Alice and her father arrived back home around quarter to three. The entire ride back was in silence as Alice cried to herself and held the cloth that was given to her as almost a safety blanket against her skin. A million thoughts raced through her head. She knew Joey wasn't crazy, and no matter how many times her father, the police, or those people from the hospital told her…she knew this was real.

How could they have gotten caught, they were a team, they only had each other. Feeling sickened to her stomach she watched as they pulled up the driveway.

She knew they sedated him, and she knew Freddy would be after him. She had to stop this…somehow?

Once they got inside it seemed to really strike Alice for the first time that Rick was really dead. Most of the time he was either in the garage working out, or blasting his radio upstairs. Now…silence.

Whatever drug they gave her made almost all her functions delayed, she wanted so baldy to just run out to door and get to him, but somehow it was now completely out of her hands. Her father rubbed her shoulders and lead her upstairs.

He told her he would be downstairs making some tea, and how she should get into some sweats and start relaxing. She knew the guilt was getting to him. Never before had he acted like a parent, and now here he was somehow acting as if she was so fragile, and about to break at any moment.

Upstairs she tossed her clothes off and threw them in her bathroom hamper, she pulled on a long T-shirt she owned and climbed into bed. All ready her mind was zipping a million miles a minute. She knew there was no physical way she could get to Joey, no he was under heavy watch at Fairview before he was transferred. All ready the police were breathing down their necks. She knew the doctors and guards made no difference, he was stuck in there alone, and she had to help him.

She settled into her bed, still unmade from his morning and could almost still feel the warmth that Joey and herself left. She rubbed her hands against the sheets and sighed as she huddled around the covers. Last night was amazing, somehow looking back at everything that had happened, she wasn't embarrassed. He took that aching pain away and gave her something else, something she never dreamed about feeling.

She remembered while they were having sex, she started to slowly kiss his chest, then she found something that made her look back, something that wasn't right and somehow through the thin darkness she could see.

It looked like faded scars of some sort, she could only make out the words "Come and Get." Everything else was far too faded to read.

How did he get those awful things?

She looked at him and he seemed to be the one shy and almost ashamed. He brushed back his hair and looked at her through the darkness.

"They blamed the woman who helped us at the hospital…it wasn't.."

"Shhh…" "It's okay…" And very slowly she kissed those marks on him, things he had tried to hide as much as his past. They were ugly and filled with pain. Sighing she looked out the window and knew she loved him, and she needed to save him.

Her father came in with a tray of tea and set it down on her nightstand. She really couldn't look him in the eye at this moment, but he sat on the edge of her bed and gently touched her chin.

"I lost Rick because I didn't watch him…I don't wanna lose you."

Alice looked at her father and saw how sad he really did look just then.

"Get some rest honey."

He got up, kissing the top of her head and shut her door. Hearing him head downstairs she knew he would break open a bottle and settle back on the couch and get hammered the rest of the night. This was all too much for him, and he needed to forget.

For once she didn't even mind.

Right away she threw her covers back and looked at the lock, panic stuck her heart.

What if he was all ready dead?

No, he couldn't be…Joey was a fighter just like her, he had fought this before and was stronger. She could feel him inside her, pulsing…he was still alive, and waiting for her. Right away she ran to her dresser and pulled out a pain of old torn jeans Debbie had given her a few months ago when they were trading clothes. Debbie, her sweet friend who most likely had been worried to death about her must of left at least twenty or so messages on the house's machine all ready.

She knew Debbie's life was also on the line here. Grabbing a pair of jeans she pulled them on in a hurry and tied her hair quickly into a ponytail.

She knew she could fall asleep at any second, but she didn't want to take any chances. Opening her dresser draw she took out a bottle of sleeping pills which she took last year when she suffered for a small series of panic attacks. Opening the bottle she didn't care if she took to many, she poured almost half a hand full and swallowed them dry before standing there, taking a deep breath and knowing it was time.

As for Joey he arrived at Fairview almost a half an hour before Alice even knew what she had to do. The doctors wheeled him into a special unit for the night as his parents sat in the waiting room and started filling out forms. Dr. Sims sat with them and started to discuss Joey's stay back at Western Hills. There was no longer a program since the suicides had stopped, but she thought if he was delivered to her special care, and maybe started electric shock treatments they might be able to focus if this was just a bystander of maybe a different level that Joey as well as the other teens set for themselves. She told them she thought Joey had been serious disturbed since he left Western Hills. He witnessed a series of murders, and was taken out of her treatment far to soon. Yes his voice recovered, but as for the mind…she felt going back to blaming his dreams of the deaths of his friends was a simple show of Joey's thin mental state.

He would harm others, as well as himself.

He would be put on close watch and started on a round of medication, Dr. Sims didn't want to loose out on him this time. This just wasn't sleep deprivation… it was something much more.

They went over papers as Dr. Sims explained to them that all of this wasn't their fault. Only that the deaths of both Kristen and Kincaid was starting to push Joey over the edge. Between guilt and lack of sleep she knew if he was treated and looked after in Western Hills everything would turn out fine.

They questioned how scared he was, and now easy it was now to tell since he could talk…and the girl.

Dr. Sims said both had an attraction, but it was a simple cause of brain washing. This girl was going through a very rough time between the deaths of her friends and now brother, and saw Joey was almost a protector. He gave her the fear as the others did a year ago in the hospital, and now it was spreading.

It was nothing to worry about, he was safe.

Joey now laid in a hospital bed, dressed in a white T-shirt and Pj bottoms he mother brought with them. The nurse checked his vital signs, as he was hooked up to two different machines to watch over his brain activity and heart rate. He laid there as the lights were turned off, looking so peaceful there, seventeen years old.

A nurse told the others working at the desk it was just some poor kid who had gone through hell. He didn't seem like a trouble maker at all. Just someone who now at this exact moment was slipping deeper and deeper into something he couldn't escape from.