For a moment their eyes meet. The world is silent. It is less than a split second, but it drags at them. It beats them bruised.
She is older than he remembered. Her hair has streaks of grey in it, and she is far too thin. She's wearing a somber blue dress, seems lost in its voluminous folds, and her hair has been neatly contained within a docile bun, not a strand out of place. She's even wearing an apron.
But her eyes. Her eyes are the same.
And he – he has a bitter look about him, a beaten look, and there is a scar on his cheek, on his neck. His hair is mostly steel grey, and his skin weathered by the sun and sea. There is a stubble of beard on his cheeks and chin.
But when he speaks.
'Pocahontas.'
But when he speaks.
It is as though she is, for a brief moment, more than a dream.
'John Smith.' She touches his hand where it rests on the doorframe.
If she could, she would place them palm to palm.
'Dad?'
Then John runs past her, leaves her staring at the blue stained world, and when she turns and follows him he's got his daughter in his arms. Their heads press together as Meg sobs, and whimpers that the bad man's come to find her, the wolf to eat her up.