Return to Innocence: Dante's Promise
by: Karin
shinigamis_wings@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: Oh my goodness, I get to claim something! Dante belongs to me. I made her up and get to take credit for her. *wow* As for Heero and the other Gundam Wing cast I seem to have picked up from, oh, somewhere, but I'll return them when I'm finished in perfect condition. Oh yes, and the song "Return to Innocence" came from Enigma, but it was so splendid I wanted to put it to good use.

Summary and Notes: The war has ended and Dante and Heero get to be reunited! Oh excellent. However, there will be some difficulty. By the way, according to my fic, that very last part of Endless Waltz where Heero is walking alone by himself, that doesn't happen. I don't want him alone, he shouldn't be alone, and I'm going to do something about it.


"Love, devotion, feeling, emotion."

"It's over!" Came a joyous cry through the colony base, carried past the bleak corridors on a relieved gust of opening doors and soldiers clapping each other's shoulders. "They've done it. The Gundams have done it!" Dante breathed in her own sigh of relief as she sank back into her chair, exhausted by the events of Christmas Eve. He's done it, she thought to herself. He's won for us. A surge of pride at his accomplishment made her unable to sit still, and she found herself standing to rush out of the room. Dr. J was the only thing in her way, blocking the exit and staring at her.
"Where are you going, Dante?" He asked, his glasses flashing. She didn't even need to think before she had her answer. He was no longer a threat to her, and she was no longer going to be a prisoner.
"I'm going to Earth," she cried out the words, giving her new motivation. She brushed past him, not sparing him a second glance as she danced through the hallway. None of the soldiers bothered her, and she walked outside of the base for the first time in seventeen years. "And I'm going to find my son," she whispered, looking up to the colony skylight where she could see the planet far off set among the stars. There wasn't a force in the world or space that could keep them apart now. She was free, the colonies were free, and now it was Heero's turn to be liberated. She was going home where he could learn her secrets, and they could begin again.
"I'm coming, Taikai," she thought to herself as she boarded a leaving space vessel. She had a bank account that had been accumulating interest for quite some time, and now she was going to need it. "You can be free at last."

"Don't be afraid to be weak."

If only everything could be as simple as it should be. She soon learned that finding Heero would prove to be very difficult. The port in which she docked was crawling with people, families, refugees, and so many soldiers. How would she ever find him? This was only one port, and the Earth was an enormous planet. True, the Gundams had been in this area for the actual fighting, but why would they have remained after it was all over? Her new found hope quickly changed to disappointment and frustration. In all these people, in all this world, who would know a young boy with the code name Heero Yuy?
She collapsed onto a bench after running about asking every soldier she found if they knew the where abouts of the Gundam pilots. They could tell her where she could find him. But the problem was that no one seemed to know. Yes they had been in the front lines of the battle, and yes they had saved many lives, but no one knew where they had gone after that.
"That's the thing about the Gundams," one of the soldiers told her with a wink. "They disappear." How foolish she had been to think that he would be waiting for her. He probably didn't even remember her, or cared what happened to her.
She shook her head. She had to find him, but the odds were very much against her. Where would he have gone? What would he be doing? How could she know so little about her own son that she wouldn't know anything about him and therefore could not find him? It had been two years since she had last seen him. Why, she didn't even know if he was still alive. Her throat tightened with that thought. He might have been killed.
"Excuse me, sir?" She waved at another soldier who was walking past, an expression of goofy relief over his young features. "Can you tell me what happened to the Gundam Wing?" He looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "Please, it is very important. I need to find out what happened to it."
"It was destroyed."
"And the pilot? What about the pilot?" Her words were coming faster now as fear gripped her heart. Had she come all this way just to find him dead? He had made it so far, had done so much, he deserved to know what she had to tell him. And she felt that she deserved something too. She deserved the right to be what she had always wanted to be, his mother.
"He was killed, I guess," the soldier shrugged moving away from her as if she was a lunatic. "I don't think anyone would have been able to survive a crash like that made." Crash, killed, it couldn't be. She covered her face with her hands, rocking slightly back and forth. It wasn't true, it just had to be a mistake. He couldn't be dead. But if he was alive, why was she so afraid?

"Don't be proud to be strong."

"Are you all right, ma'am?" Came a voice from above and a hand was placed on her shoulder. She looked up to see a young man dressed in jeans and a black turtleneck, looking at her with concerned green eyes.
"I've just lost my world," she heard herself whisper as she looked down to the floor. "And I am not strong enough to bear it." Her son was her life, and if he was gone then there was nothing left for her here. She tried to stand, but the man kept her on the bench with his hands on her shoulders. He knelt to catch her gaze. She looked deep into his eyes, seeing how strong he was, and wishing she could be as brave to face a new life alone as was this boy.
"Trowa!" Came a voice from behind them, causing him to turn around. His name must be Trowa, and he wasn't as alone as she'd thought. A young woman came bounding up to them, a smile of affection painted over her face. "We're almost ready to leave. We have a show to put on tomorrow you remember."
"I'll be there in a minute, Catherine. I need to help someone first."
"Okay, but don't be too long. Wouldn't want to leave without you after we just got you back." She gave him a coquettish wink before joining the rest of the motley crew of circus performers that stood ready to board a spacecraft.
Once she was gone Trowa again returned his gaze to Dante. "You'll make it," he encouraged with such a tone that she believed him. "Someone once told me that if you live by your emotions then you'll be all right." She stopped short in the process of nodding her head. Those words meant more to her than the hope that he had been trying to offer. She gripped his arms fiercely.
"Who told you that?" She asked in a persistent voice. Who was this boy that he would repeat to her the very words of advice she had given to Heero two years before? Were they connected somehow?
"His name is Heero Yuy." He was still very calm, as if nothing could excite him, even though her emotions were tangling themselves into a huge knot in her throat.
"You knew Heero? Do you know where he is now?" Trowa pulled himself from her grasp, backing away a step before answering her question.
"I don't know." He shook his head.
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"When the Wing Zero exploded and crashed."
"Is he alive?"
"Why is this so important to you?" He considered her with his unruffled eyes, his gaze so deep that she found it hard to look at him.
"Because he is my world." Trowa nodded, still looking at her, and she wondered if he could read into her words and knew just how deeply she was connected to Heero.
"He's alive," he eventually said, beginning to move to join his circus band. "He's the strongest person I've ever known." With that he turned to leave, taking Catherine's hand as she came forward to receive him into the group.
His assurance left Dante feeling hopeful. Yes, she thought, Heero is strong, and I have to be as well if I am going to find him. But first Dante, you're going to have to find yourself.

"Just look into your heart, my friend."

Earth had changed so drastically in the years that she had been gone, she found herself very lost. But she also found herself questioning if it was just the Earth that had changed. As she roamed the war ravaged streets she wondered what had become of the old Dante. The one who had so much will, so many plans and dreams for the future. She couldn't even remember what those were now. But she knew that if she found her son, she could return to who she used to be, and be reborn.
"You look like you're lost," someone addressed her as she meandered about the city. She looked about until she saw a young man, dressed completely in black, leaning against a lamp post with his arms folded and a sarcastic grin on his face. "Can I help you with something?"
"I don't think so," she replied, looking up at the night sky, thinking about so many things that might or might not be. "I'm looking for the ocean in the stars." It was an impossible thing to do, but she had been trying on the colony for seventeen years. There was no ocean in the stars, and there was no place for her among them either. The boy scratched his head, walking toward her, and it was then that she realized his hair trailed to his knees in a long chestnut braid.
"You've got it backward," he told her, still smiling. "You always look at the stars reflected off the ocean. Come on, I'll show you." For reasons she didn't know, she followed the boy to the edge of town, to where the beach lay in silence and dark. He made so much sense. That was why she had lost her dreams. She'd been living her life on the wrong side of a mirror. Trying to see the ocean in the stars, when her place had always been near the ocean, watching the starlight reflect. That was why she had been so miserable in space, because the wind blew the waves only on Earth. This is where the wind had carried her. This was the place they belonged. This is where she belonged, because after Kit died, he had taken her heart with him, to bury it in the ocean and wait for her to come home.

"That will be the return to yourself."

"I haven't seen a sight like this for over fifteen years," she whispered as she looked over the water, watching the light shimmer as the waves swept in and out. The breeze blew in from far off, where the moon touched the sea, and blew her hair back from her face. She closed her eyes, breathing it in. "Yes, Kit," she said to herself, ignoring the young man beside her. "I've come home, but where is Taikai?"
"Taikai?" The boy cut into her thoughts, and she opened her eyes to look at him.
"My son. It was him that I meant when I said I was looking for the ocean among the stars." The boy watched her with a curious expression on his face. But it was helping her much to think these things through out loud. Things she had kept to herself for far too long. "He'd be about your age now. I came to Earth to find him."
"He was a soldier then?" She smiled softly, silently thanking this unknown boy for humoring a crazy old woman like her.
"Yes," she sighed, closing her eyes and remembering. "He was the perfect soldier." The young man took a step closer, his eyes following the dark sweeping of the waves.
"I know someone like that," he nodded. "He had eyes that looked like the ocean, but his name wasn't Taikai."
"No, it wouldn't have been. He calls himself Heero Yuy." The boy gasped in amazement, turning to point at her, his mouth opened to a shocked "oh."
"You," he stuttered, looking at her from head to heel. "You're Heero's mother?"
"Well, yes," her eyes grew hopeful. "Do you know where he is?" He shook his head, still staring at her in wonder.
"No," he finally muttered. "But I do know someone who can find him for you." Dante's heart leaped up in thanksgiving. She was so happy that she grabbed the boy in a tight hug before she knew what she was doing, repeating "thank you, oh thank you so much," over and over again.
When she finally pulled away, the boy stepped back, his eyes haunted as if he had never been hugged before. He might not have been for all she knew. "Come on," he said in a sad, little voice. "I'll take you to her right away." Those eyes were the color of deep cobalt, and they carried a secret hurt that she hadn't noticed before. As if this boy wished his mother would come back looking for him. She wanted to ask him of her, but changed her mind at the last moment.
"I'm Dante," she said instead as the boy began to lead the way off the beach. He half turned, his smile back in position as if the previous expression had been nothing but her imagination.
"I call myself Duo Maxwell." He jerked his head, beckoning her onward to find the person who could lead her to her son.

"The return to innocence"

Duo led her to the largest house she'd ever seen. Most of the windows were dark, but the main room was still ablaze with light. Together they walked up the porch steps to ring the doorbell. An old man answered, asking them what they needed.
"We have to speak to Relena." Duo said promptly, twisting an old black cap in his hands. "This woman needs to ask her about something." They were admitted into a beautiful parlor room where a young blonde man sat playing the piano. Dante smiled to hear the notes that followed each perfect motion of the boy's fingers, and relaxed into one of the soft chairs.
"Duo!" Cried the boy, standing quickly to go over to the other's side. "What are you doing here?"
"Just running an errand for Heero," the other replied, nodding in Dante's direction and giving the musician a wink. "What about you Quatre? I thought you were going home to take over the family business." Quatre held his hands up and laughed.
"I am, I am, but my flight doesn't leave until tomorrow. Relena was nice enough to let me stay here." Dante watched them and felt her heart ache. These boys were soldiers too, but their eyes shone with hope and love, more emotion than had ever been in Heero's eyes. It made her wonder if she could ever have him back with the same expression as he had worn during the first seven months of his life. The way these boys laughed, so purely and effortlessly, made her wish ever harder that things could have been different for Heero. She wanted to hold him then, tightly, and give him back the childhood he had lost, and free the soul that had been locked away for so long. She wanted to bring him back his innocence. She wanted to take the laughter of these pilots and use it to give Heero back his ability to feel.

"If you want then start to laugh."

"Why Duo, it's you," came a feminine voice from the entryway of the parlor. "Oh, but who have you brought with you?" Dante rose to shake hands with the young woman. Her eyes and smile were sweet and pure too. Dante had never seen such eyes as belonged to these children, and wondered idly if her own were as dead as she thought they were.
"I'm Dante," she introduced herself, feeling very old while in the company of such vibrant youth. "I need to ask you something important."
"My name is Relena Peacecraft, and you may ask me anything."
"Can you tell me what happened to Heero Yuy?" A confused look flashed over her pretty features, and for a moment Dante was terrified that she didn't know who she was asking about.
"Yes," she nodded finally, chewing on her bottom lip. It made Dante nervous to see her become so serious with the mention of his name. "But why are you looking for him?"
"Because she's his mother," Duo answered for her, grinning as he watched both Relena's and Quatre's mouths drop open. Apparently the idea of Heero having any sort of family was ridiculous.
"That's right," she affirmed. "And I must find him. I need to tell him some important things about himself." Relena looked like she wanted to hear those important things too, her eyes gone curious and thoughtful. "Please, do you know where he is?"
"Yes," she drawled. "I can take you to him. Do you wish to go now?" Dante's eyes gained their old fire with those words.
"Yes," she cried, tears of happiness streaming down her cheeks as she took Relena's hand in gratitude and laughing at the same time. "Please, let's go as soon as possible.

"If you must then start to cry."

The elderly man that Relena addressed as Pargan drove them in a pink car to what seemed a hospital. That made Dante's heart skip as she stood in the parking lot, waiting impatiently for the young girl to get out. The boys had stayed behind at the house, discussing plans for the future after the war. Relena kept giving her sideways glances when she thought the older woman wasn't looking. It made Dante wonder why. It was as if she didn't trust her, like she would take something special away.
Relena's confidence as she walked briskly through the spotless clean hallways of the hospital made it clear that she had gone this way many times. There was some connection between this little rich girl and Dante's son, but she didn't bother asking. She was too preoccupied with Heero.
"Is he here because of the crash?" She asked the girl as they walked. It seemed they had put her son far within the walls, and it was taking a long time to get there.
"He just collapsed," she explained, looking at Dante from under her eyelashes. "He was with me at the very end. He said that he didn't have to kill anymore, and then he just collapsed." She ducked into a room, a dark room with all the shades drawn and all the lights off. It reminded Dante of the cold, bleak bedroom he had lived in all his life.
Heero was still small, but so perfectly muscled. The doctors had connected him to a life support system and a heart monitor. There was an IV attached to his arm, and a bandage around his head. His eyes were closed. Dante moved close, slipping her hand into his. She'd found him at last, but he didn't even know it yet.
"He's in a coma," Relena told her from her place at the foot of the bed. It was as if she was afraid to come any closer. "They don't think he's going to live, but they couldn't, you know, until they found out who he was." Dante did know. They couldn't pull his life support without consent from some family member, even if he stayed in the room for a year.
"Could you. . .I want to be alone with him for a moment." Relena licked her lips, but she did nod and walk out. Dante looked at the unmoving form of her son. How much he had sacrificed for others. Could she teach him to live for himself? Beyond that, would he live at all? A tear dropped onto his hand, and the fact that he did not respond to it made her break down completely.

"Be yourself, hold tight."

She couldn't lose him. Not now when she'd just gotten him back. Why was the world so cruel? She'd waited so long, had come all the way here, had beaten the odds to find him, and now she couldn't even speak to him. Patience, Dante, she told herself, wiping her eyes and commanding her emotions under her control. You have to be patient. He's going to live.
"Miss Dante," Relena poked her head in. "We need to get going. You can stay at my home if you want."
"No, thank you. I'm going to stay here with him until he opens his eyes." Relena gave her a look that clearly meant that she expected him never to open his eyes again, but she did nod and Dante could hear her footsteps as they receded down the hall.
A short time later a night nurse came in to find her still there, sitting with her hand over that of the boy's.
"Excuse me, ma'am," the woman began, coming into the room. "But I can't allow you to stay here."
"I'm not going anywhere," Dante didn't mean to put the challenge into her tone, but she had fought so hard to be with her son that she couldn't bear to leave him again.
"We do have a place that you may stay if you wish to spend the night."
"I'm not leaving this room."
"I'm going to have to call security."
"Then call them," she snarled, standing for confrontation. She didn't want to be this way, but they just couldn't make her leave. Not now, not after so many years.

"Just believe in destiny."

The woman left in a hurry, threatening with each step that she was going to have Dante imprisoned for her conduct. Dante, however, didn't care what she said because there was no way she was setting one foot from the room until Heero opened his eyes.
"Don't worry, Taikai," she murmured to him over the beep of the heart monitor. "They aren't going to take you away from me again." There was no response, and for a moment she thought she would begin crying again, but before she could security rushed into the room.
Security turned out to mean four middle aged policemen dressed in Preventeer uniforms with the night nurse smirking behind them with her arms folded. Dante stood her ground beside the bed, glaring at them as if the force of her gaze would be enough to turn them away and leave her alone.
"For the last time," she said in smooth tones. "I am this boy's doctor, and I am not going anywhere." She would have told them who she really was to him, but knew they wouldn't believe her. He didn't have a mother as far as they were concerned. Not that telling them she was his doctor was effective either. Two of the men caught her arms roughly, and began dragging her from her place beside the bed. "Don't you understand?" She cried, struggling against them. "I can't leave him. What if he wakes up while I'm not there?" Security, however, proved to be mute as well as relentless and without mercy. She grabbed the doorknob, the frame, anything that would prevent them from taking her out. It was childish, and she knew it, but she didn't want to lose him again.
"What is going on here?" Snapped a voice in a tone demanding attention and obedience. "Let her go before the noise wakes up half the patients." The hands disappeared from her, but they had stepped behind her lest she run into the room again. They had enough trouble getting her out the first time. She looked up to find a young Chinese boy, dressed in their uniform, with a sword at his hip. "Now go. I'll talk to her." The men hurried off, as well as the night nurse. Dante hoped her eyes would express her gratitude much better than anything she could have said.
"As for you," the boy continued, looking at her very carefully. "What do you need in there?"
"I'm his doctor," she said quickly, glancing over her shoulder back inside the room to monitor the unconscious form. The boy chuckled, shaking his head.
"There's more to it than that. Doctors don't fight so hard for most of their patients."
"And he's my son." His eyes opened wide in surprise then softened into sadness.
"I'm sorry," he hesitated, then added in a rush. "For the inconvenience we've caused you. I'll be sure that no one will bother you from now on." He bowed to her and hurried away. There was something suspicious about that. He had meant to say something else, but couldn't quite bring himself to it. But as Dante resumed her place beside the bed and listened to the hollow sound of the respirator, she thought she had a guess of what it was.

"Don't care what people say."

The other doctors told her that he more than likely wasn't going to make it. He'd slipped into a coma for unknown reasons and the rest of his body had suffered such injury that it was sure he would be impaired in some way or another.
"It would be best," one of them told her as she brushed his hair away from his face. "If we were to take him off the life support."
"Out of the question," she said slowly, not looking at him. Her eyes never left the closed ones of Heero.
"Even if he does come out of it, there is bound to be brain damage of some kind. He'll be a vegetable."
"You're not killing my son. He's not like anyone else. He's going to make it." The doctor shook his head at her stubbornness, but left her alone after that.
She was something of a joke in the place. The crazy woman who had just shown up in the middle of the night claiming to be the unknown pilot's mother. The one who never left his side, and barely spoke to anyone. But they could do nothing about her as the Chinese boy had told them not to interfere with her and that she had full control over what was done to the unconscious boy. Everyone knew that he wouldn't live. Everyone except her.
But that was wrong, she did know. She was a doctor herself. She could read very well that he was weakening, but she didn't want to admit defeat yet. However, as the days went by her hope grew dim, and the only times she felt better were when Duo decided to come up and visit her, telling her about all the incredible feats of Heero Yuy, and when the Chinese boy, Wufei, would come by to ease her mind with a long game of chess.

"Chose to follow your own way."

Days stretched together in long chains called weeks, and still there was no change. Relena would visit sometimes, but never stayed long. It was as if Dante made her nervous. Dante herself was growing nervous. Never any response. She spoke to him for hours on end, she held his hand, she read him over and over the book she had found on his bedside table.
"Why won't you come back to me?" She asked him once as rain pelted the windows outside. It had darkened the room and it had darkened her spirits. Duo had come during the fit of tears the question had produced, but he didn't say anything. He leaned against the doorframe and watched them together. He knew the answer. Heero wasn't coming back because he didn't think he had anything to live for. And Dante wasn't letting go because without him she didn't have anything to live for either.
"You know what they want to do to him, don't you?" She asked from behind her hands. He jumped a bit. Was that directed at him? How did she know he was there in the first place? "They want to remove the respirator."
"Yeah," he replied. "I know."
"I think maybe they might be right."
"I think that you need a little break. What do you say you take a walk for a while. I'll watch him." She bit her lip and stood up. It sounded like a splendid idea to her. She needed a minute to collect herself. "I'll talk some sense into him while you're gone, eh?" She choked out a strangled laugh, wiping her eyes. She wasn't very old, not quite forty, but she was so tired that it made her seem much older. Her ocean blue eyes did not shine, and her black hair was leaning toward gray now. Duo watched her for a moment as she walked down the hall before turning his attention on the boy in the bed.
"Man are you lucky," he said, taking Dante's chair. "Your mother came back for you. The least you could do is open your eyes to look at her, you know?" There was a small blip on the heart monitor, making Duo's eyes snap to look at it. A grin spread over his face. A reaction! It was minute, but Duo had struck a nerve somewhere, meaning that Heero, or whatever it was that Dante called him, could hear him. That's when the braided boy's attention went back to the respirator. So they wanted to take it out? That might just be the thing to do, but he thought it would have a different effect than the one they were expecting.
When Dante returned, Duo was folding the tube that had been Heero's source of oxygen for the past two weeks. Her heart jumped in fear. What had he done?
"Easy," Duo said before she could say anything, holding his hand up in a soothing gesture. "He's fine. The only reason he wasn't breathing was because he didn't have to. I just made it so he had to."
"That was a risk," she chided, sitting next to him again, watching his chest rise and fall on his own will and feeling a deep sense of relief. Duo shrugged, putting his cap into place.
"Trust me, you can't kill this guy. Only God knows how many times he's tried to do it himself." That made him snicker. "Anyway, I'll just be going now. Tell those doctors not to give up on him so easily." Dante watched him go, then returned to her vigil. Heero was breathing on his own.

"Don't give up and lose the chance."

She didn't see Duo again after that, and the doctors left her alone for the most part. Although they did still warn of brain damage and the like that she chose to ignore. She wasn't giving up on him now, especially since he was breathing again. Besides, she still wanted more than anything to tell him everything about himself. Who he was, and who she was. Everything.
The rain had stopped, so she opened the window to allow the wind to rustle the curtains and blow across her face. She loved the wind, in more than one sense of the word. And it cleared away the dead air of the hospital with its fresh scent. Heero breathed it in deeply, almost sighing, and his right hand twitched.
Dante wasn't sure if she had really seen it happen or not, so she hurried away from the window, willing him to do it again. But it didn't move. She was just beginning to think that it had all been her imagination when he favored her with what she had been waiting for all along. He opened his ocean blue eyes and looked at her.
She heard herself gasp, and she gripped his hand so tightly it was a wonder it didn't hurt him. Tears were pooling at her eyes in gratitude, streaking down her cheeks before she could stop them. He was awake, he was alive, he was saved. And he was different. Since she had wanted to look into them so long, Dante paid special attention to his eyes. They were no longer dead. They carried deep confusion in them, and it was a beautiful thing to see. Any emotion, confused or otherwise, was a great improvement to what she had seen in them the last time.
"You're going to be all right," she assured him, patting his hand and smiling like an idiot.
"I'm sorry," he croaked in a voice that hadn't been used in a long time. "Do you know me?"

"Your return to innocence."

"Not as well as I should, but yes I know you." She was trying very hard to keep her emotions under control, but her joy was so great it was becoming very difficult to stay calm for him.
"Could you tell me who I am?"
"Don't you remember?"
"Not a thing." He'd lost his memory. What a blessing he'd been given with that. The horrors of his childhood were gone. The terrors of war were eradicated. Even Hana was unknown to him now. They could start all over. He had his life back. And he had his freedom and his mother back as well.
"Your name is Taikai Kitayori," she told him, pausing to kiss his forehead. "And you are my son." The breeze blew their hair across their faces from the open window, and the sunlight made the hospital a different place. A tear dripped from Taikai's eye, landing somewhere on the pillow.
"I think I've always wanted to hear you say that," he said in a small voice, one that Heero Yuy would never have used because it carried too much feeling.
"Oh there are lots of things that I've been wanting to say, but the first is that I love you." Another tear found its way to the pillow, though he probably didn't know why he was crying.
"I've always wanted to hear that too," he said. Then he smiled one of Kit's rare, genuine, beautiful smiles that shone over his features and made him look exactly like his father. And Dante knew that he would be able to laugh as well. He would be able to laugh as purely as Duo, be as wise and caring as the boy named Trowa, love with the trust of Quatre, and live in the justice of Wufei. He was free, and he would live on where the stars met the sea. For he was the heart of space named for the ocean of earth, and the son of the long lasting wind.

"That's not the beginning of the end."
"That's the return to yourself."
"The return to innocence."