"You wanted to see me?" Casey asked walking into the office and sitting down across from Ed.
"It's about Ricky."
Casey bit the inside of her lip, she didn't want to have this conversation, she never wanted to see or think about Ricky ever again.
"He's not doing so good."
Casey shifted in her chair, "And I would care because?"
"Casey, don't play that game, I know that you care about the kid, that you love him."
"I do not!" argued Casey weakly. "It was just a one night stand thing, I got a little attached but I'm over it now."
"Well, I think you need to see this then," he said waving his hand and a kind of television appeared. She saw Ricky at numerous bars, passing out as soon as he stumbled into his apartment at night. She felt how lonely he was, how sad, but most of all she felt his anguish and it equaled her own. She saw him with a woman, touching her, kissing her, but she didn't feel her own pain, she felt his, and for a moment she thought that it might consume her soul. Her own anguish was magnified with his and she closed her eyes to stop it. When she opened it she was on the floor, tears running down her face.
"Why are you making me see this, what did I do to deserve this? You know I love him, you know I want to see him but you won't let me, why are you hurting us like this?"
"That's precisely what I've been asking myself. Of course when people come here they're devastated and so are the loved ones they've left behind. But the dead find peace here and when they don't we send them back to finish their life's journey and most come back content. Look at Amy, she found out what it felt like to love and she found peace with her father's death and the part Ian played in it. Paige found Kevin again and resolved her feelings for him. But you and Rafe, no, you two have been the plague of me since you got back so I've decided to send both of you back, for one day, you can say your good-byes, and maybe find peace in your destiny. Goodbye Casey."
Casey sat up with a start. She was here, she was back on Earth.
She ran the whole way to Ricky's apartment building and had to stop and catch her breath before she ran up the stairs. She burst into his apartment and found him sleeping on the couch.
"Ricky! Ricky, I'm back!" she said running over to him. "Ricky?" she asked shaking his shoulder. "Ricky, wake up." He didn't move.
He was hardly breathing and his skin was pale and sweaty. She ran to the phone and called 9-1-1.
"Casey, do you know what happened?" asked Frank as he rushed in with a gurney.
"No, I walked in and he wouldn't wake up and he wasn't hardly breathing, you gotta help him!" said Casey grabbing the key around her neck and praying to God that he would be okay.
"Stand back and we will." Said Frank as he and his partner knelt over Ricky.
"Okay, it looks like alcohol poisoning, pulse and respiration are thready, we better get him to the hospital," said Frank as they lifted him onto the gurney. "Casey, do you have any idea how long he's been like this?"
"No, can I come with you in the ambulance-,"
"Only family-,"
"Frank! I don't have anyway to get to the hospital, I'll stay out of your way, I promise."
"Okay, hurry up."
"Ricky, it's okay, I'm back," she said holding his hand as they rode to the hospital. "You have to be okay," she whispered more to herself than to him.