What is a home if not the first place you learned to run from?

The shadow of the Kunlun Mountains shrouded everything and everyone as a car rolled to a stop at the entrance of a giant temple. From the driver's seat, out stepped the Panda King, who surveyed the area for a long moment before moving to the back half of the car.

He paused with his hand on the door handle, bracing himself. Then he opened it.

A little gray blur came shooting out of the backseat, but King was faster. He caught the boy by the collar of his shirt and hauled him into the air as he flailed in a pitiful, desperate attempt to break free.

"Cease your behavior," the Fiendish Five member said, staring down the struggling raccoon. When nothing changed, he shook him once in warning. "Cease, or I will make you cease."

The young Cooper finally seemed to get the message, because he stopped trying to swing and kick at his captor's arm. Instead, he glared at him with all the hate and hostility an eight-year-old could possibly hold.

The Panda King was well aware how deceptively large that amount could be.

"I am going to put you down now," he told him, watching the way the child tensed in anticipation, "and we are going to walk inside together. Do not think you will be able to escape so easily – my employees are all loyal to me, and will not hesitate to shoot a trespasser on sight, no matter your age. You will only be safe here with me."

The kit eyed the temple ahead of them and the shine of spotlights going all the way up each floor.

"Do you understand?"

A sullen nod was his answer without even a glance in his direction. Familiar anger curled in the panda's chest like the trapped smoke of a raging fire at the open display of disrespect, but he did not release it. All he did was place the raccoon gently back onto his feet, keeping his fingers on a tight grip at the back of his neck.

It was fortuitous he had the insight to do so, because the young Cooper immediately tried to bolt again the instant his shoes hit the snowy ground. King jerked him back so powerfully he collided with the man's leg.

Insolent child.

He pushed the boy forward through the entrance. Employees and guards alike snapped to attention at his presence with not even a glance at the child at his side. The Panda King nodded to each in turn as he made eye contact with them.

Deeper into the heart of the factory the two of them went. The fireworks master didn't necessarily need to take this route to reach their destination, but he wanted to show the boy that it was futile to fight back. The power and respect he commanded in these mountains were second only to some of the oldest family lines in the entire country. Even the local government feared his wrath, and they worked around each other in a begrudging truce.

His methods appeared to be working, too – the child was staring at everyone around them with wide, wide eyes, and seemed to walk a little faster with every new guard he saw. As they exited the factory back into open air, a large gorilla nearly walked right into them, who backed away quickly as he realized his mistake and bowed low.

"Forgive me, my lord," he said in Cantonese. "I should have been paying more attention. I hope I did not cause offense."

The Panda King opened his mouth to respond when he suddenly felt resistance at his side. He glanced down to see the young Cooper trying to edge behind him. A pang of irritation shot through him until he realized the reason why – the guard's flashlight was shining directly at the kit and, at the angle he was bowing, their gazes were locked. His gun was easily visible on one hip, and a large dagger glinted in the evening light on his other.

In the stark, unavoidable face of danger and confrontation, the raccoon's fragile bravado was cracking to reveal the true terror underneath. He wasn't ignorant or dismissive of his situation like the panda had first believed; if anything, he was all too aware of it. So afraid of his new fate when faced with it, the boy couldn't help but try to hide behind his own captor. Seeking some form of comfort and protection, bare as it was, from one of the very people who had helped slaughter his family.

He was still only eight years old, after all.

King stared at him for a long moment before turning back to his waiting guard. "It was not your fault. You did not know we were coming. Please, continue with your duties."

The gorilla gave another bow and hurried along, leaving the panda and his ward alone in the cold dark. The child shivered, still half-pressed against him.

"...Let us move on," he said at last without addressing it. Sly didn't nod or even look up at him, but he went without resistance when they continued walking.

Past more temples, residencies, and dozens of watchful guards, they finally arrived at their destination – a great stone fortress carved into the mountain itself. It was still largely hidden from the outside, but the fireworks master had been considering changing that lately. Perhaps something based on his likeness to show the unquestionable claim he had over this region.

The moment they stepped inside, there were attendants appearing at the Panda King's side ready and waiting for orders. He regarded them, still holding tight to the young Cooper's shirt.

"I want one of the empty rooms to be cleared out for living," he announced, "with reinforced walls and an outer lock on its door. Choose a room with no windows."

Over half of his servants broke away to begin immediately. He turned to two more.

"Bring me my ten best guards. I require a meeting with them within one hour."

The boy glanced back and forth between him and his servants with a confused frown as he spoke. King ignored it; he would learn Mandarin to communicate with the staff in due time.

Once every attendant had a job to do and had left them alone, he finally acknowledged the child again.

"You will live here as a personal servant to me and my family," he said, switching to English. The kit's nose scrunched up in disgust. "Do not be ungrateful. I have decided that you will have a simple vocation, but I will not hesitate to give you hard labor if you continue to scorn the mercy that has been shown to you. Do you understand?"

He glared at the floor, so King kneeled to get on his level and forced him to meet his eyes. If looks could kill, the panda knew he would have stopped breathing in an instant.

"Do you understand, Sly Cooper?"

The child's tail curled tightly around his legs. His breaths came out in quiet, angry huffs, and there were tears growing in his eyes. But he eventually nodded without a word in protest. Not a word at all, in fact, which the fireworks master had noticed had been the case as far back as the States. Ever since Clockwerk had forced him to tell them his name mere centimeters from the corpse of his father, the kit hadn't made a single sound afterward.

Tucking away the peculiarity to ponder over at a later time, the panda got back to his feet and began to turn around with the young Cooper's shirt still in his grip – and was only mildly surprised to see his sister standing in the nearby doorway. Her expression was shrewd as she laid eyes on the raccoon fidgeting at his side.

"Who is that?" She asked.

"A servant for Jing."

"You took a local from a nearby town?" The other panda gave him a sharp glance. "His family will want him back, surely. They will cause a stir."

"No one will do that. He is not a local, nor does he have any family. He is…the child of a former rival."

He had phrased it carefully, but he could not stop the real meaning from shining through.

"He's what?!" Now she stared at the child with disdain and disgust, who flinched and tried to hide behind King to no avail. "What were you thinking, bringing him here? He will smother your daughter in her sleep! He will burn this entire place to the ground if given half the chance!"

"He will not get that chance." When the woman scoffed in disbelief, King reached forward and gently took hold of her shoulder. "My dear sister, please listen to me. I would never do anything to put Jing or us in harm's way. I saved this boy from death, and he will repay that debt until he is old enough to fend for himself."

"We were never given that courtesy," she muttered, crossing her arms and refusing to meet his eyes. "I don't like this. You think you are showing mercy to an innocent soul, but your bleeding heart will not see the danger until there is a knife at your throat."

The panda considered telling her of the Cooper Cane hidden away in his luggage, then decided against it. The boy would not be allowed access to it for several years at least. There was no need to worry his sister further.

Before either of them could continue their argument, a third, younger voice cut in that sent joy through his heart to hear.

"Daddy! You're back!"

A little panda girl darted out from around her aunt, who tried and failed to stop her from advancing, and ran towards King with her arms outstretched. Then she saw the boy at her father's side and stopped in her tracks with big, curious eyes.

"Who's that?"

The young Cooper had frozen as well at the sight of the other child, and the fireworks master studied the open shock on his face a moment before pushing him forward.

"Dear daughter, this young man will be a personal servant to our family. Please treat him with respect as you would the rest of the staff."

The Panda King turned to the raccoon and gently grabbed onto his chin to force him to look at him instead of his daughter.

"Sly Cooper, this is my daughter, Jing King." He watched the way the kit's eyes widened, and let the words sink in before continuing. "If you ever do anything to cause her harm, then I will not hesitate to strike you down where you are standing."

The child swallowed, his gaze darting sideways to glance over at Jing again. King could no longer read the emotions on his face, and he did not know how to feel about that. For not the first time, he wondered if he had made a mistake.

But he had already chosen this path, and he would see it through to whatever end lay ahead. There was no stopping fate's course. All he could hope for was that his daughter would remain safe.

Safe, and happy.

A snowstorm was due soon.

Jing King could always tell when one was on its way – not from the shifting weather or her own innate senses, but from the way the staff at her aunt's house began hustling and bustling more than usual every time. Their daily schedule flowed like water, accounting for even the slightest changes and working around them with professional grace to appease their employer.

That schedule was how Jing measured the monotony of the weeks, nowadays. After nearly a year of living with her aunt, not allowed out of the house for more than a few hours of carefully monitored shopping where an entire entourage followed her like she was the next heir to the Chinese monarchy, all she could rely on for interest and comfort was watching how the people around her went about their busier, more interesting lives.

The only other thing that made them as busy as an incoming storm was when her father came to visit. Today, from what she could tell by how frantic they had been since dawn, seemed to be a day for both.

Her father never announced ahead of time when he was coming, but the staff always seemed to know anyway, well before his family could see his shadow arriving in the archway of the outer garden. Jing watched from her high room window as he stepped up to the house with a large bag slung over one shoulder, hearing hurrying footsteps up and down the hall outside her closed door as servants put the finishing touches on polishing the floors.

This, too, she felt detached from – as if she were not actually here, but a ghostly specter witnessing the events around her without ever being acknowledged.

Her father stopped just outside the front door, eyes casting upwards until they locked onto hers, and she felt her expression pull into something as close to a glare as she dared to make. His mouth thinned, visible even two stories down, and he entered the house with a hunch to his form.

How she wished she would not be acknowledged. It would be so much easier than this state of limbo she found herself in after all these months.

After all these years.

Jing waited, unmoving, at her window, and three minutes later there was a firm knock on her door. She didn't answer; didn't even turn around as it was gently slid open and her father's shadow darkened everything in her room.

"Dear daughter, you will not even greet me at the door anymore?"

She finally turned to look at him, her face as blank as she could possibly make it. "I wasn't aware it was such a momentous occasion to warrant leaving my room."

The Panda King was such a large man that he had to duck to get through the doorframe. It would have done little to affect his intimidating presence if he were not moving as timidly as he was right now.

"Such callous words greatly wound me," he said, coming to a stop in the center of the room with the bag between his hands. "I do not understand why you say these things instead of what is truly on your mind and in your heart."

Jing couldn't help the way her hands clenched into fists where they sat in her lap. Her tone was clipped and icy as she answered. "I tried that once, Father, and it didn't matter in the end. How can you expect me to think the outcome will be any different this time?"

They stared at each other in silence for a solid minute. The chasm between them was deep and frigid and uninviting, and the younger panda waited to see if this was finally the day that her father would attempt to cross it.

She didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed when he did not.

"…I brought gifts from my time in Sierra Leone," he said after a moment too long, setting the bag on the end of her bed. "There are many beautiful clothes and keepsakes in here. All for you."

"Thank you, Father." It was empty gratitude, and they both knew it, but they had fallen so far into this routinely charade that it felt wrong to do anything else. "Did you take any pictures of the places you visited?"

That question, too, was part of the routine – as was the way he shook his head in what she dared to believe was still a genuine apology.

"You know I cannot ever risk knowledge of where I've been to exist, my dear. Photographs are too dangerous a tool to wield in the wrong hands."

She gave a wooden nod and turned back towards the window. "I will look through the things you've brought me later. For now, I'm going to stay here to watch the oncoming sunset."

Instead of hearing his retreating footsteps like always, there was a concerning lack of movement behind her. Jing held her breath and waited for the break in routine that her father was about to make, and wondered if it might shatter her world.

Again.

"I will not be staying for much longer. I have urgent business higher up on the mountain tonight."

"Oh." Her shoulders relaxed; she didn't know when they had tensed in the first place. "How long will you be?"

"I don't know. At least several days, and I will probably not return here on my way back down."

The invitation, the plea, was clear as day, but Jing refused to stop looking out the window. She kept her gaze resolutely on the distant, waning sun.

"Then…I hope your travels remain safe as always, Father."

She closed her eyes at the sound of the sad sigh at her back, pretending it didn't hurt to hear even now. The Panda King began to slowly make his way towards the door. When he stopped, she still didn't move a muscle.

"I love you, qiān jīn. I hope you will not forget that."

"I know you do, Father." Jing hesitated a moment, but only to make sure her voice would remain steadfast. "And I love you, too."

After he had finally left, after she heard his footsteps fade away and then watched him walk out of the front garden until he disappeared from sight, the young panda felt tears shimmering in the corners of her eyes. She wiped them away before they could fall and put her head in her hands, aching from a loss that she didn't know how to fix.

She stayed there at the window until the sun set without really seeing it, and continued to stay there until the sky finally grew too dark to see the vast mountain landscape. Snowflakes were starting to fall, barely visible even as they danced right in front of the glass. Jing opened the window to let them land on her windowsill, ignoring the sudden biting chill, and finally got up to turn on another lamp at the other end of the room.

There was a thump from outside her window.

Jing turned around, confused by the sound, and watched with shock and alarm as a hand appeared to grip at the windowsill. She stood there, frozen, as the hand was followed by a hooded head and a lanky body and a ringed tail.

"Sly?!"

The figure pulled himself fully through the window and hit the floor of her room with an audible thud. She winced at the sound, staring at him in worry when he didn't move other than to violently shiver. He looked soaked head to toe from snow, and his eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

His lips were blue.

She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Who she was seeing. Words escaped her as she tried to process what to do; what to even say.

"Sly –"

A knock at the door made her gasp and clap her hand over her mouth.

"Ma'am? Is everything okay?" Called an attendant from out in the hall. "I heard something loud."

"Everything's fine!" She replied quickly, picking up the limp raccoon as gently as she could. He weighed practically nothing to her. "I accidentally dropped a book. Please do not come in!"

There was hesitant silence from outside. Jing prayed they didn't open the door as she carefully laid Sly on her bed and pulled a heavy blanket over him.

"Alright, ma'am, if you're sure…"

"Very sure! Completely sure! Please do not bother me again unless I ask for you!"

Something about her tone must have gotten harsh at the end, because the attendant hurried off with only a quiet "yes, ma'am" to accompany their departure. For once, she couldn't bring herself to feel remorse.

Not when a specter of her past life was lying in front of her for the first time in six years.

The panda pulled her desk chair out next to the bed and sank slowly down onto it, watching the slow rise and fall of Sly's chest as he curled up in her blankets and fought to get warmth back in him. She bit her lip, afraid to break the silence for fear that he might disappear the moment she spoke.

It seemed he had read her mind, however, because that very moment his eyes cracked open to stare at her.

"Hey, xiǎo mèi…" He murmured, exhausted and toneless. "Been a while, huh?"

The sound of his voice was nearly enough to bring tears back to her eyes. After all this time, he was still so similar in so many ways.

"It has been a very long time, indeed," she managed to say without letting those tears fall, wringing her hands. "I thought…I mean, I wasn't sure if…"

If I would ever see you again.

"...Where have you been all this time?"

"Oh, you know, around." The raccoon sat up with a wince with the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, trying not to look as though he had just trekked up the mountain on foot. Which he probably had, she was starting to realize. "Got to do some traveling, saw the world, that kind of thing. I even got pictures for you – you were always talking about how much you wanted to get out of Kunlun."

When Jing didn't react except to continue wringing her hands in worry, his neutral expression softened just a little.

"Hey. I'm okay. Just need to warm up a bit and I'll be back on my feet in no time. It's…it's good to see you."

"Good to see you too," she whispered. "I missed you so much, Sly. I was so scared for you."

He wilted back against the mattress a bit, and she knew it had nothing to do with him being exhausted. "Yeah, I…yeah. I missed you too."

The wind howling outside her window was the only sound that passed between them for a long moment, as Sly shivered and struggled to stay awake and Jing watched him in forlorn silence. An idea came to her suddenly and she stood up, making him jump.

"I'll be right back. Please don't go anywhere."

"You say please, but I don't think you'll give me much of a choice either way," he joked. Then he grew tense as she made a beeline for the door. "Where are you going?"

"To get you something to eat."

"Jing, you don't have to –"

"I want to." She paused with her hand against the sliding door, and glanced back at him with a pleading look. "Please let me do this for you."

The raccoon seemed to have an internal conflict at that, but he didn't call after her again when she left, and she paused only to flip the sign on her door to "do not disturb" before hurrying down to the kitchen.

Dinner had already been made and cleaned up hours ago, so there was no one to bother her as she found one of the industrial refrigerators to poke around in. Leftovers were never thrown away in this house – a habit of both her aunt's and father's childhoods that she was now very grateful for – so it only took a minute to find some simple noodle soup, reheat it, and head back to her room with the warm bowl and an additional glass of water in tow.

Sly was right where she'd left him, huddled in blankets but watching the door with the same level of intensity she'd remembered him having even as a child. When the panda sat back down beside him and passed him the soup, he barely even bothered with the chopsticks as he began eating.

The sound of slurping was a loud echo in the room while Jing tried to figure out which of the countless questions in her head would be most likely to actually earn an answer. Sly was someone who often sidestepped truthful answers on the best of days, and right now he looked like talking was the last thing he wanted to do.

Her eyes fell to his chest, covered by clothing, and knew that the things she wanted to know above all else were things she would not dare ask in a thousand years.

"…How did you find this place?" She finally landed on, unable to stop from sounding a little bit incredulous. "You have never been to my aunt's house before."

"One of your servants was out shopping and I recognized the family crest on her uniform. Followed her back." The words were quiet and spoken between rapid swallows of soup.

"Sly…you did not even know whether I would be here. What if it had been my aunt who saw you at the window instead of me? What – what if it had been my father?"

The raccoon stiffened with the chopsticks halfway up to his mouth. "Is he here?"

"No, but –"

"Then you don't have anything to worry about," he said curtly, leaving no space for argument as he went back to eating.

Jing bit her lip. "How did you get here?"

"Walked."

"From where? For how long?"

"Why does that matter?"

"You look like a drowned rat."

Sly snorted into his soup. "Real nice, Jing. First time we've seen each other in years and you're making fun of me."

"That is not what I meant, and you know it." Something was creeping into her voice; a mix of fondness and frustration that only he had ever been able to bring out. God, how she had missed it. "I am worried for your health."

"I'm fine." He refused to meet her eyes. "Made it here in one piece and I don't even have frostbite. Probably. No need to worry."

The panda could feel it in the air – this thread of conversation was over. Pushing him would only end poorly. She sighed and looked for a new, safer topic.

"You mentioned you had brought pictures for me?"

"Oh, yeah." His expression was still shadowed, but a genuine smile crossed his face. "Here."

The raccoon reached behind him into his soaked backpack and pulled out a small digital camera, which he held out towards her. When she took it from him, it struck her how much bigger her hands were compared to his. The last time she'd seen him, he'd still been taller than her, although she'd been very close to catching up.

Now, she was practically twice his size.

With a long, slow breath to quell the rising wave of lament in her heart, Jing turned the camera on and began looking through the pictures Sly had taken as he watched her for a reaction. There were hundreds of them – places and people and things she never would have imagined – and after the first several dozen she looked up at him with the biggest smile she could manage.

"This is incredible, Sly. Thank you so much for this gift. I will treasure it for as long as I live."

He returned the smile, clearly relieved that she had liked it, and set his now-empty bowl aside. "Got pictures from all over the world in there, you know. Haiti, the United Kingdom, pretty much the whole expanse of Europe and China. Made a few detours in Russia and Kazakhstan, even. All for you."

Jing kept her face carefully blank, mind whirling as she tried not to make him realize what he'd just let slip. Which country had he been in when he had slipped free? How long had he been running before he'd found his way here? Surely, they had not let him have a camera if he had been with them in all those places.

Had he been alone all that time, in all those places? Had he been afraid that entire time? Was he still afraid?

"…Jing?"

She startled, and realized that her cheeks were wet. Sly stared at her with visible alarm – alarm over her, worry over her, but not for himself. Never for himself.

The dam in her heart finally burst. Jing began to cry, muffled behind a hand in fear of alerting someone outside her room, and leaned forward to grab his hands in her free one.

"Sly, I'm sorry," she cried, wanting nothing more than to pull him into a hug but terrified it would hurt him somehow. "I am so, so sorry!"

"Whoa, hey, it's okay!" He looked torn between drawing closer or giving her space as the best way to comfort her – or maybe, he was torn between wanting to drawing closer or securing an escape route for himself, just in case. The thought made her cry harder. "Jing, look at me. What on earth do you have to be sorry for?"

So much. There was so much for her to be sorry for, but she focused on the new guilt instead of the old.

"You should hate me!" The panda wailed, clutching his hands as tight as she dared. "I spent all this time hoping I would get to see you again, but I knew how selfish that was, and I knew that – that if you ever got out, it would be safer for you to never come back, but you did come back, and I – I – I hate how happy I am for it!"

Silence greeted her. She didn't dare look at him.

"You deserve to be selfish," she continued between sniffles. "I don't know if you came back just to see me, or because you have nowhere else to go, but this place isn't safe for you. Kunlun isn't safe, Sly, we both know my father's word is law here. If you felt obligated to come here for my sake, then…then you should allow yourself to be selfish, and do what you want instead of thinking about me."

There was a sharp intake of breath that finally made her glance upwards. Sly was staring down at her, his face pinched with guilt and his eyes endless pools of regret. Slowly, ever so slowly, he began to pull his hands away from her.

"I am being selfish, Jing," he whispered. "Everything about me being here is selfish. I – I didn't climb this mountain just for a chance to see you."

He stopped, and for a terrible moment she feared that he wouldn't elaborate. But then he closed his eyes and pulled his backpack around to pull something else out. An old, tattered book, full of ripped pages, all in a large ziplock bag to keep it safe from getting wet.

"I climbed the mountain for this."

She didn't open the bag when he handed it to her, both out of respect of this thing he clearly held so dearly and fear that her touch might make the fragile pages crumble to dust.

"A book…" the panda murmured. "I remember…I think I remember you once mentioned this book. A book and a cane."

"Yeah. They gave me the cane back, but not this." Sly gingerly took it back and put it away again, then wrapped his arms around himself. "They split the pages between themselves, and I've been getting them back one by one since I got out."

"How much more do you have left?"

"Just what your father's holding onto. I already got the rest from the other three."

Jing frowned, confused. "Other…three? Aren't there five –"

"Don't worry about it," he cut her off. "I've already got everything figured out."

"…Okay." She looked down at her hands, perfectly still in her lap, then at his, twitching against the blankets. "So, you…you followed that servant back here because you hoped it would lead you to the rest of the book?"

"I did. I was hoping I'd find it all here and then I wouldn't have to climb the mountain any further to your father's place." The raccoon rubbed his face with one hand, unable to meet her eyes. "I didn't stop to think about whether I'd run into him, or your aunt, or even you. I, uh, wasn't really thinking about much of anything beyond getting here."

"I believe that. You looked half-dead when you arrived. In fact, you still do."

Sly didn't answer. The silence lapsed between them as Jing slowly sorted through this revelation, deciding how she felt about it.

"Do you…regret seeing me again?" She asked after a few minutes, almost afraid of the answer but needing to hear it anyway. "After everything that happened?"

He gave her a startled look, which then grew into something soft and weighted.

"Not one bit," he said, and she trusted the honesty there. No one in her life had ever been as honest to her as he had, for better or for worse. "The camera was a real gift for you; I was going to leave it somewhere you'd find it if I didn't see you in person. But my motives for coming here are selfish, Jing, and I'm sorry for that."

The panda shook her head. "No. Do not apologize. I told you already that you deserve to be selfish. You deserve to do whatever you want, especially now that you're finally free."

There was a strange tightening around his eyes that she didn't like, as though he didn't actually yet believe he was free. She did not ask, though, and he did not correct whatever error she had made.

"Well, if you're giving me permission to do what I want, I should probably get going before someone else catches me here. I need to go looking for those pages, after all."

"What?" Jing straightened in her seat, caught off guard by both the suggestion and how unaffected he sounded as he made it.

"I won't ransack the place, promise," he said, misunderstanding her alarm. "No one will even notice I've been here. Just give me a few hours to get through the house and then I'll be out of your hair before you can get in trouble for it."

"No, don't leave yet!" She jumped to her feet even though he hadn't made any move to get out of bed. "Please stay. You've only just arrived here, and a snowstorm is coming tonight!"

"It's fine," he said dismissively without really looking at her. "I'll be fine. I don't want to be a burden to you."

"You're not a burden, Sly. You've never been a burden to me. You're fa–" she stuttered on the word as his sharp eyes caught hers.

Family, the panda was afraid to say in the face of his intense, inscrutable expression.

"...You're important to me," she finished lamely when the raccoon continued to give her an unreadable look.

"Your aunt would say something very different if she saw me here," he pointed out with a bit of a sneer.

"Well, she's not here. I am. And – and I am telling you that you're not allowed to leave until you're fully rested and the storm is over. I will look for the rest of your book until then, and you will focus on recovering. That is final."

They stared at each other; him in shock and her in a valiant attempt to make herself look as no-nonsense as her father. After a few moments, Sly yielded with an incredulous chuckle and a shake of his head.

"Man, you haven't changed a bit, have you? Just as bossy as the day we met." There was nothing but fondness in his voice as he hunkered down among her blankets. "I never thought I'd miss it so much."

"And you are as cryptic and infuriating as always," Jing teased back as a way to hide her relief that he wasn't going to disappear on her again so suddenly. "Which I would not trade for anything in the world."

"Not even the chance to travel said world?"

"It is a tempting thought, but not even that." She reached over to smooth down the unruly fur on his head, mildly surprised that he held still enough to let her. Either he had grown less fidgety over the years – which she highly doubted – or he was just that tired. "Rest, dà gē. If those pages are in this house, I will find them."

Three days later, and Jing was certain that the pages were not in the house.

It had been easier than she expected to go through rooms, as she told anyone who saw her that she was searching for something she had misplaced, but preferred to do it by herself – they all knew how bored she was, and took her words at face value. Her aunt did not care where she looked so long as she did not completely tear apart the rooms for staff to have to redo, and so she was left to her own devices.

At Sly's suggestion, on the second day when she had returned empty-handed after going through drawers and cabinets and bedding, she had taken another pass through the house for safes and secret stashes, hidden behind walls or under floorboards or even in the ceiling. This, she passed off as thinking she had heard rodents, and soon had the staff tearing through hard surfaces for her, always under her watchful eye.

What guilt she felt at first for making them work harder than necessary was put to rest the moment she thought about the raccoon hiding in her room. The sooner she found those pages, then the sooner he could leave without getting caught here, and finally make his life his own.

By day three, still coming up short, Sly had been insistent on helping her for her third check, claiming he was fully recovered and it would be easier with two pairs of eyes knowing what to look for. The panda had been afraid to let him leave her room for fear of being seen, but he had amazed her with his stealth – already impressive when they were children and yet so much more impressive now – as well as the truly incredible trick he possessed to turn invisible for short periods of time. She knew magic existed in this world, but to hear about it was very different from seeing it, and she had marveled at his talents while he had awkwardly deflected all her compliments as best he could.

They hadn't found anything that day, either, and the two of them retired back to her room extremely frustrated. Jing noticed, belatedly, that the staff activity was busier than usual, and noted the likelihood of another oncoming storm in the back of her mind.

"I do not think they are here, Sly," she finally admitted that night, looking out the window at the clear, calm sky as the raccoon changed clothes behind her. "I think my father is keeping them in his stronghold further up the mountain."

"I think you're right." The inflection in his voice was hard to read. She felt a gentle tap on her shoulder to tell her he was done, and they switched places. "Guess that means I'll have to find some good snowshoes."

The panda stopped in the middle of stepping into her nightgown. "You're not planning to travel up there tonight, are you? There is another storm coming."

"This damn mountain and its storms."

"Sly…"

"I won't leave tonight, Jing. Promise. I'll wait the storm out first." He ran his finger along the frame of the closed window, stopping just short of the latch as though it was locked even though they both knew it hadn't been since he'd arrived. "It'd be pretty stupid after spending all this time recuperating. I'd ruin all your hospitality."

"You have done stupider things, no doubt."

"Hey. You have no proof of that."

She giggled, tapping the raccoon's shoulder, and they both retreated to her bed. She had been grateful these last few days that it was as big as it was; it fit both of them with plenty of room to spare. Neither of them were particularly touchy people, even with the only one they trusted.

After they had settled in for the night, back-to-back, Jing looked at the camera sitting on her nightstand. She had been going through it the last few days, savoring the details in each and every photo, but there was a pattern in them that she had started to recognize that had been bothering her.

Well, not a pattern, per se. A person.

"Sly?"

"Mm?"

"About those pictures you've taken…I've noticed something. A lot of the early ones have this woman in them." She felt him tense up even though they weren't touching. "She is usually in the background. Was she…following you?"

Sly had practically ceased to exist behind her; so much so that she nearly turned around to see whether he'd suddenly turned himself invisible. After several strained seconds, he forcibly relaxed in a way that fooled neither of them.

"Oh, yeah, her. Just some cop I was helping after I first got out. She wanted to cut a plea deal for what I knew about the Five, but she slipped up and let me out of her sight after a few days. Sorry, I forgot to delete the ones with her in it."

Jing thought about the fact that almost a third of the photos on that camera had the woman in them, and some had been taken with her as the obvious focus. She wisely did not speak up.

"I can get rid of them right now, actually," he continued, turning over to stretch his arm over her body as he reached for the camera.

"No!" The panda caught him at the wrist as quickly but gently as possible, wincing as he flinched anyway. She let go immediately and he pulled away. "Sorry. No, it is alright. I barely noticed her. I'd much rather keep everything that you saved."

"…Fine. Sure." Sly turned back around, his voice clipped and curt. "Just, uh, do me a favor and don't bring her up again, alright? I don't feel like being reminded of some dumb cop who doesn't matter anymore."

Anymore. She wondered at everything behind that word. "Okay. I won't."

"Thanks. Night."

"Goodnight, Sly."

Jing stayed thinking about that mystery woman, staring through her window at the cloudless skies outside, until her eyes finally grew heavily and she drifted off into uneasy sleep.

Sly's terrified gasp woke her right back up.

She sat up quickly, worried he was having a nightmare, only to see him also sitting upright, all his fur on end while he stared at her door.

Her open door, where a familiar, giant shadow loomed as the Panda King studied the sight before him.

Jing stopped breathing.

Her father opened his mouth, closed it, then took a step into the room. Immediately, Sly scrambled backwards until he fell off the bed, while Jing remained frozen where she was. The larger panda stopped moving, but Sly didn't – he grabbed his backpack off the floor and jumped to his feet in one swift motion, sprinting for the window mere meters away.

His hands had just found the unlocked latch when King's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"You have been looking for the remainder of the book."

It was like a switch had been flipped. Jing watched, bewildered, as the raccoon stopped trying to flee and instead slowly turned around to face the older man. She didn't understand why he wasn't already out the window – what did the book matter compared to his life?

Sly's hands remained on the windowsill behind him. She could see his fingers shaking even as he put an unbothered look on his face. "Oh yeah? What made it so obvious?"

"My sister told me that you have searched the house for days for something you refused to name."

His eyes slid over to his daughter, who remained stock-still. She couldn't read his expression, and that was so much scarier than if he had been angry.

He turned back towards Sly. "You are on a fool's errand. This will not end the way you think it will."

The raccoon visibly bristled. "What do you know? Not a goddamn thing!"

"I know that you think completing that book will set you free. That everything you've endured for the last six years – eleven years," he amended, when Sly snarled, "will be worth it once you have all the pages. But I can promise you, Sly Cooper, that the only thing you will find at the end of things is death."

"Is that a threat?" The younger man demanded, reaching into his backpack to pull out a long, golden cane. He pointed it at the Panda King, who did not react. "Cause if it is, I think you'll find I'm no longer the frightened child you used to manhandle to get your kicks."

"I would never think of underestimating you. You have proven your worth and capabilities a thousand times over."

"Fuck you!"

Jing saw the tremble in the arm that held the cane, and heard the fear under the bravado and fury. Sly knew he was at a disadvantage, terrified of being killed or dragged back into servitude, but he refused to run away. In fact, he sounded like he was about to launch himself at her father. She didn't understand, but she refused to let things play out any longer without trying to stop the worst from happening.

What that "worst" could be was not something she dared think about.

"Give him what you have, Father."

Both heads swiveled her way. Sly looked like he'd forgotten she was there; the Panda King only gave her a grim look.

"You have the rest of the pages he is looking for, surely," she continued, voice coming out steadier than she felt. "If you have them here, then give them to him now. If they are at your stronghold, we are willing to wait until you return with them."

He hesitated, eyebrows drawing together in what she knew very well was him considering his options. "…I do not have them on me, Jing."

"Then go get them," the younger panda repeated, watching Sly slowly begin to back down from an aggressive stance to general wariness. "Sly will not hurt me. He plans to leave as soon as he gets them back. Am I correct, Sly?"

"Right as rain," the raccoon growled. "I'm sure you've been keeping up with the news, Panda King. You know what's been happening to all your buddies. It's not going to happen to you, if that's what you're worried about. I was just using her to get what I wanted, and she did the rest on her own, but that's all over. I'm – I'm alone, now, and this is as close as I'll ever get to begging. Give me what's mine and I'll march right off this mountain. You'll never have to see me again."

They waited in dreadful anticipation for the man's answer. He looked between them, solemn and somber, weighing things back and forth in his head that they were not privy to. Just when it seemed as though he would cave and give them what Sly wanted, he looked over at Jing, and his expression hardened into a resolve that made them both tense up.

"…No. I will not." He drew himself up to his full height, and Jing had never been more afraid of what her father was capable of than in that moment. "Sly Cooper, you must leave immediately. Leave this place, and this mountain. If my men see you anywhere around here, in any capacity, by sunrise, then their orders will be to shoot you on sight. It will be the most merciful death you will receive on this path."

"Father–!"

"Jing, you are not to follow nor remain in contact with him. You and your aunt will join me in my stronghold until further notice, and I will tolerate no disobedience."

Her mouth clicked shut despite herself; the tone of his voice left no room for argument even in the midst of her righteous fury. She sat there, trembling, as her father and her surrogate brother stared each other down in what she surely thought was the prelude to a fight.

But then Sly sagged, as though he realized such a thing would lead him nowhere, and instead turned towards the window.

"Fine. Should've expected you to betray me one last time before everything changed. Again." Pure hatred filled each word as he looked over his shoulder to shoot one last venomous glare at the Panda King. "Enjoy the rest of your cowardly life, King. Hope it's been worth it."

His eyes drifted over to Jing, and she greatly hoped it was not a trick of the evening light that they seemed to soften even in his spite.

"It really was good to see you again, xiǎo mèi. If this is the last time we see each other, then I want you to know I never blamed you for what happened. It wasn't your fault. I hope you find it in yourself to be selfish, because you're the only one of us who deserves it."

With that, Sly slid the window open with gentility only betrayed by the fuming flickering of his tail. He did not look back again as he disappeared into the cold night.

The Panda King padded silently across the room to the window. Jing stared down at her crumpled blankets, still shaking from adrenaline and a hundred other overwhelming emotions.

"…He isn't going to leave by morning. He will search all of Kunlun for those pages, for as long as it takes." It was the most certain she had ever been of anything in her life. "Will you really go through with your promise to kill him for it?"

The man did not respond. He continued to stare out the window, staring up at the bright moon in the sky instead of whatever path Sly had taken out of the grounds.

"Why couldn't you simply give him what he asked for? Why draw this terrible game out any longer? He has no ill will towards me; he will leave you alone once he gets what he wants! Are you truly so heartless?!"

Her father remained motionless with his back turned towards her. "It is more complicated than that, Jing. You do not understand."

The calm, detached way he stated it – as though she were simply a child too young to comprehend an adult issue – brought her right back to the day her life had shattered, six years ago, sobbing at the foot of a bed occupied by a bloody, unconscious raccoon wrapped in bandages who she had fully believed would die within the night. The emotionless statue of a man she had called father who had stood in the doorway, less upset with the sight in front of him than the fact that his daughter had seen it, who had refused to answer any questions except to tell her that she would not understand.

Jing King finally snapped.

"Then make me understand!" She screamed. "What is so complicated about this that you would let my br – my best friend suffer with this false hope of a life he wants but cannot have, which you dangle in front of him like a cat with its prey? I was afraid of the monster I saw all those years ago, but now – now I know beyond all doubt that the monster I should clearly have feared the most was you!"

Her voice cracked on the last word, all desperate anger and the underlying fear that what she was yelling might actually be true. The Panda King flinched so violently that she almost wondered if she had hit him and not realized it. He turned around and she could see he was on the verge of tears.

That cut through to her core deeper than any other words or actions ever could. In her eighteen years of life, she had never, ever seen her father cry. She fell silent as he sat down heavily on the ground, staring at his hands as though he despised everything about them.

"You are right," he whispered, wavering like she'd never heard before, either. "I am a monster and a coward, Jing. I…I had hoped that you would be shielded from the evils of the world – the evils that I have done, and continue to do, but that is not fair to you. You deserve the truth. About Sly Cooper, the true reason he is after what we've taken from him, and…the decision I made, six years ago, to protect us. To protect you."

Jing slowly sank down from the bed onto the floor across from him. She felt no joy or relief that she was finally going to have an explanation for everything – only dread for the unknown, and the understanding that this was something she would never be able to return from.

But she would not back away from it. She owed Sly that much, if nothing else.

"Start from the beginning. Tell me everything."

A/N: I'M BACK.

And just in time to post a record-breaking chapter, too! Nearly 9K words of Jing King going through it, hoo. This poor girl had a lot to say, so much so that I'm actually going to post an extra little side story about her relationship with both Sly and her father through the years that Sly was living with them. Look for the first chapter of that sometime this week!

We're finally getting into my favorite part of this story: Panda King's level. I've got stuff planned for this section, folks. Oh yeah, in this verse, Jing is about a year and a half younger than Sly - she had her eighteenth birthday just a few short weeks before the events of this chapter. Not a super important detail but will certainly help put a few things in perspective down the line ;)

Thanks for all your patience, everyone, and thanks for reading!