I don't feel the suns comin' out today
Its staying in, its gonna find another way.
As I sit here in this misery, I don't
Think I'll ever see the sun from here.

And oh as I fade away,
They'll all look at me and say, and they'll say,
Hey look at him! I'll never live that way.
But that's okay
They're just afraid to change. Change by Blind Melon

They were in Times Square suddenly after just walking past 'Jekyll and Hyde's' in the Village. Jamie knew no way was it possible. Not even the magic cab driver who read people's minds could pull that off, even if he looked like the finest man she had ever seen.

Jamie looked around in shock, at the lights, the traffic around them, how did that happen? It was three miles away from where they just were on a quiet street, many blocks of walking, and now they were suddenly in the middle of all the noise and chaos of New York at its best.

Jamie was dumbfounded, even though he had explained things to her just a little while ago.

"Yeah, we can do this," Daryl said, reading her mind and watching the recognition creep over her face. "There's so much I have to tell you now that you know."

And she had questions, many of them.

"The cab driver?"

"He's what we call a familiar; they help us do our job, there's a lot of them in this world," Daryl answered.

"He's alive then?"

Daryl nodded.

"But we aren't?"

"No."

"But I feel…"

Daryl took her hand and kissed it, "I know." He replied.

Then suddenly they were on top of the empire state building, Jamie looked down and didn't feel dizzy as expected as the ground wobbled below in her sight. She'd always had a fear of heights, and it was gone as she held his hand and balanced with him on the rail of the observatory deck.

She looked down at the street and felt the adrenaline rush through her body; her heart pounded with excitement as she looked over at him. He squeezed her hand and held tight as he spoke.

"We aren't Jamie." He said as the wind blew through their hair and he brought her closer to the edge of the rail they were standing on. "We've both been dead for a long time."

Then he leaned back pulling them both to the side until they were free-falling backward in mid-air. Then when they stopped, they were sitting on top of the Brooklyn Bridge, high above the city and cars below. Their legs were dangling as they sat above the traffic, and still, she wasn't scared.

"I know it's hard to comprehend, let me show you if you want to see."

"I need to see it all, I think." She replied slowly.

He waved his hand in front of them as a picture formed and she saw herself walking out of the ER door with her earbuds in her ears. Clearly, it was Christmas time, the streets were decorated and lit up, but it was March now. She was watching her past, yet she could hear the music.

'Call, break, it, off. Call, break, my, own heart, maybe I would have been something you'd be good at?"

The music rang through her ears as if she was hearing it now. It was like watching a movie. The heartbreak still so raw and radiating off her former self.

Then she saw the car, careening out of control down the alley she had been taking a short cut through to get to the coffee shop she loved.

"I was hit by a car…" She whispered as it all became clear at that moment to her. "Did I…"

He could feel the grief radiating off of her in waves.

"No." Daryl answered quickly "No sweetheart; you didn't commit suicide, although I know you thought about it. It happened outside your hospital on your lunch hour, thirteen months ago. It was an accident; the driver was drunk. You never even knew what hit you thanks to the iPod."

Thirteen months!

"But, then why didn't I know." She couldn't comprehend how what he said was true. He explained that her spirit was uneasy, sad and grieving, possibly she had thought she committed suicide likely and couldn't face that. So she wandered, in the apartment, the hospital and all around the city where she died.

"There's no explanation for that; it happens sometimes, if people have unresolved things going on at the time, they kind of get distracted and can't move on. And that's where my job comes in."

"Others die, and they don't know it?"

"Yes, very often, and the guys and I facilitate, help them see and move onto the afterlife. I don't know why, but it's what we do."

Daryl waved his hand in front of them again to conjure up another thing for her to see, something he knew she would want to see.

He showed her the dream, of Lindsay and Daniel, but it was clearer this time. Lindsay had been throwing Daniel out of her funeral.

It was her funeral she dreamed about, not her wedding, and she could almost smell the flowers that had decorated the church.

Daniel had shown up uninvited, and Lindsay had punched him out and told him he had a lot of nerve crying now that Jamie was gone. He hadn't given fuck all about her when she was alive, and Lindsay was not allowing him to make a scene.

Then she had taken care of Jamie's mother; she threw her out as well.

Daryl took her by the hand, and they sat in silence as she digested all he had shown her.

"So you drive around like the two guys on 'Supernatural'?", She asked after a little while. "Showing people the way to the light?"

"Well, not quite like them, but we never know until we see the person who needs us, and some don't accept it at all. They know, but they don't want to move on."

Daryl snapped his finger and sitting next to them was Shannon Hoon from 'Blind Melon' looking every bit of the way he looked at the height of his career.

His hair was long, and he wore jeans and a t-shirt, the way everyone would remember him. Jamie thought he was so ethereal and beautiful and her eyes felt almost blinded by the glow of him.

Did they all glow, did she? Daryl didn't, and she was confused by this.

"Hey, Daryl," Shannon said. "How's it going."

"Good Shannon, real good." Daryl said, "And you?"

Shannon nodded with a bright smile on his face and Jamie was struck again how beautiful he was.

"You ready yet, Shannon?" Daryl asked, and Shannon slowly shook his head.

"Going to Bonnaroo this year man, maybe after that." He replied, "Who's your friend?"

"This is Jamie."

Then to her surprise and delight, Shannon took her hand and kissed it. "Charmed." He said smiling up at her, with a quirk of his eyebrow. "Ever been to Bonnaroo Jamie?"

She shook her head. "No."

"You let me know if you wanna go, ok?" He said, and Jamie laughed.

"I will, thanks uh?"

"Call me Shannon, everyone does." He said with a bright smile.

Jamie swallowed and uttered, "I love your music."

Shannon smiled brightly, "Thank you, that's very kind of you. Let me know about Bonnaroo, ok?"

Jamie smiled and nodded and looked over at Daryl, he wasn't jealous exactly, unnerved maybe, that Shannon was asking her to go with him, but the smile crept over his face because he knew she was his. He hoped for all eternity; he had been asking all day since she walked in the bar the night before.

The answer had not been given yet, Jamie had to make a choice first, and then it would be decided, and not by him.

Daryl shook his head, "Ok, man you know where to find me." Daryl said as they fist pounded, and then Shannon was gone, and Jamie just stared at the place where one of her musical idols was just sitting.

"I'm not the only one to try and help him, he just can't accept it, and he's content the way things are. You can't be forced; it has to be willing acceptance."

"And if I don't?"

Daryl shrugged.

"Can people see you, and me?" She asked.

"No, yes, sometimes, it's all different. Some people have that psychic twinkle, ya know? Like Emily, your boss; she couldn't even see you. But some of those kids, they could see you. They felt the comfort you were trying to give. " Daryl said.

Jamie felt tears start to fall over her face. Her heart still longed to take care of the children, even after death. It was taking her breath away.

"And Jamie, she tried to save you, when they brought you into the ER, Emily was the first one there that day and cried for weeks after, she still does sometimes."

Jamie didn't want anyone to be upset because of her, the thought of Emily grieving, because she couldn't save her, made the tears fall anew.

"Can't I send her some sign to let her know I'm ok?" She said wiping her face and taking a handkerchief Daryl had suddenly produced.

"That's not how it works." He said softly, wiping her tears with his thumbs and staring into her eyes.

"But the bar?"

"Full of dead people, live ones too." He replied.

"But we eat and drink, and smoke." She motioned towards the cigarette he held in his hand.

"Because not all of them know they're dead, like you, it's that way wherever we go." He explained, "We don't call attention to ourselves, by being different, for the ones who don't know."

"But how do you know who to help?" She asked. "Where to go next?"

Daryl shrugged, "We just do, there's many of us, helpers and at the right time, we meet those who need us. It just always works out that way."

"When they see you, right. That was what Merle meant by its good to be seen?" She said, "He was glad I could see all of you."

Daryl nodded.

"The crowd, though, all the people you play for, they can't all be gone, can they?" She asked, "And Shannon Hoon, he knows he's dead?"

"Most of the time that's how it is. There are many wandering souls out there." Daryl replied. "Shannon said he saw Layne Stanly in Little Rock, Arkansas; I haven't seen him, someone else must be working with him."

He pointed down to the city lights and beyond and Jamie nodded, so many lost souls, living and dead.

"I don't question all of how it works, who sees me and why is confusing even for me. I tried in the beginning, but all I ever got was told to go do this work."

"Told by who?"

Daryl looked up towards the sky, full of stars and a bright full moon and she understood.

"So essentially you're giving me a choice, to move on or stay this way?" She said, "And I would go back to the apartment in Brooklyn and stay with the children at the hospital?"

Daryl nodded. "Or you could go to Bonnaroo with Shannon Hoon." He shrugged, with a chuckle.

"Can you imagine?" She grinned devilishly.

"Been there." Daryl said, "Now, seriously."

Then Daryl waved his hand again and showed Jamie the gravestone, with sunflowers and daisies all around it. Jamie remembered calling to Lindsay in the street, while she had been carrying those flowers and how she didn't turn around.

Now she knew that she couldn't hear her.

"She puts them there every week; she misses you so much."

"She really called my mother out on how she treated me?"

"Yeah she did, she was on a tear that day, half crying and telling people who treated you badly off." Daryl laughed. "She was a good friend to you, and I'm sure you were to her."

"Can I go tell her goodbye?"

Daryl shook his head. "I'm afraid not honey."

"She didn't get my voice mail did she?"

"No, we are usually unable to communicate with anyone but each other and the familiars," Daryl said. "Only those we are helping or working with, like the guys and me. Except for the few with that psychic twinkle, but even then, I think they don't really understand what we are."

"Daryl, can I stay with you?" She asked, "Maybe I could help you do your work."

She had read his mind; maybe it was all falling into place. Maybe his prayers were about to be answered.

"I want you too; I think I was sent here not just to help you through, but to take you with me, with us."

Jamie hoped that was true, Daryl told her that once she accepted that she was dead, she would move on to where she was supposed to be, and that he hoped it would be right next to him.

"How did you die?" Jamie had so many questions for Daryl now; some answers just led to more questions, though. Maybe they weren't meant to understand all of it, and maybe that was what faith was all about.

"Yes, we all died in a head-on collision ten years ago in Colorado, some little town called Evergreen." Daryl said, "Coming from a gig in an ice storm."

Jamie gasped at that news. Ten years? She never knew, never felt his absence.

"Did you know I was dead?" She asked.

"No, not till I saw you the other night." He said. "We just travel around, helping people we come across, so random, really, and last night I came across you." He said, wistfully, and ran his hand through his hair, "Maybe that wasn't so random."

"So now I have to accept it, and see where I end up, right?" She asked taking his hand as if that would stop her from being pulled away from him.

She closed her eyes.

"Go ahead, don't be afraid," Daryl whispered. "Either way you will finally have peace."

Jamie laid her head on his shoulder one last time and breathed him in.

"A kiss for luck?" She asked.

And he kissed her like it was the last time he would ever get to do it. Jamie looked up at the moon, and down at the cars below them. Then she closed her eyes and gripped Daryl's hand.

"I accept this." She said, still keeping her eyes closed, "I am ready to move on, wherever it is I'm supposed to be."

She felt something swirling around her and a great light shining, much like the light that surrounded Shannon Hoon. She could feel a pull go through her body and she was weightless for a moment, but she was still seated next to Daryl when it was over.

Suddenly the rest of the band members were sitting next to her and Daryl was still holding her hand. Merle playfully shoulder tapped her. "You gonna sing with us darlin?" He smiled brightly at her and slung his arm over her shoulder.

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Epilogue

The VW bus was parked in another town now, far from New York and many months after Jamie accepted her fate. And in the small café, a man and a woman could be heard singing accompanied by three men on guitars and horns. They were in Derry, Maine singing to a mixture of the living and the dead, and those that could see them. It was the way it was supposed to be. There was snow on the ground, and the music could be heard out in the parking lot, in the doorway stood Shannon Hoon, and he sang along with them. He caught Jamie's eye and gave her thumbs up, then he accepted and walked out the door to the other side and his own destiny.

1. "When you feel your life ain't worth living
You've got to stand up and
Take a look around you then a look way up to the sky.
And when your deepest thoughts are broken,
Keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.

And as we all play parts of tomorrow,
Some ways will work and other ways we'll play.
But I know we all can't stay here forever,
So I want to write my words on the face of today.
And then they'll paint it."

When the music stopped, and she watched Shannon walk away, she smiled at Daryl and kissed him softly. The lights went down on the stage as Jamie took the mike and sang 'Landslide' to the man she had loved all her life and would love into the next.

This story ismy homage to M. Night Shyamalan, my favorite director. I adore all his movies, even the ones that people don't like. I just think his brain is a vibrant place of the macabre and unexpected. I have been thinking about The Sixth Sense for a few weeks now and didn't know why until today. Also for some reason, I needed to include Derry, Maine, anyone know who that is in homage to? Another bright mind that I am in awe of. Until we meet again my lovely readers, remember that I adore you and think of you often when night falls, and it's dark outside. Xxxxx Krissy.