A/N: This is based off a dream I had. It may not remain a one shot, but still.

If you know anything about me, cookies to the person who knows who the ghost is. OR google it.

The Glass Room

Angela typed numbly, not really looking at the page. Life wasn't fair. Life was never fair. It just didn't make sense. Spring break was supposed to be a time to forget your troubles, supposed to be a time that everything was fine, right? No. He tormented her thoughts. His thirtieth birthday had been Saturday. No news mention, no happy wishes.

No one wishes happy birthday to a dead guy. Even if he is a celebrity. She put the key in the ignition and drove off, whipping out of campus drive like she had the devil himself on her exhaust pipe. She called up her friends, and called in a pizza order.

By the time it was over, it was late. Angela drove back to campus, still feeling as though something was nagging the back of her mind. She didn't see the drunk who ran a red light, just a bright flash, then nothing.

Angel woke up in a hospital bed, but she felt fine, just a little bruised. That's when she noticed it. The hallways were empty. She quietly tiptoed down the hall, then she saw it. The room full of people, and one – that all-to-familiar-once-smiling face was against the glass.

Banging desperately with his fists, and shouting at the top of his lungs. But she couldn't hear him. No one could. Desperately she faced him, mouthing "what's wrong?" He angled his gaze, his eyes glimmering with tears. He didn't understand her. Angela saw the others. He felt alone, all alone in the glass enclosure. Even though they were there. They were sorry, but they couldn't do anything. They huddled against the opposing wall, not knowing what to do about it. But only it wasn't a wall.

Anger filled her as she realized that she was just barely a level above them. She couldn't help him either. She placed her hand up to where his fist was up to the glass. She wished the glass wasn't there. They faced each other, and he opened his palm, and their hands barely touched due to the melted sand barrier between them. She saw relief on his face. Someone had finally heard his call of desperation. He banged his head against the glass in frustration.

"Why me?" she mouthed, but he didn't understand, and only gave her a puzzled, troubled look. Confused. She felt familiar, she sensed, but neither he nor she knew why.

She knew who he was. His face had been plastered over the film screen. But he shouldn't know who she was. It didn't make sense. Sam. The thought was as strong as though his name had been spoken. Sam Avery, unsolved case.

She'd felt him close by, had told her once best friend – now apparition - to guide the older actor, still too young to die, but apparently the ghost had told him how to find her. That was Sam.

How they could see each other she didn't know. Was she hovering near death, and was that why they could see each other? She wasn't sure.

She felt fine. That was the thing.

Even through the glass, his desperation, his urgency permeated her system. Fear, desperation, regret, sorrow, confusion, sadness all jumbled together into one very powerful emotion. His ex-fiancée. His four-year-old mirror image daughter.

He was sorry.

It wasn't their fault, he knew they thought it, sensed it so strongly through the other side.

It was all his fault.

He only wanted sleep. She knew most of the circumstances, understood them better than the doctors who had drolled on the TV screen.

Sympathy filled her heart just as tears filled her eyes. He gazed curiously at her, yet relieved. How she'd realized his thoughts through the glass she didn't know. She knew that some apparitions can't speak, but he didn't seem like an apparition. He felt as real as the cold glass between them. The others gathered huddled in a corner, but he was up against the wall, fighting to escape.

He didn't want to pass into the next world, he wanted to go back.

He didn't know his shell he'd lived in had been cremated. He didn't know that you couldn't go back. He didn't know it wasn't really his fault.

He didn't know the six would be a deathly concoction. He didn't want to be fussed over for a little flu, they fussed over him enough.

He didn't know that the wall was unbreakable.

Suddenly she wished she could break the wall, she could cross over. Trade her life for his.

Horror appeared on his face, and he backed away, violently shaking his head a prominent "NO".

She put her hands up the glass. He faced her slowly, innocently shy, scared. She shook her head. She didn't make the decisions about trading lives. The man upstairs did.

He timidly touched the glass again, matching her tiny hands with his own. She didn't know why the tears came into her eyes.

He stared quizzically, signing with his hands. She caught the sign "you" and "me" in there, but she didn't understand the eye thing exactly.

You've never seen me. But I've seen you. And we've never met. She signed back "you" and "me" and the eye thing back, then shook her head. But then she signed "me" and "you" and nodded vehemently.

He understood that, and the slightest smile passed on his face. He nodded, his face lighting slightly, the dimples accentuating that all-to-well-known-smile.

They had finally figured out a way to communicate.

Then he faded into black, and her eyes popped open. The hospital was different. And she couldn't see right.

"She'll be fine."

Angel groaned. Where was he?

"What?"

"What happened?"

"You got in a car crash. You just rest."

"The other driver –"

"He didn't make it."

She nodded numbly, drifting off to sleep.

Where was the – what could she call him? He was too real to just be "a ghost". Only his "shell" didn't exist anymore... He'd lived, and would do almost anything to come back.