A/N: Hello, my readers!

This chapter might be a bit short because it's a kind of a special chapter for 'terralove.' Since you've asked me to write more about Miss P and Emma, so here you are!

For another guest who asked me to write about Olive and Enoch moments, just hang in there, it will come up soon.

Thank you for every review again. I'm so glad many of you like this story which I have to confess that at first I didn't expect it to have so many readers.

I try to write it with vivid details so it might go quite slowly, but I promise, soon something will happen, just be patient!

If you have any suggestions, you can leave it below. Again, I die to read your reviews, so please, at least, say something.

Chapter VII

'I don't understand why you have to worry. I do this every day, I'll be just fine,' Miss Peregrine mutters. If Enoch didn't know that she is a bird, he might think she is a bee or something since she sounds like one.

'Perhaps, I just want to see the changeover, don't you think?' He answers and picks up a black umbrella and his mask.

Miss Peregrine turns around and gives him a look.

'We all know you never enjoy that, Enoch.'

'Perhaps, I'm interested in it now, who knows?' He walks pass her to the porch.

Alma takes a very deep breath. She will never ever let herself get hurt again. This is insane. She feels so powerless, like she has lost her authority in everything. It's not like she wants to be a controller of her children's fate, but it's too risky to place their fate on other hands, even that hand is her children's. Yes, Enoch has proved himself so many times that he can be a leader, but what if something wrong happens? Even she herself cannot always turn back in time to fix everything. And this is all because of this bloody cut that doesn't seem like it will stop bleeding soon.

She tries to calm herself down. She needs to stay focus to do what she is about to do. As easy as it seems, manipulating time requires a lot of concentration and power. Resetting the loop is not what every ymbryne can perfect so easily. A single mistake might lead to a disaster, and in her case, that disaster means her children and herself might be gone forever from this world. That's why she needs to forget every trifles momentarily, and let that soothing tick-tock sound swallow her mind. Yes, I can do it. Yes, I c-

'What now?'

Enoch doesn't answer. He has never realized holding an umbrella for someone is a crime. So he innocently asks back,

'What?'

Miss Peregrine bites her lips. Fine. It's just an umbrella. Fine. She continues walking, trying to breathe slowly. It's just an umbrella.

When she reaches the right spot, she turns back to see her house, and brings her pocket watch out, ready to stop the time.

'Mask?' Enoch warns her.

'I think I'm not going to wear it tonight.' Miss Peregrine says.

The truth is she doesn't think she can manage to wear it. Just holding the clock hurts enough. She tries not to flinch, though. She knows he's watching. She can feel his eyes staring at her wounded hand. There's a red stain on it again. She can't believe she has just changed the bandage.

'So do I, then'

The Bird just gives him a very brief cold glare. She knows she is not in the position where she can tell someone, especially this one, to do something. So she decided to turn her attention back to her pocket watch, looking at a brass second hand instead.

She doesn't have to wait for so long. They're coming, the first few jets. Then, the one she's waiting for can be seen far away, approaching her house as always with the same speed and low engine sound.

Of course, a bomb sounds so scary, but for Enoch, blood on her hand is scarier. He doesn't take his eyes off her. He knows it hurts her, that wound, but she pretends it doesn't. Even Claire won't buy that. He wants to ask her whether she can use her left hand instead but he doesn't want to interrupt her attention since that might kill everyone here in just the blink. So he just watches, tapping his feet silently to calm himself.

It's coming. That damn jet and its missile. But Enoch's eyes are still on his ymbryne. If he is here for the changeover, here it is. The boy can see Miss Peregrine's face turns paler and paler every minute she winds back the time like he's watching Horace's dream in slow motion. Her bandage becomes redder and redder every second her finger moves. Enoch doesn't enjoy this change at all. A few minutes are like an eternity to him. He couldn't be happier when the sky turns from day to night again, the starry night of September the second. When his ymbryne puts her clock back into her pocket, the boy feels like he has got a very heavy rock off his chest. She turns back and gives him a victorious smile.

'I'm still alive, aren't I?'

Enoch raises his eyebrow. Yes, alive, but with that colorless face and soaked bandage, alive sounds quite overestimated for him. He watches as his headmistress marches back to the house with her head held up high. The only good thing so far is that she has not collapsed yet but that alone cannot guarantee that she will not. Anyway, it's not like he can change her mind or do anything, so with a heavy sigh, the boy heads for his house, following his strong-willed Bird.

Emma is walking back and forth in her headmistress's bedroom. She knows her ymbryne is going to be just fine since Enoch is there, but she cannot put her mind at rest. She marches around, crossing her arms, pouting. And all of a sudden, it reminds her of those old days when there were just her, the little girl, and Miss Peregrine.

She used to march around in this room before many decades ago, crossing her arms and pouting like this. The only difference is that on the bed sat Miss P, not Little Claire.

'I'm sure you will like her, Emma,' Miss Peregrine said, trying to convince her to accept the new comer.

'You said she could light fire. What if she burns you, what if she burns me, or maybe, the whole house?' Little Emma asks, frowning.

Miss Peregrine chuckled and reached out to her,

'Come here, my dear.'

Emma breathed a sigh, but walked into her ymbryne's arms.

'I promise she won't burn you, alright?'

'And you? And the house?'

'Well,' Miss Peregrine stopped to think, 'she might need some time to...adjust herself, I'm afraid. But I don't think she will burn the whole house down to ashes.'

'And you? Will she hurt you?'

'No, dear. She won't.'

Emma smiles. It's not true at all. She knows Olive accidentally burnt Miss P's left arm a few days after that. It wasn't that severe though.

'Really?' Little Emma asked.

'Yes.'

And she climbed up on this very bed. She was Miss P's first child so, she always did what she wanted. That night she wanted to sleep here on this bed and before Miss Peregrine could say anything, she had already tucked herself in, waiting for her foster mother to lie down.

That was the best thing that could happen to her life, a girl who had been sold to a circus. To curl in Miss Peregrine's hug was the memory Emma has never forgotten although many decades have passed. She can't help smiling like a silly girl. Sometimes, she wishes she could have been a child again, a little girl, going everywhere with her Miss P, being the first one who tasted her pie the moment it had come out of the oven, begging Miss P to read for her and sing her a lullaby, and more importantly, being able to hug her every time and every where she wants to. Those dead dear days are still vivid in her mind. And that's why she's upset because she can't imagine a day without this peculiar mother in her life.

Thus, it's not hard for Emma at all to understand why this little girl in front of her is terrified that Miss Peregrine would kick her out. Claire was, admittedly, too young to remember what happened to her in that peculiar shop, but the little girl has known for quite some time that actually she isn't Miss Peregrine's real daughter, that her parents, biological ones, didn't want her, that she had been abandoned before when she was just a baby. To have such a perfect mother as Miss P is beyond what any orphans could ask for.

'That's why you don't want her to get hurt, right?' The floating girl whispers while stroking Claire's little cheek gently. Even when she's sleeping, Claire frowns like she's having a nightmare and Emma bets it must be about Miss Peregrine giving the little girl away.

'Don't worry. Believe me she won't.'

The teenage girl gets lost in her thought for a while that she doesn't notice that the owner of the bedroom and the grumpy boy has already come back. She's still smiling when she heard that warm voice of her true mother,

'Emma, are you alright?'

Do you like it? I really want to know what you feel, so please tell me! :)