Back by popular demand... but this one's another crier.

"Where's Will?" Gilan asked, forking the last of his apple pie into his mouth with practiced dexterity.

Jenny, dusting off flour-covered hands on her apron, shrugged. "Does anyone ever know, these days? From what I hear, he's been disappearing a lot lately. Even gave Halt the slip!"

She chuckled, thinking of all the times Will had "vanished" during their ward days. One moment, he'd be there, the next, gone. They'd find him several hours later, perched in some tree, laughing.

Gilan frowned. "Yes, Halt's growing worried. Will hasn't been the same since, well, you know."

"Oh, don't worry about him," Jenny said. "It's only been a week. He just needs some time alone, to think things through."

"I'm afraid of what the thinking will end up in," Gilan muttered. "Probably that we're better off without him. Will's great in the field, but he had a bit of a… hero complex."

Jenny laughed. "Don't you all! Horace, Halt, even you. Too damn worried about saving everyone else to worry about yourself. Will's fine, I tell you. Stop worrying." She straightened and snatched up Gilan's empty plate. "Another slice?"

Gilan hesitated, then shook his head. "I'm good, thanks," he said. "It was wonderful, but I think I'm going to go looking for Will. It's getting dark. I don't want him caught in the forest when the light goes."

Both he and Jenny knew that Will, as possibly the greatest Ranger the Corps had ever produced, would have no problem navigating back to the palace in the dark. It would be considerably harder, however, for the king's soldiers and Rangers to find him if he decided to sneak away among the shadows. Will had been through things neither of them could imagine, and it was important to keep an eye on him at all times until everything was back to normal.

So Jenny let Gilan go, watching him as he slipped through the door and into the night. She understood his worry, his unease. Rangers were like family to one another, and she knew that Gilan considered Will his own brother.

And if truth be told, Jenny was a bit worried herself.

Drumbeats sound to the beating of his heart. War drums. Pulsing in his mind, his chest, through his veins. Drowning him in the rhythm, swallowing him whole.

Blood spilled over a carpet of bodies. Halt. Gilan. Horace. Evanlyn, Alyss, Duncan. Erak. Jenny and George. Everyone he's ever cared about.

Your fault, the drumbeat rumbles. All your fault.

He can't move, can't speak. He can't breathe. He is a drowning man, clawing at the sky as it vanishes from view. He is a dying man, pressing shaking hands to a wound that won't stop bleeding.

Tears cut rivers into the blood-soaked soil, turning red. Swimming in red. Choking with red. Everything, red.

He is a dead man, his bones trophies for the circling vultures.

And the drums pull him under once again.

"Will!"

Gilan crashes through the woods, not trying to be sneaky, not trying to hide his desperation. "Will! WILL!"

Moonlight lanced down between the leaves, pooling in circles on the forest floor. Everything else was shrouded in pitch. Night had fallen half-an-hour ago, and still Gilan hadn't found Will.

There were no signs. No snapped branches, no footprints, no crushed leaves. Nothing. As if Will had simply glided through the wood, his feet never touching the ground.

Gilan's eyes scanned the area over and over again, his head swiveling the way Halt had taught him. His ears, trained to pick up the slightest of sounds, caught the soft, polite cough from thirty feet away.

He spun, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, and he saw-

"Halt!"

The older Ranger stepped from the shadows, moonlight falling on his features. He looked younger, more haunting, the moonlight smoothing away his wrinkles and giving him an air of mystery and intrigue.

"Gilan. Am I safe in assuming we are here on a common mission?"

"Yes!" Gilan felt an overwhelming sense of relief at Halt's arrival. He could use the help. "Finding Will, right?"

Halt nodded once. "How long have you been out here?"

"Two and a half hours. You?"

"Four."

Gilan gaped at his former mentor. "Four hours? You've been searching for four hours?" Any relief he had felt evaporated. If Halt couldn't find Will after four hours of searching, then Gilan didn't stand a chance.

"Four." Halt exhaled slowly. "I've picked up a few trails, but they lead to nothing. He doesn't to be found, and I expect we won't find him until next morning."

"No," whispered Gilan. "No, you can't say that. You can't give up."

Halt scowled. "Who said I was giving up?"

They trooped through the forest for another two hours, searching every nook and cranny, inside every tree hollow, behind every bush. They searched until their legs ached and their eyes hurt, until Gilan's stomach had completely forgotten about the apple pie he'd eaten and began to growl for sustenance.

Neither of them wanted to be the one to say it, the one to give up. In the end, Gilan spoke up, knowing that old Halt was stubborn enough to keep them here until daybreak.

"Let's go," he said quietly. "We're no use to him if we're half-starved and sleep-deprived. I'll ask Ev- Cassandra and Horace to organize a search party. We can mobilize nearby Rangers. Heck, I'm sure Crowley'd get off his fat ass for a few hours, too."

Halt's lips pressed together in what might have been a smile. "All right," he said. "We'll go. But only because you're too weak to continue."

Gilan rolled his eyes. They turned back and cut through the woods, scanning the area for anything they might've missed as they went.

The lanterns in Gilan's cabin were out, and he took special care not to make a sound as he shed his cloak and boots, entered, and slipped into bed beside Jenny.

"Four hours."

Her voice was soft, but it pricked through him like a dozen needles. The vulnerability, the uncertainty, the fear in her words pulled at his heart.

"I know," he whispered. "Halt and I- we looked everywhere. Thrice."

"You couldn't find him?"

"Not even a trace."

She sighed softly. "Are you sure he's in the woods?"

"There's nowhere else he could be."

They lay in cold silence. The weight of worry pressed down on Gilan's chest and shoulders. He'd failed Will.

"You'll find him tomorrow," Jenny whispered. "Sleep."

And they drifted off into a slumber of tormented cries and familiar figures, just out of reach.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

If the sun is shining, he does not know. If the moon is dying, he does not know. If the stars have fallen, if the sky has withered, he does not know. He does not know.

He has been damned to an existence in nothingness. He lives among void creatures, lost dreams and forsaken hopes. He cries tears of blood, and they trickle from milky-white eyes to soak right back into his skin. His bones push through, sun-bleached and stripped of flesh. He is at once living, and most certainly dead.