A/N: I am so glad we're here. I'm so glad that I finally got to tell you guys how Rowan's anniversary went. It honestly feels kind of weird to finally be past that reveal after so long.

I always wanted to bring Rowan back, but I also always wanted to actually look at the year without her. I was very conscious of wanting the grief and the angst and the eventual reunion to feel earned. With my break and everything else, it was so much longer than a year in the real world that so many of you have bothered to wait, and once again I am so grateful that anyone was checking back to see if I would update. Thank you for coming with me on this weird fanfic journey and for caring so much about the Muses and Rowan. Thank you for the kind words last chapter and any of the chapters before that.

We're gonna take some time for emotions over action for a little bit, with some refreshers of what all has went down. This is the longest chapter in the entire story so far. It beat the longest chapter in Something Quite Peculiar by about two pages. Hope you enjoy it, our Little-Miss-Nice-List is back.


"There, um, there's gonna be some stuff that's going to be hard for me to tell you and hard for you to hear."

"You say that like any of this will be easy to hear."


Chapter Nine: Previously On…


Jack dropped his staff and reached over, falling immediately back into the habit of steadying the girl that stumbled through the portals, the new body no better at getting through gracefully than the old one. She, too, had set her free hand to his shoulder, clinging to him to keep from collapsing, as she had so many times before.

It was oddly comforting, how quickly it all came back. He had to make a concentrated effort to let go of her, to keep in mind that he was supposed to be cautious with the way he touched her for a while.

They had barely stood properly upright before Rowan was pushing her hair from her face and saying, "Where the hell are we?"

The fire was dim and limited light was coming in from the windows, the sun still rising in this time zone. Jack grabbed his staff from the floor before approaching the wall and flipping the switches that would bring the oil lamps to life.

The better lighting did not help the girl, still looking around the cabin with nothing short of complete confusion showing on her face.

(Her face! Her oval-shaped face with big brown eyes, the two moles, the pointed nose. She was really there, alive and breathing, and Jack had to fight the urge to reach forward and make sure that she was real again.)

"Right, right, the cabin's, uh, been renovated a bit since you were here last," Jack said, propping his staff against the wall by the front door.

She was still eying their surroundings, but his eyes had hardly left her since that bright burst of light took her shape on the mountain, burning her into his vision.

"A bit? You had a mattress and some shelves," she said, gesturing to the kitchen where neither of these things were anymore. Her eyes caught the nearby door to the bathroom and she approached it, pushing it open.

Suddenly, she was fumbling for the switch to turn the light on there and rushing for the mirror. Jack stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame as she eyed her reflection, her fingers prodding at her face as she went.

"My freckles are fainter," she said, leaning closer to the mirror, now only a few small inches away as she took everything in.

"Little bit," Jack said, having only barely noticed, so overwhelmed to just see her at all. It was still overwhelming that it was her, not a picture, or a dream, or a memory, or the list of features he would go over in his head. His pulse hadn't shown any sign of slowing down, not since that rush of adrenaline at the burst of light.

He had cast a quick glance to Terpsichore, who had insisted it would not be subtle. She had turned his way as well, her grin a silent affirmation as she blocked the light from her eyes with one hand.

And there Rowan had been, at the temple ruins. Jack wasn't sure he would have been able to approach her at the time even if the Muses hadn't specifically advised against it, for a moment frozen to the spot and trying to comprehend that she was actually back.

After all of Apollo's threats, after all the mourning, after all those sleepless nights, she was back.

And here she was now, critically examining her reflection. It felt oddly mundane, to be standing by as she took in her appearance. He was reminded of past instances of lingering nearby as she applied makeup to her face, though those instances had a certain amount of joy that was undeniably absent now.

Her eyes were bloodshot, slightly puffy from the hysteric tears she had been in back at Mount Parnassus that had barely calmed since their departure.

Her hair being brown rather than the purple-leaning red that Jack was used to felt off, but not necessarily bad. This color seemed to highlight the resemblance she had with her mother and aunt.

Rowan ran her fingers over her ears. They were supposed to be cluttered with earrings, five on each ear, but these ears were strangely bare.

The girl leaned back, hands gripping the edges of the sink as she continued eying her reflection.

She was the right height, just a few inches shorter than he was. She was no longer as gaunt as she had been the last time he had seen her before her death, the bruises on her arms and legs mercifully gone.

She had been physically healed of the damage done by the Shadow People, as Thalia had mentioned she might be. Jack was glad for this, though the emotional damage had to still be present. The idea of Apollo relieving anyone's anxiety seemed out of the question, and the nine existing Muses seemed proof enough that he was uninterested in the notion.

Reaching behind her, Rowan grabbed for and lifted her hair, exposing the back of her neck, and said, "Is that one gone, too?"

"Yeah," Jack said, knowing she was referring to her tattoo, for it was immediately odd for him to see it absent.

She let her hair fall back into place and reached for the hem of the simple dress that had been provided for her, which fell to just above her knee. She lifted it enough to see her upper right thigh and hip, the lowest point that the tattoo on her ribs had stretched to. She dropped the hem as soon as it was clear this one was gone as well.

"This is all wrong," she said, eying her hands again. "It's like—It feels like I'm wearing someone else's skin."

"The others—the other Muses, that is—said that would happen," Jack said.

Rowan turned away from the mirror at last, glancing up from her hands to look him in the eye. "What… what happened? You seem—it seemed like you and the Muses were on better terms now all of a sudden."

Jack stepped out of the doorway, allowing her to re-enter the rest of the cabin after she shut off the bathroom light.

"Right," Jack said, considering that he rarely had a nice thing to say about the Muses when he last saw Rowan. "Um, well, Calliope and I agreed to try harder to get along at your—"

He stopped short, wincing slightly. Rowan, who had started examining the framed picture of them from the New Year's Eve Ball, turned to him again, brow furrowed.

"At my…?" Rowan said.

"At your funeral," Jack said, that gentle tone back in his voice.

Her eyes widened, she took a step back as though the word had physically struck her. "My—there was—I had—I—my funeral?"

Jack nodded. He approached the chest of drawers that the picture she had been looking at rested on top of, and opened the top drawer. "I have the funeral program, I have your obituary—"

"Obituary," Rowan repeated, sitting heavily atop the sofa.

Jack frowned, closing the drawer without taking anything out. "Yeah, it's, uh, it's there if you need to look at it later."

Rowan nodded in acknowledgement, reaching for her chest, her fingers brushing the skin there.

She froze, eyes wide, glancing down where her hand rested.

"What is it?" Jack said, taking a few steps to stand before her. The color had drained from her face.

"My necklace," she said.

"Right!" Jack said suddenly, reaching for his own neck and tugging on the chain so that he could unclasp it. As soon as the snowflake charm came into view, Rowan sighed heavily, relieved.

"I—I thought for a second that it was gone forever," she said. Jack sat beside her on the sofa draping the chain around her neck and fastening the clasp shut. Once he had pulled her hair from beneath the chain, she turned slightly to face him properly, her fingers toying with the pendant as she went. "I didn't realize how attached I'd gotten to it."

"It definitely looks better on you," Jack said. "Sorry, it's probably like ice after I wore it."

"I like the cold," she said, offering him only half a smile, the most she had managed since her return. "It still makes sense."

"Yeah this… is a lot," Jack acknowledged.

Rowan nodded, eying the pendant for a few more seconds before saying, "This—so—okay, so this body feels wrong because it's new, right? And you had my necklace that—that I was wearing when I—you know—so what—where is—what happened to me?"

Jack blinked, unsurprised that Rowan was rambling but baffled at the disjointed statements all the same.

"You want to know what happened to your body?" Jack clarified.

"Yes? No? I—none of this makes any sense," Rowan said, sounding defeated.

"I mean, the Muses said not to start with body recovery and all that," Jack said.

Rowan's brow furrowed at once, and soon she was rising to her feet. "What, the Muses suddenly care about what I can and can't handle emotionally?"

Before Jack could answer, Rowan was pacing, babbling again. "Wh—What happened with Calliope at my funeral? Why the hell was she even there? Who was there? Was I—am I just buried somewhere now? What—Oh, God! What's going on with my parents, Jack? What did they do, how did they—what are they—are they okay?"

Her eyes were welling up again, her hands trembling. Jack stood and offered her his hand.

She bypassed his hand entirely, her arms immediately around him. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her in return, leaning his head against hers. She was so confused, so sad, and still he felt a warmth in his chest at the fact that he could feel her weight, her pulse, her breathing.

She was really here.

The embrace was short-lived, however, Rowan releasing him and stepping back, tears rolling down her face as she eyed her arms, still extended.

"It doesn't feel right, does it?" Jack said, his heart heavy as he said it.

"This isn't my body, it just isn't my body," she said, her entire being trembling. "I—it—it's like there's a separation or something. It's like you're holding someone else and I have to feel you hold someone else. And—and I'm just silently screaming, 'why are you touching her like she's me? She's not me!' and—and—"

She was in hysterics again, gasping for air and burying her face in her hands, undeniably overwhelmed.

"Hey, hey, it's okay, you're gonna be okay," Jack said, reaching his hand to touch her shoulder but stopping short. He awkwardly set his hand back down. "We don't have to touch, all right? Can you look at me, breathe with me?"

She lowered her hands and met his eyes, watching his exaggerated breathing, doing her best to breathe along.

This went on for a while, her breathing interrupted by the occasional cough as she choked on a sob, her hands still trembling.

"It felt fine earlier, when we kissed and everything, I don't—I don't understand," she finally said.

"There's a lot going on all at once," Jack said. "Maybe you're just more tuned into it now."

"I'm sorry, it's—it's not you, it's—" Rowan started, biting her lower lip when a coherent explanation failed to materialize.

"I know," he said. "I love you, okay?"

"I love you," she said, nodding. It was nice to hear. His heart sank, though, as he realized that the last time he had said it to her was at her wake, when she could not say it back.

It was odd, to have the mourning from the past year colliding with the relief of seeing her again. But then, all of this was odd.

The past two years had been nothing but odd circumstance after odd circumstance, from the moment he chased after a mysterious shadow darting through Burgess that turned out to be Bunny and got carted off to the pole to be loudly informed that he was a Guardian.

"Maybe we take a break from the death stuff?" Jack suggested.

Rowan shook her head. "How the hell am I supposed to focus on anything else?"

"Okay, fair enough," Jack said with a slight nod. "But let's take it one thing at a time, okay? There's a lot to fill you in on."

"Okay, okay, one thing at a time," she said. She swallowed, rubbing her eyes. "Um. Maybe… maybe we just go chronologically?"

"We can do that, I have notes," Jack said.

"You have notes?" Rowan repeated, brows raised. It did sound rather studious of the famously-not-interested-in-hard-work-or-deadlines spirit.

"Tooth suggested I write things down and it turned into writing everything I could remember from the day I first saw you, onward, so I would have the record," Jack said, grabbing his staff from the wall and flying the short distance to the loft above them.

"Oh, the loft is new," came Rowan's voice as Jack reached for the drawer his journal had been stashed in. He had barely closed the drawer when he heard her say, "This… is actually really cute, it's cozy."

Jack glanced back toward the edge of the loft, finding that Rowan had made use of the ladder that he never actually utilized. Being mindful of the slanted ceiling, she approached the right side of the bed and took a seat.

"Your notebook is in that one," Jack said, gesturing to the other bedside table. Rowan reached over immediately, opening the drawer and pulling out that beat up red notebook.

For a moment she just held it, seeming to be glad to have it in her hands, eyes scanning the beat-up cover. It was nice to see her holding it again.

She flipped through the pages, seeming to look for one in particular.

"If Jack were here, he would say I'm over-thinking it," she read aloud. "But he wouldn't be surprised. I worry. I over-think. It's just the way I am."

Closing the notebook, she turned to face him better, frowning slightly. "Guess I'm really not dreaming, hm?"

"Sorry, Sawyer," Jack said, recalling her reading her notebook before as confirmation that she was awake. He set his staff aside and sat on the bed as well. "What would I say you're over-thinking?"

"You didn't read it? I mean, I… I said if something happened, you got this one," Rowan said, holding the notebook up, as though he could forget.

Jack shook his head. "Either I was going to give it back to you today or I was going to feel like I could finally look through it because you were really gone."

"Oh," Rowan said, eying the notebook again. "Well, I was trying to figure out if I was in love with you or just infatuated with you. I landed on love, but to be fair, a lot of what's in here is your name in hearts and drawings of your abs, so—"

"I'm sorry, drawings of—that's what's in there?" Jack said, unable to help his laugh.

He had been so strict with himself over that damn notebook, he had agonized over the thoughts she had left behind in-between all the story notes and drawings, so concerned about feeling like he was allowed to finally look.

And now here she was, actually managing a smile, a small one but it was there, her face still wet with tears. Her cheeks tinted red, embarrassed, she flipped through the notebook again before holding it up. It was opened to a page of doodles, many of which did seem to be studies of him, with particular attention to detail paid to his torso.

"You always did have a talent for drawing me from memory," Jack said, still chuckling.

"It's weird, even the first time I drew you, it's like I'd drawn you hundreds of times before," Rowan said with a slight shrug. She closed the notebook, setting it by the lamp on the bedside table. "There was a kind of muscle memory that usually takes ages to build."

"Yeah, well, you're good at what you do," he said. "And for the record, I would have posed for you, or would the real thing have been too distracting?"

"The real thing would have been too annoying with the snide comments, that's for sure," she said, that small smile still present. She rolled her eyes and he found himself mentally berating himself for being a sap as he melted at the sight.

It had been a year since Rowan Sawyer had rolled her eyes at him. He hadn't realized how much he missed that gesture specifically.

The sentimentality must have shown on his face, for her expression turned into one of confusion. "What?" she said.

"I missed you," he said, feeling the way his voice and smile took on a sad quality to say it, to acknowledge the absence again.

She frowned, glancing at his journal he had yet to open. "It's really been a year, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," he said.

"And I've really been dead," she said.

"Yeah," he said again, nodding.

She sighed heavily, flopping over, her head hitting the pillow on that side of the bed, the gesture giving away that this was all too much. "None of this makes any sense, I don't—what am I supposed to do?"

"One thing at a time, remember?" Jack said, opening his journal to the section that began at the battle in Burgess a year earlier. "Let's just… fill you in on everything you missed and work from there."

Rowan propped herself up on an elbow and glanced at the page, covered in Jack's notes and scribbles, words circled and crossed out, arrows drawn. "Mm, you take notes like I do, all stream of conscience. We're gonna be here a while."

"Most likely," Jack said. "And I mean, obviously this isn't going to be everything you missed, we're just working from my perspective here."

"Right," Rowan nodded.

Jack hesitated a moment. "There, um, there's gonna be some stuff that's going to be hard for me to tell you and hard for you to hear."

"You say that like any of this will be easy to hear," Rowan said, brow furrowed.

"Yeah, well," Jack said, tilting his head slightly, noncommittal, eying the journal. Once they got as far as Sandy and Calliope's wedding, he was going to have to tell her about Melpomene in order to properly fill her in on everything going on with Apollo.

Ever since she re-appeared, she had been in and out of tears, and Jack supposed there wasn't a lot he could do to make any of it less upsetting.

Rowan sat up again and reached forward, seeming hesitant. "Holding your hand felt okay before, can we…?"

Jack took her hand in his, keeping his grip gentle. He eyed her face for a reaction, her eyes fixed to their hands.

"Yes, this still feels okay," she sighed, squeezing his hand slightly. Jack's shoulders relaxed to hear her say this. Her other hand was already back to fiddling with her necklace. "So, what happened last—that night with the Shadow People? Are they really taken care of now?"

It was strange, how big of a deal the Shadow People had been the last time Jack saw her, how little of a concern they had been for the past year in comparison to the bomb that had wiped most of them out.

Jack really had a lot to fill her in on.

"Well, we were getting overwhelmed by the numbers. It didn't look like we were going to be able to get the upper hand, so the decision was made to make use of the bomb. That was the flash of light you saw," he said. "The force of the blast was stronger than expected. There were crevices all through Burgess, and it seems like when it hit the lake is when the ice broke."

"What about Melpomene and Pitch?" Rowan said.

"After the bomb went off, we realized neither of them were with us, so we had to go looking for them," said Jack. "We found Melpomene, and she explained that Pitch was going after Jamie, that she had planned to disguise herself as Jamie and take his place—"

"What?" Rowan said. "That doesn't—it—why the hell would she do that?"

"She said that the Shadow People had fed on her before and she could handle it. She said that Jamie was still in his bed and that he was safe, and I checked, he was," Jack said.

Rowan shook her head, eyes welling with tears again. "She—I didn't see her, I—I didn't see her anywhere when I got there, it was just Pitch and Jamie and the Shadow People, I didn't even question it. She said that she was going to make sure Jamie was safe and she inspired me to believe her and to trust her, it was that goddamn mind control bullshit all over again and—and by the time it wore off—I was so sure—I thought—I was sure she was lying."

"Yeah, well, it wouldn't have been the first time," Jack said, wanting to put an arm around her as she wiped at her eyes with her free hand but unwilling to overwhelm the girl more than she already was. He compensated by squeezing her hand. "How did you even get to Burgess?"

"Oh," Rowan said, her voice soft. "I… I kind of stole—borrowed?—stole one of North's snow globes a few days—it wasn't a few days ago. Shit. I stole one of the snow globes, I never intended to use it but if you say a location, you can see it in the globe, so I would—I would just check on home with it. And then I overheard Melpomene and Pitch and then I didn't—I didn't say anything to anyone because she inspired me not to and—and I was so sure something terrible was going to happen so I used it to get to Burgess. Is he—did North notice, is he upset?"

"No, no, he's not upset," Jack said. "We never figured out how you got there at all. We just knew that Melpomene said you showed up to call the Shadow People away and, um, and then we went looking for you."

"Who found me?" Rowan said, wincing slightly.

"Urania," Jack said. "The moonbeams led her there. By the time I showed up, she had already pulled you out of the lake and tried to revive you but…"

He trailed off, unwilling to describe to her the image of the lifeless body in the snow that had sprung to the forefront of his mind immediately, leaving that same terrible feeling in his chest that it had the first time. There was no need for both of them to be haunted by it.

He tried to will the image and the pain in his chest away.

"What did—what happened to my body at that point?" she asked, still looking as though she was preparing for the impact of his words. He was just glad that she did not press for more details about the scene he had stumbled upon that night.

"The Muses called in an anonymous tip so that the police would come and get you before someone else found you," Jack said. "I didn't stick around for that, I—I couldn't stick around and watch."

Rowan nodded.

"If it was you, I'm not sure what I would have done," she said. "What about Pitch, what happened with him?"

Jack sighed heavily. "Well, he ran off after the bomb went off and stole the bomb blueprints from the pole."

"He what?" Rowan said, eyes wide. "That's—"

"He doesn't have them anymore, that, uh, that comes later," Jack said, gesturing to the notebook.

"Oh, good," Rowan said, noticeably relaxing. "Good."

"I, uh, I went to your apartment and found that box of story notes. I wrote Jamie's name on it so that your parents would know to give it to him, he has it now," Jack said.

"Thank you," she said. He nodded.

"I don't know how much you want to know about your funeral," he said.

"I don't know either," Rowan said.

"They had it here in Burgess. Your friends in the band performed a few songs. You're buried in the newer cemetery," Jack said, supposing he would describe it in the briefest of terms unless she asked for more details.

"Do you remember what songs they played?" Rowan said, brow furrowed.

"They played Only Happy When It Rains and Under the Milky Way for sure. I recognized the other song, I think you played it in the car before, but I don't know the name," Jack said. "Something, something, 'eyeglasses full of stars.'"

"Plenty of Paper," Rowan said, needing only that single line. "That's not usually their sort of thing. I wonder if they learned it specifically for that."

"They did very well, I think you would have liked it. I wish it wasn't the first time I got to see them perform," Jack said.

"Mm, I never really thought about how I'd want my funeral to go, but I guess I'm glad there was a show and music to listen to for part of it. It sounds nice," Rowan said.

"It was. I mean, it didn't make it any less depressing, but it was a nice performance," Jack said. "Calliope and some of the other Muses went, I think they felt bad about pushing you away so much. Urania didn't go because she's not very good with big crowds. Melpomene didn't go. After they buried you, Calliope gave me your necklace. She got it off of your body before the police showed up. We talked a bit and agreed to try harder to get along."

"Well, glad they finally warmed up to me at my funeral," Rowan said, her voice a slight scowl.

"Yeah, it was… rough," Jack said.

"How were my parents?" Rowan asked.

"They were trying to hold it together, mostly," Jack said. "Your Aunt did most of the talking on the family's behalf."

"Aunt Lorelei has always been weirdly poised at funerals," Rowan said. "She did most of the talking at Grandpa's funeral, too. I think the only time she didn't was Uncle Avery's funeral. God, it's so many funerals in a few years… How did Jamie take it?"

"He, uh, had a hard time," Jack said. "He was angry about the whole thing and stopped being able to see me for a while."

"No," Rowan said, eyes wide. "But he—are we sure the Shadow People didn't get to him? Didn't convince him to stop believing or—"

"No, no, he didn't stop believing, North said he probably just, um, lost faith in me," Jack said, wincing slightly to relay this part. "Because I promised to protect you and then…"

"Oh, no," Rowan said, eyes wide. "No, no, he—"

"He can see me again," Jack said. "It, uh, it took a few months. Bunny talked to him. But he can see me again."

"Oh, good," Rowan said, seeming genuinely relieved. "I can't—Jamie loves you, he thinks you're so cool, Jack, I can't be the reason he can't see you."

"Hey, you weren't," Jack said. "It's… it's just a lot to dump on a kid."

"He's been through too much," Rowan said.

"Mm, I should probably also mention that Melpomene did talk to him, disguised as you, that night," Jack said. "I guess she told him to stay in bed until the sun came up, no matter what he heard. I didn't tell him it wasn't you. He thinks it's the last time he saw you alive."

Rowan swore. "Melpomene? He thinks the last time he saw me—she—I don't know what to do with this."

"His last memory of you isn't bad, at least," Jack said. "Melpomene managed to not make things worse for a few minutes."

"I guess," Rowan said. "What happened after the funeral, then?"

Jack turned a few pages of his journal, scanning the pages, one hand still holding hers. There was so much to get through.

Jack told her about the Guardians and Muses working to make sure they were in good standing with the mythical community at large, how they were scrambling to make sure that no one was making a deal with Pitch now that he had the plans. He told her that he was not very helpful for most of this, spending a lot of time not sleeping and avoiding everyone.

He did not tell her about being so sleep-deprived that he began to hallucinate her.

He did tell her that he had gone to Baron Samedi to check on her, and that the man had told him that Rowan was in the afterlife and was happy there, but worried.

Rowan did not know what to do with that information.

Jack explained that the Muses kept finding legends that would not take the Muses' side in any altercation while they were still under Apollo's rule, and others that firmly sided with Apollo and Apollo alone. He told her about Cupid secretly working with Artemis and feeding her information, about Artemis beating the Muses to these potential allies because of Cupid's information.

He told her that Artemis had orchestrated Jack being caught by the Shadow People in France so that Cupid could help rescue both Jack and Rowan that night, that Cupid did not know about this until after the fact.

Jack told her about Apollo beating Cupid when he found out about him giving information to Artemis, explained that Cupid was still technically on probation with the Muses and Guardians. He told her about Calliope meeting with Artemis, who told her that she wished to rule the Muses, but only if they cut ties with the Guardians.

"Why is Artemis so invested? I don't understand, why does she care what the Muses are doing?" Rowan said, seeming to have been thrown for a loop over the amount of times the moon goddess had come up in this recap.

"Turns out Artemis picks the Mortal Muse," Jack said. "She picked all of you when you were born."

"Shit," Rowan said. "My mom used to say that the night before I was born, she had this weird dream about this woman who told her she was going to have a girl and that I was going to be very creative. I wonder—what's Artemis look like?"

"I don't know, I've never met her," Jack said, shaking his head. "But it feels like too much of a coincidence for that not to have been her."

Back into the explanation Jack went, eying his journal, trying not to forget anything and end up having to backtrack. He told her about Apollo attempting to bribe him with her return to keep the Muses on his side. He told her about North's advice to not mention this to the Muses, about his hope not to affect her return one way or another. He told her that he found out later that Apollo doesn't actually decide the fate of the Mortal Muse, that it was up to the mortals to keep her story alive for that year, or Apollo can't do a thing.

"People have been talking about me all year?" Rowan said.

"Well, you're kind of an unsolved mystery," Jack said. "The mortals don't know where you went or how you turned up in Burgess. Some of them think it was aliens or a government conspiracy, and, uh, well, you're also kind of part of a ghost story now."

"A ghost story?" Rowan said, cocking a brow.

"That… I'll get more into that when we get to Halloween," Jack said, gesturing to the journal.

"Okay, fine, what happened after Apollo tried to bribe you?" she asked.

"Sandy and Calliope announced their engagement," Jack said.

"Huh," Rowan said, brow furrowed. "Okay."

"They decided to get married to show that regardless of whatever bullshit our leaders are getting into, the Muses and the Guardians were allies. Other legends weren't going to want to ally with any of us if it looked like the Muses and Guardians were going to part ways after all this time," Jack explained. "It was a huge event, we all had to be in the wedding party."

"Oh no, did I miss you in a suit?" Rowan said with a slight pout.

He managed a slight smile. He hadn't been able to wear a suit without thinking of her and how much she had liked the one he wore to take her to the ball. "I'm afraid you did."

"Damn," Rowan said, disappointed.

"I had a, uh, a pretty hard time with the wedding, honestly," Jack said. Rowan's expression turned sympathetic and guilt filled his stomach. "I was… very depressed and in my head and I should have left the reception earlier than I did."

"Sounds like a rough day," Rowan said.

"This is going to be one of those parts I said would be hard for me to tell you and hard for you to hear," Jack said, wincing slightly. He hadn't even turned the page of the journal yet, knowing all that followed was pages upon pages of him trying to sort out everything that had happened as a result of him kissing Melpomene at the reception.

Rowan cocked a brow. "Okay?"

Jack wanted to emphasize again how depressed he had been. He wanted to reiterate how much he loved Rowan. He wanted to preface this whole thing with how much he regretted it.

But it all felt like excuses and his mouth would not make the words.

"I went down by the beach to take a break and basically feel sorry for myself and… Melpomene showed up there, too," Jack said. Rowan took a deep breath, eye contact faltering the moment the other Muse's name was spoken. Jack's heart was racing, trying to get this out in the fewest words possible. "We talked. They played our song. She asked me to dance. We kissed. Then Euterpe showed up and interrupted us. I immediately regretted what I was doing and I went back to the reception with Euterpe."

Jack's eyes were now fixed to Rowan's hand, still in his, waiting for her to take it back, to inch away from him in disgust. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

"You just kissed her, right?" Rowan said, her eyes cast to their hands as well.

"Right," Jack said. Rowan sighed heavily, her shoulders visibly relaxing.

"For the love of—Jack, the way you were saying how hard it was going to be to tell me, I thought you slept with her or something," Rowan said.

"God, no," Jack said, shaking his head. "No, no, I just… it was a perfect storm of depression and mourning and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and the wrong person showing up. And I'm so mad at myself because I was supposed to know better and—and it was just a disaster, none of it should have happened."

"Sounds like… you were going through it," Rowan said evenly.

"I get it if you're upset," Jack said, wincing again.

Rowan sighed again, finally glancing back his way.

"I mean. I don't love that it happened," she said. "I really don't love that it happened with her specifically. But it's also not even in the top five shitty things I've been informed of today."

Jack nodded.

"And I mean, I was dead," Rowan said. "You didn't have any obligation to me. You could kiss whoever you wanted."

There were tears in her eyes again. It was clear that despite what she had said, the idea of Jack kissing whoever he wanted in the past year was not one Rowan was a fan of.

"Kissing Melpomene—listen, everything with Melpomene—it's just feeling so miserable and alone that being miserable with her sounds better in the moment. It's not love, it's codependence and misery," Jack said quickly. "There was no point in the last year that I even considered wanting anyone the way I wanted or missed you, I—I never got used to you not being around. I never want to get used to you not being around, because I want to be better when you're around, I—"

His eyes were welling up now. He glanced away, trying to be discreet as he wiped at his eyes with his free hand.

Rowan pulled her hand from his and before he had a chance to assume she was pulling away, gentle fingertips on his cheek were prompting him to look back her way. She had that sympathetic, concerned look in her teary eyes that he had gotten so used to seeing from everyone else in the past year.

"You know, I've cried in front of you more times than I can count at this point," she said. "You don't need to hide this."

"Mm, you broke my streak," Jack said. "I went over a century not crying, Sawyer."

This didn't make her expression any less sympathetic. "That doesn't sound healthy, Frost."

"I don't know what you mean, I'm the poster child for mental health," he said, wincing slightly as another tear slipped by and she brushed it away with her thumb before it had a chance to freeze. He carefully set his hand atop hers, eying her for any discomfort at the gesture. None came.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Rowan soon let her hand fall from his face, carefully cradled in his.

"Just… just tell me if you still have feelings for her," Rowan said finally, her voice small. "With Luke—after he broke things off, everyone said it was so obvious that he still had feelings for Christina, and I can't be the last to know again, it's humiliating."

"I have no romantic feelings for Melpomene," Jack said. "I have a lot of negative feelings. I have a lot of confused feelings since Bunny said it was an abusive relationship. But there is no love there."

"Okay. Good, I—Wait! You told the Guardians!" Rowan said, eyes wide. "That's great, I told you they wouldn't hold it against you."

"I didn't tell them because I wanted to," Jack said. "I told them because Apollo decided I was not reacting well to his bribe and threatened to tell the Guardians about my past with Melpomene and the kiss at the reception if I did not make sure that the Muses stayed on his side. So, I told them everything. Apollo still thinks they don't know."

"Oh, Jack," Rowan said, her gaze sympathetic again. "That must have been hard for you."

"It was not a great day," Jack said. "I told them and… they were kind about it and supportive and they told me it wasn't my fault and I still don't know what to do with all of that."

"I mean, it's good they reacted that way," Rowan said.

"I know, but it feels like I don't deserve it," Jack admitted.

"I think you've spent a long time getting less kindness than you deserve," Rowan said, squeezing his hand. "And I'm proud of you for telling them and not letting Apollo hold it over your head."

"Yeah, well, I still had to pretend he was holding it over my head so that he wouldn't try to find something else," Jack said. "The other Guardians and I let the Muses know at that point that Apollo was trying to bribe and blackmail me. That's when they let us know that Cupid had found out that Apollo has less to do with the Mortal Muse returning than the mortals do. After that, I came back here and a few hours later Euterpe showed up to tell me that the Muses intend to reject both Apollo and Artemis."

"Can they do that?" Rowan said, brow furrowed.

"Well, they're gonna try in about two weeks on the full moon," Jack said. "And, uh, they want you there. All ten of you and Cupid have to be there to denounce Apollo and Artemis. If you're not there, Apollo will still assume you're under his control and Artemis will assume she can get you on her side."

"I'm sorry, they want me to what?" Rowan said, eyes wide. "I—I can't go around telling off ancient gods! I've never even had an in-person breakup! Luke dumped me over the phone, I wrote Danny a letter and—shit, I kinda just died on you, didn't I?"

Jack chuckled faintly. "Imagine dying to get out of a relationship with someone and then being granted immortality."

"Immortality," Rowan repeated, leaning over and setting her head back on the pillow. "God, we've been talking so much about how I died and what I missed, I—I keep overlooking the 'immortality' part."

"I'm sorry," Jack said, squeezing her hand. "I know you didn't want this."

"Immortality, denouncing gods, I just wanted to get a bachelor's degree," Rowan said. "I—I don't know what to do with this. What even is my life now? Everyone I care about—aside from you—thinks I'm dead! And I am, I'm buried somewhere! I have a grave! I can't go back to school, showing up in my parents' lives again would give them each an aneurysm and my dad would probably try to get an exorcism performed even though he hasn't been to church since before my uncle came out and—"

"Rowan, Rowan," Jack said, squeezing her hand again. "One thing at a time, remember? We're still going over the past year."

"Oh God, we're not done yet," Rowan cringed, sitting upright again. "Tell me we're at least halfway through?"

"More than halfway, the wedding was in August," Jack said, turning the pages in his journal past all his confused musings about Melpomene. Rowan sighed in relief.

Jack was soon explaining the letter he had received from Jamie and how nervous he had been to visit the boy again, and all the ways he had procrastinated this task, including speaking with other spirits on behalf of the alliance and helping Euterpe and Terpsichore move into Mount Parnassus. He explained that Mount Parnassus was where the ruins they had been at earlier were located.

These were hardly the most important parts of the year's recap, but it wasn't upsetting. The stakes were low.

He told her about meeting up with Jamie, assured her that they were on friendly terms again and that Jamie was doing much better than he had been when it came to her death.

Jack then explained that the Muses were hoping to make both Apollo and Artemis think that they had won when it came to the Muses, that Calliope, Clio, and Erato had gone to Artemis and told her that they intended to join her. They explained to Artemis that they had to appear to be loyal to Apollo until Rowan's anniversary passed, so that if she returned, Apollo would not attempt to keep her from everyone. This meant that they had to make it appear that they had rejected Artemis.

Jack told Rowan about the bloody scene at Mount Parnassus after Calliope, Clio, and Erato each took arrows to the chest. He told her about trying to help Erato calm down during her flashback.

He told her about Arachne insisting that blood was still visible on his hoodie and pants and providing him with alternatives, another low-stakes recap. Rowan asked him what Arachne had given him to wear and he opened the storage chest at the foot of the bed to show her the new hoodies and pants, explaining that he still liked the old ones better.

Rowan, however, took an immediate liking to the hoodie that Arachne had provided that was a dark blue with a lighter blue panel in the middle, taking it and pulling it on over the dress she had been given. He teased that Arachne would be appalled to see her wearing the slightly-too-big hoodie. Rowan had shrugged, remarking that Arachne had already seemed unimpressed with her fashion sense the one time they properly met.

Settling back onto the bed, Rowan seeming much more comfortable in the hoodie than she had been without it, Jack told her about the odd instance of an entire town's dream sand being corrupted into Nightmares and he and Tooth going to investigate.

Next in his notes was Halloween. He relayed all of the costumes that Jamie and his friends had worn, with Rowan disappointed that she hadn't been able to see them (and theorizing that the unknown princess Jack had described Cupcake dressing up as was some video game character named Princess Peach). When Jack explained his encounter with the girls playing with the Ouija board, he was pleased that Rowan actually laughed at his recounting of one of them asking if he was single or cute.

He told her about the Headless Horseman visiting her grave, and she was surprised that he had remembered her, pleased that he and Jack were getting along better now.

This was, however, also where Jack had to begin to explain that he had inadvertently become a ghost story. He told Rowan about going to the library to look into abusive relationships and seeing one of the girls from Halloween there looking through old records. Within a few days he was waking up with his powers on a hair trigger and stumbling to the North Pole to try and figure out what was going on.

He told her about the ghost story that had been spreading on the internet, that he was the ghost of Jack Overland, who fell in love with a living girl and orchestrated her death so that they could be together, only for her to cross over into the afterlife without him. He explained that Clio had estimated that with the popularity of the ghost story, he had gained thousands of teenage and adult believers overnight.

It was disappointing for Jack to turn to the next page in his notes and realize they were back to Melpomene, this time with Pitch.

"Do you want to take a break or something before we get into them again?" Jack asked. They had been going through his notes for quite a while now. The sun was still rising when they arrived at the cabin and would be setting soon enough.

"And do what instead?" Rowan sighed. "We're at least into November now, so we're almost done—wait, November! I missed your birthday!"

It was such a small thing, and Jack couldn't even remember telling her what day his birthday was.

"Rowan, you missed your birthday, too," Jack pointed out. "And I mean, you had a pretty good excuse."

"Oh, God, you know how you made it a whole point before that you weren't three hundred years older than me, you were two hundred and ninety-nine years older than me?" Rowan said.

"Ah, damn, I'm actually three hundred years older than you now," Jack said, having not considered that in the time that everyone else had gotten a year older, she had not.

"Well, I'm afraid that's past my limit," Rowan said in mock-regret, pulling herself to her feet and heading for the ladder. "Good day, Sir."

"I'm really immature for my age!" he called after her, smiling over the fact that her sense of humor seemed to somehow still be intact. Not to mention, seeing her walk about easily, no longer in pain. "And if you leave, you can't keep that hoodie."

Rowan turned on her heel, pretending to consider this. "Hmm… fine, you've convinced me. For the hoodie."

She pulled the hood up and climbed back on the bed. "So. What happened with Pitch and Melpomene?"

"Well, we had sorted out that Pitch was working with Daedalus—do you know Daedalus?"

"Personally?" Rowan said, raising a brow. "No. Myth-wise, he was Icarus' dad right?"

"Yes. Anyway, we had a meeting to figure out what to do about that. I didn't stay very long because Melpomene was explaining that sage could be used against Pitch and that she knew this because he was trying to give you a nightmare when you were staying at the pole but the sage in the room kept him from succeeding," Jack said. "All those nightmares you had about drowning were Pitch messing with your dreams. And Melpomene was sneaking around your apartment disguised as you to mess with my head."

Rowan blinked, eying him incredulously, seeming to try to find the proper words for a moment.

"I—how—what the hell is it with immortals busting into my apartment?" Rowan said. "Why was it so important that I had nightmares about drowning? What was Melpomene doing to you?"

"They were trying to scare us, because I was the swing vote on the Guardian side to bring Pitch into the alliance," Jack said. "That whole vote was orchestrated by the two of them. I just played into their hand."

"I mean I was scared from the jump anyway," Rowan said. "You—you never really seemed that—"

"I was absolutely terrified that I wouldn't be able to protect you, Rowan," Jack said. He had been sure it was obvious that he was terrified the entire time. "And it looks like I wasn't."

"Okay this is a lot all at once," Rowan said, taking a deep breath. "What was Melpomene doing disguised as me? Where was I?"

"They did all this when we were sleeping," Jack said. "I woke up once and found what I thought was you watching me and telling me to go back to sleep. She kept touching my face and kissed my cheek. And you and I weren't romantically involved at that point, so I was constantly debating over whether or not it was a dream. She was blocking my view of you in your bed."

"Does she still have feelings for you or something?" Rowan said. "A bit convenient on her end that she keeps ending up kissing you."

"I don't know what Melpomene's deal is, never have," Jack said, shaking his head, though the idea that Melpomene had ever had anything resembling genuine feelings for him was one he wanted to reject at once.

"Do we know if there's any other time she's disguised herself as me and interacted with the people I love?" Rowan said. "Is she having lunch with my grandma on Sundays or some shit?"

"Not to my knowledge," Jack said. "Rowan, I'm so sorry that this happened, I—"

"What were you supposed to do, never sleep? Sleep during the day and never spread winter so you lose believers? Assume that it wasn't me in my own apartment, it was a shapeshifter?" Rowan said, shaking her head. "The nightmares sucked, Jack, but every time I was in real physical danger, you got me out of it."

"Well, almost every time," Jack winced.

"What, the thing with the lake?" Rowan said. "What were you supposed to do then? Somehow just know I was across town on ice that was about to break?"

"I know, I guess I just wish things had gone differently," Jack said. He was thrilled to be talking with her again but it was impossible to ignore the fact that she had been dead the past year.

"I mean, I do, too," Rowan said. "But I… well, I knew it was more likely than not that I was going to die when I left the pole. And I know it's—it's like I'm spitting in the face of everything you did to keep me safe, and I'm sorry about that. But I—I couldn't let them attack Jamie."

She was watching him now with pleading eyes, as though begging him to understand why she had done this.

And he did. Jack adored Jamie, and obviously Rowan did as well. That bright boy was the whole reason the two of them had ever fallen into each other's orbit in the first place. Jack would have risked everything to protect Jamie at the first opportunity, there was no question.

"I know," Jack said. "I get why you did it. I wish you hadn't, but I get why you did. And it, uh, it's actually pretty standard 'Rowan' to not be where you're supposed to be."

Rowan opened her mouth to protest and stopped short. "Oh, shit, I did do that a lot."

Jack nodded.

"Okay, but there needs to be a better way to communicate with you guys if things are going wrong and the plan changed," Rowan said. "It's 2013—"

"It's 2014, Rowan."

"Shit. It's 2014, why are you guys still communicating via 'oh hey, Urania, let the Guardians know the meeting's at two' and 'oh the stars seem to say this?' Cell phones! I'm begging you guys!"

"Yeah, that's fair enough," Jack said. There were, in fact, multiple instances over the past year or so that might have gone differently if the Guardians and Muses could have quickly communicated with each other via simple phone call or text message. "I'll mention it to North. We had walkie talkies for Christmas Eve, I'm sure he'd be open to proper phones."

"Okay, good," Rowan said. "So. What happened with Pitch finally?"

"Right, right, Polyhymnia really came through and convinced Daedalus to work with us," Jack said.

Jack explained the plan to get the blueprints back from Pitch, how Melpomene had to pose as Daedalus while Jack played up how angry he had been to discover that Pitch had been giving Rowan nightmares. He explained that he had to distract Pitch while the others disposed of the blueprints, to use his constant anxiety to keep Pitch from picking up on what was actually going on.

He was glad to at least be able to tell her that the plan had worked out well. The blueprints were destroyed, never to be used again.

"You okay?" Rowan said when he finished relaying this story. "You seem like, ashamed to talk about this."

"I don't like how easy it was for me to sell that I had gone off the rails and was out for blood," Jack admitted.

"Oh," Rowan said. "Well, it's Pitch. Of course he's not going to think much of your character."

"Mm, the Muses said I was convincing," Jack shrugged. "Terpsichore said I had swagger."

"Oh, I'm sure you did," Rowan said, rolling her eyes. Jack felt himself caught up in the gesture again. "The important thing is that he doesn't have those plans anymore. And if you had to act pissed off on my behalf to accomplish that, it doesn't seem like a bad trade."

"There wasn't that much acting when it came to being pissed off on your behalf," he said. She smiled and squeezed his hand.

Soon enough, Jack was back to referencing his notes, telling her about dropping by to check on the kids on Thanksgiving and ending up at her parents' house helping Jamie and Sophie with a snow-bunny.

Next came everything with Nightlight. Jack told her everything he could remember both Mr. Qwerty and Cupid telling him about the former Guardian and how jarring it had been to visit the past with Clio and see Nightlight for himself. He told her that he still didn't know what to think about the whole thing, and he still wasn't sure what to think about the fact that the Guardians hadn't really brought Nightlight (or, more importantly, Jack's resemblance to Nightlight) up.

"Did you ever read that book North's got? Is Nightlight mentioned there?" Rowan asked.

"No, I still haven't read it," Jack winced. "He said the retired Guardians are mentioned there, though."

"Maybe we need to look into that, maybe that will give us a hint about why you look so much like Nightlight," Rowan said.

"Maybe," Jack said. It was as good an idea as any, though he was thrown off by Rowan immediately assigning herself to this problem as well. He hadn't expected it, having been agonizing over it so much on his own.

The way she spoke was as though it was a given that she would help with this. Part of him wanted to tell her that this was his problem to sort out, not something for her to fret over.

The part of him that was relieved to know that he wouldn't be alone in trying to sort out the Nightlight problem was bigger.

So, instead, Jack glanced back at his notes. "Oh, your musician friends."

"What about them?" Rowan asked.

"I went to one of their shows and two of them saw me as the ghost of Jack Overland," Jack said with a sigh.

Rowan's eyes widened. "Which two?"

"I don't know their names," Jack said. "One had a beard—"

"Oliver!" Rowan said at once. "He's the only one in the band that can grow a decent beard."

"The other had a lot of tattoos and blue hair," Jack said. Rowan's brow furrowed at this.

"Last time I saw Teddy, his hair was red. But it's gotta be him, he's always changing his hair color, and if I had to guess who in the band was going to see you, I'd pick Teddy, no contest," she said.

"Yeah, well, he threw a marker at me and I panicked and threw it back at them and ran off," Jack said.

"He threw a marker at you?" Rowan repeated.

"Euterpe thinks he wanted to see if it would go through me," Jack said. "And your friends that couldn't see me just saw the marker floating in midair."

"Wait, was Euterpe there?" Rowan asked.

"Yeah, she and Terpsichore invited me. They wanted to see the set and get a shirt because of the band name," he said.

"Oh, right," Rowan said. "It is a good band name. Where did you guys end up seeing them?"

"Some theater in Denver."

"Denver? Oh shit! Did they go on a real tour?"

"Seems like it."

"Aw, I wish I could have gone," Rowan sighed. "I'm glad they're doing more with the band."

"I wish you could have been there, too," Jack said. "It was weird seeing them without you. But there'll be more shows."

Rowan nodded. Jack scanned his notes again.

"I visited you with Clio, too," he said. "I didn't mention that when I was telling you about Nightlight."

"Oh?" Rowan said, brow furrowed.

"You looked like you were about twelve? You were telling Jamie a story," Jack said.

"That doesn't narrow it down," she said with a slight smile.

"You were telling him about, uh, Jack Frost," Jack said.

Her eyes lit up. "Oh! I remember that! It was the first time Aunt Lorelei and Uncle Avery let me babysit. Oh, I got a lot wrong about your powers, didn't I?"

"You got the spirit of it right," Jack said, sparing her a smile.

"There was historical record of that?" Rowan asked.

"The teeth that Tooth and her fairies collect count as historical records, that's where that's from," Jack said. "Clio took me to see my sister, too."

"Yeah? How was that, seeing her again?" Rowan asked.

"It was weird. It—I know it doesn't make any sense, but I never really thought about her being an adult or anything," Jack said.

"I mean, how old was she when you last saw her?" Rowan asked.

"Ten," said Jack. "So, ever since I got my memories back, I always thought of her being ten."

"Well, that does make sense," Rowan said.

"She got married, she had kids. She named her son after me," Jack said.

"That's sweet," Rowan said, squeezing his hand again.

"I just feel guilty that I wasn't around because I couldn't remember," Jack said. "And now I know she exists and it's too late to keep an eye on her."

"You kept an eye on her for ten years," Rowan pointed out. "Is she maybe buried in the old cemetery? You might be able to still visit her now, I know it's not the same…"

"No, I checked after I got my memories back, I—" Jack stopped suddenly, eyes widening as he realized something. "I'm an idiot."

"Huh?" Rowan said.

"When I checked the old cemetery, I was looking for Mary Overland," Jack said. "And Overland—"

"—is her maiden name," Rowan said at once.

"If she's there, her headstone would say Mary Chadwick," Jack said. "Of course I didn't find her, I wasn't even looking for the right name."

"Well, you didn't know she was married," Rowan said. "And now you do. We can go look again when the light's better."

"Oh, Burgess is crawling with paranormal investigators right now," Jack said, wincing slightly. "I, uh, messed with them the first day they showed up, but I've been avoiding them ever since. I spent years hoping someone would see me and now it's kind of inconvenient when I'm just trying to get from one place to another."

"Really?" Rowan said. "Why are they—did the ghost story really catch on that much?"

"Yeah, and it's your anniversary, so a bunch of them showed up with cameras and shit a few days ago," Jack said. "I know they were hanging around your grave, I don't know if they bothered with the old cemetery, I don't have a grave or anything."

"My grave. Right," Rowan frowned.

"We can check out both cemeteries once this has died down a bit," Jack said. "If you want to see your grave at all."

"I guess I have to at some point," she winced. He squeezed her hand and she cast him a half-hearted smile. "Did you visit anyone else when Clio was showing you historical records?"

"No, that was it," Jack said, turning the page of his notebook. "Next is Christmas Eve—Oh, I forgot to mention, North and Erato are a thing now."

"Really?" Rowan said, raising a brow. "Does that make more sense if you've been here the past year?"

"Yes," Jack said with a nod.

"Okay," Rowan shrugged. "You know them better than I do."

"Yeah, they seem happy," Jack said. "Anyway, North invited me along for his rounds on Christmas Eve."

"Living every kid's dream," Rowan said, managing another smile. "Did he give you another shot at driving the sleigh or was there too much of a time crunch?"

"He actually made me drive the entire time so I had no choice but to get better at it," Jack said. "So, yeah, take that, Sawyer, I can drive the sleigh now. I've got a whole Christmas Eve's worth of driving experience."

"Mm," Rowan said with a slight shrug. "But you still don't know how to drive a car, do you Frost?"

Jack's smile took on that sentimental quality again at this comment.

"Technicalities," he said.

He told her all about the Christmas Eve rounds, answered questions she had been wondering about since she was a small child about how North managed the impressive feat of delivering all those gifts in a single evening. It reminded Jack of the first night they had properly met, all the questions Rowan had asked about him and the other Guardians, all the notes she had taken as they talked.

He told her about Christmas day, about finding out that he had made the Nice List that year, to which Rowan defiantly declared that it was a fluke and she was going to keep calling him "Naughty List" for the foreseeable future. Jack found this more comforting than he cared to admit.

Next was the ball. Jack told her about his relief that the suit that Arachne had provided him this time didn't have a tie, and his original plan not to spend more than an hour and a half at the ball. He told her about hiding out in one of the guest rooms with Cupid, Urania, Euterpe, and Terpsichore, how it had been a nicer experience than he had originally expected.

Then Apollo and Manny showed up, and Jack told her about this, too, about the awkward attempts to lie and save face around Apollo, about the discomfort he now had about Manny. He told her about the Slaughterhouse Five performing, about the Ghost Stories being coaxed into participating in the number.

"I thought about you all night," Jack said. "The ball was definitely more fun when I went with you."

"Well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself for at least part of it," Rowan said. "Did you finally get to leave after talking to Manny and Apollo?"

"Yeah, finally," Jack said. He turned the page, finding that he had finally hit nothing but blank pages. "And that should be it. This month has been a lot of feeling nervous about today, meeting with the Muses to figure out what to do if you came back, North doing renovations on the cabin, and the paranormal investigators showing up."

"A lot happens in a year," Rowan frowned, glancing out the window where the nearby trees were cast in darkness and snow fell quietly, catching the limited light that was spilling out from the cabin. "I—it still doesn't feel like this is real. I keep wanting to reject it because I remember seeing you off before you went with the others to fight the Shadow People and it feels like that was—like it was yesterday."

"Yeah, that's gotta be… jarring," Jack said, setting his journal back in the drawer he had retrieved it from.

Rowan turned from the window, gaze back to him. "What now?"

Jack frowned. What now, indeed?

He had told her multiple times that day to take this impossible situation one thing at a time. He told her everything that she had missed in the year that she had not been part of this plane of existence. What was the next thing?

"I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted," Jack said. His pulse had finally returned to something resembling normal. All the adrenaline of the day was wearing off, and the recap of the year had been more emotionally taxing than he would have liked.

Rowan nodded. "I am too. I just feel like I need to—to be doing something, anything, to make this make sense, but I don't know what that something is and I'm so tired."

"We'll get some sleep, then, and look at this again tomorrow, okay?" Jack said. "Whatever comes next, we'll figure it out."

"Okay," Rowan said.

"I, um, I can go to the couch if your body feels too weird—"

Jack barely had a chance to gesture to the edge of the loft before Rowan shook her head and said, "No. No, please stay here and—and hold my hand? I don't want to be by myself."

Jack nodded. "Okay, yeah, I can do that."

"Okay. Okay, thank you," Rowan said through a heavy sigh of relief. She stood from her spot on the bed so that she could properly pull back the blankets. Jack turned to the nearby light switches, rubbing his tired eyes with one hand and hitting the switches with the other.

"Jack," came Rowan's voice, in clear panic, the moment the last light went out. "Put it back, put it back, please."

Brow furrowed, Jack hit the last switch again, the fireplace coming back to life, the light dim and soft. Jack eyed Rowan, the girl sitting upright in the bed, eyes wide, trembling.

"The—the North Pole, the room never got that dark, the fireplace was always going—" She was speaking quickly, eyes brimming with tears again. "And—and last—that night in Burgess, the moon was full, the dream sand was everywhere, I—the last time it was that dark—"

"Do you want more lights or is this enough?" Jack asked, wincing at her words.

He had assumed correctly, that Apollo had only healed her physical symptoms from the night she was attacked and fed on by the Shadow People. All the anxiety, all the trauma, it was all still there.

"This is fine, this is fine," she said, forcing deep breaths.

Jack climbed back on the bed, atop the covers, so that he could properly look her in the eye.

"You're safe here," he said. "North put a dozen more enchantments on this place. There's not enough Shadow People left to do anything to you. And even if there were, you're not the Mortal Muse anymore. You're not a target anymore. You're safe."

Rowan nodded, wiping her eyes as she had done countless times that day already. For a moment they sat, breathing slowly, deeply, her eyes on his rising and falling chest.

Jack gestured for her to lie down and she did so, still forcing deep breaths. She turned to her side to watch him as he settled down on his side of the bed.

The space between them felt bigger than it was.

He set his hand between the two of them, palm facing up. She reached over, hand visibly trembling, and set her hand in his.

"I love you," Jack said.

"I love you," Rowan said. "I'm glad you're here."

He watched her in the dim light, only daring to close his eyes when her breathing came to that steady place that only came with sleep.