I was tempted to ask why master had burned him, but deductive reasoning essentially answered that question for me.

Instead, I settled on demanding to know why he could suddenly control the beast. But before I could ask he spoke.

"You knew it was me didn't you?" He turned his head to me, "It was you who kept leaving the money."

I nodded.

"Why didn't you ever really try and see me? Why would you be so sneaky?"

I shrugged, "I wasn't sure, actually I was pretty convinced I was going crazy."

"You didn't think I'd just forget about you, did you?"

I tucked my legs up under myself, "No, it's just that, how on earth did you get here?"

"Not easily I'll tell you that."

"Yeah, I could tell that by looking at you," I joked, "not to mention smelling you."

He laughed but I could see the weariness in his face.

"You look nice, I barely recognized you."

I could feel my cheeks heat up, but I only said, "I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not."

He just shook his head and ran a hand over the beard, "I bet you wish you could say the same about me."

"On the contrary, I'm actually quite impressed with your ability to grow facial hair."

"Who knew I had it in me right?"

We grew quiet, listening to the sound of the TV downstairs. There were so many questions and yet I didn't know what to say.

"Well, I should really leave." He said, getting to his feet, "where are my clothes?"

"Wait? Why?"

"It's not like I can stay here." He laughed.

I stood up, "But, I mean, I just got you back. You can't go this soon."

He shook his head a bit, wet pieces of hair stuck to his neck, "Bowen, I'm just here to check on you. Just to make sure he doesn't hurt you. We can't just hang out anymore."

"Why?" I demanded.

He gave up on looking for his clothes and just stood there nervously.

"Come on, you can't tell me you've completely forgotten."

"It was never a problem before." I crossed my arms.

He looked angry, "It's getting worse. You see this?" He stepped towards me and pointed to the large burn, "It's starting to literally burn its way through me, from the inside out."

Without thinking, I reached out and ran the tips of my fingers over it. The skin felt tougher than I'd expected, like the skin of a rhino.

He flinched a little when I touched him, but I didn't let him get away with it this time. I stepped forward and pressed my full hand against it. Regardless of the rough flesh, I could still feel his heart pulse against my palm.

"I'm sure we can fix it."

His laugh was full of venom, "Yeah, it's obviously that easy."

"I didn't say it would be easy." I tried matching his anger, but it didn't roll off my tongue the way I'd wanted it to.

He sighed and sat back down on the bed, "The point is that you don't need to deal with this. You have a new life," he paused, "and a boyfriend. This isn't your problem, it shouldn't have been in the first place."

"Then why did you come back?"

"He knows you're here. I don't know what he'll do, but I need to be here to keep an eye on him."

"Shit, how did he find out?"

He looked up at me, "That part is my fault too."

"How?"

"I didn't want to tell him." His eyes flicked down nervously.

I looked down at his feet. Gasping, I saw a collection of nubs where his toes used to be.

"I'm sorry." He said, hanging his head.

I put my hands on his cheeks and lifted his face to look at me, "it's okay."

He turned his face and pressed it into my palm before saying, "No it's not, but there's no turning back now."

"Well it's been months, I think if he was really planning something it would have happened already."

"All this time and you still underestimate him."

"I'm just tired of you looking so damn hopeless."

He smiled, "Okay," and then wrapped his arms around my waist and stood up, lifting me into the air. I giggled and wrapped my legs around him so I wouldn't fall.

He was smiling, "Is this better?"

"Yeah, I can deal with this." I'd missed goofy Peter even more than I'd realized. Now that he was here, smiling with his arms around me, I didn't feel sad and worried like I knew I should. For right now, everything was okay.

"I've wanted to do that for a little while," he swung he around again, "Well, it's one of the things I've wanted to do for a while."

I felt my heart speed up. If he meant what I thought he did, I wasn't sure if it made me happy or nervous. Tony wasn't at the forefront of my mind, but he was still there.

Luckily for me I didn't have to make the decision. Lorne opened the door and gave us a funny look.

"His clothes are dry if he wants them back."

Peter looked a little ashamed as he set me down, "Yeah I'd like them back. Thanks."

Lorne set them down on the bed, giving me a stern look before leaving.

Sorry about that, I know you have have a boyfriend now."

"It's fine." I shrugged it off, even though there was a little pang of guilt in the pit of my stomach. It's not that we'd even done anything, it was that I'd seriously wanted to, "I'll go and let you get dressed."

"Wait." He said, dragging me close to him and kissing me on the forehead before letting me go.