Note: Hello again! Here is the next chapter, a little shorter this time. Originally I planned to go a bit further in time during this chapter, but I think it is best deferred to the next one. Means you get an update sooner! This is quite a dark chapter, dark themes... so please note that. I stand by George's stance in this chapter, and if anyone out there ever feels the darkness is too heavy, please talk to someone. There's no such thing as a way out, only a way forward. I really believe that. Thank you everyone for the reviews from last chapter, and for following this story, I will do my best to keep updating as soon as I can!

It always came back to this place, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

Just like every time before, he found himself separated from his friends, alone and lost in the sewers with only the rancid smell and the threat of impending doom to keep him company. He was weighed down by the knowledge that she was coming for him, that It was coming for him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He hated feeling so powerless, not like his friends who always seem to rise up and fight back in the face of danger. He just tried to run away, and in doing so ran headfirst into the beckoning embrace of the dark evil that lived in Derry's haunted depths.

He heard her tortured call, as always, spun his flashlight around trying to stun her or even just spot her before she found him, but there was only the empty dripping sewer. He called for his friends, a plaintive cry for help that echoed off the walls around him. Why did they have to come down here in the first place? What was he trying to prove by chasing the ghost of his brother down here?

Whose brother?

He was grabbed from behind, flung against the wall before he could process the strange thought any further, then he felt her clawed fingernails grip his shirt and throw him downwards, until he was lying on his back in a pool of cold water, feeling it seep into his clothing as he scrunched his eyes tight against the reality that he had been caught, that this sewer would be his demise. He dared a peek through his eyes at her, saw her gaunt mangled face leering down at him as she pinned him to the floor. Saw the mouth open, teeth bared in endless rows as they lowered towards his face.

He screamed, as loud as he could, desperate for anyone to hear him and save him from this creature. His fear only worked against him in this case, making the monster behind the mask even more pleased. He felt the tears leaking down his face, heard his own wailing in his ears, and knew this was it, this was the end for him. His vision was blurring from the tears of terror and panic, but as he looked around wildly for an escape, he suddenly spotted a figure standing to the side, in the shadows of the cistern. A tall, lanky figure, whose face he couldn't quite make out properly but somehow seemed familiar. The figure saw him watching, stepped forward shakily, and suddenly the light illuminated a dirt-streaked face with dark green eyes and ratty brown hair. A face that, in his heart, he knew, even though it had changed. The figure held out a hand towards him, trembling, as the woman from the painting leaned further towards him, teeth dripping with saliva onto his face.

"BILL!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, with all the energy he had, but the figure just dropped to his knees, defeated, curling up in a ball and rocking. Was this person named Bill? Why wouldn't he help him? If he would only stop the creature, then they could both escape from this wretched place...

But then his view of the other was blocked by the woman descending on him, her mouth full of teeth opening wide to the size of his face, the smell of rotting flesh and blood filling his nostrils. He screamed again as the razor-sharp teeth pierced his skin, tracing a circle of blinding pain around his face as she tore into his flesh. He felt the hot blood seeping from the wounds, couldn't see anything but the darkness of her cavernous mouth. He felt himself beginning to pass out, cried out once more for help that would never come.

She pressed down further, her teeth ripping further into his face which felt like it was on fire from the pain. Yes, this was what happened when you tried to fight It. This was the end result, every time. He should have known better. Why hadn't he learnt by now?

The darkness was warm and encompassing and safe, and he welcomed it, knowing this was his fate all along.

George woke with a start, his heart racing, unsure why he has suddenly been stirred from what had been a relatively deep sleep. He had been dreaming about his old house here in Derry, and strangely enough, of a figurine of a turtle that he had built out of green blocks as a child. He didn't know why, but somehow that had seemed important.

Now that he was awake, something felt very wrong. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, and he wondered if he would look around his room to find the clown sitting across from him. But, despite his fears, there was nothing else in his small hotel room. It was dark and still. And yet the feeling of something being wrong could not be shaken.

He thought back to their arrival back at Derry Inn, at the brief conversations that took place before they all went their separate ways. How Bev had hurriedly whispered under her breath to him, promising she would explain tomorrow but desperate for the others not to notice what he had. How the joking offhand tone in Richie's voice didn't quite match the faint despair in his eyes. How Eddie's lighthearted cheer from earlier had been quashed, leaving behind a quiet and solemn demeanour. And while everyone else seemed blind to it, George did not miss the regretful, forlorn look that crossed Ben's face as he watched Bev ascend the stairs, before turning down the hall to his own room. But the one who disturbed him most of all was his closest friend of the old Losers gang, for the look in Stan's eyes as he said goodnight seemed so distant and far away, like he wasn't even there at all. And when George had called after him, checking if he was okay, Stan had just very calmly stated that he was fine, before turning back and heading to his room.

Yes, something had been up with Stan. Maybe that was why he had woken up now, realising they had an unfinished conversation from outside of Jim's, where Stan had been trying to tell him something that he didn't want to hear, too desperate to get back to the delusion of a reunion dinner with friends in the warmth of an old haunt. What a joke that had turned out to be, he should have known Pennywise would show up. George pushed back the covers, pulled on a shirt and resolved to go find out from Stan what really was on his mind... something that seemed like it had been since their first phone call conversation.

He slipped quietly from his room, his socked feet making no sound on the carpeted hallway floor as he made his way to the room belonging to Stan. They'd exchanged all their room numbers before separating, to ensure they could find each other if needed. Mobile phones were great and all, but sometimes physically finding someone was necessary. Once outside the door, he leaned his ear against it, trying to hear any noises inside. It was completely silent, and he wondered if it was really a good idea after all to wake his friend for no reason. But he was here, and there was seemingly something upsetting Stan that they needed to discuss, so he decided to knock, tapping quietly on the wooden frame.

There was no response.

"Stan?" George said in a low voice, trying to be as quiet as possible so he wouldn't wake anyone else in the near vicinity. Still, nothing. He knocked a little louder. Loud enough that even someone sleeping in the room should be stirred from their sleep. And yet, there was still no movement heard on the other side of the door. His heart rate rising a little in concern for his friend, George tried the door handle. It was locked, of course, as they'd all been sure to be careful. Not that a locked door would really stop Pennywise though. He seemed to be everywhere at once.

What if Pennywise got Stan? The thought was too horrible. George tried again the handle in a slight panic, worried his friend might currently be at the mercy of the demon clown. To his surprise, this time it gave way, and the door swung silently open. He quickly scanned the room, seeing a bed that had been slept in but now empty. The window was shut, so there was nothing to worry about there. There was no one in the room, just Stan's belongings, which only left the small attached bathroom to check. A feeling of dread crept up in his chest as he walked towards the bathroom, where the door was shut but slightly ajar. The inside was faintly illuminated by the light coming in from a window in the bathroom. Somewhere outside, the moon was pretty full to be providing that much light.

His hand shaking a little, George pushed open the door, not sure what he would find on the other side.

"Stan!"

He rushed to the side of his friend, who was sitting on the tiled floor in the near darkness with his back against the wall. In Stan's left hand was a glint of metal, and his right wrist was covered in blood. Stan looked at George with hazy unfocused eyes, as if he were between the dreaming and waking world.

"George...?" he said uncertainly. In a panic, George ripped the small razor blade out of Stan's hand and threw it across the floor, where it clinked into a corner near the bath tub. He grabbed the hanging white hand towel from next to the sink and held it against Stan's wrist, trying both to wipe up the blood and assess how bad the cut was.

"What were you thinking?" George demanded angrily, harsher than he intended, but so furious at Stan for what he had attempted. There was no answer from Stan, who just averted his eyes with cheeks tinted pink.

George pulled back the towel, examining the cut. Fortunately, although there was a fair amount of blood, the cut itself didn't seem too deep and the wound was already beginning to seal itself slightly. It was a jagged zig zag cut, clearly made with a hesitant gesture. Grimacing, George got to his feet and rinsed the towel under warm water, really not liking the way the blood flowed in watered down trails into the sink. Once the towel had been mostly rinsed, though it remained in patches an off-pink colour, he turned back to Stan and gingerly dabbed at the cut to clean it properly. As he did so, it occurred to him that the scene could have been a lot worse had he not arrived when he did.

He sighed.

"Stan," he said again, slightly exasperated, but much softer this time. He started to say something else, then hesitated, not wanting to say the wrong thing. He realised suddenly that this had been why Stan had been so strange and distracted, this was why he'd been so odd outside the restaurant, with this terrible thing weighing on his mind... but he couldn't claim to fully understand why his friend had ended up in a bathroom with a razor. He wrapped the towel around Stan's wrist as a makeshift bandage, racking his brain for the right words.

Before he could say anything, Stan finally looked at him.

"I'm... I'm sorry, George," he said, his voice cracking and the words choking in his throat. His eyes welled up and he used his good hand to wipe at his face, shoulders shaking. George didn't know what else to do but put his arms around his friend, careful to avoid the injured wrist. Stan sobbed into his pyjama shirt, soaking it with tears. George had never seen Stan like this before, but he imagined it wasn't so different to when the others had saved him from a near-death at the hands of Pennywise all those years ago. George obviously hadn't been there, but he'd heard from Eddie months later that Stan had been almost inconsolable, hysterically shouting about how they had abandoned him and left him to die.

"It's okay, Stan," he said gently, holding his friend tight. "You're okay."

"I'm not." Stan pulled back suddenly, his sobbing halting, again wiping at his face with his injured wrist limp at his side. "I'm really not."

"What do you mean?"

"George, I tried to tell you before..." Stan bit his lip, looking ashamed, glancing down at his wrist. "That night when Mike called, when you called... I was halfway to here."

He gestured around him helplessly.

"You were going to...?" George trailed off, too scared to finish the sentence. He couldn't believe that Stan, the most grown-up and mature of the Losers, would really consider leaving them in such a way. Being the youngest, George had always looked up to every one of the Losers, and they in turn had looked out for him, each in their own way. Stan had been one of his closest friends, even going into college. Their friendship had, at least for a while, survived the curse of leaving Derry. It was true that George's time trapped in Pennywise's lair had changed him, made him more suspicious of strangers for sure, but also more observant in general. He often wondered if his ability to observe the world around him and notice things that most people didn't was what had led him into the field of physics and astronomy. And he would be the first to acknowledge that Stan had always been a little on the edge of the group, a little distant, the last to believe that there really was a clown and the first to want out of the situation at every opportunity. But this? George hadn't seen this coming at all.

"I was always the scared one, I know that," Stan admitted quietly. "Everyone made fun of Eddie, for being small and weak and reliant on his pretend medicine, but when it came down to it... I was the most scared of all of us."

"You'd be stupid not to be scared," George said. "Pennywise is more powerful than ever and we still don't really know what we're dealing with. He's not a clown. He's not even remotely human... I'm terrified too, you know that right?"

"You don't seem it," Stan said, some disbelief in his voice. "Not the way I am..."

"I'm scared of Pennywise, I've always been scared of him," George said truthfully, looking Stan directly in the eyes. "I'm scared of what will happen if we don't figure out a way to get an advantage over him, of the ways he plans to keep his promise to make us suffer. I'm scared that, no matter how hard I try, I'm only destined to be a casualty in this stupid game and I'll never be able to help you guys, just like last time. I'm scared of anything happening to any of us, to you... and I'm scared of what he's hiding from us, because I'm pretty sure hidden in those memories is the key to defeating him. But it might also be something we don't want to remember. Something tells me that... whatever it is... it's painful."

Stan's brow furrowed in confusion at the last part, to George's surprise. He didn't expect that kind of reaction to his confessions of fear, but clearly what he had said had triggered something in Stan's mind. His friend took a deep breath, still shaking a little.

"Before I woke up..." he began, looking fearful. "I had the dream again, about when Pennywise got me. As vivid and terrifying as ever, maybe worse than before... the pain seemed so real... but now I think I remember that there was someone else there."

"Someone else?" George repeated, now puzzled. "One of the others?"

"No, not one of us..." Stan shook his head unsurely. "It's so foggy now, I can't really remember. On the one hand I felt like I recognised the person, and on the other... a complete stranger. The same way that I couldn't tell if they were going to help me, or help Pennywise..."

"Hmm," George said, thinking back to his dream on the plane from Sydney. Hadn't there been someone on the boat with him? But then, he had dismissed the figure as Pennywise, which seemed sensible at the time. Especially when the eyes flashed silver, just like the clown's. Maybe there was more to this than just their sleeping minds running overtime.

"I woke up and I was so scared and I just felt like there was no way out," Stan admitted, his eyes on the razor across the floor from them. "I brought it with me... I know that was stupid. It sat in the bottom of my toiletries bag taunting me, and I had this feeling that this was my way out, you know? This was the way it was meant to go."

"No," George interrupted firmly, his hand on Stan's left forearm. "Not as long as I'm around, okay? If you ever even think vaguely of something like this again, you call me? Not just here in Derry, but anytime. Anywhere. You are meant to be here, in this world, alive, got it? This is not the way out. Please... please don't ever do this again..."

He trailed off, his emotions getting the better of him and his eyes welling up a little.

"Thank you," Stan said softly, moving his left hand to grip George's hand tightly. "Thank you for stopping me. The darkness just felt so heavy... but it's not like that with you here."

They sat there in silence for a while, both thinking their own thoughts and both wondering about the mysterious figure they had seen. George personally wondered if it was another trick of Pennywise, that maybe they were playing right into his hands by picking up on the shadowy figure lurking in their dreams. But something else told him it wasn't quite what it seemed, and that maybe this was a genuine clue to the missing pieces of their memories. Something to run by Mike tomorrow, in any case. Their friend would certainly be keen to play detective on this development, and maybe it would fit in to other things he'd uncovered along the way. Maybe it was even connected to the rusty bicycle.

"Hey..." Stan's shaky voice broke into his thoughts.

"Yeah?"

"You... you can't tell anyone about this..." Stan looked at him with pleading eyes. "I don't want the others to know."

George bit his lip, really not liking what his friend was asking of him. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that Stan was completely out of the danger zone, even if he seemed now like he wouldn't try what he had tried. They were going to have some tough times ahead, Pennywise would make sure of it, and there was no guarantee that Stan wouldn't end up feeling like there was no way out again. If the others knew, then they could help keep an eye on him and help keep Stan safe.

"Stan, they should know..."

"No, please George... it's the last thing I need, for them all to worry about me and treat me like... like the weak idiot I am... please..."

"What about your wrist? They'll notice that," George pointed out. The makeshift towel bandage needed to be replaced with a real bandage, even if Stan didn't need stitches. And George wasn't entirely convinced that that was the case, even if the bleeding had slowed a lot.

"I'll wear long sleeves, they won't see," Stan said quickly. "Look, just for now, keep it between us?"

Against his better judgement, George finally nodded.

"Fine... but only on the condition that if you even feel in the slightest the way that you did tonight, you come find me. No matter what time or where we are, okay? Promise?"

Stan nodded hurriedly, the relief showing on his face.

"I have a small first aid kit in my suitcase," he said, gesturing to his room. "I think there are a couple of bandages in that..."

"Okay, I'll grab it," George said, getting to his feet. He eyed the razor briefly before he left the bathroom, but decided it would be fine for the brief interval that he was in the room. He resolved to pocket it before going back to his own room, to at least remove one possible avenue of future self-harm. Back in Stan's room, he spotted the suitcase, and rummaged around in it before finding a small red rimmed package down the side of the case, buried amongst Stan's clothes. He retrieved it, and headed back to help Stan patch his wrist up. But as he crossed the room to re-enter the bathroom, something caught his eye out of Stan's second-floor window.

Something red.

Something floating.

A gift from Pennywise, who it seemed was always watching. And scrawled in messy black writing (or was it dried blood?) was a message, directed at George. He swallowed the lump in his throat, glancing back to the bathroom and hoping to whatever god was out there that it would be gone by the time Stan emerged from the bathroom.

HE'LL FLOAT TOO.

They needed a plan of action against the clown, and they needed it fast. Because currently it felt like Pennywise held all the cards and they were just playing into his hand, like they had all along.

In the wreckage of the old carriage, amidst the time-worn painted flames, the boy once known as Bill Denbrough was sobbing into his arms. What had been a torture for the last many years had suddenly developed into something far more painful. He'd watched his friends die, again and again, for years... but what he didn't realise was that when he had been suspended, the shadows that flitted across his eyes were only the hollowed-out ghosts of his friends and family. As real as it may have seemed to him originally, their cries for help and screams of pain had been missing something. Even though Pennywise had used his powers and tried his best to replicate the Losers, the clown did not and could not truly understand humans, so his constructed nightmares always seemed just a little washed out. It had been part of the reason Bill had figured out he was trapped in a false reality.

Now that Pennywise had connected him to the mindscapes of the Losers, Bill was guest-starring in the nightmares of his actual friends, even if he didn't know it. And so the nightmares had taken on a new darkness, a new level of pain, thanks to the complexity of real human fear. To the point where Bill had, during the nightmare he'd just witnessed of Stan, suddenly wanted to reach out and help his friend, to save him from the terrifying woman from the painting. The worst torture of all, in Bill's mind, was that Pennywise had tricked him once again into believing his friends were still alive, that he was actually seeing them being attacked in his nightmares, when it was all just a falsity that he'd stumbled upon a long time ago. And the greatest irony of all, to the clown's amusement, was that he was utterly wrong, and that these were his friends' nightmares, not his own.

Watching the boy suffer, while snacking on the arm of one of the little girls from the tea party, Pennywise chuckled to himself.