As time went by, more and more of my memories returned to me, but I know there are some I still haven't recovered; there are still times when Sam or Tucker will reference an event I can't remember. It will probably always bug me some that I've lost parts of my life, but considering that I should be confined to the world of the dead and not walking among the living, it was a small price to pay.

It took a month for the town to stop making it damn near impossible for any of us to leave the house, and roughly a week after that, Sam and I made our relationship official, though mom and dad didn't find out about that until after things had progressed well past what they found appropriate for a couple of teenagers to be doing. By that point, we'd screwed around enough that they didn't bother trying to slow us down; they knew we'd just find a way of getting away with it anyway.

It was a good three months after that before I saw Rick's dad again. There was a field trip at the end of the school year in May, and he'd been assigned to drive us around for the day. In the split second between seeing him and having to face him again, my mind froze, wondering if it was still too soon for him to deal with seeing me; I'd yet to bother taking the bus like a normal student again.

Then, he smiled at me and my momentary freak-out ended. "Hey. Long time, no see." I'm sure to everyone else, it looked like it was meant to be a joke, but I knew better. It was his way of telling me he was okay now.

The next day, I ran into his son and was nearly suffocated in a hug when I took him back home. I wouldn't force him into the Ghost Zone so long as he didn't do any damage to the town or it's citizens. Not all ghosts are bad, I should know that first-hand.

And that's how this whole mess ended. It had started with Sam stuck within the confines of her own mind and ended with me coming back within her reach. Everything was finally back to being about as normal as it was going to get, and I sure as hell wasn't going to give that up again anytime soon.

...wait...I finished it? Woah. I haven't felt the satisfaction of completing a full story in a while; this might take a moment to sink in...

I wanna thank everyone that's followed/favorited/reviewed this and Within the Confines of the Mind. Go give yourselves a pat on the back; it's what has kept me going with both of these stories even when it got hard. :D

Comments and feedback are as welcome as always! :D

Invisible One