Penny hadn't stopped moving since the shipwreck. At first, she blamed her tapping heels and fidgeting hands to her compulsive need to always be doing something, to have an object to tinker with, but as time moved on and they drifted further out to sea Penny recognized her movements as her overwhelming anxiety. Miss Delaney insisted they would be fine in the lifeboats, but such wasn't always true, Penny knew. One loose nail and the boat would fill with water. One person could capsize the entire boat if they tried. There was no guarantee they would be fine again, no promises that they would be rescued.

There was a very real chance she would never see Nemo again.

Nemo and their last conversation — a bizarre wedding exchange where he invited her to the wedding and she had to decline because of the cruise — was all she could think about in the hours between the wreck and her rescue. Penny was likely about to die, and they had allowed the events of Paris to destroy the last few months of their friendship. Merlin, she hadn't even had the opportunity to apologize to Nemo for accidentally forcing him to have an erection around her. She should have listened to him in Paris, she shouldn't have pushed him to sleep in the bed with her. She shouldn't have suggested they stay in an inn at all.

They should have gone home, and everything would be fine now.

Penny moved through the rescue and instructions in Portugal with rigid attention. Her grip on the assigned metal ring like the vices she used on her brooms at home. As always, the portkey journey home left her unsteady and nauseous, and in the flurry of activity Penny quickly lost track of Elsie. To her left, an older gentleman was vomiting on the atrium floor. And, miraculously, to her right (a little ways away from the entry point) was Nemo.

Penny rushed over towards him, not stopping until her arms were tight around his waist and her face buried into his shoulder. Nemo was here. Nemo was here and, somehow, she had made it home.