Epilogue

Two days after Drexler bombing

The young man known as Will Traveler believed in happy endings. He believed that the hero would always save the day, the boy would always win the girl, good would always triumph over evil. And he also believed that the bad guys always got what they deserved.

Which was why he had never really expected a happy ending for himself. For Jay and Tyler, certainly: They faced powerful enemies, but they also had powerful friends, friends who would work tirelessly to clear their names and right the wrong Will had done them. They had truth on their side, after all.

And for Maya, of course: Will wanted to be part of her happy ending, but he had also carefully arranged their out so that if he couldn't be, she could still escape, go build a new life for herself somewhere no one would ever find her.

But for himself, Will had long suspected he would have to pay the price for his sins, for his vengeful desires, his merciless ambition, his blind faith in the Partners. In a way, he supposed, his ending wasn't exactly fair: Simon Davis, Daniel Taft, Isaah Street, J.C. Moore – as these men he had relished his role in Hometown, but as Will Traveler, thanks first to Maya's influence and then to Jay and Tyler's, he had ever been somewhat hesitant about his assignment.

What counted with the Fates, however, was that Will had seen his mission through. He had not been willing to sacrifice his own chance at happiness in order to spare his friends a great deal of hardship, to save them from the dangers they weren't even aware existed. Thus Will had not been surprised when his meticulous plans fell through at the Drexler Museum. He had known the instant he saw the bomb already in place and a second operative waiting for him that his happy ending was not to be.

Will could admit to himself that he had been surprised to learn that the Partners had intended for him to die in the blast alongside his roommates. Once the other operative had told him that all he had been needed for was to get Jay and Tyler inside the museum, Will had realized that his employers knew of his treachery. Ever efficient, they had planned to take care of two problems with one bomb.

Will had done his best to salvage what he could of his original plan, consoling himself as he had snapped the other operative's neck that if he could just get Jay and Tyler clear, he could improvise. So he had pulled the fire alarm and had tried to defuse the bomb to buy them time; then he had seen the Trumbull painting hanging only steps away, the one Carlton Fog had tried to pay him to steal, and the realization had struck him that with the painting, he might have some leverage against the people who wanted him dead. With it, he might even be able to wriggle his way out of Hometown.

Assured that Jay and Tyler were safely out of the building, Will had done what he was trained to do when an operation went south: He had walked away.

But first, he had taken the painting.

Will had headed straight from the burning museum to the public garage where Tyler's newly-retouched SUV waited, just as Carmen had promised. He had hidden the painting underneath the back floorboard and driven out of the city. But he hadn't entirely hit the road, not right away; instead, he had rented a room in a cheap motel and spent the next several hours watching the world go crazy on television.

Will had followed Jay and Tyler's escape on the news, relieved that Fog appeared to have capable operatives in play who were helping his roommates stay one step ahead of the Partners. He had also ignored Maya's repeated attempts to contact him. It tore at Will's heart to think of how she would be suffering, believing him to be dead, yet he knew it was the only way she would ever get on that boat and get herself to safety. If she thought even the remotest possibility existed that he was alive, he knew her well enough to know she would never leave him behind.

Pacing back and forth, back and forth across the motel room, Will had formed a new plan – one that, he hoped, might someday soon reunite him with Maya, and perhaps offer a chance for him to help exonerate Jay and Tyler. He had contacted a local fence he knew who could tell him more about the Trumbull painting; while the dealer didn't have all the answers, he had provided Will with enough information to convince him that the Partners would not want the canvas to fall into their enemies' hands. That, combined with the evidence he had already amassed against them, gave Will hope that, if he was willing to fight for what he loved, he might see his happy ending after all.

With that thought to sustain him, at dawn on the second day after the Drexler bombing, Will checked out of his motel and headed north.

Once he hit the Interstate, the beautiful summer day lifted Will's spirits as New York and Boston fell away behind him and Deer Harbor drew nearer. He thought of Jay and Tyler and hoped they were safe. He wondered if the path he was on now would ever bring him back to them, and if it did, what he would say, how – or if – he would explain what he had done to them. He thought of the painting hidden in the backseat; he wondered what the Partners would be willing to trade for it.

He wondered if he should probe its secrets further or take the leap and make them an offer now.

First things first, Will decided, searching the radio stations until he came across the Cubs game. He would go to Deer Harbor, retrieve the key from Maya's basement, and collect the rest of his evidence from Boston Hall. Once he had everything in front of him, the painting and the receipts and the passports and the canceled checks, then he would decide on his next move.

Mostly, though, as the trees grew denser and the houses grew sparser, Will thought of Maya. He was confident that she could look after herself for the time being; she knew how to handle the boat, she knew how to access the money he had put aside for their escape, she knew where to go to hide and how to stay hidden until the worst of the danger passed. He had trained her well; he had prepared for a scenario such as this, for the possibility that he might not be able to get her out, that she would have to get herself out.

No matter how secure he was in the knowledge that Maya could take care of herself, however, more than anything, Will wanted to be with her. Yet for the time being, he had to content himself with the fact that she was safe – he had to hold onto the hope that someday, if he survived, he would find her, and they would never be apart again.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, at that moment, Will Traveler still believed in happy endings.

So did Maya Sanders. But she knew her story was not going to have one.

As Will entered the city limits of Deer Harbor in Tyler's SUV, Maya was huddled in a corner of her basement, listening to the heavy footsteps and muffled voices above. She was wondering when the man who had called himself Martin would return to finish her off.

She had lied to Will's friends when she told them to go, to leave her, that she would be all right. Maya knew the people Will worked for had no intention of letting her live; they would want answers from her, about Will and Jay and Tyler, but once they had those, they would have no reason to keep her alive.

She had lied to ensure that Will's friends would have a chance to escape. She believed that was what Will would have wanted – for his death and her own not to be in vain, because they had protected the two truly innocent people caught up in this nightmare.

When Will had not shown up as scheduled on the afternoon of the bombing, Maya had feared the worst. She had attempted every means of contacting him that she knew of at least twice, to no avail. And then her fear had given way to desolation as the truth sunk in.

Will was dead.

He would never have abandoned her otherwise. He would have moved heaven and earth to get to her side.

Maya had cried that night until her eyes were swollen shut and her throat was raw from sobbing. She had lain on the bed in Jericho's room, the bed where Will had slept so many nights; she hadn't been able to sleep in her own bed, the place she and Will had made love so many times. She would never be able to sleep there alone again, she thought – the memories were too tangible, too haunting, too bittersweet.

Needing to feel close to Will, she had taken his shirts out of the closet and buried herself beneath them on the bed, swimming in his scent, drowning in his memory. For one night, Maya had lost herself in grief.

But when the sun came up on a new day, she had pulled herself together and prepared to do as Will had instructed her: Get herself out.

Only, the accounts he had set up for them showed a zero balance when she checked them online. And when she had driven to the marina, she had seen two men in a red pick-up watching the boat through binoculars. It was at that point when Maya had realized she was trapped. Will's death had been no accident, no mistake; the people he worked for had found out about his betrayal, and they were now cleaning up the mess, tying up the loose ends.

Like her.

Maya had driven back home, dropped her suitcase off, and gone to work. For two days she had continued with life as if everything was normal, despite her grief and terror. She simply hadn't known what else to do.

From the moment Jay Burchell had walked into her store that morning, however, Maya had known the end was near. Will had once told her that she would be safe so long as she remained predictable, so long as she provided no threat to his employers; Maya knew she wouldn't be considered "predictable" after the two most-wanted fugitives in the country turned up on her doorstep asking for information about her lover. Whatever chance she had stood of survival had evaporated like a puff of smoke the instant Jay had asked her if she knew Will Traveler.

Now, curled up in a ball on her basement floor, her nose bleeding and her cheek stinging from the first round of questioning, Maya thought to herself that this was the only way it all ever could have ended for her. She had signed her life away five years ago in a foolish, desperate attempt to save herself. She hadn't fully appreciated the consequences of her actions then, but she certainly did now.

Whatever happened to her, Maya didn't blame Will. He had tried to rescue her, tried to sail her away from this madness, tried to secure a happy ending for them both. This was not Will's fault. He wasn't innocent, by any means – but neither was she, not completely.

Facing death, Maya discovered a clarity regarding her situation that she had never been able to attain before. What she saw was that falling in love with Will and planning to run off with him were not the real reasons she had become a threat to his employers. The truth was, Maya had always been a threat to them, whether they had known it or not, because she never would have stood silently by while they tore her country and hundreds of innocent lives apart.

If these mysterious people who had high-jacked her life five years ago had sent anyone besides Will to her, Maya understood suddenly, she would never have gone along with a plot to frame innocent people, not for a minute. Her love for Will had been so strong, so sudden, that she had convinced herself he wouldn't really do something so horrible. As their relationship had intensified, she had been increasingly certain that, in the end, Will would do the right thing. And he had tried to – she loved him so much for that, for the risks he had taken in the face of insurmountable odds.

Yet she understood now that if Will had insisted on following his orders, on killing Jay and Tyler or even leaving them to twist in the wind with no hope of being exonerated, she would have refused to help him. In fact, she would have done her best to stop him, regardless of how much she loved him.

These people, whoever they were, had trapped her. But they had not stolen her soul.

Knowing that, Maya felt renewed strength and courage surge through her. She sat up, wiping blood from her nose and pushing her hair out of her eyes. She was sure the interrogation would resume soon; this man, this Martin, seemed persuaded that she didn't know where Jay and Tyler were going, but she knew he would have questions about Will, about their plans to escape.

Will had instructed her to answer honestly if she were ever subjected to interrogation by his employers. Maya doubted she could withstand torture anyway; the very idea of it turned her insides to jelly. She would do as Will had said, she decided, scooting up against the wall and drawing her knees to her chest. She would cooperate. She wouldn't hand these people reasons to hurt her. By now, Jay and Tyler should have had time to get a safe distance away, and Will – her sweet, beautiful, precious Will – was already dead.

Maya had no one left to protect.

Drawing on those reserves of inner strength she had come to pride herself on, Maya heard Will's voice echo in her mind, felt the memory of his love stir in her the courage to face what came next with calm resolve.

Blue-green eyes fiery with passion, Will reaching for her in the dark…

Ready…

Calloused hands surprisingly gentle, Will folding her fingers in his…

Set…

Arms open to embrace her, Will waiting on the sun-drenched beach of Fairyland…

Go…

Overhead, footsteps moved toward the basement door. A tremor of fear moved through her, but Maya simply closed her eyes and sent up a prayer for Jay and Tyler, asking the angels to protect them, asking that they would be allowed to survive, to find a way to defeat these monstrous people who had ruined so many bright futures. Then she focused again on her memory of Will's handsome face and told herself to be strong through what was coming, because she would be with him soon, in a place without pain or fear. In a place where she would see her parents and her brother again, where she would introduce them all to the love of her life, where she would never suffer being separated from any of them again.

In death, Maya believed, they would all find peace together. She would have her happy ending – only, in the next life, not this one.

The door opened. They were coming for her.

Maya was ready.

The End

Author's Note: Thank you to my dedicated reviewers, you know who you are! I very much enjoyed writing this piece and hope you'll review to let me know your thoughts on it.