We arrived at Bremerhaven at almost three o'clock in the morning, but the city wasn't asleep. There were a few trucks on the way to and from the harbor and as we drove I noticed a grocery store was open. "Maybe we should get some food before leaving this planet," I said. "There's a grocery store open."

Ella, who had been fast asleep for five hours as if she hadn't in five weeks, jerked up. "Food? I want food. Let's get food."

James pulled over by the dock. "Go ahead, then. I'll wait here and call you when they arrive."

Ella and I got out of the car and before we headed towards the grocery store across the corner, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Her hands were still small compared to mine. When I looked at her as we walked, I forgot that she was fifteen and pregnant and saw my ten-year-old sister who was more of a daughter to me than she'd ever be to our parents. My mom never even breastfed her. In the early days she'd squeeze some out, put it in a bottle and give it to me to feed her. I was eight years old, but I didn't mind at all. I might have loved it. And eventually we'd have the opportunity to breastfeed our own babies. I knew I was going to do it right. I was almost twenty-four, but respected as if I were older. I could do this. But Ella was fifteen years old. Could she? My thoughts were interrupted when we stepped inside the little grocery store and I heard the radio in German.

"…Kappel's son, Sven, has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Berlin after an acute stress reaction to his father's death."

"Oh my god," I murmured.

"What did he say?" Ella asked.

"Some kid I know is in the hospital." I held onto her hand tighter with no intention to let go in the near future.

"C'mon, let's just get some food," she whispered to me. She was calm.

She picked up a basket with her free hand and we lead each other around the aisles. I picked up two of everything I wanted as Ella hummed Castle On a Cloud from Les Miserables, perhaps to calm me down and/or to keep me from listening to the radio. It worked well enough.

When the basket was full, we went to the counter and put it on. The man at the counter said in German as he scanned the items, "How about this mystery airport shooter, hmm?"

"How about him," I replied blankly but at the same time solemnly, squeezing Ella's hand a little more. "He exists."

"Killed five people, three of them kids who just got their Abi," he said. "Maimed ten. And they didn't catch him. How is that possible?"

Was it partially my fault? I had almost two thousand days to report him. I could have kept him from ever hurting anyone again, especially Ella. My lips tightened. "I…have no idea."

"…A neighbor of a teacher at the school claimed to have heard him walking down the street shouting" He said in English, "'Lucy! Come out, come out, wherever you are!'" I couldn't restrain myself from shuddering, but the man was too busy scanning to see.

"Hmm. Wonder who that is. Hope she's safe," he said, not looking up from the groceries until he finished. "Sixty euro."

I dug out my credit card with my free hand and said to him as he swiped it through the machine, "If she's not dead yet, she should be."

He gave me my card and the receipt. "She's in my prayers, then."

"Thanks," I muttered, and then took two of the three bags. Ella took the other.

"Have a nice day," he called as we walked away.

"What were you guys talking about?" Ella asked as we walked back to the car.

"Uncle Rick," I replied somewhat spitefully. "My friend Sven's dad died, and he's in the hospital because he freaked out." I sighed. "He has a boyfriend who's…just great…and I wonder how he's gonna handle it. Probably not well because they're…they're everything to each other." A warm tear fell down my cheek. I squeezed her hand. "Let's…talk about this…later."

I noticed through the early morning mist a silhouette of a ship unlike the metal cargo ships that came and went day and night. It was huge and majestic, with sails and everything. It wasn't just any old ship. It was my ship. All the anxiety over Uncle Rick on the loose had been vaporized out of my mind. "Here she is," I said with a smile bigger than I thought I could ever manage. I still held her hand, but I didn't care very much if she didn't follow me when I ran towards the ship. Once I was closer, I noticed Cecco, Starkey, Alf Mason and Bill Jukes were pulling the car onto the ship using the ramp. I shouldn't have distracted them, but I couldn't help it. "Hey, guys!" I called.

They looked at me. "Lucy!" they all exclaimed at different times. The car almost slid down but they caught it in time and had more motivation to pull it in faster. Once they did, they all ran off the ramp and greeted me, until the car began to slide down the ramp. They got it back up, though, and our luggage as well up onto the deck. Starkey and Cecco got Ella gently onto the deck, and a hand I recognized immediately pulled me up next. And when I saw the filthy awesome pirate who was lucky enough to keep that hand, I couldn't help screaming in joy. "Kojo!" I hugged him until his hearty laughs turned into gasps for air. I didn't think of Ella, or James for that matter, as I reunited with the rest of the crew who hadn't changed a bit, until I heard and sensed my guitar falling out of its case and onto the deck. Smee tripped over his shoelace, and James didn't look happy. I approached them and Smee saw me. "Oh, Miss—I—"

There wasn't a scratch on the guitar, even the strings hadn't shifted. "Okay, it's okay," I said. "But I'm gonna do to you what I do to all my students when they muck around with the instruments."

He narrowed his eyes, confused. I flicked his forehead and then gently patted his rough cheek. "Okay, all's forgiven," I said with a smile. James stifled a laugh. I said to him, "I guess we're ready?"

"They're lifting anchor right now," he said.

Ella found her way to my side, took my hand and murmured, "Lucy, I'm scared."

"Scared?" I repeated. "Why?"

She shrugged. "This doesn't seem…sanitary."

I chortled. "If it weren't sanitary, I wouldn't have ditched the family for this guy." I pointed back at James. "You worried that they'll ogle you or something?"

"Yeah," she muttered sheepishly.

A sympathetic James said, "They won't, I can assure you. They kept off Lucy knowing she was mine, they'll keep off you knowing you're her sister."

"You haven't been introduced, that's what's eating you," I decided. The anchor was lifted and we were in motion. I called out, "Everyone!" and got attention. "Okay, so, welcome back, good to see all of your faces again. I'm gonna give you the lowdown on what's going on. You have two pregnant chicks on board, one of whom is me and the other of whom is my sister." I put my hand on Ella's shoulder. "Be nice to her because she's my sister. We're on the run from a certain red-haired child molester and we are fragile. So…we're off to Neverland again and…yeah." I clapped my hands once and lifted my left fist into the air. I noticed my guitar still on the floor and picked it up. I sat on the stairs leading to the cabins and beckoned my head for Ella to join me as the crew and James went to work. "Okay, sailing jams. This one is for Noodler because he thinks Dennis DeYoung is the shit."

A few people turned their heads to look at him. He shrugged, but he and I shared a secret smile. I love introducing new music to people. I began to play Come Sail Away by Styx and I noticed Ella's face light up when she recognized the intro. She didn't have to open her mouth to ask for permission to sing along, and I didn't have to open my mouth to grant it. We sang to the edge of the world. Ella fell asleep as we exited the atmosphere and I saw that she was carried to the spare room to sleep. I put my guitar away and then went to stand by James at the wheel. We were in space by then, and I think I could hear my heart beat. I didn't look around at all the stars and planets and meteors when I came and left Neverland when I was hardly eighteen because flying made me anxious and I could only focus on my bad memories, but now even though I knew Uncle Rick was looking for me, I felt safe. Probably because we were in outer fucking space. Nobody could catch us now. "I haven't seen this many stars…in a while. It was daytime when I flew across the English Channel to go to Germany. No stars."

James looked at me. "I don't think I've ever heard you this solemn, Lucy," he said.

I shrugged. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just…brooding…or something." I sighed, and realized we were in outer space and breathing. "We're breathing. I didn't think of it the last two times. It's like my whole life's a lie, y'know, because they say there's no oxygen in space but here we are."

Cecco heard this and said, "We've made the trip dozens'a times, so perhaps it don't affect us."

"Did it at first?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I don't remember."

We got closer to a light across the blue planet that's actually Earth, and started going faster. "Strangely, I'm looking forward to going back," James muttered.

"You don't know where you are until you're gone," Bill Jukes said.

"Don't you mean you don't know what you have until it's gone?" I responded.

He shrugged. The ship got faster and faster by the second. A weird mixture of anxiety and excitement came over me and all I could do was hold James's hand and watch the star come closer and closer until it turned into another universe.