Chapter 17 – Revelations

Lithium, don't wanna lock me up inside,
Lithium, don't wanna forget how it feels without,
Lithium, I wanna stay in love with my sorrow,
Oh, but God I wanna let it go.

~Lithium; Evanescence

"What's the big secret?" Jessie asked, sitting up as Lizzie shut the door to the spare room and locked it.

"You'll soon see," Lizzie grinned. She put down on the bed a medium sized box, and also a big hardback book. Jessie instantly recognised the book as the comprehensive antiques manual that Lizzie kept in her room; the very same book that they had flipped through many weeks ago when Buzz had first come to find her.

A ghost of a hand clutched around Jessie's heart, squeezing it so she lost the ability to breath for a moment or two. Buzz was fine, she reminded herself. He was here, right beside her. He hadn't abandoned her, he'd come back to her, just as she knew he would, even if she had given up hope for a short while.

"I want you guys to prepare yourself, because I was just as surprised as you. I had to come up and get the book to make sure it was what I thought it was." Lizzie was explaining as she lifted the lid off the box.

Buzz and Jessie exchanged a glance. With a little shrug, Jessie dared to get up and take a half step forward, lifting her chin to peer into the box from a distance. Her expression changed to one of total shock. A word formed on her lips that she didn't dare speak, should this be a dream too.

"Bullseye?"

The animal she thought she could see in the box now moved, with a little whinny. Clumsily, it staggered to its feet, putting out one hoof to the ground at a time, and Jessie let out a shriek. "Bullseye!" she shouted happily, darting forward and almost knocking the poor steed over onto its side in the box again.

"What's all the shouting?" A familiar voice pierced the silence as Jessie threw her arms around Bullseye's neck in joy. She backed off just as quickly, and turned to her left, looking into the box as if her eyes might drop out of her head.

"Woody?"

Her incredulousness brought Buzz to his feet and he quickly covered the short distance between the spot on the bed where he had spent the night and the edge of the box in which Woody was sitting. In the time the space toy had managed this, however, Jessie had thrown herself abruptly on the cloth cowboy and hugged him so hard his stitching nearly popped in several places.

When the cowgirl finally pulled back, Woody readjusted himself and rubbed his face, feeling around for his hat. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, his gaze settled on Buzz, now directly in front of him, and then Jessie.

"Jessie! Buzz! How….where are…" The cowboy began in realisation, and then he saw Lizzie sitting there watching the reunion with amusement. "Oh! Oh!" Woody garbled, thrown off by the human seeing them out of toy mode.

"Woody. Relax." Buzz said, shaking the cowboy's shoulder gently over the side of the box. "It's only Lizzie. She knows, remember what I told you?"

"Oh! Right," Woody recovered, his conversation from a few weeks ago with Buzz returning to his memory bank. He still stammered a little though, cowering a little under the young woman's stare. He looked around at Buzz. "We're safe?"

"As horses," Jessie nodded, stroking Bullseye's mane with her fingers as the steed snuggled into her lovingly. "But I don't get it." She turned to look up at Lizzie. "How did you come to possess a box with Woody and Bullseye in it?"

Lizzie shrugged and smiled. "Turns out Amanda's visit had a purpose. She bought me my Christmas present."

"Your pres-…" Jessie looked around at Woody. "Oh….she bought us as a set - but two separate gifts?"

"Looks that way," Lizzie agreed from behind them. "By the look of it, she knew you needed some work," she indicated Woody's dusty shirt and unpolished boots. "But never mind. I'll fix you up in no time later tonight."

A silence fell over the small group, punctuated only by the scratch of Jessie's fingers against Bullseye's mane.

"Well…" Lizzie began, getting up. "I'll leave you to catch up. I have to see Amanda off and then Lawrence wants to go to the park for a bit."

The three toys nodded quietly, staring between themselves at each other, still unable to believe they had been reunited again.

"How does this keep happening?" Woody wondered aloud, brushing the dust off his hat. It was half an hour since Lizzie had left, and ten minutes since they had heard the front door open and bang shut. They had been able to see the two girls, with Lawrence in tow, stroll down the path. After a hug between the two girls, Amanda had gotten into her car, but Lizzie had carried on down the sidewalk with her hand holding Lawrence's tightly.

"I don't know." Buzz said idly, watching the cowboy doll try to undo the years of dirt on his clothes.

"I tell you what I do know. We could have all been destined for far apart places if Amanda hadn't come to rescue us from the yard sale," Woody commented, straightening the collar and sleeves of his shirt. "After Amber abandoned us like that, I think we seriously have a lucky streak going on."

Reminded of their conversation prior to Woody being in the room, Buzz turned back to where Jessie was sitting with Bullseye. The horse had completely relaxed under Jessie's administration of fingers against his mane, and had laid his head in her lap. Every so often the he would give a soft whinny of pleasure before silently settling again.

"That reminds me," Buzz said, directly addressing Jessie now. "Earlier this morning, you said something about being abandoned by five owners."

"Buzz, will you drop it. I was tired and I made a mistake." Jessie muttered, refusing to look the space toy in the eye.

"I don't believe you." Buzz challenged her. "Especially now you're acting skittish about it."

"I'm not acting skittish," Jessie retorted. "I just don't want to talk about it."

"Talk about what?" Woody interjected, and Jessie glared at him, sitting up a little and straightening her hat in a 'don't-push-me' way.

"So you admit there's something to talk about." Buzz pressed. He really should have known better but he couldn't help himself.

"Don't." Jessie now directed her glare onto Buzz. This scared the space toy enough to make him take a step backwards. He blinked and glanced at Woody, who shrugged. They both looked back at Jessie, who had dropped her gaze once more and was petting away at Bullseye again.

Buzz bit his lip as he stared at Jessie. What on earth was she hiding from him?