TWs mentions of sex work and murder. One character has something close to a panic attack at one point.
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"I can't believe you got to spend every summer here!" Liena gushed to her mother. "This place is awesome."
Sunny smiled down at her daughter. It was comforting knowing that she wasn't too frazzled by all the sudden place changes over the last few weeks. Or if she was, she was trying to make the best of it.
"I'm sorry we can't stay," Sunny said.
"It's cool," Ace smiled as she kept working away on a puzzle she had started with Catriona. "I like this place, but it's not home."
"Maybe we could spend Christmas here this year?" Sunny offered.
Liena looked up with a bright look on her face. "Really? We've never spent Christmas with Grandpa's side of the family before."
"A lot of things have been changing lately," Sunny sighed.
Sunny had been reflecting back a lot on her life those past few months. One of her biggest regrets had been how little contact she'd kept with her dad's side of the family. She called Catriona and her uncle Dia every now and again, but that had mostly been due to her mother's insistence.
This would have been the first time she'd been to the cabin since just before Liena was born.
"Yenay!" A voice called from the top of the stairs. "Phone call! It's Wolf!"
Sunny got up from the floor and made her way up the stairs. Her uncle, Dia, was waiting to pass her the receiver. She took it and uttered a quiet thank you. She motioned for Dia to go away as she lifted the phone up to her ear. Dia rolled his eyes and walked back down the stairs.
"Hello?"
"Hey, it's Bigby."
Sunny felt the blood drain from her face. "Yyeahh, Bigby. Listen, I know it was shitty of me to run off last night..."
"You don't have to justify yourself, you know?" Bigby told her.
Sunny's mind flashed back. It all happened so quickly. Running back up to the office, only to stop at the magic mirror with a dangerous thought.
"So Snow let you know where I went?" Sunny asked.
"Yeah, said you'd be back by tomorrow."
"That's right," Sunny fiddled with the phone cord.
She remembered asking the mirror something. To show her the Crooked Man's door again. She made him swear not to tell anyone she ever asked. She had been surprised it was still... working, and that it was fairly close by.
"Are you sure? I should be able to handle things on my own for a few-"
"It's fine. Really," Sunny smiled. "It's better not to put this kind of thing off."
All the Crooked Man's employees had cleared out by the time she got there. No signs of the twins, Jersey or even Tim. That was good and even better, she found files. Documents bookkeeping records of a lot of the Crooked Man's dealings over the years. It really wasn't just Crane that was under the Crooked Man's thumb.
"You know... most people would jump at the chance for a few extra days off," Bigby chuckled.
"Well, that's not really employee of the month behaviour, is it?" Sunny joked.
"When was this decided?" Sunny could hear Bigby smirking.
"I figured we could discuss it when I got back," Sunny shrugged.
Sunny was only able to carry back about three boxes to her apartment. The first thing she did was call Catriona to come and pick her up. Her aunt was a bit caught off guard by the sudden phone call, but didn't question it. She was there, with Dia in the driver's seat, in about three hours.
"Bigby, I..." Sunny felt the words get caught in her throat. She thought about telling him what she had found but felt wrong to do it over the phone. "I really appreciate you giving me a call. You didn't have to do that."
"I found some time," Bigby told her. "It's been an insane 24 hours, but no one's trying to kill each other... at least for now."
Sunny let out a sad laugh. "Don't go jinxing it."
The two of them said their goodbyes. Sunny walked back down the stairs. Dia had taken Liena outside to play with some of the other children.
"She's growing so fast," Sunny thought.
Sunny looked out to see Liena outside. Playing with the other kids. Each of them varied in size, shape, and some weren't all human.
Sunny leaned against the doorframe as she started thinking back to her own childhood. One particular memory played over in her head.
"Thought about it. Couldn't get the words out," Sunny said sadly. "I just... don't know if I trust them like that yet."
Sunny hardly remembered the context of this conversation. Some teenage nonsense that she had started venting to her father about.
"You could get in a lot of trouble if they found out you kept this from them," Her father had said. His tone wasn't exactly worried. It was more observant.
"It's just that... I might be fucking over a few people if I did it..." Sunny looked down at the floor in defeat. "You deal with people a lot. What would you do?"
The boxes didn't just have records on Fables like Beauty, Beast, and Tim. There was a decent amount of Fables that weren't living in Fabletown too. Quite a few were undocumented and looked like they went to the Crooked Man secretly for glamorous and whatnot.
And to add insult to injury, the ones outside of Fabletown were getting charged double compared to the witches on the 14th floor.
These unknown Fables were likely unaware of the bad deal they were getting. They just wanted to be left alone, and the Crooked Man had once again found a way to exploit innocent people.
Emmeual let out a tired laugh at Sunny's question. "That was a long time ago, young lady..."
"Well, any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated," Sunny pressed as she rolled her eyes.
Emmeual let out a thoughtful hum. "The thing about people, Yenay, is that a lot of them prefer a comfortable lie over the unbridled truth. You go pulling at strings; you uncover things that people won't like. And most will start lashing out."
"You're not saying I should just leave it?" Sunny said in surprise. Her father had never been one to let people live in ignorance.
"I'm saying," Emmeual placed a hand on her shoulder. "Keep your composure. Be mindful of your actions. And choose your friends wisely."
The next morning, Bigby was heading to the office. He rubbed his eyes as he waited for the elevator to stop. It had been three days since the Crooked Man fell down the well, and he still hadn't gotten any sleep. It didn't help that there wasn't really any adrenalin to keep him moving. He wanted to pass out, but there was still shit to do.
Once the elevator got to his floor, he stepped out and pulled out a cigarette. He spotted Flycatcher walking down the hall.
"Hey, Sheriff," Flycatcher greeted. Bigby just nodded back. "You gonna come see the truck off? We're leaving for the Farm in a few... Thought you might want to, I don't know..."
"I'll be down in a minute," Bigby told him.
"Okay... great," Flycatcher said as he hopped in the elevator.
Bigby continued on his way to the Business Office. The hall, as usual, had several Fables lined up against it. Waiting for the chance to speak to anyone for help. Bigby recognised a few of the faces as former 'employees' of Georgie's club.
"This fuckin' line," Bigby heard Gren mumble as he walked by.
Bigby ignored him and reached for the door handle. Before he could open it, someone from the other side beat him to it.
Sunny nearly ran straight into him as she rushed out the door. She had a couple of books, papers, wrapped packages in her arms, and a pair of keys hanging from her mouth.
"Sorry! I'll be back in a second," Sunny told Bigby, but it came out muffled due to the key. "Flycatcher just left his keys."
"I can take-"
"No, no, it's all good. I had some extra stuff I needed to give him anyway." Sunny said as she ran off.
Bigby's eyes looked to the door for a second. He debated going inside and talking to Snow but decided against it when Bluebeard pushed past him and into the office.
"Good morning, Miss White," Bluebared smirked.
"You're late," Snow said as the door closed.
It didn't take long for Bigby to decide he wasn't in the mood to stay in the office. He turned around and made his way out the front of the Woodlands. He passed by Colin. Who was walking around with a six-pack in his mouth.
"Someone's gonna see you, Colin," Bigby scowled at him.
Colin just smiled and gave Bigby a wink as he went on his merry way. Bigby was somewhat starting to regret making the decision to let Colin stay when he was on zero hours of sleep and lacking a lot of blood.
Sunny and Flycatcher were standing in front of the truck that was parked on the side of the road. A grumbling Toad and teary-eyed TJ were with them.
"Thanks, Flycatcher cuckled. "I'm always forgetting things. And it's just been so busy around here."
Sunny gave him a smile. "I get it. It feels like I'd lose my head if it weren't stuck on sometimes."
"Morning, Sheriff. Nice fuckin' day," Toad grumbled at Bigby as he climbed into the truck.
"Sorry about all this... I tried to help," Bigby said to Toad.
"Just why the hell did she have to send me and me boy away?" Toad frowned. "You promised me I'd get another chance, but Miss White said I had to go up to the damn Farm anyway!"
"Maybe we could try and talk to her," Sunny said. Looking from Toad to Bigby.
"Um, Ms Fei," TJ spoke up suddenly.
She turned to him with a soft smile. "What is it, TJ?"
"You know he was up cryin' all night. Poor kid," Toad told Sunny.
TJ held out a small wooden box towards her. "Could you... give this to Ace? Please. Dad says there's no time to say goodbye, so... If you can bring it to her... She was nice. So..."
"Yeah, I can do that," Sunny agreed.
"I couldn't take them all with me. And she said she liked that one the best," TJ fidgeted nervously. "Said she liked the colors."
Sunny took the box and opened it to find a pinned-down blue beetle inside, and some text scratched on the lid saying 'To Ace // From TJ'.
"It's a Willow Beetle. That's a big one. They're cool 'cause when they're little, they have these pouches that squirt juice at you if you touch 'em." TJ explained.
"She'll love it," Sunny told him. "Speaking of Ace, she wanted you to have this."
Sunny readjusted all the things in her arms and handed TJ a colourful book. "She said you guys were talking about it the other day. Also said it was okay if you kept it."
TJ held the book to his chest and gave Sunny a thank you. She smiled back as she placed the rest of the books and other stuff she thought kids at the Farm would enjoy in the passenger seat of the truck.
"We're about ready to head out," Flycatcher told the Toads.
"What's it like at the Farm?" TJ asked his dad. "I've heard ogres live there. And they eat people in their sleep sometimes."
"God, I hope not," Toad said nervously.
"Do we have to go? I wanna stay here," TJ begged.
"Well, we don't have a choice anymore," Toad replied as he placed a comforting hand on his son's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, TJ. But look on the bright side, okay? There's plenty of space to run around," Bigby tried to offer a nice thought.
Sunny walked back over and nodded in agreement. "And there's a really nice river nearby, so you can swim all you want."
"Even in the daytime?" TJ sniffled.
"Yeah. You don't have to worry about the Mundies seeing you. It'll be nice," Sunny assured him.
"See, it won't be so bad," Bigby added.
"Have you been there before?" TJ asked the both of them.
"Every summer," Sunny nodded.
"At least you had a choice," Toad muttered bitterly.
Regardless of what Toad thought, it seemed to be a bit of a comfort to TJ as he turned to Bigby and waited for the Sheiff's answer.
Bigby rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "No... I'm, uh- some of the animals aren't comfortable around wolves."
"We're all set," Flycatcher said as he hopped in the driver's seat.
"Bye, Ms Fei, Mr Wolf," TJ said as he sat down.
"Hey, Bigby! Where's your friend, Colin? Where's the fuckin' pig?" Toad shouted as the car started up.
"I don't know... he must've run off," Bigby shrugged as he lit himself a smoke.
"Bull. Shit." Toad spat as the car drove off.
Sunny and Bigby watched the truck drive away with solum looks on their faces.
"Saying goodbye?" Someone called to them from across the street.
The two of them looked back to see Nerissa standing there with a smile on her face. She was dressed in comfortable-looking clothes and had a duffel bag in her hand. It was the most at ease Sunny had ever seen her.
Sunny and Bigby both smiled back as they made their way across the street.
"Hey," Sunny grinned as she offered Nerissa a hug, which she happily accepted.
"Hey yourself," Nerissa smiled back. Bigby and Nerissa gave each other a nod once she and Sunny had separated.
"You're still wearing that thing?" Bigby said curiously as he looked at the familiar purple ribbon around Nerissa's neck.
"Oh... yeah. I guess I am..." Nerissa shrugged sadly as they all moved under the cover to avoid the oncoming rain. "It's not easy to forget. I know it seems like I should be able to... It's just..."
"What if you just-" Bigby lifted his hand but realised how it looked when Sunny gave him a warning look. Not wanting his hand to get smacked again, Bigby put it down immediately.
"I know you're trying to help," Nerissa told him. "But this is just something I need to do on my own. Okay?"
"Yeah, of course," Bigby agreed.
"Listen, I... I came here because... I have to tell you something," Nerissa said nervously.
"What is it?" Sunny asked.
"It's about what happened to Faith and Lily. I'm not sure where to start," Nerissa said.
Sunny and Bigby looked at her with curiosity.
"Faith, Lily and I, we had this plan. We were gonna find a way out. Leave the Pudding 'N Pie for good."
"What exactly was the plan?" Sunny asked.
"Lily had this rich client, Crane, and he had connections, you know... he said he could get our ribbons removed. It should have worked. As long as we could get far enough away, we'd be golden."
"What went wrong?"
"We just had to trust 'Mr Smith' to have our backs. Lily fed Crane some lie about working for him 'exculsively' if he helped is get out. He wanted more, I guess. He wanted to pretend they were something, and I know in his mind it was you, but he still treated her okay... gave her flowers, told her she was beautiful..."
"But you didn't trust him?" Sunny guessed.
"Faith didn't, and she decided to get some... leverage. She stole a picture of Crane and Lily together. The minute Faith stole that photo, we had dirt on one of the Crooked Man's allies. If he found out- I- I had no choice. You have to understand." Nerissa was starting to panic a little.
Sunny held out her hand to comfort Nerissa. "It's okay. Just breathe."
"You've seen how they kept us quiet at that place. Can you imagine the lengths they'd go to just to silence someone who had physical evidence? I had to..." Nerissa trailed off.
"Nerissa, what did you do?" Bigby asked.
"I freaked out. Okay?" Nerissa said with tears in her eyes. "I thought if I came clean to Georgie, he'd get the Crooked Man to leave us alone! We could just forget the whole thing... maybe try again in a few years."
Bigby and Sunny both stared at her in shock. Bigby shook his head. "You... what?"
"So I told him... everything. And I begged for mercy. For all of us! I didn't want anyone to die over a picture!"
"Georgie didn't do mercy. You know that," Bigby told her.
"He could've been reasoned with! I was counting on that!" Nerissa yelled. "Georgie promised he'd smooth things over with the Crooked Man. But then... Oh, god..."
Nerissa started sobbing. Sunny reached her arm around Nerissa to comfort her.
"I don't know what happened, but that night, at the club... Georgie came back and told me things had changed. He had to make an example of us... we had committed treason. And while the two of us were sitting there... as he was telling me this.. Faith walked in. And I had to watch while Georgie-"
"Wait, so Georgie told you all this?" Bigby questioned. "Not the Crooked Man? Back at the Well, you said-"
"I know what I said." Nerissa interrupted him.
"But it wasn't the truth, was it?" Sunny sighed.
"What does it matter? I know the Crooked Man did it. So what if it wasn't the whole truth? It was true enough." Nerissa insisted.
"So you think that makes it okay to lie?" Bigby narrowed his eyes at Nerissa.
"I know he ordered their deaths. I wasn't going to let him get away with it because of a stupid technicality. Especially after-" Nerissa took a breath. "That night, after Faith... I tried to warn Lily, but she wasn't with her scheduled appointment."
"The Woodsman," Sunny realised. It clicked in her mind. She remembered back to when Gren told her about Woody seeing Lily. And it partly explained why Woody was so aggressive towards Faith that night. "Wait does mean you..."
"I- I left Faith's head at your doorstep," Nerissa confirmed.
"You?" Bigby said in surprise.
"I walked her over here, and I left her. Just hoping that maybe, if I couldn't save them... I could at least... save the rest of us."
"You were trying to get our attention?" Sunny nodded.
"So you... you started all this?" Bigby asked.
"I just... pointed you in the right direction. People like us get forgotten all the time. The Crooked Man was counting on that. When we suffer, we do it in silence. And the world likes it that way. We just... fade. Like we never existed. I couldn't watch that happen to Faith. Or Lily. Nobody cares about us. Not really."
Sunny let out of Nerissa to look her in the eyes. "I'm so sorry, Nerissa. I'm sorry that's what it took."
"It'll be different now," Nerissa smiled. "You'll make things right... the three of you."
Bigby and Sunny both seem to be a bit taken aback by that comment.
"I don't know... It seems like no matter what I do, it's just... not enough for anyone. I just can't win with these people," Bigby shrugged as he looked to the Woodlands.
"I know it might feel that way, but... they need you. Both of you. You two make a good team. The way you look out for each other... And look out for us. You don't see that a lot these days," Nerissa told him.
"Bigby doesn't need me," Sunny tried to joke. She didn't see him give her a concerned look.
"I'm sure that's not true," Nerissa gave a knowing smile. "After everything you've done for us- Maybe they don't want to admit it, but... without you, none of this would have happened. You two listened... when no one else would."
You knew when to show mercy...
And you brought justice to this town... finally.
Because you brought the Crooked Man in, everyone saw who he really was.
"So from where I'm standing... you did the right thing," Nerissa said as she picked up her bag and held her umbrella over her head. "You've been given this job for a reason. And I left Faith at your doorstep because I knew... if anyone stood a chance against the Crooked man, it was you."
"I hope we've at least done some good here," Bigby said.
"You've changed this place. For better or worse... Fabletown wouldn't be the same without you." Nerissa gave him another smile, before walking away. She started walking down the street but turned back one more time.
"You're not as bad as everyone says you are."
A concerned look appeared on Bigby's face. Sunny didn't know what about Nerissa's statement had him thinking so hard but made Sunny a bit worried. Bigby stepped forward if he was about to chase after Nerissa. Sunny grabbed his arm.
Bigby looked back at her in confusion. "What is it?"
Sunny thought about what Nerissa had been though the last week. Losing Faith and Lily. The 'only two people that ever gave a damn' about her. The abuse at the hands of Georgie and the Crooked Man. Nerissa had been given enough grief.
"Bigby, I...," Sunny shivered. Her father's old advice kept ringing in her mind.
If you go pulling at strings, you uncover things that people won't like.
Keep your composure.
Be mindful of your actions.
And choose your friends wisely.
"I have to tell you something."
boom, cliffhanger! I'll be real with you: the reason for leaving this ending ambiguous is that I want to see how TWAU2 plays out before I decide whether Sunny tells Bigby about the files. For oblivious reasons, it would have a huge impact on their relationship and on Fabletown in general.
But hey! You made it to the end! Thank you so much for reading!!! I started writing this story at the beginning of February 2023, and here we are, more than 65000 words later and at the beginning of 2024.
So... where are we going from here? Well! When it comes to my general writing, once I'm done with my break at the end of the month, I'll be working on the next book of my Star Wars fanfic (which is written and is in the final edits stage) and then trying to start a rewrite of my Back to the Future story.
In terms of Heads Will Roll: I was thinking of maybe doing a prequel book about Sunny's parents, Jia and Emmanuel, if there was any interest. It would focus on Jia being a Nancy Drew/Laura Bow, aka gal detective-style mystery solver. I just imagine a lot of parallels between Jia and Bigby and think she would be a fun contrast compared to Bigby's noir style of crime-solving.
If that doesn't happen, then most likely a book focusing on The Wolf Among Us 2. After that, one-shots detailing the life and minor cases of Sunny and Bigby (and how Sunny will eventually get fired because, sorry, but that is doomed to happen).
If you're as hyped as me for the sequel coming out next year, hop over to my tumblr, and we can mind meld for a bit <3
I have so many things I wanna say, but this ending note is getting a bit long, so I'll just wish you all a good day and leave it at that :)