She had been the first one he had befriended that did not repeat her words again and again and again, quite unlike the typical NPC's he had been meeting since starting the game. With hair the color of a full moon's light, all the way till her waist, despite being caught up in looking for his way to the transportation shed, Alex had been transfixed as he watched her walk across the bazaar.

If you had asked him again, he would say it was because he had been to the bazaar so many times as it operated mechanically, always repeating the same thing, that her appearance was an anomaly which caught his eye. But in his heart of hearts, he knew why. He was lost upon first sight.

He had orchestrated their meeting, and was surprised to find her eyes flicker, unlike the glassy ones of the NPC's. "You're Seaplane."

"Please, call me Alex." he had responded, handing her the apple he had knocked from her hand.

She raised her brows. "Alex?"

"I... I'm a player."

"I know as much." she replied, a faint laugh and mirth playing in her eyes.

"You do?" How was the unasked question, but it seemed as if the silver haired maiden picked up on it well enough.

she nodded, biting into her apple. "My name is Lunafreya Van Pelt."

"Van Pelt?" a faint hint of alarm immediately came in his voice. Nigel had told him of the Van Pelt he was supposed to outsmart in order to get out of the game. It was all he had been doing over the past few weeks afterall.

Lunafreya seemed to understand it though, and immediately held out her hand. "Don't worry. I do not agree with Hunter's ways, believe me. It is why I simply have not spoken with him in... I don't know how long." She paused, and Alex found himself speechless for what felt like a long time. Her eyes sparkled black, yet unlike the hunter in Jumanji, this supposed sister of Van Pelt looked as if she brimmed of life.

"Call me Free."

"Why Free?"

"Because Lunafreya seems too long of a name." she laughed, before a wistful look came in her eyes. "And because being free sounds like a wonderful thing."

It was a good thing that Alex found Free afterall, what with his weakness to mosquitoes. After failing at the transportation shed the first time and losing a life, he decided he needed to fallback and think of a backup plan. He had found the abandoned shed by a supposed Alan Parrish then, and Free had all but fortified the shed with citronella candles, and made him bath soaps which combined lemon eucalyptus oil and lavender oil (both of which funnily enough, grew in Jumanji along with other native-Jumanji plants Alex had never seen). She also made sure he perpetually had long sleeves to wear, and kept him away from the tiny bugs that were deadly to him.

Alex couldn't help but find it amusing. He had seen enough romance movies (especially the ones with Cyndi Lauper) to know that the romancing couple usually had a keepsake to remind them of each other. Necklaces, rings... yet what reminded him of Free, was the bottle of soybean oil she made him keep in his pocket to pat himself with every hour, keeping the mosquitoes away.

Romance?

He's spent the past week with Freya (as he'd like to think of her, though she really preferred Free), and he found himself caught up with the way she thought, the attentiveness she paid to him, even the way she laughed. They shared meals together, he laughed when she marvelled over the margarita's he made (he would never complain over a useless ability again), and he treasured their late night conversations.

"How... are you not an NPC?" he had asked one night, over a shared pitcher of margarita and gazelle steak.

"I... am a glitch." Freya replied, leaning back in her lazy chair and averting his gaze, looking up in the starry sky. Alex had always wondered, how could a world so dangerous to him, be so beautiful in the dark. "I don't remember when exactly I started being aware of my own existence, but... I've met other players like yourself. Not all of them make it. " her voice got lower, and she stared at the half filled glass of margarita in her hand. "I hope you do, Alex."

When she turned to face him, Alex found his breathe catch in his throat. In the moonlight, her hair gleamed like silver threads, and before he could stop himself, he found himself leaning forward to press his lips against hers, muffling a surprised gasp. Pulling back just a second or two later, Alex chuckled when he saw the faint flush on Freya's cheeks. "Sorry, I-"

"Do-Don't apologize. Just... Don't be like the rest of the players I've met, Alex." she murmured, granting him a small smile. Reaching out, she took the wrist which had two more lines printed on it, and rubbed her thumb over the two lines. "Make it back."

Freya had disappeared when he brought Spencer, Fridge, Bethany and Martha back to his wooden house, and his instinct told him to not tell them about her. Once they had decided to move forward to the transportation shed the next day, he provided the four of them thin sheets to sleep on, before slipping out on a gut feel. Sure enough, the moment he shrugged his jacket on, he heard a light whistle in a familiar voice.

Following the sound, it didn't take long before he found the silver haired maiden in the bushes, much to his aghast.

"Why are you hiding?"

"Bravestone has the jewel, Alex. Hunter... he will know it if I'm near it. I-I can't go."

His heart dropped to his stomach. Alex grabbed for her arms, bending down a little to look at her, finding his own disappointment mirrored in her eyes. "Remember," she murmured, bringing her fingers to brush against his cheek tenderly, in an action that made his heart ache. For the whole time he's been alone in Jumanji, Free had been his sole companion, and he's come to yearn her company. "Not the hot air balloon, and not the jet."

He laughed despite himself, but a heaviness weighed at his heart.

"Go, Alex. I'll... wait for you once you're done." cupping her hand against his cheek, Alex leaned into her touch, as if hoping he could imprint her into him. "Stay safe."

He never thought he would see the day where the skies no longer kept its ominous black color in the days of Jumanji. As the world around them shifted, he could feel himself being moved by the game to the ending point. They had finished the game, successfully saved Jumanji, and after what felt like months but was in actuality years of being in Jumanji, Alex Vreeke couldn't believe he was actually going home.

Watching Nigel come was like watching the sun rise again for the first time, but even as his eyes trailed after the clunker of a car the guide NPC drove, he couldn't help but notice the glint of sunlight against silvery strands, and the rustle of bushes from the side. As Nigel spoke, Alex was distracted when a beloved face popped out.

"Sorry, g-give me a moment okay." Alex muttered when Nigel extended a hand out in his direction, and before he could explain to his confused-looking friends, he darted off to the rustling bushes, and as he expected, almost ran into Free, grabbing her by her waist before she could fall over. The proximity of which they stood took his breathe away, bittersweet as the moment was.

"I... You made it, Alex." The smile she gave, was perhaps the sweetest smile he had, or would ever see, in his opinion. Unable to resist, he leaned down and caught her lips, eager to make this kiss last a lifetime, for his memories, for himself. Free didn't resist. Unlike the first time they had kissed, the chaste peck of their lips together, this was soul-searing, for they both knew that it was quite impossible for them to continue the way they were.

"What if I stayed?" he asked breathelessly, once they broke apart. But she shook her head, caressing his cheek with her fingers again.

"No, Alex Vreeke. Jumanji isn't the world for you."

"Then come with me! I'll... I'll show you all that I spoke about. Cars, video games, even-"

"I'm a glitch, Alex. I... I can't go. Nigel would see me as an NPC, and the game... the game would never let me go."

"Su-"

"Go, Alex." she finally interjected, no longer willing to listen to his pleas. Forcefully, Free pried his arms from her waist, and gave his chest a gentle push. "Go. Remember, you conquered Jumanji. You can do anything you want."

Knowing Alex wasn't about to make his first move, it was Free who took a step back, and then two, before finally turning around and running off, all while he stood rooted staring at her retreating figure.

"Alex? Don't yo-" Bethany's voice reminded him of his friends who was still waiting. His chest felt heavy as he stepped out, his eyes falling on first Bethany's smile, Martha's wary grin, and then Spencer and Fridge's happy faces, before he sighed.

"Okay, time to go home."

Years later, Alex sat in his fireplace, grinning as he replayed his last conversation with his son Andy. His daughter Bethany was married with children of her own, a pair of twins who were as rascally as any six year old he's ever known, and a newborn baby boy they had named after him. Andy updated him on the latest achievement of Alex Jr, and then of Andy's own young daughter. His wife had passed on just before Alex Jr's birth, from a complication from her cancer. She was a sweet lady, his Megan, and in many ways reminded him of the one girl he could never forget.

"Are you okay, Dad?" Andy had asked, when Alex was beginning to end the conversation. Alex smiled to himself, his mind replaying the last seventy odd years of his life ever since he had came back from Jumanji to find he was still his sixteen-year old self, but with all the memories of Jumanji.

"Yes, Andy. I'm fine. Just... remember I love you, and your sister okay?" he replied, holding back the wistful note in his tone.

"... Dad, do you want me or Bethany to come over?"

"No, I'm good. I... I'm home."

With that he hung up, and looked up at the clock over his mantel. It had been a good seventy years of his life. Meeting Megan, having his two children, occasionally meeting up with the four of them to discuss and wonder what had happened to the game. He knew that Fridge and the rest had smashed the game upon their return. Bethany had been more then happy to tell him.

But he had his own version.

Getting up with a groan as his old muscles and joints pained him, old Alex took the stairs, stopping every so often to give his old knees a rest, before he finally reached the attic. There, he pulled a lever to let down the steps, and then ascended up where the dust and spiders covered every inch. Brushing away a few house spiders (who was scared of them when you had literal tarantula's in your backyard in Jumanji), Alex reached for a box he had carefully kept track of, but never showed his children or grandchildren. Even when he had moved from Brantford to Cambridge, he had brought it along. It was the one thing he had kept from his wife.

Pulling out, a soft smile curled his lips when he saw the cartridge in the old console. "Work, old girl." he murmured, pulling it out and making his way down again. There, he fumbled and cursed as his eyesight failed him, working to insert the right wires into the right plugs, grinning when it sputtered and flashed grin.

'Choose your character.'

A burst of adrenaline filled him, the kind of which he hadn't felt since the doctor's announced his wife dead. Without hesitation, his fingers picked his old friend, and upon the click, the same green flashes filled the room. While Alex had freaked out the first time, this time, he welcomed the vortex which sucked him in, and was prepared for when it dropped him in a familiar tropical jungle, where he immediately heard the splash of the giant hippopotamus sliding into the river behind him to begin the first level.

But what he wasn't prepared for, was the flash of silver, and then the girl he had ached for the past seventy years appeared brandishing a dagger.

She looked wary at first, and then as if recognition suddenly hit her, Free's eyes widened, and she straightened up, her mouth dropping in surprise. "...Alex?"

For the first time in seventy years, his heart felt full again, as he extended his arms. "Hello Free, I'm home."