Despite how it seemed as if neither of the twins would be getting any sleep that night, Lance at the very least, dropped down into a restless not quite slumber.

He felt as if he were floating in warm salt water, rocked gently by the ocean waves in this space somewhere between waking and sleeping. He might have even been able to slip into restful dreams.

The water grew cold. Almost unnoticeable at first. In fact until the boy began to shiver, he hadn't perceived it at all. As soon as the thought to get out and warm up crossed the boy's mind he was yanked beneath the surface. Dragged under, as if many hands were gripping around his arms and legs, around his neck and chest. No matter how hard he struggled he couldn't get free.

Eventually he ran out of air.

Bubbles shot out from his mouth as he gasped, water flooding down his throat.

He couldn't breathe! He couldn't breathe! He couldn't breathe!

Was this how Rachel felt?

That notion alone was enough to trigger a change. Lance wasn't sure what happened but he was released and all the water around him began to rush downwards.

He landed on something hard and somehow chillier than the water he was choking up from his lungs. Air sweeter than sugar expanded his chest and he gulped it down greedily. Almost too slowly Lance became aware of his surroundings.

He was wearing his usual clothes, jeans and a baseball shirt, which were just as soaked as he, dripping with icy water. Fluorescent lights blinded him. He blinked the water and blurriness away. His eyelids felt heavy, as if they didn't want to stay open. Lance heard his mother's voice from far away. But he could neither make out her words nor see her. Her calls grew closer and closer, until he could finally understand what she was saying.

"Minino! Donde estas?" It was like they were in a fog, sound mutable, only around him the too bright light had receded enough to reveal impossibly clean tiles of a sterile hospital hallway. Though mama was still nowhere in sight. "Vamanos Lance! Your sister is waiting for you!" Even as his lids fell closed in a slow weighted manner that made it feel like this one action took half a lifetime, Lance could still see. The very edges of his vision were grayed and blurring. "Oh mi lo que paso? Why are you soaking wet? You're such a mess—"

"Lo siento—" Lance tried to say, mouth open, lips forming the sound. But nothing came out, his own voice lost. The panic that he'd been trying and failing to ignore reared up like a beast within him, setting his pulse to racing as bile stuck to the back of his throat thickly.

"Come on slow poke catch up!" This time it was Veronica who spoke, sounding as if she were further down the hall. And even though he couldn't see his family Lance began to stumble forward. The passageway narrowed and lengthened around him like a fun house ride, the smell of sickness barely covered by chemicals grew with each step.

"Rachel needs you hurry!"

"Wait for me por favor!" This would have been a shout but still he had no voice. Lance fell, jarring every bone from his knees upward as he landed on them before scrambling to a stand again. Still he ran. Shadow people lined the walls, those souls of the ill and dying all reaching for him as he followed yet more calls for him. The voices of Luis and Marco joining the confusing cacophony.

IV lines shot out and circled his limbs, tangling and tripping. The door at the end of the hall grew no closer despite his pounding steps. Machine's began to beep beep BEEP incessantly in the background, drowning out the pleas of his family.

"I can't hear you! Where'd you go?" Still there were no words and yet Lance screamed. His gait slowed as he began to scratch desperately at his throat. Peeling away at his flesh to free his voice.

The door was suddenly right before him. His body slammed painfully into it, crashing through.

This time his free fall was not accompanied by water and yet the air was still stolen from his lungs.

He landed on his back, when he tried to move his limbs he found that they were strapped down to an exam table. He thrashed around but to no avail. It wasn't until he settled down enough that he looked around. Finally noticing the nurses and doctors all standing in a silent row to his left. Each held a different tool. They looked strange to Lance. He wasn't sure how long it took him to process this, the nurses weren't wearing the average scrubs, but gray dresses from times past, with white aprons tied snug. Lance couldn't make out their faces, covered by masks and shadows. One held a bowl, water sloshing over the edges as she, and she alone, trembled. The rest stood as still as stone. Another held a tray of utensils, yet a third held towels. He couldn't crane his neck enough o see what the others held and he wasn't sure he wanted too.

"L-lance…" The boy jumped at the sound of his own name. His neck cracked as he snapped his head around.

Rachel lay on a table much like his own, her usual radiant skin pale with sickness, voice hoarse. "Lance help me."

A soundless sob escaped and he mouthed to her, "I want to, I just don't know how."

"Of course you do." A voice Lance didn't recognize drew his gaze to a tall doctor, imposing form standing right over him. "Nurse." He held out a gloved hand, and a faceless woman stepped forth, handing him a wicked and ancient looking saw. "If your sister gets new lungs she'll heal… yours should suffice."

Lance's eyes widened with fear, the blue within them a frosted color.

"Lance please." Rachel's voice was so weak, but he wasn't even given a chance to answer before the sound of flesh rending ripped through the air as Rachel repeated his name over and over.

"Lance… Lance- LANCE!"

The boy jolted upright from the uncomfortable chair he was sitting in.

"Wha—" The cool wetness of drool dribbling down his chin woke him further and Lance looked around, disoriented. "Donde estoy?" They were in a hallway that looked so eerily like the one in his nightmare he wasn't entirely sure he was fully awake, as if the dream clung to him and the scene would at any moment dissolve. But it did not and Veronica's perfectly shaped eyebrow was raised at him in question.

"Que quieres decir? We're at the hospital duh."

Self-consciously Lance wiped at his jaw, feeling the flush of his cheeks. His voice was back as it should be, and yet he couldn't string together a few words to answer his older sibling. The awful too bright lights were the same, along with that smell of barely hid infection. Lance couldn't shake the fear from the vision that had haunted him in his slumber. Whether they were his own fears made tangible or Rachel's, he couldn't quite tell.

"Weren't…" He cleared his throat and yet as he spoke his words remained at a whisper. "Weren't we just in… a different one?"

"Que? You say something?" Veronica's gaze had already returned to the vogue magazine she held as their niece and nephew fidgeted and jumped around them. When Lance didn't reply right away her eyes flicked back up to him. "You okay? You're a bit pale." Lance gulped, wondering if he should confide in her. He shook his head, as much to argue with himself (after all he wasn't some kid, and he also wasn't the one who needed the worry or attention) as he was answering Veronica.

"'m fine- just zoning." He was relieved when she didn't pry further. He didn't want her to fret over him.

His niece Nadia laughed and hopped up onto his lap. "You were caught daydreaming!"

"Papa says it's no good to have your head up in the clouds." Sylvio added knowledgeably.

"It'd be better than being stuck in this agujero de meirda! It's summer! We're s'posed to be out having fun!" The two children were nodding in simultaneous agreement (a rare occasion indeed) both of their bottom lips pouting out.

"Cuidado con lo que dices." Veronica's tone held no sort of inflection and she didn't even glance up from her magazine. "You're parents are at work right now so you're stuck with us for now."

Lance was still trying to catch up. It felt as if he'd missed a step. He discreetly pinched himself, when a twinge of pain dashed up from his inner arm he shook his head once more. He was definitely not dreaming. He started to piece together his day, he couldn't quite believe he let so much time slip away from him like that.

"I'm so sick of doctors though!" Nadia huffed, crossed her arms over her chest and fell back into one of the cushioned chairs heavily. This was a sentiment Lance echoed. They'd been to so many doctor's offices in the past year. This was just the next one in line. He wondered if they'd ever stop. How many would there be? More specialists? Going and going and going until one finally gave them good news?

"Lance?" He wasn't sure how long that last train of thought had lasted, but his sister had actually put down the magazine and was waving her hand in front of his face. "Are you sure you're okay?"

He shrugged. "I just wish I'd stayed home—" as soon as he'd spoken he wished he hadn't. How selfish could he be? Guilt like a claw twisted in his gut. It's not like Rachel got to choose. His twin had to suffer through this. The least he could do was be there for her.

"You can't stay home by yourself!" Sylvio looked personally affronted by this concept. Lance returned the look, glad for the momentary distraction and excuse to not give his older sister a real answer.

"I'm thirteen! I don't need a babysitter anymore!" he spun away from the brat theatrically, only to be faced with Veronica once more. She didn't look convinced but Lance couldn't think of anything to say.

"I …. I uh think I'm just thirsty."

Again he was met with a skeptical brow raise. "You think?"

Lance ignored her and stood. "I'll be right back!" He announced, cringing inwardly at his own awkwardness as he sped away from the small waiting area, trying to ignore how much like his dream this narrow hallway was. It was somehow harder to breathe away from his suffocating family. His need for some water doubled and he licked his lips.

As he walked he checked his pocket, two nickels and a penny was all he found, which meant no vending machine. Looked like he'd hafta find a fountain. He reached a T junction, leaning over to look one way, and then the other. There were so many doors down each one. Lance chose at random. He passed empty room after empty room. Voices, and sometimes crying filtered through the closed ones.

Lance walked faster.

Another intersection came up and the boy groaned, shoving his hands deep into his pockets and hunching his shoulders as he continued on. It felt like he'd die of thirst if he didn't find a damn fountain soon.

It wasn't like he was lost per se. In these twisting aseptic hallways… no not at all….

A familiar voice brought Lance up short, his mom's. His head spun around, but his mama wasn't in sight. His heart began to race, this was too much like his dream. She even sounded…. Upset.

But it wasn't quite like the dream. For her voice became clearer as he neared one specific, closed, door. Lance was even able to make out the words as he stepped up to it.

Lance knew he shouldn't eavesdrop. But even as he argued with himself he was also looking around to make sure he was alone in this wing. He crept closer, turning his head. He almost wished someone would come along, as if another's presence would make him realize how wrong his actions were, he'd be properly shamed and would return to Veronica, Sylvio and Nadia.

But that didn't happen and he ever so carefully put his ear against the grain of the door. For a moment this muffled the voices further, until Rachel spoke.

"Mom I'm thirsty."

"Dr. Sanda- hush me nina- I'm sorry could you…. Could you explain… again?" Lance could imagine it all so clearly. Rachel sitting on the table, his mama clutching her rosary as her brows furrowed in worry.

He heard a sigh as clear as day and Lance couldn't be sure, but he imagined a look of irritation upon this "doctor's" features.

"Mrs. McClain, I know it's a lot to take in—"

"That my daughter has this… this…lymphoma….Lymphera…" his mother's tongue couldn't curl around the foreign word.

"Lymphangioleiomyomatosis. Yes—" Lance pictured that this shitty doctor had evil looking glasses that caught the light as she spoke. No one talked to his mama like that!

"Wow that's a mouthful hehe—" Rachel spoke into the silence, which had stretched on a bit too long. A painfully obvious attempt at lightening the mood. She was so brave. So much braver than him.

Lance's chest was tightening, like a hole had opened up where his heart should be, pulling everything down into it until he was nothing but empty.

"But what does it mean… is it… is it a cancer?" mama choked up on the very last word, it was this sound, more than anything, that placed a lump into Lance's throat.

"No it's not. But it is terminal."

"Meaning there's no cure then?" A short pause that kept Lance's breath a cage in his chest and set his teeth on edge as his jaw clenched painfully tight. "But there must be something!"

"There are… medications. Very expensive medications that would slow the growth of the cells in the lungs, and others that can stop the formation of cysts. But in the end there's no way to save her. She doesn't have long left with how far the disease has—"

Lance didn't want to hear anymore, but before he'd even decided that their voices had began to fade. Not because he'd moved away. A fog descended over his thoughts.

His movements were mechanical as he marched back to Veronica and the kids, his world shrank to his next step.

Maybe…. Maybe he'd heard something wrong. Heck he barely understood half the words even used! Maybe… this had all been a part of his nightmare, that he'd never really woken up.