All the Things We Feared

"…What?" Shrek uttered.

"What are you talking about?" Fiona asked vacantly, blinking in disbelief at her daughter.

"Nothing–" Farkle spat, his eyes darting from their parents to his sister. He sprang up from his seat, too fast for Fergus to halt him again. He made for Felicia, intending to drag her back into their bedroom, something, anything to mitigate this. Fergus shot up as well, noting the emergency measures being executed.

Felicia reflexively dodged the hand that made a grab for her arm. "Get away from–"

"STOP."

The three siblings' heads immediately whipped to their mother's bellow. "Who told you that?" Fiona asked, her voice low.

"What– what do you mean 'who told you that'?" Felicia stammered a reply.

"Felicia. Who told you that?" Fiona repeated, a bit more firmly than before.

This wasn't the response Felicia was expecting - not that she'd thought that far ahead, of course, but her parents really should have been vehemently denying what she'd just said, angrily asking where she'd heard such a ridiculous story.

Instead, they were very still, and very serious.

Felicia's eyes darted between her parents - her mother staring at the three with unwavering sobriety, her father still staring blankly ahead, not at her or anyone in particular.

"Wait, waitwaitwait–" Farkle blurted. "Is–"

"It's not true, is it?" Fergus interrupted.

Their parents stared back at them, their expressions unchanging.

Felicia felt her face begin to tingle.

"It's… true?" she felt leave her lips, her voice disconnected from her body. The white noise in her head warred with her heart pounding in her ears.

The anger in their father's face had long dissipated, but his current expression was hard to discern - his mouth was set in a flat line, and he looked at her with something she'd never seen in his eyes before, and couldn't place.

"Dad." Farkle attempted to break his catatonia.

Shrek finally blinked, his eyes glancing at his sons off of each of Felicia's shoulders. Farkle and Fergus looked at him with agitated insistence, growing with each second their father failed to reply.

"Where did ye hear that?" Shrek managed to ask, his voice flat.

The triplets frantically looked between themselves, their parents' lack of response causing their minds to splinter.

"What– do you mean–" Felicia reiterated slowly, perturbed by their refusal to answer, "'who told us?'" The violin string in her mind continued to tighten.

"Tell us," Fiona insisted. "Just tell us." She looked between her three children, her eyes unyielding.

"Why does it– matter where we–" Fergus sputtered, desperately trying to make sense of their odd behavior.

"Fine!" Felicia cut him off, topping her mother's tone. They refused to answer her question, instead demanding they answer theirs - as terrifying as the reason behind that likely was, anger was the only power she had right now. "Just some roadside merchant, that's who!"

"What– what merchant?" Shrek asked quickly, his voice regaining some color. "What'd he look like?"

The teenagers were silent half a moment, unable to fathom its relevance, perhaps naively hoping a parent would offer a why at some point.

"A… little guy?" Farkle offered finally. "Big eyes? Pointy–"

"WHAT!?" Shrek and Fiona exclaimed on top of each other.

Fiona stood from her rocking chair, her bewildered eyes shifting from her husband to her children. "Where?" she pressed the teenagers, "Where did you see this–"

"We don't know!" Fergus answered hotly. "Really far out somewhere! Why does it–"

"TELL US WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!" Felicia shouted.

The room was rendered silent again. Fergus and Farkle looked between their sister and their parents, who looked at their children with a dull fear in their eyes, a look so foreign that it chilled the three.

Shrek exhaled, looking down and away. "Sit down, would ye," he muttered.

The triplets didn't move from where they stood in the center of the room.

"Sit down," Fiona repeated levelly, returning to the rocking chair. "Please."

The three glanced between each other, desperate for answers, but desperate to avoid… whatever it was they were about to hear. They found their legs moving their bodies back to the sofa, however, almost against their will as they adhered to their mother's direction.

The siblings sat back onto the couch that suddenly felt far too small. The fire beside them was too hot, despite the cold just outside. Their legs pressing against each others' as they sat made them want to jump out of their skin.

"...Well?" Felicia snapped, the silence threatening to swallow her whole.

Shrek took a deep breath. "That man ye met," he began, finally meeting each teenager's lost eyes before quickly looking away again, "he's, ah… not a very good man."

Yeah, they'd gathered that.

They remained silent, forcing him to continue.

"That man, his name's… Rumpelstiltskin." His hands gripped his knees.

"He's banished from Far Far Away," Fiona added rotely. "You've been briefed on him."

The teens' brows furrowed - they certainly didn't remember learning about the imp they met, wherever it was they'd ended up when they saw his cart. He was so distinctive, surely they would remember that.

Then again… they hadn't paid the closest attention to the mind-numbing political lessons they'd had to sit through years ago. Not even Fergus had applied himself in those lessons; it's not like they'd actually need any of it, he'd told himself at the time, and recalled thinking now as his vision tunneled.

If I'd have recognized him, he panicked in his mind, none of this would've–

"Are you- blaming us for not recognizing–" Felicia stammered out her accusation.

"No, no, I–" Fiona countered quickly. She pinched the bridge of her nose, abandoning her rambling. "No. He's just… a very dangerous man, who has been banished from the kingdom for a reason. After he was released, I suppose we lost track of him."

"Released?" Fergus asked, trying to move his mind away from the spiral he was edging around.

"From prison," Shrek answered.

"…So?" Farkle asked, a bit less neutrally than he perhaps intended. "What does that have to do with a… a contract, or whatever?"

"Rumpelstiltskin is who tricked your father into signing that contract," Fiona stated, her tone void of emotion.

The teens' blood ran cold in their veins. Their heads felt as if they were floating away from their necks. They'd been feet - inches - away from him.

"What– what do you mean 'tricked'?" Felicia stammered. "How could you be tricked into signing away your–"

"And how are we–" Fergus interrupted his sister, gesturing among his siblings and Fiona, "all still here then? The merch– Rumpelstiltskin–" he agitatedly corrected himself, "said that the contract worked, so–"

"Rumpelstiltskin lies," Fiona cut in, answering both teenager's questions. "He omits, misleads, double-speaks, anything to get you right where he wants you." She sighed, closing her eyes, not wanting to say what was about to come out of her mouth, but she continued nevertheless. "The contract did work. We were all signed away." She opened them, looking at neither her children nor husband.

The teens could feel every hair on their bodies prickle. That single, glaring inconsistency in that foul little man's story was the thing they'd cited - clung to - as evidence that it was indeed a fabrication… now, they didn't even have that.

"But he was not telling you the whole truth–" Fiona continued, before being quickly cut off again.

"Well then what IS the 'whole truth'?" Felicia interjected fiercely. "Hm? Dad!?" She refocused her attention back on her father.

Shrek's ears receded as he looked back into his daughter's eyes - blue, as full of betrayal as they were anger, a sight he swore to himself nearly seventeen years ago that he'd never see again.

Shrek opened his mouth to speak, but he looked at his sons beside Felicia, their eyes containing much the same feelings. He tried to say something, anything, but all that came out was a pathetic attempt to clear his throat.

"I… was young… 'n dumb," he finally managed out, "…in over mah head with a lotta things. 'N I didn't tell yer mother how I was doin'. I just wanted… one day to mahself… 'n I thought that's what I was gettin' when I signed Rumpel's contract." He let out what little air was left in his lungs.

"...What?" Fergus asked, still attempting to process. "What kind of contract would–"

"Ogre Fer A Day," Shrek replied, his voice a bit more present. "That's what the contract promised– well, that's what he told me it promised. I'm the idiot fer not askin' more questions. A day of no responsibilities, in exchange fer a day from mah past… didn't know he'd take the day I was born, a'course… 'n since that day never happened, I never existed in whatever timeline he dropped me in."

Silence.

"How… did you even find this guy?" Farkle asked. "Did you, y'know… seek him out for this–"

"No," Shrek replied, looking away again. "He'd… had it out fer me fer a long time. Didn't know that at the time, either."

"You still haven't explained how we're all still here," Felicia spat insolently.

"Ye don't think I'm gettin' there?" Shrek blurted, his frayed nerves spilling out in an ever-familiar angry snap. He quickly stopped himself, taking a deep inhale before he ruined anything else. "The exit clause, is how," he clarified. "'True Love's Kiss,' it was. If I fulfilled it, the contract would be null 'n void. If I didn't, then… once the day was over, I would be, too. So I found yer mother–" His eyes suddenly darted to his wife beside him, but she didn't meet his gaze. He swallowed, and continued. "–at least the version'a her in that universe, somehow got her to fall in love with me, 'n reversed everythin'." He exhaled again, forcing himself to look back at his children's clouded faces. "Look I– I'm sorry, I–"

"Um–" Fergus inserted, before their father could offer another repetitive apology. "So… okay. There's… all that… I guess. But how did Rumpelstiltskin actually reach you? To get you to sign it?"

"I… um–" Shrek looked down at his hands, nails picking at a cuticle. "I… let everythin' get the better'a me… 'n he used it against me." His eyes lowered, somewhere by the teens' feet. "It all came to a head… yer first birthday."

The triplets' faces again wore a flash of confusion. Every answer their dad was giving was only leading to more questions.

"...At the Candy Apple?" Farkle asked, his disbelief palpable. "None of the photos look like–"

"What happened?" Fergus cut in.

Shrek's eyes glanced up at his son, looking somehow surprised that he was asked to elaborate. He scratched the back of his neck as he looked away again. "Ah… nothin' really, I was just stressed about the party 'n everythin', I wasn't in the best mood fer what shoulda been a–"

"Doesn't sound like nothing if we've never been back." Felicia's tone was dangerously level, contrasted against her hand gripping the sofa arm so tightly that the upholstery was coming loose.

Shrek looked at his daughter, but her unwavering glower made him quickly break away; that was, unfortunately, not the wisest gesture after his vague answer to the boys' questioning… his vague statement.

Felicia's brow creased in scrutiny. "You're lying." Her eyes continued to skewer her father. "Or you're– leaving something out… or something." Her voice cracked as she finished her sentence.

"Felicia," Fiona inserted, inhaling deeply, "I think that's enou–"

"No, Mom. I wanna hear." Felicia's unrelenting glare moved back to Shrek from Fiona.

"Well I don't!" Fiona snapped at her daughter. She had no desire to recount what she had firmly put behind her.

"And what does THAT matter?" Felicia threw back at her mother. "Did you just– think you'd keep this from us forever?"

"Yeah actually, we did!" Fiona barked, her volume increasing. "This is none of your–" She stopped herself and breathed, before she said something she regretted… or at least in a way she regretted. "Felicia– boys– kids– this had nothing to do with any of you. Okay? This was something–"

"I think it had A LOT to do with us actually!" Felicia interrupted. "We were wiped out of existence cuz of it–"

"–SOMETHING BETWEEN your father and it–" Fiona refused to be cut off, speaking directly over her daughter, "–was fixed and resolved many years ago, so–"

"How d'ye think we'd've gone about tellin' ye? Like this?" Shrek almost seemed to be actually posing the question to whoever wanted to answer, desperate and irate, even though it was already sorely late.

"Why did it happen at all!" Felicia cried, pounding the sofa arm so hard the wood frame within it splintered.

"I know!" Shrek snapped. "It shouldn't've! I'm SORRY. if I'da known what Rumpel had in that–"

"But you didn't even read the damn thing!" she drove into him. "You were SO EAGER to get rid of us you signed the first thing put in front of your face!"

"Felicia–" Fiona insisted.

"He got rid of YOU TOO, Mom!" Felicia snarled. "Unless you forgot?"

"Oh I didn't! Don't worry!" Fiona gave in and met her daughter's level again, despite her better judgment.

"Then why are you defending him!?" Felicia jabbed a finger toward her father.

"Because it was a mistake!" Fiona shouted, loud enough to remind herself, as well. "A stupid mistake that an– an evil man tricked him into! That he fixed! Because he loves us!"

"You sure about that!?" Felicia sputtered, unable to keep the break in her voice at bay any longer.

"Felicia–" Fergus lunged across Farkle, grabbing her arm.

"Get OFF–" she wrenched out of his sweaty grasp, stumbling out of her seat. "You two've been REAL quiet, seeing as you're the ones who wanted to ask about this in the first place!" Her brothers' eyes lit up with a renewed murderous rage.

"Cuz you won't SHUT YOUR F–" Farkle shouted up at her.

"Forget it!" Felicia stomped away toward her bedroom. "Dad got rid of us, Mom is defending him, you two don't give a damn, but I'M the bad guy." She quickly wiped her eyes on her sleeve as her back fully turned.

"Hope you don't get tired of this new kid and sign it away, too." Felicia heard her final words come out more broken than wrathful, but she couldn't bring herself care. She slammed her door behind her with the last of her energy, dirt dusting down on the living room.


Felicia threw herself on her bed, burying her face in her pillow as she wept. She knew they could hear her from the living room, but she didn't care. They should hear her.

She reached into her knapsack beside her bed for Sir Squeakles. As she brought the threadbare doll up to hold against her, a jarring realization ripped away what little comfort she was about to have: her father had made her that doll.

Her father, who signed her away as a baby without a second thought.

Her father, who was giving her room away to a kid who didn't even exist yet.

What was he going to do next? Take it from her when the baby came, too?

She looked at the tattered little thing through her blurred vision: a missing button eye, its red stitched smile barely still a pale pink, its faded dungarees fashioned from a scrap of her father's trousers.

Felicia ripped its head from its body, and threw the carnage against the wall opposite her bed. Her body felt like dust, everything ached from head to toe, her head throbbed like a burning coal. She pulled her pillow over her head as she curled up, continuing to sob.


Shrek and Fiona closed their eyes, their mouths set in grim lines.

Farkle and Fergus averted their eyes as soon as their parents turned back to them, aiming their gazes solidly at their knees as their heads swam.

Shrek looked between his sons, still as stone in their seats.

Fiona crossed her arms over her chest. She felt her eyes begin to sting.

"I um…" Shrek began, gesturing lamely to the boys, "This isn't–"

Farkle rose from the couch and quickly made his way to his room, making only the briefest, least avoidable eye contact with his parents.

Fergus stood moments later, making it halfway to the bedroom before pausing, as if to say something. No words came, however, and he continued forward, closing the door behind him.

Shrek turned his head from the boys' door, back to his wife beside him. He began to extend his hand to put around her shoulder, but she too rose from her rocking chair, and made her way up to their bedchamber.

Shrek sat alone in the warmly lit, decorated living room.

He wasn't sure what was a worse feeling: all those years ago, sat on that log as he realized his family was well and truly gone… or now, that those he loved most in the world now knew what he'd done all those years ago, about the awful secret he'd almost fooled himself into forgetting.


The clock struck eleven. The living room was dark. Five ogres were in their beds.

Shrek stared up at the ceiling above the bed he hadn't slept a wink in.

Fiona was turned away from him. She was still, but he knew she was awake.

The house was silent. Even the swamp life outside the windows seemed to be keeping it to a minimum.

"So… they know." The words scratched Shrek's throat, his voice barely a whisper.

Silence.

The air was so still, he could just barely hear the flame crackling on its wick.

"Now what?" he continued, despite the lack of reply.

More silence.

Maybe she had actually fallen–

Fiona's shoulders raised as she took a deeper breath. She adjusted her head on her pillow.

"I don't know." Her voice was hollow.

Shrek accepted her answer. Not that he had another option.

Just as he seemed to feel his eyelids growing heavy, the unmistakable creak of Felicia's bedroom door broke through the dense nothingness. A handful of footsteps shuffled through the living room, followed by the squeak of the front door. Her footsteps through the courtyard faded from their ears as they grew distant.

The couple sat up, looking toward the door beyond their closed chamber curtain. Shrek made his way down into the main room, to the front room's window just in time to see a pajama-clad shadow slip into the dark of the trees. He looked back toward her bedroom door, left ajar. The blanket from the bed was gone, but her knapsack still sat beside her bed. She hadn't left for good, then.

As he stepped into Felicia's room, his eyes fell upon the tiny remains of Sir Squeakles. What little stuffing he had left in him was coming out of his neck, now that it lacked a head to contain it.

"What's–" Fiona began, having made her way to Felicia's door. She too noted the backpack, but she stopped as she saw her husband holding their daughter's discarded, once-cherished possession.

Shrek looked up at his wife. "Doesn't really seem like she wants anyone followin' her, seein' as she slipped out in the middle'a the night." He rose to his feet, approaching Fiona at the door.

"I don't really think she knows what she wants, right now." Fiona's eyes didn't leave the toy.

Shrek nodded. "First thing in the mornin', I'll go."

"You're not going now?" she countered him, her tone ever so slightly accusatory.

"So she takes off somewhere further? In the dark?" Shrek responded in kind. He immediately closed his eyes, stopping his budding argument before it began.

Fiona looked away, turning to head back to bed.

"Hey–" Shrek whispered, touching her shoulder. She stopped, but didn't look back at him. "I'm sorry. Just… give her a night. She'll be fine. Besides, I'm pretty sure'a where she went."

Fiona's eyes remained on the front window, as she took a deep breath. She resumed her walk back to their bedchamber. "You'd better be."


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Sounds like the family is pretty extraordinarily DISpleased right now, am I right? Eh?

Anyway.

Me skimming lyrics from songs on all the soundtracks: OMG yes this line from "Isn't It Strange" by the Scissor Sisters is totally perfect

Me the day I published this chapter: …oh right that's the song plays when they're flying to the Candy Apple aka beginning the scene where this entire problem unfolds

Welp. Here we go.

Thank you for reading!