A/N: This story is largely self-contained and can be read as stand-alone, HOWEVER, it is also set after the events of my previous story, The Smurfs That Canon Forgot, and this will translate through into the text. There will be only very small references/nods and connecting links back to the previous fic, which should in no way detract from the story on its own.


PART ONE: INSIGHT

Chapter 1: A New Era of Smurfdom Dawns

A few months after the lost smurfs returned back to the village, Baby Smurf started to talk.

Of course, not with any kind of abrupt fluency. Some time in the past, he had spoken his first word. After such a long gap, his second, third, and subsequent words started to follow during this time.

Two years after the return of the lost smurfs, Baby was able to construct short sentences.

At the three and a half year mark following the time-travelling adventures drawing to a close, Baby's sentences were gradually growing a little bit longer and just a little bit more complex. He was getting better at saying words correctly.

And just under five years after the lost smurfs had finally returned back from their time travelling, Gargamel was dead.


He wasn't sure how Scruple had managed to find them. How long had he been looking? Or perhaps it had just been pure chance. Either way, they'd turned a corner in the forest, and he was there.

"Ah, smurfs…! Wasn't expecting to actually come across you. But uh, old Gargy's really sick. He has pneumonia again."

"Again?!" came the startled response.

"Yeah. Did you know that once you get pneumonia, it's much easier to be struck with it again? And this new doctor in town… I think he's a quack. He doesn't seem to be helping at all… You know, now that I've found you, I was wondering if… you know, well… I think you smurfs would actually know a little something and be more helpful than whatever the hell that quack doc's been doing."

And so it was that Dabbler and Papa, accompanied by a few other smurfs, went to see to him, but suffice it to say, they weren't able to do any good.


Baby Smurf could walk. When he had finally grown too big for his usual white jumpsuit, a new outfit was in order. Tailor went to make some white pants for him – smaller, but otherwise identical to those of the majority of the village, but the smurflings would have none of it.

"Let him wear the white pants if he wants to wear the white pants," Snappy huffed, "But what if he don't wanna?"

The smurflings stood out greatly with their unique choices of clothing, to say the least. And now they seemed to want to pass on their eccentricities to Baby, much to Tailor's chagrin.

"Oh, smurf is me," Tailor sighed, awful images flashing in his mind of some kind of bizarre future where every smurf in the village went by a different outfit. It just wasn't natural!

"C'mon Tailor, the times, they are a-changin'!" Sassette added. "If Baby wore boring adult smurf clothes instead of choosing his own style like us, well, that'd just be weird!"

So they allowed Baby choice. They laid out different colours before him. But whether he chose arbitrarily or actually knew the decisions he was making, who could say? But he seemed happy enough.

"Ah, a light blue…! And green too? What kinda green d'ya want, Baby? Light or dark?"

"Light!" Baby said brightly, repeating the new word back to Sassette.

They went through this process for a little while, and in the end, Baby Smurf donned a light blue T-shirt and light green overalls on top of that. He appeared to be somewhat confused but very pleased with the new outfit, so the smurflings considered the whole incident a great success.

"And you're free to change your mind any time, if you want a new outfit in the future," Nat had told him encouragingly.

"Or," Tailor added slyly, "If you want to join the rest of us smurfs in our normal smurfy outfits."

Baby Smurf was, in all respects, a toddler now. Was it not time for him to go by a different name? He technically wasn't a baby anymore.

But he had already been known as Baby Smurf for many years, and no one really thought to bring up the issue. He was still the baby of the village, after all, and there was only one Baby Smurf, making things quite convenient. Baby, for his part, could not (yet) and did not bring the matter to attention either.

Besides, what else would they call him? Baby was just, well, Baby. He did not show an avid interest in any one particular thing so as to label himself definitively.

They were going to have to name him eventually, give him a new name. But they could afford to wait a little while longer.

He has magic, Papa would think to himself from time to time. So will he be… Magical Smurf? Wizard Smurf? Sorceror Smurf? But he hardly wanted to go about advertising the young child's powers like that. It could come with a slew of unwelcome consequences. And would a name like that really fit Baby? He couldn't say for sure.

Sassette was with Baby and the other smurflings when Papa Smurf came to give her the news that Gargamel didn't make it. He brought Sassette off to the side, spoke softly to her, and she started to weep.

The era of Gargamel was finally over. In the past several years or so, they had not really been bothered by him anyway, but he still couldn't be banished entirely from the back of their minds, just in case. Now, it was official. They truly didn't need to worry any more about the most persistent enemy they had ever known. And finally letting go of it would be a great relief.

In a time before Sassette, perhaps some of the smurfs would be borderline celebrating, although Papa Smurf would have certainly disapproved of such behaviour. But Sassette was genuinely upset by the loss, leaving the smurfs to keep any contrary feelings to themselves.

If it weren't for Gargamel, they wouldn't have Smurfette, which at this point was unthinkable. It was funny how things like that worked out, how the one who only wished to bring them harm had unwittingly brought them all a very dear friend who would live alongside them, and who they would all love and cherish for hundreds of years to come. Smurfette, for her part, had always made her stance on Gargamel very clear, and that stance had not changed. She despised him. And unlike the other smurfs, she had never known a time before Gargamel, had never had that opportunity – until now, where she could finally live her life free of the nagging notion that the same awful wizard was out to get her, or use her to get at her friends.

Nat, Snappy and Slouchy had known a time before Gargamel. They didn't remember that time anymore. They didn't exactly have access to those memories, so they were essentially in the same boat as Smurfette and Sassette in that regard.

Baby, too, had been brought by the stork when Gargamel had already been a source of suffering for the smurfs for many, many years. Although he technically never knew a time before Gargamel… He'd not had much exposure to it, was only just now really learning to communicate. It would be easy for him to forget about, to not remember. Gargamel never had the chance to affect Baby the way he affected the rest of us, was what Smurfette thought to herself on the matter.


A/N: This fic is set 11-12 years after season 9, episode 1 of the 80s Smurfs series.