To the One I Love; To the One I Left Behind.

Weight of days lost holding you down
You'll look for me, but I won't be found.
The bluebirds flutter in my chest,
Oh, they want to sing..
You'll have to break me open to hear anything.
"Break the Sky", The Hush Sound

Andy is thirteen, pending on the edge between childhood and teenager, still child enough that every now and then he still plays with his toys, especially when he's upset. And that afternoon he's upset because his best friend asked the girl he liked out. So he sets out a classic, for him. Bo gets kidnapped by the evil Doctor Ham, and Woody has to save her.

Except, he gets distracted. His friend calls him wanting to apologize, and Andy doubts before answering, leaving Bo to close to the edge, half her weight on the edge. He's still holding Woody, though, and Buzz is all the way over the bed, where he was to wait for Woody's signal to help him save Bo. Jessie is nearby, though, and Woody sees that she and Bullseye are moving ever so slowly, so she won't call Andy's attention, trying to push a pillow closer to the desk for safety. Woody can see how Bo is trying to shift her weight bit by bit.

But then, Andy throws himself down on the bed and one of his legs hits the edge of his desk while he's still discussing with his friend. Woody thinks it goes on slow-motion, the way Bo falls down, without being able to move. Andy sits down with the sound Bo makes when she breaks. Woody will never forget that sound.

"Oh, Bo..." Andy says. He sounds sad. He even sighs as he hangs up, putting him down near her, going towards the door, calling for his mom.

Woody thinks that the room is too silent, even though he knows it's not. Even though it's dangerous, Buzz is saying his name, Jessie hugging Bullseye, Bo's sheep balling sadly. He still can't really hear them as he kneels by the pieces of the woman he loved, her face goes forever.

He doesn't cry. He's not a toy with tear ducts, after all. But he thinks his smile must have been different when Andy came back, because that night Andy sleeps with him again, instead of putting him back on his toy box, like he had been doing for a while.

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you,
tomorrow I'll miss you, remember I'll always be true.
And then while I'm away I'll write home everyday
and I'll send all all my loving to you.
"All My Loving", The Beatles

Bo probably would have lasted a bit longer at Andy's house if not for Megan, his and Molly's cousin, who's going through a fairytale phase, all wrapped in a pink dress and wearing a tiara, her brown hair in pigtails.

"Little Bo Beep!" she coos, wrapping sticky fingers around her. Molly always knew to be careful with her because, Andy told her, she was Woody's girl. "Pretty!"

Andy, bless him, takes her from Megan's grubby hand. "Megan! You're gonna break Bo if you hold her like that!"

"Andy, don't be like that with your cousin," his mother admonishes.

"But mom-"

"Besides," Molly says with her lisp of having just lost a tooth. "She's mine. And I say that Meggie can have her."

"Molly! What about Woody?"

Molly actually looks sorry then, as if she hadn't thought about that. Bo thinks that things might be okay then, but then Andy and Molly's mother sighs.

"Well, Andy, if you want to keep it in your room, then-"

"What? No way! That's a girl's lamp!"

"Which you've used way more than me."

"Shut up, Molly!"

Another sigh. "Then?"

Andy looks at her, and Bo thinks that if he was ten instead of fourteen, he would have apologized with her before giving her away.

"Fine."

So Bo and her sheep go with Megan's family, many of Andy and Molly's old toys going with her, which makes it a bit easier, except for the look on Woody's face and on everyone else they left behind.

Megan has Snow White Barbie and Sleeping Beauty Barbie and she's might not be a Barbie, but Bo is given a spot of honor by Megan's bed, and each night before she goes to sleep Megan likes to tell her her dreams and things she has imagined the way Molly never really did and, for a while, that helps soothe the ache in her porcelain chest when she thinks of Andy's room, of Woody, of home. She sees Buzz and Woody sometimes, when Andy and his family come to visit, and that helps, even if the gamed have changed and now she's a princess in a tower with sir Buzz Lightyear and prince Woody going to rescue her (since Andy thinks he's now too big to play with girls, only Megan and Molly orchestrate their adventures).

But Megan, she finds out, moves out of her phases each birthday, more or less. While Andy remained interested in cowboys and space rangers all through his childhood and early teenager years, when Megan hits six she becomes interested in Pokemon. Most of her Barbies are given away, and Megan replaces her with a Pikachu lamp, barely looking at her while her mother wraps her and her sheep in bubble wrap.

Then she gets sold without being able to say anything to Woody, but Bo knew this day would come, has known it for a while, so she tells herself to remember the good days rather than cry the days to come. This time she's sent alone, nothing and no-one from home except her sheep to make it easier.

Then it's Denise for almost three years, and Caroline for barely six months. She's put to sell on a garage sale for only five dollars, and Bo tries to keep the rest of the toys motivated the way, she thinks, Woody would have done. Yes, they'll be sold but what's important is that they'll make children happy. That's why they are created.

"Oh, look at you, little miss Bo," croons an old woman, her eyes wide behind her glasses, her smile kind. "I think I've got the perfect place for you."

Bo's heart sinks when the old lady starts retouching her colors. A collector. She'll be left behind glass for the rest of eternity, never to play with anyone again, nothing but a figurine.

But Betsy - the old woman - doesn't put her in a glass jail the way Bo expected. Instead, once she finishes retouching her and cleaning her lamp, Betsy wraps everything in bubble wrap. Bo doesn't know what to expect, the noise muted, and she has no way of knowing how much time goes by until the light blinds her, and the joyful screams of children threaten to deafen her.

"Nana, she's beautiful!" A little girl coos. Her hands are ever so careful as she takes her out and purple, pink and blue balloons and streamers are everywhere. A birthday party. The girl's eyes are wide. She has heer grandmother's smile.

"I just knew you'd love her, baby."

"I do! Thank you, nana!" the little girl puts her down on the table carefully before she jumps from her chair, running to hug Betsy.

"I'll take your lamp to your room, Bonnie," a woman (Bonnie's mom, Bo guesses) says, but Bonnie has already been pulled by the other children to play.

At least it's a child again, Bo thinks, staying still until Bonnie's mother goes.

"Bo..."

There's toys she knows as well as she knew the faded spots of her porcelain, there's Bullseye and Buzz and Jessie and...

Woody, looking at her as if he couldn't believe it. As if his heart was both breaking and mending itself.

And then she's hugging Woody, and she doesn't have to keep herself standing with vague explanations and excuses.

She's finally back home.