I must confess, I haven't nearly finished writing this story, so it may take a bit to get all of it on here, but I really wanted to start posting it. I was listening to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" awhile ago, and the idea for this story popped into my head. So, please let me know what you think! I'm hoping it's a new idea (though it probably isn't), and any suggestions, thoughts, and reviews are most definitely welcome! Enjoy!

Code Green

Prologue

It happened one year later, exactly to the day. The girl had run and conquered the Labyrinth, she had taken back the child that was stolen, and she had returned home. In a very short time of 365 days, she had matured into a woman. She had learned from her experiences, and she had grown into a lovely, kind young woman who adored her little brother Toby and her parents, both biological and adopted. And true, while she had packed away the objects of her childhood; a Fey statue, photographs of her mother and her beau, and a little red book with gold inscriptions, she had certainly not forgotten what had defined her and matured her. She had been molded into a form and personality befitting of a queen, and her Aboveground friends and families were not the only ones who noticed.

The Goblin King, who had fallen in love with the girl, watched her with aching and longing every day, teleported to her room by a crystal orb. He sat by her bedside every night while she slept, watching the rising and falling of her body with every breath, noticing how her brunette locks shifted ever so slightly as she breathed peacefully. He memorized every detail of her face, from her dark eyebrows, to her fine, porcelain nose, to her full, red lips. The only luxury he didn't have, which he longed for greatly, was the view of her eyes, but those were closed to him, and because she had defeated him, he would never be able to look her in the eyes again. He was far too low beneath her for that.

There was one other creature of the Underground who dared to infiltrate the barrier between that land and the Aboveground. He watched the girl grow, day by day, with burning, angry eyes in his form of a black hawk. He hated that human. He hated how she had ruined all of his plans for the Goblin King by softening the Fey's heart. She had destroyed every chance of the Goblin King's assailant gaining victory to the royal crown. And for that, he hated her.

Which was precisely why now, one year later, he had his revenge.

The hawk swooped above the Williams' home, waiting until his internal clock informed him that it was precisely Thirteen o'clock, or, in the human world, 1:00 A.M. He knew that the Goblin King would be gone by now, so it was the perfect time to carry out his dastardly plans.

It took one match, one tiny little match of fire, to send the whole house up in flames. Using inhuman, penetrating vision, the hawk watched with sick pleasure as the girl woke up. Panic appeared across all of her features as she sprang from her bed and then dropped to the floor, crawling and calling for her family members. Her voice was choked out in a matter of seconds, but somehow she managed to make her way to her little brother's room. Fine. Let her try and save the whelp, even though no one was going to make it out of this house alive. The parents were already suffocated by smoke, and the hawk knew that it was only a matter of time before the girl and her brother's lives were snuffed out.

The girl pulled her baby brother out of his bed and tugged him to the floor, struggling to breathe as she tucked him under her body. She then collapsed, her fingers stretching out for help even as she lost all consciousness.

Farewell to a tragic love, the hawk managed to smile with satisfaction, and it turned away, flying high up into the air and disappearing into another world.

It didn't see the tall, strong figure drop down next to the girl. It didn't see bare hands grab the woman and her brother and pull them physically out of the building, lowering them to singed grass. The hawk never noticed lips meet the girl's, breathing life back into her even as physicians ran to the rescue and took care of the boy. And it never saw the tears that dripped down from pale, thin cheeks onto the girl's open lips and closed eyelids.