The Accident: A Tinker Bell Fanfiction

9. Soulmates

The Accident

9.

Fairy Gary followed Terence into the corridor. He found the boy leaning against the wall. Terence didn't look happy; instead, he looked like he had just committed a terrible sin. He slid down until he was sitting on the floor and started to cry.

"What's wrong, Lad?" Fairy Gary asked, very puzzled. "I thought you would be happy?"

"I am," Terence said. "Tink is awake and looks like she'll be just fine."

"Then why did you run out on her?"

"Because I gave up on her, Fairy Gary," Terence replied. "How can I claim to have loved her so much but still walk away from her like that? I'm a coward. I ran because it was easy."

"No, you're not," Fairy Gary said with a stern tone. "You had a crisis of confidence, that's all. It happens to the best of us, Lad. Don't sell yourself short, Terence. You did what you thought was best."

"No, I did what was best for me, not for her," Terence answered, still wallowing in his own failures.

"Terence, you were the only one who stayed by her side that entire first week." Fairy Gary reminded his charge. "We all thought she was going to die, so we gave up. Not you, you fought for her every day and she lived. Now that's real love."

Terence didn't seem all too moved by Fairy Gary's little speech. The dust-keeping overseer decided on a different tactic to appeal to the boy.

"I overheard what you said in there," Gary started. "When Tinker Bell ruined the spring preparations she wanted to leave Pixie Hollow. What did you say to her that kept her here?"

"I convinced her that her talent was important and that she should be proud of it, like I was proud of mine," Terence replied.

"Did she need your help then?"

"Of course she did," Terence replied sharply.

"Has she needed your encouragement since?"

"Yeah, sure. Every time she works on the Pixie Dust Express, it doesn't work. She can get really down."

"You have to console her? Make her believe that it's worth pursuing?"

"Uh huh. Usually."

"Is that why you are by her side each time she tests a new version? Because you know she is going to need someone to pick up her spirits if she fails?"

Terence didn't reply instantly. He had to think about it for a while. "That never occurred to me."

"But Tinker Bell is them is the most talented tinker fairy in all of Pixie Hollow, isn't she?"

"Yeah, by a long shot."

"And she has a long list of inventions to her credit that have benefited us, doesn't she?"

"Sure. What are you getting at, Fairy Gary?"

"Well, it’s simple, my boy. If she is so great at what she does why does she need someone to give her encouragement?" Fairy Gary asked Terence directly. "Why does she take each failure so hard?"

Terence thought about it this for a while. "Well, a fairy's talent is her joy."

"Yes, but that is true of everyone here in Pixie Hollow," Fairy Gary said. "No one else gets as moody as Tinker Bell does when she fails. What makes her so different from the rest of us?"

Terence thought hard about this question. He knew Tinker Bell best, yet he couldn't come up with this simple answer.

"It's her talent level," Fairy Gary told him. "Every invention has to be a rousing success or it questions her ability as a tinker. I know because I've seen it before."