The moment had come for Sam Barkley, the defining moment he had been waiting for ever since returning the first time from the clutches of the Tiger.

It had been like any other day when he saw her.

Christina walking with her son. Boy, how he had grown, even if he was that bastard's. However, it wasn't the boy that took Barkley's breath away.

It was the heavy make-up and the large sunglasses his wife wore.

It seemed the pile of sticks had finally snapped.

Sam knew it. He always knew, deep down inside, that these things couldn't be trusted. He had suffered his Fetch to live this long because he made Christina happy, happier than Barkley ever could; and because there was at least a fifty/fifty chance the boy belonged to the 'Sam' the Tiger made, and how was that possible, if he wasn't real? Would a DNA test even know the difference? And then he had met Greenwood, a stand up guy if he ever met one, and who genuinely seemed wronged by the Lost. Sam had begun to think there was more to these things than sticks and stones and spit. He should have known better. This was his fault.

He had suffered the Fetch to live.

Sam continues his vigil from the bushes, perfectly still, as damn near invisible as one can get without actually having to bend light, just as he learned in the Tiger's jungle. Where is it? he thinks, his eyes narrowing as he searches for his Fetch.

Christina and the boy walk through Capitol Park on this very spring day, a slight chill in the air when the breeze blows through, rustling the bushes where Barkley is hiding but not so much as to put him at any risk of being spotted. As the pair grow closer, Barkley can get a good, long look at his old-love.

In truth, she looked weary and haggard, an overly-thick layer of foundation on her cheeks to cover up blemishes and the glasses were a give away. Even through the tint, Barkley could imagine the bruises. Then, her phone beeped, and she jumped out of sheer panic and obvious fear. Looking at it, she sighs visibly as she reads the text.

Sam's wrath boiled within him as his beady eyes examined her wounds further, confirming his suspicion. The way she jumps as her phone goes off...she's terrified. How long had this been going on? His kidnapping, then his quest for the throne, had taken him away from his routine vigilance over his former fiancee'. He had been remiss in his duty to her. He continues to watch from the bushes, to see if the text prompts her to leave the park, or if it means someone is coming here...

Christina slips her phone back into her bag and calls the boy over. "Ben, come on. Daddy's home." The way she speaks is heavy with duty, to her son if anyone. However, the way she says 'Daddy', Barkley can't help but feel a tingle of something aberrant from inside.

Barkley, as always, ignores his feelings when they interrupt his duty. Knowing that his Fetch is back home, he needs to hurry if there's any chance of arriving before Christina does. She didn't need to see what was going to happen. But as Sam goes over how much time he'll need to drag that thing out of the house, he decides that what he really needs right now is a distraction to keep her here. Sam looks around at the other people about.

Sam sees a babysitter scolding her charge, tugging hard at the child's arm to come along. And that's all he needs, just a little wrath, just a spark, thank ye Summer. He takes a split-second to regard Christina again. She had been so strong once, stronger than Sam Wesley had ever been, the man who just wanted to spend his life in the woods taking pictures of wildlife. She had kept him grounded, been his anchor to the rest of the world. To see her like this, frightened, hurt, when she was once so fearless, was too much for the Sovereign to bear. Was there any of the woman he knew left?

Barkley knew how to find out. Even the meekest person could be made to fight like a lioness...if you threaten their young. He reaches out to that babysitter and warps her wrath toward Benjamin.

His own wrath running hot in his veins, the Contract goes off with an 'whoomph,' he can practically feel the babysitter's wrath doing a 180 toward the child that might be his, might be the fae's. He keeps watch from the bushes- the woman he picked didn't look like the sort to pull a switchblade or something, but he needs to be sure he hasn't unleashed something truly dangerous before he can leave.

The babysitter turns, eyes wide and lips peeled back as her finger stabs at little Benjamin all thought lost as the swell of anger erupts inside her mind.

"You little brat! How dare you!" she cries with no rational explanation. Christina stood aghast as she grips onto the shoulders of her son, trying to keep him away from the demon babysitter.

It took all Sam's self control not to yell out for Christina to Fight! Fight, goddammit! She's trying to hurt your boy! Instead, he waits just a little longer, telling himself he wants to be sure the babysitter isn't a crazed maniac, but the truth is- he wants to see Christina fight back. Come on, baby, you can do it. Just roll those perfect, slender fingers up into a fist and sock her right in the mouth. Come on.

Funny how Sam kept finding himself watching girl fights.

He watches and waits as Christina tries to pull her son away from the raving babysitter, spittle flying from her mouth as endless accusations are aimed towards them both. Benjamin has begun to sob and several mothers have also joined in with an effort to stop the angry woman. Christina flinches at every barbed word and Sam can see how much she is damaged, both physically and emotionally.

Barkley has seen enough. He tries to tell himself that the way she is now isn't his fault, that she's become a victim of the Tiger, just as he is. But he isn't buying it. If he had killed the Fetch years ago, Christina would have had to stand on her own two feet, but he left it there out of sentimentality. Now look what it had done to the woman Sam still loved! With the other mothers stepping in to help, he isn't worried about Christina or Ben's safety any longer, so he takes off at a run for his truck and prays its cranky motor will make just one more trip, to Christina's house. The Fetch's unnatural life comes to an end today.

The truck starts and the drive to Barkley's old home is one fraught with wrath and vengeance, lights staying green for the little green man and cars moving aside as if the Wyrd pushes them out of the Summer Sovereign's flight. The world blurs until the truck pulls up in the street and Barkley sits staring at Christina and Sam's Weasly's marital home. Dusk has started to settle as a single light flickers into life from an upstairs window.

Sam looks up at the light as the sun fades from the sky with single-minded determination, his wrath having hardened and cooled during the trip over. He can't afford to waste any time- who knows how long his distraction will delay Christina and Ben. He reaches into the glovebox and procures his pistol, putting it in his waistband. He takes his staff from its usual place behind the seat. He's not gonna kill it here, if he can help it. Sam gets out of the truck and brazenly walks toward the front door. If it's unlocked, he'll just let himself in.

The door handle turns effortlessly allowing Barkley to open the door without a single creak. From the floor above, the Summer Sovereign can hear the sounds The Beatles playing on low.

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever....

Strawberry fields my wooden arse, Sam thinks to himself as he quietly shuts the door and creeps up the stairs, dampening his footsteps with a bit of Glamour. I didn't go to no strawberry fields, no violet hills, while you've had my woman, no, no, no. I played an endless game of Survivor in a jungle so hot, you'd swear the sun was sittin' on yer shoulder. That's where yer from, that's what yer made of, an' that's where ye shall return. He pulls the gun from his waistband and holds it in front of him like he's seen the police do in the movies.

Three-quarters of the way up the stairs and Barkley hears a voice come down the hallway above.

"I know you're there! I felt you the minute you walked in!" To the Summer Sovereign's ears, it could have been his own voice speaking back at him.

Barkley hears that thing use his voice and his cup o'Wrath doth runneth over. "Then ye know why I've come, don't ye? Why don't ye come on out, an we can have ourselves a wee chat before Christina an' Ben come home, yeah?" Sam leans against the wall closest to the direction the voice came from for cover. If his Fetch had been made at all like Sam, that meant it was armed. An if it was armed, pointing a gun at it ain't gonna be enough to scare it into submission.

Dammit, he thinks to himself, putting the pistol away. This is going down here.

"Fuck you! I ain't scared. I've learnt, felt myself grow stronger," Weasly shouts back, his voice slurring slightly and it could be the fetch has been drinking. "I've seen the shit I can do and it feels good! So come and get me you bastard and I'll tear your fucking heart out!"

"Oh, yeah, beating up Christina is really strong of yeh," Sam says, recoiling from the sound of his own drunken voice. Do I really sound like that when I drink? I might have ta quit, that's just pathetic. "Per'aps, smacking Ben around will make you truly powerful, eh?" he mocks. "No, that's not what's happenin to yeh. Yer comin' undone at the seams. Yer not a real boy, Pinnochio. Yer a dollbaby, a puppet, a sock-monkey. Yer stuffed with leaves and bones and me big toe. Yeh should just let me put you out of yer misery now, before yeh really hurt someone. I promise to make it quick an' painless if ye do. I promise to make you suffer if ye don't."

Okay, no more speeches, Barkley thinks, making his way to the room the Fetch's voice comes from. He didn't expect it to give into reason, and there was no reason to let it keep loading or whatever its doing. He looks about quickly for traps or tricks before running in to confront the Other other Sam.

Barkley runs through to the room, finding it to be an office of some kind with the computer switched on and a bottle of whiskey spilt upon the floor. Staring at him with bloodshot eyes is Weasly, a perfect double of Barkley's Mask except for his hair that has been cut short and the ruffled police uniform he is wearing. In his grip is a mirror-like blade and upon spotting the changeling, Weasly snarls in retaliation and braces himself for the final straw in his pitiful life.

Barkley sees this thing that looks like him, this, this muppet and he feels sick. All clean-cut, respectable on the outside, with his nice, official uniform, but on the inside, it's hollow, it's sick, and it knows it, yes, deep down it knows what it is... Barkley sees the pretty knife, and thinks, oh, I wonder who that's a present from, eh? He swings his staff at chest height and quickly draws it back to a defensive position. This wasn't going to be the quick, quiet murder Barkley had hoped for, he could see that now.

The staff thumps into the fetch's chest and causes him to stumble back but as Barkley draws back to defend, the mirror-blade slips through and opens a gash across his stomach.

Barkley doesn't cry out, but simply grimaces at the knife wound and presses forward. He's not killing a person, he tells himself, he's taking apart a broken machine, and his next strike is swung with mechanical precision and maximum torque.

Weasly takes the solid blow and Barkley can see his eyes glaze yet remarkably, it seems the fetch is actually made from sterner stuff. Gritting his spittle covered teeth, Weasly slashes out with the strange blade, its edge biting into Barkley's flesh a second time.

Sam loses his temper as the blade finds its way through Summer's bark again. "Yew goddam prick!" He swings again, but his wrath impedes his focus, and the staff only raps the bag of faerie trash in the chest.

Weasly grunts and Barkley can see from the hideous grin on his face that despite his internal organs have started to bleed, the fetch isn't feeling the pain. The blade flashes out again and sticks deep into the Summer's rib.

"I am better than you!" he shouts, maniacally, blood dribbling from his mouth with every syllable.

The real Barkley just says, "Guh," as the last gash has the little woodsman bleeding profusely. He can't stand here toe to toe with this thing much longer, but he can see that the thing is teetering on the brink of unconsciousness, a look he knows well. But will it be soon enough? He can't take a chance at letting it stab him again, so he tries to knock the knife from the Fetch's hands, and when that fails, he gets desperate. He Sacrifices part of himself to the Wyrd, entreating the ultimate unknowable to turn against the Fetch.

Weasly keeps a feeble grip on the blade but finally succumbs to his wounds, collapsing backwards and hitting the carpeted floor hard.

"My Wyrd, but yeh put up one helluva fight," Sam says, exhausted and bleeding, looking down at the fallen creature. "There's somethin of me in ye, an' that's no mistake. Now..." Sam puts his staff down to grab Mister...Officer ...Weasly, and drag him into the bathroom and into the tub. Then he goes back for his staff.

"...I'll be needin' it back." The next sound is wood striking bone...then wood striking bone...then wood striking broken bones...

The staff strikes and it sounds like a low thud. The second time and somethings cracks. The third and the fetch implodes with a low death-rattle, the bath tub suddenly littered with broken branches, fragments of a dozen smashed mirrors and a gluttenous syrup that is a black as oil. It clings to the staff and leaves shards of razor sharp fragments embedded in its end. When Barkley pulls it free, he feels the weight of the Wyrd upon his weapon.

Barkley is grateful for the confirmation provided by the Fetch's traditional decomposition. "It wasn't real," he reassures himself, staring at the confirmation around the tub. "It was going to kill Christina." The scene at Greenteeth's flashes before his eyes. "It was only a matter of time." Sam weighs his weapon in his hands and eyes suspiciously the fragments of tar and glass suspiciously. I hadn't expected that. He sets it aside (and quickly looks back at it, in case its suddenly grown legs) and turns on the water to flush the rest of Bad Sam away.

His own wounds are catching up to him, though, and he realizes he needs to leave and dress them before Christina returns. He thinks of writing her a note, but decides against it. Maybe 'Sam's disappearance will make her angry enough to retake her life. He'll keep an eye out, though, just in case. As he makes his way out, he's struck by a terrible anxiety...

Will I have to do this to Ben one day, too?

End Scene