A/N: The Kool-Aid thing was from a comedy routine by Dane Cook. He doesn't like it when juice wears tights. :D

Welcome back, MISSZ-SPARR0W! A most interesting theory you've got there…let's see if it holds up, eh?

Chapter VIII: A Misguided Requiem For A Dream

"I'd give up forever to touch you, 'cause I know that you'd feel me somehow. You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be, and I don't wanna go home right now. All I can taste is this moment, and all I can breathe is your life. Well sooner or later, it's over. I just don't wanna miss you tonight. And I don't want the world to see me, 'cause I don't think that they'd understand. Well everything's made to be broken. I just want you to know who I am." – Goo Goo Dolls

When she turned over her shoulder a second time, she caught a momentary flash of him, rushing back to his hiding place behind the doorframe. She bit down on her lower lip to keep from smiling, turning back to her work. She would catch him eventually. Squeezing the water out of her washrag, she resumed scrubbing at the stained tile, pretending she didn't notice when she heard his heavy footsteps ease back into the room to watch her. She hummed a few bars of a random melody to herself before breaking the silence.

"That's right. You just go ahead and slink around, you bad boy. I want you to think good and hard about what you've done, and how you're going to improve yourself."

"Ah already apologahzed, darlin'," he said with a grin, throwing his hands up defenselessly. "An' ah meant it sincerely. Yore not gowna punish me, are yew?"

She scrubbed harder, using her fingernail to help remove the splatters of gravy that had begun to crust over. "Well now, I don't know. I haven't quite made up my mind what I'm going to do with you." She let out a few chuckles, while thinking of all the suitable 'punishments' she could give him.

He strolled closer, his tall shadow falling over her. "Weyll good. That gives me tahm to perhaps sway yew on yer verdict."

"Maybe…" she remarked coolly, suddenly turning to look at him, sitting up on her heels. She couldn't help laughing again when he was quick to put on a bashful act, feigning that his eyes had been trained on the slowly disappearing stain on the floor, rather than fixated on her backside. "But in the end, I could rule that you spilled the gravy on purpose, just so you could get me into this oh-so-tantalizing position. God only knows how long you've been watching me, and it wasn't due to the thrill of stain removal." With a look that said 'beat-that', she got down on all fours again and turned her attention back to cleaning.

"Now now, ah would never spill any o' yore tasty food on purpose," he said, his tone turning serious. "Not even jus' to get yew into this position yew speak of. Heyll, if ah wawna do thayt…" His voice dropped to a low whisper as he knelt down next to her, his fingertips coursing over her hip, feather-light, across the sinuous curve that led to her waist, "…ah jus' gotta PUT yew in thayt position."

Trying to ignore the pleasurable shudder that threatened to make her whole body tremble while he stroked over her stomach, working his way to her breasts, she cleared her throat and continued scrubbing as usual. He was testing her in the worst way, seeing how long it would take her to succumb to him. And she loved every minute. It was their little game, one in which everybody won. "Good point there…so does this mean my case no longer holds any ground? Seems to me I'M the one who's being punished now."

"Oh, this isn't punishment, darlin'…but ah can easily arrange fer it." He leaned his face close to hers, his stubbly cheek against her smooth cheek. She found that she had to stop scrubbing; she was simply no longer able to concentrate. It was when he abandoned the soft touch of before, his hand closing over her breast and giving it a firm squeeze, that she broke. And he was ready for her.

Acknowledging that he had finally driven her mad with lust, her lips groped forward to reunite themselves with his, but he had other plans. He deftly wrapped his other arm around her slim figure and jumped to his feet, pulling her up with him in his arms. She let out a shriek of surprise before dissolving into giggles as he swiveled her around in his grip, getting her into a position that was comfortable for the both of them; his arms resting beneath her shoulders and the crook of her knees. At this, he stalked out of the room, turning sideways through the kitchen doorway to fit them both through it, a Frankenstein carrying his bride over the threshold and towards the stairs to begin their honeymoon.

As she wrapped her arms around him, tightly hugging his neck, Frank suddenly invaded her thoughts. The late Frank Tristan. Sigh. It was too good to be true. Too good to be true…

EXACTLY

It was with this one simple sensible word, shouted at her by her realistic-minded subconscious, that she realized in the dream what she had realized in reality the night before.

These fantasies were her way of torturing herself, ripping away every tattered shred of dignity she had left. She was sure that no man could ever love her after Frank was through with her. So she felt she had to create someone to love her without condition. A man who would take a shovel to all her problems and lay them to rest. A man who had started to materialize even when she was awake.

"What is happening to me?" she said out loud.

"What'd yew say?"

She looked up at the man who carefully cradled her in his arms, staring in disbelief. They were now in the foyer, the golden sunset spilling through the screen door but slowly making a changeover to purple twilight. "Please…put me down."

The look in her eyes made him stop in his tracks. Even with the mind of a writer, he had no way to describe what he saw, but the deep fear their appearance put into him was unmistakable. Already, he knew where this was going. And he knew this particular dream wasn't going to end well. "What's wrong, darlin'?" he asked, trying to remain cheerful.

"I said, put me down," she said more forcefully, loosening her grip around his neck. "We need to talk about something."

"Can it wait?" While he knew there was no sense in prolonging the inevitable, he couldn't help hoping that there was some way they could avoid this.

She shook her head, solemn as the grave. "Not really. No."

With the briefest hesitation, he settled her down on the ground, not letting go of her even when her feet were firmly planted on the floor.

"I think…I've been lying to myself," she began, speaking with a great deal of pauses between phrases, trying to choose her words as carefully as possible. "I think I've tried to make myself believe that you're real...and Frank is gone...and that all this…" she gestured around her, the room of the house she longed to live in. "…is more than just a misbegotten…flight of the imagination. But I can't dwell on dreams. Especially when what I've created…in my head…starts creeping into reality."

"Yew mean last naht?" he asked, trying to smile, but it came out rather sheepish. Just the thought of the way she had looked in the kitchen, outside of dreams, made him weak in the knees. Her blood-red hair…the seductive aroma of vanilla that hung over every inch of her… "Ah jus' wawnted to see yew, is awl. Mah culinary goddess."

She closed her eyes and sighed deeply, leaning her forehead against his chest as though about to swoon. How she loved the sound of that…it made her never want to cook for anyone else again, only him. But, she thought, it was nothing more than herself willing him to say what she wanted to hear. She was pulling the strings. "This whole thing really has me…questioning my sanity."

He gently took hold of her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. "It's not yew who's crazy."

"Well it sure feels that way..." Then, as she pulled out of his grip, she suddenly began to snicker uncontrollably, the same delirious laughter that had erupted from her lips the night she got that phone call from Frank. "This is...unbelievable. This is nothing more…than just your…voice in my head…and I'm still addressing you…as though you're an actual person..."

She expected him to look at her as though the very last piece of mind she had had crumbled away, but he was anything but taken aback. He just shook his head as though regretful, and he suddenly looked very old to her. "Jus' know one thang: Ah'm here on mah own accord," he said quietly. "Because ah wawnt to be here. Not becawse yew created me." Damn it all. This wasn't supposed to happen. He hadn't wanted her to ask questions like this too soon, when he couldn't yet explain himself. Once, he had told her that he would never hurt her, but he could see no other way around it just now. "Look, darlin'…" But before he could finish, she did the hurting for him. She had stopped laughing, for the situation was no longer funny. Now he was aware of what he had seen in her eyes that frightened him so: the lifelessness.

"I have to get rid of you. Just get out of my head."

The look on his face would have been no different than if she had pulled a screwdriver out from behind her back and drove it into his chest. He knew she only said it because she didn't know what was going on. He knew she only said it because she was hopelessly confused. He knew it…but he couldn't help being floored, at the way the harsh words etched themselves painfully into his heart, seeping into him with the swiftness of deadly poison. Intense emotions, for someone who wasn't real.

Before he could speak, she had turned her back on him and stormed outside, the screen door slamming shut behind her. As she walked down the porch steps barefoot, her breath caught in her throat, both at the beautiful country surrounding her, unreal as it was, and at the uncontrollable urge to let loose with the waterworks. She hugged her arms to her chest, finding herself wishing it were his arms around her instead. Even when she tried to push away this fantasy, he just came floating back into her mind. It was like a sickness from which she couldn't recover. When she reached the fence, she allowed herself to collapse beside the posts. The dewy grass was pleasantly cool to the touch, yet the thought of being below the grass, resting deep underground, was so much more appealing.

Every step away from him she took sank him lower into the depths of despair. He had to turn away from the sight of her leaving him behind, knowing that watching for too long would drive him to something he would regret. All he could do now was comfort himself with the thought that tomorrow, the seeds would be planted in her mind that he was more than a creation.

"Yew'll never get rid o' me, Layla. And that's the end of it."

…

Layla's eyes flew open, barely able to make out the shapes of her furniture in the dark. Grudgingly, she rose into a sitting position, switching on the lamp on her bedside table, not bothering to check the time. She couldn't have cared less. When she rubbed at her eyes, she realized that she had again been sobbing in her sleep.

Enough. She had to stop this inane crying every day. Maybe Mort had it right. Maybe dwelling on her emotions wasn't helping at all. She couldn't help feeling like she was back in high school, bawling herself silly over the latest silly boy who had broken her silly heart.

That was one thing she hated about herself: her reluctance to accept change. She would try to tell herself that it was for the best and that you just have to let some things go, but she wouldn't believe it. She couldn't bring herself to accept that Frank just didn't love her anymore and that he had moved on. But she was just going to have to, or else…was she really going to spend the rest of her life pining over him, or even more absurd, for a man in her dreams?

Drawing her knees up to her chest, she stared at a weeping Frida Kahlo on her wall, the salty tears dripping down from the many nails that had been driven into her lovely tanned face. Hadn't Frida's husband also been a womanizer? But yet, she had always stood by him. She had to hate him for his infidelities, any woman would, but the love she felt for him overpowered the hatred. Layla certainly couldn't relate to that.

Love conquers all?

Bullshit.

Love had yet to make a believer out of her.

The distant swishing sounds of paper being torn and sorted through could be heard outside her door. Ah, Mort was awake already. It was a good sign that he was up and about, after the scare last night. God, how he'd frightened her. He badly needed someone to take care of him. A motherly figure, like. But Layla was no mother, and contrary to what Mort had said last night, she was no savior either. She couldn't give him the help he needed, nor was she sure that anybody could.

Maybe it would be realistic to think that both she and Mort were destined for lifelong unhappiness.

Layla lifted her head when the phone rang. Oh, the possibilities of who it could be. Frank? Amy? Tom of the formerly broken-down truck? Mort answered the mystery after a few isolated rings.

"Hello?" she heard him say. "Oh, yes. Hello, Rita."

"Rita…Oh for fuck's sake…" Layla groaned, pushing the covers off of her and quickly pulling on some suitable day clothes. Rita didn't call often, which was not at all a bad thing in Layla's opinion, but when she did, it was best to answer. Because if both Layla and Mort didn't speak to a family member when they called, everyone else would start ringing up the place, worried sick.

"Fine…yeah. We're both fine up here. Don't have to worry about us…no, I think she's still asleep."

"I'm awake!" she shouted, bursting out of her room. "I'm awake!" As she hurried into the room, she stopped in her tracks. It looked as though some unexpected snow flurries had come blowing in through the living room. The floor was littered with scraps of paper, ripped out of books and newspapers. Mort stood at the couch, right in the middle of it all, looking like a kid who has just had the time of his life making a huge mess and not caring what trouble he was going to get into for it. Calm as a Hindu cow. "Nevermind, here she is," Mort said into the receiver. Then he held the phone out to Layla. "It's for you."

She stared at him like he'd just sprouted a pair of tits, but managed to snap out of it when he started rattling the phone in his hand, humming the Jeopardy! theme. "What the hell have you been doing? When did you wake up?" she hissed, after snatching the phone and placing her hand over the receiver, awkwardly stepping over the scattered papers.

"I'm remodeling," Mort muttered, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up. He sat down on the couch and looked up at Layla expectantly, obviously wanting to listen in to the inevitable catfight.

Layla eyed the cancer stick momentarily, a sudden nicotine craving hitting her hard. But she would puff away later. Now she had to deal with the sister she could never live up to. "Hi, Rita."

Rita Bateman was older than Layla by seven years, and had succeeded in all the aspects of life in which her sister had failed. Happily married fifteen years. Mother of two 'wonderful' children. A ruthless businesswoman with a most comfortable, if not repulsive, salary.

"Finally decided to grace the world with your presence, did we?" Rita answered with a laugh, the epitome of snob chic as always.

"What do you want?" Layla asked icily, rather than dignify her condescending remark with comment.

"Can't I make a call to my sister without getting bitched out?" Rita clamored, making a habit of enforcing her hypocritical rule that while she could be rude, no one was allowed to be rude back to her.

"Sure. But I've always made exceptions in your case."

Rita sighed impatiently, "Let's gain some maturity, shall we? There's more important things than having the last word."

"That's a good mantra for you. Keep telling yourself that." Layla sat down next to Mort, glancing at him and watching enviously as he blew smoke rings into the air. The smell of the cigarette was really getting to her, despite knowing that an L&M wasn't going to satisfy her cravings.

"Goddamn…I don't know how Mort lives with you."

"You lived with me too, once upon a time."

"Yes, but that nightmare's over, thank God," Rita gushed. "And this conversation will be too if you don't let me get a word in edgewise."

Layla rested her head in her hands, resisting the urge to hurl the phone across the room, where it would lie amongst the ruins of documents and manuscripts. Much as she hated to admit it, she was painfully curious as to why Rita called. "I…just…asked you…what you wanted," she said, her words spaced out due to her clenching her teeth. It was terribly hard to avoid using any profanity at that moment, but if she did, it would just spur Rita on worse. Whatever she had to say seemed to weigh in with some importance. Or otherwise, Rita was just teasing her with useless information, just to get her goat. She wouldn't put it past her.

"Alright, alright, sweetie. I guess I'll take into account that you just woke up, and I'll be the bigger person by letting your bad attitude slide." She paused for effect, as though expecting Layla to spout off in response to being chastised, but she was pleased to hear silence, save for breathing. "I dialed your number out of courtesy for you, to let you know about what's happened."

"So what happened? Who died?" Layla pressed.

Rita gasped audibly on the other end, genuinely alarmed. "How would you know if anyone died?"

"I don't. I'm just guessing," Layla raised an eyebrow, only slightly worried. She had kept her family out of much of her life, and that was the way she liked it. But she didn't wish them dead or anything. She didn't really wish anybody dead, except…

"Well, we don't know that they're dead, per se…"

"Who don't you know is dead?" Unable to bear it anymore, Layla swiped Mort's cigarette from his fingers and inhaled deeply, not bothering to catch his reaction. Mmm…it certainly didn't taste like L&M. No, this taste was much more full-bodied and familiar. The brand of cigarettes she almost exclusively smoked. She glanced to Mort, perplexed as to why he would start smoking Pall Malls, but he just looked back at her, with the same serene look as before. Ordinarily, she would have expected him to sound off on what he overheard on the phone call, chattering with comments every now and then. He despised Rita almost as much as Layla did. But the entire time, he had pulled a Silent Bob. But the strange behavior could easily be attributed to the big lump on the back of his head.

It took a minute for Layla to realize that Rita had been silent herself for awhile now. "Rita? Hello?"

Finally, Rita responded, almost excitedly, "It's your ex-husband and his little girlfriend. They went missing yesterday."