I apologize for my lack of updates. I have been working diligently on another story of mine and I'm sorry for the wait.

Thank you to Damsel-in-stress for being my constant reviewer all the way up to this chapter.

Thank you also to ammNIwriter, my recently acquired beta :)

Perhaps a recap? In the last chapter, Will visited Elizabeth in the asylum and they talked about why she was in there. When he was leaving she proved herself mad.

"You are the husband?" the woman's thick voice quivers as she raises a hand to my own and touches my cold fingers with her gloved ones. Her gray hair is tied in a tight bun and her mourning hat shadows her face as she dips her head in acknowledgement.

"Yes," I answer, my voice confirming how lost I am. I can't find myself here. In this mass of black clothing, I cannot find reasoning. In this swarm of crows I cannot look to the future. I do not know where to tread; what ground is solid and what ground is masked air, waiting for me to fall through it.

The fountain did not work. She had lied to me. She had taken more from me than I ever would have lost without her help. Like an infection; the feeling of despair spreads through my body, coursing through my blood, weighing me down to the heat of the earth beneath my feet.

One day it should pull me beneath the dirt surface and suffocate me. I fear that day will come too soon and I will have no chance to find myself again. I fear it will come much too late, when I cannot bear the truth that I will surely find. My wife, my love...is gone?

I sit, at the small desk under the window facing out to the unkempt rose garden, watching the sun sink into the water beyond. I watch the great fire with a quiet calm; facing the injustice of it all. She once waited for me to come by that sunset. She once watched it the way I watch it now.

But she knew what she was waiting for. I can only look to the horizon and see another day ending, another night coming. I do not know what I should wait for. So I will not wait.

I rise stiffly from the chair and grab my coat off the rack beside the door. I shove the fistful of money deep into my pockets and open the door to the moon shining down on the walkway.

The moon brings me hope, a glowing beacon of light. I cannot even look at the sun for it burns my eyes.

"I knew he would have to leave," Elizabeth whispers into my shoulder as I hug her to me tightly, rocking her with the swaying time of the waves hitting the shore.

"He may return," I say, whilst watching the ship disappearing further and further into the distance.

She shakes her head. "No, I feel it. He will not. He will never come home again."

And I feel it too.

Her son has gone.

"Why does it work the way it does? I watch him sail away, the way I watched you sail away from me all those years ago. I wish one day to be the one sailing away. I want to run like he is."

"He isn't running, he's moving forward," I whisper to her.

Forward is sometimes a place you must find before you can go onwards.

Her head is resting comfortably on my chest, her soft hair fanned over the pillows beneath our heads.

"How long do you think...?" I ask, trying to get through the words I need to say; unable to put them to my lips.

"The doctor says half a year at best."

"Months," I echo, stroking her hair back from her face.

"I wish I could come with you," she murmurs, her breath a whisper across my skin.

"As do I."

"I miss the sea so. The doctor wouldn't let me go out."

"You should listen to him."

"I do. Oh how I miss it though! I should find it so demeaning to die so withdrawn from life. I do not want to die on a death bed; I want to die while I'm still alive, when I can feel things."

"If there was a way, you know I would fix things."

"No. There is nothing that needs to be fixed. I just wish that you could be there."

"I will be."

"I don't have another ten years to wait for you."

"I'll come," I promise her.

"I know."

If I could not fight death away with sword and dodgy footwork, then I would have to face it and admit defeat. I would have to accept it. There is no way around the end of the world, only waterfall after waterfall spiralling into the void that is oblivion. You cannot get back up a waterfall. There is no turning back.

The water in a fountain goes back up. As soon as it reaches the top, it is shot back down. It is life after life after countless deaths. How could I have not known?

I should have let the waterfall come. I should have steered the ship straight over the edge, let it run its course.

That way, there would have been no coming back up.

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