And just like that we're back in London! Yeah, I know, it took hundreds of chapters getting to India but they're back in a blink of an eye! (if only I would write in the blink of an eye.. my delay was school-related but now that the semester's over, hopefully I can get a big bulk of this out and everyone can be happy)

*Warning: Things are going to start getting a little dark and it'll seem like we're going in a completely different direction. I assure you, we're not.. not entirely.

Have fun! ;)

"Captain Kingsleigh," Glasdon announced. "We're here."

Alice beamed and stepped up to the rails. Finally! Back on London ground! She was eager to tell her mother of her adventures – the signing the contract adventures, not the Mason and pirates and Wonderland adventures of course. She scanned the crowd looking for her.

But she saw Margaret instead. She smiled and waved.

"Glad to be back home, Glasdon," she sighed contently when she crossed the dock. "Give my best to your Anne, will you? I'm sure she's missed you a great deal."

He tipped his hat at her. "I will, Captain. Have a pleasant day."

She grinned and bid goodbye to the rest of the crew before meeting her sister at the front of the dock. She hugged her but frowned when Margaret didn't really hug back. "What's wrong? You're not happy to see me? Or did Mum send you to scold me for being gone so long again?" she laughed.

Margaret wrung her purse handle and tried to look pleased to see Alice. But she sniffed and her mouth twitched downward, "Alice, let's- let's walk home."

A stone set itself in the pit of her stomach – oncoming dread and fear of whatever was bothering Margaret. But- but surely nothing too terrible had happened while she was gone-

Right?

She nodded, obeying and not objecting when her sister looped her arm through her elbow.

They walked in silence for a few blocks before the suspense got to Alice. "What is it? What has you so quiet?"

Her sister gave a stuttering sigh, "Alice, Mum… Mum's fallen ill."

Ill? Margaret must mean a simple cough- she had to have! She chuckled at Margaret's absurd dramatization over a little illness. "A cold, you mean?" But the hope she held died in her eyes as Margaret shook her head.

The younger noticed the subject grew increasingly difficult for Margaret. Her heart plummeted.

"Shortly after you left, Mum fell ill. It seemed a cold but then- her hands stopped working…"

Alice suddenly remembered the tea cup falling from her mum's hands right before she left on the journey. But she had thought it was simply her anxiety of letting her daughter go off on another adventure again.

Margaret nodded. "At first, we thought it was a passing illness, so we didn't call upon anyone for help. But she never really recovered. And her hands.. it worsened and she can hardly walk." Margaret closed her eyes as she remembered the struggles and pains her mother went through all those months. "Her strength is almost gone – oh, Alice, she looks nothing like the Mum we grew up knowing. She's not eating much and can hardly leave her bed. She's so frail and weak- My heart hurts to see her in such pain."

But this couldn't be- her mother couldn't- Alice wanted to believe. "But when you finally sent for a doctor-"

She shook her head. "He has been around to see her multiple times but even he says there is nothing that can be done."

Alice felt her heart jump into her throat. She felt the world turn a little darker and crueler than she remembered. A piece of her muchness cut a jagged hole in the black felt – something could always be done. Hope could never fade. "What- what does this mean?"

Margaret looked solemn. "She might not make it through the rest of the year."

Alice's foot caught.

It was September.