Note: Finally, here is the next chapter! Finished it on a long drive home today. Sorry for the delay, birthday celebrations got a little in the way :) I was also thinking a lot about which direction to go with certain aspects, and what to cover with this chapter, as well as rewatching the new film. Still haven't made my way through the book though :p I suck. Thank you once again, *very much*, to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review - it really makes me happy that people are enjoying this AU rewrite and I hope you continue to like it! Let me know what you think :D

These streets are yours
You can keep them
I don't want them
They pull me back and I surrender
To the memories I run from
Oh, we have paved these streets
With moments of defeat...
- These Streets, Bastille

Tasty, tasty children... tasty, tasty fear...

The clown hummed to himself, singing the words over and over in his head as he made his way back down to the central cavern. He was returning from a birthday party, where he'd made himself the guest of honour and dragged five little girls to their doom in the sewers. It was surprising what children would believe for the sake of a balloon or two, and even more surprising that parents would leave their children alone in the middle of a forest to have a tea party. Now, he cheerfully dragged their bodies back, holding each tiny wrist in his gloved hand like so many stringed balloons.

He giggled to himself.

At least two of the girls were dead, the other three were barely alive. They would recover a little while they floated, and later make a good snack in between his ongoing hunt for fresh prey. Their fear had been so very delicious, but it was raw in the sense that it hadn't be cultivated properly. He was still testing the limits of his newly developed power, which was growing steadily in response to the echoes of fear reverberating across the small planet. The last time he'd awoke, less powerful than he was now, he'd made sure to torture his prey for several days, scaring them in small doses at a time but letting them escape, so that when he finally came to take them they would feel the maximum fear. It was a strategy that had been going pretty well that summer, until his encounter with the Losers.

He growled, just at the thought of those annoying children. Then he remembered his captive, and suddenly felt a bit brighter. He'd been so hungry upon awakening that he didn't have time to check on the meal he'd been saving for 28 years. But now he could spend some time assessing how his experiment had gone, and hopefully have himself a most satisfying dessert.

The cavern opened up before him as he entered, and he looked with pride upon his towering pile of souvenirs. The work of several hundred years, and he remembered every victim vividly. His eyes scanned the floating bodies for his most prized possession, and narrowed when he couldn't locate it. A muffled noise ahead of him drew his attention downwards once more, and he dropped his latest catch in pure shock. The bodies splashed into the shallow water, like discarded toys.

In the wreckage of his old circus carriage, curled up in front of the hellish flaming backdrop, was exactly the possession he'd been searching for. A mop of ratty brown hair buried in his knees, Bill Denbrough had his arms wrapped around his legs, the remnants of his jeans torn and frayed like his dirty raglan tee. He was sobbing, his thin shoulders shaking, and somehow it offended Pennywise that the boy hadn't noticed his presence. He approached carefully, eyes never leaving his dreaded enemy. As he got nearer, the boy looked up, as if sensing his presence. His clouded green eyes focused on the clown, and he shrieked, scooting backwards into the worn wooden backdrop of the carriage. His back slammed against it, and he looked around, wide-eyed, for an escape.

Pennywise seized his chance, and swooped in until his face was inches from the boy's. Bill stopped dead, frozen, eyes scanning the clown as if searching for something.

"You're not real," he rasped, breathing heavily. He sounded as if he wanted to really believe that was true. Pennywise scowled.

"Oh, I'm real enough for you now, Billy boy," he drawled, placing both gloved hands on the wooden wall either side of Bill, to stop him from escaping. But beneath his unaffected veneer, he was disturbed. He had suspended the boy for 28 years, in both space and time. And yet somehow the boy in front of him, who should have been the same thirteen year old from 1989, had clearly aged. Maybe only a few years, maybe a little more, but he was definitely older. And that meant that his old nemesis, William Denbrough, had managed to wriggle his slimy way out, if only partly, of the wonderful cage that Pennywise had built just for him.

"No, you're just a nightmare, like all the rest," Bill cried, covering his face with his hands. He was clearly terrified, and yet at the same time convinced that none of what was happening was real. Which meant that at some point in the last 28 years, he'd realised something about the nature of his torture. Maybe it hadn't worked as well as Pennywise had hoped. There was one way to find out though, whether his choice all those years ago had been worth it.

He breathed in, sensing the aura around Bill, and smelling an intense aroma of fear such that he'd never detected before. His teeth rippled and he wrapped one hand around the back of the boy's neck to pull him closer, sinking his teeth into the welcoming flesh. Bill screamed and tried to push him away, unsuccessfully. As the blood flowed, Pennywise was momentarily blinded by the taste, and then as he became aware again he realised that Bill had indeed become the most delicious prey he'd ever tasted in his entire existence. The fear was so matured in him, and so much a part of who he was now, that it defined him. But there was something else there too, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. A darkness, something distant and shrouded and ominous.

Then, suddenly, Pennywise was standing on a boat in a storm, lightning flashing around him and the air thick with sea spray, staring through Bill's eyes towards a horrified brown-haired man with a prosthetic right arm.

Georgie!

Pennywise jolted back, away from Bill, teeth dripping with blood but eyes filled with a most unpleasant and rare emotion for the clown: fear. How had Bill gained power over the mindscape? The boy moaned, his hands grasping at his bloodied neck, curling up again away from Pennywise. Pennywise suddenly grew suspicious of another old nemesis that he'd long since dismissed, but surely there would be no interference here by that one... Unsettled, he observed the trembling heap.

Maybe he could use this.

Yes, that was what he should do. There was no need to be afraid of Bill, he was his, after all. No one would be coming to rescue him. And the foolish Losers were on their way back here, he could sense that much. They still didn't remember everything, and certainly not the fact that they'd left their beloved leader behind in the sewers to rot for the last few decades. He would use Bill alongside his own power, to take down the Losers, and then once they were disposed of for good, he would savour Bill as his final meal before returning to slumber for another 27 years or so.

"Yes, yes," he nodded to himself, grinning again, a maniacal gleam in his eyes. He would set Bill loose in the mindscape of the Losers, so that while they slept, he would terrorise them with the memories of his nightmares. And then when they awoke, Pennywise would be there to remind them that they never stood a chance at all. He'd drive them mad, completely nuts, and then when they didn't know what was real or imaginary anymore, he'd attack them with their worst fears and then devour them. No more Losers, only a seven-course meal that had been three decades in the making.

He waved his hand, and the agitated Bill slumped to the ground, unconscious. Pennywise quickly forged the links between his mind and the Losers, so that Bill's consciousness could move easily between each of the Losers' sleeping minds. It wasn't hard to do, actually. After all this time the eight of them were still connected by the faintest of threads. The memories of Bill Denbrough were buried somewhere in the Losers' sleeping subconsciouses, for as much power as Pennywise had, he could not have removed Bill entirely from their hearts.

The whole situation had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated, but Bill's unexpected powers combined with the boy's instability and confusion could be worked to his advantage. Pennywise prided himself on his adaptability, after all. The humans had changed a lot over the years, developing their lives in surprising ways. The centuries looked very little like each other, and now was the golden age of technology. All those emotions translated into electromagnetic signals, criss-crossing through the air like invisible contrails. But deep down, humanity was always the same.

Fear always won.

It was funny how, after these many years, a place could still be so familiar. As much as George had tried, subconsciously or not, to forget Derry, his return to the town had awakened a deep nostalgia as he walked down the roads that had once seemed so wide. The trees had surely shrunk in the last years, because he could only remember them towering over him.

Without even thinking too hard, he found himself standing outside his old house. It had long ago become the house of a stranger, when his family moved away to Washington during his high school years. The house had always seemed too big for them anyway, with all those empty rooms. Being an only child had been pretty lonely, and he'd often wished for a sibling but it just never happened. After the attack, and the months he was missing, and the loss of his arm, his parents had always seemed on edge, waiting for another bad thing to happen or more bad news, no matter how much he tried to convince them it was fine now.

He stared up at the window that had been the spare room, now sheathed with a lace curtain that hid the contents from view. And somehow he had the weird feeling of staring up at that window before, the day it happened. Of waving up at the window, even though there couldn't have been anything or anyone to wave to. No, he had waved to his dad standing on the front porch, even though the thought of his dad allowing him out in such weather seemed kind of odd in retrospect.

Lost in his foggy memory, George looked from the porch down to the curbside, following the ghost of the old waxed boat down the street. In reality, it was an almost warm sunny day in autumn, with the late afternoon sun shining down through the red falling leaves. But in George's mind, all he saw was the rain pelting down and the flimsy paper boat running further and further ahead of him.

He followed it through the streets, ironically dodging the same orange Derry Public Works signs but not in the same locations. And then there he was, standing across from that sewer, watching with horror as his boat stalled, stuttered, and then floated down into the darkness of the drain.

Even now, as an adult, it was difficult for him to look too closely into the shadows of a drain entry, for the fear of what he might find there. Stupid, really. Or so he had thought for the last several years of amnesic ignorance. And as it had dragged him down into the darkness, he remembered screaming one last word.

Billy!

George blinked in confusion. No, that hadn't been the word. Why would he even...?

Help me!

He was pretty sure after all, that he'd yelled for help. But his cries had been lost to the rain. At least that was what he chose to believe, rather than the dark alternative. He'd always wondered if the darkness in Derry came from the creature, or if it was the other way around.

"Hiya Georgie!"

A pit sunk in his stomach. He raised his gaze reluctantly, hoping he wouldn't see the face he knew that voice belonged to. Bright silver eyes flashed in the darkness, and red lips widened to grin at him. A gloved hand waved a falsely cheerful hello. He looked around helplessly, hoping to find someone else to verify that there was, indeed, a clown in the sewer. But the streets were deserted. He was alone.

"Aren't ya gonna say hello?" Pennywise smiled darkly at him.

"So you are back," George finally managed weakly, his stomach churning. He was ashamed at the effect that the clown had on him, even now.

"What? I can't hear you... maybe you should come a little closer." The malevolent eyes gleamed at him from the drain. "I promise I won't bite... this time."

George winced, the memory of his arm being torn off suddenly fresh in his mind.

"You want your arm back?" Pennywise mocked, giggling. As George watched, the clown raised his hand to reveal a small child's arm in its clutches, the skin dark with trails of blood and a horrid stub of bone poking out the end.

"N-no thanks," George said, feeling ridiculous responding to the creature. What could he even say to that anyway?

Pennywise's eyes narrowed maliciously, teeth showing. A sharp pain on George's right made him look down, and he choked back a cry at the sight of a torn bloody limb poking out of his ripped shirt. His artificial arm was nowhere to be seen, and the pain was as vivid as the day it happened. The blood dripped thickly from the severed limb, pooling on the asphalt.

George dropped to his knees, clutching his arm, blinded by the pain. Suddenly, just like he did that stormy day, he felt completely and utterly alone, helpless, and such a fool. All that for a paper boat? Why had he been so scared of losing it anyway? Who would care?

"Who indeed..." Pennywise cocked his head, clearly fascinated. "You know, I thought you Losers would be more effort, but you're even weaker than you were last time. He really was your strongest link."

George looked at the clown in confusion, distracted from the pain of his arm.

"Who was?"

Pennywise just laughed, an unearthly raspy sound that made George's skin crawl.

"I could take you right now, Georgie, no one would even notice. Just like old times. One down, six to go, what do you say?" His eyes flashed yellow for a split second, and his mouth widened. George knew he should get up, knew he should turn and run away, but he was frozen to the spot, on his knees staring at the clown as it bared its teeth at him.

Why am I not running?

He tried to will himself to get up, seeing the clown begin to mangle his way out of the drain towards him, twisting limbs in directions that shouldn't be physically possible. Was it really going to end right here, only hours after getting off the plane? After his optimistic hopes of contributing this time to the effort of defeating Pennywise once and for all?

"Give in, Georgie," drawled the clown, licking his lips. "It's not like you were meant to be around anyway."

Huh?

"GEORGE!" shouted a voice. Suddenly someone was pulling him up from the ground, and there was honking, and screeching tires. George blinked and looked around him, surprised to find himself being dragged off the road by a very familiar someone with warm brown eyes and dark curly hair. He'd aged, but it was still obviously the same person underneath the passing years.

"Mike?"

"What on earth were you doing sitting in the middle of the road?" Mike demanded. A couple walking their corgi looked sideways at them as they passed. "Are you crazy?"

"Maybe," George murmured, looking back at the now empty drain. "I thought I saw..."

"It," Mike confirmed, suddenly understanding. "Yeah... it showed itself to me too. Always the bloody balloons." He shuddered a little.

They were safely on the pavement now, but George couldn't help a darting glance back to the sewer. And sure enough, there was a yellow balloon floating where the clown had been, covered in blood stains. A parting gift from the clown to him: it was the exact same colour as his raincoat had been that stormy afternoon. He looked to Mike, if only to ascertain that he wasn't mad, that there was really a balloon there. Mike's grim face told him all he needed to know.

"Let's get out of here," Mike said, eyes on the balloon. "To my place."

It wasn't a long walk to the side of town where Mike lived, and George had to bite his tongue against the observation he almost said out loud: this had always been the poor side of town. They came to a stop outside a rundown wooden house, which had long since required maintenance. The plants in the front yard were overgrown, and everything seemed worn and tired, not totally unlike Mike himself. As if he heard George's thoughts, Mike smiled self-deprecatingly.

"I know, it's not much to look at. I've been meaning to do some work on it for a while, but things always seem to come up..."

"You never left?" George suddenly was more aware of the fact that Mike had been the only one of them who stayed in Derry. Maybe that was why he'd been the only one to truly remember everything.

"Nah... one of us had to keep watch right?" he joked, but the smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "After what happened with Henry... I don't know, George. I guess I felt like I belonged here, and only here."

George felt a strange mix of sadness and regret, and shame that he'd not looked back once after leaving. While Mike had been here the whole time, never ever leaving their childhood behind, he'd been off living what felt suddenly like a foreign life belonging to a stranger. He'd been lecturing on chaos theory less than 48 hours ago but that felt much longer in the past. And it seemed so trivial, like he'd been living half-awake without ever knowing it. In leaving Derry and the memories of the town behind, he'd lost part of who he was. He reached out and put his hand on Mike's shoulder.

"I'm really sorry, Mike," he said sombrely. "I wish I'd been there for you like you guys were for me when I was a kid."

Mike smiled again, more genuinely this time.

"It's okay, Georgie," he said, slipping once again back to the old name despite his previous efforts. "I make a pretty good librarian as it turns out."

He opened the door and let George in, leading him to the kitchen. Inside, the house was much better kept. Everything was old, but there wasn't much dirt or dust to be seen. He'd kept it fairly tidy, but it was also very minimalistic. There were no photos or trinkets, like the ones that were normally scattered throughout homes. Mike had evidently lived quite a solitary life, staying guard at the mouth of hell waiting for the creature to resurface. It seemed like this mission had ended up defining his entire life.

George accepted the light beer Mike offered, and took a seat at the small table in the kitchen area. They clinked their bottles, cheering to their reunion despite the circumstances.

"It's weird being back," George admitted, swigging from his bottle. "If not for your call, I don't think I would have ever returned."

"Derry has that effect somehow," Mike agreed. "It was our whole world as kids, it was everything. But you grow up, and suddenly the world seems a lot bigger. And memories fade faster here. I've never known if it was the effect of Pennywise, or some odd quirk of this town."

"Yeah, I wonder what brought It here as opposed to anywhere else in the world..." George stared into the beer bottle, at the foamy amber liquid inside. He found himself also wondering how different the town, and their lives, might have been been if the clown had chosen another town than Derry. He suddenly remembered the strange things that the clown had said to him.

"Hey, has Pennywise said anything odd to you?" he asked Mike.

"Has he ever said anything sensible?" Mike laughed. When he saw that George was serious, his expression changed to concerned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, just some things that I didn't quite understand. Like, that I wasn't meant to be around... and he seemed to talk about someone I should know, but didn't."

"Maybe he was just messing with you?" Mike shrugged. "He hasn't said anything like that to me." He paused, in thought.

Suddenly he clicked his fingers, and gestured for George to follow him. "Now that I think about it, something odd did happen about a month ago."

George followed Mike out to his backyard, which was possibly even more overgrown than the front. A small haphazard shed, seemingly self-assembled, was the goal Mike was walking towards. He opened the wooden door, reached inside and wheeled something out. George's brow furrowed in confusion at the item Mike brandished with an expectant look on his face.

It was a very old bicycle, rusting in places where it used to be silver, with a black cracked leather seat that had clearly seen a lot of use. It looked like a child's bicycle, but was a little large even for an average-sized teenager. And if it was supposed to ring a bell for George... it didn't. Even though he has a vague feeling deep down that it should.

"Anything?" Mike asked hopefully. George slowly shook his head, staring at the large lettered emblazoned on the side: SILVER. The bike's name? The company that made it?

"Sorry, Mike. What is it?"

"I don't know. I saw it in a thrift shop for $20 and something made me buy it. I thought maybe it had belonged to one of us, but I don't think that's the case. Especially if you don't recognise it either... and yet something tells me this bicycle was, and maybe still is, important."

He grimaced, looking down at the bicycle. "Or maybe it's just another red herring... I never know anymore. Maybe one of the others will recognise it."

He wheeled it back carefully into the shed and shut the door behind it.

"Well then, we've got a couple hours before dinner, wanna take a look around the old town?"

"Sure," George smiled, for a moment feeling like he was actually just here in Derry visiting a childhood friend rather than the darker truth of it all. Here, in the cool fading sunlight, it was easy to believe there was no Pennywise and no final showdown heading their way. That tonight's dinner at Jim's with all the rest was just for fun, just the gathering of old friends reminiscing about the past over the town's best pizza and pasta.

If only it were that simple.

But at least for the next few hours, George resolved to pretend it was. He pushed down the feeling in his chest that the strange words of Pennywise meant something, that the bicycle meant something, that he'd had forgotten something so very important that was right there, on the edge of his memory. That he needed to remember it urgently, for all of their sakes.

But what?