At around 2:00, I decide that it's morning. I ease my way out of the baby blue flannel blanket that Max must have draped over me while I was sleeping. I spend a few minutes coming to my senses, shivering slightly in the faint chill of the room. Did I forget to pay the heating bill again? I get up to check on Max, who must have gone to bed without me, and I realize something. I'm not in my apartment. I'm still at Gregory House.

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

"Damnit!" Chloe's lighter spat sparks. "This is, like, the fifth time! There is no juice in this thing!" She looked at me, wide-eyed, plaintive. "You got a light? Like, maybe some matches?"

"Sorry, Chloe. I don't smoke," I said. She cursed into the sleeve of her orange parka and dejectedly put her unlit cigarette back into its pack. We stood there in silence for a while, entertaining ourselves by watching the puffs of steam our breath made in the chill December air. A muffled tone emanated from Chloe's pocket. She pulled out her cell phone, which was ringing madly, and after checking the screen, gave me a shrug.

"It's from my boss." She darted off to stand a little ways away; I guess she thought I couldn't hear her if she put on a little distance. For a best friend, she couldn't read me at all. I snuck a little closer to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"…Let me know if you need any more favors," she was saying. I gave a sharp little gasp, which I hoped to the powers that be was muffled by my scarf. She wouldn't… would she? I leaned closer. "No, no, I can't make an appointment- what's that? It's my job, because I'm a secretary? Well…" I stopped listening. I'd heard enough, and what I'd heard had been suspiciously telling. Chloe, you little sneak!
The next few days passed without much worry. Chloe got a raise. I kept quiet about her phone conversation, and about how she was suspiciously friendly with the boss. I didn't have to say anything. Our coworkers were coming to their own conclusions.

"I bet she's an undercover cop who wants to bust the boss for never refilling the coffee maker," a male coworker said. His name escaped me; it just wasn't important.

"With the amount of coffee you drink, that could be considered cruel and unusual punishment," another guy deadpanned. I smiled thinly over the rim of my paper cup, but neither man saw it. They continued doing whatever caffeine-buzzed, sleep-deprived twenty-somethings do when the workday is about to end. I was bored of it already. I stood there by the coffee maker, watching the clock. One minute. Two minutes. I yawned. I picked at my nail polish; pale pink, Chloe's idea. "It'll be a nice change," she said. What she meant was that she found me boring, wanted to spice me up. And she was right for doing it, I guess. I'm about as interesting as my bland cubicle job.

"…See ya." One of the guys saluted his friend and left the office. I glanced at the clock again. I forgot my watch, I realized. It's out on the fire escape, where I had stepped outside to get a little fresh air earlier that day. Maybe I could grab it, then use the fire escape for its intended purpose, minus the fire part… Why did I leave my watch on the fire escape? I was oddly disoriented. It's like a video game, as my nephew would say, pushing up his round wire-rimmed glasses. The watch is a special item, and I can only leave the office once I have it. I snorted, drained my cold coffee, discarded the paper cup. Ducked through a window and jumped out onto the little chain-link landing. My watch was just sitting there on the perforated metal floor.

"What the hell," I said to myself, picking it up. "Why'd I just…" God, I was tired. I was done with work, forever maybe. I wanted to see my boyfriend. I wanted to see Max. As I was starting down the narrow iron stairs, my watch slipped through my fingers, falling two stories and hitting the ground with a sickening emcrack /emof metal and glass. "Fuck!" I practically ran down the fire escape, scrabbling and swearing quietly, searching for my watch. It lay on the concrete, inches from the curb, in the trash can corner, scratched,dented, and bleeding broken glass from the face. My heart sunk. That watch had been a birthday gift from Max.

As I sat on the subway, I realized I hadn't had a single conscious thought since I broke my watch. I'd walked to the subway terminal in a daze, caressing the shards of my totaled timepiece. I'd missed my train. Waited for another. Got on at the last minute. Only my barest instinct had propelled me. Without it, I thought, I would have just stood under the fire escape. I would've just stood there forever, until I died…

I woke with a start. Oh, shit! I must've missed my stop! I got up, clinging to the steel bars of my seat, and peered out the window. The car was empty, except for one man in a khaki trench coat, who was staring at the floor, his hat concealing his face.

"We are approaching the last stop on this train line. Once we have arrived, please disembark," a bodiless voice said. The subway slowed, and I noticed that it was aboveground. Outside my window, I could see a dark forest, mist clotting the spaces between the skeletal trees. The train stopped. "We have arrived at Gregory House. As this is the last stop, please disembark here." My neighbor, the hat-wearing man, looked at me.

"This is the last stop, miss. I'd advise you to spend the night at Gregory House; there's nowhere else for miles," he said. I nodded and numbly followed him out the doors and down a forest path. The trees thinned, and we arrived in… a graveyard? Mist lay thick among the headstones, grey against the soupy night. Piercing the gloom was a faint glow of light, as if from the windows of a house. My vision cleared, and there we stood, the faceless man and I, bone-tired and marveling in the faint glimmer of the gilded sign that told us we had arrived at Gregory House.