Will wound a lock of her hair around her finger and, for the first time in a long time, he let himself wonder.
It hadn't just been Ella. It had been Daniel and Michaela, too. When the message had come through from Tuck – that he'd found them both, they were both living here in town, and what's more, they were happy and thriving, with a grandkid even – the elation and relief had been real and heady, but buried beneath it all had been a bitter kernel of envy. Will had hated himself for it, but as Tuck had shown him photo after joyous photo, he hadn't been able to stop his thoughts drifting back to his own son. To what kind of life Robert might have forged if he'd been given the chance.
Then he'd met them for himself. Daniel, eager and caring and so like his dad sometimes it was uncanny; Michaela, so warm and witty beneath her initial reserve. They were a gift, both of 'em, and how could his jealousy survive Dan professing in all earnestness that he felt like he'd gained seven fathers in the Merry Men?
(It still caught him on the odd occasion, little ghost-pangs when Tuck gushed about Daniel and Billie's new babe or Michaela landing an acting gig, but it was just a dim longing among a whole complement of aches and pains. Consequence of being old.)
And now Scarlet was a father as well. Scarlet the swashbuckler was actually setting down roots, raising a baby of his own with Tuck and Addy.
"It scares me," he admitted. "World we live in. The people who've come for us." He'd had nightmares about leading the Sheriff to Clio's door, their old enemy coming for her or Ella just to stick the knife in. They'd come true, too: the Sheriff had taken Clio hostage back in December, used her as bait to lure Will into a dungeon cell. It could happen again. The Sheriff might be a snivelling lump now, but what about in a year's time? Five years, ten? And all that was to say nothing of Lucifer.
(But people he loved being hurt, that was always going to terrify him, whether it was Clio or Ella or Marian or Daniel, any one of their family. Was it selfish to think of it that way, or just common sense?)
The words sank slowly into a pensive silence, and Will continued playing with Clio's hair. "Still," he added after another moment, "I think of Ella."