Despite all the charm and mind games Faye had mastered in the past centuries, she failed miserably in her frantic search of Jenny's baby. Not that her deceiving words and empty promises didn't have the right people wrapped around her finger – the problem was that she was simply too late.

Her search for Julian's heir led from St Mary's in Vista Grande, to catching a train to Phoenix, Arizona, and hopping on the red-eye to New York City, before catching another plane down to Florida. That's where her extensive search ran dead a week later. She was given the name of an orphanage that no longer existed, and appointment after appointment with supervisors and managers of all the other orphanages in that region proved fruitless.

And that's when Tom called her, at first demanding to know where she was and asking her to come home.
"You're nearly full term, Faye. You can't go flying around the country anymore, you need to come home. Look, I've booked us a suite on the Pacific Cruise Liner. We both need a break, and I read something about having a babymoon, you know like a honeymoon but..."
"Tom, I'm not going anywhere until I've found that baby." Faye cut off Tom's cheerful chatter.

"You don't have to worry about that anymore, Faye. Didn't he call you? I gave him your number, I guess it must have slipped his mind..."
"Tom, I need to go, okay." Faye said, tears of frustration and self-blame thick in her eyes.
"Faye, wait! Did you know about Julian?"
Faye stood frozen for a second, perplexed. "Ah, what?" And somehow, she knew what he was going to say.

"He's gotten out of the Shadow World. I can't believe Jenny hasn't told you, but then she's been so happy and overwhelmed with him being back, I suppose she hasn't gotten time to tell you yet. Weird that he hasn't called to tell you himself, though..."
"When did this happen?" Faye asked, her voice turning weak in disbelief.
"He got here a couple of days after you left. Look, honey, come home. We'll go on the cruiser – Julian and Jenny are going, too. I think we all need a breather from everything, and it will do you good."

"Does Julian know about the baby?" Faye licked her lips, frowning slightly.
"Yeah, he does. I mean, I haven't talked to him about it, but he said he's been able to see everything that's been happening while he was stuck in the Shadow World... and I'm sure he and Jenny have discussed this before and they're probably planning on rectifying that, but I'm not going to butt into something that's none of my business." Tom's voice had turned somewhat sour toward the end.
"So you haven't asked them what they're going to do about it? Tom, you can't just assume they've talked about this." Faye said.
"And I can't just throw it in their faces and demand to know their plan of action either, Faye. This is their problem to sort out, I have no reason to mingle with their business." Tom said.

Faye hung up after promising to catch the first flight back to California, which she discovered to her dismay wouldn't be until much later the following morning. She'd have thought she would be excited that Julian was safe, but part of her recoiled at the mere idea to face him again. The motel room she managed to book into that evening was modest with a partial view of the ocean. Though, Faye was unable to sleep, and so she found herself sitting in a slight ditch in the woods beside the beach, the bush and shrubbery around her forming an alcove of solitude - a little forte – at the break of dawn.

She watched the navy blue of the night stain with the lighter hues of dawn, morphing into warmer tones until the horizon was a canvas of pink and orange streaks. She knew she had to go checkout at the motel and grab a cab to the airport if she was going to make the plane, but part of her refused to budge from the peaceful place. Faye thought it was the beauty of the scenery around her that kept her prisoner, and she enjoyed a few more moments of the blissful silence. Soon the beach would fill up, and the quiet would be disrupted by the sounds of human laughter and voices.

Faye sighed softly, afraid to disturb the tranquillity around her. There was the light ruffle of a breeze through the leaves, the ocean waves muffled from this distance. So quiet, Faye thought with a pang of longing. She felt safe here; the woods seemed to have a certain presence that soothed her, as though it cradled her protectively with its mere breath. Nothing would touch her here, nothing would disturb her. She could stay here forever and she'd be in heaven. No, not even heaven could possibly give her this... emotion.

Faye tilted her head back to gaze up at the canopy of dried leaves and twigs that winter left behind. She closed her eyes when the gentle breeze circled down and caressed her face with unseen fingers. It wasn't entirely quiet. She could hear music, or at least it sounded like music to her ears.
Raindrops, Faye thought after a moment of listening intently. It sounded like heavy raindrops falling onto crystal, the sweet sounds echoing in the small space. She enjoyed the sounds, trying to follow the tune with her mind, to place which sound it might play next.

Faye listened to the unsteady rhythm a few more minutes, until the disconcerting realization slowly dawned on her that she recognized the tune. Beau...ti...ful...drea....mer...wake on...to thee...star...light...and dew...drops...are wai...ting...for...thee, Faye sang the words in her mind, and opened her eyes to glance around her, slightly disoriented. It wasn't raindrops falling around her on the rocks.
"Dew." Faye whispered, watching another drop of dew roll from one of the browned leaves to land on a rock. Dewdrops and dreamers. Faye stared at the wet rocks for a long minute, her mind cast into momentary stupor. My cue.
My cue for what? Faye wondered even as she left the ditch and made her way back to the motel.