While Lina was relieved in some ways to tell Peter's parents about his miraculous survival when they arrived at Maninstit shortly after Peter had woken up, the guilt still gnawed at her. Especially since his parents were so relieved to find him alive after receiving word that he had died that they were not willing to hear any concerns that Lina, Sylphiel and Amelia had about his mental state. He was, as he had always been, their little boy.

"That's enough tests!" Darling said as she stepped forward and grabbed Amelia by the shoulder and pulled her away from Peter. "Peter survived! It's a miracle and we're not going to let anything like this happen to him again."

"Come on Peter, let's get you home." John said as he put a bag of clothes in front of Peter.

"Please, we are all relieved that Peter will be okay." Sylphiel said, "Still I must insist that we don't understand how this happened and we have an obligation…"

"You can't explain a miracle!" Darling said.

"Peter is different than he was," Lina said, "We need to run more tests to…"

"Kill him again?" Darling snapped as Lina felt her stomach twist as any further words died in her throat, "Of course he's changed, he's been through something miraculous! He's better than he was before."

"Perhaps it would be best to ask what Peter wants," Amelia suggested.

"He wants to go home!" Darling said as her hands clenched into fists.

"Home does sound rather nice at the moment." Peter said as he favored them with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

"Then you are free to go home. First, let's finish running these tests so we can make sure everything is fine." Lina said evenly.

"Everything is fine." Peter said as he stood up, "Now if you would all give me a minute, I don't need an audience while I dress."

Lina exchanged a glance with Sylphiel and Amelia and shook her head. As they walked out Darling muttered, "Of course he wouldn't want to stay in this place for one second longer…"

Lina managed to keep walking with Amelia and Sylphiel and once they were out of earshot Lina said, "I got too close of a taste of what it's like to lose a child so I'm trying to give them some grace…"

Sylphiel put a hand on her arm, "I don't think they can face it yet."

"What do you mean?" Lina asked.

"His heart rate is low, alarmingly slow, yet he's standing and active." Sylphiel said, "His breathing is also slow. I'm not sure what to make of it."

"You don't think the demon that was in his shadow merged with him somehow?" Lina asked.

Sylphiel shrugged, "I'm going to talk with the Eternal Queen, but this is baffling. I've never heard of anything like this."

"Me neither." Amelia said.

"Perhaps it's just part of the recovery process, given how close to death he was." Lina said as she tried to cling to some embers of hope, "Or perhaps he's re-acclimating to his body."

"You may be right," Sylphiel said, "But we'd need to see how his recovery plays out, and I don't think his family will let us have that time with him."

"Any chance the Eternal Queen can find some official reason to detain them?" Lina asked Amelia.

"She could, but at the cost of creating more wildfires for her to put out." Amelia said. "Peter's parents have resources to protest basically."

"Damn," Lina said.

"All we can do is hope that Peter is okay and that one day he will return and that we can get a better feel for what happened." Sylphiel said.

"I heard that the Eternal Queen is letting you go with a slap on the wrist." Gourry said as he sat down beside Owen on the sparring fields.

"So you think I deserve something harsher than expulsion and doing charity work?" Owen asked as he flexed defensively.

"Lina and I put a lot of trust in you through the years, hoping you'd rise to the occasion. And you did. Until now when you dropped the ball spectacularly." Gourry said as he shook his head as he struggled with the anger he was feeling, "Why did you stay silent when you knew about the plan to abduct Lina and attack this school? Why didn't you warn us? There was no good reason that you couldn't have come to me."

Owen was silent for a moment and then he shook his head as he stood up, "I'm no longer a part of this school anymore, I don't have to answer to you."

Gourry kicked his feet out from under him. Owen went sprawling face forward as he hit the ground and Gourry stood up and hovered over him, "You endangered the lives of everyone in this school due to your lack of action." Gourry said, "Including the lives of my family. Owen, I know you're better than this!"

Gourry waited tensely as he wondered if Owen would hit back. But as Owen turned over and sat up his face crumpled as he shouted, "I was scared!"

"You faced down powerful demons…"

"And I was stupid scared. Tom threatened to trash my reputation and I got stupid. The other students look up to me. If Tom told them the things he was threatening to about me I was going to lose their respect."

"So you thought hiding like a coward while a group of students attacked this school would make them respect you?" Gourry asked incredulously. "Did you think Tom was going to win!?"

"I don't know what I was thinking." Owen said. "He gets in your head, turns you around and inside out and…"

"Someone like that is someone to watch out for, someone to get help with." Gourry said, "Did we not do enough for you to come to us?"

"No," Owen said as he lowered his head, "But I thought that once Tom told you certain things about me…it was stupid. Nothing he could have told you would be worse than this. Betraying my country, this school. And most of all you. You've been a better father type to me than my own father."

"I hope you mean that," Gourry said, "That what we did here for these past few years mattered."

Owen winced as he buried his face in his hands, "The worst thing is knowing you're disappointed in me."

"This goes beyond disappointment. This landed like a betrayal and it's made me question whether you care about the lives of the people in this school." Gourry said, "Staying quiet while people planned to abduct my wife and attack this school, the comrades you fought with in battle who had your back, I don't understand how you could have turned your back on us when we needed you. I know Tom has some sort of hook into you kids but for the life of me…Meanwhile, Lina and I are going to be picking up the pieces here for awhile. We're strong, we've kept our principals intact and we can do it but this is going to hurt for awhile."

"I'm not sure that I am." Owen said weakly.

Gourry frowned as he knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, "This had better be a turning point for you. Everyone makes mistakes. You can let this mistake be a repeat act that defines your character or a learning experience that doesn't. And if there's one thing I hope you carry with you from here on out is that as unpleasant as it is to have your reputation in tatters how terrible it feels when you are in that state because you also carry a guilty conscience."

Owen took a deep breath, and Gourry hoped that the way his shoulders rounded was from Owen taking his words to heart, "I don't ever want to feel this way again. And I want to do better by you, I don't want this to define me."

"Then do your charity work that the Eternal Queen tasked you with, and when I hear about you next, let it be something that I can be proud of."

Gourry quietly opened the door to Lina's office and watched her for a moment, buried deep in work. She looked up at him, stood up and walked up and wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest and stoked a yearning within him. A yearning he always felt when she buried her face in his chest like that. And damn, it had been awhile since they'd made love! She'd been so busy with her increased work load that she was often stressed and tired, and then since Tom's revolt they'd had their hands full with repairing the damage.

It was late in the evening and everyone had mostly gone to sleep. He started to rub her back as desire burned within him. It was a deeper need though. He'd been terrified that he would never see her again when she was kidnapped and he needed to join with her and relish in her life. He was desperate for her as he moved to kiss her cheek but she barely responded, so he started nuzzling her neck as he moved his hands down lower. "I have too much to do." She snapped as she broke away from him and went back to her desk.

He took a moment to breath out the pain of the rejection as he sat on her desk, "Lina, you're working yourself into the ground, it was bad enough before all this broke out with Tom, but now? You're burning the candles faster than they can be made! And it's not going to help Nerys and her team find Tom."

"I still have to get this done or…"

"If your sister comes at you she'll have to come through me first, and the Eternal Queen has been supportive." Gourry said quickly.

But as she shut her eyes as if trying to hold on to her remaining patience he realized he'd miscalculated somehow, "I can't stop until all of this is fixed."

"Not everything is yours to fix." He said as he put his hand over her work as he hoped he could still salvage this as he talked faster, "And you won't fix it by taking on things that aren't yours to take."

"Gourry, there are bigger things going on than needing a pleasure moment…"

"I'm worried about how you've been since you were kidnapped!" he said snapped as he got off the desk and threw his hands up, "It's more than sex. You've been spending all day getting to the bottom of this mess with Tom and trying to undo the damage, and then rather than taking some time in the evening to rest you hit the paperwork until late. You're not getting enough sleep, you take just enough time to see the kids and don't do anything fun..."

"What should I do, waste time crying about it?" Lina asked.

"No, but it's okay to take a bit of extra care of yourself right now."

"Gourry, I am reading through everything Tom is known to have read, going through his assignments with a fine tooth comb, trying to find any little clue that I can pass on to Nerys so we can track him down so we can give our kids the future they deserve! I don't have time to take care of myself right now or satisfy your urges."

Gourry's hands bunched up in fists as he turned around, but before he reached the door another thought came to him, and before he could think it through he said, "Lina…you have limits, like everyone else."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped.

"You've done incredible things, things that no one else has. But you're human. Even the best of teachers can't reach every student. You didn't break everything and you can't fix everything and you have to let go and let someone else..." he said as he came back and sat on her desk.

"I don't have time to listen to this idiocy!" she screeched suddenly as she pushed him off her desk, "Go on to bed already! I'll be up as soon as I finish this."

Gourry stared at her forlornly for a moment and then took a deep breath and let it go. He'd had to try to reach her again when she was hopefully a bit calmer. "Love you." He said as he put his handle on the door and turned it.

"Right, love you." She said after a moment, but he wished she hadn't sounded so irritable as she said it.

"Lina seems like she's been taking this hard." Han commented as he baited his fishing line the next day.

Gourry sighed as he nodded, "It's like the time after the Fibrizo mess and I no longer had the Sword of Light. She drove herself crazy trying to find me a new sword as soon as possible. I swear she stayed up late researching every lead, talked about it constantly on our travels, almost as though if she stopped she'd have to confront everything that had happened. It's like this now, but worse because there's more she can do to distract her mind. No more long days traveling. And I can't get her to stop and deal with it or focus on anything that's not tracking down Tom."

"I can help with that perhaps," Zel said, "We're going to Saillune over the summer to see Amelia's family. Why don't you come with us?"

Gourry exhaled as he ran a hand through his hair, "That will be a hard sell."

"I know there's a lot going on here but the Eternal Queen is sending the students who joined the insurrection to prison for the summer at the least and classes are about over." Zel said. "We're not leaving till school is out."

"I know," Gourry said, "It's more of the destination. The one time we were in Saillune Lina was the target of several assassination attempts, and two of them nearly killed her."

"What!?" Han exclaimed as he dropped his fishing pole.

"She's okay." Gourry said.

Han grabbed the pole and muttered, "Luna sure leaves a lot of details out."

"It's just that Saillune wouldn't be a great place for us to relax."

"You were at Saillune City last time, weren't you?" Zel asked.

"Yeah," Gourry said.

"We're not going to Saillune City, but to Tealblu. It's a summer vacation home for the royal family and gives them a break from court. Amelia and Phil will have to make a few visits to Saillune City but you and Lina wouldn't have to."

Gourry thought for a moment, "That might work out better. Traveling again may help Lina, give her time to think and work it through. Though I may have to twist her arm a bit."

"Just remind her that everything she's doing at Maninstit to track down Tom she can do at Tealblu," Han gruffed.

"I will." Gourry said.

"Han, would you and Leia like to come?" Zel asked.

"Thanks for the offer, but Leia and I already have some vacation plans set."

"And the Eternal Queen is wanting Sylphiel and Rick here while they plan to send troops in to free Lyzeille." Zelgadis said.

"What about Naga and Moe?" Gourry asked.

"They're coming," Zel said, "That is if Naga doesn't get last minute cold feet. I still don't quite believe they'll get her back within Saillune borders!"

Gourry laughed a bit, and then he started to think about how to convince Lina to go.