CHAPTER ONE

Jane turned her face away in a feeble attempt to hide her tears. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" she asked, her voice a bit croaky.

Tarzan shook his head and looked back towards where the shore met the jungle. "My place is here," he said, "I belong here."

Jane grimaced, knowing that he would not change his mind. She understood why, of course, after the events of the previous day with Clayton, Tarzan would not be ready and willing to leave the gorillas. With a sigh, she lamented, "I suppose we should say goodbye then, Tarzan."

At that moment, her father called to her from down the beach, "It's time to be going, Janey!"

She felt a lump rise in her throat, knowing that this was more than likely going to be their final goodbye. The likelihood of returning to Africa was minimal after they returned to Britain - getting the funding to come to Africa this first time had been a struggle in and of itself. Tarzan took her hand, and laid it flat against his, their palms touching - just as they had done when they first met one another. "Are you really going?" Tarzan asked.

"I…i have to, Tarzan. I belong in England - with Daddy - with people," she said, her voice trailing off as she attempted to quell the tears that threatened to flow freely down her cheeks at any moment. She knew that goodbyes were hard - she had said plenty of them in her short life - but she also knew in her heart that they were only this painful when you would never say hello again. When she couldn't hold back her tears anymore, she turned her face away and continued, "I'll never forget you - never for the rest of my days. Thank you…for everything." Her voice cracked slightly, and Tarzan could hear the turmoil in her intonation - whether to go or to stay. If she could throw her arms around him and never leave the jungle ever again, she may very well have done so. But, she could not.

Tarzan could see that these were his last, fleeting moments with this beautiful stranger like him. Jane wouldn't be staying. After all - she had a life in England to return to - a human family, friends. He felt his heart sink to his feet, for how could he ask her to stay, when she had so much to go back to, and he had so little to give? "I'll never forget you either, Jane," he said, placing his hand under her chin and turning her face to look at him.

She knew that she needed to go. The longer that she waited, the harder it would be to finally walk away. This particular day was beautiful - a gloriously warm sun overhead hanging in a vast, azure sky, and a breeze ruffling her dress. Finally, she bolstered up all of her courage and forced herself to turn away. Her father and several of the ship's crewmen were waiting a small distance down the beach for her. As she reached them, she dabbed under her eyes with a small handkerchief, wiping away the tears that had been streaming down her cheeks.

Her father looked at her, quite concerned with her level of distress. "Good heavens! Are you alright, dear?"

"I'll have to be," she sniffled. "We can't very well stay here forever, can we?" she asked rhetorically - although secretly wishing that her father would say that they could. The old professor shook his head sadly.

From there, they made their way to the ship which would take them back to England. Jane had a feeling that England would never feel the same as it did when she left.

Tarzan watched as the ship vanished on the horizon, and all sign of the Porters — all signs of Jane — were gone. She was gone. He had hoped against hope that she would turn around and run back to him, but she did not.

He wondered what would become of her. She was going back to England - this land he had heard so much about in his short time knowing her. He hoped that she would be happy back in England - he hoped that she was right, that she would never forget him - for he would never forget her. But, he could not keep himself from staring longingly out at the horizon, wishing that Jane would have stayed in the jungle - that she would have stayed with him. For so long he had yearned for the answers as to who he was and for a time, he had them - but now those answers were somewhere on the ocean, sailing further away from him with each passing second.

He at last tore his eyes away from the spot where the ship had vanished over the horizon, and turned back towards the jungle. The dense canopy of trees shaded him from the sun, and the songs of the birds was everywhere. Normally, this would have filled him with joy - but how could it, now that Jane was gone?

The next day, Tarzan returned to the same place on the beach that he had stood and watched Jane and her father leave. He sat on the sand for a while, just staring out into the distance. For some time, he thought about Jane, and for some time, he thought of his parents. Of course, he had seen their treehouse, seen their photos, held their possessions - but he had never known them. What if they were English? If they had been - did they live in London? Perhaps they did, he didn't know, and there was no way of finding out. If his parents had not met such an unfortunate fate in the jungle nearly two decades earlier, would he have lived his life as a proper Englishman? Again, he did not and could not know. Would he have met Jane - even, convinced her to be with him, if he had been a civilized Englishman? This thought was too much for him, so he squeezed his eye shut tightly, trying to make all of these questions disappear from his mind.

Needing to take himself away from this beach for a while, he retreated to his parents' treehouse. It was a bit weathered, but was sturdy enough nevertheless. He stepped inside and looked around. It was just as he had left it several ago when Kala had taken him here. One thing was different though - there was something laying on the table that had not been there before.

Upon further investigation, Tarzan determined that it was a small, leather bound sketchbook - Jane's sketchbook. He didn't have any idea how it had gotten here - he could only assume that she left it here, perhaps by mistake. He opened it, and leaned through the pages. He realized that this was the sketchbook that Jane had been using during her whole stay in the jungle with him. He assumed she would want to bring it with her to contribute to her father's research but perhaps he was wrong. He placed it down again, and looked around the treehouse again. This place, somehow, also reminded him too much of Jane - so he left, trying to find a place that did not immediately fill his mind with thoughts of her.