Jake offered to drive, and though Jack was capable of taking Annabelle home on his own, he said yes. Jack climbed into the back, bending over Annabelle to buckle her into the car seat. It stuck, and Jack's hat fell off trying to fix it. "I'm too old for this dumb thing," Annabelle whined, and Jack tugged on her braid. "It's not dumb. You're a big girl but you haven't got a big body yet. If you have a tantrum then you aren't acting your age anyway!" Annabelle quieted, but arranged her mouth in a way that made Jack shake his head, and made Jake, from the front seat, chuckle. Annabelle smiled at him quickly, but pouted again when Jack raised his head. He sat back, apparently intending to sit with Annabelle, and handed Jake his keys. Jake untwisted in the seat and Jack, in the back, put his hat back on.

Jake got out to hug Annabelle and promise to tell on Jack being bossy to Avery. He waited in Jack's bright green car that bitched about doing something taxing and played music too loudly. Jake would never have considered buying it, or even standing next to it, but it was Jack's. He's gotten used to Jack's car the way the he'd gotten used to Jack. He couldn't imagine loving the car, though, even if it had very similar qualities to Jack himself. Jack was coming back to it now, eyeing Jake carefully as though he would mention the extended goodbye. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking." Jake crooked his elbow, ready to toss the keys back, but Jack shook his head.

"You can drive." Jake shrugged and got in. Jack sat next to him now, closing the door at the same second that Jake wished he had opened it. Jack looked back at the empty car seat. "I'll have to get rid of that soon."

"Yeah. Maybe." Jake glanced at Jack, who was looking out the window. Had he flushed? Jake looked back up, and saw a sporting goods store. "I got my first football cleats there," he said, remembering how proud he's been of them. "I wanted to wear them home."

"I guess it runs in the family."

"It--yeah. Yeah. Guess so."

Jake followed another car for a block or so that had two medium-sized dogs inside, shoving each other for the best view out the window. Jack waved, and they stared back stupidly. "I always wanted a dog."

"We moved too much. Couldn't you get one?"

"I fed cats. Well, there's a dog now."

"A little person, more like. And Jack the cat. Stop forgetting him."

"I'm not. I packed him in a moving box myself."

"Shut up."

They drove in silence, and then Jake took a side street. He started pointing out things--a building his d--John designed, the shops, he'd first bought cigarettes, and as they approached the park, the tree he'd leaned into and cried after Avery went home sick from drugs after a friendly visit. Jack pointed out things, too. Annabelle had almost lived there. Jack had been to that club...guess it got shut down. They both wondered if Avery had been there, silently trying to scan this part of London to see if it fit, trying to figure out the underground route they drove over now that connected every Londoner in the vast city.

Jack rolled down the window and listened to people with accents just like Jake's, but theirs seemed flatter, less rich and unpredictable intonation that came with Jake--London had stolen his r and Spain had put a slight, sexy suggestion of them in his throat and on his lips. france hadn't done much, but Jack doubted Jake would sound the same without it. And Italy hadn't given him anything at all, but Jake's manner of speech and the depth of his voice bore such a resemblance to Domani's that Jake's voice seemed even more full, more complete with a complete set of parents behind it. Jack wished Jake would speak now, to try to hear all of the cultures that helped make Jake into a world of his own. "Do you want to travel? More, I mean."

Jake looked up and frowned. Travel? They'd gone to Italy, and they shifted from continent to continent and back again. Jake had been most places, and when Avery had taken him home and showed Jake something new, it had been wonderful. A whole country that belonged only to Avery, untainted by his false father or his mother's pain. Nick had obviously caught the traveling bug, driving off with his friends whenever there was a script to be read and a part to be filled. Travel more? "I don't know." He was, of course, interested in seeing Llandovery, because maybe there was another part of Jack there that would make the smaller boy more clear. Jack didn't want to go back, and that was okay, too. Jake had all that he wanted in one house. He had no burning desire to see the world. But then, it might be exciting again, with them. And then they passed a house that distracted Jake entirely. "Look." It was still there, and that almost surprised him. An old white house rotted at the top of a hill, and Jack squinted up at it obediently. "When I was little I thought that was a castle. I wanted to live in it."

"It looks like a part of the Fitzwilliams'."

"Yeah, sort of.' Sort of, Jake had gotten more than he'd ever wanted.

"What's this?" Jack began asking, pointing to a shop or a playground, wanting not their names, but their meanings. Their memories. "What's this?"

"Lost my tooth there, my first one. In an apple."

"What's this?"

"My mum knew the owner." She smelled like their soap a lot. flowers.

"What's this?"

"That's a fence, Jack."

And then, at last, "What's this?" Azizi yipped, and soon Avery's nose pressed against the window next to Azizi's. Jack blew a kiss, and Jake parked at the kerb. "What's this?"

Jake looked at Jack, and past him, at where the door was opening, and shrugged. smiled. "Home."