He had grown.

With light stubble on his face, clean-shaven, that accented the ever-present angles of his face, Daniel had not grown any less tall and thin than when Stephanie had first met him.

Stephanie couldn’t remember a smile ever gracing his face in the time they’d spent together, not this boyish grin, not this simple happiness. In the time that she’d been gone he’d bulked up a little. No longer was he the pole of a boy who had the world on his shoulders.

No, he looked happy.

And the fact that Stephanie felt a deep disconnect with that was awful. She was wonderstruck by it, this transformation. Suddenly, all of the confidence she’d faked and the walls she’d fabricated fell away in the face of true happiness.

It took him a minute to recognize her. His eyes lost that sparkling quality as he regarded the stranger in front of him. She understood, she really did. With these damn flinty blue eyes and the weight still failing to hang onto her and the short, dark hair, she knew that she hardly recognized herself. And when the recognition finally dawned, his eyes were that stormy grey once again, confused and dark.

The disbelief in his eyes, the haunted melancholy of his gaze stole into her heart. Uncomfortably, she remembered the same look that she’d gotten nearly a year ago.

Here he was. After all those times she held on to memories of him, fabricated wholly and misremembered completely, and he was standing right there in front of her. Close enough to touch, far enough away that she could hardly bare to reach over.

What right did he have? Looking at her like that.

He had betrayed her, had put her in that awful place. She was so terribly, awfully naïve and messed up that she had fantasized about the boy who had cast her out and sent her to the wolves.

Stephanie didn’t really know what she’d expected him to say, but she didn’t expect this silence either.

“Hey, Daniel,” she said.

She struggled not to flinch at how timid, how quiet her voice sounded. Not for the first time, she wondered what she was doing standing there on this porch, waiting fruitlessly for time to reverse so that it would feel more natural, less like she was intruding on a life that was no longer hers.

“What are you doing here?”

He sounded just as spooked as she did, his voice lowered as if he was afraid that someone else would hear. That stung, right down to the core.

Stephanie didn’t really know why she was here. It had been a shot in the dark, and she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. No, that was a lie. She’d hoped for some closure, something. A sign that she had actually had a life before all of this that she could return to. But obviously that had been more wishful thinking on her part than a rational line of thought.

“I,” she said, heat prickling in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

His brow creased and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his noise. Stephanie felt ill. She ran a hand through her short waves.

“No, seriously, Stephanie,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I… was wondering if you still had my car.”

His face twisted, like he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Stephanie wasn’t entirely sure which she would pick either, but it was strange, seeing this level of shock from the unshakable Daniel Seymour. She looked down at the ground, unable to meet his eyes.

“Where were you?”

It was awful. The way his voice could still pierce her right down to her core, commanding her attention more than anything ever had. If there was any doubt that she was still Stephanie Armstrong, it was quelled the moment that she felt something within her snap. What right did he have to look at her like that? To ask her that as if all of this wasn’t his fault?

“I went back to Vermont,” she replied drily.

He regarded her silently for a moment. She could see the questions rising unbidden in his eyes and wondered why she was making this difficult for him. Then, Daniel took a deep breath and seemingly steeled himself.

“What happened?” He asked. “That night. After everything.”

She could hear him loud and clear, could hear the thinly veiled apprehension and preemptive guilt in his voice.

“You’re asking what happened after you sold me out?” Stephanie asked, and was surprised at the cool venom in her voice.

He flinched, and she immediately regretted her words. She knew, backwards and forwards, all of the reasons why he’d done it. To be honest, she couldn’t begrudge him trying to salvage the rest of the peace his family had. They’d had enough to deal with, with Jonathon’s passing. She wouldn’t wish the Facility on anyone, least of all Daniel and his family.

“They just asked me a couple of questions,” she lied.

He didn’t buy it, not in the slightest.

She sighed. “It’s not your fault, Daniel,” she said. “You couldn’t have known what they were going to do.”

“I was being selfish.”

“No, you were just trying to save your family.”

Daniel was angrier than she’d ever seen him before, transforming from the anguished boy in front of her to a furious man, the guilt that had been simmering in him for two years breaking wide open. “Don’t you dare justify what I did!” He snapped.

It didn’t take a moment for her to transition from shocked to upset. Unlike the old Stephanie, she hit right back. “It was the right thing to do!”

“How the hell could that have been the right thing to do?”

“Getting yourselves thrown into that hell wouldn’t have done any good for anyone. Of course you should have made that choice. Of course you should have sent me away, goddamn it Daniel.”

He turned away, grasping at his hair as if it were the only thing keeping him from shaking her. “Why don’t you care that I sent you there? Do you matter to yourself at all?”

She stepped back, eyes narrowing. “What kind of question is that? Of course I do! And you care about you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“You know what?” He asked incredulously. “You’re exactly the same as you were. You just throw on your damn leather jacket and walk around like you don’t give a damn what other people think of you-”

“Daniel,” she warned.

“Don’t Daniel me,” he growled. “It’s all a big show, because you have to pretend that you’re in control, when really, you’re not.”

“And so what?” She spat. “And so what if that is what I do? Don’t you get it? I don’t have any control over what goes on here, I have to pretend because what the hell else can I do? Just sit here and show everyone that I’m as useless as I feel? That’s your pity party, not mine.”

“My pity party?”

She ran a hand through her hair. “Yes, Daniel, yours. What did you do after it was all over, huh? Sit and brood and wonder why everything had to happen to poor you? Sit around and wait for something to come along to take away that pain?”

She could see him take a step back, regret almost flashing in his eyes. “No,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“I said no, okay?” he sighed. “I moved on, passed my exams, got into college, went out with Diana. I. Moved. On. And now you’re back and what? What am I supposed to do with that?”

Stephanie’s jaw shut audibly, teeth clacking together. That, she had not expected. A bitter, twisted remnant of hope flickered out within her, sick in nature because it had wanted someone to suffer. Yet, no one had. The world had kept spinning and no one was the wiser. She’d spent nearly two years stuck in time, but it was a hell of her own making. There had been no one with her, not physically, not mentally and certainly not emotionally. She had been presumptuous, self-righteous in her expectations. Why would anyone care? Why had she even thought that they would miss her, feel her absence like a hole in their chest, as she had felt their absence? Hot tears pressed at the back of her throat, tightening it until she thought she would explode.

“Just…” she began, catching the tell-tale lilt in her voice. “Do you know where my car is?”

“Stephanie-”

She held a hand up. “Where’s my damn car, Daniel?”

His mouth twisted as he shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Sold it after the first six months, guessed you weren’t coming back. It couldn’t just sit in the driveway, took some convincing to keep it that long.”

It didn’t register in the first moment, and then despair and frustration welled up in her so strongly that she had to press a hand to her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to wring out of her throat. Her body was shaking, run out of the little energy reserve it had built up. She turned away from him and took a deep breath.

“Are you okay?”

His hand was on the crook of her elbow, pulling her back to face him. A wash of dizziness ran through her, raising goose bumps along her skin. On second thought, maybe that low-grade fever wasn’t quite done with her.

“Probably caught something,” she answered.

For the first time, it looked like Daniel was actually looking at her, taking in the short hair, the pallid skin, the painful thinness of her body. “What the hell happened to you?”

Stephanie laughed, belatedly hoping that the fever hadn’t fried her brain. “What did you expect? I disappeared off the face of the planet, without a word, without my cash or ID or car. I certainly wasn’t at a spa retreat.”

The laugh cut across him wrong, and he held her with his other hand too, as if she would fall without his support. She snorted at that.

“What did they do to you?”

She sobered, blinking owlishly at him through the fog of her mind. “They locked me up,” she admitted. “Studied me. Kept me contained. For every day since that day. Until of course they ditched, retreated with their tails between their legs, left me for dead, locked in a cell that I couldn’t get out of.”

She couldn’t even summon the will to laugh at his stricken expression, but instead felt the accusations and indignation swell inside of her like a tide once again.

“Do you know what it’s like to waste away, Daniel?”

He flinched.

“Do you know what it’s like to forget, to be forgotten, to know that you’re dying and you can’t do a damn thing about it but slip under for a little longer every time?”

“I didn’t know,” he whispered.

Stephanie wondered at how lost, how grief-stricken he sounded, as if the reality had all come crashing down on him in that moment. She supposed it had. So she smiled.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway,” she said.

He looked like he wanted to say something more, but the moment passed, and another voice joined the fray.

“Who are you talking to, Daniel?”

Stephanie’s stomach dropped and her mouth went dry as she stared into the entryway behind Daniel where the door had drifted open. Filling that space was Diana Harvey. Unlike Daniel, it took less than a second for her to recognize the girl Daniel released his hold on.

“What the hell is she doing here?” she snarled.

She shouldered past Daniel without waiting for a response, jabbing an accusing finger at Stephanie. Her black hair swirled around her shoulders, a black shroud. Instantly, Stephanie felt Diana’s fury as strongly as she might have felt her own. Before anyone could say anything, she was demanding Stephanie explain herself, coming back with her arrogance and likely bringing trouble with her.

“Haven’t you done enough here?”

Stephanie struggled to get her thoughts straight in her head, trying not to gape like the moron she felt like, but Diana was crowding her space, overpowering Stephanie’s composure with the monsoon of emotion she was bringing into the atmosphere.

And then, like the pillar of strength he was, Brennan appeared at her back, having crossed the driveway the second Diana became too much.

“Hey,” he said. “Are we okay here?”

Diana’s head whipped between them, incredulous. “What?” she scoffed. “Is this your next victim?” She turned to Brennan, her eyes awash with remnants of grief and blame. “She destroys every life that she comes in contact with.”

Stephanie felt it like a physical slap and recoiled within herself.

“Watch it,” Brennan warned. “You’d better back off until you calm down.”

As Stephanie went to abashedly tell Brennan it didn’t matter, Daniel’s eyes flashed with something Stephanie had not seen in him before.

“And who are you to talk to her like that on our property?”

Brennan bristled and stepped ahead of Stephanie to match Daniel. She could only look on in incredulity.

“What makes you think either of you can talk to guests like that?” he accused. “You’d better start acting like a host or I’ll do something to fix your attitude.”

Daniel’s anger subsided, apparently, as quickly as it arose. He looked over at Stephanie standing there in the cold, so insubstantial, and turned to Diana, asking her if she would go back inside and he’d head them off. By that point, Brennan had backed off and was already halfway down the porch steps when he looked over his shoulder to check to see if Stephanie was coming with him. Diana turned on her heel and left reluctantly, but Stephanie had to just try one more time.

“Please, Daniel,” she said. “I don’t have anything else anymore, and I need my backpack. Could you just check for it, please?”

His eyes flickered across her face, and back through the doorway as if looking for Diana. “I can’t promise anything,” he settled on. “I don’t know if I’ll find it. My mom might have thrown it out.”

He disappeared back through the doorway, but Stephanie doubted that he would find it, somehow. Waiting out there, completely drained and overdone, she had half hoped that he didn’t find it. She didn’t have a plan anymore; not that coming here would have realistically given her something to go on.

Standing out there in the cold, she felt the strength begin to ebb from her body, along with some of the pent up tension that seeing Diana had brought. That was, until Miranda appeared in the doorway. Her face was cool, impassive- the walls in her eyes were so complete that Stephanie struggled not to descend the stairs and leave.

The woman she had once almost regarded as a mother figure did not say a word.

Another second more, and Stephanie wanted to just leave, just admit defeat and go back to the home. This had been an awful idea. The whole thing was just fabricated on the ridiculous idealism that had gotten her in trouble so many times before.

Then, a flurry of energy and happiness had shot out of the house and latched itself around her waist, driving the breath from her. Coughing against the jarring sensation in her still recovering lungs, Stephanie looked down. Beaming up at her was the youngest Seymour, and damn if that didn’t assuage all of her misgivings and insecurities immediately. Ignoring Miranda completely, despite the itching discomfort just beneath her skin, Stephanie allowed herself to smile back without looking up to see if it was okay.

She could have this. She could have this one moment of happiness for herself.

“You’re back?” Lily asked.

Stephanie shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek. “No,” she said. “No, I’m not. I’ve missed you, but I can’t stay.”

The little girl with eyes so much like her brother’s didn’t seem to understand the concept. “Why not?” She asked. Her brow was creased in what Stephanie thought was half exasperation and half misunderstanding. “You’ve been gone forever.” When she didn’t reply immediately, Lily went on. “Are you sick? You’re too small.”

Stephanie smiled wistfully. “Or maybe you’ve just grown too much,” she joked.

Lily looked back over her shoulder at her mother haunting the front door and frowned. “Everyone’s been quiet since you left,” she whispered. “Since dad left.”

Stephanie’s heart nearly broke in two at the innocent loss in Lily’s voice. “Your dad didn’t want to leave you,” she said. “And neither did I. But sometimes these things happen.”

Lily set her lips in a stubborn line. “I know that,” she insisted. “But you saved me, and you came back, you should stay with us.”

The only word running through Stephanie’s mind was yes, yes a thousand times. But it wouldn’t be right, and as she snuck a glance up at Miranda, she knew that it wasn’t possible either.

“I’ve got to go back to my own home for the holidays,” she said, instead. “You should enjoy yours, and not worry about me. Yeah?”

But the Camaro had been the last shred of a home she’d had, and everything else was gone. Stephanie’s only home, she knew then, was inside her own skin, and that alone felt like a weight on her shoulders that she could not carry in a thousand years.

“Your home in New York?” She asked, out of the blue.

“What?”

“New York. That’s where your mom is, right? Daniel told me that.”

Stephanie couldn’t speak. Her mother was dead. Her parents had both been dead and gone for years now. She just couldn’t find it in herself to tell Lily that.

“Lily,” Miranda called. “Say goodbye, and come back inside before you freeze.”

Lily looked up at Stephanie, and Stephanie forced a reassuring grin onto her face that probably didn’t hide the confusion in her eyes. The little girl disappeared into the house, her brow still furrowed in that perceptive, focused way only little girls seemed to manage, without another word.

Nearly as quickly as she disappeared and the cold started to creep into Stephanie’s heart, she reappeared, toting a dusty, old canvas bag that meant more to Stephanie than anything in that moment. Lily handed her the bag reluctantly.

“I hid it in the closet like you hid me.”

It was all too much. Stephanie felt the tears in her eyes burning hot, glowing coals in her throat. She reached down and pulled the young girl into a tight hug, croaking a thank you past the lump in her chest.

“You saved me,” Lily repeated. “Everyone needs someone to save them sometimes.”

“Thank you,” Stephanie replied.

Before Miranda’s patience was tried, or Diana came back out, Stephanie turned and descended the porch stairs. She didn’t look back to find Daniel and tell him she’d found what she was looking for. She couldn’t bear to see those white picket fences or the eyes that would surely follow her down the path and into the beat up old pick up truck she would slide into.

Only looking back when Brennan had pulled them out onto the road, she caught Daniel’s grey eyes, hooded once again in darkness, his shoulders hunched over. She wondered if she should have come back at all; she kept bringing out the worst in people, causing them pain.

It was only once they were out of the city limits that she managed to pick up the courage to speak without the threat of breaking down and crying.

“Lily mentioned my mom in New York,” she said. “But my parents are dead.”

Brennan glanced over at her, his face dangerously blank, as if he knew they were treading on thin ice with this conversation. “You believe her?”

“Yes,” Stephanie found herself saying. “I want to.”

“New York’s not a small place to start searching,” he reminded her.

Stephanie mulled over that. But then how had Daniel known? It didn’t make any sense. “Why would she be in New York?” She asked. “How would anyone know that?”

Brennan shrugged, eyes on the road now. “Stranger things have happened.”

Stephanie bit her thumbnail, that disturbance just beneath the surface of her skin mounting. “New York,” she mumbled. “Laura Armstrong, alive.”

It sounded strange, the name she had packed away so long ago, on the playing field once again.

But Brennan stiffened beside her. “What did you say?”

“My mother could be alive, Brennan.”

“No,” he urged. “Her name?”

Stephanie stared at him long and hard. “Laura Armstrong.”

She wasn’t expecting the harsh laugh that rumbled out of his chest.

“Laura freaking Armstrong?” He shook his head. “How did Rebecca manage to leave that little detail out?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your mother, Laura Armstrong,” he said. “Is one of the most well-known werewolves in the world.”

Stephanie blinked, then scowled. “That isn’t funny, Brennan.”

“I wish I was joking,” he admitted. “She and Liam Hall.”

Subconsciously, Stephanie wondered if the fever had come back with a vengeance, sparking hallucinations and fever dreams that would leave her confused for days. She felt shivery and weak.

“What?”

“There was this whole mess when people started to figure it out,” Brennan said. “We needed someone to speak up for us. Laura Armstrong was it.”

Her heartbeat was too fast in her chest, and her head was swimming. She curled over on herself, resting her forehead on the dashboard, the seatbelt straining against her body. “I’m going to be sick,” she groaned, even though she and Brennan both knew she wasn’t. “My mom’s alive,” she repeated once the nausea was manageable. “Liam’s a freaking celebrity.”

What alternate universe had she entered? Had the world really and truly gone mad while she had been gone?

She sat up, breathing against the dizziness in her head. “Take me to the nearest bus station.”

“Uh, what?”

She closed her eyes. It was a reaction, she knew. Fight or flight. And she chose what she’d always chosen: to run. Keeping on the move was the only way she knew how to cope and she couldn’t go backwards so she’d have to go forwards.

“I need to get on a bus to New York,” she said.

“Do you have a fever?” He asked.

“No.”

She fended off his attempts to reach over and feel her forehead, though she knew he was probably at least a little right.

“You’re going to hop on a bus to New York and hope to get face time with Laura Armstrong in your condition? You keep trying to take off with these half-assed plans that are going to land you in a gutter somewhere.”

“I thought my mom was dead with two years. Two years. And now I find out she’s alive and what? I’m just supposed to bide my time? That is total BS.”

Brennan’s jaw set, but he said nothing.

“Yeah, my IDs are from 2 years ago when I still needed to fake my age, I don’t really have that much cash and I don’t have a car but I know that my mom’s out there.” She insisted. “I’ve been looking for her for four years, Brennan. How do I just give that up now?”

Still he made no move to answer her, his eyes roaming over the road and a muscle jumping in his cheek.

“I know I have the money for a ticket, at least. All you’d have to do is drop me off there and then you’d be back at the home. You wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore.”

At that, Brennan abruptly pulled over and cut the engine. “Is that really what you think I’m worried about?” He asked. “That you’re wasting my time or money?”

Stephanie blinked, and then tried to backpedal. “I-”

“I’m worried about you,” he growled. “A week and a half ago, you were dying in a cell in the middle of nowhere and now you want to go gallivanting off to New York on a whim. It’s like you don’t even care what happens to you.”

“I do care,” she said. “I’m just sick and tired of playing it safe. It didn’t get me far before and it certainly won’t get me anywhere now.”

He stared at her, resignation finally setting into his eyes. Stephanie knew that it was selfish, what she kept asking of him, but she couldn’t back down. He shook his head a final time, started the truck back up and pulled onto the road.

“I hope to God you know what you’re doing,” he said.

Her stomach dropped, because he knew as well as she did that she had nothing figured out, and there was nothing that made her feel more unsure of herself than someone else’s doubt.

Time dragged on until they reached the bus depot. But once they were there, it seemed to accelerate with every heartbeat. And in no time at all, she had a ticket, had shouldered her backpack and the bus was set to leave soon. The part that she hated the most crept round the corner and suddenly she was standing awkwardly in front of Brennan, needing to, and not wanting to, say it.

“Make sure you keep eating, you’re still too damn thin,” he said gruffly. “And watch out for yourself, okay?”

She blinked and nodded, gripping the strap to her bag far too tight. Anxiety, panic and fear washed over her in a tide of tremendous force, the likes of which she hadn’t seen since the Facility. Brennan was her pillar, a branch she’d held on to in a world like white water rapids, keeping her grounded, stopping her from getting swept away in the waters of life.

Sometimes there came a time where you had to let go, and learn to sink or swim.

The scariest part was the unknown: not knowing whether you were strong enough to stay afloat, but knowing that you weren’t finished here yet, that you couldn’t stand to be sucked under. She wrapped her arms around him, and felt his warmth encompass her, fill her with confidence and comfort, and she didn’t deny the tears that soaked through his jacket.

“You don’t want to miss that bus,” he said. “Call me when you can, or Lydia’ll skin me alive for letting you go.”

She heard him loud and clear. I’ll miss you too.

Out of his wallet he fished out a handful of bills. “It’s not much, just a hundred bucks, but you’ll need food when you get there, or whatever.”

“I can’t-”

“Stop,” he said. “Just let me do this for you, okay? This is the last thing I’m asking from you.”

He had asked for her to live. He had asked for her to stay. He’d asked for her to be a part of the family, and work and be okay. It had been too much, he knew now, and maybe there were lessons to be learned here for him as well.

She took the money and put it in her bag with the remainders from the bus fare.

“Well, thanks,” she said, stealing her own delirious words from a backwoods motel in Vermont. “Thank you for that, Brennan Hartley.”

She moved to turn away, but he caught her arm and fished something out of his pocket and placed it in her hand. The metal tags were warm against her hand.

"Don't forget that things have changed," he urged. "And always remember where you've come from."

Stephanie uncurled her fingers from the little chain and stared down at it. Engraved in simple font against the silver were four chatacters: A556. Her dog tags from the Facility.

"I couldn't stand them when you were still unconcious," he explained.

She nodded, closing her hand around the necklace. How had he known that she would feel at sea, lost without some remnant of the past to reassure her that the past two years had, in fact, happened?

He grinned, and her fears subsided when none of that darkness settled over him like it had over Daniel. Before she could drag it out any longer, she boarded the bus. Both of them contemplated looking back, but neither did. Because in all the time that people passed in and out of other lives, the world kept turning- it waited for no one.

And it was time to swim.