Cam helped Cami into her nightgown and tucked her into her bed, kissing her forehead as she snuggled down into the softness with a sigh, already more than half asleep. Lily was already in bed and all but asleep herself, and he stroked her hair gently, just looking at her in bewilderment before he leaned down to kiss her forehead, too. Then he turned out the lights and shut the door. He had so many questions—but they could wait. For now, they needed rest.

After he'd found them asleep, snuggled up to a bear of all things, he'd cautiously awakened them, uncertain what the bear might do. He'd stayed put, though, as Cam gently lifted Cami in his arms and led Lily away from the pool. She'd resisted at first, groggily insisting that she had to pick some roses for her mother before she could leave. But Cam had promised to bring her back later that day, after they'd slept some more and eaten some food. Only then had she given in and followed him back down the trail towards their home.

Alisa was there at the farmhouse when they returned. Upon discovering that the girls were missing, Cam had bolted out the door, eyes wild with panic, and she had thought it prudent to go and wait at the house in case they returned. The time had not passed quickly for her, though—ever since Lily's birth, she'd helped Alice with the girls, and she was practically part of the family. She loved them dearly and was beside herself with worry. Unable to sit still, she had spent the time pacing back and forth, beseeching the Harvest Goddess to watch over the missing children and bring them safely home. When Cam finally walked through the door, Cami asleep on his shoulder and Lily stumbling behind him, she had wept with relief.

After tucking the girls into bed to sleep and to warm up, Cam asked Alisa if she would stay and keep an eye on them while he went to Konohana to check on his wife. She agreed, but seeing that he was exhausted and strained, she suggested he first have some breakfast. She even offered to cook it for him while he sat down and rested for a little bit.

While he ate, she also recommended that he ride to Konohana, since if by any chance Alice had improved and was able to leave, she probably wouldn't be strong enough for the walk back anytime soon. He hesitated, then acknowledged the wisdom of her suggestion with a weary smile and a word of thanks. Then he pulled on his coat and left, leaving her to keep watch over the girls.

To his astonishment, Alice was sitting up and eating a simple breakfast of juice and hot cereal when he walked into her room, and he nearly collapsed from the relief that crashed over him like a tidal wave. He half-fell into the chair next to her bedside, drinking in the sight of her looking so improved. He accepted a cup of coffee from Hiro, while Dr. Ayame explained that shortly after midnight, her fever had taken a sudden turn for the worse. She'd nearly lost hope, when suddenly the fever broke, and Alice had awakened with a gasp, as if she'd just been asleep and dreaming all that time. Then she looked at him critically. "You need to rest, too, Cam—you look like you've hardly slept," she commented as Hiro returned with another steaming cup.

While Alice finished eating, the doctor examined her. "Well, it seems the antibiotics finally kicked in. Your temperature is pretty much normal, your pulse is within a normal range, and you're breathing much more easily. And, of course, you're awake and lucid now.

"You can go home, but you must take it easy for a while yet—I'd say at least another week. I'm sure Cheryl would be happy to come over and take care of your animals for you while you recover, and you could ask Ying to see to your crops—that young lady is turning out to have quite a green thumb.

"Also, although you shouldn't be contagious anymore, you would have been up until your fever broke. So keep a careful eye on anyone you've been in contact with for signs of illness—especially those little darlings of yours. All right? Come back if you start to feel worse, and remember what I told you about taking it easy. I mean it!"

With that, she patted Alice firmly on the shoulder and strolled off to start her day's rounds, leaving Hiro to finish up the paperwork for her.

When they left the clinic, Alice was visibly relieved upon seeing Cam's horse, Cowboy, calmly waiting for his owner to return. Before heading home, they went across the street to arrange for Ying to tend to Alice's fields for a week or two while she recovered. After that, Cam gently lifted her up onto Cowboy's back, then he took the reins and led him back home. They didn't talk much on the way—both were very tired still, and although her breathing was greatly improved, Alice was still somewhat short of breath. When they reached Bluebell, they went first to Ash and Laney's house to ask if Cheryl could come over each morning to take care of the animals while Alice recuperated. She happily agreed, and they turned back down the road towards home.

Cam helped Alice down and sent her to take a hot shower while he put Cowboy away in the barn. Alisa waited until he came back into the house, then left to start her day's duties at the church, reminding him that both she and her foster father were there to help whenever they needed it. A few minutes after she left, Alice stepped out of the bathroom, towels wrapped around her body and damp hair.

"You go ahead and get into bed," Cam told her, following her into the bedroom. "I'll take care of the girls. Just get some sleep."

Wearily, Alice nodded, then pulled on a camisole and pajama pants and climbed into bed, falling asleep almost instantly. Cam sat next to her, stroking her hair, just watching her sleep for several minutes with tender affection in his eyes. Then he rose and went to check on the girls.

Lily was just waking when he walked into their room. He sat next to her on the bed as she sat up, and he said, "Well, Lily-bud. You've got some explaining to do. But first I think you and your sister could use a hot meal."

The little girl nodded. "I'm soo hungry, Daddy. All we had to eat were some blueberries. Can we have pancakes? And eggs? And sausages? And—"

"Whoa, there, take it easy!" Cam protested, laughing. "I think someone's eyes are bigger than her tummy!" He stood up, mussing her hair, and said, "Get dressed and help your sister to get dressed. I'll go make something for us to eat, and you can tell me what happened while we eat. And keep it down—your mother's back home and sleeping, so don't do anything to wake her, okay?" Then he went to Cami's bed and picked her up and cuddled her for a moment, then set her down and told her to get dressed.

While the girls dove into their pancakes, Cam sat and sipped a cup of tea, watching them closely. Once Lily had taken the edge off her appetite, he set his cup down. "All right, Lily-bud. Time for you to 'fess up. You told me you were going to take Cami to see Alisa while I took your mother to the clinic. But Alisa said you never showed up. So what happened?"

"I didn't say that, Daddy, not exack-it-ly," she said, gulping down some of her juice. "I said we were going to the church. And we did—we went across the road to the churchyard first, then we left and went up the mountain. We just never went inside the church. I didn't tell a lie, Daddy, honest."

Cam's mouth twitched, torn between amusement at his daughter's clever deception and ire that she'd intentionally deceived him. His sense of humor—no doubt assisted by his relief that everyone was all right—won out in the end, and all he managed was a stern look and a reprimand. "You know, sweetheart, what you did was very wrong. You put yourself and your little sister in danger, and even if you didn't exactly lie, you weren't honest, either. I trusted you to take care of your sister and yourself, you know, and you let me down."

Looking crestfallen, Lily said in a small voice, "I'm sorry, Daddy. I didn't mean to worry you. I just wanted to help Mama get better. Am... am I in lots of trouble?"

"Well, suppose you tell me a little more about what happened? Then we'll see." Cam suggested, pouring himself another cup of tea and leaning back in his chair to listen.

So Lily related their adventure to her father, in between mouthfuls of breakfast. Now and then Cami piped up with some comment or overlooked detail, but mostly she was content to let her big sister talk while she ate.

She told Cam all about her plan to try to find wild roses for her mother, about their meeting with the oracle—which startled Cam, as he hadn't been aware of such a person living in the woods. She told him about Cami's fall and how the old brown bear had rescued them, and about reaching the peak as it was getting dark, and how they'd been too tired to go back down either side, and besides, it had been getting too dark to look for the flowers then, anyway. So they'd settled down to rest there by the water and had fallen asleep.

"What about the bear? And all those roses there by the pool?" Cam asked as Lily paused, hesitant to continue.

So taking a deep breath, she continued on to tell him about the beautiful green lady, and what she'd said and done. "I thought it was just a dream," she said at the conclusion of her narrative, "but when you woke us up, the bear and the roses were there. So I don't know. Was it just a dream, Daddy? Or was she real?"

That, Cam thought to himself as he sipped his tea and watched his daughters devour their meal, was an excellent question.

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

Alice was still asleep when Cam and the girls returned from their hike back up to the small lake. Cam made her a pot of tea and some toast, and placed a few thorny stems of the pale pink roses into a small vase. He put everything on a tray, along with the medicine she was supposed to take, and carried it in to their bedroom as the girls scampered alongside. He set the tray down on the bedside table, sat on the edge of the bed, and gently shook her shoulder.

The first thing Alice saw as she reluctantly opened her eyes were the large, pale pink blooms. Sitting up in surprise, she stared at Cam. "How... where...?"

The girls climbed up on the other side of the bed, and Cami bounced over to her on her knees, exclaiming, "Do you wike dem, Mama? We found dem all by our selfs!"

Lily cuddled up to her mother, wrapping her arms around her and holding onto her as if for dear life. "Are you all better now, Mama? We found the flowers you wanted—did they make you feel better?"

Glancing in confusion at Cam, Alice quickly hugged her daughters, assuring them that she was indeed much better, and that she was certain it was all because of the pretty flowers. The girls beamed, and Lily looked relieved. Then Cam suggested they go play for a while, since he was pretty sure their dolls were quite lonely and missed them terribly. They quickly scurried off to check on their 'childrens', and Cam moved to his side of the bed, sitting next to Alice and leaning back tiredly against his pillow. As she sipped her tea and nibbled her toast, he related the events of the past couple of days, including Lily's tale of their adventure. Alice looked alarmed at the idea of her girls alone on the mountain, but when Cam mentioned the bear, she smiled. "Good old Bruno. As soon as I'm recovered enough, I'll have to go catch some nice, fat fish all for him. Imagine him being clever enough to figure that out!"

After Cam concluded his story, Alice sat looking thoughtful. "So what do you think about Lily's 'beautiful green lady'? It seems too fantastic to be true, but all the same, the flowers came from somewhere. They certainly hadn't been there before." Cam mused.

Taking another sip of tea, Alice replied, somewhat hesitantly, "I've never mentioned it to anyone before, but... when I first arrived here, when I had that accident and was knocked out... I had a dream about a lady that looked just the lady Lily described. She told me that the time had come to reunite the two towns, and she needed my help to do it. I... I thought it was just a dream. But... then things kept happening. And I had more dreams of her, too. Maybe they weren't dreams, after all."

They sat and thought for a few minutes, then Cam looked over at Alice. "So why did you want wild roses so badly? And why haven't you mentioned it before? If I'd known, I would have found some for you."

Alice sighed. "I'd forgotten all about it, honestly. But I guess somewhere down inside it must have still bothered me."

"What bovvered you, Mama?" Cami interrupted, and Alice jumped slightly. Peering over at the door, she saw the girls sitting in the doorway, Lily dressing one doll while Cami brushed another's hair.

Smiling, Alice set her cup down and patted the bed. Scrambling to their feet, the girls climbed up between them, Lily snuggling up to Cam while Cami climbed up onto Alice's lap.

"When I was young, about fourteen, I believe, I used to argue with my mother a lot. One morning, I had a really big fight with her. I don't even remember what about—just something silly and unimportant, I'm sure. But we were both very angry, and we said some things to each other than we never should have said."

"You mean Baba Anna? Why did you fight? What did you say?" Lily asked, curious as ever.

"Yes, I mean Baba Anna. It's hard to explain why we fought—we just did. And I think that the things we said are best left unrepeated, sweetheart." Looking over at Cam, she said, "This was during that big influenza epidemic. The one that...." her voice trailed off, and Cam nodded, understanding what she left unspoken—the same epidemic that took both his parents from him.

"Anyway, when I returned that night, I discovered my mother had collapsed shortly after I'd left. She was sick—so very sick...."

"Just like you," Lily softly interrupted, clinging to her father as she looked at her mother with big eyes.

"Yes. Like me. But she was even more sick than I was. For a while, we thought she was going to die. She just kept getting worse and worse, and she had to go to the hospital. But so many people were sick with the same thing that they had started to run out of medicine.

"I was so frightened at the thought of losing her, and I felt terrible that the last things I'd said to her were so awful. Somehow I settled on the idea that if I could just find some of her favorite flowers—the wild roses that grew all over in the late spring and early summer—then everything would be fine. But it was fall by then, and all the roses had died.

"I searched high and low, scouring the countryside for them. But I couldn't find even one single rose anywhere, and Mom kept getting more and more sick.

"Finally, while I was visiting my mother for a few minutes before setting off on my search for the day, I overheard the doctor tell my dad that he should start planning for the worst—gathering family to say their goodbyes, that sort of thing.

"I panicked and ran away. I don't know why I was so fixated on finding her a wild rose. Maybe I thought that if I could manage one miracle, then somehow another would follow? I don't know. But I spent the entire day searching, going farther and deeper and higher into the hills than I'd ever gone before.

"And then it happened. I found a wild rose—one single, perfect, pale pink blossom, hidden away in a small glade, sheltered from the chill. It was the very last rose on a late-blooming bush, and from how perfect and fresh it looked, it had to have bloomed just that very morning.

"I rode my pony all the way back to town and to the hospital, as fast as she could go. When I ran into my mother's room, I found doctors gathered all around her bed, and my heart stopped—I... I thought I was too late. But then one of them moved aside, and I saw her—her eyes were open, and although she was pale and wan, she smiled when she saw me standing there in the doorway. I ran to her and threw my arms around her, crying with relief. Then I remembered the flower I'd worked so hard to find for her, and gave it to her.

"I still remember how big her eyes got when she saw it—she knew it was the wrong time of year for them. Then she sniffed the sweet fragrance, and for the first time in days, the color returned to her cheeks—the same delicate pink as the rose petals. And I knew then that everything was going to be just fine."

"Just like you?" Lily whispered, sidling over and slipping her arms around Alice's neck as she snuggled up.

"Just like me."