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Rapunzel is still sitting in the floor of her bedroom, staring through the gaping hole in the wall. It’s too late for rebuilding efforts to continue, and there’s nothing of much interest taking place beyond the palace walls, but she can’t tear her eyes away.
There’s a knock on the door behind her, but she doesn’t look up.
"Hey, Sunshine." Eugene says, entering the room with a plate of food in one hand, "You’ve been up here all evening."
Rapunzel blinks, her eyes suddenly seeming to burn from the intensity with which she’d been staring at the horizon.
"Oh." Is all she manages, tearing her gaze away from the void in the room so she can take him in.
His uniform is dusty from the crumbling stone everywhere, and his hair is a mess. Rapunzel smiles tiredly, and crosses over to him.
"How are renovations going?" She asks him, reaching up, and brushing his hair out of his eyes.
"They’re going." Eugene chuckled lowly, pulling her into a hug, now he’s sure she’s snapped out of whatever it is that keeps her staring at nothing.
He looks over her shoulder, at the gaping hole in the wall of her room.
"We really should put something over that." He says, because as much as the summer is forgiving, they won’t be half so comfortable when winter sets in.
"Oh— I don’t mind the view." Rapunzel says, hastily. "It opens up the space, like you said."
Her eyes drift back towards the horizon, and it’s his gentle fingers on her cheek that draw her gaze back to him. There’s no judgement in his eyes, but she can feel concern radiating off of him, and it makes her want to look away again, rather than force the conversation she knows they'll have to have.
"Rapunzel it's only been a week." He says, and somehow hearing exactly how long it's been sparks that buried anxiety in her, as if she hasn't been counting each day since she'd watched Cassandra ride off over that horizon away from them, to parts unknown.
It's pathetic, and she knows it. Cassandra was gone so much longer when she'd had the moonstone, and she'd seemed so much rather, but at least then there had always been signs of her presence, and the hope she would come to her senses and return. Now she's off looking for her destiny, and Rapunzel is faced with the reality that she might not return once she's found it.
"Do you think she'll ever come back?" She asks, breathlessly— voicing her real concern for the first time since Cassandra went away.
Eugene lets out a slow breath that makes her heart clench— because surely that means he must feel it too, right? The dread that they might really have seen her for the last time. He reaches out to take her hand, and pulls her into his chest. She tucks her arms in between them and presses her face into the dusty red uniform, trying to fight the stinging of tears unshed.
"She needed to go." He said, rubbing her back gently.
"I know." Rapunzel says, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "I understand, I do I just— what if she never comes back, Eugene? What if she gets hurt or she finds somewhere better, or she forgets us, or—" her bresth hitches, and she has to stop before she works herself up even more.
"Rapunzel, this is Cass we're talking about." He says, "She can handle herself. She'll come back when she's found what she needs to find."
He puffs out his chest, trying to make her laugh a little with a display of his old pompous act.
"And hey, I don't know about you, but I happen to be very memorable. I'll be offended if she manages to forget all this in a hurry."
Rapunzel does laugh at his efforts, her fingers moving up between them to ghost over his jaw, before she pushed herself up onto her tiptoes to steal a fleeting kiss.
"I miss her." She admits.
"I miss her, too." Eugene says, content for the moment to hold her close, and keep her back to the makeshift window. "But that doesn't mean we have to just stop and stare at the horizon until she comes home."
Rapunzel sighs, but when she meets his eyes again, it's with a faint smile, and he can only hope that he might have begun to break this sad little habit of hers.
A loud, impatient hoot sounds from somewhere behind her, and Rapunzel almost jumps out of her skin. Eugene has to fight the urge to reach for his weapon, after the years they've been through together.
When they both turn, a small brown owl is perched on the edge of the railing, looking rather annoyed at not being acknowledged sooner.
"Owl!" Rapunzel rushes over, giddily, petting the familiar creature as confidently as though he’d been her own companion.
"Oh sure, ditch me for the bird." He quips, following her curiously to the railing. His eyes catch onto the bit of paper curled into a neat roll and tied carefully to Owl's leg.
“What’s this?” Rapunzel begins untying it.
Eugene closes the gap between them, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. He presses a kiss to the top of her head, and then looked over at the note, and the familiar handwriting scratched across the surface.
“I think that’s your sign, sunshine.” He says. “She’ll come home— we just have to give her time.”