?" Joni deadpanned.

"No," Isaac said, glaring at her, "by letting you try it if you think you're so smart."

Four confused looks met him.

Isaac reached into the messenger bag he had slung over his shoulder and pulled out what appeared to be a copy of the storybook. "I'm giving each of you an opportunity to dive into the story at one key moment you would like to change. You get to interact with the characters, tell them whatever you want, lead them in whatever direction you want. Hell, you can even make one of them fall in love with you if you want."

"But… won't that change the whole trajectory of the story?" Jen asked.

"It may," Isaac said, "but that's the whole point. If you change one thing, you'll see the ripple effect–and just how difficult it truly is to do my job. Don't worry, though, once you return, all will be returned to the way it should be as though you'd never been there."

"So, let me get this straight," Krystal said, "you're letting us, what, jump into the book and interact with our faves?"

"That's exactly what I'm doing," Isaac said with a nod.

Krystal's excited shriek echoed through the entire cabin.

"Sorry to be a bother," Marta piped up, "but… won't it require a lot of explanation to the characters why random women just happened to show up in their lives?"

"Ah, exposition," Isaac nodded sagely, "the scourge of writers everywhere. Don't worry, I'm trying to get all of that out of the way in this first chapter of your adventure. For the purposes of this exercise, all the characters know you and believe you have been a part of their story from the beginning. No need to pull attention from the narrative to explain your presence."

"But how does that work?" Jen asked.

"Because…" Isaac sputtered, "because….magic, okay?"

For several moments there was excited murmuring among the ladies as they discussed the relative merits of various scenes they'd like to "fix"

Finally Krystal addressed Isaac once again. "We've only got one more question: How do we get there?"

"That's where this comes in," Isaac said, tapping the storybook. "Think of the scene you're interested in visiting, step up to the book, and in you go. So who's first?"

"I know exactly where and when I want to go," Joni said, getting to her feet and stepping up to the author. "Let's get this fix-it underway!"

The book fluttered open, the pages flipping until they rested on a drawing of the beanstalk. Joni placed her hand on the drawing, and suddenly there was a bright flash of light, and then she was gone.

Notes:

-When I was thinking about what I wanted to do for jrob64, snowbellewells, and kmomof4 for their birthdays this year, I thought about our girls' trip to Pigeon Forge in late May. We wrote our favorite characters into our trip, essentially, so I thought, what if I write us into their story? So I asked each of them this question (without explaining the context): If you could go to one scene from OUAT and fix it, which scene would it be? In order to avoid arousing suspicion, I started the ball rolling by giving my own answer to the question. What follows will be the results of their answers! I find any kind of writing involving IRL people as characters to be very difficult, so hopefully this works!

-This first chapter, of course, is basically just a set up chapter containing, as Isaac warned, quite a bit of necessary exposition-but hopefully, as he suggested, most of that will be out of the way now! Just as a point of general interest, This chapter was nearly word for word what happened to us on our last night at the cabin-well, up until Isaac showing up at least, lol. The photo I used is the living room of our cabin...where this story starts.

-Up next on August 3rd, we start with Joni's story! What if Joni convinced Emma that she really wasn't wrong about Hook and she could trust him?