A/N: Once again, thank you Bird for being both beta AND artist, you're absolutely amazing and I love you <3

The roads turned into murky, muddy swamps overnight, forcing Cobb to drive at a pace that is neither too fast, so as to not slide off the road, or too slow, so he doesn't get stuck in the mud. That, combined with a heavy fog turning the air into soup, makes the simple task of driving tedious and nerve-wracking. It'd be harrowing enough if it was just him he had to get to town, but now there's a little passenger with him and that dials up his stress to new, previously unforeseen levels.

He glances through the rearview mirror to check on his passenger, having had the sense, at least, to put the kid in the backseat this time. The kid still refuses to come out of his pumpkin—Cobb did try again, and the kid screamed like the devil—so he'd done his best to buckle the pumpkin in so it didn't slide to the side every time he turned. It isn't the safest option, and he might've tried a little harder to talk some sense into the kid if he wasn't so blasted tired.

Normally, Cobb enjoyed a little rain to fall asleep to, but last night, every crash of thunder and thud of rain had his eyes shooting open, automatically stretching his hearing, trying to make out anything else that might lurk beneath the cacophony. When he did sleep, he'd spent most of it twisting and turning, only able to rest in short bursts. During one such bout of restlessness, he quietly shuffled to the edge of the loft to climb down to the bathroom, but froze in place upon hearing a small tap-tap-tap. Scouring the room below, he blinked, surprised, when he found the kid standing on the dining table, leaning against the window.

The pumpkin still sat on the couch, swaddled with blankets (both in and around it), and though Cobb only met the kid a few hours ago, seeing him outside of it felt...jarring. He froze. A part of him didn't want to startle the kid, but another part was also very curious about what he was doing. The kid's fingers paused their tapping against the glass to lean closer to the window, hands braced on either side of him to keep himself from falling, until his nose was touching the glass. His head moved slowly from side to side, as if searching for something.

Then, suddenly, he straightened, head snapping to the side like a bloodhound catching the scent of a deer. The kid didn't move, gaze fixated outside the window.

Unease roiled in Cobb's stomach and he quickly, and not-so-quietly, clambered down the ladder, revealing his presence. The kid jolted, eyes jumping to Cobb in surprise, before scrambling down the table, knocking over the salt and pepper shakers, and scurried across the floor, diving back into his pumpkin. His eyes peeked out from within the blankets, watching Cobb as he closed the curtains. In the seconds that Cobb looked out the window, it was completely dark. Too dark to see anything.

The pit in his stomach squirmed again, and it didn't feel right leaving the kid down there after that, so he hauled the pumpkin up the loft with him and placed him on the other side of the mattress. After fussing with the blankets to make sure the kid was warm, Cobb's bladder reminded him he still needed to use the bathroom, so with firm instructions not to leave the loft, he climbed back down.

As he put a foot back on the ladder afterward, prepared to climb up, a prickle at the back of his neck made him glance back at the window. There was a crack in the curtains, barely enough to even see through, but his skin crawled and the hairs on his arms stood on end. He stared through the crack, at the darkness beyond, and got the inexplicable feeling that something was looking back. Swallowing hard, he hauled himself up the ladder, wrapped himself in blankets, and turned over on the mattress, forcing himself to not think about it.

Only the kid's eyes were visible from above the pumpkin at this angle, inky-black and so wide they looked almost too big for his head. So innocent, yet so....intelligent. Dulled, like whatever he'd seen outside had sucked the life right out of them.

Cobb turned over, but the kid's eyes were heavy on his back. He tried to force himself to relax, but his thoughts crept back downstairs, to the way the kid had been tapping on the window. There'd been a rhythm to it. Every tap phlegmatic and intentional.

When Cobb woke up that morning and turned over, the kid was still looking at him. Like he hadn't moved an inch.

As if sensing his thoughts, the kid looks up at Cobb through the rearview mirror and Cobb snaps his eyes back to the road and immediately feels foolish afterward. So, the kid is a little strange. Cobb would be too if he'd been abandoned on the side of the road. There's no reason to be so jumpy.

The wheeze of the truck's heaters fills the silence, and Cobb grips and ungrips the worn leather of the steering wheel for a few minutes before looking at the kid again, who'd returned to looking out the window. He's standing up in the pumpkin, straining his neck to see over the edge of the door. If they went off-road, there's nothing preventing him from falling all over the place.

Cobb clears his throat. "You, uh, shouldn't be standing like that back there." The kid ignores him. Cobb tries again, more firmly. "Don't be standing like that on the seat. It's not safe."

He is, once again, ignored.

He looks back at the road, at a loss. Wrangling kids isn't exactly in his job description. They liked him well enough when he visited the school on Career Day, but he'd never had to actually direct them. At least they paid attention to him. As far as this kids concerned, he's not even in the car.

He tries a different approach. "See anything good?"

The kid doesn't look away from the window, but if Cobb had to wager a guess, he'd give it a big fat no. The kids' eyebrows scrunch and his lips turn down in a concerned frown, eyes searching the fog frantically. His little hands dig into the door's faded material, fingernails white. Cobb swaddled him inside the pumpkin with a blanket before they left, but he still shivers every so often.

Cobb's heart pangs. The poor thing looks absolutely distressed, like he's expecting a pair of hands to pop out of the fog and snatch him through the glass. Cobb can't say that he blames him. It's so thick and soupy that every tree and bush takes on a strange shape, and any animals darting through the underbrush makes it shift and swirl.

A few times, even Cobb's eyes can't help but wander to the side of the road, trying to catch whatever had disturbed the air.

He clears his throat again. "Nothing is gonna get you. I promise. You're safe."

Ignored again.

Fog spins on his left as an animal, probably a deer, bounds away. It swirls like his thoughts, foggy, muted, and unsure of himself. He grips the steering wheel again, scrambling for something to say to ease the kid's troubles.

The air churns again, directing Cobb's attention once more, but he double-takes as a large, pale shape steps to the side, just out of his line of sight. A swishing, like from a tail, disturbs the murk, but it's gone before he can tell what it was. Probably just that horse that got loose from the farm. After a night like that, it'll be making its way home, for sure.

Swallowing, Cobb fixates on what little of the road he can see. When there's more movement out of the corner of his eye, he forces himself not to look. Focus. He needs to focus on getting to town. Vizsla will get his horse back, and it's not dumb enough to throw itself in front of his truck. It'll be fine.

More movement and the back of his neck prickles. Though he's not looking directly at it, there's something jogging next to the truck. A stone drops in his stomach. Whatever it is, it's big, and moving so smoothly it barely disturbs the fog at all.

Cobb jumps when the kid whines and smacks his hand against the window, looking up at him frantically.

"Don't worry, there's nothing out there," Cobb reassures him, tacking on a smile that feels so plastic he immediately regrets it. The kid whines again, craning to look out the window, and Cobb has the irrational urge to tell him to look away. To stop making so much noise or it'll attract its attention.

The thing outside moves from Cobb's left, to his right, closer to where he is. His knuckles turn white, but he forces his eyes straight ahead. The pricking at the back of his neck intensifies, like whatever it is had turned all of its attention directly onto him. It lingers near him for a few minutes, before disappearing again and Cobb follows it's progress through the rearview mirror as it goes behind the truck and reappears on the right again. Like a coyote circling a chicken coop, trying to find the best way inside.

He releases the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding as a sign pops up on his left, and, slowly; the fog recedes. The road levels out as they descend the hill, the town sprawling out around them as it comes into view. The kid plops back into the pumpkin with his shoulders up to his ears, curling in on himself. Cobb's heart squeezes again. Whatever this kid went through, it'd been something terrible.

He could have just gotten lost, but Cobb doubts it. He's never seen this kid before, so it's not like he'd wandered away from town. They didn't get many visitors, and that road only led up to his cabin and the Vizsla farm. There's nothing else out there but miles of forest and old hunting trails. Someone had to have brought him there. Nothing else makes sense.

Scowling, Cobb looks through the rearview mirror, as if to find the culprit that had been lurking behind them, but nearly loses his grip on the wheel. On the crest of the hill, there is, indeed, a horse. It stands so still and pale it nearly blends in with the fog, only disturbing it as it tosses its head and flicks its tail. What makes Cobb's skin go cold is what's sitting atop its back. A dark, murky figure, obscured by the fog and nearly completely concealed. He can't see the top half of their body, but he swears it's looking directly at him.

But, as soon as he'd seen them, they're gone again. Eaten by the mist.

Cobb pushes on the gas pedal, heart in his throat.

"There's nothing out there," he insists, eyes cycling from the hill, to the kid, to the road, and back again. The fog is empty. The kid stares back at him with heavy, dulled eyes that he can't meet.

"We'll stop by the clinic first," he says, clearing his throat. "Make sure there's nothin' wrong with ya."

Silence. He's back to being ignored.

His eyes flit to the hill.

There's nothing there.

Good. As it should be.

<><><><><><>

The Free Town clinic is the perfect size for the town. It's well equipped to handle the small ailments it comes across, like sprained ankles, flu's, dislocated limbs, and the odd stitches or two. Anything extreme or life-threatening gets sent to a hospital in the city, Mos Eisley, several miles from where their town sits.

The doctor is an equally small man named Kuiil. He has thick, heavy-set brows that sit low over steady brown eyes, wrinkled around the edges from age. His hair had long since disappeared, leaving nothing but a pair of white-side burns that lent much speculation about whether he shaves his head, or if the hair on the side of his jowly face is simply too stubborn to leave. His hands, calloused and rough from working the small garden in his backyard, are gentle as they maneuver the child's limbs, checking him over carefully.

Cobb sits in one of the cushioned plastic chairs to the side, watching Kuiil's brow furrow and his frown deepen. Though he's never seen Kuiil smile in all the time he's known him, the doctor speaks softly whenever the kid makes a startled noise, doing his best to examine him from within the confines of the pumpkin. He, too, had been unable to coax the kid out of his refuge.

Fortunately, the kid settles the longer the examination goes. He doesn't shy away when Kuiil sits in front of him, and looks more curious than skeptical as Kuiil presses the diaphragm of his stethoscope to his chest. A peculiar expression crosses Kuiil's face as he adjusts it, dragging it across the kid's chest, eyebrows furrowing in concentration. A long moment passes before he pulls away. After offering the kid a lollipop from a jar on the counter—which is eagerly accepted—he gestures for Cobb to follow him, leading him a short distance across the room for some semblance of privacy.

"So, what's the consensus?" Cobb asks.

"Well, he seems healthy," Kuiil's voice is rough and garbled; stubborn and firm with every word, though it comes off as more well-meaning than rude. At least, to Cobb. "But there is something...strange about him."

Cobb's eyes flicker to the kid. "Strange how?"

Kuiil turns, also looking at the kid, but his expression becomes troubled. Like looking at him from a distance was supposed to put together whatever big picture he had in mind, but it'd only gotten murkier.

"I couldn't find a heartbeat," he admits after a moment.

Cobb snaps back to him, eyes wide. "What do you mean you couldn't find a heartbeat?"

Kuiil looks up at him dully, adjusting the clipboard in his hand. "It could be a result of faulty equipment, but I couldn't pick up his heartbeat." He looks back at the kid, heavy brows set even lower over his eyes. "Couldn't hear him breathing, either."

Though the kid's skin is still pale, he looks more spry than he did in the car, happily sucking on his lollipop as he looks around the room. Cobb's stares at his chest, trying to detect a rise and fall, but it's hard to tell under all that fabric. He certainly looks lively enough to have a heartbeat.

"He looks fine," Cobb says as much, and Kuiil grunts in agreement, though doesn't follow up on the observation.

After a moment, he asks, "Where did you say you found him?"

"Up on Beggar's Road, a little way from my house," Cobb says.

Kuiil hums, rubbing his chin. "Did you see anything else?"

"Nothing I could make out," Cobb shrugs. "It was raining like the devil."

He had barely seen the road in front of him, much less anyone that might've been lurking in the trees. But now that he's been introduced to it, the idea of someone watching him from the treeline makes him shudder.

Could that have been who the kid was looking at through the window?

Had they followed Cobb home?

"That's one of Paz's," Kuiil nods at the pumpkin, jarring him from his building horror.

Cobb forces a wry smile, "Yeah, that's what I'll be confirming this afternoon." He's tempted to ask Kuiil to tag along. Out of all the people in town, Paz Vizsla seemed to get along with him the most. He's one of the few that's been allowed to work on the farm, when they needed the extra hands. And, unlike everyone else, he has, dare Cobb say, cultivated a friendship with Vizsla. A goddamn miracle if he's ever seen one.

But that'd be unprofessional. Technically speaking, this is both a new case and a possible lead to whoever's been smashing Vizsla's pumpkins. He can't have just anyone tagging along for the investigation. But it'd be nice to have someone Vizsla actually cooperated with on his side.

"Do you think I should bring him to the city?" Cobb asks, gesturing to the kid. "To a hospital to get him checked at?"

Kuiil's eyes snap back to him, like he'd been lost in thought, and waves the question away. "No. No, this equipment is old, and it needs to be replaced, anyway. In every other area, the child is fine. He's a little cold, so keep him wrapped up." He ambles to the examination chair and carefully picks up the pumpkin, holding it like it might shatter in his hands.

"Keep him safe," he instructs firmly, holding the pumpkin away until Cobb promises, before handing him over.

"I will," Cobb says, confused, as he takes the kid. "Are you..." he frowns. "Do you know him?"

He doesn't know why he asks, Kuiil's made no other indication that he's seen the kid before, and he'd have said something if he did. But the look in his eye...

The way he stares at the kid, gaze far-away, lost in thought.

"No," Kuiil says, turning away. "I'm sure you've got a lot to do today, Marshal. Come back if he has any problems."

Nodding, Cobb heads to the door. He pauses halfway out, looking over his shoulder, mouth open, but Kuiil is engrossed in his notes, mumbling softly to himself. Cobb closes his mouth and holds the pumpkin a little closer, heading to the front office to check out.