A/N: I'd like to apologize for the layout; I couldn't get this chapter to upload correctly. Thanks to all who've left feedback, it does a writers heart good to know this story is being well received. Sunset

Chapter Five

2 Weeks later

It's in the Stars

He climbs the steps, once again wondering why he's so compelled to go up there, and once again, shrugs off the question, not really wanting to know the answer. It makes him feel better, if even for a little while, and so doesn't need questioning.
Greg takes the last two stairs with one giant step, putting himself on the landing. He stops for a moment, catching his breath. As healthy as he is, three flights of stairs would wind anyone. He pats his pants pockets, hoping he didn't forget the key, and feels the metal teeth lodged deep in the bottom corner. Sticking his hand in the pocket, he fishes for the steel ring, hooks it on one finger and pulls it out, the key dangling.
He unlocks the door and steps through, the cold night air hitting him like the punch of a prizefighter; taking his breath away. He wraps his arms around himself, and crosses the rooftop to the corner he's come to think of as his own.
The chaise sits there, just as he'd left it the night before, and Greg first sits, then lays back, feeling the give of the interwoven plastic underneath his weight. He rubs his eyes; to little sleep and to much work have left them as dry as the desert itself, but sleep only brings dreams, memories that he doesn't want just yet, and so he buries himself in work.
He feels his body relaxing, the alien sensation of spinning begins to overtake his overworked muscles, and his eyes snap open. Sleep was not what he came up here for.
The sky above him is clear, his apartment building is far enough from the strip that the neon glow doesn't invade the shine of the stars. He knows that he's looking for answers; knows that this is the only way he can search for reasoning without directly questioning God Himself, hopes that maybe the angels will rearrange the stars to spell out the answer he needs.
A childhood memory comes to him then, his mother once telling him that the stars are peepholes though which angels keep an eye on those on Earth. As a six year old, the idea had young Greg crawling into bed and covering himself with the blanket at sundown, but now, as an adult, paranoia gone, the idea offered the only peace he'd had in two weeks.
He glanced around the sky, and found, just to his left, one that seemed to glow a bit brighter than the rest, and as his eyes settled on it, the chosen star twinkled, like a wink. He designated it as Nick's peephole. Greg smiled for the first time in two weeks, gave the star a little wave, then let sleep take him.