Image: Our heroine (though your imagination is always better)

Syeda listened to Jack's story carefully, and when he'd ended, she was still silent. Jack looked at her keenly, eager to detect some sign of emotion or judgement in her features.

But there was none. Strange; the Syeda of the past, through strict and gloriously rule-abiding, would have given him a pat on the back by now and be declaring her allegiance to his cause.

The old Syeda was still clever, cautious, cunning, but... more feeling. The old Syeda used to reluctantly smile, and shyly laugh.

This Syeda looked like she'd had all the emotion sucked out of her. Sure, it made her seem invincible, like not a rock mountain on Earth could shake her, but it was a bit.... dehumanising.

What had gone on these past few years?

"So Sarah, you can have a bit to decide whether you'll help me find Alex. But enough about me; what I want to know is, how has it been for you these last few years? How's school, life, shit been treating you? Hey-"

Jack looked around the house, and noticed the clock. It was around 7:30pm.

"Hey Sarah, is your dad at work? Won't he be coming home soon?"

A smile lit Jack's features. "I can't wait to catch up with him. It's really been too long. Hey Sarah-"

He was just about to ask why they'd disappeared from their neighbourhood all of a sudden four years ago, when he noticed a peculiar expression on a paralysed Syeda's face.

Could it be...? No. It couldn't be fear.

But it wasn't anything else. But how... 

She'd shown no emotion throughout his whole story-

Wait. 

No.

No no no no no NO.

Not him too.

Jack put two and two together, and his own eyebrows shot upwards, eyes widening-

"Sarah, is he missing? Is your dad..." When receiving no reply, he placed a hand on her sleeved wrist, and gripped it tightly; he needed her to remember he was there. He needed her to reply. "Is he gone too?"

Syeda's unfocused gaze shifted from the wall down to the carpeted floor, and after a long, long while (each second seeming like a millennia to a perspirating Jack), she nodded. Her eyes were still on the floor. Gaze empty.

'She nodded. She said yes.' Jack repeated to himself. 'So Professor Johansson's really...'

Gone. Vanished. Taken a long walk with the faeries.

Just like his brother. Just like anyone who'd ever mattered in his life. Gone, just like him and Syeda's mothers. Gone, eaten away by the world into thin air, just like his hopes of every finding anyone he'd loved and lost again.

What was the point now? Half of the two people he'd been relying on to help him were lost too.

"Oh Sarah..." He would've leaned in and took her in a hug, but he'd realised Syeda wasn't chill with that, so he thought to awkwardly pat her shoulder instead. Or maybe she didn't like that either.

It'd been so simple when they were kids, when a pint-size Syeda and his even more pint-sized self would wrestle each other on the floor (over some silly argument that he'd probably started) (surprising how many times she won actually) and no one batted an eyelid. He guessed things were probably different now... 

Suddenly, a key turned in the lock. Syeda immediately shot up, alert, eyes at the door, then flicking over to Jack.

Subsequently she grabbed his arm. "Come with me! We have a spare room!" She hissed, before dragging him over towards it, shoving him in, and shutting the door closed just as Halima popped her head round (luckily they lived in a bungalow so no stairs to conquer).

"Is there something going on, Syeda?" Halima queried, an eyebrow raised.

Syeda smiled, slightly. "Nothing much, Halima."

"Do you have friends over?" 'Fat chance of that', thought Halima, but there couldn't be much other explanation for what she could see.

'Why would she- OH. Jack's shoes by the door!'

Busted!

Syeda let out a deep breath.

"I'm doing an experiment regarding bacterial content in personal belongings, Halima. I got some kids at school to give me their old trainers. I had nowhere else to put my first pair where it wouldn't get stuff dirty.

Obviously, as a muslim, Syeda wasn't too hot with lying, (and she was proud that she generally never did anything dodgy that needed her to cover it up), but in this circumstance...

Should she just spill?

She thought about it.

If she told Halima... where would Jack stay? He said he had limited cash with him, and she was sure that Halima wouldn't be over the moon about him staying with them.

Maybe... Maybe she'd tell Halima soon. But she wasn't ready yet.

In response to Syeda's explanation, Halima looked down at the trainers again.

"So this kid gave you his Louis Vuittons?"

Syeda nodded solemnly.

For a moment, Halima kept staring at the shoes. Syeda could hear her heart beating. Everything hung in the balance. Even Jack was listening, not breathing so he could listen to what Halima said next.

All was silent.

Until-

"Well, they do look like someone' s gone farming in the rain in them. And then lent them to another farmer to farm in the rain with them."

Halima shrugged. "At least you'll get lot of interesting bacterial specimens from the soil, huh Syeda?" Halima removed her coat, neck scarf, and headscarf, shaking her hair around, and hung the items on a hook, before going to her room to get changed.

Syeda and Jack let out a collective sigh, and then Syeda sneaked to the spare bedroom.

But before she could speak, Jack help his hand up.

"It's alright Syeda, you've done more than enough for me and obviously care about me a great deal and don't want me to leave, but I couldn't possibly intrude on your kindness any longer. I'll go to some B&B."

'Saves me telling him to get out.' thought Syeda drily, before nodding.

He noticed the window and started to creep towards it, before turning around. "Hey, I'll come round, say, tomorrow to ask if you're willing to help me? Oh, and Sarah,"

He looked intently into her eyes, something in them she hadn't seen before. "I'm sorry about your father."

Syeda sighed a very small, barely noticeable sigh. "It's okay." She replied, eyes on the floor. Then she looked up at him. "I've never spoken to anyone about it. Not anyone my age, not anyone older. My aunt and Halima would give their condolences and talk about him and stuff, and I just listened."

She looked back at the floor again. "What's the point in talking about him. It's not going to bring him back."

There was a brief silence. Then she remembered something to tell him. She looked at him focusedly. "Listen carefully, Jack."

'When do I ever not?' Jack rolled his eyes and then noticed a little owl on a tree outside the window. Aw, cute.

"Listen!" She snapped her fingers in his face, before continuing. "Someone..." She paused, then persuaded herself to continue. "Someone knows where my dad is.

Jack's eyebrows shot to the roof. "Who? Where? Where is he?" 'Could he be near Alex?' he wondered.

"I don't know!" Syeda responded frustratedly. "But someone keeps leaving me these clues..."

They heard come clattering coming from the kitchen's direction and turned. Halima was preparing dinner. Syeda turned back to Jack. "She'll be expecting me now." She shoved some trainers in his direction.

"Here, take your Loubs." She said distastefully. Jack had an annoying taste in apparel ever since he was young. Hadn't changed his regular brands. What a loser.

Jack took them and rolled his eyes. 

"Can't believe she thought they were LVs, everyone knows LVs are for roadmen."

"You technically are a roadman now." Syeda replied flatly.

"Um, yeah, obviously, only you would point that out Sarah." He looked at her mock-angrily. "Anyway, here's my number. Tell me when you're free to meet tomorrow." He spelt out the number as he clambered onto the windowsill, pulled on his trainers, and hopped out as quietly as he could (not quite succeeding; these dry autumn leaves were so darn loud!).

He waved, and Syeda grimly smiled back. Then she decided to be exceptionally friendly (he had hiked it from fifty miles away after all) and half-waved.

But he was already gone.

∞ 

"Guys guys guys GUYS! The day is HERE!" Elyka skipped and mini-jumped around the front of the class at form-time in the morning.

"Our society-"

"Club." Half of the class morosely reminded her in unison.

"Society!" She squealed back.

'What's happened to her voice?' Syeda thought, bored, chin on her hand and glancing out the window at the infamous English rain outside the window. She wondered if Jack had gotten to a hotel in time before it'd started pelting it down soon after he'd left.

She wondered if Jack had gotten to a hotel.

Elyka was still going strong. "Guys guys guys, our Launch Event is TODAY!"

She pointed around the room. "I expect to see you all there! Everyone who doesn't turn up isn't going to be invited to any Halloween parties this year! Trust me, I know the right people, I can make it happen!"

The class groaned (even though half of them would happily gatecrash).

Frank opened the form-room door and strode over to his seat, propping his threadbare bag on the table and slowly getting his school-issue planner and pencilcase out.

"Thirty five minutes late! Where've you been, Francis?" The teacher hollered (though to his credit, Mr. Russell hollered everything he said). This one was programmed to have a strict 'disciplinary' personality, as discipline was a notable weak point of the Robo Teach family.

"I asked you a question! Where've you been?" Mr.Russel stepped closer, to intimidate and elicit, he presumed.

"Disneyland." He muttered under his breath.

"Woke up late, sir." He responded, voice subdued and nearly inaudible.

"You got your detention from the front office?"

"Yes, sir." Anyone arriving after school had started got a sweet half-an-hour at lunchtime.

Settling down (to five minutes left of form-time before he had to up and leave again for his first class), he heard the kids around him whispering about something. Wait, it couldn't be...

The event!

Shit! He was supposed to bring the leaflets for the group to hand out outside the hall.

Luckily, he soon realised, with a phew(!), that he still had the posters on his usb stick. Could print them off at lunchtime.

But, all things considered, he so wasn't in the mood today. His mum had had an early shift this morning, and his stepdad usually dropped his younger brothers, Pierre and Didier off to school when this happened. But He'd gone off to a friend's and hadn't been back for some time (God knows when he'd decide to show his face), so yours truly had no choice but to take them instead, rushing at a child's speed on the way there, and running at an adult's speed on the way to his own school. It didn't help that they lived in the middle of nowhere, where the buses came every half-hour if they were lucky, at a bus stop that was an hour and half away from any civilised society.

Sure, his house looked cool on the outside, a small, crumbling stone castle-ish building with turrets, the ashlar smooth, square stone slabs on the floor echoing as you walked around the corridors, but it was also like... Living in the middle ages. There was no wifi for ages until he started secondary school and begged his mum to beg his dad to install it; his stepdad had just about had electricity sockets installed a few years before that, after they'd moved in many, many years ago.

He didn't understand his stepfather. He had never really said an unkind word to Frank, but never really a kind one either. He sort of ignored him. But then again, he ignored everybody, partially even his own sons, except when they showed him something and he gave a slight smile, or if they asked him for something and he explained that he had no cash on him (and asked them to ask their mum, the cheek! Nothing infuriated Frank more than that.).

His mum had explained that their father was in a sort of depression, and Frank tried to understand most of the time. It was just the fact that he never, well, even tried to get over it, never lifted a finger in the house or out the house. His dishes were left wherever he ate, and as far as Frank knew, he'd never had a job in his life. Unbelievable, but true.

His mum and dad barely spoke or even inhabited the same room (and seemed surprisingly comfortable with that). And half the time He was away at a 'friend's' or 'acquaintance's'. Frank knew his father relied on his friends financially too; when he came back he was willing to buy his brothers whatever they wished for a time. 

To his credit he never asked their mum for a penny, though his mum was the one who paid for everything in their house. Another thing to his credit was that the house was technically his stepdad's property (he'd inherited it, his mum said) so they didn't need to give any rent or mortgage. His mum's office job paid for the rest, the job that she went to early and came back from long after the sun had gone down, seeing as the site was two and a half hours away.

His mum said that his stepfather was used to a much better, more luxurious life, of inherited wealth and never needing to work, but had fallen out with his family and lost the right to an allowance and inheritance, his family only having left him the middle ages grange they now inhabited. Even that was thanks to their mercy, Frank thought.

As to the matter of his own father, his mother kindly told him that while Frank was a dream come true, his father was an unimportant mistake in her life, and that was as far as he could ever get.

Anyway, back to the fact that we was soaked in sweat and had had to squirt body spray on his every exposed surface to hide the fact.

A part of him couldn't wait until he was off to uni in less than year. But at the same time... He dreaded it. 

He couldn't leave his mum and kid brothers; they needed him. Sometimes, he had to play the role of both parents when his actual parents were away, making dinner, taking Pierre and Didier to the park, paying for their trips, signing their forms because their mum came home and usually went straight to bed, tucking the boys in at night, remembering their birthdays and trying to make them special when even his mum forgot (to their dad's credit it was the one day he could eventually be asked to leave the house and get them something).

He hated to think it but... he himself was the keystone in his family's life.

They could fall apart if he moved an inch out of place

"He's here!' Elyka shreaked.

They all stood at the school's entrance, and watched the Duke's son exit the car and, alongside a couple guards and an escort, make their way to the school entrance.

When the school had found out that Elyka had roped Gentry into attending her society's launch (and everyone knew Dukes were related to Royalty, even if very distantly), it had been all hands on deck; the school had printed a massive check of the donation to be photographed with the young Baron and the Headmaster holding it; there were to be cakes and posh luncheons, with even posher seats in the hall once they'd led him into the building, and overall the pampered teen wasn't to be made to feel like he'd left his own home at all.

'God forbid a school in a working-class sector isn't able to provide an idyllic, high-class experience to everyone who visits – except its students.' thought Frank (and coincidentally enough, Syeda) idly.

The rich kid walked up to the school, and shook hands with the headmaster. He wasn't what many of them had expected him to be: with an average height, average-ish looks, glasses accompanied by braces, Christian De Courcy didn't meet many people's expectations. But then again, no one would've met that high-jump bar (except someone who was practiced at reaching it, and even then, maybe).

Though he did wear a waistcoat (duck blue), complete with fancy white napkin, a black Morning Coat that reached his knees, and a cravat (fancy puffy tie), as was customary in formal events, especially for the Gentry, in England.

"Hey guys," Christian smiled gingerly, doing a little wave at all the students gathered. "I'm looking forward not just to being here for your incredible launch, but being here with you guys during this society's journey as well."

He adjusted his black-rimmed glasses and smiled at them all widely, wider than any Upper had before (and for a moment, looked (just a little) handsome).

"Call me Chris." 

A/S: Thanks for your time, people! Please be interactive readers, I'd love to get to know you guys through your thoughts and comments. Lemme know why you stayed this long! WHAT U WAITING FOR? >_<