O Kind Readers: This is something I've been flipping over in my head for several months now. If you like it - and would like more stories in a similar vein - please let me know...I've got a few in mind.

Oh, and G/I buffs...this is not the fun stuff I've got planned...that's on the way...

Behind the Wall of Sleep

Tuck was laughing. It was 2:18 in the morning, and Miranda Bailey's baby boy was laughing. Hard.

She blinked in the dark. Normally, a wake-up call this early in the morning was a cry for rescue -- hunger, thirst, nightmare, clean-up.

But laughter? That was something entirely new.

At first, she thought she'd stay in bed. If he's laughing, he's happy. Happy is good.

But his laughter didn't seem to be subsiding. He wasn't drifting back to the quiet sleep -- he was getting louder, more persistent. Rambunctious, even.

Bailey sighed as she felt nervous, exhausted frustration rising in her. What could be so delightful to her child at this hour?

Reluctantly, she stripped away her comforter and rose from the bed. She massaged her temples to push away her drowsiness and padded down the hallway to Tuck's room.

She felt a hard yawn coming on, so she stopped at the door and let it happen. As she exhaled, she caught the tail-end of another burbly laugh and she felt warm all over. A smile broke out across her face and she relished it.

Bailey walked into her boys room. "Okay, little man," she started, "what could be so funny at two -- " and then she saw George O'Malley, sitting in the big rocking chair, with Tuck on his knee.

At least it looked like George. (The real one, too. Not the mess that she had last seen; a mound of broken and bloody body parts that -- )

"Dr. Bailey," she heard him say in that soft earnest voice she remembered so well. "No need to think about sad things."

"George?" She whispered, feeling rushes of cold fear slamming headlong into her undeniable joy at seeing him whole and solid and unhurt again. "What -- "

"I know. It's early." He tickled Tuck's tummy and the boy laughed again. "Or it's late. I never know which nowadays, really."

Bailey smiled sadly. This can't be happening, she reasoned. She tried to raise a protest, if only to snap herself out of whatever this was. "George. You're -- "

"Dead. Yes." He caught Tuck's eyes with his. "I'm sorry. I just missed seeing him. And you."

Bailey felt her breath catch in her throat. Tuck seemed to notice this, because his gaze turned to her, then back to his playmate with a puzzled look.

George touched the little boy's soft cheek to reassure him, which worked. "He's so big now," he marveled.

"Growing like a weed," Bailey said. "You look good. Well."

"Yep. Back to average," George frowned.

"Not average," Bailey protested gently.

"Below average, then," he said, tossing her a knowing wink.

"Knock it off, O'Malley," Bailey scolded, a smile forming.

"There you go again, being nice to your babies," George said. "I miss that."

Tuck granted George's hand and hugged it. He pulled the little one close to his chest, then pressed a kiss onto the top of the boy's head.

Bailey suddenly realized she was crying. "Oh, George, I miss you so much. My world -- mine and Tuck's -- it just isn't the same without you in it."

George firmed his grasp on Tuck as he stood up. He walked to her as she sobbed, then without a word, he put an arm around her and held her close.

She was startled for a moment -- his embrace was so warm and strong -- and real. This wasn't a figment of her imagination. Her pulse quickened with panic and she wrestled with the implication of this...of his --

" -- manifestation," George said.

"Stop doing that," she replied. "Stop knowing what I'm thinking."

"Can't help it," he said. "Comes with the territory."

"You mean..."

"Being dead? Yeah. Now be still and enjoy your hug."

So she did, breathing in his familiar scent. For a moment, she allowed herself to forget that he was truly gone. Soon, though, a new and awful thought filled her -- the thought that once whatever cosmic coincidence or confluence that was responsible for this moment was finished, she would lose him. Tuck would lose him. Forever.

Forever. That word was a jagged chunk of shrapnel to her heart. She felt tears searing against her cheeks again.

"Neither of you will ever lose me," she heard him whisper. "I'll always being right here."

In the blink of an eye, she found herself alone again. Tuck was back in his bed, sleeping soundly.

George was sitting again. Although he was a few steps away, it seemed so much further. "You have to go," he said in a strangled voice.

"Now?" Bailey stammered.

"Tuck's going to wake up soon and he's going to be hungry," George said. "Best for you to go back to sleep." He turned his attention to a spot somewhere she couldn't see.

"George?"

"Good night, Dr. Bailey," he replied.

Bailey's eyes open to the sound of Tuck's hungry cry. The red numerals on her alarm clock read 5:04. Tears welled up for her again.

She shuffled back to her boy's bedroom to pick him up; for a second, she hoped she'd see George again.

But no. Tuck was standing in his crib, eyes wet, lips curled downward. Bailey wondered for a moment if he'd dreamed of George, too. Of being held and played with and loved by a man she had grown to think of as her younger brother.

"Hey, little man," she said, picking him up. "You hungry?"

She took Tuck to the kitchen and started making a small bowl of Cream of Wheat for him. While she was stirring hot water into the dry cereal, she heard Tuck giggle.

Her eyes narrowed. She turned to see why.

There was no one there.

And just as she began to feel a wave of sadness pushing against her heart, a tiny-but-unmistakable voice whispered in her ear, "I love you, too, big sister."

In the blink of an eye that brushed away a tear, Miranda Bailey felt the warmth of his embrace all over again. And she couldn't help noticing that she now had a smile that mirrored her son's.

The End