When You Were Young

"Molly, no. I'm the one she wants. I'll distract her and you get the ladder to destroy this place."

"Joseph, please, you have to let me do this. It's the only way that makes sense."

"No it's not!" Tears came to his eyes. "I can't let you do this. I can't let you end up like the others." He couldn't let Molly die like his parents and Samantha. Not after all she'd done for him in the last three days.

"I can't destroy this place, not on my own. I'm not like you. I'm just a weak little girl. I always have been."

"That's not true. You saved me from Veronica twice already. You're bigger than you seem."

"We don't have time to argue," Molly said. "If you think about this logically, you know this is the best way. I don't know how to trigger those rocks, but I can keep Veronica occupied for a few minutes." She again thought back to what Annie had said. "We each have to do what we were meant to do."

"You weren't meant to die. I won't accept that!"

"I'm sorry, Joseph. This is the way it has to be." With that, she ran from the cave. Joseph called after her to stop, but she'd already disappeared into the trees. She was gone. Another person he cared about was gone.

He started towards the cave entrance to head into town for a ladder. Before he reached the opening, the cave exploded in red light, blinding him. Joseph pressed both hands to his eyes and dropped to his knees. As he knelt there he heard a familiar voice say, "No, I'm stiw widow."

"Samantha?" he called out.

"Joseph?" He felt a hand on his shoulder. "What you doing here? When ow we?"

He patted the folds of her tattered dress to hug her. "Oh thank God," he said. "I knew you were still alive. I saw you in the water and I knew."

"How wong I been gone?" she asked.

"You've been in there for three days," he said.

"But I not in there," she said. "I was in Seabwooke, but it was years ago when I was a gwown up." She told him about waking up in a Savannah motel room to discover she was a 40-year-old FBI agent. She went on to describe the string of murders that led her to Seabrooke, not mentioning the murder of Joseph's mother. She finished by relating her meeting with Miss Brigham and capture by the reverend. "Then I woke up here."

"That's impossible," Joseph said. His vision began to clear so that he could make out Samantha's chubby face. What did it matter where she had been or what she had thought she saw? All that mattered was that he had her back. He kissed her on the forehead, cheeks, and then lips. Even in her current state, her flesh felt the same as he remembered.