Disclaimer:

I - sadly - do not own OUAT.

Caleb sat down in front of me, eating Frosted Flakes. His shaggy blonde hair hung in front of his blue eyes. He looked up at me, and for the first time in six months, I finally get a good look at him. It seemed like he had aged years in such a shirt amount of time. He had dark circles and bags underneath his eyes. He had high cheekbones, and an angular face.

"Are you okay, Remy?" Caleb asked, his mouth full. I gave him a tight smile.

"I should be asking you that, kiddo." I said, laying my elbows on the granite counter top. I noted how as Caleb frowned, shadows cast on his face, a crease between his eyebrows.

"You didn't answer my question," Caleb said. I sighed, and hesitated. Should I tell him about the letter I received last week? The fact our money was running short? Or that I had gotten fired from my part-time job at Bath and Body Works? I grabbed his right hand, and looked at his little doodles. There was a picture of a pirate ship, sailing past the setting moon, to stars ahead of it. Caleb was a wonderful artist, i had known that for sure. There was another drawing of a box, engraved with the same two stars the ship was chasing after, algae and barnacles covering it, like it had been lost in the ocean for years. A dagger with a hilt with a feather engraved on it.

"We've been better," I said, looking into his eyes as I rubbed smooth circles on his hand, careful not to smudge the drawings. They were familiar, in some sort of strange way. "but we've also been worse." I released his hand and walked to the fridge, which was almost directly behind me. The kitchen was rather small, half a wall separating it from the living room. There were two parallel granite countertops, one closest to the living room - where Caleb sat - were bar stools the swiveled at the slightest movement. The other held a stainless steel sink and dishwasher, next to the fridge. Above, and there were cupboards above the sink.

The fridge was empty, as usual. "Where are those food fairies you always talk about?" I chuckled. "They owe us a visit, I think."

"They're not food fairies," Caleb mumbled, and when I looked back at him, his face was flushed. I smiled, the first genuine smile I'd had in a while.

"Whatever, but we still need food." I said. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I turned around, closing the fridge door behind me. "And we also need something else," Caleb pushed his bowl forward, his spoon clinking on the bowl. "Two grand by the end of the month."

"Why do we need it?" Caleb asked. I've always seen him older than he actually is, and it's hard to believe he's only thirteen.

I have no idea how to explain this in a reassuring manner. "If we don't get two thousand dollars in a couple of weeks, we lose the house." I could hear his breath hitch, coming in and out shakily. I want to say it'll be alright, to say we'll - somehow, someway - come up with enough money, but we both knew it was impossible.

"How much do we have saved?"

"Only enough to pay for a few boxes of cereal. School costs, and so do the bills." I pause, unsure what to say next. "We need to start packing." I said. "Today," I added. Caleb nodded, and then he went back to his room, his Batman slippers dragging across the wood floor.

XXX

The attic was the only place I could think of to start. The door had no handle, and was hidden in the wall. Even if you knew where to look, you couldn't be sure where it actually was. I traced my finger along the wall, gathering up dust.

I thought I had passed the door, because I couldn't feel anything that resembled a door.

And then the wall was pushed back, a clicking sound coming up.

The wallpaper was a baby blue, a window letting light shine in. There was a little light switch beside me, which i flipped, and got an eerie feeling as it flickered back to life. Boxes upon boxes were stacked a little above my height. Dust and cobwebs gathered on them, black letters smudged, but readable. I hummed an old tune, a song I can vaguely remember. It was supposed to be played on a pipe, but humming was as close as I got to the actual song.

There was a couple of old photo albums, both were never finished, but still had a few decent photos. I smiled, and opened one up. The first picture was of all of us; Mom, Dad, Caleb and I, and Toby.

Toby. The poor boy. He was my older brother, two years my senior, died in a car accident a few years after our father left. Caleb looked a lot like him, except Toby had brown hair and dark eyes - like me - and had a five-a-clock shadow at sixteen. I was thirteen when he died, and my memories were fading, but sometimes, they rush back, and I can feel my heart stop.

Mom was beautiful, with doe eyes and red wavy hair, and wore a simple floral gown. She died when I was three, Caleb a few months old, and Toby was six at the time.

Dad was indescribable. He was loyal to the King, even though he moved to America to live with mom. Dad used to tell us of his stories on the ocean, the strange creatures he saw under the depths. I stuck the picture in my pocket, and looked around the room. the wallpaper was peeling, and the beams on the ceiling were exposed.

I moved on to a box, labeled "Misc." The letters were written in a swirling script. I dug around, looking past books that I had read before, and came across a small leatherback journal. It looked like pages had been stuck in messily. The pages were yellow, worn and a few looked like they had been burnt.

In the book, there were various drawings, and some of them looked like the ones on Caleb's hand. On the next page, there was a map, an island I had never seen before. Notes were scrawled in black ink, and it appeared the person writing was in a hurry.

There was a picture of wildlife, with some technical terms that were unheard of.

And that's where I began sorting through things to keep.

XXX

I rapped on Caleb's door, but received no answer. "Caleb?" I knocked a couple more times. "Caleb?" I walked in, expecting to see him listening to Hollywood Undead a little bit too loud. But he wasn't there. Caleb's room was empty, except for the empty soda bottles and the dirty piles of clothes here and there, it was bare. "Caleb?" I left his room, going to the living room, the kitchen, even Dad's room, but he was nowhere to be found.

I was having trouble breathing, because this had happened once before, and I didn't want to relive the experience again. "Caleb?" Then I paused, listening for any sound.

But I didn't hear Caleb.

I heard an ambulance.