Summary: Post-TWAU Season 1 and Pre-Fables. Three years after the Crooked Man incident, things have returned to something resembling normalcy in Fabletown. Glamours are still overpriced, Snow White is still laden with demands of a restless public (even with help from the newly appointed Boy Blue), and Bigby Wolf still smokes like a Bristol chimney. Frustrated by a lack of action, Bigby gets his wish for more chaos when Fabletown comes to him with a case only he can solve.

Disclaimer: The Wolf Among Us and Fables belong to Telltale Games, Bill Willingham, Vertigo, DC, and a whole host of other people and factions that I simply am nowhere near cool or talented enough to be a part of.

The Wolf Among Us

Season 2: A Wolf at the Door
Prologue: The First and Last

October, 1986

The luminous, too-large eyes of Frau Totenkinder peered down through thick spectacles over her nose at the unresponsive man.

Perhaps a younger woman might have thought it a touch rude, however Totenkinder had long since grown tired of social niceties and the concept of politeness. And, the old witch surmised, the man before her may have spent all his politeness as well over the past millennium. He snored, as was expected of his kind, and he mumbled in his sleep, usually indecipherable gibberish to the untrained ear, but Totenkinder was never surprised to hear Bigby Wolf prattle on about Snow White, even in his deepest slumber.

She often took pity on The Big Bad Wolf, even as poorly behaved as the mutt was, because outsiders such as themselves had to stick together. Certainly, the pardon had kept the other Fables of Fabletown from enacting swift vengeance for the crimes they had committed in the Homelands, but few ever saw Frau Totenkinder as anything but the witch that baked children and Bigby Wolf as anything but a flea-ridden dog with a predilection for huffing and puffing.

Tonight was no different. It wasn't often that the wolf got sleep, cramped as he was in that human skin, but Totenkinder thought he might derive some more comfort from his own apartment. With that in mind, she primly tapped her cane thrice against Bigby's office desk.

He breathed out slowly. "You didn't have to do that. I already knew you were here," a deep baritone, quintessentially Bigby Wolf, rumbled from his throat.

Totenkinder merely fixed the Wolf with a cryptic smile. "So you were."

Bigby lifted up his head and blinked at the witch. "I thought you'd be on the thirteenth floor, Frau Totenkinder."

"Nonsense. Not at this time, I'm afraid. I have reports on the Stolen Glamours you brought back; all of them are restocked and accounted for."

"Thanks," he said, continuing this ridiculous trend of his to be as nonverbal as possible. To this day, Frau Totenkinder firmly believed Bigby was the most absurdly unsocial man she had ever met.

Still, he was there when he needed to be, and Fabletown could depend on him, whether they liked him or not.

"I should advise you to get some rest in your own home," the witch said. "But first, I've been instructed to tell you to report to the Office. Snow White wishes to see you."

"Snow? What about?"

"You'll have to ask her personally. I'm not in the know of such things, young man."

"Uh, right. Tell her I'll be there in a minute," Bigby replied at the nod of the witch, who closed the door and went about her way.

Once sure she was gone, the Big Bad Wolf stood and stretched his hindleg—or, just his legs now. Even after all this time pretending to be one, Bigby still forgot he was mimicking a human from time-to-time. Sometimes, even as he sat in a chair and enjoyed the New York Times with opposable thumbs, which was the only real benefit among a sea of negatives in being human to him, Bigby forgot he had hands instead of paws, and cheeks and noses instead of a snout.

Oh, what he wouldn't give for a newspaper right now. And a smoke. And a double serving of bourbon.

But, duty called, and Bigby was certain that Snow had a no-tolerance policy for drunkards, so he left his tiny Sheriff's office in the corner of the Woodlands Luxury apartments, and stalked down the hallway to the Business Office, stopping only to wreathe himself in the pungent smoke of a cigarette. It did well to be prepared against Snow White's perfume, a scent that had long bedazzled the wolf, when he was going to visit her. Thankfully it was late, so Bigby didn't have to push through crowds of unhappy, unsatisfied citizens just to have a conversation with the Deputy Mayor.

He found her hunched over her desk (once belonging to a now-missing Ichabod Crane), constantly and unerringly at work. It almost brought a smile to the old cynic's face, to see a woman so tirelessly devoted to her work.

"Snow?" Bigby called up, causing Snow's ears to prick up and move her head at the right moment so their eyes connected, her mouth set in an odd expression Bigby identified with the newly-installed Deputy Mayor: he often couldn't tell if she was frowning or trying not to smile.

"Mr. Wolf," she greeted neutrally. Bigby surreptitiously sniffed the air around him, trying to get a read on Snow's feelings from her scent. Even under the smoke, Bigby could smell her, it was just more manageable than it would be without. She wasn't sad, there was no mournful quality about the flowery scent he attributed to her, though the lonely quality of it remained undiminished.

Three years of heavy work for her and light work for him had separated the two once more, barring the occasional fight down at the Trip-Trap or their mutual amusement at being the only Fables in the community to attend the Remembrance Day ball alone.

"Totenkinder told me you wanted to talk about something," Bigby said, folding his arms.

"We've got a call from Holly over at the Trip-Trap," Snow replied and released a long-suffering sigh.

Bigby scoffed in annoyance. "What else is new? Is it Gren and Woody again?"

"Yeah, unfortunately," Snow said, pinching the bridge of her nose in annoyance. "I don't know why those two insist on going to that bar every night if all they're going to do is resort to blows every other week."

"Be glad it's every other week, now. Remember when we were going in there on the daily to break up a fight between those two morons?"

"Thanks Sheriff, you know just how to make me count my blessings," the raven-haired woman joked as she stood up and smoothed over her typical business suit and skirt. "Do you need company?"

"Are you asking or ordering?" Deadpanned the wolf.

"Ordering."

"Ah," he mused. "Got a little bit of cabin fever?"

"Oh, I'm fucking sick of this place," moaned Snow, and that was when Bigby realized just how serious she was. Snow wasn't studiously averse to swearing, but she avoided it where she could; if she dropped one so casually, the Business Office was indeed driving her insane. "I've been cooped inside that office for three days. I've slept and took meals in there and people still keep coming. I just need a ten-minute walk, a cab ride, something."

"Alright, alright, no need to convince me. Just let me get back to the office and grab my coat; it's freezing out there."

"I'll be here," Snow replied, smoothing out her blazer and skirt once more before settling back down into her chair. Bigby took a drag and silently observed her for a moment longer.

Raven hair, blue eyes, porcelain skin. Classically beautiful. The type of woman renaissance artist might have painted if Snow had cared enough for a painting.

"Uh, Mr. Wolf?" Snow's voice snapped him out of his reverie. "Time's wasting."

"Oh. Um. Right. Just... zoned out for a second," Bigby replied, too old and too proud to blush, but feeling suitably embarrassed nevertheless. He made the short trek back to his office and found his double-breasted gray tweed winter coat waiting for him where he left it on the coat rack. Throwing it on, the wolf marched back to Snow's office; she awaited him nearby her desk, a larger midnight blue coat over her blazer and a scarf around her neck.

"Are we ready to go?" She asked.

Bigby smiled faintly. "Time's wasting."

They picked up a cab just off Kipling Street, and the ride was slow and comfortable, a rarity among New York City cabbies. The silence between the two was loud, but not uncomfortable; Bigby found it enough to just enjoy Snow's presence and watch the year's first snowstorm ravage the streets.

But, eventually, the two found themselves standing on the sidewalk just outside the Trip-Trap, and true to form, the scuffle could be heard outside the door and above the howling winds.

"That sounds bad," Snow commented.

Bigby cast the ravenette a sidelong look. "You sure you want to come in?" He asked as he lit a cigarette, for some reason Snow smiled faintly at that, but immediately covered it with an offended glare:

"I may not be the Big Bad Wolf with his claws and his Huff N'Puffs, but I can handle myself, Sheriff."

"Fine by me," Bigby shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette. "If Gren gives you any trouble, just glass him. Or better yet, tell me so I can rip of his other arm off and we won't have to deal with him fighting at all."

The only response the wolf got was a glare.

"That was a joke, Snow."

"It wasn't very funny."

"Tough crowd."

Steeling himself for the inevitable abuse from Gren and the complaints from Woody, Bigby shuffled down the steps to the door and opened it only to get a face full of glass bottle. It shattered against him, and somewhere in between the pain, Bigby heard Snow's gasp of surprise. True to form, he wouldn't be brought down by a thrown bottle and winced his eyes open. Gren lay flat on the ground just in front of the door, looking as though he had ducked the bottle, which, judging by his shocked look, was thrown by Bigby's once eternal enemy, The Woodsman:

"Jesus, Wolf," he remarked, looking somewhere between awed and regretful.

Holly, the bartender, shook her head in disgust. "You fucking pigs. Wolf, can you get these two to stop fucking with my bar?"

"Right," said Bigby, checking his face for any shards that may have stuck in the skin, "Woody, you're lucky I'm already ugly. Now fuck you and come with me so I don't have to waste my time kicking the shit out of you."

"Oh, go fuck yourself Wolf," the one-eyed and one-armed Gren stood up and shot a dirty look at Snow, who still stood at the base of the steps with a poleaxed expression from the flying projectile and Bigby's reaction to it. "You and your lady friend come down here to Lord it over us all again?"

"You know something, Gren? I'd have thought losing an arm would give you a greater sense of respect for what you've got left," Bigby said in that unperturbed way of his. "But maybe the saying is true: you don't appreciate it until it's all gone. If I have to come in here one more time because of you, I'm taking the other arm as payment."

"Bigby!" Snow rebuked from the door, outraged, but the threat seemed to do the trick on Gren, who shuffled back, cowed.

"Now, Woody," Bigby growled, eyes flashing yellow for the faintest of seconds. Though The Woodsman appeared drunk, all the booze in the world wouldn't keep him belligerent to the wolf, at least not anymore:

"Alright, shit, Bigby. You don't gotta go all wolfy on me, I'm coming," The Woodsman said as Bigby shook his head and motioned the man to walk outside. He earned a half-hearted thanks from Holly and some snide comment from Gren, but he didn't have the patience to deal with him at the moment.

The duo-turned-trio stepped back outside. The cabbie had long since left; it wasn't in the nature of Mundies to be patient, one of the few things Bigby shared in common with them.

"Where are you taking me?" The Woodsman asked, a little apprehensive; Bigby wasn't surprised, the last time Bigby led Woody anywhere, it was to get a beating from Bluebeard over Snow White's fake severed head.

"The Woodlands," Bigby replied. "You're staying in the brig until you sober up and then I'll let you go."

The burly lumberjack nodded mutely; as far as both of them were concerned, The Woodsman was getting off lightly.

"And Woody?" Bigby continued.

"Yeah?"

"Same goes for you as Gren. If you two get into another fight, I'm gonna fill you with stones and throw you off the Brooklyn Bridge, understood? Either work out your problems or stay the hell away from the Trip Trap. Go to the Branstock if you want to get drunk." The wolf said, to the eternal dismay of the Deputy Mayor and a shrug from his old enemy.

"You can be real twat sometimes, you know that?"

"All part of the charm, now come on," Bigby shoved The Woodsman forward, a few paces ahead of himself and Snow. Speaking of whom, she rounded on Bigby the moment the old lumberjack was more than a yard away:

"Bigby! What the hell are you thinking? You can't just threaten Fabletown citizens like that!" She chided ferociously, and her fury likely was not abated by Bigby's low smirk:

"Oh, that? That's just good, old-fashioned hot air," he replied. "It's the huffing and puffing of the new age. Lucky for me, people still fear me enough to think I'll blow their house down. Relax, Snow. I'm not going to go Red Riding Hood on you. It wasn't exactly my finest moment nor is it a memory I really want to relive."

"Oh, that puts me at ease," the Deputy Mayor shot back snidely.

"Besides," Bigby continued, as if he hadn't heard her say anything at all, "there's been nothing to do around her for months besides these stupid Trip Trap fights. A man's gotta find his entertainment where he can."

"Nothing to do?" Snow interjected incredulously. "And you're sad about that? Why on earth would you be sad about it?"

"You said it yourself: I like when things go wrong," Bigby winked and took a drag of his nearly spent cigarette.

Snow didn't respond to his repetition of an earlier accusation, one from years ago and one she probably thought Bigby had forgotten. It was a question that hung between the two like an inescapable fog: he had never responded one way or another when Snow had asked him, and whatever chance to prove his loyalty to her died when he promised to end the Crooked Man for Georgie Porgie. Leaving aside that he couldn't leave the Crooked Man's fate to chance, Bigby took his oaths seriously, even if he did swear them to filth like Georgie.

And once more the fog descended over the two, and Snow retreated into the shell Bigby had spent three years coaxing her out of. For weeks, for months after the Crooked Man case, Snow refused to have a conversation that even verged on friendly or personal. It had only been recently, with the studious visitation of her in his months of boredom, that they had returned to friendly terms.

But again, there was always that chasm between the two: between what was legal and what was justice, between the idealistic and the pragmatic. Her idealism in the face of all that she had seen was one of the things that attracted Bigby to Snow in the first place, but he saw no place for idealism when monsters such as these roamed the night.

He brought the cigarette to his lips once more, but, with a shade of disappointment, found the deathstick had burned out. With a sigh, he flicked the butt onto the street, where it was promptly crushed by an oncoming driver in a Camaro, and fished out another cigarette from his pack, lit up, and smoked some more.

"You're still bleeding," Snow suddenly interrupted. Bigby touched his face and pulled back to see blood ringing the pads of his fingers.

"So it seems. It's alright, I heal fast," he replied, quickening his pace to their destination.

Bullfinch Street and the Woodlands came up seemingly out of nowhere, but the three pressed in silence past Snow's once-pristine grass, now covered by, well... snow. The walkway just outside the Woodlands had turned into a slurry which Bigby and Snow were careful to avoid but which the inebriated Woodsman plowed through with little concern.

Trusty John, white as a sheet at Bigby's state, let them through the door and past a peacefully-slumbering Grimble.

"I'm taking him to the cell to sleep it off," Bigby said. "Give him water and brew a pot of strong coffee. He won't bother you, will he?" He trailed off with a pointed look at the bearded mountain man.

"Right, yeah. Don't worry, I won't mash your pretty face in," he slurred.

That was about as good as Trusty John would get by way of assurances, so Bigby went about his business locking The Woodsman in the brig for the night. Snow still waited for him when Bigby returned from the lower levels of the 'apartment building' and offered him something like a smile:

"Thanks for the walk, Mister Wolf. I needed the air," she said as she punched the elevator button.

Bigby couldn't stop the smile that wormed its way onto his lips. "Anytime, Snow. Anytime."

They entered the elevator together.

He woke up late at night to a faint whiff of cinnamon and the sound of lightly pattering feet. Bigby supposed if he were truly a human, he wouldn't have noticed, but everyone had their advantages and disadvantages, he guessed. Still, it was lightyears better than when she had tried to sneak in on him during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"You know," a soft voice said just ahead of him. "You look younger when you sleep."

"I'm not sleeping," he replied. "Or, I was, until you decided to sneak into a wolf's apartment wearing your distinctive perfume. Amateur mistake, Cindy."

"Oh? You recognize my perfume? I'm so flattered, Bigby! Am I in Snow White territory yet?"

"Shut up." Bigby said, cracking open an eye and taking a good, long look at the blonde before him. A glorious sight, Cinderella wore a low cut white shirt and black jeans under a blue jacket far too thin for the dead of winter but one that undeniably accentuated her cerulean eyes. "How was London?"

"Refreshing, educational, far too boring for me," Cindy replied casually as she inspected her nails. Cindy and Snow had become the two constant women in Bigby's life, and they couldn't be anymore different: where Snow was cold and reserved, Cindy was airy and bright like a spring morning; Where Cindy was tanned and her hair sun-bleached, Snow was porcelain-skinned and ebony-haired; where Cindy was messy, Snow was organized; where Snow barred anyone from even the slightest attempt to get close to her, Cindy welcomed companionship and found as much value in the act of sex as the emotional state behind it.

In fact, the only things the two shared were beauty and the same, two-timing ex-husband, Prince Charming.

"So then, what are you doing back in Fabletown? Thought you were going to take some time off... to scout things," Bigby asked with a pointed look.

"I'd just like to warn you. Get some rest; you're about to be woken up and you won't get to go back to sleep for some time afterward. And I'll be around if you need any help on this one."

"Suitably cryptic," Bigby remarked. "Is that it?"

"That's it, baby. Go back to sleep," the blonde winked. Her style had always been flirtatious but platonic: she blew a kiss at the wolf and stalked off into the shadows, and in a moment, the smell of her perfume receded, though it still lingered a little in his nose.

"Bigby?" Another voice, male this time. "You talking to someone?" Colin, one of the three little pigs, stared back at Bigby with bleary eyes.

"It was nobody, Colin," Bigby replied. "Best get back to sleep." The pig, never one to refuse such an offer, merely did the closest equivalent to a shrug he could muster with his haunches and trotted back for Bigby's lone bedroom.

Over the centuries, Bigby had realized to be the Sheriff of Fabletown required far more than detective-work. He was often a soldier, a general, and a spymaster to compliment his gumshoe status, though few truly knew about that. Cindy was by far his most effective 'agent'. There hadn't bee a single code, fact, or scrap of information she had told him about that wasn't in any way accurate.

And this one proved to be true soon enough, when a knocking came at Bigby's door two hours later.

Blinking, Bigby stood from his armchair and stretched until his muscles were loose and ready for anything. Colin would know better to stay in Bigby's bedroom when anyone, especially Snow, came knocking, but to avoid any possibility of mishap, Bigby headed to the door before the knocker had a chance to wake the pig. Softly opening the door, Bigby was surprised to spot Boy Blue, the newly appointed aide to the esteemed Deputy Mayor, standing outside in his striped blue pajamas and looking equally as drained as the old wolf.

"Blue?" Bigby questioned, squinting as if he had been actually sleeping and not awaiting this night-call. "What's going on?"

"Follow me," the man, trapped eternally in the body of a teenager, replied. "Miss Snow White and the Mayor wish to see us."

"King Cole?" Bigby whistled low. "Well, this must be serious. Take point, Boy."

They walked together to the lift and called for it, silently waiting until the door slipped open. Boy Blue was the first inside, jabbing the 'Penthouse' button on the elevator dash as Bigby followed him inside. The lift climbed fast; the residents of the Woodlands had wanted it that way. Within ten seconds, they had climbed from Bigby's floor to the penthouse, which opened up around him to the opulent palace of King Cole.

Waiting for him, it seemed, were a coterie of worried faces: Snow was the first of them that he noticed; King Cole, a fat, jovial man with an impressive white moustache, stood next to her; Bluebeard lounged not too far away on one of the mayor's braxton couches; Bufkin fluttered his wings in the air by Snow, looking sober, for once.

All in all, Bigby wasn't particularly thrilled at the company, nor was he sure that he wanted to hear whatever bad news it was they wished to dump on him. Sometimes, he wished Cindy was just a bit more forthcoming with her information. He would have to change the mercurial blonde's attitude at some point, but it didn't seem like now was the time to dwell on it.

"So, you all called me here at—" Bigby stopped to check his wristwatch, "—4:47 in the morning for what?"

All faces were grave, discounting Bluebeard, who looked as smug as usual, which didn't help Bigby's sour mood any. When he gave them an impatient look, the inhabitants of the room shifted uneasily, as if they were breaking the worst news possible. Bluebeard, his directness for once being a boon instead of a millstone, took point with a disgusted look toward his compatriots:

"Sheriff Wolf, as much as it pains me to include you into this operation, we find ourselves in need of your help," he said with a look that suggested he had eaten raw snails rather than ask Bigby for help.

Bigby raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, and how's that?"

Bluebeard seemed to have decided he had enough denigrating to the Big Bad Wolf, so the Nervous-Shifting Olympics began anew. Bigby knew that King Cole was too much of a waif to ever do his job, let alone inform Bigby of anything that he might need to know, so the wolf expected little of the Mayor. Bufkin was a drunkard, so he took anything the monkey said with a grain of salt. And Boy Blue looked half-dead with sleep, so that left only one person. And thankfully, Snow seemed to regain her voice at that moment:

"Bigby. We... we have reason to believe that there's a spy in Fabletown. A spy for The Adversary."

The way Snow had said it, with such perfect seriousness even for her, Bigby expected a jester to jump out of some hidden cake with a yell of 'Surprise!'. But it wasn't a joke; their faces remained as grave as ever. Snow's reaction was enough to make Bigby fret, but Bluebeard sealed the deal: the perennially smug man seemed to be losing some of that smugness as worry fought to consume his expression. Bigby's eyes widened at that.

Cindy was right, there was no sleep to be had tonight.

To be Continued in Episode 1:
A Quarter Gone

A/N: Just an idea that wouldn't go away after playing through Cry Wolf and rereading some John Le Carré books. I want to do it in the Telltale "Episode" format. Five episodes, so, the writing will be slow, released periodically, but I estimate even the shortest episode will have to be at least three times the length of this prologue.

Chapter Notes:

Since some of you likely haven't read Fables, the graphic novel The Wolf Among Us is based off of, I'll be putting some things that may or may not be explicitly stated in TWAU but are well-known in the Fables universe in here to help those who haven't read the graphic novels.

Cinderella was Prince Charming's third wife, after Snow White and Briar Rose, but, like the two of them before her, the marriage didn't last very long. This is the reason why the prologue is called 'The First and the Last', referencing the first of Prince Charming's wives (Snow) and the last (Cindy). She's a pretty kickass spy/assassin in Fables and I'm fairly sure she was supposed to make an appearance in Season 1 of TWAU.

Frau Totenkinder is one of the 13th floor witches, an amalgamation of many fairy tale witches, but most prominently the one that was outwitted by Hansel and Gretel.

Boy Blue is Snow White's office clerk much the same way as she was for Crane in Season 1.

King Cole is briefly mentioned in Season 1 of TWAU, but if you don't remember, he's the mayor of Fabletown.

What happened to Faith/Nerissa at the end of Episode 5 will be discussed next chapter.

That should be it for the notes. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll leave a review!
Geist.