#oooooooof

Danny nodded softly, and for the first time Harry noticed how exhausted the poor man looked.

"Just for now. It doesn't mean we don't care, but sometimes that's what you gotta do." Danny said. “You feel like shit, I feel like shit, we’ve been looking for hours with no sign of the kid or Joe. We’re probably lost. My leg’s killing me. …sometimes in life you gotta cut your losses.”

Harry's hands quivered with rage. He had been searching for a solid twenty-four hours. He had captured Calloway and braved the MLT and beaten a snatcher's head in. In his mind he had gone too far to turn back now. Much too far to be outwitted by a little boy playing in a river.

“I had him, Danny.” He said.

“I know you did.” Danny replied.

He and Danny both knew that he was talking about the box.

Danny clutched his hairpin and averted his eyes.

"Harry." He said. "You're running yourself ragged."

Harry slogged back towards the bank of the stream. Deep down he knew that Danny was right. There was nothing more for him to do, nowhere to go, no signs or footprints or clues. He had spent the last several hours painstakingly searching for them and by the end of it he had only been chasing phantoms in the woods.

Whether Harry liked it or not, they were both worn out and injured, and he still had to be a doctor. Still, somehow it felt as though that weaker part of him was winning, and he couldn't shake the guilt.

His hand brushed against the stump of a log resting in the water while he was halfway across, and it was as though the last of his anger drained out through that hand. It closed around the log, and before he knew it he had whirled around and whipped it against a tree trunk with all the force he could muster.

“I HAD HIM!” His voice bounced off the trees as he shouted.

The log shattered into pieces on the far end of the bank, and Danny didn't appear phased by this display from where he watched on the opposite side.

As Harry neared him all he said was,

"It's hard. I get it. That kid... he probably grew up in this forest. With how fast he moves, he's gotta be long gone by now. We need a new strategy, that's all."

Harry didn't want a new strategy. He wanted Joe to be home safe and for all of this to be over. He wanted to be a better person who said all the right things and did all the right things and quit killing everyone and everything he loved. Beyond all that, he wanted to live in a better world where things like this didn't happen.

He was able to get a closer look at Danny as he neared the bank, and he saw in detail how filthy the wounded man was, not to mention how sad he looked. At the sight of him, something Joe had said during the argument came to mind:

"Am I the only tiny you even care about!?"

The mud of the river squelched under Harry's bare feet as he climbed onto the rocks. Danny waited patiently as he put his shoes back on and then scooped him up into his hands.

"Okay. Let's see if we can find our way back to the farmhouse." Harry said.

-

"I don't know how something like this could happen. In Canada of all places." Harry lamented.

He sat on the ailing front steps of the farmhouse with his head in his hands, too uneasy to even light up a cigarette. Romeo's barking bellowed from inside of the house, and neither of them were brave enough to venture inside.

Danny turned and locked eyes with Harry from where he stood beside him on the step.

"Yes, this is Canada." He said. "Bad things happen in Canada. You didn't notice?"

Harry lifted his head and glared at Danny, but soon accepted that he had a point. Harry hadn't wanted to notice it. If he did, it called into question everything he had fought for.

"We should call the police." Harry said.

"For what?" Asked Danny.

"So they can find these snatchers and put them in jail!"

Harry's teeth were gritting together. That was the lesson that he had been taught all his life: that the bad guys in life were supposed to get punished.

Danny wasn't wagging a finger at him, but from the sound of his voice he may as well have been.

"Doc, the only way the police would be able to arrest these guys is if they caught them in the act of fighting the dogs or tinies. Just having them isn't enough. Besides that, they'd have to jump through all sorts of hoops to even get a warrant to search - and all that isn't even the biggest hurdle we'd have to get over." He said.

Harry stared blankly at him in disbelief.

"It isn't?" He said.

Danny shook his head.

"Harry..." the detective began uneasily, "...who do you think is going to the fights?"

Harry's eyes drifted over to the horizon. He knew the answer, but he didn't want to say it out loud.

Danny shuffled about on his walking stick.

"There's a lot of crooked cops out there." Danny said. "More of 'em out there than good ones. It's sad to say, but what you did here is probably the most justice those people are ever gonna get. You should feel proud of yourself."

When Harry looked down at the dried blood on his hands he certainly didn't feel proud of himself.

Danny pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and read aloud from it, as if to drive home his point.

“Those ward bosses who show considerable loyalty shall become my real Canadians. They shall be promoted to guards and carry out my bidding. It is these superior tinies who shall rule over all the lesser masses. They shall keep them caged in their wards and I shall be their snatcher and judge their ultimate worth.”

He folded the paper back into his pocket again and added,

"That was on the back of Dawson's list."

Harry was starting to tear up again. He kept imagining that little box in his hands.

"I had him, Danny. I almost had him. I hate this. I hate that I ever hand a hand in him ending up here." He said.

"Don't be so hard on yourself." Danny said. "You remember what Marty told us about Joe making his choices, right?"

Harry clutched his knees and gazed at his shoes. It was true that Joe had made his own choices, but it had been Harry who had driven him towards making them in the first place.

He ran a hand over his face. He hated the feeling he was faced with now, that sense of total helplessness that drove him mad. He gazed across the seemingly endless frontage of the farmhouse lot and watched the grasshoppers leap through the long grass.

"Y'know, this is kinda nice actually." Danny said as Romeo barked away in the background.

Harry leaned over to look at him and Danny grinned at the apparent confusion on his face.

"Having someone to sit around and feel like shit with, I mean." He added.

They sat together in silence for a long while as life went on. A bird chirped above them. A chipmunk scuttled under the foundation below them. A cloud passed over the sun, darkening the land for a passing moment and then lighting it up again, and when it was gone the sky was an endless blue. All the while the cicadas sang their summer threnody.

"...it is." Harry said.

Somewhere in this maddeningly vast world Joe Piccoli was out there, but not here in this surreal place.

With the sun rising into high noon and no sign of Frankie, there was no other place for the two of them to go but home.

-

It was evening by the time they got back to the Stinson House, and Danny promptly downed more Salix tea and drifted off to sleep in the soap dish. Harry had been planning to treat his own wounds but the brightly coloured envelope he had found in the mailbox distracted him.

He opened it to find a thank-you card from Susie.

“Dear Harry,” it read, “thank-you for being a wonderful doctor. You have helped me tremendously with my seizures and I should be sad to get a new doctor when I get to London. I must apologise for not speaking to you at Castle Hill. I saw that you were busy and thought not to distract you.

P.S. are you aware of any rooms in Toronto to let? I should like to return soon. We will be leaving in the morning. I am unsure if I will be able to receive letters, but I have listed my new address below.”

He was surprised to find that the address Susie listed was one in London, Ontario and not London, England.

It was a sweet gesture, Harry thought, and he made a mental note to write her sometime when he wasn't focusing his efforts on finding Joe. Or on minding Danny, for that matter. Thoughts of Danny soon turned to thoughts of the patients at Castle Hill, and it wasn't long before he ventured to the phone and gave Lorraine a ring.

"The first few people moved into Ms. Tucker's today." She said. "No injuries yet, but there is this guy hanging around, calling himself the new Dawson. Trying to lure people away to his own settlement."

Harry's eyebrows rose at the name.

"I don't think it'll be too big of a thing. I mean, the guy's not gonna get very far without Garrison's backing. We're keeping an eye on it." She continued.

"Right." Harry said.

He trusted Lorraine's judgment given what she knew about Tiny Town, but it worried him all the same.

"How's Danny?" She asked.

Harry had been fearing this topic would come up. He had hardly been acting as a proper doctor while Danny was in his care.

"He's sleeping like a baby." He said, though he glanced over to the soap dish on the coffee table to make sure.

"Good stuff, good stuff. Marty'll be around to pick him up tomorrow." Said Lorraine.

"H-he will?"

Harry was dumbstruck. It seemed as though the two had just gotten to know each other.

"Yeah!" Lorraine crowed. "Says the studio's giving him a settlement offer and he wants Dan there to read through it. Depending on how things go he could be headed back to America soon."

"Oh. Well that's... very exciting." Harry said.

As he clutched the phone receiver, Harry suddenly felt as though he was adrift at sea. It really was nice to have someone to sit around and feel like shit with, as Danny had so put it. He wasn't sure if he could bear to be alone after everything that happened.

"I bet you'll be happy to have him outta your hair, huh?" Said Lorraine, who was none the wiser.

-

When the next morning rolled around the house felt more like a deathbed than anything else, and Harry absent-mindedly busied himself as he prepared for yet another ending. Danny sat patiently on the soap dish all the while as he waited for his lawyer, in high spirits after receiving a second helping of eggs at breakfast.

As much as Harry hated to admit it, in the short time he had known Danny the two had formed a rudimentary friendship, and right now it felt like it was his only friendship. When Danny was gone there would be nothing but him and the house and the nothingness inside of it.

“Hey, check this one out.” Danny said.

He was leaning over the morning paper from where he sat in the soap dish. Harry strode over to investigate and saw that he was reading a letter to the editor way in the back of the paper.

“It is all well and good that the zoo animals were saved, but what about the people? What about the mothers and the fathers and the little children of Tiny Town? Are their lives too unimportant to report on? I saw this mass casualty with my own eyes and had it happened to us giants it would be on every headline across the country.” Wrote one Sam Wilkins, age nineteen.

“Hm. I suppose there’s some hope for the youth of today after all.” Harry remarked.

He wondered if Sam and Susie were related.

With Marty’s arrival fast approaching, Harry had been channeling his energy into tidying up. He knew Marty wouldn't bother to step inside, but it helped to take his mind off of the fact that ever since the night of the fire it felt like his heart was slowly cracking, and he was afraid of what would come out when it broke for good.

Sadness, probably. Just sadness.

He ventured back to the sponge and bucket at the far side of the parlour where he had been dutifully scrubbing the baseboards.

“Hey. You gonna be all right by yourself?”

Danny’s words hit Harry like a bullet to the back. He froze and slowly turned around to look at him.

He didn’t know how to answer. Some part of him wanted to beg Danny to stay, just as he had begged Joe and Georgie and everyone else in his life. He dipped the sponge into the bucket and kept scrubbing.

“I’ll take care of myself. No need to worry.” He assured him.

Danny didn’t look convinced.

“You seem lonely. That’s not good for you, Harry.”

Harry kept on scrubbing.

“I think you should talk to Billy Hill.” Danny continued.

The baseboard was so clean Harry could see his own reflection in it. He kept working away at it all the same.

“I fear he may punch me again.” Harry said.

“Nah,” said Danny, “he’s a bit hot-headed but he’s a good guy. I think you two would have a lot to talk about.”

Harry narrowed his eyes.

“Like what?”

He turned his head and saw that Danny looked slightly uncomfortable at the question.

“Like fighting for someone you love, I guess.” Danny was tracing the tip of the hairpin along the coffee table as if to draw a pattern. “I’ve given up on love, but I still see it in other people. Joe, he looked really broken up when he saw you at that dance hall, y’know. I think…”

Danny’s grey eyes glinted as they met Harry’s.

“I think if he was that broken up over you, and you’re this broken up over him, maybe there’s something there worth saving.”

Harry’s heart sank as he turned his attention back to the bucket. He remembered what Lorraine had said about broken trust.

“Or maybe he won’t want anything to do with me.” Harry said.

“Maybe. If he doesn’t, you gotta respect that. Just… talk to Billy about it. Trust me. He’s been where you are.”

There was a knock at the door before Harry could respond.

“Oh boy, here we go. I’m off to the war room.” Danny said.

He limped to his feet, and although Harry had forgotten to straighten his fingers all the way out, Danny didn’t complain much when he stepped into them.

“Well, Mr. Smalls, it’s been a pleasure. Good luck with the lawsuit.” Harry said, in the steadiest voice he could muster.

“Good luck finding Joe.” Danny replied.

Harry pulled the door open. Marty was alone this time, and he handed Danny off to him much more smoothly than he had taken him in.

“Oh, and Harry – ”

Marty was about to bid him farewell and turn away, but Danny’s voice stopped him.

“Yes?”

Danny smiled and tipped his hat to him.

“Take care of yourself.” He said.

Then just as suddenly as Danny had arrived, he was gone again. Harry waved for a long time with the door open, as long as he could get away with while still appearing normal. Then when the cab rolled away he was forced to close the door. The moment he sat down on the couch, countless years' worth of loneliness crashed down onto him like the weight of the ocean.

All alone in the empty house he cried to himself freely as the day he was born, and as he wept three ghosts sat there with him. One was the ghost of his mother. The other was the ghost of Georgie. The third was the ghost of Joe Piccoli.

He didn’t know it then, but it would be a long time before he shared that house with anyone again.