A/N So, to all you awesome people out there who've left a review, not just for the last chapter but at ANY point during this story, I need to give you a big thank you. And this isn't just one of my ordinary 'big thank you's! This is a thank you for making it a very real possibility that this story might make it to 100 reviews in 10 chapters! I never imagined I'd be lucky enough to get such an amazing response, and I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you've all enjoyed the fic. So, to that end, if there are just nine of you out there who feel like dropping a quick review for Chapter 10, I'll be eternally grateful :D, and as always, I hope all of you enjoy!

A mild warning here; this chapter involves a small injury. Nothing remotely major, but watch out if you're particularly squeamish!

SILENCING NATURE

Chapter 10 - What Happened?

'Ok. So Gerald wanted to talk to Helga alone. It's probably fine! He didn't look angry or upset. Or happy, or confused, or... anything at ALL, actually... Kind of weird, but not the worst reaction, I guess. Plus, they've been alone in there for a whole thirty seconds now and there hasn't been any shouts or screaming! I'm sure they're just sitting and having a mature conversation about all this. A nice, calm talk. Between Gerald... and Helga. Yeah...'

If you were to ask anyone who knew Arnold to describe him, one of the first things to pass their lips would be some comment about how Arnold was always looking on the bright side. Heck, he was Mister Brightside; Arnold the eternal optimist, king of the 'could be worse', able to find the silver lining around each and every horrendous cloud in a tropical typhoon. And they would be right! Arnold was an optimist and always had been. What most of them would get wrong, though, would be to assume that it was always easy. Nothing could be further from the truth! Even an Arnold-Class optimist can find themselves fighting a pitched battle against the nagging doubts and worries that swarm around every difficult situation. They can be tough opponents, always relentless and constantly trying to attack you from a different angle, testing your walls for weaknesses until they find a crack to whisper through. Some even grow big and strong enough to smash through the walls entirely. Arnold had been fighting battles like that for a long time, and he was very, very good at it. But even he wasn't invincible. And that was why he'd been lingering around halfway towards the stairs. Not eavesdropping of course – absolutely not – but he figured it would be a pretty good idea to take his time, just in case he was needed. Somehow, when he left, the atmosphere in the room had felt... dangerous.

But, to his surprise, he couldn't hear a thing. This either meant the conversation really was going smoothly, which would be great, or that Gerald had suffered a swift and quiet death, in which case Helga probably needed some privacy to hide the body. He figured the second option was a lot less likely – optimist through and through. In any case he finally relented and headed in the direction of the bridge. The more his anxiety drained away, the more it found it strange that his parents weren't already relaxing in one of the other cabins. There was a reason he'd been watching them like a hawk during the final strenuous leg of their hike; the pair had seemed ready to pass out! He shivered as a string of unlikely scenarios ran through his mind; his parents being thrown overboard by a sudden change in current, or being struck by one of the bright bolts of lightning that had been striking the jungle around them, or maybe deciding that, on second thought, the Green Eyes could probably use their help for a while longer, and the stone slabs weren't that uncomfortable. Apparently getting his parents back alive had given those nagging worries a lot of fresh ammunition to work with... It came as no small relief when he heard their voices drifting down from above, seeming quiet and distant over the pounding rain.

"...can't honestly think it's true?" Arnold paused at the bottom of the stairs, his mother's voice finally becoming clear. For some reason, her words froze him on the spot.

"I'm not saying that, Honey." Miles' voice sounded tired, and more than a little worried. "But you heard what Tiukwí said." Arnold's eyes widened. He had a pretty good idea what this conversation was about; by this point 'Tiukwí' had become a code word for 'brace yourself'. He really didn't want to eavesdrop, but somehow his legs were betraying him.

"Maybe we mistranslated..?" Stella sounded like she couldn't even convince herself with that attempt.

"You know we didn't. Besides, you saw their faces when they came out of there. I'm pretty sure what they think is what's important now." As Miles finished, the boat gave a large, sudden lurch. As Arnold steadied himself, clinging tightly to the nearby railing, the voices above were replaced by a series of startling thuds and crashes, a brief cry of surprise, and eventually the slow, rattling clang of something metal as it came to a gradual stop on the floor. "Ow..."

His paralysis ended by the shock, Arnold bolted up the stairs. "Mom?! Dad?!" He paused for a moment, scanning the scene; apparently it sounded worse than it actually was, though that probably depended on your position. Miles sat rubbing his head, seemingly entangled in a collection of fishing equipment, and a set of newly-broken shelves stood nearby, their contents scattered around the floor. Stella stood at his side, her hands on her hips and her face despairing, while Eduardo sat reclining at the controls. Neither seemed to be particularly surprised. On hearing his worried outburst, Arnold's parents turned to him, each quickly assuming an anxious smile; they had no idea how much their son had heard. He raised an eyebrow at the scene. "Are you guys ok?"

"Never better!" Miles' response was automatic, and he grunted as he fought to free himself from his new prison. The net was proving problematic – it was good at its job.

"We're fine, Sweetie. This kind of thing happens to your dad a lot. It's sort of how we met!" Stella brightly responded, folding her arms as she watched her husband's fruitless struggle for a few moments longer. Eventually though, he met her eyes and his shoulders slumped.

"Help me..." With a small, teasing grin, Stella knelt and went to work, her deft hands untangling and picking apart the net with surgical precision until Miles was finally free. Rising to his feet, he put a grateful arm around her shoulders and offered Arnold his cheesiest grin.

"See? Nothing broken! But... yeah." His grin faltered, and he rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced woefully at the demolished furniture. "Guess it was too much to hope these little 'incidents' would stop after being asleep for so long... Your old man's always been a little accident-prone. I'll, uh, pay for that." His last words were for Eduardo, who simply nodded, focussing on the river ahead.

"I'll remember."

Miles' eyes narrowed for a moment. "...You still have the list, don't you?"

"Yes." Another nod, and Eduardo's lips seemed to twitch towards a smile.

"You realise I could have been dead this whole time?" Miles looked at his friend with disbelief.

Eduardo gave a small shrug. "You don't throw away a winning lottery ticket. One day I might have niños, and that list is going to put them through college." Miles shot a dry look in his friend's direction, then towards Stella, who was doing her best to conceal a giggle behind her hand. Arnold, though, had watched the whole exchange with a growing sense of warmth; every word and moment worked towards transforming his parents from faces in a picture, and characters in a series of bedtime stories, into real people. People who could actually exist in his life. People who could laugh and love, fall and... bleed. Oh...

"Uh... Dad?" Arnold gestured towards a spot on his father's free arm. A spot currently hosting a fish hook. Following his son's gaze, he turned to look, his face quickly falling once more.

"Aw, nuts..." Miles hung his head, his shoulders once again slumping in defeat. Hooray for the numbing powers of adrenaline..! For him, every moment with Arnold still had something of a 'first impression' feel to it, and he never seemed to do well at those, despite his best efforts. He dutifully held the arm out for Stella, who promptly began inspecting the small wound with a scolding tut. Miles eventually met his son's eye again, and tried a far smaller grin than the last one, now afraid to push his luck. "Sorry. I'm used to it?" Arnold could only tilt his head and blink with a small frown.

"I have a friend you should meet..." The boy gave his head a small shake. "Uh, are you still ok?"

"He will be." Stella answered for him, her examination complete. "Eduardo, where's the first aid kit?"

"There is one in the first cabin downstairs, and one in the galley, above the stove." On hearing this, Stella bit her lip, her eyes darting briefly to her husband, then to her son. To Arnold's delight, he and she shared their first 'look' of instant, wordless understanding and agreement. The fact that it was over one of his dad's goofy mishaps made it all the sweeter.

"Cabin." Both spoke at the same moment with a resolute nod. Arnold stepped aside as Stella led Miles below, hearing her give small orders along the lines of 'keep it elevated', and offered Eduardo a small wave before quickly moving to follow. Once they were gone, the man at the helm finally let out a chuckle, shaking his head; he wouldn't have given up that list if you'd paid him.

Once below, they made quick work of locating the first aid kit, Arnold electing to sit on a cot and look determinedly away as his mother went to work, fiddling nervously with his hands. He tried to ignore Miles' occasional, low hiss of pain, choosing instead to focus on the positive; there still weren't any shouts coming from the other room. How was that conversation going?

"All done!" Stella spoke with a fresh smile, the offending hook being dropped into a nearby ashtray with a gentle 'clink'. Miles' small wound had been cleanly dressed and, from the smell of it, liberally disinfected, much to Arnold's relief. He kind of hoped his dad didn't make this stuff too much of a habit; he wasn't squeamish, but he didn't want to spend all his time worrying that Miles had had all of his shots...

"Well, before all that happened, I was coming to check up on you guys. You seemed pretty tired during the walk – don't you want to rest for a bit? You can even take a nap if you want, I won't mind." Arnold didn't miss the looks that crossed his parents' faces when he made that suggestion; they glanced in the direction of the cots as if they were torture devices.

"I think we'll pass on that for now." Miles quickly recovered his smile, as Stella nodded rapidly in agreement.

"This has all been so exciting, I'm pretty sure we've got enough adrenaline to keep us going all the way back to Hillwood!" For a second, her eyes betrayed how badly she wanted that to be true. "And besides, we've been in such a rush to get out of here that we've barely been able to talk to you, Arnold. Can we talk now?" She clasped her hands, her eyes subtly pleading and eager. The request had somehow made her nervous, as if Arnold would ever refuse! He'd been waiting for this his whole life! All the same...

"Of course! I... I want to talk to you about everything. I guess I just don't know where to start." Arnold rubbed his neck, avoiding their eyes; he had a million questions, big and small, but it never occurred to him to put them in order. His mother nodded, then knelt down to hesitantly put a hand over his. He closed his eyes briefly at the warm touch, feeling the weight on the bed shift as Miles moved to sit beside him, the man's own large hand moving to Arnold's thin shoulder. In that moment, Arnold felt more like a child than he had in years.

"That's understandable." Stella nodded, giving her son a sad smile. "We've missed a lot, and we've got a lot of questions to answer, I'm sure. But you know, sometimes big talks can be just like a river themselves." The boat gave a small jolt then, as if to emphasise her point. "Too much in there at once can block it up completely, like a dam. But if you take a piece out, then more and more can flow through until the dam is gone all together. And that first piece can be as big or as little as you want." Arnold thought about her words, feeling her thumb gently moving back and forth across the back of his hand. Her touch was soft, but on her skin he could feel the roughness of old callouses. Almost unconsciously he began to visualise the barrage of questions as the building blocks of a mighty dam, just as she had described. Some were small pebbles; what's your favourite book, do you like jazz, was Grandma always crazy? And some were terrific boulders; did you think about me, why didn't you stay, and of course...

"What happened?" The question was short, and asked in something barely above a whisper, but it was a monumental giant of a boulder all the same. Heck, it would have made a decent dam all on it's own! And while it might have been vague, its meaning couldn't have been clearer. He wanted to know them, like any child should, but the need to know the answer to that one, single question overshadowed anything else that passed through his mind, as if every other answer that followed would be coloured by their response now. He knew why they left, and now he knew why they never came back, but what happened in between? He looked up at them, back and forth between the two, watching as they exchanged the saddest look he had seen from either since their family had been reunited. They had known this was coming, and was surely coming soon, but nothing could have prepared them. Neither seemed to know how to respond, at first. "Please. What happened?" Arnold finally repeated, working hard to keep his tone level.

"...It was my fault." Stella looked away, her voice uncharacteristically meek and her hand gently trembling over Arnold's.

"Stella, that's not-" Miles immediately began to protest. Arnold wasn't to know, but they'd had this conversation before, around nine years ago.

"Yes, Miles." Her tone quickly took on a sharp edge. "I was the one making the cure. I was the one who got impatient. It was my fault."

"We both agreed it was the best option for everyone, and we both wanted to get home to our son." Miles kept his tone soft and reassuring – a lot like Arnold's, in fact – his hand moving from Arnold's shoulder to join theirs on the pile, Stella's trembling subsiding under its touch.

"I don't understand." Arnold was quickly starting to regret asking the question so soon; in all the times he had dreamt of his parents, of reuniting with them, the idea of upsetting them hadn't occurred to him once. Sharp guilt was already starting to grow and coil in his chest. 'Why couldn't I wait to ask them that? They're tired, and we're not even home yet! Why couldn't I have kept my big mouth shut..?' He took a breath, trying to quieten the thoughts. "You don't have to tell me yet, if you don't want to. I shouldn't have asked so soon! I'm sorry..."

"Arnold, no!" Once again, Miles was quick to the defence, his free hand clasping his son's shoulder anew. "You deserve to know, especially after all this. Just please believe us when we say, all your mom and I wanted was to come home like we promised." He looked to his wife, hoping for input, but Stella had seemingly lost the ability to talk. Instead, she gave a small nod of agreement, her eyes filling with tears that she desperately tried not to shed in front of her son. Miles sighed deeply before continuing, while Arnold waited in nervous anticipation.

"We'd made the serum before. We knew what we needed, we knew how to make it, and that's why we thought it wouldn't take long. But when we got here, we realised the new outbreak was... a lot worse than the first one. The Green Eyes were so desperate that they finally let us in, and we saw for ourselves that the quantity we'd made before wouldn't even be close to enough. It took weeks flying from country to country before we'd gathered enough of each ingredient. I think the red moss might even be extinct now..." He gave a sad shake of his head, quickly becoming lost in the memory. They had spent days in Panama, digging to the root of every tree. And as for the Bolivian boars, well... They did what they had to do. To him, of course, it all seemed so recent and fresh. Nine years snatched away in an heartbeat.

"But then it still wouldn't have been enough to cure everybody. And it had already cost so much time, both for us and for the Green Eyes. When we came back to the city and saw the aromatics machine in use for the first time, we had the idea-"

"I had the idea," Stella finally found her voice, cutting over, "to modify the cure to be dispersed by the machine."

"And I agreed." Miles insisted again, refusing to let his wife burden herself with all of the blame. She shot him another despairing look before finally meeting Arnold's eyes.

"It would have been much quicker to distribute, and it let us stretch what we had to treat the whole population. I knew it could be done, but there were risks. It would take more time initially, and it would mean staying in the Green Eyes' city, so there was a big chance of exposure. But I thought... I thought that even if we caught the sickness, then we were close enough to making the cure that it would treat us too, before we fell asleep. And it was working! I swear Arnold, we were so close! It took another month, maybe a little longer, but the cure was ready. It would only have needed another day or two, but then... Then..." She trailed off, once more looking to Miles, silently willing him to continue.

"But then what?" Arnold had been enthralled; he was so desperate to know. He could feel their frustration, even their anger at having been so close. If the cure was made, and the machine was ready, what could have stopped them?

"But then the king fell asleep." Miles' words made Arnold's jaw drop in confusion, his brow furrowing. Sure, the king was obviously important, but how could that have made such a huge difference? When Miles turned to look at him again, he could see the hurt and regret in his father's eyes. "We were so busy working on the science that we didn't consider the Green Eyes' traditions. The medicine was ready and waiting, just like you found it, but we'd made a cure that needed the machine, and the machine needed-"

"The Corazón..?" This time Arnold interrupted, the pieces falling into place in his mind. "The machine wouldn't work without the Corazón." Or at least something almost identical, and every bit as pure. Golden hearts weren't usually so abundant in the jungle. His father gave a solemn nod.

"And only gods or royalty may touch the Corazón." Arnold blinked, his mind struggling to process what he'd just heard. All that loss, all that time, because the Green Eyes refused to use the key?

"But what about the princess? What about Tiukwí?" The boy grasped for an explanation, but Miles shook his head.

"Tiukwí had fallen asleep too by then, not that he could have done it anyway. And the princess was only a baby herself. Without her mother and father, I'm not sure she even knew how to open the idol once she was old enough to understand."

"I can't believe it..." Arnold wasn't used to feeling bitterness or resentment, but he felt both prickling at him now. His usual good nature battled to reassert itself, telling him all the right things; even he only managed to open the idol because of the Green Eyes' symbol, and the symbol only glowed for him. Well, him and Helga. The idol killed Lasombra with poison when the pirate had tried; any one of the Green-Eyed children that made an attempt might have suffered the same gruesome fate. Besides, their beliefs were their beliefs, and after his recent experiences he was in no position to condemn them as false. All of this was true, but it hurt. "And by the time you realised you couldn't use the cure..."

"We were both already sick." Stella nodded, as if reading his mind. "We were too weak to travel for more ingredients. We couldn't even get word to Eduardo. The only thing we could do during those last few days was try to teach the older children how to look after the sleepers a little better, keep more people alive until someone came along. The Green Eyes always believed it would be you. And then... we fell asleep too." She desperately hoped Arnold wouldn't press them for more information about those final, terrible hours. She remembered them vividly enough already; the inevitability of it, and the pain.

Stella had fallen asleep first, in Miles' arms.

"That's unbelievable." Arnold spoke after a long pause, using his free hand to wipe away the moisture that had begun filling his eyes. "To think everything could have been different..." In an instant, a whole alternate life seemed to flash through his mind. A childhood spent with his parents, lost for the sake of a day.

"We're so sorry, Arnold." Stella finally moved in, freeing her hand if only to wrap both arms around Arnold's body. Her fight to keep the tears back had been lost.

"We are, Arnold. More sorry than you could ever know." Miles moved in too, the family joining in yet another group hug. This one, though, was tainted with sadness. "I know you must be angry. You have every right to be. But I promise you, for the rest of our lives we're going to try and make it up to you." There was a long pause then, as Arnold's mind churned.

"I'm not angry."

Even Arnold was surprised by his own eventual words, but somehow it was true. It was as though every act of forgiveness is his life, every instance of turning the other cheek and letting something go, had been in preparation for this. His greatest test, his hardest battle. His parents pulled back to look at him in disbelief.

"I mean, part of me is angry. Angry at the Green Eyes, or just angry at how unfair it is that it had to happen this way. Maybe I'll be more angry later. But it's not like we can change it now. And mostly... I get it. I think maybe I'd have done the same thing if I thought I could help people." He shook his head, as if trying to chase the bad thoughts away. "I made mistakes on this trip too. I put all my friends in danger without meaning to, all 'cause I wanted to find you so badly. I guess the only difference is that I was lucky, and you guys... you guys weren't."

Arnold was so caught up in his speech – a speech he was using to reassure himself as much as them – that he didn't even notice the looks of awe he was receiving from both of his parents, their mouths agape. Immense pride and sadness, almost in equal measure. Whatever relief they felt on hearing his words was hampered by the fact that it seemed wrong. Shouldn't a ten year-old be reacting to this kind of news with fury? Bitterness? If nothing else, the very last words from their mouth should be 'I'd have done the same thing'! Was it their absence from his life that forced their baby to become so mature so quickly? Or had Tiukwí's bizarre claims about their boy been true? He finally looked up into their faces, and against all odds he wore a small smile – a smile half of Hillwood knew all too well by this point.

"I think the important thing is that we can all go home together now." On hearing this, Miles and Stella found it in themselves to return his grin; it was infectious, after all.

"Wow. Who taught you to be so grown-up, son?" Miles finally asked, scratching his head. His voice was incredulous. "'Cause I find it hard to believe it was your grandparents. I have met them, after all."

Arnold gave his best 'I don't know' shrug. "I've never thought about it too much. Grandpa always just tells me to 'follow my instincts'. Uh, my good ones at least."

Miles rolled his eyes. "Oh geez, Pop used to give me the same line. You should have seen his face when I said my 'instincts' were telling me to move to the jungle. His eyes went so wide I thought they'd fly right out of his head! Changed his tune when I introduced your mom, though." Arnold chuckled at that, for a moment, until the idea of eyes in general set off a strange train of thought.

"Hang on a second." The boy frowned. "So to work the machine, the king had to use the Corazón. Like how me and Helga used her locket?"

Miles frowned too, wondering where this was heading. "Yeah, that's right."

"But it's too sacred to look at? How did that work?" Arnold's mind was filled with comical images of the Green-Eyed king in all his regalia, blindly fumbling to place the heart in its setting, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"Oh, good grief..." Stella despairingly hid her face in her hands, while Miles simply began to laugh.

"Well, it's a whole ceremony." His grin broadened. "Complete with ceremonial blindfolds."

Arnold let that sink in for a few moments, before his chuckling inevitably resumed. And just like his grin, the laughter quickly swept Miles and Stella along with it, bringing tears of an entirely different kind to their eyes. The past would cling to them if they let it, weighing them down and holding them back with anchors of regret. But a dedicated optimist knows that the past isn't something you can change, no matter how badly you wish you could. More than knowing it, they accept it. Instead, you can take solace in the fact that the past gets further away with every breath, and that every new present is an opportunity to begin again, and to start making things better. Arnold was an optimist, and always had been. Just like his parents. Together they sat, hand-on-hand, letting the trauma of the first answer drain away. There were other big questions that he needed to ask, and more than a few that they needed to ask him, some of the stones being almost as huge and intimidating as the one they had just pushed aside as a family. But shifting boulders is exhausting work, and the river had started to flow. The three could sit back for now, and let some of the pebbles be washed away. One way or another, the dam would be broken down eventually, and they had all the time in the world.

"So..." Arnold caught his breath. "Do either of you like jazz?"