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Ed had offered to stay with Stede, could see Stede wanted to say yes. Instead he’d made Ed promise to see the world. Have adventures. Live.
He didn’t get to say goodbye. After that last fatal clash with his father, he’d grabbed his meager savings and ran.
He never forgot the boy in the graveyard, with his sweet smile and his ghastly wound, not really. But as time wore on and Ed’s hair started turning silver, Stede seemed more and more like a half-remembered dream.
Still, the second time his cancer came back, Ed started making plans to return home.