To LJP: ( eyes dart around with a huge smile om my face) How you know me well…hehe.

Little Gretta heard the murmuring in her head and slowly opened her little eyes. She looked on instinct to the door of the bedroom.

Argyro and Yorik smiled at Gretta, and she quickly returned the smile. Her two brothers motioned for her to leave the bed and come with them. Whispering in Gretta's mind, the prank they wanted to pull.

Gretta smiled widely, showing her little white teeth as she nodded her head in agreement. Looking up to her left and right she checked on her parents, making sure that both of them were asleep. Slowly she began to slip down the bed, always cautious on not making a lot of movement.

Her little feet made contact with the wooden floor and she slowly slinked away to the door. Reaching the door, she turned around to look at her parents once again. Smiling as her mother unconsciously moved closer to her father.

Creeping out the door, she made sure to not make the floorboards squeak as they sometimes did. Leaving behind her mother and father, and feeling pretty good about how their prank was already developing.

Miss Parker walked down the hallway as if in trance. This was too familiar, this feeling that she had.

Miss Parker was the first to enter the room. She was assaulted by the image that was before her.

There was a white tent with an opening at the front.

Her body started to tremble as the lowered temperature in the room began to crawl and lace itself upon her skin.


She approached the opening, and it was though she was transported back in time almost 30 years, but the image before her was all wrong.

Jarod's body lay still as stone on the examiners table. He was still clothed in the blood stained clothes that he died in. His eyes were shut. Miss Parker approached the table, this sudden reality too new to accept. She placed her hand on his chest.

No motion.

No breath.

No heartbeat.

No more.

Anger and sadness melded within her. She grabbed him by the jacket he wore.

"WAKE UP!" She yelled.

Parker thrashed around in the bed waking Jarod as he found her pressed against him.


Everything was gone now. The breath that she breathed into her body: Gone. The existence of the world around her: Gone. The beating of her heart: Gone.

It was all over.

She was too late.

"WAKE UP DAMN YOU! DON'T YOU DARE THINK THAT I'M FALLING FOR THIS!" She shook the lifeless body as she yelled.

"YOU'RE A LIAR!YOU LIED TO ME! I KNEW YOU LIED TO ME! I KNEW IT!" She screamed while shaking the corpse.

"DON'T LIE TO ME JAROD! DON'T YOU DARE LIE TO ME! DON'T YOU DARE LEAVE ME! DON'T YOU DARE!"

But what caused Jarod to fully wake up was the immediate noise of Parker crying. Quickly pulling himself awake he began to shake her.

"PARKER……PARKER WAKE UP!" He yelled as he shook her.

Her eyes opened and she cried out as she tried to pull away as she let out a frightening yell.

"HEY, HEY…..IT'S OK IT'S OK!" Jarod screamed to grab her attention as he grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her.

She continued to let out huge wails.

"IT WAS JUST A NIGHTMARE! IT WAS JUST A NIGHTMARE!" He screamed trying to make her rationalize.

But the 'nightmare' was still fresh, and she was not recognizing him as she attempted to pull away from him again.

Jarod grabbed her face and made her look at him.

"MANDY! MANDY IT'S ME!" Jarod yelled in her face as Parker looked into his eyes.

He saw the recognition in her eyes, and so he began to speak softly.

"It's me Mandy. It's Jar. I'm here ok? I'm here." Jarod comforted the little girl he knew. The woman that was crying out wasn't Parker. It was his old friend.

Her eyes pierced his own ,and before he knew it, she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly as the tears continued to travel.

"Is everything all right in here?" Ethan asked from the doorway as the children and adults stood behind him looking to see if something was wrong.

Jarod had not seen his little brother earlier but hardly took his presents into account as his thoughts were concentrated on the woman crying and shaking in his arms.

"Yeah were fine. We just need a few minutes." Jarod spoke in plural, feeling as though he knew what she was going through. Having had many nightmares himself.

He also knew that the death of Thomas haunted her nightly, and really he wasn't surprised by her nightmare one bit.

Ethan looked at the two and listened to the voices in his mind. Slowly he turned around and began to usher his nieces and nephews away to give his brother and sister some privacy.

All she could do was hold on to him as tight as humanly possible. Her head was buried between his neck and shoulder as she continued to cry.

It had happened every night since she had rescued the children. Never had she experienced one so vividly.

Reliving that moment was the one thing in life she never wanted to experience again.

Now that she was calming down and his arms were around her she let last few tears flow down her face as she breathed in a deep breath, and with it came Jarod's scent in her nostrils. The wave of emotion that passed through her almost causing her to cry again.

The last time that she had held him this close he had been when she held his bloody body in her arms as she escaped hell. She remembered kissing his cold lips and whispering words that she had never had the courage to say.

Remembering how her heart broke as she read his letter, his last wishes. Throwing herself down to keep the coffin from closing, telling him all the things he had tried to push her to say. And she had kissed his lips again. She had had to let go of him.

Though now, now with her arms wrapped around him she could hold on to him for as long as she wanted. He was alive and warm against her.

And at the thought she slightly nuzzled his neck.

Now out of every reaction he knew to expect out of her, out of anything his mind had prepared him for: anger, hate, detachment- but the feel of her nose as it tantalizingly brushed against his neck made all brain function seize.

For the first time in his life he was shocked frozen.

His eyes closed at the sensation of her lips brushing against his neck as a small shiver ran its way up his spine.

Hammering away in his chest, Jarod's heart pumped furiously at the sensations.

Parker didn't know what she was doing. Emotions and instinct having taken over her actions, making her do things that normally she would never do.

She closed her eyes as she nestled his neck more.

Losing Jarod had been the worst experience in her life. Still she didn't know what she should say……do……to give him a hint, an inclination of what he meant to her.

As both of their chests pressed against one another's, and their heartbeats seemed to beat as one, all she could think of was when they were children- How close they had been all those years ago. Then something within her, something that she had held back all of these years took over.

Jarod's brain was barely functioning intellectually as the sensory overload that his body was processing overruled that of concern for the woman that was causing the sensation.

Forgetting the fact that she was waking from a nightmare that he thought she was reliving Thomas' death, it was as though his body had told his brain to take a hike.

But when she started to actually pull back from his hold, his brain snapped back into control.

Coming to realize the gravity of the situation, having lost control for a few short minutes, he began to pull away himself.

And were it not for the fact that as she pulled away her blue orbs locked with his intense brown, he would have let go of her all together. But that look……he had not seen that look in her eyes in forever it seemed.

And that's when she spoke those words……words that had changed them……once more.

"You know girls mature faster than boys…" Parker whispered.

Breath catching as he knew what was to come next, but even though he knew, the gentle brush of her lips as their two mouths touched- with the same innocents of years ago…….his eyes stayed open in shock and then slowly closed at the sensation.