They finally said goodbye to Ios on a warm, windless August morning. Oskar came to the harbor in the village to see them off, with a small gift for Leo, a tiny charm of Oscar the Grouch that he took off of his keychain and attached to Leo's backpack.

"A memento, from one friend to another, so you'll always remember me, okay?" he said to Leo with a smile.

Leo nodded, touching the charm with his index finger.

"And good bye to you as well, Mouse," Oskar said with a sigh, turning to her as she stood on the quay. "I'm so happy I met you, happy we got to be friends. I'm going to miss you."

"I'll miss you, too, Oskar," Mouse said sincerely. She had really grown to like the tall, blond boy from Stockholm. "Good luck in law school, okay? And let's keep in touch for sure."

"Yes, let's," Oskar agreed, nodding. Then he surprised Mouse by leaning in and kissing her, an innocent and chaste kiss, but a firm one, meaningful. He held her by her elbow, smiling after they broke the kiss.

Leo looked up, staring, Oscar the Grouch forgotten. Henry, who was handing some bags up the gangplank, looked over as well.

Oskar finally released her, stepping back on the quay. They all waved as the ferry finally left the dock, birds flapping noisily around them in the morning sun. Leo waved enthusiastically until they went around the peninsula and the harbor disappeared from view.

"Did you know Oskar was going to kiss you?" Leo asked.

Mouse shook her head, touching her mouth with her fingers. Henry looked over at her, silently observing. She noticed him staring, and lowered her hand, looking out over the water. A little while later, Mouse went below to use the restroom, and Henry took the opportunity to ask his son if Oskar had ever done such a thing before.

"No, I don't think so," Leo said, shaking his head. "I never saw him do that before." He looked back at the Sesame Street charm that hung from his backpack. "I don't think Mouse wanted him to, though," he added. "She looked really surprised."

Henry nodded. His response to seeing another man kissing Mouse had been visceral and immediate. He'd felt his heart rate accelerate, and his hands had balled up into fists. This response had astonished him. He'd always dated high profile women, sometimes even famous women, and he thought he was used to seeing them touched, sometimes in intimate ways, by others. It had never bothered him before.

His wife had even asked him about it, saying he was missing the jealousy gene. "Why don't you care, Henry?" she had teased. "I swear, I could be having an affair, right under your nose, and you'd never respond, never even acknowledge it, would you?"

Henry had shrugged. "I know you love me," he replied, pulling her in for a hug. "I'm not worried. I'm just that wonderful." And the two of them had laughed. Leo, a baby, had stared at them from his high chair, his pudding smeared all over his face. This had made them laugh even more.

Henry was pulled back to the present, literally, by his son, tugging on his shirt. "Daddy? Would you ever want to kiss Mouse like that?" he asked. Round, guileless eyes looked up at him.

"What?" He stared at Leo. "Of course not. She works for me, she works for us. We're just good friends, son."

"Okay," Leo nodded. He looked out at the morning sea, at the few birds which were still following them.

Mouse returned, effectively shutting down the conversation. Even Leo, at four, seemed to understand that he and his father weren't going to continue discussing Oskar and Mouse in front of her.

***************

The distance between Henry and Mouse yawned open, growing wider every day. Only Leo really noticed it, a Grand Canyon of thoughts and emotions that had once been a warm sea of love and buoyant closeness, bearing Leo in its midst.

They flew from Athens to a hot and humid New York, via Paris this time, another place Mouse had longed to visit her whole life. Of course, she saw as much of Paris as she did Geneva, but she looked around as she walked to the terminal across the tarmac, breathing the Parisian air, feeling the hot, French sun, and considered herself lucky.

They settled back into their apartment, and Henry got back into his work, leaving Mouse and Leo to themselves, for the most part. Mouse noticed that Leo's habit of looking down hallways and out doors before closing them, which had kind of gone away, had come back after their return from Greece.

"Leo?" she began. It was a very warm afternoon, and they were spending the afternoon in the apartment watching movies, because the city just looked too soupy to venture into that day.

"Yeah?"

"You know when you leave the door open extra, or look around for a sec before we get in an elevator?"

"Yeah?"

"You want to tell me about that?" She looked over at him where he sat next to her on the couch.

Silence.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, but we're such good friends now, I thought you might want to," Mouse prodded gently.

Leo bit his lips together. "Okay," he finally said, turning to look at her.

Mouse muted the movie and looked at him.

"It's--it's--you won't tell daddy?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"You won't tell Travis? You won't tell anybody?" he clarified.

She shook her head again. "Promise," she added.

"It's my--she's my dragon," he whispered, blue eyes huge. "She's a secret dragon, though, no one can see her but me," he continued. He put a small, warm hand on Mouse's calf for emphasis. "And if anyone finds out about her, she'll leave, and never come back."

"I won't tell," Mouse assured him. "What does she look like?"

Leo smiled, a secret, delighted smile. "She's purple and sparkly," he confided. Purple was Leo's favorite color, Mouse knew. "She has wings, she can fly, you know? She follows me and looks out for me. She's with me when I'm alone, like at night. She can breathe fire, and she helps me to be brave when I'm by myself. I talk to her and stuff."

"It seemed like you didn't see her as much lately," Mouse said, smoothing his hair away from his forehead.

"Yeah, I never know when she's going to come around," Leo admitted. "I used to see her a lot, but not so much after you came. I thought maybe she didn't come to Greece with us, but I saw her at the beach the day after you got hurt, so I guess she did, you know? It must've just taken her some time to fly over there, because it was so far," he reasoned.

Mouse nodded, as though that made sense.

"What's her name, Leo?" she asked, as if it had just occurred to her. "Do you call her anything when you talk to her?"

Leo nodded. He looked at Mouse.

"Amya," he said slowly, his mouth forming the word carefully.

Mouse felt her breath catch in her throat.

"Wow, Leo, that's such a pretty name," she said, smiling. "Where did you hear it?"

Leo shrugged, making the gesture beautiful with his tiny body. "It's a Lord of the Rings word," he informed her. "I don't remember exactly, but it's magic, I know that."

Amya.

The Elvish word for "mother." Or "my mummy," even.

Mouse knew this because she'd been into LotR, hardcore, when she was a little younger, and had spent hours writing AU fan fictions about Legolas, Arwen and Aragorn, creating worlds, drawing pictures, and participating in RPGs in Central Park with NYU clubs.

But how in the world had Leo known this, how had he learned this very obscure and arcane word in a made up language? Mouse looked at him.

She felt tears coming, an absolute flood of them, and there was nothing she could do about it. She let them come, trying to control her sobs, reaching for a tissue.

Leo was shocked, his little face humorously surprised.

"Mouse, are you okay?" he grasped her hand. "I'm sorry. Are you scared of dragons? Amya won't hurt you, promise. She's not here right now, anyway. And she's really gentle to me and the people I like. She only breathes her fire and stuff on people who are mean to me."

"No, I know that," Mouse replied, pulling Leo to her body and hugging him. "I'm sure she's wonderful. She sounds absolutely beautiful, too, just gorgeous. Purple sparkles, huh?" Mouse laughed and sniffed, trying to get her crying under control.

Leo nodded from within her arms. "Yeah, she's like seashell colors," he said enthusiastically. "Like pearly? And sometimes she lets me get on her back, and we go flying across the city at night, when I'm supposed to be asleep in my bed." He got quiet, his smile evaporating. "Don't tell daddy? He might get mad. Sometimes he doesn't like when I pretend too hard."

"I won't," Mouse promised.

"I thought I saw her when I fell in the water on the Fourth of July," Leo confessed. His voice got quiet, the way it always did when he spoke of the horrible events of that day. "I thought I saw her flying toward me really low, on the top of the water, you know?" He leaned into Mouse, hugging her. "But it wasn't her. She got really close, and it was you, Mouse, isn't that weird? It was you." He patted her, and feeling his gentle touch made Mouse begin to cry again.

What was wrong with her?

Mouse realized, as she sat on the couch, holding the motherless boy who had become so dear to her, that she was going to have to say good bye to him in another month or so. Her summer job was going to come to an end, and he was going to start going to pre-school again.

She wondered if she'd done him any good at all. She had taught him to swim, and made a good start on teaching him to read, which were both important things. She hoped she'd made him a little stronger, emotionally as well, and had helped him deal with some of the feelings of loss regarding his mother.

Mouse had a feeling, however, that losing her at the end of the summer was going to open up all new feelings of loss. She and Henry had never thought about how her leaving would affect him at all.

She tried not to think about how she herself would feel when she had to leave this little boy, and his father, both of whom she loved with all her heart.