It was 5:30, give or take. Sleep was becoming a hard thing to come by, again.

She finally gave up on sleeping and pulled her laptop up on the bed with her, turned on iTunes. The music of SafetySuit had been in her head the last while anyway, hard beats and wistful lyrics, why not turn it on for real?

"I'm so confused, I must be losing it - this can't be right..."

Definitely a confused while, she'd be the first to admit it. She'd said way too many goodbyes over her life. Coming up on her twelfth move, not counting all the cross-city moves and summer trips. Goodbyes were always hard but worse was the knowing when to hold and when to let go.

'Was it something that we can't work through?"

A physical move away interrupted friendships- it didn't have to end them. Sometimes it was just time to give hugs and move on, sure, but other times you could hold that relationship and even build it deeper over the distance. She'd been lucky to have friends like that. Others, she'd had to learn to let go, wish them well and not grasp for more.

"Is it all my fault, and can I fix it please?"

She wished she knew how to fix all this. Human life, fallen world - it would never really be fixed till Heaven, she knew. "If this be the last time that we speak for a while" - between the TCK world of comings and goings, and a future together forever, goodbyes didn't have to be final. But the in between times when you weren't sure if you had ruined things, if it was your fault? What were you supposed to do about that?

She'd messed up big time in the last three years. She'd hurt friends she'd never meant to, been hurt deeper than ever. Lost a few friends not just to time and space but to conflict, misunderstandings, situations. Curled up in a pre-dawn clarity, she knew that she'd been naive to think, even as a college kid, that goodbyes were hard but simple. The last few years had shown her you didn't even have to move, to have someone leave you. Or to be told you'd left them, when you didn't know it.

The one friend - she gave a small smile, just thinking. Arguments, silence, tantrums, rending confusion, and that was only on her side! That friendship had been intensely good thing at its peak, and intensely hard at its lows. She'd even walked out, escaped out of reach, made a statement by refusing to be there. And that shook them both a little. They'd both reached back, a little, she'd gone back, and they'd kept little bits more over time. She shook her head at all the frustration, prayer, and excitement there had been, how she'd told herself over and over not to take things to heart so much. She'd played a lot of Daughtry during the old days. But all the emotions had been evened out by faithfulness, had mellowed into peace. She'd even gotten a facebook message yesterday, suggesting coffee some time. Proof of how God worked in His time and sometimes even pushed humans into working through things.

"Tell you that I know you'll smile again."
She gave a tired yawn. To get tea or try to sleep again? Maybe now her mind wouldn't race so much. Storying things out always helped, and generally with less disastrous results than writing emotion-filled emails or chats. One dark winter day, she'd poured out way too much, too fast, and felt horrible later. Actually, she'd done that more than once, but that one was sharp enough, drying enough, that she would avoid doing that again. Bad idea. "You lose perspective when you're all fire and emotion," pointed out one of her books.

She found it so hard to know when to be emotional and when to be rational. When did you tell someone, "I miss you too much to let you go," and when did you say, "I'll always care, but it'll be better if I try to move on" ? Or, colder but sometimes needed, "If you want to walk away, do that. Because waiting for you hurts too much."

Safetysuit had been one of the enduring favourites to come out of the last year, along with the series Alice and Primeval. "What If" had been used for a brilliant Youtube mv of Alice... "What if it makes you lose faith in me? What if it makes you question every moment you cannot see?" Goodbyes, with full warmth and confidence that they and you were okay, those were good things in a hard place. Losing faith was a horrible thing.

Primeval had its share of deep mv's too. Goodbyes, tragic ones, with Nick. Goodbyes, regretful but peaceful ones with Jenny. Goodbyes, ripping but temporary ones with Abby and Connor.

She wondered which one she was. If she was a Jenny in this latest goodbye, she needed to pack her things, give hugs, walk off gracefully. There would still be other times, run-in's on Skype, best wishes through times ahead. Her locker could be given to someone else, someone more needed for the time to come. That would be ok. She'd be sad, but there would be closure and a cracked door on the friendship.

She'd felt more like an Abby, though. Always felt more like Abby. A little volatile, too verbal, a little lost in her own world. She'd found a Connor to fall in love with. She'd gone away but not of her own choice. Her locker was still there. And she'd thought she still belonged in that world. Maybe wrongly. Maybe this goodbye, the one she thought she'd never make, wasn't something she had control over. Maybe it would just be better if she cleaned out her locker and left like Jenny, salvaging warmth and shaking hands. Instead of standing in a cold grey room and fighting for what she thought was still hers, like Abby. Maybe she should get on with life.

No.... That was Jenny. She wasn't Jenny. She might walk out for a bit, but she wouldn't clean out her locker. Not in this case. Not for this friendship. You could be lost for a year but not lost out of life.

"And I'll be here in the morning if you say 'Stay'...."

Once upon a time, a captain's seven year old daughter went to sea.
She hardly stopped talking from the time she stepped across the gangplank ("What is this?" "Where do you store it when you're at sea?"). The sailors, accustomed as they were to rowdy conversations and loosened tongues in the evenings, raised their eyebrows at so much enthusiasm, so early in the day. As they set sail, she had questions about what ropes went where, and why. At noon, she wanted to know what a logbook was, how they kept the food fresh during a voyage, and how old you had to be before you could be a ship's boy and take a turn in the crow's nest. At nightfall, she wanted to know what would happen if you dropped a lantern into the water, what the hammocks were made of, and whether sailors ever sang lullabies.

Before three days had passed of the two-week-long voyage, the first mate requested a private conversation with the captain. Carefully checking to make sure the small cheerful figure in breeches wasn't around, he lowered his voice. "Cap'n, the crew an' me, we're fond of yer daughter. Make no mistake. But that voice of hers, she never give' it a rest! We was wonderin' if there was aught ye could do, give 'er a parrot or somethin' to talk to...." The captain rubbed his chin. Being a seafaring man and often gone, he had always welcomed his daughter's chatter at home. 11 more days of the incessant questions and comments would be too much, though, he agreed. After a minute, a bright idea struck him. "Wait here," he told the mate, and hurried into his cabin. He returned carrying a large, leather covered book. "Extra ship's log," he explained, "she's been well taught a' home, and can write a neat hand. Mayhap that will ease her mind." "And our'n," grinned the mate. Hefting the book, the captain gave a rare smile. "And perhaps the ungainly size of it will discourage her visits to the the crow's nest." The mate grinned back. "Aye, though I think of all of us, Eli will miss her company the most. And to think we cuffed the lad around for talking during dinner!"

The captain's daughter was delighted. And the crew, out of fondness for their mascot but hastened by the prospect of return to quieter days, sprang to do their bit too. One pinched a few quills from a gull he brought down, and sharpened them into pens for her. Another made her a comfy seat on a pile of rope, and one brought her a cask of supplies for a writing desk. From her perch on the forecastle, she had a prime view of the ship, the men, and even the sea surrounding. Every morning, after breakfast and her duties helping in the kitchen and tidying up her father's cabin, she went straight away to her little perch and set to work. From there she didn't move till midday eating, except for occasional wanders about the railing to watch fish or to bring her father a midmorning drink.

Oddly enough, after the first two days of welcome silence, the men found that they missed her presence. Not that they would admit it, but she had eased in a small way their thoughts of home, and families. Accustomed to the rough life, and the coarse companionship and hard toil, they had been flattered by someone actually curious about their work and their lives. "Little Miss Curious", they might have nicknamed her, but wasn't that what womenfolk were for? Questions and caring and more questions.

Eli was the first to come back. One morning, trading off lookout duties, he 'happened' to stroll by her spot, just to stretch his legs. "What you writin'?" he asked casually. The captain's daughter was happy to show him her work - sketches of the rigging, comments about seagull behaviour, the occasional complaint about how the fish swam too deep to properly see. They got so engrossed in flipping through her pages that the noonday bell startled them both.

That afternoon, the second mate, a curious man himself, made it a point to wander over and 'just have a look' at the pages himself. Then the bo'sun. And her father himself, after he noticed the migration to the sweet former 'problem'. Somehow, by giving her the book, the captain had opened up a whole new door for his crew. The grizzled cook gave her some of his best recipes to copy down- "All out me own head, mind!" while Eli corrected some of the rigging sketches. One of the sailors, Irish-born, offered her some mermaid stories for his contribution. And so on.

By the end of the voyage, the logbook was full, down to the last page. As they drew into dock, the captain's daughter hurriedly flourished her name, and handed it to her father as she packed her own tiny sea trunk. "What, my dear, suddenly too heavy for a lady to carry?" She looked up at him gravely. "It's for you, Father. I won't be forgetting any of this voyage, myself." With that, she gave him a swift hug, and started yanking her trunk out the door.

The captain stood there alone, flipping through the pages. So many common sailors and ordinary days, brought together in one logbook, illustrated with love, even if it had been a last resort to a challenging situation. He knew the men, and he himself, would never forget the voyage either.

Once upon a time...

A farm girl, leaning on a pasture rail, saw a little bear riding on a little horse.

Normally, bears and horses aren't friends. Partly because of their size and personalities, partly because of their smells.
Bears smell like forest berries and fresh-caught fish and cosy bear caves.
Horses smell like open fields and pine tree trails and sweet apples.

But on a balmy September day, she saw the bear and the horse together, wearing what looked like contented expressions, and she wondered how that odd pair came to be together...


The little horse had been wandering through the forest contentedly about two hours ago, and she took a different trail than normal, and that's when it all began.

The bear was wandering along the ground looking for stray nuts and berries when he heard an odd noise. Being more careful than curious, he climbed a nearby tree. As he climbed the tree, he let out a little noise of his own as he crawled out too far on a shaky limb. The horse, being more curious than careful, turned through the trees to find out what the second odd noise had been. She stopped right underneath the tree, looked up, and made the first noise, a horse noise. At that, the bear got so scared he lost his hold and fell right onto her back.

The horse started running, and the bear started growling pathetically for help while hanging on for dear life.

Eventually, the horse grew too tired to run any more, and slowed down. The bear grew too hoarse to keep growling and his paws lost hold as well. He fell off with a bump.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring into the horse's face. They sniffed each other cautiously, the way dogs do when first meeting. Before long, they were having a friendly conversation of sorts, mostly about the weather and the varying tastes of blackberries. Eventually, though, they realised the sun was getting low. The bear had an excellent sense of direction, but short paws, and the horse admitted she had the speed but was totally lost. She brightly suggested the bear find some convenient rock or fence and climb on, the way humans did. The bear pointed out that they were in the middle of the forest, but eventually settled on climbing a tree. Then falling off again onto the horse's back. She made an encouraging noise, and off they started.

When they wound up back at the area of forest where it all started, the horse knelt down nicely so the bear had less distance to fall. All in all, it had turned into a good afternoon. They made friendly noises (more pleasant than the original ones) and said vaguely that it would be worth repeating the day. With that, the horse trotted off toward the open farmland of her home, and the bear trundled back to his cave. Both had quite a story to tell their families.

And after that, they could occasionally be seen adventuring around together, the curious horse and, on her back, what seemed to be a small furry child but was actually the careful bear.

The End