Having extended the couch so it would, in a crunch, make room enough for two to sleep on, Adam dumped the extra duvet and pillow on it. When he saw the sweatpants and t-shirt he had quickly grabbed from the wardrobe draped over the backrest, he realized he better also get a sweatshirt, it could get frosty; his heating system took a while to warm up in the mornings.

Going over the bedroom, Adam softly rapped on the door, asking, "Can I come in?"

From inside, Joan answered, "Yeah, sure."

Adam carefully opened the door and stepped in. Joan was already lying in his bed, reading in a book.

"Sorry, I forgot something," Adam said apologetically, walking over to his wardrobe and pulling out a sweater. "Bedtime reading?" he asked.

"Yeah." She turned the book around so Adam could read the title. "Emily Dickinson," she explained. "She writes such beautiful poetry."

"I didn't know you liked poetry," Adam said, surprised.

Joan gave him a mysterious look. "I bet there's a lot you don't know about me."

"True," he said. "But isn't that the fun part, finding out about it?" He gave her a smile that made old, familiar butterflies appear in her stomach. Feeling suddenly very uncomfortable, she quickly looked back down at her book.

Adam took the sweater and walked to the door. He turned around, saying, "Good night, then."

"Night," Joan replied almost automatically and watched how the door quietly closed behind him after he had left. Suddenly not wanting to delve into the world of 19th century poetry anymore, she closed the book, switched off the lamp on the nightstand and tried to shift into a comfortable position.

This was seriously weird. She was sleeping in Adam's bed. Something she would never, in a million years, have imagined she'd do. Granted, she was sleeping in it alone, but it was still something that introduced a certain element of strangeness when you thought about it. She contemplated what Grace might say, if only she knew.

"Hey, Girardi, how was your trip?"

"Oh, fine. Except maybe that I almost got blown up in an exploding car and that I slept in Adam's bed afterwards."

"You what! You're not serious, dude!"

Joan had to smile at the imaginary conversation. What would she tell Grace? Because Grace was sure going to inquire about the trip—and especially about how her meeting with Adam had gone. The cuts on her face just about screamed for an explanation, so the truth would have to be what Grace would get. Joan wouldn't have it any other way.

She suddenly felt exhaustion wash over her, the eyelids starting to droop. She turned onto her uninjured side and closed her eyes. Sleep claimed her only seconds later.

Sudden claustrophobia overcomes me. I feel trapped, deprived of oxygen. I look wildly around, and recognize the inside of a car. A wrecked car. There's a pretty, woman with blond hair sitting behind the steering wheel, blood smears covering her face and clothes. Looking out the windshield, I suddenly realize there's fire and smoke billowing from the hood, and now I can smell it too—sharp and biting in my nose.

I know one thing. I need to get out of here. I shake the woman next to me, but she's either unconscious or dead. I try not to panic as I scramble over her lifeless body to open the driver's side door. It doesn't budge. I try the other door. No luck there either. The windows! But of course the power window system is fried.

There's low popping sounds coming from the hood now, like little explosions announcing what may be to come if the fire reaches the gas tank. Panic threatens to paralyze me, but with a last shred of clarity, I take off my shoe and pound its heel against the passenger side window in a futile attempt to shatter it.

Outside, I can make out a figure, calmly talking to a passer-by. When I look closer, I recognize Adam. I hammer my hands against the window, screaming his name. He doesn't even look in my direction. It's like I don't exist outside this car. "Adam!" I scream again, sagging back in resignation when I get no sign of recognition.

When I look back to the driver's side, the person in the seat has changed from the petite, young woman to someone else—someone painfully familiar. As I stare at her, I recognize my mother, blood and bruises now covering her face. Her skin is deadly white, her eyes wide open and lifeless.

Before I can do or think anything else, there's a sudden burst of sound in my ears and everything happens at once. Fire erupts around me, I am carried through the air, heat searing my skin and—

Joan awoke with a start, panting hard when she sat up in bed. Pain shot through her hip and she sucked in a breath, her face contorting in momentary agony. She looked around, and for a moment she didn't know where she was. Then she remembered. The accident, the hospital, Adam's apartment.

Her hand instinctively went to her forehead to rub it, but she felt the cuts stinging when her palm touched them. "Shit," she whispered.

She slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed, tentatively getting up to see if her bruised hip would let her. It hurt for a moment, but the pain subsided eventually and Joan trod silently over to the door on feet clad in woolen socks. She carefully opened the door to the living room, so as not to wake Adam. Lingering in the doorway, she listened for a few seconds, but all she could hear were regular breaths coming from a mount of bed linens on the couch.

Joan made her way to the bathroom where she splashed cold water on her face. She then cupped some into her hand and drank a few sips from it. She looked at herself in the mirror, water drops dripping from her face. The face that greeted her was a haunted mummy's, shadows marking her eyes, the cuts and bruises standing out in red against her otherwise pale skin.

She quickly grabbed the towel and dried her face before she left for the bedroom again. In the living room, it was as dark as it still was outside and, not watching carefully enough where she was going in the unfamiliar surroundings, Joan's toe collided with a chest of drawers standing against one of the walls.

"Damn!" she swore out loud, not able to bite her tongue in time. In the few seconds of searing pain erupting in her toe, she didn't see a drowsy Adam rising from his horizontal position on the couch.

"Joan?" he asked groggily.

Joan was still bracing herself against the chest of drawers with her hand, waiting for the stars in front of her eyes to dissipate.

"Are you okay?" Adam asked her, this time more alert.

"Yes. No. I stubbed my damn toe." Joan said with a half annoyed, half angry undertone.

Adam's hand went through his hair and he rubbed his left eye. "Can I ask why you're up in the middle of the night?"

The dream came back to Joan with a jolt of lucidity, her mother's bloody face, the explosion. She drew in a breath, but composed herself because she didn't want to bother Adam with it. "I just... needed to go to the bathroom," she explained, trying to sound matter-of-factly.

Adam obviously bought it. "Right. You need anything? A glass of water or something?"

"No, thanks," Joan declined quickly.

"You think you can go back to sleep?"

"Yeah, I guess... I don't know." Joan's voice suddenly became shakier. The truth was, she was afraid to go back to sleep, for fear she might end up dreaming again.

Adam listened to Joan's voice in the otherwise eerily quiet apartment. He could hear that something was wrong. He had always been able to tell when something was wrong, was bothering Joan, even if she didn't want to tell him. Or at least he used to before things had gone awry.

He untangled himself from his covers and sat on the edge of the couch. He looked at Joan's dark figure, still standing next to the chest of drawers, not moving. He softly inquired, "Joan, what is it?"

"Nothing. It's just..." She tried to come up with an excuse, but the words just wouldn't come out right. Images from the dream still kept haunting her and she finally said, "I woke up from a nightmare."

"Oh," Adam softly replied. "Wanna talk about it?"

"I'm not sure," Joan hesitated, but then went on, "I was back at the accident scene. I was trapped in the car with Linda, and I couldn't get out, and the flames grew bigger and bigger and then it wasn't Linda anymore, it was my mom in the car, and then I saw you outside, but you couldn't hear me yelling and I couldn't get out, I—"

The fountain of words from Joan's mouth stopped when she choked on them. "And then the car exploded and I woke up and... Oh God." Joan's voice was now shaking wildly, she was barely keeping the tears that were welling up in check.

Adam could sense she was close to breaking down, so he quickly got up and crossed the room in mere seconds. He stood opposite Joan and lightly put his hands on either of her upper arms, wincing only slightly as he felt the cut on his right palm stinging unpleasantly. He looked her directly in the eyes, or as much as that was possible in the dark. "Joan," he whispered. "It's okay. You're okay now. It was just a dream."

Joan slowly nodded, not able to hold back the tears that now flowed freely. Limply, she sagged against Adam's body opposite her, who folded his arms around her back, stroking it. "Shh," he said, shushing her quietly.

They clung to each other for several minutes, Joan's sobs slowly subsiding as Adam stroked her unaccustomedly short hair. Joan disentangled herself from Adam's embrace and slowly leaned back. "Sorry," she apologized.

Adam stepped back, giving her privacy, unsure of how much physical contact was too much in this situation. "For what? You've been through a lot lately, I guess you've had this coming for a while. It's okay," he told her softly, understandingly.

Their eyes met and Adam tried to ignore the lump forming in his throat when he saw her eyes were still shimmering with tears. He suppressed the urge to wipe them from her face. "Come on, let's get you back to bed," he said to break the silence.

"Yeah," Joan whispered and Adam accompanied her as far as the bedroom door where he hesitated, letting Joan walk into the room on her own. "Will you be okay?" he inquired, worry tangible in his voice.

"I guess so." She sat down on the edge of the bed.

"You wanna talk, or...?" Adam let the question hang in the air, floating like a paper boat on water.

"No, I'll be fine," Joan said, getting back into bed, adjusting her duvet.

"Okay," Adam said, turning around. "Let me know if you need anything."

When he was almost out the door, he heard Joan's voice again, saying his name.

"Adam?"

He had turned to face her before he even knew it. "Yes?"

"You think Linda survived the accident?"

Adam looked at Joan and went over to her bed. He sat down on it, turning his head so he was facing Joan. He shrugged ever so slightly. "I don't know. Look, we did everything we could."

"Yeah, but what if she had a spine injury and we only made it worse and now she's gonna end up like Kevin. Or worse?" Joan's brow creased as she had to think of her older brother.

"Did we have a choice? If we had left her in the car, she would most probably have died in the explosion. We saved her life, for all we know," Adam said, maybe a bit more forcefully than he had intended.

"I know," Joan sighed. "I just can't help thinking about it. Adam, I saw what happened with Kevin after the accident, I don't want anyone else to have to go through all that. Sometimes I wonder if that isn't worse than being dead. I mean, it must be kinda like that, because the life you had and knew before will be over. Just like that, with a snap of a finger. It seems like such a terrible waste. Why would completely innocent and good people deserve something so unfair?"

Adam's eyes narrowed at this meaningful question, and he wished more than anything that he had any answers for it. He knew so very well what Joan was going through. After losing his mother, he had asked this question a million times: Why? Why did his mother have to die? No one had ever been able to supply him with an answer that came even close to satisfactory.

An unsettled shadow crossed Adam's face that made furrows appear on his forehead. "You know that no one can answer that question," he told her quietly, adding, "Except maybe God."

"Yeah, God," Joan snorted. "Believe me, He's no use when it comes to the big questions. Never has been," she said bitterly. At times like this, she sometimes wondered if He deserved all the trust she was putting in Him.

Adam gave her a confused look for a second, but didn't pursue the subject. To reassure Joan, Adam told her, "Look, I'm sure they gave her the note we left. If she's still alive and wants us to know that she is, I'm sure we will hear something. Just be patient."

He looked at her with a concerned tenderness in his eyes that Joan recognized from years ago, from the time when things had still seemed so innocent, so perfect between them. A tenderness that she hadn't even known she had missed until now. He added, "Go to sleep now, Jane." He bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead. Then he got up and left wordlessly.

Joan watched him leave, his last word only slowly sinking in. He had called her 'Jane'. With a smile that hovered between sadness and satisfaction, she turned onto her side and closed her eyes to go back to sleep, this time devoid of nightmares.

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