She watched Ushio run away from her a second time, her excited cry still in her ears, then again as the girl stumbled and slowed, then picked something up from the ground and rang back.

'It's your doll!' Ushio cried, handing the Garbage Doll to the other girl. 'Here you go.'

The thanks faded on her lips as the other raced off around the house again, calling 'Daddy' as she went.

Daddy…her father as well. Of course, she'd known it was that world, when she'd seen little Ushio…but to see her father in it felt like another thing entirely.

Somehow, it hadn't been so shocking to see her mother. Maybe it was because she'd never known her, in her own world. It had always just been the Garbage Doll and her – the Garbage Doll her father's soul lived within. The Garbage Doll was empty now, but she clutched it tight anyway, clutched it because it was the only family she'd truly known. She hadn't been able to hear her father's voice until those last moments, know it was her father within the Garbage Doll and not some different force compelling the Doll to move.

She realised she didn't even know what her father looked like.

'Is something wrong?' Nagisa's…it was her mother's voice – and yet not her mother. She'd died a long time ago; nothing of her remained in that snow-filled world. That was this world's Ushio's mother. 'Are you okay?'

She looked at the woman. They had the same hair, sort of. Hers was longer than Nagisa's – longer, and a little darker too. Darker eyes as well, by a few shades but the same colour. And pale skin – maybe, when Nagisa was as young as she was now, she looked about the same – the same as the reflection in ice she'd spend hours staring at with little yellow lights of happiness rising all round.

Then she heard two voices coming through the house. Both of them familiar. Ushio – this world's Ushio…and her father.

The Two Bays
Chapter 3

Ushio raced down the driveway and hung on the gate, waving widely as the small grey car came in to view. 'Daddy!' she yelled, and her father stopped the car and waved back.

'Open the door for me, Ushio?' he called.

Ushio happily did so, undoing the latch and hooking the two gates to their respective posts so the car could come inside. Tomoya started the car up again and, making sure Ushio was safely out of the way, began to slowly reverse.

They didn't have a garage per say; instead, Tomoya and Nagisa had stored a variety of things there and made it more of a shed. The car instead was exposed to the elements – and so far had come out none the worse for it. It was newly brought though, and so the sun hadn't enough time to beat down on the paint and metal and rust it. Tomoya was planning on building a port on his next weekend off though – and Yohino had even volunteered to lend a hand. So had Ushio…but Ushio's hand was likely going to be painting the Dango family on the walls. Not that either of them minded.

He parked the car in the front yard and Ushio raced up the moment he'd turned the engine off. 'I've got a new friend,' she said eagerly as Tomoya clamoured out.

'Oh?' Tomoya asked, picking up what things he needed to take inside for the night. The tools were fine; they could stay in the car. His wallet, his keys – 'Ooh, did you bring something for me?' – the plastic bag he'd picked up on the way home.

'Not for you,' Tomoya said to the eager girl, amused. 'This is for Mummy.'

'Ooh.' Ushio didn't look disappointed in the least. 'For your anniversary?'

'Yep.' He handed the bag to her and closed the door, locking it behind him. She peeked inside, then squealed quietly. 'Ooh, it's got a cute little moustache.'

'Sure does,' Tomoya agreed, watching Ushio carefully tie the plastic bag again so the Dango inside was hidden from sight. 'Do you want to help me wrap it?'

'Yeah!' Ushio skipped to the steps and waited for her father. 'How many more Dango are there?'

'No idea,' Tomoya replied, shaking his head with a smile and following her in to the house. 'I was sure I'd brought them all a few years back, but a new one pops up every year.' Sometimes, he thought the toyshop owner made released a few new sorts of Dango every year just so he could buy them for his wife. Not many people were still in to the Big Dango Family during his high school years, let alone now. 'So, tell me about this new friend of yours?'

'She looks a bit like Mummy,' Ushio said immediately. 'Sort of like a big sister for me.'

Tomoya paused for a minute in the hallway, then shook his head. It can't be… That was a dream world now, he told himself. He hadn't seen the other world since Nagisa survived Ushio's birth.

'She doesn't know her name either,' the girl continued. 'And she looked dizzy and thirsty so I brought her to Mummy.'

Tomoya dropped his things on the table and Ushio grabbed his vacant hand. 'Come on,' she trilled. 'They're on the back porch.'

Tomoya followed. Ushio had many friends, unlike her parents. Nagisa had been too quiet and sickly; Tomoya too angry. But Ushio was happy and healthy; she attracted everyone's hearts. Her bringing a new friend home wasn't strange. Her saying the girl looked like Nagisa however was. But there was no way it could be the Ushio from the other world: the world of snow and yellow lights and despair…

Then Ushio threw open the screen door and he saw that it was her after all. Hair straight and falling down her shoulder blades and the same colour as Nagisa's but a shade or two darker – the same shade as Ushio's shorter cropped hair.

He felt suddenly colder, as though he had been thrown in to that dream again. The girl from another world. The everlasting winter. All that snow. The nightmares that seemed to go on forever in that other reality, that had stopped when their fates had changed – before Nagisa could die in the winter's night she gave birth to Ushio, before Ushio could die five years later.

He stared at the girl, who looked up at him with dark brown eyes. He realised he never had seen how that dream of his had ended. What had happened to her, after his spirit had left the vassal of the Garbage Doll behind. She was holding that doll close to her: the first present he'd brought his daughter in that first world, the world where Nagisa had died.

Ushio squeezed his hands and he brought his attention back to the present world. The dream world wasn't coming back; it was a dream that had been laid to eternal sleep years ago when they conquered that nightmare. The girl sitting on the porch by his wife looked the same, but she could be a different person.

Tomoya shook his head. 'Getting myself worked up,' he muttered, causing his daughter to blink at him and his wife to look towards him and cock her head in confusion. 'Nothing,' he said a little louder, before stepping closer to the girl: Ushio's new friend. 'Ushio said you can't remember your name?'

'I – ' the girl began, pulling the Garbage Doll nervously closer. 'I don't remember.'

Tomoya frowned. To him, it sounded like she was lying. Nagisa didn't seem to notice though; her face had a pitying expression on it. 'Poor dear,' she said gently, placing her hand atop the one that held the Garbage Doll. 'Your hands are so cold as well, and you're still pale. Maybe you should lie down for a little while.'

'I'm fine,' the girl protested, and this time her voice was stronger, surer, but still a little hoarse. 'I don't feel cold at all.'

If she came from the snow-filled world, Tomoya thought, then their spring was warm, if not unbearably hot, for her. 'Are you hot?' he asked abruptly.

The girl thought – or hesitated; he couldn't tell which, before answering. 'I don't think so.'

Nagisa checked her temperature anyway, one hand on her own forehead and the other on the girl's. 'A little clammy,' she said, 'but no fever. And Ushio said she'd been dizzy before; it might just be dehydration.'

'I'll get more water,' Ushio declared, racing back in to the house before either parent could call her back. Not that they wished to; Ushio often ran about but she knew what could trip her up in her home and was careful to avoid them. And she was right in wanting to get the other girl some water.

It also gave her parents some time to decide what to do. Nagisa looked up at her husband, who frowned a little, but ultimately shrugged in silent permission. Nagisa smiled, nodded and stood. 'I'll prepare a futon,' she said.

'Yell when you're ready,' Tomoya responded, and Nagisa affirmed before heading in to the house, leaving Tomoya and the girl he suspected came from the world of his dreams alone.