A/N: I've been toying with the idea of somehow introducing Jake to his own magic since the tattoo's gone but was struggling with a logical, feasible scenario in which it happens. And then they literally make an episode about him getting mind-melded into a giant magic forest. So apparently the stars are in position for this tribute. Also, Eve and Jake are definitely my BrOTP for this fandom.

Jacob Stone was feeling...off.

Not just because his entire life seemed to be fraying at the seams—e.g., Flynn leaving, impeding tethering ceremony, Jenkins mortal, Librarian civil war, fucking Nicole, and now Sarina—even though those are all excellent reasons. Nor was it due to the fact that doubt had begun planting insidious little roots in the back of his mind, a poisonous, thorny vine slowly winding through his deeper thoughts.

No, this was because a magical tree had assimilated his consciousness into a hive-mind forest organism spanning the entire planet, and it apparently was not going away anytime soon.

The sensation itself was indescribable. He couldn't put it into words if he tried, and it seemed vague to him even now, like a dream half-remembered. He supposed that was because the human brain had limits on what it was able to absorb and comprehend before it fried. He'd been there and not there, everywhere all at once, touching the sleepy, sun-baked thoughts of coconut palms on unnamed tropical islands in the South Pacific whilst at the same time brushing against the frigid, sharp awareness of evergreens stubbornly thriving in the Arctic and the languid, mellowness of bamboo in Taiwan. He could feel the energy in the ground, a slow, unchanging pulse below the surface, like the ley lines but entirely separate because it wasn't just magic, it was the world, all the world.

The Grandfather had let him go, but an echo of that sensation remained. The connection had been closed...but he didn't think it was severed. Not entirely. Because he could still feel it. Maybe not on the scale of before, but he could still feel that low hum of power in the ground under his feet. He could hear the songs that trees sang to each other, reaching their tender new leaves towards the sky with a joyous susurrus, sinking their roots deep into the earth with a satisfying slither. He brushed his hands over the tops of the long grasses and felt it reverberate with energy and life, tedious and unrelenting, quiet but enduring.

It was incredible.

And if he was entirely honest, it was also scary. Like, a lot scary. The tattoo that the Monkey King had given him was gone, and he'd been glad to see it go. But this didn't seem like something that intended to go away. This wasn't a tattoo, either, a simple pattern of ink on his skin that he could cover up and ignore. This was a sensation that sang through his entire body, all of him, all the time. It lingered on the edges of his awareness, even when he wasn't paying attention to it like he was at he moment, and he was always vaguely aware of that presence, hovering about the peripherals. Magic like that...scared him.

He was a big boy, and in the past almost-three years, he liked to think that he'd made more than a little personal growth, so he could admit that he was scared. Before the Library, he had lived his life under tight control. Control of his personas, control of his lies, control, control, control. And as much of a relief it was to finally let go and be himself without having to cling with both hands, that didn't mean he could just drop the habit overnight. And magic, in and of itself, was uncontrolled. It was a force of nature and he had about as much chance of reasoning with it as he did reasoning with a thunderstorm.

And now it was inside of him, integrated into him, and as much as he wanted to hope it would go away, he knew it wasn't. Jacob knew it wasn't.

He bowed forward until his forehead was pressed against his forearms and heaved a sigh, eyes tightly shut. "Fuck me," he groaned.

"Buy me dinner first, I'll think about it."

He lifted his head to see a familiar blonde Guardian standing at the end of the bridge he currently stood in the middle of. Even though she was smiling at him, he could see the lines around her eyes and mouth that meant she was holding onto her control, too, with both hands and just as tight as he ever had. "How'd you know I was here?" he asked.

Eve walked over to stand beside him, resting her forearms on the bridge's railing and looking over the smooth, mirrored surface of the pond. "A little bird told me."

"Jones." Punk-ass.

The corner of her mouth twitched up. "He hacks our phones regularly, you know? He says it's to keep himself in form, but I think he just likes knowing where we are."

"Mm." Jacob breathed in, held it to a three-count, and let it out slow. "You okay?" he asked.

She sighed. "That obvious?" she asked, a trickle of weariness seeping in.

"I know you, Baird. Believe it or not, I really do have a basic understanding of women beyond the structure of dating," he replied, nudging her with an elbow, and she snorted a laugh. Jacob had three sisters, all younger than himself, and after their mother's death, he'd raised them mostly by himself given that the old man had crawled into his bottle and never came out again. And even though Eve was very beautiful and according to her, they had been a thing in another thread on the Loom of Fate, in this thread, Jacob had very firmly sorted her into the same category as his sisters: affectionate, respectful, supportive, sometimes playful, but not more than that. At this point, he imagined he'd be a little disturbed if she tried anything towards him. Maybe once, it'd have been possible, but that'd long gone.

"Is it Flynn?" he ventured after a moment of quiet.

She shook her head, then gave a small, wry smile. "When is it not?"

Jacob didn't answer that.

With a soft huff of air, she hunched forward until her head was braced on her folded arms, mirroring his earlier position. "I...I just don't understand. Why does he have to just...?" Eve straightened up and shook her head again, but he could see the dampness on her lashes. "I mean, every time, he just...runs off and doesn't say a word. And I let him, and I let him back, but why can't he ever—" She let out an angry noise and slapped her palm down on the railing; he felt the tremble in his own arms. "Dammit, Flynn," Eve hissed, then hunched her shoulders, breath coming in short, shallow pants as she fought not to cry. Alone in her apartment was one thing, but not in the middle of a public park.

That about summed it up, he thought. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "It's not your fault, Eve. You know that?"

She nodded once, hand pressed over her eyes, and they stood in silence for a long time. A light wind picked up, and Jacob heard the rustling song of the long grasses around the edge of pond, a happy sigh from the trees and shrubs, the scent of nature blowing into their faces. He steadied his breathing, following the forms that the Monkey King had taught him in meditative lessons; after a few moments, he felt Eve match his breathing.

"When we find him again, I'll beat him up, if you want. Or hold him down so you can do it," Jacob suggested quietly once the tension had seeped out of her shoulders, and her lips twitched. "Challenge him to a duel. Throw him in a tank at SeaWorld. Knock him out and leave him tied to a tree in his underwear on a college campus."

"Jacob..." Amusement was beginning to creep into her voice despite her attempt to hide it.

"Hey, magic door means no witnesses and a beautiful alibi. Leave him in front of an ER in Maine or something, come back here. It wasn't me, Officer, I was in Portland at the time of the mugging. How could it be me? Must be a case of mistaken identity. Strange, huh? Oh, well, I'll bet he had it coming." He waited another beat, then went on. "He had it coming, he only had himself to blame. If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it, I betcha you would have done the same..."

Eve bowed her head again, shoulders quivering for an entirely different reason now, and he grinned victoriously. When he nudged her with an elbow, she shoved back against him playfully. She raised her head, humor gleaming in her eyes again for the first time in what felt like weeks to him, and slung an arm around his shoulders, leaning against his side. "What are you doing out here, anyways?" she asked.

Jacob sighed, his smile fading. "C'mon," he said, straightening up and offering her an arm. She hooked her elbow with his, and they started walking, following the languidly winding path through the garden, passing only a few other people on their way. Walking made it easier for him to talk, movement giving him something to think on other than the thrumming pulse of energy vibrating in the garden around him, and he heard himself explaining, slowly at first and then faster as the need to tell someone got to him. The awareness of all the forests in the world, the connection to the Grandfather, the feeling of the earth's energy, the sensation of feeling strange in his own skin, the magical pseudo-sense of hearing the vegetation all around them, the fear knotting up in his stomach and refusing to go away. By the time he ran out of words, his throat was starting to hurt, and Eve hadn't said a word the entire time.

"So...right now, you can...what, hear the plants here?" she asked at last.

Jacob glanced around. "It's...it's not really hearing. But it's a sense like it, I suppose. Hearing and feeling at the same time. An awareness, like the feeling you get when you stand on the edge of a high cliff, knowing that there's nothing out in front of you. It's like that, but I know that there's something there instead of nothing. And that's...that's not all of it," he murmured.

Eve arched an eyebrow. "What else?"

He drew her to a stop and cast a glance over his shoulder. They were alone on this stretch of path, at least for the moment. He could feel the energy, humming warm and steady beneath his feet, spilling through his body and gathering low in his body. It wasn't quite a sexual feeling, but it was close, and it was pleasant nonetheless. Jacob stood at the edge of the path and reached out to one of the tall, segmented stalks of bamboo that grew on both sides of the walkway. He inhaled, held it to a three-count, exhaled slowly. Felt the energy sing and spill out of him, down his arm. A minute breeze stirred. The bamboo's narrow, spear-shaped leaves rustled. All at once, the bamboo flowered.

All at once.

Jacob staggered a little, his knees wobbling, and Eve tightened her grip on his arm in alarm, eyes wide. "Holy shit," she whispered.

"Yeah." He straightened up, catching his breath as the weakness passed. "So, there's that. That's all of it."

They started walking again before anyone could pass by and wonder why that one single stalk of bamboo was flowering, and Jacob watched her in the corner of his eye. Eve was gazing straight ahead in a way that he knew meant she was thinking firmly on what he'd just done, what it might mean, so he kept quiet and let her think. By the time they reached the end of the path, Jacob no longer felt lightheaded, the warm energy having returned to him in entirety. Finally, Eve shook her head and turned to look at him. "Stone?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm starting to think that all the summer camp in the world ain't gonna solve the problems we got," she said.

Despite himself, he laughed. "No, I don't think it will. So...what do you think I should do?" he mused, already imagining that he would have to talk to Jenkins, although a new, suspicious part of him balked at the idea. The old man had been keeping secrets, and he wasn't sure he wanted to share any more of his.

"I don't know, Stone," Eve replied in a murmur. "I mean, I'll help you do some research in the Library, if you'd like. Maybe if we go back to the camp, the Grandfather will explain it. Probably not. Ancient beings enjoy being cryptically mystical bastards. I don't imagine Jones or Cassandra would be much help. So...I don't know. But I'll help you if I can."

It shouldn't have been reassuring, given that she as good as told him she was clueless, but there was a certain solidarity in being clueless together. Jacob nodded, feeling somewhat at ease. The doubt was still there, quietly growing in the corners of his mind, and the new awareness hadn't diminished in the least. If anything, it felt stronger now that he'd used it. But he felt somewhat easier in his own skin now than he had when he came here. "Thanks, Baird. You hungry?"

"Starving. Italian?"

"I was thinking Chinese."

"Man after my own heart. I'll pay if you let me pick the restaurant."

"Deal."