”Well, don’t I feel like a chump. That still doesn’t explain why you kept this from me.”

”You know how I took that copy of Peter Pan from our flat in London? Growing up it was one of my favorite books, especially the part when Wendy says she could hear the mermaids singing as they sailed over Neverland.”

“So?”

“I’ve heard the mermaids singing for almost a year and it’s been beautiful.” Lauren hesitated. ”Maybe it’s time to–”

”–grow up?”Kenzi patted the back of Lauren’s hand. “And you think you got your yaya’s out of your system?”

Lauren smiled to herself, scanning the playback of the last year. She had taken her fill of every passing delight and done quite well, but something was missing and she couldn’t pretend it away any longer. Not even to strangers on a ship.

”Being a volunteer doctor can be a hard gig, Kenzi. You’re sent where you can do the most good, pretty much to places that some say are better off being forgotten. And when you get there, you wish you could unsee everything around you.” Lauren got off the bed and put some distance between her and Kenzi. She stuffed her hands into her pockets. ”I wanted to learn as much as I could from Dr. Pallas. What I’d be in for. What it’s really like in the field. I guess it’s the researcher in me.

”I wanted to know everything before asking if you’d well, leave this,” she motioned to the wall of photographs taken by Kenzi over the past year: portraits of the cities into which Lauren sank and sinned to exhaustion, the shadows and bursts of light that served as their journal, each frame capturing their story of reinvention told over and over in sepia.

”Kenzi and Lauren save the world, the crowd goes wild!” Kenzi roared quietly followed by meek cheering sounds.

”No more souvenir photo shoots next to the ship’s lifesaver or by butter sculptures of the Venus de Milo.” Lauren palmed the photographs and fanned them wide so they created a beautiful collage of images, artful, personal, and breathtaking. The one of Lauren in the grand bazaar caught both their eyes. ”But something tells me you’re better than that, too.”