Far from Home.

It was day five of the search party. Brian had left quite early, as usual, and gotten dressed in a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. A beanie covered his head - He was too focused on finding his daughter to really care about taking the time to fix his hair.

The party spent most of their days scouting the woods nearby the home, and even throughout the entire city. Not a single clue had been found, which bought Brian a great deal of relief.

If he had found something of hers - A shoe or something - Then that would mean she was dead in the woods. And since nothing of hers had been found, that was a good thing. That meant Lucy was still alive. Somewhere...

Lucy was still alive.

At around ten thirty that night, the search was called to rest and return the same time tomorrow. Brian got into his SUV and slowly took the drive home. He noticed the speed limit was thirty miles per hour. However, he never went that fast, especially now a days.

He kept his speedometer at a steady ten miles per hour, thankful that no one was behind him.

Lucy's favorite jacket remained in the backseat of his vehicle just as she'd left it. He'd taken her to the park one early morning before work. It was freezing cold, and Brian had made her wear her jacket as well as his own. Unlike most four year olds, Lucy didn't complain that she looked ridiculous. In fact, he remembered that she had asked him to buy her a jacket just like his so they could match.

He promised her he would.

Brian felt a wetness on his cheek and he quickly wiped it away as he pulled into the driveway. He idled in the vehicle for a while, his eyes trained on the baby blue sweater with cartoon drawn owl's on them.

That was her favorite animal. She loved owls. Her and Emily had been out back trying to find her little toy cars - She loved playing with toy cars, for some reason - And there was a loud hoot. Emily was terrified of owls and she ran back inside, screaming for Brian. Lucy, however, stared at the night creature and named it.

Bojangles - He was the supposed 'father' of her doll, Jangles.

As tempted as Brian was to grab the jacket and hold it tightly to his heart, he didn't. He was sure that if he touched it, it would vanish just like Lucy had.

He shook his head and got out, walking inside. The front door was unlocked, which was strange, and Brian's mind immediately thought to the worst. Had Emily left him? Or had someone taken her? His daughter was missing, he couldn't bare his fiance to be missing as well.

"Em?"

When he didn't get an answer, Brian shut the door and moved throughout the house. First, he checked the bedroom, then the living room, and finally the kitchen, where he found Emily in a pool of paint.

He quickly picked her up, the paint already dried on her skin and clothes, and did his best to shake her awake.

A sigh of relief left his lips when Emily's eyelids fluttered open a few seconds later, immediately catching Brian's gaze. He hugged her tightly, burying his face in her neck. Just when Emily was about to apologize for the mess on the floor, Brian began to cry.

No.

Not cry.

Brian began to sob. Gut wrenching, heart breaking, world shattering sobs. Emily blinked a few more times before she recognized that it was him crying and not her, for once. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed his waist. Her hands traced patterns into his back.

"It's going to be okay," Emily whispered into his ear,"We're going to be okay. We're going to find Lucy, and we're going to live happily ever after again."

But Brian couldn't bring himself to understand her words.

It'd been a little over a week since Lucy went missing and about six days, maybe, since the search party started. The number of cops on the lookout for her were slowly but surely increasing, which should've made Brian gain some sleep but it only made him a lot more anxious.

She should've returned home already.

Lucy should be here, in the safety and comfort of their home. She should be in her room, playing with Jangles and having a tea party with her dolls, or-or making her toy cars race down the halls.

But she wasn't, and Brian was completely at fault.

If he hadn't tried to get Emily to cave into her hormones that day... If he had just gone with Lucy to the lake as soon as she had asked him to, then he would've been able to protect her from whatever happened to her. He would've been able to tell her to stay with him. She wouldn't be gone, Emily wouldn't be a depressed, crying wreck, and he wouldn't be the broken man he was.

Emily's whispers were nothing but sounds in his ear. He just let her hold him - He didn't feel like agreeing with her, because he wasn't sure if she even knew what she was saying.

He knew that people would say anything to get the other person to feel better; Gabriela did it all the time. When Jimmy died, Gabriela had said he was in a better place and that the good guy 'God' needed him.

However, he couldn't help but to be angry with God. If he was such a good guy, why did he have to take Jimmy in the first place? Why couldn't he have just let him stay on earth, where he made so many people happy, instead of taking him away and making so many people miserable?

Brian laughed quietly on the inside.

Another thing that Gabriela had told him was fate - That fate was God's best friend.

So, was this Lucy's fate? To go missing?

Was this God's intention... To.. To take away the people that Brian truly loved and cared for? The only person he had left was Emily, and she was tearing apart at the seams.

Brian got the most damning feeling that, pretty soon, he was going to lose Emily, too.

He pulled away from her embrace and cupped her face in his hands, kissing her with everything he could muster up. Lately, they hadn't really had any contact. He hadn't been showing her that he loved her.

Maybe she was on the idea that she didn't mean a damn thing to him when - In reality - she was his everything. Emily was the basis of his life. He didn't know what love was, he didn't know what passion was, he didn't know was living was until he met her. She had shown him so many emotions and he never took the time to thank her.

Even though he had no idea how to thank her, he should've done something.

"I love you, Emily, I love you so fucking much. I love your beautiful, beautiful eyes. I love your gorgeous soul. I love your fucking existence. You're so beautiful, and you're so perfect. Please don't ever leave me. I love you."

Emily smiled softly, sharing Brian's tears.

The couple cried together, holding one another tightly, as Brian quietly peeled the paint off of Emily's arms. She ran her fingers down his back absent mindedly, hoping it soothed him. But since he wasn't complaining, she assumed it was calming to some degree.

"How's the search going?" She quietly asked him.

"Nothing yet. Which, I guess, is a good thing. Means she's still... Alive." Brian could barely get the last word out. He didn't want to think about Lucy being... The... Opposite.

Emily nodded softly. "I can't wait until she comes home. I'm going to make her a big bowl of peas, and I'm going to take her shopping for toys and-and some new clothes and shoes. I'll let her invite her little friends over for a sleep over, and everything. We'll even get her that pet gerbil she's been wanting."

"I'm with you one hundred and ten percent, babe. I'll go and capture Bojangles the Owl, and let her keep him as a pe-"

"Uh, I think she'll be just fine with a gerbil." Emily laughed quietly. Brian grinned at his little owl joke, knowing fully well that Emily would rather live in Antarctica then keep a damn owl in the house.

Brian sat up and kissed her softly. "I really do love you. And I know times are tough, but I'm just trying to get our daughter back to us. And once Lucy is back home, I promise things will be okay between us."

For the first time in the last few days, Emily's stomach did a back flip. The talk of a positive future for them got her so happy - And the same for Brian, too. Even though he was being a hypocrite himself... He just wanted Emily to be happy. Even though he wasn't sure if he understood the words that were coming out of his mouth, he just wanted his fiance - His soon to be wife to be happy, and decently okay.

The tears that she cried hurt him beyond any agony he had ever felt. The sobs that tore through her chest in the middle of the night felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest.

It was then that Brian realized he'd never felt this way, before. He had never felt so utterly destroyed in his life. Was this the price of being complete, finally, in his life? Was this the token that so called 'God' and 'Fate' took it upon themselves to receive as a payment of... of gratitude?

Finally, just when he had everything he wanted in life, it was taken away from him just as quickly - He didn't even have time to blink or breathe.

His life was slowly turning back into the one he unhappily led in California, and it was only a matter of time before he lost Emily, too, and then he'd be right back where he started. Happiness was beginning to seem like nothing but a god damn myth, and Brian was getting sick of hearing these fairytales and stories.

Deep down, he knew that he could at least get some percentage of happiness - Of content. All he had to do was keep pushing, keep fighting, keep holding on.

"And I swear I'll keep holding on until destiny steps on my fingers and makes me let go." Brian whispered much too low for Emily to hear. "I swear."