Dinah walked through the silent landscape of herself. She was cold and frightened. A brittle wind blew through the landscape and she shivered in fear.

"Hello?" She called out. "Is anybody here?"

No one answered.

It was so tempting to turn around and return to the pavilion with it's soft warm blankets and pillows, to sleep out her days, but she knew it was time to go back. For days Glenn had been calling to her through the mist. He needed her, Dinah knew this in her bones. Glenn needed her the way he needed water. They had an En between them; a karmic bond that could no more be denied than it could be broken.

As Dinah walked through the mist she scanned the horizon, desperately looking for something to help her. Eventually she came to a small shed, about the size of an outhouse, with a ladder going up through the roof and into the sky. When she saw it she began running towards it, dropping the blanket she had wrapped around her, her bare feet slammed against the cracked and broken earth. When she reached the shed she wrenched open the door and stared at the ladder in triumph. Rolling up the sleeves of her tunic style shirt she placed her hands on the rungs and stared up into the clouds, the ladder seemed to go on and on.

"If this is how I'm going to get back, then this what I'm going to have to do," Dinah muttered to herself as she began climbing.

Meanwhile. . .

Remy sat up in the boys dorm common room sipping a beer and playing with a deck of cards. He watched Glenn sleeping on the sofa, the rise and fall of his chest as the boy slept, his wings spilling over onto the floor in a pool of liquid darkness. Remy shuffled the cards absentmindedly, intent on his watch of the boys while Ororo sat up in the girls' dorm, keeping an eye on Saya and Sparrow.

Something didn't feel right to Remy, after prowling around the boys dorm he quietly let himself out into the hall and looked up and down the darkened corridor. Glancing uneasily over his shoulder, he gently shut the door behind him and started walking down the hall. It was a weird prickling sensation between his shoulder blades, as though someone were watching him. When he reached the top of the stairs that lead up to the boys dorm he paused in a moment of quiet wonder as the antique music box that sat on the end table by the stairs softly played Chopin in perfect tune. The music box had been broken and silent for years.

Walking on past the eery music box he descended the stairs until he stood on the main staircase gazing out the window onto the front lawn. A simple silver ladder stuck up out of the ground. Narrowing his distinctive eyes, Remy walked down the last few steps and pulled open the door. The chill January air nipped at his bare arms but he ignored it, closing the door behind him he began to walk towards the ladder. As he approached it he realized that it was glowing gently in the moonlight, and beautiful patterns and whorls covered the delicate ladder. It came straight up out of the grass and went up into the air about 20 feet.

Despite it's alluring qualities, instinct told him not to touch it, that something dear would be lost if he did.

The next morning Remy came down the stairs and paused. The ladder was no longer on the front lawn. There was no sign that it had ever been there when he went out to investigate. Wondering if he had dreamed it, he shrugged his shoulders and went inside to find something to eat.

He watched as a table walked down the hallway towards him and stopped directly in front of him. The flowers in the crystal vase began to rearrange themselves in a traditional ikebana arrangement. Walking around the table he walked into the kitchen as Hank was coming up from the lab.

"Have you been working all night?" Remy asked in disbelief as Hank collapsed at the table.

"I'm worried about Dinah, and I'm simply overrun with lab work. I'm exhausted," Hank groaned as Remy placed a cup of coffee in front of his teammate.

"Let me watch Dinah for a few hours, you go on and get some sleep. I'll come wake you up if anything happens," Remy offered genially.

"Are you sure Remy? I would hate to inconvenience you," Hank began, but stopped when Remy put his hand up. "Very well, just make sure that Glenn doesn't spent more than an hour with her. It's hard enough trying to get a response from her without having to deal with his grief."

"I understand," Remy said as Hank picked up his coffee and left the kitchen.

Remy made his way down into the sub basement and into the room where Dinah laid prone in the bed. There was a chart that logged the times when Dinah needed to be turned, to avoid bed sores, and machines beeped softly as they monitored her condition.

"Ooh petite," he murmured, smoothing her hair out of her face. "I'm sorry I never spent much time with you when you were awake. Everyone is so worried about you. Are you in there?"

On Dinah's mindscape. . .

Dinah climbed. She didn't dare look down, simply kept climbing until she was exhausted. Clinging to the rungs she stared up into the fog that loomed closer and closer. It was a thick miasma that lingered about twenty feet above her head. She had a hunch that if she could just make it to the fog she would be safe. Closing her eyes tight she struggled to find a last little kernel of strength inside of herself, letting out a sigh she wasn't aware she had been holding, Dinah began to climb towards the cloud.