A crash stirred Alex from a sound sleep. Rolling onto his side, Alex turned on the lamp sitting on the bedside table. He looked out his bedroom door and from where he was half sitting up, he could see Skyler's empty bed. Frowning, he got up out of bed to check things out.

"Skyler?" He called walking out of his room.

He stopped in the hallway that conjoined his room, Skyler's room and the bathroom. He looked at the closed door, the light coming through the bottom of it. Alex stepped closer to the door and knocked. He heard Skyler gasp surprised and what sounded like little pebbles hitting the sidewalk, when tossed into the air.

"I'm almost done." Skyler called from the other side, she sounded rushed and slow at the same time.

"Are you alright?" Alex asked, pressing his ear to the door.

"Yeah, yeah." She answered. "I'm fine, just really had to pee."

Troubled, Alex frowned deeper, not quite believing her a hundred percent. Licking his lips, he moved away from the door as she opened it. She looked up at him, her eyes looking tired and pupils the size pinpricks. Alex stared at her, perplexed by her look. Skyler growled at him, annoyed with his lock on her.

"What, Alex?" She snapped, moody.

"Is there something wrong?" Alex asked her, still not able to put his thumb on it.

Skyler groaned annoyed and pushed past Alex. "You're getting on my last fucking nerve, Alex." she fumed, slamming her bedroom door.

Alex stood there, mouth gaping and eyes wide at her sudden out burst. Just a few hours before they were being playful, kissing and being more civil with each other than they had ever been in the year's time they'd known one another. Sighing quietly and looking to floor, Alex turned and walked back into his room. Turning his light back off, he crawled back into bed and fell asleep, still very troubled.

The next morning, Alex woke before Skyler, which Alex found odd. In the almost week he'd been there, Skyler was always up before him, sometimes by more than two hours. Figuring that, she was just having an off day with the news about Nick. So, he stayed a quiet as he could, so he didn't bother her. When she did get up and come out of her room, Alex was setting at the dining table, a bowl of oatmeal in front of him and the newspaper in his hand.

"Good morning, sleepy head." he said, not looking up from the article he was reading.

"Yeah." Skyler replied, walking into the kitchen and grabbing making a bowl of cereal.

"You feel..." Alex stopped, turning his head to see Skyler going into the pocket of her pajamas, pulling out two of the painkillers the doctors gave her at the hospital, tossing them back into her mouth and downing it with milk straight from the carton. "Are those the extra strength ones?" he asked, putting down his paper.

"Yeah." Skyler nodded, grabbing her bowl of Lucky Charms and going to sit on the couch with it.

"Didn't the doctor tell you to take one as needed."

Skyler raised an eyebrow at him, "Who the hell are you, my fucking nanny? Lay off." she barked, grabbing the tv remote and turned on the tv.

"That's five hundred milligrams of Vicodin at once, Skyler." Alex snapped back.

Skyler rolled her eyes, making the talking motion with her hand has he continued to go off on her. Alex stood up from the table, grabbed his coat off of the coat stand and ripped open the door and slammed it shut after him, knocking several frames off the wall by the door. Skyler rolled her eyes again, taking a bite of cereal and turned up the volume on the tv.

-

Gunnar opened his front door, calling over his shoulder to his wife about what he wanted for dinner. He turned and smiled at Alex, who stood on his door step. The two men had known each other since they met on the set of Kites over Helsinki in 2001. The only other friend Alex was closer too than Gunnar, was Bjorne. Alex smiled at Gunnar, hoping he didn't see the trouble and anger that was still boiling inside of him.

"Hey, Alex." Gunnar smiled back. "What's wrong? Is Skyler okay?"

"Nothing's wrong and Skyler is...Skyler." he answered.

Gunnar narrowed his eyes at his friend, "What happened?" he asked. "I know that look, Alex."

"I'm worried about her, Gun." Alex told him. "I got to her place after my audition last night and found her crying about Nick." A smile pulled across his lips. "I comforted her, we kissed and joked..."

"Wait, wait, wait." Gunnar stopped him. "You can't just mention kissing her and keep going like it's the color of grass. You two kissed? Like on the lips and you didn't die." Gunnar was shaking he was so shocked. "Get your ass in the house and tell me what the hell happened in detail." he told him, grabbing Alex by the sleeve and pulling him into the house.

"Alright." Alex laughed.

"Elva, I'm going to be in my office with Alex!" Gunnar yelled out, pulling Alex upstairs to his office.

"Okay!" Elva yelled back.

Gunnar let Alex into his office, closed and locked the door, then dropped into his office chair across from Alex. "Alright. The kissing."

Alex blushed, "We were sitting on the couch and I was holding her..."

"Comforting her?"

"Yes." Alex nodded. "Talked about Nick for a bit and then we were quiet. I started playing with her hair a bit..."

"What the hell is up with you and woman's hair, dude? I mean honestly, on set and in real life." Gunnar ranted.

"I just...I don't know. But, I asked her why she dyed the underneath of her hair that light blue color. She told me she was bored and was thinking of changing it. I suggested pink and we agreed on a light pink, then she sat up, looked at me and then kissed me."

Gunnar's mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide as saucers.

"Oh, and don't tell anyone or her that I told you or she'll kill me," he added. "Without mercy, were her exact words."

Gunnar recovered mostly. "Yeah, that's sounds like her. But, she kissed you?"

"Yeah. Well, I kissed her once and she hit in the nuts. Then I kissed her on the temple two other times yesterday after coffee and she just eyed me."

"I am fucking stunned." Gunnar said, leaning back in his chair. "My parents would shit themselves, if they heard that."

"I know." Alex nodded.

"Okay, so what happened between then and now?" Gunnar asked, getting down to business.

Alex shook his head, shrugging. "I don't know. We went to bed, she woke me accidentally in the middle of the night and went off on me and I went off on her this morning, which is why I'm here."

"She went off on you?" Gunnar frowned.

"Yeah."

"How? Why?"

"I heard what sounded like a crash, at first I thought it was someone breaking in. But when I went out of my room, I noticed a light on under the bathroom door and I knocked, asking if she was alright. Heard something, you know that sound rice makes when you throw it up in the air and it hits the ground?"

"Yeah." Gunnar nodded.

"Sounded like that. She told me she'd be right out and when she did come out, she went off on me for looking at her and went into her room, slamming the door." he finished explaining.

"And when you went off on her this morning."

"She took two of the painkillers the ER doctor gave her, at the same time."

"Great, just fucking great." Gunnar groaned, rubbing his eyes.

"What?" Alex asked.

"Skyler use to have a drug problem. Painkillers are her drug of choice. She got clean after our parents sent her to treatment." he told him. "Three years clean and that funny sound you heard last night was her dropping them, when you startled her by knocking on the door. She's using again because of Nick's condition."

Alex sighed, his shoulders slumping as disappointment set into him. "What are you going to do?" he asked, meeting Gunnar's eyes.

Gunnar sighed just as hard. "I don't know. I really don't."

-

Skyler sat cross legged on the couch sketching, when she heard the key slid into the deadbolt. Sighing, she went back to drawing. Alex entered the apartment quietly, shrugged off his coat and hung it up, then went into the kitchen to grab a soda. He stood in the little dining room, staring at Skyler as she continued to draw.

"Have you had lunch yet?" he asked, leaning back against the dining table. His breakfast had been taken into the kitchen and his paper was still there, but folded properly.

Skyler finished a bit of shading and set her pencil down, looking up at him. "No." she replied. Her expression seemed tired and lazy to Alex, a look Gunnar had told him to expect with the effect of the painkillers.

Alex nodded, "You wanna go out and get something to eat?" he asked, walking back into the kitchen and tossing his empty soda bottle in the waste basket.

"Not really." She answered, going back to drawing. "I'm not hungry."

Alex dropped his head back, clenching his hands into fists, annoyed. Composing himself, he went out to the living room and sat next to her. "What are you drawing?" he asked, leaning to look at her sketch pad, but Skyler flipped it closed before he could.

"Nothing. Just drawing random shapes." She said, setting her pad on the coffee table. "Where'd you go?" she asked.

"Had an audition." he lied.

"Fun."

Alex chewed on his bottom lip, feeling their relationship slipping back to what it was when they first met and it was eating him alive. But he wasn't going to let it blow up, he didn't care what he had to do. He was going to get this girl, if it took the last breath in his body.

"Come on," he smiled, nudging her. "Come have lunch with me."

"No." she snapped, frowning at him.

Alex pouted, turning on his puppy dog eyes. "Please." he said softly.

"Oh my god, really?" Skyler rolled her eyes, blushing.

Alex pouted more.

"Oh Jesus, fine!" She gave up, throwing her hands up in the air. "I'll go out to eat with you. Shit." Skyler stood up and walked around the couch.

"Where you going, then?" Alex asked, watching her.

"To pee." She answered, stopping seeing the expression on his face. "What, you wanna watch me pee?" she teased, smirking.

"No." Alex smiled back.

Skyler laughed and went into the bathroom. Finishing up in the bathroom, Skyler and Alex went out for lunch.

"Skyler, I wanna talk to you about something." Alex said, setting his fork down.

"Okay." Skyler nodded, taking a sip of her water. "What about?"

"How you're taking your pain medication."

Skyler paused, setting her glass down slowly as she eyed Alex across the table. "What about it?" she asked, her voice barely holding control.

"I know you're abusing it because you want to numb the pain of the accident and possibly loosing Nick. But there are better ways to do that, I can help..."

"You can help?" Skyler snapped, loosing control of her temper. "How? You going to build a time machine and go back to that day and fix it? You going to bring Nick back?" She mocked him. "You can't help any of that and you can't help me." she sneered.

"Yes, I can." Alex told her, sadness and desperation in his face and voice.

"No, you can't. Because I don't want it!" She snapped, getting up.

Alex stood up with her, vaguely aware of the people staring at them. "Please, Skyler. I know you're upset about..."

"Shut up!" Skyler screamed. "I fucking hate you. I hated you when we met and I still hate you. Nothing will change that. So, stop trying to make me and stop trying to help me." Tears filled her eyes as she told him off.

"Skyler!" Alex called out to her as she spun around and ran out of the restaurant.

Pulling out his wallet, Alex dropped money onto the table and ran out of the restaurant after her. They ran down the street, around the building and back to Skyler's apartment building. Alex got to her as she started to push in the security code. He wrapped an arm around her waist and picked her up.

"Let me go, you shithead!" she screamed, trying to squirm herself free.

"Stop it." Alex snapped, holding her tight. "Stop!"

Skyler struggled and growled at him.

"This isn't you, Skyler. You're letting yourself get weak to that shit..."

"I want to be weak!" she barked.

"No, you don't!" Alex yelled back. "The Skyler I know isn't weak. She's stubborn and hard headed, but not weak. Weak wouldn't have been able to deflect me and ignore me like you did." he swallowed. "have." he corrected himself.

Skyler looked up at Alex, her face was stone hard and tears still falling from her eyes. Her front fell away quickly as he brushed her tears away.

"I told you, I'd take care of you." He whispered as Skyler buried her face in his chest. "And I will."