A/N: A character piece, inspired by the Beatles, Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End melody from the Album, Abbey Road.

I've made the decision to place this in present tense, which I am not at all sure of, but the choice was stylistic. Let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Spoilers: Nesting Dolls, One to Go, hints at others.

The Rubber Tree Plant

Prologue:

In the hours surrounding dusk, when light diminishes and, on a clear night, only the stars illuminate the sky, an egret sweeps over the deep blue pacific. Above, the sky is brilliant, but so is the ocean below, calm for the moment, dark, deep, tranquil. The egret passes over the rocks jutting above the surface of the water. Waves lap at the rocks, and though it is calm, the occasional wave collides. The cool spray of salt water catches the egret, bestowing upon it a brief shower.

The egret lifts slightly and glides across the beach. Below, the sand is dark, barely visible but for the light of the stars and half moon. The egret continues on, gliding over the beach and ocean, passing around the point, following the inlet, soaring along the coastline until the lights of a small town come into vision. The egret will pan across the houses and let the muffled whispers, carried by the wind, beckon, but it will not continue into the town. It will choose the peace and tranquility of the shore rather than the peace and tranquility of the town on that calm night.

In a mid sized house, two levels high, a child lies on her bed, curled on her side. One arm lays curled beneath her, hand tucked into her pillow. The other hand lay flat upon the pillow, dainty fingers splayed just in front of her dainty face.

The blankets are bunched up at the foot of the bed, and so is the bed sheet. The child lay only in her nightgown, the bottom hem ending just above the knee. She shivers in the cool night air, but does not move to pull her blankets up. Instead, the palm lying flat before her reaches down to tug her nightgown over her knees.

It is difficult to tell whether the child is awake or asleep. It is difficult even, to tell the age of the child. Something in the way she lays curled and not moving, the way her palm sweeps back and forth over her pillow, the way she looks both so young and so old in parallel, makes it difficult to tell anything.

Her eyes are closed, but maybe, perhaps, they are closed a little too tightly. They are concealed, so whether or not they have yet to become haunted will remain unknown.

The child shivers again and the hand lifts. For a moment it looks as though she is going to tug her nightgown back over her knees, but the hand stops, hovers above her pillow just before her mouth and plucks something from the air. Her tiny, delicate fist digs into her pillow case and when it retreats, her hand is no longer fisted.

The child's arm bunches the pillow case beneath her head, tucking in the edges of the pillow case and shielding them against the bed. Then, her hand smoothes back over. A sigh escapes, the child shivers and the small hand's movement is not yet finished. It seems restless, smoothing over the pillow. The delicate fingers crawl slowly over the pillow, curling over a corner. Her head lifts, nearly imperceptibly, and the pillow inches down. The small head of messy curls falls to the flat mattress below and the pillow is tucked into the child's curled embrace, clutched to her chest.