That night, neither Winnie nor Jesse nor Miles were at the cabin. Mae and Angus didn't seem worried, but the same couldn't be said for Lena. Though she knew there was probably no cause for concern, she couldn't help but wonder where everyone was.

When the two adults were busy, she wandered outside into the forest, hoping to find some sign that the three of them were okay. Her heart was pounding and she was quite nervous about running into any kinds of animals. She certainly didn't want a repeat of her snake adventure.

Lena turned to look behind her and when she turned back around, she ran straight into Miles's hard chest. She gasped heavily in surprise.

"Miles!"

"What are you doing out here?" he said to her. She could smell alcohol in his breath. "You shouldn't…be out here alone."

"Miles, you're drunk."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah. Come on, I'll take you back to the cabin."

They had only walked for a little bit before Miles turned his head. She followed his line of sight and saw the faintest glow from a fire. That must've been Winnie and Jesse. Miles started walking towards it.

"Wait. Miles!" Lena called quietly. She followed them and they managed to hear some of Jesse's conversation with Winnie.

"You are the first human I've ever met I wanted to know the truth," Jesse said to Winnie.

"Jesse Tuck, you're the first human I've ever met that I've ever wanted to…to…" She gently kissed him on the lips. "…to do that."

Jesse put his hand to her head and they kissed again. Lena couldn't help but smile as she saw the girl she could almost call a sister finally find someone she loved. Her thoughts traveled back to when they had been on the grass discussing the prospect of finding someone who loved them.

"Winnie, listen," Jesse said when they pulled apart. "Remember the giant oak tree at the center of the wood where we met? The little spring bubbling up you saw me drink from? You remember when I told you I was 104 years old?" Winnie nodded slowly. "Well, it's the honest truth. I'm going to live forever. I'm never going to change. The same with Miles and Tuck and Mae. Something happened to us. As far as I know, I'm going to be seventeen until the end of the world!"

Lena's head began spinning. Jesse Tuck was actually 104? So how old did that make Miles? And how on earth did they still look this way? While it seemed that many of her questions were answered, a thousand more formed.

"It's the spring, Winnie," Jesse continued. "The water, something's wrong with it. It stops you right where you are. If you had a drink of it today, you'd stay just like you are."

Miles chose that time to reveal his and Lena's hiding spot.

"Don't you wish he'd told you before you kissed him?" Miles said, a bit on the drunken side. "Did he tell you immortality isn't all the preachers crack it up to be?"

"Hey, leave her alone, Miles," Jesse said sharply.

"Oh, now…you want her to hear it, Jesse boy. She's the first person you want to tell the truth to!"

"You just don't want me to have what you lost."

"Jesse," Lena said with the tone she used to berate Winnie sometimes.

"Stop this," Winnie said quietly. "Both of you. And tell us the truth. We want to know."

Miles took a couple steps forward, while Lena stood next to where Winnie was sitting, and began his story. "We all had a drink. Except for the cat. That's important. The water tasted like…heaven. Floated over your tongue like a cloud. Tuck carved a 'T' in the trunk to mark where we'd been. We moved on west, looking for a place to settle down. Put up a house for Mae and Tuck and a little shed for Jesse and me. That was the first time we figured there was something…peculiar. Jesse fell thirty feet, landed right on his neck. He was up on his feet again before Mae could work up a good cry. Didn't hurt him a bit. No broken bones…nothing."

Both Lena and Winnie took a deep breath trying to take all of this in.

"That's not all," Miles continued, noticing their expressions. "Not by a long shot. Things began to happen. Some brushpoppers mistook Mae's horse for a deer. Thing is, the bullets didn't kill him. Barely even left a mark. Then Tuck got bitten by a rattlesnake, and you know what? He didn't die! But the cat did. Of old age."

Miles paused and began fiddling with the ring on his finger.

"And Miles got married," he said softly lost in the memory. "Beau. Little Anna."

Lena had never seen Miles like this before. He was so…vulnerable.

"Tuck figured it early on. It's the spring. We all drank from it, even the horse. Had to be. The source of our changelessness." He began to get choked up. "I begged her to come back. For me. And find the spring and drink from it. The children, too. It was our only hope to be together. She made up her mind I'd sold my soul to the Devil…and she left me. She took my babies with her."

Lena felt tears begin to form in her eyes. She had just been given a whole new definition of what Miles had been through. It was no wonder he was so hard and closed off.

"Everyone…pulled away after that. There was talk of witchcraft…black magic. I went looking for wars to fight. And I saw brave men die at Vera Cruz, and then Gettysburg. Thousands, in the blink of an eye."

War changed people. Someone who had already been through so much put himself through even more pain.

"But not me. I couldn't die." Tears formed in his own eyes and his voice cracked. "Like little Anna. The influenza took her before she's fifteen. And Beau. He'd be almost eighty now if he were still alive. And my sweet…my sweet young bride. She died in an insane asylum. Old and alone. But I'm still here! I'm still here!"

He turned away and began to walk off. Lena looked at Winnie and Jesse for a second before quickly wiping away a tear and running after him.

"Miles!" He turned to face her. She had never known that someone like him could be acting like the way he was at that moment. "I am so sorry," she said softly. "I had no right to yell at you when I didn't know the whole story." He said nothing so she slowly approached him and took his hand in hers. "You have been through so much more than one person should ever have to go through."

There was silence following those words, but it wasn't awkward. On the contrary, it was a much needed silence. What was there to say?

The two of them returned to the campfire and that's where the four of them stayed until morning.

When they all returned back to the cabin, they were met by Mae and Angus. One look told them that they knew both Winnie and Lena knew their secret.

"Winnie Foster, Lena Bennett," Angus said to them. "You both are the only other people in the world who know about us. We'll have to have a talk."

He took Winnie's hand from Jesse's and then took Lena's and led them out onto the canoe where Miles and Lena had sat just a couple days before. He began rowing and stopped once they were in the middle of the lake.

"Look around you," he said. "It's teeming life. It's flowers and trees and frogs. It's all part of the wheel. It's always changing. It's always growing. Like you two. Your lives are never the same. You were once children. Now, Winnie, you are about to become a woman. One day, you'll grow up and you'll do something important. You'll have children, maybe. And you, Lena, are already a woman. You are on your way to making a name for yourself and understanding more about what it means to be an adult. You've taken care of Winnie as if she were family to you. You've greatly matured from the young girl you once were. And then one day, you'll both go out…just like the flame of a candle. You'll make way for new life. That's a certainty. That's the natural way of things."

Lena loved the way Angus said things. She had never had someone tell her that she was grown up and mature. It was nice.

"And then, there's us," he continued. "What we Tucks have, you can't call it living. We just…are. We're like rocks, stuck at the side of a stream. Listen to me. Girls, you know a dangerous secret. If people find out about the spring, they'll trample all over each other to get to that water. There's one thing I've learned about people. Many will do anything, anything not to die, and they'll do anything to keep from living their life. Do either of you want to stay stuck as you are right now, forever?" When neither girl responded, he said, "I've just got to make you understand."

Lena had no idea if she would want to drink from the spring or not. It was one thing to stay young, but it was another thing to stay young forever.

"I don't want to die," Winnie said. "Is that wrong?"

"No," Angus said tenderly. "No human does. But it's part of the wheel. The same as being born. You can't have living without dying. Don't be afraid of death, girls. Be afraid of the unlived life."

Lena looked at the man in front of her and the girl beside her. When the summer started, she certainly had no idea that she would eventually be questioning whether she wanted to live forever or not.

The three of them stayed out a little longer, but Lena couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that they were being watched.

The next day, Lena decided to head out into the woods for some quiet time. Winnie had told her about the waterfall and she wanted to see it for herself. It didn't take long to find as it was rather close by.

The water looked so cool and refreshing and clear. Looking around her to see if she was alone and finding that she was, she dove right in. It felt amazing and she immediately felt so much better. She swam around for a little while, taking in the amazing fresh water with the loud falls behind her.

"You shouldn't be out alone!"

Lena quickly turned around to find Miles standing in the same place where she had jumped in. "I can take care of myself!" she called back to him.

"Oh yeah, you proved that when you got bitten by that snake!"

"It was one time!"

Miles just laughed. Then to her surprise, he dove into the water, clothes and all. Lena smiled and waited for him to come back up. But he didn't.

"Miles?" she called spinning around in the water to try to find him. "Miles?"

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her ankle and she was pulled underwater. When she came back up, Miles was laughing hard. She splashed water at him angrily.

"Don't do that!" she scolded. But she couldn't help but smile too. "You know what?" she said. "It was worth it to see you laugh."

"How did you find this place?" he asked.

"Winnie told me about it. She and Jesse came here a couple days ago. That surprised me actually because Winnie can't swim. But I'm sure Jesse took that as an opportunity to flirt with her."

"I'm sure he did."

"I never thought that Winnie would fall in love with someone here. She wasn't happy about being brought here in the first place, and I could barely calm her down." She noticed a guilty look cross Miles's face. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she said quickly. "I didn't mean anything by that!"

"No, I'm sorry. I jumped to conclusions when I first saw you both. I was only doing what Tuck told us to do."

"I understand. I'm sure Winnie is quite happy you did so now. And…I am too."

The two of them made eye contact and went closer to each other. Before Lena knew what was happening, Miles pressed his hand to the back of her head and pulled her closer to him until their lips were touching. The kiss was gentle and kind and everything Lena ever wanted as they both treaded water near the small little waterfall.