Bree got up early the next morning and went shopping for clothes for Frances. Ever since he arrived, he'd been wearing some of her dad's old ones and he looked too much like a grandpa in them.

She made sure no one saw her leave. She phoned her former cab driver and was thankful he was an early bird. He took her to a shop deep in town and Bree was able to buy as many clothes as possible; T-shirts, jackets, pants, boots, sneakers etc.

When she got home, she quickly dumped the shopping bags behind the couch and scurried quietly to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. A few minutes later, Melinda walked into the living room. She wore a crisp white and oxblood top with dark blue jeans.

Bree sighed. It was either her mother had caught her leaving the house and didn't want to say so or she just woke up fifteen minutes ago.

"Morning mom." Bree called waiting for Melinda to explode with the questions but her mother only filled her favorite mug with coffee and sat down on one of the kitchen stools.

"Hey butterscotch, did you sleep well?" She asked hazily. She didn't look quite like herself but Bree knew her mother wasn't one hundred percent a morning person. It took her a few hundred seconds before her system adjusted to the fact that she was awake.

"Yeah, thanks. I made eggs and bacon." Bree announced and Melinda nodded satisfyingly.

She tilted her head toward Bree's room. "How's Charming doing? Not up yet?"

"Uhhhh, i don't know. I should go check on him." Bree said and left the kitchen. She knew Frances would be up already.

She knocked slightly on the door then turned the doorknob and went in only for her breath to get stuck in her throat.

Frances stood shirtless on the rug with his back to her. He was wet from a shower and Bree could tell from his adorably wet hair and water trailing down his back.

gods, his back!

If Bree had mistakenly walked into Ancient Greece, she would've mistook him for a god. His skin was as white as milk and perfectly clear. He must've scrubbed hard during his shower because Bree could see slight red bumps on the skin. His hair dipped into the scruff of his neck and stuck to his skin in an alluring manner. His midsection was hollow but sturdy and he had the smallest waist Bree had ever seen but her dad's pants fit him hilariously well.

He was fiddling with a black object, constantly hitting it against his palm. Bree wanted to smile but her facial muscles refused to cooperate. Her eyes clocked to his back again and she tried hard to stop staring.

She finally looked at the 42 inch television on her table. Somehow, Frances had found it inside it's box. It was a gift from Amy when they'd first arrived but Bree had stashed it away as she wasn't very fond of televisions. Frances, on the other hand, seemed fascinated with it like everything else in the apartment. The manual was rolled open like a papyrus scroll all the way down to the floor and Bree guessed he must've been reading it.

The remote batteries lay in a plastic wrapping next to a heap of bubble wrap but Frances hadn't figured that part out yet. He fortunately figured out how to connect the TV wire to the wall socket. As Bree stared at the sockets, she realized the room was covered in wires intertwining themselves like, well, cables.

She cleared her throat and Frances turned sharply, sending the remote out of his hands and onto Bree's bed. As she took a step forward, she realized he'd also cleaned her room.

"Uh, i was just. . ." He started pointing at the entire mess then suddenly remembered he was without a shirt.

Bree handed him one almost immediately.

"I'm sorry about the um, discord." He managed as he pulled down the shirt. Bree had purposely given him that particular one. It fit like a glove and also made him look even more desirable.

"Discord!" Bree snorted but Frances looked like he didn't catch the joke. "Oh, cause there's a lot of cords lying around scattered and discord. . . That's a pun."

"A pun?" He asked still baffled.

"Puns are funny. Sublime jokes." Bree explained collecting the remote from him.

"Huhn! I made a joke and didn't realize it. How unruly!" He said.

"You could just say "that's wild" but unruly works too." Bree said chuckling.

"Is that another joke?" Frances asked looking hopeful.

Bree burst into laughter and he joined in even though he had no idea what was funny.

"So i see you're getting your electrical engineering on." She said shaking the remote.

"I don't know. What are those? They're really interesting." He asked pointing at everything on the floor.

"Yeah but they can be dangerous, especially if you handle them when you've got water on your hands." Bree explained taking his wet hand.

"I only took it out because it looks like a bigger version of your um, laptop." He defended pointing at the television.

"Wanna see how this one works?" Bree asked.

"Yes please." He answered looking at the TV with keen interest.

Bree fit all three batteries into the back of the remote.

"Wow, is that like a storage space for those green things?" He asked watching every thing Bree did.

"Yeah. They like, they power the remote so the remote can power the TV." Bree said then handed him the control. "Push that button."

Frances pushed the said button and the TV suddenly came on sending a bright light across the room. He gleamed at it in fascination then pointed like a two year old at the icon on the screen.

"What's that big red capital letter L and G?"

"That's the company's logo. They make Tvs and stuff." Bree explained and went on to explain a thousand other things he didn't understand. He wanted to take the TV with him to the kitchen but Bree had cautioned that it was breakable and was supposed to be stationed at a spot.

"What took you so long?" Melinda asked looking livelier than she had eleven minutes ago.

"Frances found the TV and it's his new best friend." Bree explained.

"It's bigger than the laptop, like this big." He contributed, gesturing with his hands the exact size of the television.

"I know. They show lots of stuff in it too; interesting stuff, boring stuff." Melinda added then looked closely at his shirt. "Where did you get that one?"

Frances looked dumbfounded for a split second before he realized what she meant."Bree got it for me."

Melinda put on her stern glare but Bree was quick to provide an explanation.

"I asked a really good friend to go shopping for me and he got these. I didn't go out."

Melinda considered for a moment before letting the subject go. "okay fine. You two eat up, our search begins today."

Bree's smile dropped. She suddenly began to feel left out again. "Oh yeah, and i get to stay home."

From across the table, Frances reached for her hand. "You'll be fine. The TV will be your company."

"Yeah, TVs do a great job keeping off boredom. I wonder why it's been in that box for so long." Bree mumbled.

"Enough with the sarcasm already. We're all on the same page here, remember?"

Bree rolled her eyes. "yeah i remember."

Her gaze landed on Frances' wet hair. "You didn't dry your hair!"

He touched his hair but immediately returned to nibbling the bacon like a toothless baby. He seemed to enjoy it too much to want to eat it all at once. Bree hoped it tasted as good as it looked. She wasn't the type to cook meals herself unless it were absolutely necessary, another reason she was thankful for her mother.

"I have a hair dryer." Bree offered.

"What's that?" Frances asked hoping it was another new gadget he could play with.

"It dries off all the water in your hair by turning electricity into heat." Melinda explained.

"Fascinating." Frances beamed. He looked almost older than Tony but when he smiled, he seemed to go back a few ages. "Can I see it?"

"Later, okay?" Bree said taking his hand. "By the way, your birthday's tomorrow, got any plans for that?"

Frances chuckled. "You sound like my mother but my mother usually does the planning without asking." He paused for a few minutes. "God, i miss her."

Bree squeezed his hand. "I understand how you feel. I almost lost my mother too but she's here now and i'm always really thankful for that.

Using her free hand, Bree took her mother's hand and gave it a little squeeze. The trio were silent for a little while before Melinda nodded and pushed her mug forward.

"Alright. If we're gonna get you home, we have to act fast. We better start looking."

"Yeah, but where would you start?" Bree asked as they walked to the door.

"Where i have a stronger connection to home." Frances said.

"The ruins." Bree stated.

Frances nodded.

"But you said you already looked. . ."

"Yes but now your mother's going with me. Maybe she'll see something i missed." He said.

"Alright. You guys take care." Bree said and kissed Frances lightly on the lips. He pulled her in for a quick hug and Melinda did the same.

"I'll make sure we find something, okay!" Melinda assured and followed Frances out the door.

Bree sighed and went back to her room to organize the TV and all its cables. She had promised she would show Frances a live version of the Little Mermaid and she intended to.

She went around fixing and connecting until her room looked different. She had never really fancied television but seeing it up on her wall gleaming polished black, she found it oddly satisfying. A part of her mind wandered wildly, trying to imagine what her mother and boyfriend had found.

"They've been gone for only 15 minutes." Bree chided herself quietly. She fought to keep her heart from racing. What if they couldn't find anything? What if Frances got stuck here forever? He was surely happy being with her but he missed his family dearly and she did not want to be the one to deprive him of seeing them again. She fought to keep herself from overthinking and began to tidy up the rest of the house.

As she worked, a gentle knock stopped her dead. She was tempted to ask who it was but her mother had warned her that no one could know she was around. The knock came again. Bree moved to the back of the door with stealth and tried to look into the peephole but the intruder seemed to be knocking right on it, preventing her from seeing their face.

Bree gently cleared her throat and did her best impression of Ed's voice. "Who the hell is trying to disturb my peace, huhn? Whaddaya want?"

Her tone definitely startled the intruder because whoever it was took a few minutes of hesitation before speaking up. "Sorry to disturb you, kind Sir, but i'm looking for a certain gentleman."

Bree's feet went stiff. That was definitely the voice of a young girl. What was a young person doing outside knocking on her front door? This couldn't be good. Bree tried to think fast but her subconscious kept screaming for help and made it difficult to focus.

She took a deep breath and tried Ed's voice again. She could only go so far with it but she gave it another shot. She'd listened to Ed's morning yells so frequently that his manner of speech seemed to have plastered itself in a part of her brain.

"Ain't no gentleman here but me. Say, what's his name anyway?" She croaked.

Bree was sure her impression was working really good because the female actually believed she was talking to a man and her next words froze Bree into a living popsicle.

"His name is Frances. I reckon he's probably new around town. An old friend of mine. May i please come in, good Sir?"

Bree panicked. A huge part of her knew that instant that the intruder was Anita. And from what Frances had told her, Anita was bad news.

Bree asked herself one logical question. How did Anita get here? As her panicked settled, she began to form more rational thoughts. Anita was the same person who had cursed Frances and of course, she would know if the curse was broken. She definitely wouldn't have been expecting it to but it had and Anita was not happy with that so she'd come to visit.

If Anita could make the trip from Wonderland, then she could also make it back which meant one thing - her new guest could find a portal.

"Give me one second. I'm a little underdressed." Bree croaked and tiptoed to her room. She began to ransack the entire place forgetting that she had cleaned it a few minutes ago. She almost turned her bed over, looking for one precious little item that she'd received once.

At last, she found it. Still inside it's bottle, gleaming a bright red - her poppy perfume.

She raced to the door silently, praying her little trick would work.

"Here i come." She croaked in Ed and pulled open the door. Before the intruder could muster up a nice smile, she got a mouthful of poppy pollen. She spluttered and coughed for a few seconds, fanning the air around her to clear the red mist the perfume created but her hands suddenly lost rigidness, her body ached and her eyes went heavy. Like a wet log, Anita dropped to the ground snoring like the new Beasley.

"THAT'S what i'm talking about!" Bree shrieked in excitement. "Phew!"

She dragged Anita's body inside. Dangerous? Yes, she knew. Necessary? Definitely. Anita was a century old witch and she could hurt Bree in many ways but she was an asset and Bree couldn't let go of her so easily and plus, she wanted to punch Anita's perfect nose into dough for laying a horrible curse on Frances. She had absolutely no right to do that and needed to see a therapist for extreme anger issues, possessiveness etcetera etcetera.

Bree checked her plexiglass full of poppy wonder, there was still enough inside to send Anita into a deep sleep twice. She smirked and stuffed it in her pocket silently thanking Gaius. She began to wonder why she hadn't heard him and Kate bickering ever since she got back.

She glared at her new company. Anita was beautiful, no doubt and looked so darn innocent, one would think she would never hurt a fly. She had short brown hair and near her left ear a large silver hairpin in the shape of a pegasus stuck to her head. Her skin was so pale that in her sleep, she looked. . . dead. Other than looking like a normal pretty female, there seemed to be something dangerous about Anita.

Bree checked her phone. She wasn't sure how long poppies lasted but she needed to make sure that whenever Anita woke up, she would be defenseless.

Bree had to the one thing she was told not to - go outside. She needed ropes to bind her captive but she couldn't risk getting spotted by anyone, notably Norman or those meddling triplets. She became confused; If she left, Anita would probably wake up and trash the whole place. Bree was sure the girl was more powerful than she looked. And if she stayed, the girl would wake up anyway and turn her into a magic seagull or a rat. Both scenarios seemed really ugly to Bree.

She dialled her mother's cell and it kept ringing but Melinda did not pick up. Frances did not have a phone, much less know how to use one. She sent a couple of texts alerting them both about the newbie. Afterwards, she rummaged through the house for duct tape then a thought struck her.

If Anita were to wake up in bonds, she would assume Bree was the enemy but if she were to wake up to a nice friendly face then things wouldn't turn out so bad. Bree had to take the peaceful measure and again, torturing Anita into revealing a portal would not help.

She dialled her mother again and this time, Melinda picked up.

"Mom, you guys have to stay where you i until i say to come back home. Okay? Trust me, stay there for as long as possible."

"Sweetheart, is everything o..."

Bree hung up and quickly began to prepare food - because it was absolutely necessary. She rearranged the living room and tried her possible best to look presentable and harmless. Finally she sat and took a deep breath, then waited for Anita to wake up.

For someone so magically magic, you'd expect her to wake up immediately but Anita slept like a rhino on sedatives. Bree had to wait for the next two hours before sleeping beauty finally stirred.

Her front teeth reminded Bree of Pepper but Anita's were so white that she was sure the girl's reflection could go blind. She groaned and placed a hand on her forehead. Bree ventured to help her sit up straight but Anita was so startled by her touch that she knocked Bree to the ground.

"Nice to meet you too." Bree said in a muffled tone and sat up stretching her broken chin.

"Forgive me. Who are you?" Anita asked but there was no sympathy in her tone. She had probably enjoyed kicking Bree in the chin. She had her fists balled and her eyes scanned the room like she had 360° vision.

"I'm Gemma. And you are?" Bree said wincing. Technically, she hadn't lied about her name but she did dislike introducing herself by her middle name.

"Where's the scrawny man that knocked me out? And what was that perfume?"

In retrospect, Anita looked a lot like Bree when she'd first met Beasley. She was anxious and on alert yet very open to explanations about her surrounding.

"Oh, that was my boss. He left. Sorry about the rude welcome. You haven't told me your name yet." Bree said going to sit down on the opposite couch. Anita watched her sit then reluctantly did the same since her legs were probably aching from her judo pose.

"My name is Rosemarie." She replied still looking around the apartment. It was either she found the place fascinating or she was  expecting a trap to spring out of nowhere.

Bree nodded and hummed approvingly. Oh, i'm gonna be honest and you're gonna lie?! It's on!

"Do you live around here or are you visiting?" Bree asked whilst serving up her pancakes and hoping her mother would not come bursting through the door and ruin her plan.

"I am new. I came looking for a friend." Said Rosemarie, or Anita rather. She eyed the pancakes then slowly took one bite because everyone knows receiving food from a guest is a high form of welcome.

"Oh is that so? Well, any luck finding them so far?" Bree's hand inadvertently moved to her pocket to feel for her vial in case she needed to use it at some point.

"No. I was directed here by someone. Someone who had seen my old friend but then your boss sprayed me in the face with whatever plant life that was and put me to sleep." Anita grumbled with a mad look in her eyes. It might've taken a lot of composure to stop herself from smashing her plate to bits because her knuckles seemed to be turning white.

This made Bree uncomfortable. She was lucky Anita hadn't seen her face when she'd confettied her with poppy otherwise, poof! magical seagull!

Bree was about to speak then paused. "um, what was it you said? Someone directed you here?"

"Yes. A fellow who tells me he works at the library." Anita said more cheerfully this time. It was either the pancakes tasted that good or the poppies had gone to fiddle with her brain.

"Ah, i worked at the library. Could this fellow possibly bear the name William?"

"Why, yes. I think!" Anita said reaching for another pancake. It was obvious she was spoiled and didn't know to ask before trying to take another plate.

"Oh, well. Will can be quite an annoying chatterbox." Bree said with a forced smile. Her brain worked overtime to connect the dots. How did William know Frances was here? She was half expecting it to be Norman or even Jimothy but ... William?

"I can attest to that. You have quite a lovely home, although your owner shouldn't try to make his guests fall asleep next time. What was in that stuff anyway? A flower plant? Some kind of modern sleep inducer?"

Bree shifted in her seat. Anita had suddenly become so comfortable and it made Bree want to run. Her edginess had worn off and was now replaced by a confidence so huge it could pound Bree into a mold.

"I don't know. You know what, maybe i can help you find this old friend of yours? What's his name?"

Anita gave Bree a very dangerous look but it only lasted half a second making Bree think she'd imagined it. "Frances. I need to have a conversation with the little chap. He and i, say, haven't been on good terms for too long. I've come to simply make peace."

Anita held Bree's gaze making the latter want to melt. She spoke like she knew Bree was hiding something.

"I see. Well, can you at least give a description of what he looked like?"

Anita retreated into her chair, smiling ever so charmingly. "I believe he looked like that."

Bree turned to what Anita was pointing at and her heartbeat missed a few thousand beats.