The Porter's residence was a modest one - a small blue house nestled between other similar houses on an extraordinarily ordinary street in the south of London. The lawn was a bit overgrown now due to their period of absence, but that could be fixed. The paint needed fixing too in some places, but that could be fixed, all in due time.

Jane sat at the foot of her bed, staring out the window, down at the street where pedestrians strolled by, and the occasional pigeon could be spotted. They had been home for several days now, and as she predicted, London felt different than when she left. She had been suddenly thrust back into her life of Victorian obligations, no longer free to swing through the trees and swim in the pools that formed at the foot of looming waterfalls with…Tarzan. Tarzan, she repeated in her mind.

The formalities of English life felt foreign and forced now. She could not help but notice a nagging feeling in her stomach, one telling her that they should have stayed. She had felt this several times before on their journey back. She had stifled it immediately, knowing that they couldn't possibly have stayed. She wondered what Tarzan was doing right now. Thinking back on their parting was still too painful for her, if she was being honest. She couldn't easily forget the look of pleading in his eyes as he had asked her to stay. How could she have stayed? She didn't belong in the jungle - she had obligations in London: university to complete, research to conduct with her father, all of those things - things, she reminded herself, she could not possibly do in the jungle.

Later that night, Jane sat at the foot of her bed again, gazing out the window. The moon was bright and full on this particular night. Stars dotted the air above London - tiny diamonds glinting in the black velvet sky. She wondered what the moon looked like from the beach just beyond the edge of the jungle in Africa. She wondered if Tarzan was looking at the moon, too - she wondered if he was thinking of her as she was thinking of him. She secretly hoped he was. She wished desperately that he would have come with them. They could have given him their guest bedroom, and shown him London - and the rest of the civilized world. They would have been together.

Jane reached out and grabbed a small red journal that sat on her windowsill. Procuring a quill too, she began to write. It seemed that the words spilled out of her hand as fast as they entered her mind.

Oh, Tarzan, I wish you were here. The moon is so lovely and bright tonight - the stars are lovely too. London is a beautiful city. I wish you were here to see it with Daddy and I. The lights in the windows of the buildings look like little stars too. I hope the moon is just as beautiful where you are. Even though I'm in England, and you're in Africa, we are looking at the same moon.

She put her quill and ink down and sighed, laying down on her bed, looking towards the ceiling. It had been a beautiful night like this when she had followed Tarzan up into the boughs of an enormous tree - and he had handed her a vine. She had been quite frightened, as she thought that she was far too fragile and weak to do what he was asking her to, but she trusted him. She had drawn her breath up into her chest, and leapt from the branch, vine clutched tightly in her hands. Much to her surprise and delight, she was swirling through the trees - moving from vine to vine without too much in the way of difficulty. Tarzan had been right behind her, holding his vine with one hand, and wrapping his free arm around her waist. She remembered so vividly looking into his eyes, two beautiful verdant spheres that exuded warmth and innocent wonderment. That had been a good night, Jane concluded.

She thought about that night often. No gentleman in England had ever looked at her in the way that Tarzan did - not even the man that had begun courting her a year or so before her journey to Africa. He was well intentioned from what she could see, but the thought of a marriage, children, and a quiet life in a little English house just shook Jane the wrong way.

This thought brought her to recall that this exact man would be coming to her house tomorrow evening. He had left a letter at their doorstep telling her this when they had first arrived back - he had said that he had a surprise for her. She had never been one to enjoy surprises.

Jane fell asleep quickly that night, but it was a restless sleep, interrupted by thoughts of what she had left behind and perhaps what she was heading towards.

That next morning, Jane traveled to the university lecture hall for her classes which she had been eager to resume as quickly as possible. After the lecture had concluded, and she had packed away her stationary, she joined several of her friends at a table in the library. The four of them sat at this table, books spread in front of them - but studying was the farthest thing from their minds today.

"You must tell us," one girl began, "What happened in Africa? We've all heard about the…dilemma with you and Mr. Clayton, but, we don't know much else."

Jane grimaced at the mention of Clayton. She hoped to never be reminded of him again. "Oh…yes, Clayton. That was dreadful. But, Daddy and I saw gorillas - much of what he predicted was true. If only we had been given more time to study them up close."

"Up close? I thought you and your father were studying them from afar," the girl responded, slightly taken aback at the idea that Jane and her father would want to be in close contact with the gorillas. The perception of gorillas and many other animals that lived in the jungle was quite skewed due to lack of education amongst the general public about them - but it still exasperated Jane and her father from time to time.

"Alison," Jane began, "You should know from enough time spent around my father and I that gorillas are gentle creatures. And, anyways, it's not as if we went and found them on our own, really - someone brought us to them."

Alison raised an eyebrow at this, "Someone? Clayton?"

Jane realized that she had said too much. She would now have to explain the circumstances of their trip involving Tarzan. She shook her head. "No, not Clayton. He didn't know where to find them at all, actually. No. We had a...guide, I guess you could say."

"Go on," urged another girl, Millie.

"His name was Tarzan. He was raised by the gorillas, which I know sounds quite unbelievable, but it's true. Yes, I met him in a…rather unconventional way, shall we say. I was with Daddy and Mr. Clayton when we first got to the jungle, and I had spotted this little baby monkey. Of course, of course, I stopped to draw a picture of it. Then, absolute chaos ensued…naturally. I was chased by a whole tree full of baboons, and I had to jump off of this enormous cliff to stop them from getting to me - you know, as one does," she explained, chuckling slightly at the memory, "And instead of plunging immediately to my death as I anticipated I would - I was flying through the air. When I looked up - there he was - Tarzan, swinging from a vine, holding me by my dress. He saved me."

None of the three girls knew what to say to that. They all sat around the table in stunned silence for some time. After a while, the third girl, Emily, spoke, "Luck would have it that something like that would happen to you, Jane."

"Quite," Jane agreed, smiling. She didn't want to explain much more about this to them at this time. She preferred to keep Tarzan her own little secret for now. "Never mind all that. Larkin is coming to my house this evening. He left a letter at my door a few days ago saying he was coming. He said he had a surprise for me."

Alison clasped her hands together excitedly. "Oh, you'll have to tell us all about it tomorrow."

"I can't say I'm looking forward to it. You know how I hate surprises."

Jane didn't particularly want this evening to come. She had a sinking feeling as to what was coming.

—

Thousands of miles away on that same morning, Tarzan gazed out over the ocean again - looking at the spot where the Porter's ship had vanished over the horizon. He had come here every day since they left. He would stand there and just gaze out into the distance, almost begging silently in his head that he would see a boat come back over the horizon. It had not come yet, though. He did not know if it would ever come at all.