A/N: Thanks for all of the lovely reviews. Now that you know what everyone's been up to, I guess it's time to stir the pot a bit, no? Multi-character chapters from here on out, yay.

Chapter Six: Sleepless Nights

Brian didn't go to bed on Saturday night.

This wasn't unusual at all; in fact, it would have been unusual if he had gotten any rest, particularly under the circumstances, because sometime during his sophomore year, Brian stopped sleeping. Not entirely, of course, but close enough. It started with a couple of all-nighters, which every college student experiences at some point or another. He'd stay up all night to write a paper or study for a big test, then take a long nap or get to bed extra early the next night. But as his all-nighters became more and more frequent, it became harder and harder for him to get to sleep every night. He tried, really tried. He would lay there with his eyes closed, trying to think pleasant, sleepy thoughts. When that wouldn't work, he would start thinking about all of the things he had to do the next day, all of the papers he had to write, all of the research he had to do, all of the books he had to read. Every night there was something different to worry about, something new to keep his brain active and awake.

After a while he just gave in. Instead of lying in bed for hours and hours without rest, he just stayed up and got work done for his classes. He knew other students who relied on coffee and soda to get them through the night, others on caffeine tablets. Some used more organic remedies like ginseng and B vitamins for mental alertness. He even knew some students that took large amounts of Sudafed, or in some cases speed and similar drugs, to stay awake and study. Brian didn't have to rely on anything artificial to stay awake; it just came naturally, as it were.

So he stayed up nearly every night, usually sleeping only once or twice a week for a couple of hours at a time. The rest of his time was spent studying, reading, and writing papers. It was an advantage, really. His grades had improved slightly over the past year, and he attributed that improvement to all of his free time.

On Saturday night, he spent a couple of hours making phone calls. He did his best to get in touch with the Breakfast Club, but wasn't sure if Allison or Bender would get his messages on time, or at all. He'd called his father, who offered to wire him money for a train ticket to Illinois, then Amtrak to reserve a seat on the 12:10 train from Boston to Chicago. He spent the rest of the night doing laundry and finishing up Pride and Prejudice. All in all, a productive evening.

At about 7:00 in the morning, Nathaniel walked into the kitchen wearing a button-down shirt and navy trousers and carrying a thick leather Bible under one arm. "You still awake?"

Brian looked up from the pile of laundry he was folding. "Uh, yeah. Just getting packed, you know?"

Nathaniel nodded and went over to the pantry for the coffee grounds. "Well, I guess you can always sleep on the train. That's a long trip, isn't it?"

Brian nodded. "22 hours."

Nathaniel took a coffee filter from the cabinet above his head and measured out enough grounds for a pot. "When do you get to Illinois?"

"About 9:00 in the morning." Brian started to say something else, then changed his mind and went back to folding clothes. When he finished his pile, he looked up to see Nathaniel pouring himself a cup of coffee. "I'm sorry I'm not going with you guys to the beach house," he said.

Nathaniel looked up at him and shrugged. "It's okay. We'll just go again during the summer."

Brian nodded slowly and looked back down at his stacks of clothes. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Nathaniel removed a second mug from the cabinet above his head and held it out to Brian. "Coffee?"

Allison sat on the floor in her bedroom, staring at the floor.

She'd been up practically all night long, thinking about what it would be like to go back to Shermer for the first time in more than three years. When she'd first gotten the call, her immediate reaction was negative. Of course she wouldn't go. There was no reason.

But Allison was good at telling when people were lying, even if that person was herself.

When she first moved out to New York, Allison had talked with Andy on the phone at least three times a week, sometimes for several hours at a time. She wished over and over again that he would come visit her in New York, just so she could see him for a little while and make sure that he was real. She missed him so fiercely that, at times, she would imagine him lying in bed next to her, sprawled out with one hand over his stomach and the other tucked under the pillow, his chest rising and falling with each measured breath.

When it ended, and of course it did, she didn't really think it was the end. For a while, she thought that their breakup was temporary and that he'd finally come to visit her or she would travel out to Ohio and they would pick up right where they'd left off. She felt so silly afterward when she realized that it really wasn't going to work out, that high school relationships, particularly those between two people as different as Andy and herself, didn't last forever. She remembered the night that she finally realized that he would never call her again. She was lying on her bed, curled up in a ball facing the wall, when an overwhelming wave of sadness rolled over her. She was so stunned that she couldn't even cry.

She didn't cry the next day either, or the day after that. Eventually, that sharp, cold pain grew into a dull ache, and she stopped thinking about him every time she saw someone kissing or ate a ham and cheese sandwich or breathed. She hadn't felt that way about anyone since and wondered if she ever would, or if it only happened once in your life and if you screwed it up, then tough luck. It occurred to her that this was a very romantic line of thinking and that she was not, by nature, a very romantic person. Perhaps love made everyone hopeless romantics, or fools, whichever the case may be.

So, she was going back to Shermer. It was arguably the stupidest decision she'd ever made, but she decided that everyone was entitled to at least a couple of stupid decisions during their lifetime and that now was as good a time as any to make one more. The only problem was, she didn't have any money. Her job at the candy store didn't pay incredibly well, so she didn't have anything saved. Taking off work for an entire week wasn't really an issue, as she'd already called Martin, the owner, and told him that she had a family emergency. He'd assured her that he would take care of her shifts and that she should go ahead and take care of business without worrying about work.

She almost felt bad…but not really.

So, there was the issue of rent and, of course, the price of a train ticket. She'd already called Amtrak and reserved a seat on the 7:00 train from New York to Chicago, which would arrive at approximately 2:45 on Monday afternoon. The price of the ticket was $62.00, which she added to the $70.00 she would need to leave Cecilia to pay for that week's rent. Plus, she would probably need to eat at some point during the week.

That meant that she needed about $150.00, if not more, and she needed it before 7:00 that evening. She knew of only one way of getting her hands on that kind of cash, as it was the same way she'd collected enough money to afford the first week's rent on the apartment before she'd gotten her job at the candy store.

Allison stood up from the floor, grabbed her coat, and walked out of the apartment.

At about 9:00, Brian went over to Rebecca's apartment. Rebecca was in the shower, but her roommate let him in and he went into her room to wait for her. He plopped down on her bed, tucked a pillow under his head, and pulled out David Copperfield, the next book on the list for his British Literature class. He had been reading for about ten minutes when the door opened and Rebecca stepped into the room wearing nothing but a towel. Brian immediately looked away. "Uh, sorry. I know I didn't call, but I, uh, I didn't know I'd be coming over. Jessica let me in. I thought I could just wait for you in here."

"It's okay. Just, um… just give me a minute."

Brian nodded and went back to his book. Even though he'd seen his girlfriend naked dozens of times, he still got embarrassed when he found her underwear lying around, and he always slipped on his boxers before getting out of bed in the morning when she slept over. Rebecca was pretty shy about those things as well, which she exemplified by getting dressed in the closet.

A couple of minutes later, Rebecca walked out, fully dressed, and sat down on the bed next to him. "So, what are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming over until later."

Brian took a deep breath, then leaned back against the headboard. "Claire called."

Rebecca furrowed her brow in concern. Brian had told her about the Breakfast Club, so Rebecca knew who he was talking about. "What did she say?"

Brian looked down at his book, but didn't focus on the words. "Her mother died. She asked me to go back to Shermer for the funeral."

Rebecca just watched him. "Are you going?"

Brian nodded.

"What about Jonathan's beach house?"

"I already told him I wasn't going. The funeral's on Wednesday and I think I'll be there all week."

Rebecca paused. "Are you going to stay with your parents?"

Brian took a deep breath. "Maybe, I don't know. Claire said all of us could stay with her if we wanted, so I may do that."

"How are you going to get there?"

"Train. I leave at noon today."

Rebecca paused. "Oh."

"I'll get into Shermer tomorrow morning. I talked to Andy and he said…" Brian paused, remembering his conversation with Andy that morning before he'd left for Rebecca's apartment. "He said he'd pick me up from the station, but…"

"But what?"

Brian sighed. "I don't think this is going to go very well."

"Why not?"

"Because it's already going wrong. I can't get in touch with Allison or Bender and Andy doesn't want to go in the first place. Nobody wants to be there."

"What about you?"

Brian hesitated. "Yeah, I want to be there," he said quietly.

Rebecca didn't say anything else, just scooted her closer to him and put a hand on his leg. Brian closed the book and tossed it onto the floor next to the bed, then rolled over so that he was halfway on top of her, and looked down at her face. "What if everyone starts yelling at each other?"

"I don't know."

"What if they all hate me?"

"Why would they hate you?"

"I don't know, but they might."

Rebecca reached up and ran her fingertips over his cheek. "Everything's going to be okay."

Brian paused. "You think?"

Rebecca nodded. "Yeah," she said softly.

Brian just looked at her for a minute, then leaned down to kiss her. He felt Rebecca's hands at his waist, then his chest. After a few minutes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer against her body. Brian slid all the way on top of her and propped himself up on his elbows, running his fingers over her long, wet hair and breathing in the smell of her coconut-scented shampoo. She shifted to accommodate him, and he kept kissing her. A few minutes later, he felt her hands at the waistband of his trousers, unzipping his pants.

Allison's neighborhood, Alphabet City, which was named for Avenues A, B, C, D, etc., was more dangerous in some areas than others. There was a saying that she'd learned when she moved there that she still found incredibly accurate. It went: 'Avenue A, you're alright; Avenue B, you're brave; Avenue C, you're crazy; and Avenue D, you're dead." Fortunately, Allison lived at the corner of Avenue A and East 6th street, which meant that she was alright, for the most part.

Still, she was always surprised, when she left Alphabet City, to find how different the rest of New York was from her neighborhood. For instance, it had stores. Not crummy stores like Abe's Candy or thrift stores like the one across the street from her apartment, but real stores like Saks and Macy's and Lord & Taylor.

It was Saks that she was standing in front of at that particular moment, right at the corner of 5th Avenue and 48th Street. It was a nice, expensive store, and she didn't dare set foot inside for fear that she'd be kicked out before she could touch anything. It was ironic in a way, because her mother used to drag her along on shopping trips to stores like that back when Allison was in elementary school. Once, Allison tried to reorganize the dress department by color and had gotten hauled off to the customer service department, where she had to wait for thirty minutes before her mother showed up to claim her. It was the last time she ever went shopping with her mother at a store like that.

After a moment, Allison tore her eyes away from the building and turned to her left, immediately bumping into a woman carrying half a dozen shopping bags along with a large, expensive purse hanging from one shoulder. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said, picking up one of the bags.

The woman snatched the bag out of Allison's hand and readjusted her belongings. "It's fine," she said stiffly. Without even looking in Allison's direction, she continued her march down Fifth Avenue towards the Lord &Taylor.

Allison watched the woman until she was nearly half a block away, then ran her hand over the bulge in her jacket pocket, just the size of a small, fat wallet, and started walking in the opposite direction.

She didn't even feel guilty.

A/N: Got some of my New York info from wikipedia dot com, AKA the most useful web site on the planet.
I'm sure this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Insomnia is NOT healthy and can have really serious side effects, regardless of how it affects a person's ability to do schoolwork. Brian is operating under the impression that his grades are more important than his health, which is not true. I also don't recommend using any kind of drug to stay awake for any reason, unless you are instructed to do so by a doctor. Nor do I recommend that you reorganize the dresses at any department store…because I did that once when I was little and got yelled at by the sales lady. Anyway, do I need to keep going? Don't steal other people's wallets or sleep in train stations or walk through strange cities all alone at night or try to pierce your ear with a razor blade or…
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