"Well, screw that," said Molly, climbing a little more slowly than she had intended to her feet. She headed off in the same direction as Fi, leaving Carey standing alone. He weighed the options and, after a moment, followed her. He trailed after her for a while before speaking up.

"Look, on the off chance that Fi does find Jack and Clu, don't you think we should stay where she thinks we are?"

"You can go back," she offered without slowing down.

"That's not what I meant."

"Okay."

"I meant that we should both go back, because for one thing, this is pointless, and for another thing, you're already hurt, so what good is it going to do anybody if we do find them anyway? You don't even have that stuff you brought."

She stopped and turned toward him. "I'm not letting my children get eaten by that thing. I don't care what I have to do to stop that from happening. I don't care if I'm already hurt or if I don't have some stupid words that made it go away a hundred years ago."

"I understand that," he said gently. "But I really don't think there's anything you can do for them right now. We probably wouldn't even be able to find them."

"If you don't want to come along, I understand, and it really is fine."

"Why don't you let me go?"

"And sit out here alone worrying for hours and with no way to know if everyone else is dead or hurt?"

"Well, I don't want to do that either."

"So let's stop talking about it and get going."

"Come on," he said, making a final attempt to reason with her. "Let it go. They're old enough to protect themselves. I know you want to help them, but there really isn't anything you can do right now."

She just shook her head and headed off again. He didn't follow, instead letting out a generic grunt of utter frustration. "You are impossible," he called after her. "Completely stubborn. Totally unreasonable." No response, but she did pause. He took this opportunity to offer a few more frustrated complaints. "If there's a wall to run into, you'll find it. And God knows you could never just relax for five minutes without stressing out over something, whether it's real or just in your head."

Molly turned back again and headed toward him. He backed off but continued to speak: "Not to mention that you're dead set on being unhappy."

"Do you really think right now is the best time to have this conversation?" she asked in a tone of voice that was barely audible, narrowing her eyes. "Aren't you concerned about Clu? Or Jack? Or Fi?"

"Of course I am. But there's nothing we can do for them. Trust Fi."

"Well, go on, then. What else?" She continued to advance as he continued to back toward the spot where Fi had left them.

"You're so afraid that everyone's going to leave you that you do everything you can to make them go away so at least it can be your choice instead of theirs." And then there was silence. Carey stopped walking as his back abruptly met the trunk of a tree. She drew closer until there was almost no space between them. Frankly, as crazy as she had been acting lately, he was beginning to get a little scared and regretted some of what he had said in his attempt to bring her back here. So he was surprised when, instead of arguing or attacking him, she simply laid her head on his chest and sighed. He could feel the words more than he could hear them when she apologized, and after a moment he wrapped his arms around her gingerly. They stood like that for a minute or two until she passed out, probably from pain or exhaustion. He carefully laid her out on the ground and sat at the base of his tree, just waiting. And listening.

Meanwhile, Jack had heard that scream too, from his resting position. He had tired of Clu's persistent discussion of their whatever-it-was, and decided to stop for a while. The nap had lasted longer than he'd expected, and he was easing out of sleep when the scream, much louder and closer to him than it was to the others, snapped him awake. It was just one wild noise in the night that faded even more quickly than it had begun. A short burst, and then silence. He took off running in the direction he had left Clu wandering down, but found nothing. He paused to breathe and heard another voice: "Jack! Clu! Hello?" Fi could barely make out her brother's shape in the dark, but when she did, she raced toward him. "It wasn't you!" She hugged him so tight it nearly cut off his circulation. "Where's Clu? Weren't you together?"

"No. It's a long story. I have no idea where he is."

As if on cue, Clu screamed again, louder and longer this time. Fi took off running toward the sound, hastily grabbing the relevant items from Molly's bag, and was shocked to be met by a much stronger force propelling her backward and up, up, up. Without thinking, she shrieked and kicked, lashing out, dropping most of the contents of Molly's pack onto the ground below, where a dazed Clu was being helped to his feet by Jack. Something swiped Jack off of his own feet and knocked him flat on the ground, unconscious. Clu quickly gathered the scattered items and yelled up to Fi: "Stay calm! Tell me what to do with this stuff!"

"I, I don't know," she sputtered, her normally sharp mind having completely deserted her for the moment.

"It's important that you stay calm," Clu repeated in an even tone of voice, even as he panicked. He glanced over the materials Molly had copied, but, being unable to make heads nor tails of the spell-casting gibberish, he decided to make use of his superior intellect and devised a clever plan for dispatching the invisible monster. It involved first taking the little red emergency mini-axe and slashing in the general vicinity of the monster's tail. He lashed out futilely a few times before striking tail flesh, at which point the monster began to bleed. As the blood streamed from the fresh wound, it made other parts of the monster's body more visible. He worked quickly, figuring the monster would take little notice of what was going on with its tail, continuing to hack until the tail, almost completely visible at this point, was barely hanging on to the monster's body. He closed his eyes in anticipation of disgust and brought the axe down once more, severing the tail from the body once and for all. That, the monster did notice. It yowled and reached to mournfully touch the stump that had once been connected to the tail, which lay lifelessly and disconnected among the fallen leaves.

Fi fell to the ground with a resounding thump and Clu rushed to her side, shaking her roughly. "Come on!" he whispered urgently. "We have to get out of here now!" She grunted and began to get up. He did the same to Jack until the latter woke up. The three of them limped away as quickly as possible, not looking back.

The monster let out one more mournful howl and the swift, vehement flapping of wings could be heard for miles.