Cooper isn't sure how long he's been in this dressed up cave with the woman he loved and thought he lost.

It could be hours, it could be days. He doesn't care.

So far time hasn't touched this bubble they're in so they've just been worshiping each other.

Making up for lost time. Getting reacquainted. Relearning the curves of their bodies, discovering new scars and leaving marks on one another.

He's not sure a single word has passed between them other than her name, her nickname for him, and demands for harder, deeper and faster. More. All.

He lies in a golden daze, on his back naked as she covered modestly with a warm pelt, possibly a patchwork of rabbit furs.

He stares at the ceiling where, instead of stalactites, a bunch of roots descend from above disappearing into the walls, weaving in and out of the rock.

He doesn't know how she's lived here. There's only a pallet covered in furs, a few shelves with a few belongings nothing personal, what seem to be a few articles of clothes and maybe a stash of dried food. But he's comfortable enough for now. She's beside him, nestled into his side, one arm is casually draped over her, his fingers trace a pattern over her skin.

It helps him remember that she's there.

Ruelle is truly alive. She's come back to him. He can finally be happy. He's finally complete again.

Except...

"Where have you been?" echoes into the silence around them.

He's asked without meaning to, but the question has a mind of its own. It's been burning to come out since he found her again.

He feels her stir beside him.

He's woken her up.

He feels guilty until she stretches against him, pressing further into him than before. She tilts her mouth up to his and he greedily goes about devouring her. Within seconds they've worked up a fervor. He's half on top, but this time her honey kisses aren't going to distract him.

"Ruelle, where have you been?" he asks again. She looks up to him, watching as he puts space in between them. He hovers above her, staring into those gray green eyes he's not used to.

After a moment her voice comes, light and hoarse like she's lost her voice and it hasn't quite come back the whole way. "Here."

Cooper's eyebrows crease with concern.

"Here? Here in this waterfall or here as in just around the forest?" he asks. He knows the answer before she gives it to him but he's willing her to give him another.

"A bit of both," she says softly.

Now Cooper's angry. "You mean to tell me that's you've be traipsing around the damn forest playing Silver Sight while I was out there screaming for you to come back to me?" he growls.

"I am not playing!" she cries indignantly, sitting up to glare at him. "I am Silver Sight."

"No. You are Ruelle Sharrow! I've been looking for you for years! YEARS!" he shouts jumping to his feet. "Do you know how much I've missed you? How much it hurt thinking you were dead, that I let something happen to you? Everyone blamed me! I blamed me. I lost you, I lost my scholarship, and I lost my best friend! And for what? So you could be the forest's saviour? How could you do this to me? How could you leave me like that?"

He stares down at her. Her eyes are unwavering and he sees that while she's honestly concerned she just doesn't seem to understand.

"I didn't remember."

Cooper's rage melts.

He realizes that she's like him.

Whatever had happened to her had taken her memories away. It makes sense to him that while he stewed trying to fill in the void of his memoires that she might have been doing the same. But from the looks of it she had more to fill in.

He had struggled with a missing night, she seemed to have struggled with a whole lifetime of missing memories.

Ruelle stands, unflinching and calmly staring him down. The look of determination on her face is one he's familiar with. Except usually it was accompanied by some sort of emotion. This new calmness she had, this lack of empathy, was completely new to him.

"I am not Ruelle. I have not been Ruelle for a long time. As such I did not possess her memories. I did not know that her Copper Haired boy was mine, or that his desperate search for her was in fact a desperate search for me. I am Silver Sight. I am the forest. I am not the person you're looking for."

Cooper crosses to her and grips her shoulders. He shakes her as he shouts his words at her.

"YOU ARE NOT SILVER SIGHT!"

Above him the tree creaks and Ruelle shrugs his hands off of her. She stares up at the ceiling and for the first time he sees something other than serenity or passion on her face.

"The Guardians have broken through," she says. "The forest gave us as much time as it could, but now it comes to an end."

Fear lances through Cooper, he can't lose her again. These can't be their last words.

She's turning away from him, turning towards the pool they climbed out of, the one that leads to the world outside of the waterfall. He grabs her wrist and stops her.

"No. You're not leaving me again. You need to tell me what happened to you that night!"

Ruelle turns and slowly extracts her hand from his grip. "I'm not leaving you. From now on I will find you if you're looking for me," she says, a small smile donning on her lips. "I need to speak with them, and you need to run."

"Wait, who are the Guardians?" Cooper asks, but Ruelle is already heading for the water.

"I don't have time for your questions, Copper Haired Boy," she calls and then she dives under the water.

Minutes later Cooper does the same, entering the world he left behind, not sure what it was he was to expect.

[----]

The forest shakes as the Guardians rage at her.

It shakes not in fear but in the fury it feels radiating off of all of them.

Bits of her past have become clear, parts the Guardians held back. Parts that were keeping her from understanding.

She didn't know how long the forest had planned this. She didn't know why her recent actions had caused a problem. It wasn't her fault because part of her story had been taken from her and the other part had been rewritten.

But Silver Sight was a child of the forest and the forest looked after its own.

Its poor child had been hurting.

A wound she couldn't find.

A wound given to her in a life she didn't remember.

That she was slowing beginning to remember.

A life the Forest had been whispering to her for years.

Only one thing was missing.

The key to unlocking it all.

The Guardians had wanted this to be separate.

For she could not return to the world of the men.

They wanted her cut off and to do that they had taken her memories. It would only bring her more pain. To remember what she could never have again. The Forest didn't not agree with this decision but none understood the Forest except for its child.

The Guardians were angry that she had stolen back what they had taken from her.

They were angry that the Forest whispered their secrets in her ears.

They were angry that she pulled the Copper haired boy into their realm, revealed herself to him and then vanished before they could intercept or intervene. They were angry the forest helped her, hid her from them.

Silver Sight is angry too.

A part of her has come to life.

A long dormant part of her heart has slowly begun to beat again.

Feelings are returning as the memories trickle back, each new memory unlocking another.

She's angry because her past is tied to the boy, is tied to the monster they've trained her to hunt.

Angry that her future isn't what it was supposed to be, it isn't where her heart wants her to be.

Silver Sight is being torn in two.

One half wants the forest and other yearns for the human life she left behind.

Winds howl, trees sway, clouds gather as the argument continues. The forest protects the Copper haired boy. It leads him out to safety before the Guardian's realize he's gone. The forest is ready for what is going to happen. It knows it's altered the course that the Guardian's carefully put in place.

Soon Silver Sight will learn of her purpose.

Soon she will see their plan realized.

Soon she will be given the choice.

Stay or return.

Both choices will be rife with longing.

A heart that will always ache for the boy, a body that will always ache for the forest.

She will forever be caught between two worlds, two realms, two minds, two destinies. But the forest hasn't whispered that into her ear so she doesn't know.

Not yet.

[----]

It's while Cooper is running that he realizes he's not limping.

Whatever happened in that cave had healed him.

He doesn't even bother to check his shoulder. It's probably faded into nothing but a scar by now. He doesn't have time to be amazed. He doesn't even think to question it. All he thinks about is getting away.

As he runs the trees bend, blocking out the sky as the wind howls around him. It's as if the forest is keeping him safe, but that's ridiculous. For some reason he feels safe despite what he saw when he climbed out of the water.

His senses return to him and his running slows as he thinks.

What man leaves the woman he loves to fend for herself against spirit animals? Then again what mortal man could stand a chance against spirit animals?

For what else could explain what he had seen?

Ruelle had been facing off against an enormous stag that looked like the forest lived on it's back and a wolf that looked to be made of nothing but mist.

Each had glowed in an otherworldly way.

Of course, he had panicked, of course he had run the second he got a chance, before they noticed him. He had worried they'd chase him but they were too preoccupied with Ruelle.

He shouldn't have cared, but with each step he took his heart strings twanged in tune to a discordant melody. Why had he left her when he had just gotten her back?

The truth was he wants to return to her, it hurts to be away from her. He stops in his tracks and he turns to face where he came, the wind is howling around him urging him forward but he can't seem to move.

He wants to return to her. To her world of sprits. He doesn't care if needs to cross over to be with her, he is more than willing to shed his mortal coil if it meant staying with her or the rest of time. But he doesn't take a step forward. He can't seem to move in either direction, stuck between two realms.

He has unfinished business. He has a murderer to find. A lost friend to question and the sudden desire to figure out why everyone is lying to him.

"Take me to them," he whispers to the woods around him and the trees and bushes begin to bend back creating a different trail for him to follow. Again, he doesn't question how the forest knew he just starts running, no longer in fear but with purpose.

He's grateful when the forest opens up and he's in the Sharrow's backyard. His confidence and righteous anger spurs him onward and leaves him only after he's knocked sharply on the back door.

He only now thinks about how this looks.

The sun is setting on the forest and he's painful aware that he has no idea how long he has been gone. Has time stood still for him and Ruelle again while the rest of the world moved on? He isn't sure. He's only sure that someone has been lying to him and he wants to know for how long.

He's burning by the time the door swings open. The anger over this betrayal overwhelming his senses until he's a quivering mess at their door. He's trying to hold it all in but the weight of the emotion bearing down on his chest is hard to contain.

It's Aaron at the door, he's staring at Cooper as if he's seen a ghost. His face pale, his eyes wide. He takes a stuttering step forward.

"Coop? Fuck? Where have you been?" he asks.

"How long?" Cooper asks, his voice barely above a whisper. But Aaron either didn't hear him or is ignoring him.

"Man! You went missing a week ago! We found your car up where Ruelle went missing but we couldn't find you! I've been looking everywhere, every day. I swear. We were starting to think you were really dead this time..."

Everything in him snaps. He doesn't want to think about how long he was gone. He doesn't want to think about the worry he's caused. He needs his answers and this time he'll have them.

"HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN?!" he thunders and Aaron falls silent. He stares at Cooper with an air of confusion but Cooper knows it's an act. He can feel it vibrating in his bones. He tries again.

"Ruelle is alive. How long have you known?"

Fear crosses Aaron's face briefly before a mask of anger replaces it.

He steps out of the doorway, pushing Cooper back. The door slams behind him, the sound echoing out into the forest with a sense of finality. Cooper steals himself for the onslaught of lies that are going to drip out of Aaron's mouth. Ready to count the signs of lies upon his once-best-friend's face.

"What are you talking about Booth? Everyone knows Ruelle's dead. I mean... she's got to be."

He licks his lips before speaking. Sign one.

His voice comes out in a breathless whisper. Sign two.

His eyes dart to the left, towards the still swaying trees. Sign three.

And as an unmitigated sign four, Cooper can feel it in his fucking bones.

"I just saw her!" Cooper screams and the wind howls around him. "I just spent god knows how much time with her in some fucking cave so don't you fucking tell me she's been alive this whole time and you had no idea!"

Cooper's chest is heaving, he is so close to snapping. To grabbing Aaron by the collar and throwing him back into the cottage. He sees the fear on his face, sees the realization. Aaron knows that Cooper's right. He realizes that he's found out. That he can't lie anymore.

But Cooper can tell by the way Aaron is puffing out his chest that he has no intention of backing down. No intention of admitting the truth. He will go to his grave with that secret. And it's like that bullet hitting him in the shoulder all over again. The pain radiates through him in shocking waves. To realize that his best friend thought he couldn't tell Cooper, the boy who loved Ruelle best, that she was really alive.

This argument might have come to blows. And it might have started then and there had Grandma Tala not made her presence known by opening the door.

She puts a soft hand on Aaron's shoulder, causing the man to turn and reveal her behind him. She wears her wrinkles like a mask, shielding the real emotions from them. She does not smile, she barely moves, only her eyes betray the sadness she feels.

"Come now, boy," she says to Aaron. "He knows. And we owe him an explanation."

The wind finally dies down.

The forest goes still.

And the door closes quietly behind Cooper.

[----]

To think not long ago the man sitting on her sofa had been a child running through her house.

Grandma Tala remembered Cooper as the Golden Child, with a big grin on his pale face and a happy lilt to his loud voice. The Golden Shadow to her wonderful Ruelle.

To see what the Golden Shadow had become without Ruelle. To see what had happened to Ruelle while Tala's back was turned. It was painful.

She had put a mug of tea into Cooper's hand. He was sitting obediently on the sofa waiting for the answers she had promised him. Aaron is sitting in the chair that belongs to her, furthest away from Cooper. Tala notes this. And the pain returns, sharp and in her chest.

To see their once impervious friendship completely severed was painful too.

Tala chose to sit beside Cooper. She wondered where to begin. She wondered how much he knew. She wondered if he realized just how much Ruelle had lost.

"How long have I been gone?" Cooper asks in a small voice. "It feels like only a few hours, a night at most but... it can't have been. It hasn't been. Has it? I think I remember you telling me but I..."

He raises his eyes to them, there's fear there. Fear of the unknown.

Science can't explain to him what's happening. His rational mind is rebelling though his heart is telling him to believe. He's at war with himself. A new war. One he may not be able to handle when it conflicts with the other war he'd been fighting with his memories for years.

"About a week," Aaron replies. "Maybe a bit more than that."

"I think it's been about eight days, this might be day nine," Tala replies.

"Almost ten days," Cooper echoes. Tala longs to ask him what it was like.

She's never been to the other realm. The realm of the spirits. By all accounts this would have been Cooper's second time going in less than a week. He was lucky. But he was also in love with creature of the spirit realm. One that felt the same for him too even if she didn't remember.

"Ruelle showed up the winter following her disappearance. The night of the first snow fall," Tala whispers. Cooper's eyes turn to her. The betrayal and hurt shining in them is enough to paralyze her lungs.

"You've known that long? You've known all that time and you didn't tell me?" he asks. His voice is hollow, the pain every so apparent. He's sunken into the couch the tea resting between his hands in his lap. He doesn't even have the strength to lift it to his lips.

"You have to understand, when she came back... she... she wasn't herself. She didn't remember what happened to her, where she had been, she didn't even remember her name, child."

"And we thought you did it," Aaron adds, the bitterness infecting his tone.

Cooper shoots a glare at him, the anger is simmering just under the surface. The rage is still there brewing. She can see the darkness in him but it was something that had grown over the years. A wound that had festered.

She knew that he hadn't hurt Ruelle, had known it in her bones from the very beginning, but her word wasn't law anymore, wasn't even general opinion.

"She came to us with no clothes. Her hair was wild, she was streaked with mud and she had this great big scar running from her neck all the way down her stomach. She said she came because Errol told her she could get clothes from here," Tala explained.

Cooper is shaking his head like he doesn't believe it.

"You should have gotten her help," he growls. "She's obviously out of her mind."

"You're right," Tala whispered. "And we thought about it. At first we only tried to contain her but it became clear that separating her from the forest hurt her, almost physically. We even tried to drive her to a specialist out of town, but the farther we got from the forest the sicker she got."

"You know I don't believe in spirits of the forest, or that the forest has a life of its own and all that, but I've seen it," Aaron adds. "I followed her through the forest a couple of times and I'm telling you it's like the trees bend to talk to her and paths open up for her to pass. I've seen birds come down from the trees to perch on her and deer run to her embrace. There's no science that can explain that."

Cooper doesn't open his mouth to question the spirits like Tala thought he would. He doesn't question the forest opening up to her. His eyes hold all sorts of questions, but those are not the ones burning in his irises.

"How could you not tell me?" he asks again, his voice a little more hollow than before, a little more like a child's voice.

"If anyone found out about her, they'd take her away. Send her to an institute which would have killed her," Aaron explained.

"We did what we had to to protect her," Tala added.

Cooper shakes his head, the mug in his hand is slammed down on the coffee table spilling the contents onto the table. "No! I understand why the town couldn't know. I want to know why I couldn't know!"

He glared at them, his eyes haunted and tearful. Tala finds that she had nothing to say to him, Aaron is glaring at his hands as if they were the cause of this.

"I went into that forest every day until I moved away looking for her and both of you knew it! I was desperate to find her, frantic, pathetic. And you just let me think she was dead. How could you do that to me?" he asks his voice thick with tears.

Tala puts a hand to his knee but he shies away from the touch.

"Cooper, if you've talked to her, you have to have seen how bad it is," Tala whispered, he turned his burning eyes to her and she steeled herself for the anger bubbling at the surface. "She didn't remember us. She didn't remember herself. She didn't remember you. That alone would have killed you, to see her, to have her there but have nothing of her back."

"And you thought I did that to her," Cooper adds before Aaron can say it. He sits back again and frowns. "But she remembers now?"

Tala turned to Aaron who was running a hand through his hair. "I guess. Honestly I don't know. I see Ruelle when I see her, usually when an animal is injured or we're out looking for someone. A couple weeks ago she just sort of changed. She sought me out, talked to me as if she knew me, the real me. She started talking about you again, but she didn't remember your name. Called you the Copper haired boy."

"Again?" Cooper asks, the hope inflating him like a balloon.

"Well, sort of. Before, after we had just found her, she called you the howler. She wanted to try and help you, but the forest kept keeping her away from you. We told her to listen to the forest," Aaron replies.

Cooper frowns again. He lounged back in the couch, his eyes haunted and empty like his mind has gone somewhere else. Tala shoots a knowing smile to Aaron who looks far from pleased and then puts her hand back on Cooper's knee.

"You can't tell anyone Cooper," she whispers. "If they find out about her they'll go looking. They'll take her away and she won't survive that."

She expects Cooper to argue. Ruelle is the key to solving the murders. Ruelle can tell them who tried to kill her. Ruelle can clear Cooper's name once and for all.

Instead, Cooper turns his eyes to her and merely says: "I know. I won't."

Tala sees that Aaron doesn't believe in Cooper's words. But she's looking right into Cooper's eyes, she can see it. He won't do anything that might directly chase Ruelle from him. He won't lose her again.

So for Tala, his words are enough.