A/N - here's another chapter. i hope you're still enjoying the story. I hope the dream sequences make sense. I was thinking about the idea that our dreams represent our hopes and fears and feelings and decided to keep going with it. I hope it works o.k and that this dream sequence is a little eerie because that's how I imagined it.

Chapter Eight

All I could see was darkness. For a moment I wondered whether a power cut was to blame for me sitting in obscurity. I seemed to be alone but couldn't remember where I was, how I had arrived here and what I was doing here in the first place. Maybe I had been at a crime scene and managed to get stuck in a victim's basement, that would explain the lack of light. The door must have blown shut, trapping me in here. I must have hit my head on something – that would explain my amnesiac state.

I looked around the space, trying to adjust my eyes to the darkness secretly wishing I had listened to my mother and eaten more carrots as a child. Realising that was the least of my worries, I tried to get up from the floor but my legs wouldn't move. Oddly, I didn't begin to panic. I wondered if I had befallen a fate similar to Nick but still my breathing remained steady and constant and my heartbeat continued to pump at a healthy rate.

Looking across the room I spotted her sitting on the floor some three feet opposite me. She sat with an indifferent expression on her face. As she became aware that I was looking at her a small sad smile crept across her face. She looked pale and her eyes were sunken in but she looked as beautiful as I remembered.

I tried to open my mouth to say something to her, tell her I was glad she was here but it wouldn't open and no sound came out. She continued to smile at me in that sad regretful way as a solitary tear fell from her left eye. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, let her know that I was there and that everything was all right but still I couldn't move.

The time we spent sitting and looking across at each other seemed to last an eternity. It was as though she had control over me and didn't want me to come closer, touch her, kiss her. I couldn't work out why she was crying; I hadn't said anything to upset her.

Her pale face seemed to be getting more ashen. I watched, confused for a moment as I realised she was disappearing slowly. Fading away like an old scar. I reached towards her suddenly gaining control of my limbs again.

'Wait,' I managed to whisper as I saw more tear s fall from her eyes.

She shook her head mournfully at me as she finally disappeared from sight leaving me sitting alone in the room.

The sudden knocking on my front door snapped me out of the hauntingly real dream I had been participating in. Taking a moment to adjust myself to the fact that I was really sitting on my sofa, television remote in hand and not sitting frozen in a pitch-black room trying to talk to a ghost, I began to process that someone was at my door and I really ought to answer them.

Blearily making my way from the living room to the front door, I rubbed my eyes in an attempt to clear my vision as I reached the door and opened it. I was surprised to see Alanis standing before me in the rain; her purple and black hair hanging limply in bunches, her teeth knocking together in the chill air of the Las Vegas weather.

She smiled weakly, her teeth continuing their battle to warm up their host. I stood for a moment, not saying anything, trying to remember if I had invited her over and forgotten all about it. The last thing I remembered was waking up too early for work and sitting down to watch T.V.

'C-Can I come in?' she suggested at last.

'Of course,' I replied finally coming to my senses and realising it wasn't the best social etiquette to leave a visitor standing outside in the pouring rain.

I stepped away from the doorway as she scampered in and closed the door behind her.

'Let me take that,' I said, helping her to remove her sodden jacket and hanging it up.

'Thanks,' she said, continuing to shiver.

'How did you find me?' I asked, realising I had no idea why or how she had gotten here.

'Personnel files,' she said with a mischievous smile that suggested to me that she didn't exactly have permission to go looking for my address although she had access to it working on the front desk.

I laughed and walked into the kitchen to make her a hot drink. She followed me quietly, scanning the room, taking in her surroundings.

'Nice place,' she said sounding a little counterfeit as she looked and saw the piles of washing up by sink and the laundry that was piled up by the machine.

'Thanks,' I smiled. 'It takes a lot of hard work to keep it looking this good,'

She rolled her eyes and smiled appreciatively as I handed her a cup of coffee. I tried to avoid saying much more about the state of my apartment. It hadn't always been that untidy, my effort had somewhat deteriorated when I had found myself with bigger things to worry about.

'I think you need a girlfriend,' she said matter-of-factly, walking into the living area and taking a perch on the arm of the sofa.

My memory finally started doing it's job as it occurred to me that I had asked her out and she had accepted. I couldn't remember when we had agreed to meet though. Maybe I had stood her up and that was why she was here.

'God, I'm sorry Greg, I didn't mean to take the piss,' she said, suddenly. 'Well, I did but not in a morbid your- girlfriend- is- dead kind of way. Oh crap I'm doing it again…'

She must have interpreted my facial expression wrongly as I tried to work out what I seemed to have forgotten and thought that she had offended me.

'No, no it's fine, I was just wondering what you were doing here.' I explained, interrupting her failing attempts to rectify herself and walking over to stand opposite her.

'Oh, I want to talk to you,' she said quietly and looked at the floor.

If there was one thing I knew about Alanis, it was that she wasn't afraid to speak her mind but she seemed to be feeling awkward like she was going to find it difficult to speak. She took another sip of her coffee and shivered. I wasn't sure how to respond to what she had said so I tried to change the subject.

'Let me find you a change of clothes,' I said, noticing that she was actually soaked to the bone.

'I'll be fine,' she said dismissively.

'I'm sure I can find something you could wear,' I insisted, unintentionally ignoring her, and headed towards my room.

Reluctantly she followed me as I waded through some of the junk that was on the floor to reach the wardrobe.

'Sorry about the mess,' I said, my voice sounding muffled as I looked through the racks of clothing I seemed to own, searching for an old t-shirt.

'Greg, really, I'm not that cold, I just want to talk to you,' Alanis protested, sitting down on the end of my bed.

'Will this do?' I asked, holding up one of my old shirts from back in the day when I was an ugly-shirt wearing lab rat. 'Just until your clothes dry.'

She nodded silently and took it from me, giving a firm jerk of her head when I didn't turn away. Apologising bashfully I turned away and engaged in a staring contest with the wardrobe, trying to ignore the fact that I could see a glimpse of her reflected in the mirror and was intrigued by the tattoo on her lower back. Scolding myself for invading her privacy I blinked and looked at the floor wondering what I could do about this incredibly awkward situation I now found myself in.

'I'm done,' she informed me before I had chance to scrutinize my position any further.

'Oh,' I muttered, turning around to see that my shirt seemed to have miraculously grown three sizes when she put it on.

'How do I look?' she asked, jokingly sitting back down on my bed after placing her jeans on top of the radiator.

'Good,' I laughed slightly and sat down next to her. 'So what did you want to talk to me about?'

She looked down for a moment, picking at the fingernails on one hand with the other. My mouth felt dry and my heart beat sharply as I took the fingernail picking hand in mine and she looked up at me.

'Al, what's wrong, you're not exactly acting like normal.'

'Define normal,' she said with a small smile.

'Loud and tactless,' I stated.

Rolling her eyes, she gave a little laugh and glanced towards the floor again. I couldn't decipher why she was trying to avoid eye contact with me so purposely.

'I wanted to talk about our date,' she said at last with little expression in her voice.

'Was I supposed to meet you somewhere today?' I asked guiltily, realising that I must have but it had completely slipped my mind.

'No no,' she shook her head. 'We didn't arrange anything, you were busy.'

Muttering something that sounded like 'oh' I realised I was still holding on to her hand which was weird. I hadn't made such an intimately personal gesture towards someone for what seemed like a lifetime. It might not have been as big a deal as falling in love with someone else but to me it felt like I was learning to ride a bike again for the first time after having a terrible accident. Deciding that was an awful way to describe my interaction with Alanis, given that she was not a bike, I chose to break the silence that had settled between us again.

'So you want to talk to me about our date although we never arranged one and I didn't stand you up? Forgive me, I'm a little confused,' I said as lightly as I could, sensing that I wasn't the only one feeling uncomfortable.

'Oh God, ummm…' she paused fixing her eyes on the carpet for a second, making me wish I had been more thoughtful about not putting yesterdays underwear in the laundry basket, and then looked up at me. 'Greg, please don't take this the wrong way but I don't think we should go out.'

'Oh…O.k.…' I stammered slightly and then gave up trying to add anything mildly intelligent to my response.

'I'm sorry,' she said, sliding her hand away from mine.

'Don't be sorry,' I said feeling somewhat disheartened as my brain began to process what she had said. 'You said yes yesterday.' I added aloud without meaning to.

'I know and it's nothing personal, it's just –'

There was something in her eyes that made me think she was genuinely upset about it which concerned me a little given that she was the most upbeat person who worked at the crime lab.

'What is it? You can tell me,' I said gently. 'Is it something I've done?'

'No, I don't think you really want this…me,' she said smiling weakly.

'Of course I do!' I protested, surprising myself with how adamant I sounded. 'I really like you, it took me a lot to admit that you know, it's not exactly something I'm entering into lightly.'

I must have sounded a little harsher than I intended to as her eyes glazed over and she avoided my face again.

'I know,' she said quietly 'but I think you're confusing being a good friend with someone with being attracted to someone.'

'I think I know the difference,' I said, lowering my voice.

'There is no way that I can even begin to understand what you've been through and I'm not trying to pretend that I know what's going through your mind but I know that what's between you and I is just friendship. You're ready to move on and be close to someone again but I'm not that person.'

My mind was racing, I was so confused. I had been so sure that I liked her and wanted to have a shot at being with her but now she was saying these things, putting doubts in my mind. I considered for a moment that this was her way of letting me down gently but cast that thought aside when my knowledge of who she was told me that she wasn't callous or manipulative enough to use my bereavement as a way of getting herself out of an awkward predicament.

'But I can talk to you. I've spoken to you about things that I've found hard to tell my closest friends when I barely knew you,' I said wondering if this was a vain attempt to change her mind or to convince myself that the feelings I thought I had were justified.

Alanis stood up and removed her damp jeans from the radiator, pulling them on underneath my borrowed shirt. She smiled at me and picked up her top.

'Sometimes we find it harder to open up to the people we care about the most,'

A/N – not much else to say about that chapter except I hope the dream sequence made sense and portrays what I wanted it to. I'll leave it at that. Things are coming to a close soon. Only two more chapters to go…