Chapter 15

All Killian Jones could hear was the roaring in his ears. He did not know if it was from the departing motorcycle or from the blood banging in his head like a jackhammer, and his hands fumbled blindly at the rough pavement, trying to push the world back into its accustomed dimensions, but he couldn't. He could barely breathe, barely move, as the shock thundered through him like a freight train. Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody, fucking hell! It can't – she said – she lied, she said I didn't know them, I thought it was Cassidy, she lied –

No, another voice said. You lied to yourself, you bastard. You wanted to believe it was Cassidy, so you did. Never even asked a bloody question. And now it was over. He'd crossed the line, there was no turning back. Boston College should never allow him to instruct their students again if they knew what was good for them, and he had enough pride left not to beg. I tried. God damn it, I tried. But they didn't give out medals for that. He'd left everything behind to come here, to change his life, and yet now that he had found out that Gold was still alive, the darkness had come exploding up to consume him. There was nothing else he could think about, nothing else he could even dream about, than murdering the crocodile slowly.

Killian had never come to terms with Milah's death. Had never been able to crawl into the vault of blackened memories that she was part of, sift through them, and accept the extent of the wreckage. But he had thought that perhaps he could just not think about it long enough to function. He might not have a life, but at least he could go on existing, and that – until now – was what he'd done. But his heart flatly overruled his head. Even if it meant putting a comfortable job in serious jeopardy, destroying the investment of his Trinity education, ripping apart Storybrooke and the lives of its citizens, and betraying the one woman who had helped him, he had to go after Gold once he discovered that the crocodile was alive. Had to. And as his priest friend Father Kovak would have told him, bad roots and bad trees could only bear bad fruit.

After another shattered moment, Killian lurched to his feet. The motorcycle was long gone, the night almost quiet again, except for Tamara gasping for breath nearby; apparently she'd been thrown quite hard. Good. He stumbled to retrieve his sword, still edged with a bright crimson line of blood from where it had sliced the back of Emma's leg as she ran, and shuddered, barely able to look at it as he wiped it clean. Then he whirled around and stormed back to Tamara, flicking the point to her throat as she attempted to get up. "You stay there, pet," he snarled.

She coughed, wiped her mouth, and stared up at him coolly. "And what did I do?"

"You told me I didn't know them! That I didn't know her!"

"Oh?" Tamara's eyes narrowed. She might be flat on her back, held at swordpoint by an extremely angry and emotionally unbalanced pirate, but the gears were clearly turning. "So you do? I didn't lie to you, Captain. I had no reason to think you did. And I have to say, I'm surprised by this. Revenge isn't a victimless crime. Someone always has to get hurt."

Not her. I didn't want to hurt her. Killian could find no words to utter it, however, and didn't want to entrust the bitch with the information. She already knew far too much about him, her and her bloody mysterious friends, wanting to attack Storybrooke for conveniently obscure reasons of their own. Whatever that was, it couldn't be any nobler than what he –

At that moment, something white caught his eye. It was a scrap of paper, which had fallen out of Tamara's pocket when Emma took her down, and Killian, keeping his sword to her throat to warn her not to try anything funny, lunged for it with his free hand and picked it up. It looked like a business card, a glitzy entertainment ad. Tiger Lily and the Lost Boys.

"What is this?" Despite his best efforts, his voice shook. "What the hell is this?"

"My day job," Tamara said flatly. "I'm a singer with a club band."

"Why that name?"

"My business." Her eyes glittered.

"Do you work with them?" Killian gave the sword a twist, so Tamara choked and tried to inch out from under it. A bead of blood was blooming under the point, at the hollow of her throat. "Do you work for Him?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She winced. "Don't do something you'll regret."

"Really?" he breathed, increasing the pressure. "Why not?"

She grinned, holding up her cell phone. "Because I've just called Boston College security. What I'll tell them when they get here is up to you. Either that a man on a motorcycle mugged me and got away, or that a man with a sword. . . well. . . didn't. I'm guessing they'll recognize you."

A twisted smile peeled back Killian's lips. "Well played," he granted her, stepping away and sheathing the sword. "You'll understand, then, if I have to make my exit. Come back when you're ready to proceed in some way that doesn't involve this bloody nonsense."

"I'm always ready to proceed." She sat up carefully, dabbing away the blood on her neck. "I have a cause that I believe in wholeheartedly, and nothing stands in the way of what needs to get done. What about you, Captain? It looks to me like you're the one having second thoughts. Maybe you didn't love your woman as much as you think?"

"Don't – you – bloody – dare tell me that I didn't love Milah!" All he could see was red. He wanted to kill her then and there, wanted to put his sword through her heart and twist and shove it in again, but he could see the lights of the approaching BC security patrol car, and that would be a very, very bad first impression. He turned away, put his head down, and lit out up the road, toward the T station. He didn't dare to glance back.

He was halfway to downtown Boston, apparently looking so beside himself that he had two empty seats both front and rear, before he stopped shaking. He hadn't felt this off the handle in a very long time, and it terrified him. He was far into the boundary of legal guilt, so well as moral, and he unwillingly thought of Belle, still tied up in the U-Haul. I doubt campus security will ask to search Tamara's trailer. He could call in a tip, but he didn't know what the bloody bitch might have said about him. And besides, what matter was the crocodile's woman? She could suffer, and suffer plenty. Not a damn thing to him.

Killian was so distracted that he almost missed his stop, and stumbled off the train into the late night. He thought of getting a hotel, in case Tamara showed up at his apartment again, but if so, he intended to be there to meet her; he had never been one to run from a fight. Which makes my current doing so still more perplexing. Even if Tamara had been telling the truth that she hadn't expected him to know Emma, she had been lying about the girl herself – foster kid? No parents, juvi rap sheet, one step above living on the streets? That didn't gel with the well-adjusted, obviously loved daughter he'd met – her parents doted on her, she came from a solidly middle-class upbringing, and hadn't struck him as a magnet for trouble. Tamara was just spinning a likely story out of her arse to get him to –

Wait.

Killian froze in midstep as something hit him broadside. What Tamara had said when she'd first come to his flat, about how something had changed in Storybrooke, so the old manners of doing things no longer worked. It had been difficult to find before, but was now impossible – suggesting that something about the curse had been reworked, a catch tripped, a clause invoked. Clearly, Emma had not only survived eating the turnover, but was out of the hospital. . . yet that didn't mean that everything was the same as before. What if some combination of her coma, her parents and the crocodile leaving Storybrooke, and the indisputable presence of Regina attempting to cause mischief had done something to all of them? What if she'd forgotten? What if she had become – or thought she had – a girl abandoned since birth, frightened and alone?

Not my business, Killian reminded himself again. But the idea was already gaining momentum, and the memory of realizing that it was her, her hair tumbling and her eyes wide in terror, made him want to be sick again. What did you do, you bloody son of a bitch? What did you do?

He swallowed hard, shook his head, and kept walking. Gods, how he wanted to go home, shut himself into his flat, and drink himself into oblivion – this was a bloody college town, there had to be a liquor store still open somewhere. But that would cripple his ability to defend himself in the event of more trouble, which seemed entirely likely, and thus would have to wait until his escape was made good. Any fucking time you get around to it, Jones.

At last, he turned into his street, went up the steps of his building, and let himself in. The sleepy doorman didn't even look up, and Killian hurried past, up the narrow creaking stairwell. Two, three, four flights up, to his apartment at the end. He reached into his pocket, fumbling for his keys, thinking that it would just be like this wretched night if he'd somehow dropped them or left them behind. But no, they were there, and now he'd just –

It was then that the woman in the shadows stepped out, and scared him almost to bloody death.

"Hello, Killian."

Oh, fuck it. Fuck it fuck it fuck it a hundred and a hundred times more to some godforsaken depths of bloody fucking damnable bleeding pustulant arse-licking fucking hell.

His voice barely sounded like his own. He couldn't turn around.

"Hello, Wendy."

Emma lost track of how long they rode. The dark trees whipped by, the lights of other buildings spaced increasingly far apart until it was only the cold New England night as far as she could see, and she grew increasingly certain that this was no rescue at all. For all she knew, this guy worked for a sex-trafficking ring or something, pretending to swoop in and rescue vulnerable young women from bad situations, before turning around and trapping them in one far worse. But if she threw herself off the motorcycle while it was going 75 mph, she would beyond doubt end up straight back in the hospital, and she had had utterly fucking enough for that place for a lifetime. She'd have to wait until they stopped to nail him. And hitchhike home. And pray to God that the law of averages prevented her from running into any more psychopaths. Considering her current run of luck, it sounded like a horrible bet.

A thousand half-baked ideas and frantic plans were racing through her head, which at least had the effect of distracting her from the throbbing pain in the back of her leg. When she reached down with her free hand to fumble at it, she discovered that while the cut was very shallow, it had scored almost the entire length of her calf from her knee to her ankle, and was bleeding enough to stick her jeans painfully to the skin. She grimaced as she pulled it off. The memory still made her shudder; she'd faced a lot of things in her young life, but not that. Who the fuck carries a sword, much less actually stabs someone with it? Yeah, I definitely felt it.

At last, her rescuer/possible abductor turned off the road, and the roar of the bike's engine dimmed to a sputtering growl, then died. The guy – August – swung off, then offered her a hand, but she didn't take it. She jerked away and scrambled around, getting the bulk of the Harley between them, then pointed her index finger in her pocket like it was a pistol. "You better start talking."

August shook his head. "Emma, you don't have a gun."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because if you did, you wouldn't have needed me to rescue you. And I'm here to help, I promise. Think of me as your. . . guardian angel."

"Yeah? You've been doing a pretty crap job." Emma stayed light on her feet – ready, if he lunged at her, to dodge away and knee him where it hurt. "And all right, I might not have a gun, but I swear to fucking God, if you don't start talking, I will end you."

August looked taken aback. "You're pretty tough, huh?"

"I haven't really had a choice," Emma said between her teeth. "Now that we've cleared that up, tell me how you know my name and why you've been stalking me. Short version. One minute."

August raked a hand through his brown curls. "It's complicated."

"How did I know you were going to say that? Fifty seconds."

"Emma, I – " Just then, he caught sight of the blood, her slashed and stained jeans, and gaped. "You're hurt. Let me – "

"If you lay a finger on me, I will tie your balls around your throat. Thirty seconds."

He was starting to look a little hot under the collar. Good. Finally he blurted out, "Look, I just – where did you grow up?"

"You suck at this game. You didn't tell me anything, and you're out of time. Hasta mañana, amigo." Emma turned around, as if she was about to make a disdainful exit – yeah, fucking where? They'd passed a few farmhouses, she could maybe. . . but it was idiotic to think she could outrun the motorcycle, especially with her bad leg. She put weight on it, and it buckled.

In a flash, August was at her side, his concern for his balls apparently disregarded as he offered her a steadying arm. She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood, leaning on him a lot harder than she wanted to admit. "Look," he said. "I know this is kind of creepy, but I was trying to find a place where we could have privacy. This is too important to screw around with. But maybe we get back on the bike, find a late-night urgent care for that leg, and go have a drink?"

"Yeah, I don't go anywhere with guys who won't tell me their real name or why they're stalking me. Weeds out the ones who are already married or keep body parts in their freezers. Besides, I'm underage. Want me to bust you for offering alcohol to a minor, when I call the police to report a kidnapping?"

"You're not going to call the police."

"Try me."

"You've had a lot of chances already. You haven't." August shrugged. "Besides, you don't want to deal with them again. Things might get finicky. With your pending charges and everything."

Emma actually felt herself turning cold all over. "And how do you know that, exactly?"

"My business. All right, short version. My name is August W. Booth. I'm following you because you have a destiny, and you need to fulfill it. Now, how about that drink?"

"Excuse me, you did just hear me tell you that I'm – "

He cocked an eyebrow. "I've got bigger things to worry about. So, are you coming with me, or am I leaving you here to walk home?"

"You son of a bitch." Emma's fingers curled, quivering with the desire to punch him, but that was, unfortunately, an effective bargaining position. She limped back to the Harley and got on, wrapping her arms around him purposefully tight enough to make him wheeze. Then he kicked the bike back to life and pulled out, roaring down the quiet country lane in a way that was almost guaranteed to make some crotchety retiree file a noise complaint. But then they were gone, and she knew that no matter how weird this night had already gotten, it had only just begun.

Half an hour later, after making a stop at an all-night drugstore for bandages, Bactine, and painkillers for her leg, they'd patched her up more or less sufficiently and were installed in some crummy dive joint where the bartender hadn't even bothered to check Emma's fake. She was grateful; she wasn't nearly as drunk as she needed to be. Even remembering what had happened the last time she'd gone out and gotten blitzed with a guy. . . August could be counting on it, planning to whisk her off to some equally trashy motel to have his way with her, but. . .

Wait. Emma frowned. That was the first time she'd remembered anything from the days immediately preceding her coma – until now, they'd just been a big black hole. But she'd gone to a club with Neal. . . they'd seen a band, the Lost Boys or something. . . she'd gotten wasted and woken up naked in his bed. . . she'd yelled at him and run, and someone had given her a ride back to campus. . . a woman, Emma thought, but didn't know who. It was all receding, back into the mists, as she growled and tried to snatch at it. It was the most fucking frustrating thing ever.

She and August both finished their first beers quickly, and he slipped the bartender some crumpled bills for another round. There were very few other patrons, and they weren't paying any attention; this was the kind of place you went to drown your sorrows as fast as possible. So Emma slurped the foam off and said, "Okay. Start talking."

He didn't immediately answer, staring pensively into the glass rack. He lifted his own drink and took a long slug, then asked again, "Where did you grow up?"

This was really not his goddamn business, but the only other option was to pour her beer on his head and steal his bike. She studied the scarred wood of the bar intently. "Here and there. It changed pretty much every year. Foster homes, if they'd have me. The children's institution, if they wouldn't. As I got older and more of a pain in the ass, it was harder and harder for the state to pay people to take me off their hands. I got good at looking out for myself. Finished high school and applied to college just to spite everyone who said I couldn't, to punch back and say no, this is who I am. Yeah. That's it."

August looked stunned. "But you. . . all my investigations, everything I found out. . . Emma, I thought – I was sure – that you didn't escape it."

She stared at him blankly. "Escape what?"

He took a deep breath, and visibly commended his soul to God. "I need to tell you something."

"Wow. Finally."

"Just hear me out. It's going to sound crazy, but. . . just listen, all right?" Not waiting for her assent, he plunged ahead. "I. . . don't think you actually grew up that way. I think you just think you did. I don't know how exactly, but something is messing with your mind. A. . . a curse. You were supposed to escape it, but you didn't. And now everything is changed."

There was a very, very long silence. Then Emma said, "Come again?"

"Like I said. I know it sounds crazy. But there's a curse, all right? There's a curse on your entire hometown, and you're the one who has to end it. Your parents are affected by it, everybody. Nobody knows who they really are, including you, and you have to – whoa!"

August tried vainly to catch her beer, as Emma jerked back so hard that it rocked and slopped everywhere. "No!" Her voice was a searing hiss. "It doesn't sound crazy, it is crazy! If all this time you've been stalking me on this nutty delusion that I, that I, could ever be some kind of – "

"It's too nutty to make up, isn't it? Why would I be wasting my time following you, if that wasn't exactly why – "

"Because you're a deluded hipster bad boy with an overactive imagination and no sense of personal boundaries? Seems just as likely." She ripped away when he reached out for her. "No. You-are-out-of-fucking-line. Thanks for the drink, July, but you better not ever talk to me again, or I'll – "

"What if I told you where Neal is?"

She went very still. "Excuse me?"

"Neal. The guy who – "

"Yeah. I heard you the first time. And that's supposed to make me cooperate with you how?"

"Some things that happened between you and him. . . I might have had something to do with it." He glanced up again, imploring. "I was trying to get you away, wake you up. You needed to – "

Emma hauled off and slapped him.

August raised a hand to his cheek, blinking. "The hell was that. . .?"

The bartender looked over. "Everything all right, folks?"

"Fine," Emma informed him, with a teeth-achingly false smile. Then she turned back and whispered, "You are a stalker at best, and a very, very deeply psychotically disturbed individual at the worst, and whatever decisions you thought you were making to control my life were not yours to make, do you understand me? Even if we pretend for one godforsaken second that you're telling the truth, it doesn't matter. My life is one giant steaming pile of shit, and I am nobody's savior. I don't want that, I don't want it! I can barely get out of bed in the morning without something horrible happening. So whatever messianic crusade you're on – or worse, you think I'm on – you can shove it up your ass."

Once more she whirled to storm out, but once again, August's pleading voice followed her. "Emma, I know it's hard. I've messed up, I know I have – I've messed up so much since I came here. But I'm trying to do the right thing now, and just. . . there are people who need you. Really need you. All of us."

Emma made herself look back at him for a long, almost transcendent moment. Made herself memorize every detail of his face, so she'd be able to give the best description when she applied for the restraining order. So, if by some miserable fluke she ever saw him again, she'd know.

"Then," she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper. "You're all screwed."

And with that, she left.

"I – don't think this is the best time, my dear." Killian attempted an ingratiating smile. "Come back in the morning. I'll make you a proper cup of tea, we can chat and catch up and you can tell me just why you're here in – "

"If I come back in the morning, you'll be gone!" The old lady advanced on him like a Panzer brigade, jabbing the tip of her cane into his chest. She was half his height and weighed perhaps a hundred pounds soaking wet, but nonetheless, there was no doubt about who was in charge here. "Precisely how thick do you think I am, Killian Jones? No, don't answer that question, anything you have to say will only vex me further. In! Now!"

Directed by further prods of the cane, Killian unlocked his front door and marched in, Wendy Darling hot on his heels. As he hit the hallway light, she glanced around disapprovingly. "Terrible mess. Why are you packing?"

"Took a leave of absence. Thought I'd. . . go back to Ireland for a while. Clear me head."

"Clear your head?" The old lady snorted loudly. "From the looks of things, if you cleared it any further, the last sensible thought in there might die of loneliness. And why? What would make you need to do that? Have you. . ."

She paused, then scrutinized him intently. In a softer voice, threatening and terrified at once, she said, "My God. You've fallen, haven't you? Fallen back. Straight into the open jaws of revenge."

"I have not," Killian protested. Reasonably convincingly, he thought. "But there have been a few bumps, and I need a bit of a breather. None of your bloody business."

Wendy's eyes narrowed dangerously. "None of my bloody business?"

Killian turned away, cursing under his breath. Something occurred to him then, and he sidled around the corner, unbuckled his sword, and kicked it posthaste under the bed – he was damned lucky that her eyes weren't as sharp as they used to be, that she hadn't seen it. When he was more or less confident that he did not resemble a fugitive from justice, he reemerged and bestowed his (latest) unexpected guest with a dazzling smile. "How about a drop of brandy, and we can settle this like civilized – "

"No," Wendy interrupted. "I haven't time for your nonsense, Killian. As much as your leave of absence concerns me, that's not why I came here. It's far more important. He's back."

There was a long, extremely fraught pause. Then Killian, feigning innocence, said, "He. . .?"

"You know perfectly bloody well who I'm talking about."

Bugger. He glanced away, trying to collect his suddenly racing thoughts. "He's the reason we met in the first place, love. Perhaps it's him you could invite for the cozy chat, aye?"

"Funny. Always such a funny man." The old lady stared him down. "You never asked why I came there. Came back, I mean. To Neverland."

"Should I have?" He showed his teeth. "You were my prisoner at the time."

"So I was," Wendy said coolly. "Well then, I'll tell you. The shadow came back, Killian. After it took Baelfire in place of my brothers. It must have been that Bae wasn't the one it was looking for either, so it came back. It took John and Michael after all, and I. . . I wouldn't abandon them. So I jumped out the window after it and hung on, all that long terrible flight, while it tried to shake me off to my death in the streets of London far below. Somehow, it didn't succeed. We all made it to Neverland, the three of us. You know what happened next."

So he did. How the hapless Darlings had been captured by the Lost Boys, and how he, hearing that they were there – remembered Bae saying that they were his true family – had promptly arranged for his crew to capture them right back. Bae was already gone by then, in hiding somewhere on the island. Killian had hoped to use the Darlings to smoke him out, but Bae hadn't taken the bait. Killian still didn't know when he had left Neverland, or what had befallen him after the Lost Ones had taken him. Sometimes he still dreamed of the boy. In the moments between sleeping and waking, Bae was his son, his own, had been raised by him and never wanted for any other father or family, and none of this had ever happened. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Wendy was watching him. "Well?"

Killian blew out a breath. "Time makes no matter in Neverland," he reminded her. "It's been decades and decades here, but it might have only been a day there. No wonder the shadow's still on the prowl."

"Please." Her voice wavered. "It's after Jack. My great-grandson, Moira's boy. We're running out of ideas. Moira hasn't slept in almost a week; it won't come to the window as long as she's there. We need your help."

Killian tensed. He wondered which of them from so long ago, the feared pirate captain or the frightened but entranced English girl, would be more surprised at how this had ended up. Almost certainly the former. Still brokenhearted and furious in the raw aftermath of losing Bae, he'd been sleekly, lethally charming to the captive Darlings, half using them as live bait and half still hoping, like a bloody idiot, that they might choose to stay with him of their own accord. He'd played the father to John and Michael, but with far more vicious ulterior motives than before – if he could find Bae, he could force him to reveal the location of the Dark One's dagger, and hence skin himself a crocodile – and while they were tempted by the pirate's life, they and their sister had finally managed to escape, fly back to their own world. He'd never expected to see them again. Until the day he'd followed them there.

"Killian," Wendy said quietly. "You owe me."

So he did. So he bloody did. When he'd arrived in London, alone and penniless, their paths had crossed by accident – or perhaps not so much by accident. She remembered him at once. Knew exactly who he was. And taken him in, put a roof over his head, partly because she'd done the same for Bae and partly in a defiant attempt to show him that, contrary to what he'd said to her once, not all humans were essentially rotten to the core. Over seventy years since she'd last seen him, and it was fresh as if it had been merely a day.

And so, Captain Hook slowly became Killian Jones again. A complicated, standoffish relationship developed into one of warm mutual respect and a definite understanding. She'd paid his way through school, gotten him this job, done her utmost to encourage him to leave his all-consuming quest for blood, his dark alter ego, behind forever. She thought he'd changed. That he'd never be tempted again. That he was a good man.

He hadn't. He was. He wasn't. And he felt still worse for knowing it.

"Killian," she said again. "Please."

He stood unmoving. If the shadow was hunting. . . it was still no business of his. He wasn't a bloody hero, and he was nobody's savior. In fact, the furthest thing from. "I don't think so."

"You're going to turn me down?" Her voice cracked. In that moment she was a young girl again, not a dignified, genteel, and fabulously wealthy great-grandmother who, no matter how old she was, was still a few hundred years younger than him. "Killian, I'm begging – "

He whirled on her. "That's not my name, pet."

Wendy went as white as a sheet. Without a word, she hauled off and slapped him.

Killian was so surprised that he didn't even attempt to catch the blow. But it was followed swiftly by rage – how dare she bloody – ? He was within fractions of pulling out the hook in his pocket and reminding her painfully of just who he was, but she caught his wrist. "You," she said, low and level. "You're turning into a monster."

"What if I always was?"

"No," Wendy said. "No, you weren't. You know I was attracted to you, as much as I was terrified by you, and not just for your pretty face. It was for seeing the man in you, the man you once were, and that you had the potential to one day be again. If you think I'm letting you waste that, after everything I have done in hopes of bringing him back, you're out of your bloody mind."

She tilted her head back and stared at him, jaw clenched and eyes bright with unshed tears, and a slow sigh rattled through him as he carefully stepped away, unnerved by how close he had come to seriously hurting her. First Emma, and now – but no. He wasn't going to think about Emma. It was too wretchedly painful.

Silence stretched on. Ten, twenty, thirty heartbeats. More. How long could this shadow-destroying mission take? Not long, if he knew his business. He could do it, take revenge on another old foe that remained to be dealt with. Couldn't hurt to hone his skills for going after Gold. Couldn't hurt. What do I really have to lose?

In his mind's eye, Killian saw his beloved ship broken on the beach, gutted like a great leviathan torn from the deep. It was made of enchanted wood, and with a bit of fairy magic, it was his way out of Neverland. He had been sincere when he'd asked to go. When in return for his sacrifice of the Jolly Roger and his vow never to turn into Hook again, the fairies had restored his hand and turned the haphazard collection of the Roger's timbers into a portal.

My girl. He dreamed of her even more than of Bae. Of running his hand along her helm, seeing her sails catch a wind, hearing her timbers speak to him as he lay awake on another hellish night, missing Milah too badly to sleep. My girl. He had loved her as only a captain could love his ship, more than he had loved any breathing soul, but he had lost her too. Left her in pieces on the deserted shore, and gone far, far away. Far beyond the second star to the right (or was it the left, leaving Neverland?) Far beyond his own memory.

I can never go back.

He let out a slow, ragged breath.

"All right, lass," he said wearily. "All right."