Note: Oh man! I am so sorry for the delay on this chapter. Christmas happened, then I was away in January for a work trip for two weeks and then got back and chaos. Much chaos. Also, I was a little stuck on what exactly I wanted to go down in this chapter vs. the next one. Then, I finally finished it and couldn't upload, seems like FF is having some weird server issues. In the meantime, the only way around it was to edit an old chapter... Anyway. So here, finally, is the next chapter. Sorry to those who thought I might have quit writing the fic due to the long gap between the last chapter and this one - I do intend to finish it :) Still working out the details of how it gets to where it will end, and still needing to finish reading the book, but eventually. Hope you guys will stick around to see it end with me! Let me know your thoughts about this chapter, keen to hear what you think, if the FF servers will allow it :D

The afternoon sun was sinking fast, but remained warm on their skin as they gathered in the grassy field near the Barrens. Though the season was shifting into fall soon, it still felt like the height of summer with the insects buzzing around them and the sunlight reflecting off the water of the canal. One of the last beautiful days of the summer, at sharp contrast to their defeated and sullen moods.

"I feel like we're getting further away," Ben said glumly, kicking at a stone half-buried in the dirt.

The seven of them were sitting in a circle in a small clearing amidst the tall grass. There were the six of the original Losers Club, each sharing a similar look of despair on their faces, having just emerged from another fruitless search in the sewers: Ben, Beverly, Stan, Eddie, Richie and Mike. The seventh was smaller, younger, and looked especially fragile these days with the bandaged stump of a right arm poking out from his shirt: George Denbrough. As soon as he had been checked out of the hospital, a week after his admission, he'd insisted on joining the others in the search for his brother, as determined as they were to find him and save him from the clown.

"When we started, I thought I could still feel Bill's presence down there, somewhere," Bev mused. "Even though we seemed to just be going around in circles, he was there, just out of our reach. Now... now it's so faint, it's almost gone."

"I don't feel scared down there anymore," Eddie admitted, a little guiltily. "Something is changing, and the sewers don't seem as ominous as they once did."

"What does it mean?" Richie said, a shiver creeping into his voice. "Are we losing him?"

"Losing Billy?" Georgie repeated, fear in his small voice. He looked to Eddie for reassurance, the boy who had grown up with Bill, his brother's oldest friend. Eddie just sniffled a little, and grabbed for his puffer.

Richie had put into simple words what they all were beginning to fear: that with each passing day it was getting harder and harder to find Pennywise's lair, and they were consequently getting further and further away from Bill. None of them wanted to acknowledge it, but in their hearts the realisation was growing. Pennywise had somehow cloaked the lair from their view, and they had as much hope of finding it again now as they did of truly vanquishing the clown from existence. The moment they'd left the sewers with Georgie, they'd committed themselves to leaving Bill behind.

"We can't give up," Bev said, a choked sob escaping from her throat. "We can't leave him down there..."

They all looked at each other, the fear they'd spent all summer trying to overcome now clearly visible in their eyes.

"Fuck," Richie said, dropping his face into his hands. He suddenly started and glanced sideways. "Sorry, Georgie."

Georgie meanwhile was silent, his eyes hooded and fixed on a scraggly dandelion growing in the dirt in front of his feet. His seven year old self was still coming to terms with everything that happened: chasing his boat, meeting the clown, getting dragged into the sewers, losing 10 months of his life to a black dreamless sleep, returning without his right arm only to find that the clown was gone, and so too was his big brother. His idol, his hero, his best friend... and now his saviour.

"What do we do?" Stan asked. "If we really are getting further away, then continuing to look is..."

"Pointless," Mike finished his sentence dully. "It's pointless."

Bev looked around the faces of the dejected Losers, who now counted Georgie amongst their ranks. The hope they had had on their first return to the sewers, the confidence that finding Bill was just hours away, had faded away to be replaced with a dark hopelessness that was beginning to consume them all. And worst of all, she knew in her heart that had Bill been here, like always he would have known what to do.

Bev got to her feet.

"We'll make a promise," she said determinedly, knowing without knowing that this was what they had to do. That this was what Bill would have done.

"A promise?" Richie echoed.

"Yes," she said, pointing at a sliver of Coke bottle near Stan's feet. Confused, Stan picked it up and also got to his feet. The others followed suit, including Georgie. The six Losers and a Loser's little brother, standing in the rapidly fading sunlight of a summer day that would eventually fade from all of their memories, even Mike.

"We'll swear it," Bev said. "That if - when - Pennywise returns, we all come back too. We'll stop him, and we'll rescue Bill. That's the promise."

"What if he doesn't come back?" Stan asked nervously.

Eddie smiled at him but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Then we don't come back either," he said softly. They all knew in their hearts that their time together in Derry was drawing to a close. That after the showdown with Pennywise, their circle was disintegrating, as was the mystical power that had held them all together. Just like they also knew that the thought of Pennywise never returning was a whimsical wish upon a star. But at least if Pennywise came back one day, so did their chances of finding Bill.

"What if Bill is-" Richie began, but fell short as his eyes rested on Georgie.

"He's not dead," Georgie said firmly, his eyes alight with the fire of belief. "He's not."

In that moment, he reminded them all of his brother and the determination with which Bill Denbrough had searched for George over the last year.

"Do it, Stan," Beverly said, gesturing at her palms open in front of him. "Do all of us." She hesitated for a moment, looking at George.

"You don't have to do this, Georgie," she said. "You've given enough blood for one year, I'd say."

"I'll promise too," Georgie said stubbornly, holding out the one palm he had. He knew what a blood oath was, he'd heard about them in the books that Bill used to read to him. Books about adventures and promises and friendships that conquered all.

Bev bit her lip, then nodded.

Stan solemnly made his way around the circle with the glinting piece of glass, slashing lightly across each pair of outstretched palms. The blood jumped to the surface of their skin instantly, pooled shallowly as they waited for the others to also be given their mark. Stan's face was pale as Georgie held out his hand to him, brow set and eyes hard. He might have been younger than all of them, but the look on his face told them he was no less determined to keep the promise. Despite this, his face scrunched in pain and his eyes welled up as Stan made the cut across his palm. And yet, though the tears were brimming, he did not let out a cry nor did he let the tears fall. Their hearts panged for the smallest among them, and for all he had gone through only to come back to a lost brother. Stan put his hand briefly on Georgie's shoulder, with a grim smile.

Finally, Stan stepped back, cut his own palms, and joined the circle.

They all linked hands (with the exception of the gap between George's right arm and Richie's left hand), gripping each other tightly with the knowledge that they would never be as close as they were now, not ever again. And all of them all the more aware of the gaping hole in their circle, the one that had once been filled by Bill.

"Swear it," Bev said to them, squeezing the palms of Ben and Stan on either side of her. "Swear it, for Bill."

"I swear," Ben nodded without hesitation.

"I swear it," Eddie said, a quiver in his voice.

"I swear," Richie affirmed, clearly wanting to make a joke but somehow resisting.

"I swear too," Mike said, eyes firm.

"I swear," Georgie said quietly. "For Billy."

"I... I swear," Stan said finally, the last to commit his promise. They stood there, holding hands, for what felt like an eternity, as the wind breezed through the grass around them and the insects started their nighttime singing, welcoming the return of the warm night and farewelling the setting sun. Finally, the moment was broken and they split off, one by one, their hearts lighter for having made the promise but heavier for the weight of what that promise would bring their future selves.

Georgie was the third last to leave, waving goodbye as he made his way back towards the suburbs of Derry. He glanced back once, to see Bev and Ben standing next to each other staring out across the glittering water of the canal, so peaceful now as if it had never been haunted by a demon clown. In the red sunlight, Bev's hair glowed a bright amber around her ears.

It reminded George of fire.

And in that moment he did believe Bev when she said that they would come back one day and save his brother. Until then, he hoped with all his heart that Billy would be okay.

It's here, I know it. Somewhere in here.

Mike sat cross-legged on the floor of the borrowed conference room, staring up at his collection. There was a dull pain in his forehead, the consequence of too much squinting at old newspaper articles and not enough eating or drinking. With a vague sort of amusement, he realised he hadn't eaten or drank anything since their entree at Jim's last night, and it was now approaching lunchtime.

He wondered a little how the others were getting on, since it had been a couple of hours since they all departed. He hadn't heard from anyone, and was beginning to wonder if his mobile phone was working properly. He looked resentfully at the offending screen, which showed full reception. It was also possible that the others didn't have reception, but that seemed particularly unlikely in the case of Ben and Stan. Maybe they were simply engrossed in digging through the history of Derry, Mike thought. He wouldn't have minded the history trip himself, especially to one of his favourite places in the world (well, not that he was so well-travelled really), but someone needed to stay with the materials and try to coordinate from afar. As the person who'd also stayed in Derry, he felt naturally like he was the one to assume that role. He wondered what his father would think of him now: Michael Hanlon, Losers Club Coordinator.

It didn't feel right to call himself the Chief. That title had never belonged to him, he knew that instinctively, even if he didn't yet remember who their chief had really been. He turned his attention back to the collection of materials, frustrated that he had made no progress even since assembling it as he had. He knew the timeline of the previous events like the back of his hand. George Denbrough went missing in October 1988. Following that, a string of disappearances and murders that slowly woke the town of Derry to the possibility of a real threat. And yet, wherever there was some other "logical" explanation for the disappearance of the children, as there had been in the case of Eddie Corcoran, that was always the explanation that the police chose to endorse. And the events had culminated in their face-off against Pennywise in the sewers beneath Derry, where they had (somehow) managed to retrieve George and make it out of there with their lives. They'd made the promise to return sometime in September 1989, but the details were still kind of foggy in his head.

I know all this... why can't I see what we're missing?

Mike sighed. Perhaps if he had also gone out on one of the intelligence-gathering missions (thinking of it that way made him feel more like a master spy coordinator), he would have been presented with some new material to digest. One of the problems was that, despite hanging it all up in this new way, despite all the photos and articles and notes, it was still the same set of documents he'd be pouring over for nearly thirty years. His knowledge of why he cared so much about the dark history of Derry had wavered in and out, like his memories, but he'd always known it was important. So he'd look through them all from time to time and try to make the links between it all.

He'd come to one conclusion over time, that the rampage of Pennywise on the town of Derry had been happening regularly for hundreds of years in cycles, and it was definitely getting worse. More casualties, more violence, darker ends. More children being taken, either to be found later mutilated nearly beyond recognition or never seen again. If what the clown had revealed last night at the dinner was true, that he was more powerful than ever, then the old Losers Club really did have their work cut out for them if they were going to try and stop him. It. The creature that they couldn't begin to really understand.

His mobile phone rang suddenly. Stunned out of his reverie, Mike picked up. It was Ben.

"Hi Mike," came the other voice, a slight southern twang in the accent. The disappointment in his voice conveyed what his words had not yet: he and Stan had not found much in their search of the library.

"Any luck?" Mike asked.

"Well, not really," Ben confessed. "Nothing stunning. We've checked out a couple of yearbooks from when we were kids in case that shows anything, but quickly looking through it we didn't see much."

"Checked out?" Mike repeated, amused.

"Yeah, renewed my library card from when I spent all my time there as a kid," Ben laughed. "A souvenir of this forsaken town to take home with me, if we ever leave."

"I'm not sure where you're going with the yearbooks, but I'm curious all the same," Mike said. "Haven't looked at those for many years."

"It was a hunch that Stan had," Ben said. "Didn't really pay out though."

"All the same," Mike said. "It's worth us all taking a look."

"Yeah. Any word from the others?"

"No, you're the first to check in."

"Ah, okay," Ben said, sounding a little worried.

"I'm sure they're fine," Mike reassured him, quashing down his own concern. "It's only been a couple of hours."

"Yeah," Ben said again. "Okay, see you soon."

"Yep, see you soon," Mike said, and hung up. As if on cue, his stomach growled, and he decided it was about time to head over to the hotel's bistro and eat something. He got to his feet, pocketed his phone and cast a cursory glance over the materials. It should be safe enough until he got back, he had the key to the room after all. It just didn't feel right leaving everything here, in case someone should stumble upon it and get suspicious. They had enough on their hands dealing with Pennywise, and the added suspicion of Derry townsfolk in the wake of the recent murders... that would hardly be helpful.

He shut the door, locked it carefully, checked it twice and then made his way towards the wafting smell of food.

The door swung eerily open as they approached, silently welcoming them to enter the decaying house. Bev and George exchanged a nervous look, the desire to run away growing in them as the invisible hand of Pennywise revealed that he was perfectly aware of their presence. They were still gripping each other's hands, and neither let go as they ascended the rotting stairs. As they neared the door, Bev stopped suddenly, and let go of George's hand.

"I... I don't know if I can do this, George," she whispered, eyes fixed on the shadows beyond the doorway. "Not again."

"We have to, Bev," George said. "Together, we'll be okay."

She didn't look very convinced, but she nodded a little, drew a breath, and was the first of them to step through the rotting archway. On the other side, she flinched a little as if expecting something to jump out at her, but the house was shrouded and still. She shrugged back at Georgie, who then stepped through after her. They were standing in the hallway of what had perhaps once been a very nice house, but had for decades been falling further and further into the current decrepit state it was in.

Bev looked to the left, to see the spiderwebs still hanging down where Richie had once found a flyer with his face on it. He'd showed them all in the aftermath, once Pennywise had slunk off in defeat having failed to attack Eddie. Bev remembered that the "lookouts", herself included, had charged into the house at just the right time, but she couldn't remember the details of how they'd fought the clown. She knew it had been a close call with Eddie though, and somehow they'd gathered some sort of power over Pennywise which had given them the advantage. She wished she could remember how.

"I hate this place," she shuddered. "Where should we look?"

"I don't know," George admitted. "This is all new to me. Where did you guys go last time?"

Bev paused, thinking back.

"I was outside most of the time. But I think the others... they went upstairs. And we were also in the kitchen when we fought Pennywise. He was about to attack Eddie, but something stopped him... and we knew somehow at that moment to run in. It's all a bit foggy, like everything else."

"How about the kitchen, then?"

She nodded, and led the way across the dusty floorboards to the hollow shell that was once a kitchen. A rusty fridge sat obtrusively in the middle, its door hanging open. She brushed her hand against it, partly also to check that it was actually there and not just an illusion conjured up by the clown.

"He... it... came out of there," she gestured to George, whose brow furrowed. Bev could easily guess the thoughts running through his logical mind, about the volume of the fridge interior, and stifled a giggle. Somehow, George was still holding this otherworldly being up against the rules of physics that determined their world.

George's eyes left the fridge, and scanned the area. It was all covered in dust, like the rest of the house, as if they were peering into a world coloured in sepia. Scratches and a pattern of blackened blotches on the floor were the only hints that something dark had taken place in this kitchen, and seemed at sharp contrast to the bright sunlight filtering through the window. He came to the conclusion, reluctantly, that there were no useful clues to be found here in the kitchen. He looked to Bev, and saw from her expression that she had reached the same conclusion.

"Upstairs, then," she said, with as much enthusiasm as he felt.

They made their way up the creaking staircase, neither of them liking the way it loudly announced their presence to the rest of the house. George could hear scurrying tiny feet, always out of sight but always nearby. It probably wasn't surprising that a house this decrepit was infested with rats.

At the top of the staircase, in unfamiliar territory to both of them, they found themselves standing in front of a long narrow hallway. There was washed-out light filling the room at the end of the hallway, but it was otherwise empty. Neither of them knew they were standing in the same hallway where Eddie, Richie and Bill had watched the ghost of Betty Ripsom be torn away as she screamed at them for help. And yet somehow they both knew this was the direction they should go in, instinctively.

"What are we even looking for in here?" Bev muttered, clearly uneasy about proceeding further into the house.

"Anything that might give us a clue for what Pennywise is hiding from us," George whispered, feeling a little silly for speaking in a hushed voice but not wanting to speak too loudly in the quietness of the ominous house.

They entered the room, but barely had enough time to glance around it when the door behind them slammed shut with a huge bang, followed by the wooden shutters on the window rattling down to plunge the small room into murky shadows and stirring up clouds of dust around them. Both of them closed their eyes against the dust, blinking painfully through squinted eyes at the now-darkened room.

"George?" Bev asked in a panicked voice.

"Bev?"

"You're not grabbing my arm, are you..."

George turned, looking through the dust to see a shadowy figure standing next to Bev. At the same time, she made out the source of the hand on her upper arm, and screamed, wrenching her arm out of the thing's grasp and jolting towards George, their backs toward the window.

The figure lurched a little towards them, smelling strongly of stagnant water and dampness, covered in swampy leaves and other watery tendrils. The hair around its head was long and matted, and darkened red with what looked like blood which also ran in thin streams down the shadowed face. Both George and Bev edged backwards as the figured came towards them, until its face was illuminated by a thin beam of light shining through the shutters.

George gasped, recognising the figure suddenly.

"Bowers," Bev breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. It was none other than the crazed teenage gang leader who had made their lives frequently and utterly miserable, and gotten close to actually killing members of the Losers Club several times towards the end of that summer. He'd very nearly finished Mike off in their struggle next to the well, and then the last time they'd seen him was watching him plummet to certain death down the well shaft, horrified and yet thankful that it hadn't been Mike to meet an ugly fate at the hands of the ruthless Bowers.

Bowers, or the manifestation of him, leered at them through the hair hanging in his eyes. Some metallic glinted in his right hand, a flash of metal belonging to his beloved switchblade. Although the Bowers before them was not the real Bowers, the switch-blade was. And it was clear that he wanted to use it on them.

"Wanna float, Bev?" he grinned at her, teeth cracked and chipped and covered with dark clumps of mould. He advanced closer, forcing both George and Beverly to back further towards the window. Neither of them made any sudden movements, as if they were dealing with a dangerous wild animal which might be triggered by the slightest quick motion. Aside from the door that had slammed shut, there was one other closed door behind Bowers. George guessed it was probably also being held physically shut by the same force that had slammed the other door.

Bev glanced at George, eyes wide, clearly pressing him for what the plan was. He shook his head slightly, not having the slightest clue. Bowers was only a few paces away from them now, and that switchblade was looking extremely sharp in his half-rotten hand.

"Oh Georgie, you never were my favourite Denbrough," Bowers switched his focus to George, who looked at him in confusion, well aware that he was really talking to the clown behind the Henry Bowers mask.

"You knew my parents?" he asked, blinking. Bowers seemed to find this greatly amusing, and cackled with laughter, before suddenly dropping the amused face and charging with a deathly scream towards George.

Instinctively, George braced himself against the window and kicked both legs out in front of him, desperate to keep the knife away from him and Bev. His shoes impacted Bowers' stomach and sent him flying backwards, crashing to the wooden floor in a dusty heap. Bev saw the opportunity and rushed for the door they'd come through, pulling at the handle but it wouldn't budge. Bowers was getting to his feet now, snarling, his mouth replaced by a widening chasm filled with thousands of sharp teeth, twisting at his face and ripping the rotting flesh apart as it grew.

"It won't go!" Bev cried, kicking at the door. George looked around, for anything, a weapon or an escape, but they were trapped in the room with the clown. The swamp-version of Bowers was transitioning slowly towards Pennywise's usual guise, with bright orange pom poms now lining down his old blackened shirt and his eyes gleaming yellow in the darkened room.

"With you out of the way, it'll be two down and five to go," sang Bowers, dark matted hair now lightening rapidly. He charged at Bev, tackling her away from the door to the ground and leaning over her, teeth only inches from her face and drool dripping from his mouth. She was hitting at him with all her strength, but it only seemed to mildly annoy him. George was about to run at him and try to throw him off her, when a sudden inspiration occurred to him out of nowhere, and he instead ran to the window and yanked down the shutters with as much force as he could.

Light spilled into the room, filling it with the warm glow of the sun and causing Pennywise, surprisingly, to hiss in pain and draw back from Bev, glaring at George now. No longer did he have the appearance of Bowers, he had completely returned to his clown suit attire, and as he got to his feet, he seemed taller and more menacing than ever. George didn't know how or why the sunlight has interfered with him, but it was clear that it had and that the clown was extremely angry now.

But when he spoke, it was as if neither Bev nor George were in the room.

"After all this time, you come out of hiding?" he snarled, looking past George at the sunlight streaming through the window. "You, the coward at the edge of the worlds?"

George looked at Bev, who was looking equally puzzled at the sudden turn of events.

"This isn't over," Pennywise growled, enunciating every word sharply. "I'll have them all."

He then screeched in what sounded like a mix of pain and frustration, and stomped one foot heavily on the creaky wooden floorboards, shattering them beneath him to reveal a splintered gaping hole. With one last furious sweep of the room, his murderous yellow eyes fixing only briefly on George and Bev, he jumped through the hole he had opened and disappeared from view. The floorboards behind him rearranged themselves, the dust settling over them again as if there had never been a hole at all.

But there was one difference. Left behind, as dusty and worn as its surroundings, was a single object where the hole had once been.

A waxed paper boat.

And on its side, the clumsily written letters: S.S. Georgie.