Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

45. Wibberly

"You see, when Katherine touched the book and traveled into the past - about four years prior to this moment, to be precise - she told me what would transpire with the missing will, Hamish becoming king, etcetera etcetera. So, armed with this knowledge, I approached my friend Queen Esmerelda and told her what was to happen with her sons. Then and there, she wrote out a will proclaiming that Robbie shall inherit the throne. We arranged for it to be notarized, sealed, and hidden away until the time was right for Robbie to take on the mantle of kingship..."

Dr. Pym was explaining to them - the children, Gabriel, and Robbie himself, who were all huddled together in the room where, prior to the battle, the Secretary had interrogated Kate - how he had escaped the dungeon and arrived in the Dead City with an army of Dwarves.

"Uh, Dr. Pym..." Emma started, but the wizard held up a hand to silence her. She bristled at being told to quiet down, but didn't protest as she usually would - she was simply too content, tucked under Gabriel's arm, as she had been since the children were reunited with him after the carnage ended. (She had flung herself into his arms upon seeing him, exclaiming over and over again that he'd done it, that he was amazing, and so forth. She was so excited that she nearly talked right over her sister, who had been in the middle of  profusely thanking  Gabriel for taking care of her youngest sibling.)

"I presume you are going to ask why I waited so long to produce the queen's will?" 

"That's exactly it," Emma admitted.

The wizard smiled serenely at her. "Well, the crux of the matter is I needed Katherine to enter the vault, touch the book, and relinquish it to my past self. That way I could ensure it remained protected from the Countess. I knew that if I bided my time, this is exactly what would happen. So I waited, and when the moment was right, I told Robbie McLaur that his mother had, in fact, left a will, and to summon his lawyers..."

At this point, Robbie chimed in to help explain the ensuing process once Dr. Pym revealed the location of the will. A panel of judges examined the document, with assistance from handwriting and fingerprint experts - as was protocol, he said, earning an approving nod from Michael - and the will was determined to be genuine. 

"Once the authentication process was complete, Captain Robbie became King Robbie, and he mustered his forces. We marched to the Dead City from there," Dr. Pym concluded. "So, you see, clear as a summer's day."

Emma's nose scrunched up as she frowned. "I don't get it."

"Which part, my dear?"

"The whole part."

"Dr. Pym planned it all," Kate clarified for her sister in a patient tone. "He knew Hamish would be listening to us in the dungeon. He tricked him into taking me and Michael to the vault. He made sure I touched the book first. He planned all of it."

"Alright," chimed in Michael, who had been listening raptly this whole time and now had a very thoughtful look on his face. He pushed his glasses up his nose and turned to address Dr. Pym. "Did you only know to do all of that because of meeting Kate in the past? Were you only pretending not to recognize the two of us in the dungeon?"

Dr. Pym scratched at his chin. "That requires a complex answer," he admitted, "for their are now two versions of the past. In the original past, I knew nothing of the events to come and based my course of action on instinct, and the connection I saw between your sister and the book. However, in this new past, which occurred after Katherine brought the book back in time..."

Kate wasn't quite listening to the wizard's explanation - she already knew this, after all. Instead, she was reflecting on Dr. Pym. He had outsmarted Hamish, gotten Robbie his rightful crown, saved Gabriel and the men of Cambridge Falls. He had caused an earthquake with ease, defeating the Countess's monsters. He was, she thought, on their side. Yet there were still things that he wasn't telling them; things about their parents, and things about themselves. About why they were dragged into this mess in the first place.