Sabrina laughed, the chopstick stabbing into her cheek as Justin failed to navigate the potsticker into her open mouth. She picked up the fallen food and threw it into her mouth, still laughing as she chewed.

"I thought you hated food in the bedroom," she teased.

"You know what someone told me at work today? They said I was boring."

Sabrina did a dramatic gasp. "No!"

"Uh-huh, that's what they said. That I was boring and predictable. So now I'm changing that."

"By eating food in the bedroom?"

"By EATING food in the bedroom. I'm lifting the ban!"

Sabrina scooped up some steamed vegetables on a spoon and fed Justin, perfectly and safely.

As the two continued to laugh and scream at fallen soy-sauce and slippery noodles, Justin stopped the both of them for a second, enough to sober up so he could take something out of his pocket.

A light-blue, palm-sized box.

Sabrina gasped. "Justin…"

"No, no, listen," he chuckled, opening the box to reveal an amethyst ring. "It was my mother's. A promise ring she had with dad. When we went to Tiffany's yesterday…when I said I got stuck in the bathroom…I was getting it re-sized," he shook his head with a laugh. "She had really fat fingers."

"It's…so beautiful."

The glittering ring, the spilled food, her smiling fiancé…suddenly, she felt as if she was going to cry. From both the sheer happiness and ridiculousness of the moment, and that empty feeling inside her that seemed to be growing day by day, something that was trying to pull her away from this reality – to remember something that was never there.

He read over the line again:

However, to be safe and to be sure, I would advise not taking any action towards seeing Sabrina – or letting her see you. The only way we can be sure that everything is fine, is if we have Moth back.

Puck shut his laptop screen and rolled himself away, continuing the packing of his bag.

Too many years of his life had he spent glued to a laptop and once more, emails were changing it. He'd marvelled before at how so much could happen in just one sentence, and now here he had paragraphs of a danger making a comeback. A danger he thought he'd gotten rid of.

Moth. The jumper he was holding, he squeezed in his hands, trying to get rid of his anger. If she wasn't already dead, he'd do the job himself.

"—Drake?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Can you come in here so we can talk about tomorrow?"

There was a pause, and then an innocent: "What's tomorrow?"

"Oh, ha, ha, you know exactly what tomorrow is."

Puck threw his jumper into the bag as Drake appeared in the doorway, frowning. "Listen, I'm going first thing in the morning but I'll be gone only one night, so Camille is going to be with you and you guys can watch movies the whole night, I don't care. You can watch Scream, you can watch Birdbox, all that stuff, just have fun."

"Are you going with her?"

Puck paused in his packing. "…I'm going with Elizabeth. Yes."

Drake marched out of the room, and Puck rolled his eyes, continuing his packing. "And don't try anything tricky, you understand?"

His son's bedroom door SLAMMED shut and Puck huffed, walking over to him.

"Don't go rolling in poison ivy as soon as I leave, or get your hand stuck in the blender, or do anything that needs stitches –" He opened the door and stood there, staring serious at his son, "If your hand falls off, it's staying off. No one's gonna pack it on ice and take you to the hospital so you can get a cool new robot hand, okay, I'm not having it."

Father and son had a silent staring contest before Puck remembered: "Is this about that woman in New York?"

"Sarah."

Puck walked away and shut the door behind him.

"I don't CARE what you do!" Drake shouted behind the door.

"Good, FINE."

Puck huffed again as he walked back to his bedroom, mumbling to himself as he continued packing, throwing anything into his bag. "I'll tell you what I'm going to do this weekend – I'm getting laid. It's 2018 and nobody's getting laid anymore, not really, so I'm the only man in the world who's getting laid. And I haven't even been laid that much, it was like, what, three or four people in college – maybe five."

Then he looked up. Drake was in the room.

Puck coughed. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Forever."

Puck frowned. "What did you hear me just say?"

"Three or four people in college," Drake mimicked, "maybe five."

"Five," Puck decided, and then gasped: "SIX! Alex James."

The boy's brow furrowed and he lifted up what looked like a printed email. "This is the one I like!"

"Drake…" Puck rolled his eyes. "Fact is, you're not gonna like anyone because they're not your mother."

"How do YOU know?!" Drake stormed out of the room again. "WHAT'S WRONG WITH SARAH?"

Puck put his hands over his eyes, groaning. "Oh, for God's sake, Drake – SHUT UP."

Drake came storming back.

"SHUT UP? SHUT UP? MOM NEVER TOLD ME TO SHUT UP," he cried, "Mom never yelled at me!"

Puck turned away from him, back to his bag, punching his fist into a pile of underwear, trying to control his temper. "This conversation is over."

"Why can't we go back to New York to see Sarah!"

"Because there is NO WAY we are going on a PLANE –" Puck shouted, "to see some woman who could be a crazy, sick LUNATIC. Didn't you see 'You' on Netflix!?"

"You wouldn't LET me."

"Yeah, well, I SAW IT. And it scared the shit out of me, it scared the shit out of EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA."

"You met Mom ONLINE."

"But that was YOUR MOM. Don't you get it?! Don't you get it?" Puck dug his hands in his hair, desperate and furious. "I am NEVER going to meet anyone else like your mother and that's it. Sabrina was the best thing to ever happen to me and it'll never happen again and I know that, but I'm TRYING. I'm…I'm trying."

A silence fell between them and Puck exhaled sharply.

Drake was still frowning. "I'm not leaving 'til you say yes."

Puck shut the door in his face.

Drake shouted as he ran back to his room. "I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU –"

"Well, that's good – you'll have a LOT to tell Oprah after you tell her that your dad destroyed your life because he had to go off for a weekend special. At the Holiday Inn."

Sometimes, Puck didn't believe his son was still four years old. Four year olds weren't mouthy like this. Four year olds were meant to be crying, at worst, and dozing off at best. Then again, his family (and the Grimms) had never been ones for normal.

But he was still trying for normal, he was going for it. With Elizabeth. Elizabeth and her annoying laugh. Elizabeth still had some good qualities, qualities he wanted to get to know because he wanted to stop believing the world was hopeless and bad. He needed to find that hope again, for him and his son.

Mustardseed dropped his bag at the hallway, his feet going on automatic mode as he ran towards his computer in the study. Sophia wouldn't be home until the next morning, the working hours of a nurse, but for once it was a good thing. No, for once, he wanted her away from the house, especially when he felt trouble was afoot.

His phone had mysteriously been drained of all life the minute he stepped onto the train. The train carriage too was empty, save for a giggling woman and a man, both hidden behind a newspaper at the other end of the carriage. His tablet came next, managing only half a draft of his next email to Puck. And then the sudden winds that blew all his papers away.

There was a protection spell around his home. Salt at the windows, a fairy circle around the land. He should be safe for at least a few hours before they could break through.

The glass of the front door shattered.

He rattled off the rest of his email and sent it. Picked up his sword, hidden in the umbrella stand.

"Oh, darling," the figure in the hallway sighed. "All those years, all those mistakes, the immaturities...I don't know why I ever bothered. It should've been us."