For Aisling and Ryre, who deserve this far more than we ever will.

I didn't choose the day with care, I probably should have. I didn't make preparations or plan or anything. I woke up one morning, the golden dawn light of early morning in GateWay shining through the gap in the curtains and just knew that today was the day and I had to go back. Kieran was warm against my back. I got up stealthily, washed, dressed and kissed his sleeping face. There was message enough in that contact, he would know where I'd gone, know where I was. He would find me and hopefully his timing would be right.

Perhaps a year after I had vanished I set about getting my earth-life sorted. I went back to the house in Ringmer where I had spent the latter half of my childhood and almost all my teenage years to find my room exactly as I left it, but much cleaner. I took all my paperwork, passport, NI card, student ID, my incomplete driving license. I wasn't sure then what I was really going to do. I stood there, looked around and couldn't decide what to take. So I took nothing, I left everything where it was. It's surprising how much of your former self you can choose to live without. Shamani sorted the paperwork, I still don't know how. He got everything changed, and I became a real person again. I learnt to drive, took my CBT, my full bike licence and by the time I was twenty was the proud owner of a bright red Suzuki Bandit. I bought a flat around the corner from Shamani's, just a place to have my post go, a garage to park my bike. Money comes from somewhere. I still craft silver things, only these days it's power of mind, not heat and physical exertion that shape the liquid silver. I paint, Shamani got me in with this art dealer in London, My paintings aren't either fantastic or popular, but they are incredibly expensive. One a year affords me enough to live, especially when my flat incurs no bills, since I don't live there.

How many years on earth has it been since I last travelled these streets, a scruffy haughty teenager. I drive through Seaford, faces flashing through my memory. It is not them that I have come to save. I no longer ride the Suzuki, the beast below me is almost totally custom, built upon a Kawasaki shell. My bike, the bike of my dreams, blood red and black, MARS written along the side. Matching leathers and helmet, my name down the side of my leg like a racer. MARS growls under me like a beast, like Kieran and I smile. At traffic lights I stop, lean back a moment and kiss the finger of my left gauntlet. Below the leather and gore-tex is a silver ring, a weird shaped slip of a thing given to me along with a kiss I wanted more than almost anything. This is my proof, with this I shall regain her smile. We twist and turn through the town, and finally I dip down behind the gorse edged road and swerve around the corner. It looks like it always did. I have no idea if they still live here. I am running on hope alone. I kill the engine and swing off the bike, propping him onto the side stand. The house with the creepy garden furniture is still adorned with gnomes. I try to take it as a good sign as I strip off my helmet and run my fingers nervously through my hair. It's gotten very long now. I check my face in the reflection of my visor, chain the bike and walk up to the front door. The bell chimes solemnly within.

Bobby answers. She is the nicest and most accepting old woman in the world and I adore her.

"Yes?" He eyes track across my leathers, my face. I don't know if I see recognition in my eyes.

"I'm looking for Lou," I say, my voice shakes and I halve to put a hand against the brick wall to steady myself, I feel like I'm floating and it is not pleasant.

"I'll get her," she steps away from the door, closing it a little, " Louise! There's a man her to see you."

A man? I always think of myself as a boy, it's always what Kieran calls me. I suppose, what with the height and wide shoulders, I don't know if I look much older though. The ghost shape of wolf-Ryre clatters down the stairs, followed my lightly thudding feet and the slim figure of Aisling. She has grown up, more curvy, and very beautiful with her gold-brown hair in a strange seventies spiky mullet, like something out of that era with glitter on her cheeks. She sees me and frowns. I know she recognises me, we've run into each other before, on street corners and in shops; times when I wasn't ready to share who I was.

Bobby steps back and she approaches, followed by the curious form of Ryre who is growing more substantial as I watch him. How clearly can she see him these days? Have they gained the clarity that Kieran and I have? Somehow I don't think so. There are too unaware of each others small movements, things that I would notice in Kieran. The flipping of an ear, the twitch and rise in haunches. Which of them will realize who I am first?

Aisling's grandmother returns to whatever she was doing before, no doubt keeping an ear on us in the open doorway. I look at her, my green eyes open and honest.

"Ais..."

She looks suspiciously at me, steps through the doorway and pulls it to behind her. She sees the motorcycle, and I hope she recognises it, at least in name. Something from my fiction. I half turn and she sees the word down the side of my leg.

"Who are you?" the question quiet, as if she already knows the answer, I hope that there is a hint of hopefulness in her voice. As though she wants the fact confirmed. I tug off my glove and slip off the little silver ring, carved into the back are her initials, hers and Ryre's. Daring, I put a hand on her shoulder and lean down to give her the same kiss she gave me with that ring. Soft and fast with a slightly open mouth. Back then I thought it taunting, now I simply think of it as her.