"So what have you guys been up to, other than missing me?" Meredith asked her friends as they sat in the mall food court, munching on a large pizza.

"Well, we'd been having ideas for new musicals," Jaime said. "The one we were thinking about most was a Starship Sequel."

"Really?" Meredith raised her eyebrows. "Who'd play Megagirl?"

"That was pretty much why we didn't do it," Lauren admitted. "We didn't want to delay a season on Downpour."

Meredith snickered and made a motion like she was waving the topic off. "It wouldn't delay the season," she chortled.

"You're the main character and co-writer of the show," Brian pointed out. "There very well might have been a delay."

"They could manage without me for a few… eh," Meredith blanched as she realized they were right. "Okay, fine. That's great. So that's not happening. Anything else?"

"Not really," Brian said. "Calling and texting you and Darren, that's pretty much what we've been doing."

"Aw, you're lost without me," she crooned sarcastically, tearing another large bite from her pizza.

"And Darren!" Jaime added, making her voice childishly high.

"I'm bored," Lauren complained, glancing at the several shopping bags they had stacked next to their table.

"Let's play a game," Brian said, rubbing his hands evilly. "I know! What about 'Guessit'?"

"Yes!" Meredith squealed, dropping her pizza and clapping her hands loudly. "It's been forever since I've played 'Guessit'!"

"Us too, really," said Jaime. "Who's going first?"

"Me!" Lauren shouted, earning them some odd looks from those around them that soon turned into awe as they realized who was sitting at there. "Okay, okay, um…" she thought for a moment. "Got it! It's alive."

"A bird?" Brian jumped on it immediately. Lauren shook her head smugly.

"A fish?" Jaime guessed. Lauren shook her head again.

"A person," Meredith said.

Lauren grinned. "He's an actor."

"Jim Parsons!" Brian shouted.

"Leonardo DiCaprio!" Jaime shouted over him.

"Brad Pitt!" Meredith tried.

"He's handsome," Lauren tried, giving another hint.

"Brad Pitt!" Jaime seconded Meredith's last guess, even though she knew it was wrong.

Brian shrugged. "Erm… Kunal Nayyar?"

"Brian!" Meredith blurted without thinking.

All eyes turned to her.

She could see the questions in Lauren's eyes spinning around, the confusion placed firmly in Brian's, and the wheels turning in Jaime's head as to saving the situation. "Well, if we're going with friends," she said desperately, training the eyes on her, "Joey!"

"Darren," Brian said, playing along though still obviously uncomfortable.

"Dylan," Meredith added, keeping the shaking from her voice with the skills of an actress.

"Walker!" Jaime said, smiling at how her idea had been accepted.

"Moses," Brian said, nodding as if he' put extensive thought into it.

"A.J.," Jaime said.

"It's not one of our friends," Lauren said, shaking her head.

"Damn," Jaime sighed, and they all fell silent, thinking. "Sami Reese after the operation?"

And as they all dissolved into a fit of giggles (and fake laughter for Meredith and Brian), the group of people they'd startled before the game gathered the courage to approach and ask for autographs.

Where are you guys? said her phone's screen as she read the text from Denise. You're not at the apartment!

We'll be there soon, she texted back. We went shopping but Dylan' there.

And they were, in all honesty, on their way back to their apartments. Except she was in the passenger seat and Brian was the designated driver. Lauren and Jaime had switched seats, too. The radio was playing softly for a background to the quiet. It was playing some extremely offensive rap song that she guessed was probably from Chris Brown.

Brian apparently decided what she had, and his hand turned the knob a notch to switch the station - and then they all froze as they heard:

A bird of flame flies through the air, / a child's cry rings out.

There was a silence that seemed very thin. There are silences that are so loud they push on your ears and make you hear a high note about an octave above middle C in place of the words you know the other person should say but won't - and then there are thin silences because you know something you want to fill up the air is going to. This was the second kind of silence - empty, respectful, hollow, with just the right ring of familiarity and appreciation. There was a new-found love for the song they'd accidentally switched on among them, and they listened with rapt attention as the voice of an angel sang one of the saddest stories ever known to man.

"I don't think I'm going to make it through without crying," Lauren said, her voice thicker than the silence she'd just broken. She sniffed as quietly as she could, and wiped her eyes with her wrist.

"It's a lot sadder when you understand it," Jaime agreed with her in a whisper, wiping her own teary eyes.

Meredith, who was used to hearing the song while understanding it, let her friends cry; she had the first time she really got the song.

"You sing it better," said a whisper in her ear.

Brian whispered the true compliment into her ear and couldn't help smiling when she turned to him in surprise. "Me?" she whispered back, her voice low so as to still hear the song but convey her message all the same. He smiled at her shocked face. "But she sounds like an angel."

Brian smirked, but it was friendly and true. "Angels fall silent when you're present in respect."

The blush he loved crept up into her cheeks. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You're being ridiculous," he said, shaking his head at her. "Why can't you believe it?"

"Because you're not falling silent."

Brian certainly hadn't been expecting that. He was completely distracted, turning to look her square in the eyes, the shocked look on his face mirroring hers. She looked as if she couldn't believe her own words. "I'm an angel?" he asked her quietly.

"You are," she responded hesitantly, and it was then that he realized he was very close to her. So close, in fact, that her breath was once more cleansing his skin and her eyes were once more drawing him further towards her -

"BRIAN LOOK OUT!"

Brian jerked his head away from his goddess at the terrified shriek just in time to hear a loud, warning honk, and see the front of a semi truck bearing down upon them because they'd drifted into the wrong lane. Without thinking any further, the only thought in his mind to keep the woman in the passenger seat who was hiding her face behind her hands safe, he jerked the steering wheel further to the left, knowing it was the only way he was going to get away.

Lauren screamed in fear and clutched Jaime, who was staring ahead of her like a deer into headlights. Meredith was still hiding herself behind her hands, her now-drained-of-color cheeks barely visible. But the car swiveled to the side, and he thought, for a moment, that he might be able to not hit the stores on the sides of the road or the semi coming towards him. But then, his moment of hope was destroyed as he felt a jolt and heard Meredith wail, leaping as far from her side as she could and clinging to his arm, and slammed his foot on the brake, trying to stop the spinning of the car that had started.

And then there was another terrible crunching sound, another horrible screech from one of the girls, and Brian was hit forcefully by the airbag and everything went black.