Couple notes:

My mental health is as bad as it's been since 2012, and while that sometimes makes me write up a storm, it sometimes just kills my creativity and motivation and that's what happened here.

Secondly, I was exposed to COVID-19 at work on the 19th, so 10 more days until I am in the clear. Being home away from work should also make me more productive, but I'm quarantined with my folks and we are all on top of each other. When I was 16 I was brave enough to write fanfic with them right there, but 27 year old me is a coward. XD. I will try to get another update up this week, though! Thank you to everyone still reading and reviewing. The "thirdly" will come at the end of this chapter.


Paige felt as if time was flying and dragging on at the same time.

She missed Amber. She missed home, her own bed. She hated not being there to figure out what was going to happen with her marriage. But at the same time, each day that went by was a day closer to when she left her son. Again. For so many years it had just been the two of them, and now they were always saying goodbye. She knew things changed. She knew people moved away and moved on. But she missed the days that they were all together: her, Walter, Ralph, Amber, Happy, Toby, Tad, Ellie, Florence, and Sylvester. The couple months after Amber's birth before Ralph and Patty had left for good had been the happiest of Paige's life. It occurred to her that even if Tilly survived – and odds were good at this point – they might all not ever be together, in one place, ever. That made Paige almost as sad as each passing day, that brought her closer to another goodbye.

Each day that passed also meant the odds of Meg Mitchell being found alive grew slimmer.

"We're going to the student building," Ralph said. They were in his and Patty's and Daisy's apartment. Paige was on her laptop. It had been good to see Amber. The little girl had been delighted when her brother had joined in on the Skype call. She barely knew Patty, but had waved politely and said hello when Walter prompted her.

"Okay," she said, nodding at her son. "I'm going to go back to the hotel and take a nap."

"You can nap here, Mrs. O'Brien," Daisy said. "This couch pops right out; it's actually pretty comfy. Like, not even for a sofa, it's legit comfy."

"Please stay, Mom," Ralph said. "You're leaving so soon. We'll make dinner when I get home."


"That backpack they found wasn't hers," said Peter McClosky, a TA who was known for being strict and unhelpful, but who had been surprisingly forthcoming with assistance since Meg Mitchell's disappearance. Some of the message boards were accusing him of being involved. The perp always wants to help with the search, declared MyCrimeObsession0608. He. Has. An Alibi. I am so sick of people chasing down something they want to be the case when the evidence proves otherwise. Why am I even still on these message boards with you dumb novices, retorted the ironically named thehusbanddidit.

It was true, of course, that Peter was not the one who had caused Meg to disappear. He was with a the professor he TA'd for during the concert, and the two of them were on a Skype call with other professors teaching the same class across the state. He had nine separate people – and the recorded video – as an alibi. Then, during the night, multiple people had seen him at the window of his first floor graduate dorm room, reading. Dorm surveillance proved he hadn't left until the next day. He was clear. But pages and pages of posts accusing him were on every site, every comment section, and cries that the accusations of someone who couldn't be the answer were muddying up potentially good info were lost in the pandemonium.

"How do they know it wasn't hers?" Asked Quinn, the student who had cried in the hotel room during the initial news report.

"The backpack they found was from a different manufacturer. It also had personal effects in it that didn't match what she was known to own. So now it's on one of the lost and found pages," Peter said.

"Three more people got released from the hospital today," said Darley Jansen. He himself had been released the previous day. He read off the names of the newly discharged. "That leaves…how many still in there, let's see…"

"Too many," Daisy said.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Patty joked.

"This is serious, Patricia," snapped Mara.

"She was just giving me a hard time," Daisy said. "She didn't mean to be flippant."

"No, it was the wrong time, sorry, Mara," Patty said. She sounded as if she wasn't sorry, but felt apologizing was the right thing to do. Mara seemed to detect that, but she smiled anyway. "Thank you."

Jessica White, a fifth year senior, noticed her boot was untied. She reached down and tightened the laces. Frowning, she untied them and then tied them again.

"They're doing a grid search of the fields outside of campus, but really they're looking for footprints or something that was dropped. She isn't out there, that much they're pretty sure of." Mara folded her arms. "They told me not to go out there with them. I could search just as well as the rest."

Tuck, a freshman who was active on the message boards, spoke up. "They usually discourage the loved ones from taking part in the search because they don't want them to have to-"

"Find her. Or him. Them. The victim. I know." Mara bit her lip. "Her dad is flying in in the morning. They'll be hard pressed to stop him from taking part."

"I get it," Jessica said. "Wanting to search. Even if you know it's best you let the more experienced do their jobs, when there's basically untrained volunteers out there, it's hard to understand why you aren't joining in yourself. I understand that."

"No one can possibly understand what they're going through right now," said Tuck.

"No, not exactly what they're going through, but my…" Jessica let out a breath, slowly, through a small gap in her lips. "My little brother went missing. Eleven years ago this winter."

"I'm so sorry, Jess," Daisy said.

"Oh gosh," Tuck said, crossing his right ankle over his left. "Was he older or younger than you?"

"Younger. I was twelve, he was eight. We were playing at a campsite. I went back to the camp fire, my dad and mom were gathering wood, he…he must have wandered off, or…or…we don't know. We started the search so fast. There wasn't a trace of him."

"Holy shit," said Peter.

"Were there ever any leads at all?" asked Patty.

"Super rarely. There was a still from a film people said was him, you know, like how they say the Lady of the Dunes was an extra in Jaws. But they tracked that kid down. Found out who he was. Once they busted up a…a bad place. He wasn't there either. That I'm glad of." Jessica pulled her knees up to her chest. "The parents still do public appeals for information on the anniversary. Occasionally at other times; his eighteenth birthday last year. The police will reveal new sketches every few years, saying what he might look like now. But they still mention what he was last seen wearing, as if he'd still be out there, nineteen years old, wearing a little Lego Movie tee shirt, red jacket, jean shorts, and white and black Nikes, size two." She grew quiet.

"That must be hard," Ralph said. "Having to keep going public like that."

"Honestly?" Jessica said. "The worst part has been those new drawings. We have memories of him the first eight years. Experiences. Now? We have nothing but age progressions. We've watched him grow up on missing person flyers and billboards."

That hit Ralph harder than anything that had been said since Meg's disappearance became public. He excused himself to the bathroom and stood at the sink, his head tucked to his chest.


Thirdly, I hate everyone being split up as much as Paige does. The team will be back together soon!