A/N: This part gave me trouble! I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies, plot holes, out of character behavior... I'm trying! My problem is that I have the attention span of a gnat.

And Thank You DarkWolf Publications! I don't know what else to say... except that I really hope I don't disappoint!

I could probably mess with this forever and still not be happy with it... Okay, here we go.

/

Inside Cole's apartment, an invisible girl was trying to figure out where to rest for the night. Contrary to what Cole might think, she didn't spend all her time stalking him. When she was around, she usually announced her presence to him. No, most of her time was spent struggling against the wind that constantly threatened to take her out over the bay. But still... she was always able to find her way back to him. Somehow.

Staying put while indoors was easier... but now where should she rest? The bed was definitely out of the question. And Cole was sleeping on the couch... She glanced at him as he slept. He didn't look like he was sleeping very well, despite her attempts to calm him. The girl could see him slowly grinding his teeth as he slept. If he clenched his jaw any tighter, he was going to crack a tooth.

Eventually she settled for hovering over the coffee table. She didn't exactly need a comfortable surface. She curled up on her side, or at least she felt like she was. Even she couldn't see her own body when she was like this...

This is the weirdest sleepover ever.

She had never spent so much time around him before. Not that she wasn't glad that he wanted her to stay, but... what if she became human again during the night? That would be bad... She wasn't sure if she wanted him to know the truth about her just yet. Mostly because she wasn't sure what the truth about herself really was.

At first, she'd been sure she was a ghost, that she was dead. But that didn't seem to be the case now... so then, what was she?

Still, she wasn't too worried about becoming human at the moment... staying human was proving to be more and more difficult. It was lucky Cole hadn't seen her little stunt at the hospital... and it was shocking he wasn't more suspicious of her human side. She supposed he had enough of his own problems to deal with... But he seemed to like her, he wanted to save her from this place...

For once, the girl was glad she was invisible so she couldn't see herself blushing. She glanced at Cole again. He certainly cleaned up nicely. He looked very handsome now that he had showered and shaved, despite the frown on his face.

Still don't remember me, huh? But you don't remember anything from that day, do you?

The girl shuddered, trying to push away the memory of dying in horrible, gory agony...

I wish I could forget it too...

Cole grunted in his sleep, distracting her from her morbid thoughts. She saw his fingers twitching randomly. The girl sighed, and the apartment's curtains fluttered. When she'd saved his life and brought him back to her apartment, he'd looked her right in the eye and hadn't recognized her.

Maybe she never should have let him see her as a flesh and blood human, but she'd felt at the time that she had no choice once she'd seen him struggling to stay alive... He had been in such pain.

So all she could do now was try and help him... He deserved that much from her, especially considering how her stalker had tried to kill him at Archer's Square. But what if she couldn't help him? What if she couldn't become human again? She could barely control her own body... She wondered if she would eventually be permanently stuck like this... a voice with no body.

Even so, there was no way she could let the wind take her now... not when there were apparently psychos out there who wanted to kill this poor guy, and they knew about her, too... wonderful.

Why do they want to hurt him?

Those thugs must have been behind the explosion that tore apart the city. Because of those people, now she was... a freak. She was even worse off than Cole. At least other people could see him. He'd probably argue that she'd gotten the better end of the deal because she hadn't endured all the pain and ridicule that he had, but still...

She was glad he'd stopped trying to deny her existence and wanted her to stay with him. But now she had a bigger problem... What was she going to do once he came looking for Shane? What if she couldn't make herself reappear?

Fuck. This isn't going to end well, is it?

/

Cole didn't sleep well. He should have known that he would start to dream in this place...

Or was this a memory?

He was on the side of the road, extending his hand to a lovely young woman with long blonde hair. Cole was supposed to be working... A heavy package was on his back, but Cole figured it could wait.

"I'm Cole," he said to her, waiting expectantly. She grinned at him.

"Nice to meet you, Cole," she said, placing her tiny, pale hand in his. It felt cool and smooth, and Cole didn't want to let go.

But what was her name?

"So..." Cole began, leaning his bike against his side. "Do you work here?" he asked, waving a hand at the building.

The girl brushed her long hair over her shoulder, her blue eyes flashing in the sun. She was about a foot shorter than him, with milky white skin and pale pink lips. She didn't seem to be wearing much makeup, but that didn't matter to Cole. She was beautiful.

"No, I was here for a job interview. Which I think I aced, but we'll see," she said with a pleased smirk on her face. "I'm just glad you hit me after I was done with that," she added, gesturing to the tear in her skirt. Cole grimaced.

"I'm really sorry..." he said, fidgeting with his bike. This girl made him really nervous for some reason. Her eyes were so bright... "I could pay for it..."

"Or you could buy me a drink," she said, winking at him. Cole's eyes lit up.

"Okay," he said, smiling back at her. "Trish loves this one place on High Street, or maybe..."

Cole stuttered to a stop as the playful look on the girl's face died. Seriously, how stupid was he? No girl ever asked for a guy to buy her a drink because she wanted to just be friends...

"Oh," she said, tugging convulsively on her blonde hair. "It's alright. Never mind. I'll... I'll just see you around, okay? I have to get to work."

"But..." Cole began, unsure of what to say. He didn't want her to just walk away. "I... okay. Bye."

Cole watched her saunter off down the street in her torn skirt, a sinking feeling in his chest. He felt even worse when a large man stormed up to her and grabbed her arm. The girl pulled back, attempting to break the grip, but her arm looked like nothing but a twig in that man's hand. The large man seemed to be yelling something at her. The girl flinched away from him.

Cole grit his teeth, fury rising in his chest. People were walking by, but nobody was coming to help her... This package would just have to wait a little longer.

He started moving forward.

He halted momentarily when his cell phone started ringing. Furious, Cole looked down at his belt, sure that his boss was wondering where the hell he was...

The big man had backed the girl up against a bus stop. Why was he the only one seeing this? Was the rest of the world blind?

Cole put his phone to his ear.

"MacGrath, where the hell are you?" his boss snapped in his ear. "We've got packages to deliver, or did you forget?"

"Jesus, Jerry, relax, I'm coming!" Cole said bitingly.

"What's got you all worked up?" the boss said, a curious note in his voice.

"Nothing, alright?" Cole said curtly, his hand crushing his phone as he watched the blonde flinching away from that big bastard. She was trying to slip away, but the guy wasn't giving her the chance. "I'm on my way."

"Well, hurry your ass up, kid."

The line went dead. Cole quickly hung up, clipping his phone back onto his belt. When he looked back up the large man was gone and the blonde was leaning up against a bus stop, a hand over her heart.

Cole caught her eye questioningly.

"You okay?" he shouted at her over the sound of cars whizzing by.

It broke Cole's heart when he saw that the smile she gave him was... shattered. It was the smile of someone who had been beaten down and then beaten down some more... but was still somehow soldiering on. But then her brave face went back on, and she stuck her tongue out at him. Who was that guy, anyway? Cole would love to teach him a lesson...

He still didn't want to just walk away. He'd never been much of the knight in shining armor type of guy, but for some reason he wanted to be right now. He grabbed his bike and approached her.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked when he got closer.

"Just peachy," she said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"You sure? Because I could..."

You could what, huh? Rush to her rescue? You don't know this girl, and she doesn't know you. Besides, you're no hero.

The girl was watching him with one eyebrow quirked, like she didn't quite know what to make of him.

"I could pay for that skirt," Cole finished lamely. The blonde patted his elbow.

"Really, it's alright," she said, flashing him another perfect smile. "It was an accident, and..."

His phone began ringing again, cutting off whatever she was about to say.

Really, Jerry? I said I was coming for fuck's sake.

The girl gave him a look like You gonna answer that?

"Sorry," Cole said as he put his phone to his ear. But the person on the other end of the line was definitely not his boss...

And the next thing he knew was pain beyond imagining... and that very same girl was dying in front of him, and Cole wanted nothing more than to save her. Because if she died... he would die too.

And yet he found himself lying dead on the ground, somehow aware of the fact that that lovely girl was still out there somewhere... Then the dead had flooded his mind, drowning out everything else, everything but the thought of her.

Cole jolted himself awake, his fingernails digging into his palms. Moonlight was still pouring in through the window... it was nowhere close to morning yet. Damn.

Cole rolled over onto his back, his bloody palms staining the couch. Oops, Trish's ghost was going to be pissed. She loved this couch.

Why... why did he have to get his memory back right now? He didn't want to remember this now. That girl was dead because of him. He'd failed to save her before and after the explosion. But maybe he could still save Shane.

No, not maybe... he had to save her. If he could just save this one person, maybe he could somehow make up for being responsible for taking the life of that girl...

He nearly smiled when he heard a light snoring coming from somewhere in the room. So Sam hadn't left after all, she was still here... He briefly debated waking her up, just to have somebody to talk to for a minute, but he didn't want to seem like a weakling.

Without her sweet voice soothing his fears, it was nearly another hour before Cole drifted back into unconsciousness.

/

When Cole woke up, he was surrounded by warmth. He hadn't felt so warm and comfortable since... he couldn't remember when. Maybe since the last time he had a woman sleeping next to him.

When he finally opened his eyes he nearly fell off the couch, because he did in fact have a woman sleeping with him... there was a transparent angel sleeping over him, as if she were lying on an invisible surface.

She was lying curled up on her side like he was, her head resting on her arms as she slept, her long silver hair falling in her face. Her feathery wings were folded against her back. She was the same angel he'd seen right after Kessler had knocked him out, he was sure of it.

Cole bolted off the couch, his body going right through hers. He was so busy staring at her that he tripped over the coffee table, landing on his ass with a loud bang.

"Mhm?" she mumbled sleepily as she began to stir.

The angel lifted her head off her arms. She looked him right in the eye as he scrambled to his feet.

"Are we leaving now?" she asked, hair fluttering around her face.

"Sam?" Cole stammered. The angel quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Yes?" she said hesitantly. "I said I'd be here when you woke up."

The angel adjusted herself into a standing position. Well, more of a floating position. She hovered a foot above the floor. Her feathery wings stretched out behind her, sending a light breeze over Cole.

This was it, then. He was dead, and Sam was an angel waiting to collect him and then take him to... wherever his spirit was supposed to go. Had he done enough horrible things to warrant an entire afterlife in hell?

But even as he thought that, she shimmered and vanished.

"You lied to me," Cole mumbled. "You said you weren't an angel."

"What are you talking about?" Sam said, sounding exasperated. "I'm not an angel."

"Yes you are!" Cole spat. "I just saw you!"

He stormed into the bedroom, gathering up his hiking boots. Hopefully they would last longer than his sneakers. Then he dragged his winter coat out of the closet. It was getting cold, and he was going to need warmer clothes.

"You... you saw me?" Sam's voice stammered in his ear. "But nobody's seen me!"

I'm dead or I'm crazy. I'm crazy... or I'm dead. So which one is it, MacGrath?

"Well I just did! What kind of game are you playing, anyway?" Cole demanded.

"I'm not playing any game, Cole..." But she didn't sound so sure.

Cole hastily pulled on his boots. He needed to get out of here. After all those times of asking Sam what she was... he should have known better. He should have known that he really didn't want to know the answer... Cole just wanted to get out.

"What do I look like?" Sam said. The fear in her voice made Cole pause. He glanced toward the direction of where the voice was coming from, and just for a few seconds... he saw her again. A thin, beautiful girl hovering near him with a worried look on her face, elegant wings framing her form. Focusing on her face was too difficult so Cole focused on other details... she was dressed in a plain white tank top and... a pencil skirt with a tear in it.

"You," Cole whispered, his hands shaking. The shoelaces he'd been trying to tie slipped through his fingers. "You're... her."

"What?"

"No..." Cole's hands went to his scalp. "I... no... you're her."

This was not happening right now. Of all the things that had happened to him lately... this was the worst. The girl he felt personally responsible for killing... here, with him now. Cole leaped to his feet, but his legs felt like jello.

Sam shimmered and vanished once more.

"You're dead," Cole murmured. In his anxiety and fear, a bolt of lightning escaped from his hand, shattering the lamp nearby.

You're that girl I hit with my bike! And then you died right in front of me as I tried to get to you! You're the girl from my dreams. And my nightmares...

"I'm dead?" Sam echoed, her voice quivering.

"I saw you die... over and over in my head!" Cole managed, making his way unsteadily to the door, tripping over his untied shoelaces. He needed to escape from this. "Why are you here!?"

"I..." Sam stammered. "I don't know! I'm... I'm sorry, I just... You were the last thing I remembered from before..."

"You... what?" Cole began, his thoughts a jumbled mess.

"I... you were so kind... I thought I could... I don't know, help you..." she continued faintly.

Cole said nothing, his brain felt like it had short circuited.

"But who cares, because apparently I'm dead!" Sam howled hysterically.

Sam started to cry. Cole jumped as the window was suddenly thrown open and a cold wind swept through the apartment. The bedroom door slammed in Cole's face. The sound of Sam crying slowly faded into the distance.

Cole simply stood there, his mind desperately trying to process what he'd just learned.

You... you remembered me? Why didn't you tell me? I remembered you... but I didn't know you were her!

But for some reason, getting to the bottom of exactly who and what Sam was didn't seem so important at the moment. She was the angel... but she was also his friend. She'd helped him stay alive, she'd comforted him when he tried to sleep.

What kind of friend was he? He'd promised that they were sticking together, and what was his first move after finding out the truth? He'd told her that she was dead and demanded to know what she was doing here... when she'd made it abundantly clear that all she wanted to do was be his friend.

Cole staggered to the open window and leaned out of it.

"Sam!" he screamed, not even caring that he was bound to attract Reapers. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it, I'm a fucking asshole!"

Bitterly cold wind whipped by his head. The air smelled like snow... He thought he could hear crying in the distance, but nobody answered him.

"Come back!" he yelled. "Please!"

Cole climbed down the side of the building, despair filling his heart. He'd just upset the one person... disembodied voice... angel... whatever she was... that had stuck by him through all of this.

This just gets better and better... She said she'd help me if she could... But why would she want to help me now?

He just had to hope she'd come back.