Jake was dreaming of cornfields. He was dreaming of the wind in his hair and the loud thumping of a radio. He looked down at the cars below him but it wasn't a concrete jungle that he saw. He was thinking of lush fields, of farm country that his sheltered city life hadn't prepared him for. He was thinking of how Rose swatted at him and pretended to be cross when he compared to the corn to the colour of her hair but how she had ended up laughing when he serenaded her with some 2pac. Jake angled himself downward, the wind under his wings. He used to think that flying was the best thing in the world and it used to be his only form of escape. Now, his dragon body was nothing but a cage and the rush of the air was nothing compared to the rush of being on the road.

He knew that, for the rest of his life, there would always be a part of him that was gazing at a stoplight in North Carolina or visiting a dive bar in Kansas. No matter where he did or what he saw, he was always going to be eighteen, sitting in the passenger seat of a little convertible, Rose at ease in the driver's seat, her long blond hair becoming a tangle as she pushed the speed limit.

Jake transformed into a human and opened the front door of his house.

"Jake? Is that you!?"

He wished that his mother would stop talking to him with a note of panic in her voice, like he might not answer her. He knew that it was his fault and he had to take his penance for running off like he had but he still hated it.

When he had first arrived in New York, there was no time to go home like he had promised Susan before his plane had taken off. Councillor Andam was getting overrun and Jake had been thrown into a fray of Huntsclan members. They had fought, like Clan members always did, and Jake had fought back like he always did but now he couldn't look at them and think about Rose. He remembered what she had said about growing up in the cult and he wondered how many of them were like her, wanting to get out but lacking the resources and abilities that Rose had? In the end, he had no choice but to fight them like he always did and though they fought back with their usual ferocity, eventually they scattered. So, when Jake had shown up at his parents' house, he was roughed up from his fight with the Dark Dragon and bedraggling from his fight with the Clan. His mother had taken in how dreary he looked and chalked it all up to the fact that he had been gone. She hadn't gotten an opportunity to see the good that being gone had done for him. She didn't see how his laugh had become genuine again, how he had found peace within himself when he didn't think that there ever could be again, and how he really knew what it was like to be in love. She didn't see any of the gifts, just her own joy that he was home again. Jake knew that he had a good mother and he had always been grateful for her, but right now, he was resentful that she didn't take the time to understand why he had run away.

"Yeah, Mom, it's me."

Jake knew he shouldn't be too bitter. After all, it had taken him at least six states to understand it himself.

Susan poked her head out. "How was your day?"

"It was good," Jake lied.

It had been the same day that he'd been living in the week since he'd been back. It had been the same day that he'd lived in the weeks, perhaps even months, before he'd left.

"I'm making a pot roast for dinner," Susan started excitedly but Jake held up his hand.

"Mom, I'm going over to Spud's later, remember? I haven't seen him and Trixie since I've been back."

Jake watched Susan's face carefully. She'd been so strict since he'd been back, yet walking on egg shells at the same time, like anything was going to make him disappear in the middle of the night again. Jake didn't know how to explain to her that he didn't have anywhere to go this time. He could fly back to Washington state, land in the same parking lot where they had killed the Dark Dragon, and try to track Rose from there, but he knew that it wouldn't do any good. A normal girl he might be able to find but the Huntsgirl? She had made it her mission to disappear. And Jake didn't know where she was going to go next. Sometimes, at night, he liked to think of her. He liked to think of her in a snowfall in northern Canada, he liked to think of her on the beaches in Southern Mexico. He imagined her on boats, heading to New Zealand to work in a vineyard. He imagined her on planes, going to China, just because he had said that he had wanted to go. In the end, though, Jake mostly imagined Rose thinking of him. At least as much as he thought of her.

"Oh, right." Susan smiled but it seemed brittle. Jake knew that was his fault too but, as he always did, he just thought if you took the time to understand, you wouldn't look at me that way. "You'll check in, won't you?"

"Yes," Jake said. Since he had turned his cell phone back on at the airport, he hadn't been able to turn it off. He was surprised his parents hadn't put him on a curfew. Though, at least, his father seemed more sympathetic to him but was following his mother's lead.

Jake walked up to the stairs to his bedroom. It wasn't small, wasn't large, and was definitely more comfortable than some of the cheap rooms that he and Rose had hunted out on their travels. Still, Jake would have given anything to be curled up next to Rose on one of those mattresses where he could feel every spring digging into his back. He dropped heavily onto his own bed and flopped down, throwing his arm out of his eyes. He missed sleeping next to her. He missed her corpse pose and the way her arm brace would scratch him while her hair tickled him. He missed her being the first thing that he saw in the morning.

"Jake?"

"Haley, learn to knock." Jake sat up and stared at his sister. She was, to his surprise, the one that had been treating him the most normally since he'd returned. Though, he remembered what it was like to be selfish and twelve. He envied her, a little.

"No," Haley said, impertinent. She invited herself in and sat next to him on the bed.

They had the same eyes, their grandfather's eyes, and Jake always felt like he was looking into some sort of twisted carnival mirror whenever he actually looked at Haley. She was the smart one, the pretty one, the golden child who would have done so much better with the birthright that Jake had been saddled with. When Jake looked at Haley, he saw everything that he should have been and nothing that he was. When he was younger, he had hated her for that. Now that he was older, he just grateful.

"Where did you go?" Haley asked.

"What?"

"Where did you go?" Haley repeated. "You didn't leave and hide in Maine. I want to know where you went."

Haley had been hurt by him leaving too, he realized, looking at the defiance in her eyes that dared him not to answer her question. It just barely covered up the tears that she was tamping down.

No one had asked him where he had been. Gramps didn't want to hear anything about the Huntsgirl; his parents were too focused on him being back. He was sure that Trixie and Spud would ask but Jake didn't know how much he wanted to tell them, especially about Rose. Trixie was too crude and Spud was too much of a hopeless romantic. But Haley … Haley was only twelve.

Yet, Jake found himself telling her about things. About the Shakespearean play they had stopped and watched on the shores of a beach and then had a bonfire with the actors later. He told her about the rotary jail and the world's largest ball of string. He told her what it was like to wake up in a different state and that even though he knew it was the same sun, it felt like a whole other world when there were no skyscrapers. He told her about dancing in a dive bar, ignoring last call just to have his arms around Rose until the end of the song. He knew that she wouldn't fully understand the beauty of a moment like that until she was much older but it was still something that he had wanted to share with her.

Haley sat on the end of his bed and listened to every word. He knew how smart Haley was – she had never dared to hide that – but he also knew that she was still naïve, sheltered in a way, and her eyes grew wide the more than he told her about the world that was out there, and how many different lenses you can see it through.

When Jake stopped, he waited for her to ask questions. He waited for her to ask if leaving had been worth it, or if he would do it all again. He waited for her to wonder if he was better off gone or for her to tell him how glad she was that he was home and that he was never allowed to go anywhere again.

"And Rose?" Haley asked. "Why was she running away?"

"Demons," Jake said simply. He knew how she would look if he uttered the words Huntsgirl or Huntsclan. They were still causing chaos, more than usual, and Jake spent more time fighting the Clan these days than he did doing literally anything else. He didn't want to scare her and the Rose with her hair in a sharp braid and a spear in her hand was not the Rose that he wanted to remember. "I hope that she was faster than them."

The Huntsmaster was back in New York; Jake had seen him. Their limited intel on the Huntsclan hadn't even been able to pick up that the Huntsgirl had left so Jake knew that he wouldn't know if she had been brought back into the city. Jake didn't believe that she had. Although, maybe, he didn't want to believe that she had. Maybe, he just preferred to believe that Rose was eternal in her little convertible and that she would never be anything other than that.

"You should try and find her," Haley said eagerly. "If you loved her –"

"I didn't say that."

Haley just rolled her eyes. "Jake, really? And she loved you too so –"

Jake held up her hand. He had gone down every what if that he possibly could and he could think of no way that they could end up together. No way that he could fulfill his duty and keep her safe. If he loved her, and Jake knew that he loved her, he would just let her go.

"Haley, I've got to go meet my friends."

She hopped off the bed. "I am happy you're home, you know."

"I missed you," Jake said, and it wasn't even a lie.

Haley fled from his room and Jake propped open his window and flew out in dragon form, skateboard in hand. He just didn't feel like facing his parents, again. He turned into a human the moment his feet touched the sidewalk and hopped on his skateboard, heading toward Trixie's without being recognized as the protector he was. If Jake was a better person, if Jake was the hero that he was raised to be, he would have stopped every time that he saw a Huntsclan member slip in and out of the shadows, but he didn't. He couldn't. This summer, he had been a teenaged boy. He had napped on beaches, made love under the bared stars, and had gotten drunk and danced. He had done it all with a smile on his face and it had been the best time of his life. Jake would be who he was meant to be but that didn't mean that he wasn't mourning who had lost.

He let himself into Trixie's, like nothing had changed.

"Jake!?"

"Yeah, it's me."

Trixie tackled him in a hug, which Jake hadn't been expected. She was more of a – then, she socked him in the arm and all seemed right in the world. Trixie was a fighter, not a lover.

"What the hell? You can't do that to us! Do you know how worried we were!?"

As Trixie ranted, Spud drew him into a hug, which was what Jake had expected. Spud's slow, sloth-like movements, were comforting and Jake hugged his best friend.

"Well," Trixie demanded, "what do you have to say for yourself?"

There were a million things that Jake had wanted to say since he'd arrived home but no one had been remotely interested in hearing them. He opened his mouth but the least unexpected thing came out.

"I'd do it all again but the next time, I wouldn't get caught."

Trixie's jaw dropped, Spud's hug slackened, but all Jake knew was that he had meant it.

Let me know what you thought of the chapter, stay safe out there and don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now!

Also – drunk while I'm editing this, just a disclaimer.

~TLL~