Hi everyone! :)

I can't believe it's been nearly a year since I've updated last, how awful of me. I'm so sorry! I've said it a million times before, but I hope you haven't given up on me just yet. I promise, this story WILL get finished, come hell or high water! ;)

-A

"Monica?"

His voice took her by surprise and, had she been awake, she was sure it would have knocked her breathless. Even in sleep, the sound of her name coming from him ripped through her like a lightning bolt, burning from the inside out. She was almost afraid to answer, afraid that if she opened her mouth to respond, he would disappear and she would wake up.

"Andrew …" She closed her eyes, held her breath, and waited to be yanked from the dream like always. One second passed, then two … she was still asleep, she was certain. She opened her eyes slowly, cautiously, preparing herself for the fact that he might not still be standing there, as was very often the case.

But he was.

"Monica," Dream Andrew repeated, his voice laced with sadness, "please don't cry."

She sucked in a quick, startled breath and lifted her hand to her face to feel the hot, wet tears that she hadn't even realized were there until that moment. She hadn't expected this and the pain that it ignited in her chest was very nearly too much for her fragile heart to withstand. Night after night she dreamt of him, try as she might to escape it, and never had he spoken to her before. In the beginning, she used to try and talk to him, but that always proved to cause her to wake before she wanted to. It was always the same – he sat in the same corner, in the same chair, never speaking and never moving. Just watching her. Sometimes, she managed to get a little closer to him but she hadn't been able to touch him since the first night. These dreams were a bit unsettling in that she was so completely aware of the fact that she was asleep and dreaming, though she felt at times that they were so much more intense and real than just a simple illusion that her sleeping mind produced. But something was different now.

Hours later, or perhaps it was only moments, Dream Andrew rose from his chair in the corner and crossed the small room purposefully, coming to a stop at the side of her bed. Monica's eyes were glued to him as she scrambled to sit up and she pulled her knees up to her chest to make room for him to sit down beside her, not daring to hope that he actually would. For a moment, neither of them moved and Monica felt herself holding her breath in anticipation of losing this moment too quickly all over again. And then he sat down lightly, just inches from her, and it took every ounce of strength in her being to keep from launching herself at him.

With a racing heart and a fierce and desperate curiosity, she reached her hand out slowly, tentatively, again not daring for a moment to believe that she could touch him. In the moment before her fingers brushed lightly against his cheek, her hand seemed to stay suspended in mid-air, motionless, as if of its own accord, like it knew what the consequence of such an action could bring, and there was an ever slight hesitation. But the very real feeling of his warm skin beneath her fingers removed the fear that he would disappear as if he'd never been there before she could take another breath, and she let the breath she'd been holding with a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and sob. After another long moment - somehow knowing that he would understand all the many questions behind the single word - she asked,

"Why?"

Why she dreamt of him every night, why for so long she couldn't touch him and now she could, why he never spoke before this night, what all of it meant ... Dream Andrew's eyes seemed to bore into her own intently before he replied.

"You know you're dreaming," he said softly, "I'm not really here."

Of course she knew that. Of course she knew that she was dreaming … she'd had the same dream every night for more months than she could count. It was like a sick joke almost that even in sleep, she couldn't catch a break. No matter what she did, she couldn't escape this nightly torture. Far from comforting, these dreams did nothing but brutally remind her of everything that she'd lost and tonight, after eight miserably long months, she'd had enough.

"Then please, go away … I can't do this anymore ..." she whispered, tearing her eyes away from his and falling back against her pillow, covering her face with her shaking hands and succumbing once again to the seemingly endless flow of tears. Again, an immeasurable amount of time went by before Monica found the strength to open her heavy eyes and when she did, Dream Andrew was no longer beside her, but back in the corner chair across the room. She hadn't even felt him move.

She ignored the sharp jab of pain to her heart at the sudden distance between them, as she had essentially ordered him away from her side, and attempted to concentrate on waking herself up. In the drug-induced, nearly coma-like state of unconsciousness that her mind fell victim to every night, it was no easy task.

"Monica, you have to stop doing this."

Dream Andrew's voice seemed to float to her from the corner, with the sort of echoing sound that generally accompanied a soft golden glow and vaguely reminded her of the many thousands of times that she'd once revealed herself as an angel to an assignment.

"You have to stop hurting yourself like this ..."

Usually, she awoke with a painful start and was thrown suddenly and strongly into reality when reality was the very last thing that she wanted, and this morning was no different. Worse even, because she could still hear those words echoing in her mind, still feel his skin under her touch, could still see the shape of him reflecting warmly in the back of her closed eyelids as if he'd really been there just moments before. The nearly tangible aura of him in the room lingered just enough to make her question her level of wakefulness, but it took merely a quick glance to the corner of the room to confirm what she already knew. Perhaps instead of wakefulness, it was her sanity that she should have been questioning.

Suddenly unable to stand it, unable to physically restrain herself from retaliating against this new flavor of misery, she yanked the bedside lamp that had been left on all night roughly from the table by her bed and threw it across the room. At the precise second that the porcelain base shattered against the wall, she let out a guttural cry of distress, pain, hopelessness, all of the things she felt at once into one long, nearly bloodcurdling shriek.

It was all just finally too much for her to deal with, too much after such a long struggle, and it was coming to a head at last. Too deep, too dark, too hurt for too long and it was in that moment that she knew. For weeks she'd been able to think of little else, the thoughts all-consuming, and finally Monica knew that she couldn't take another day, another night living in this hell that had been her miserable existence for nearly a year. And not only that she couldn't do it, but that she wouldn't. The concept of dying, of actually ending her own life, was somehow much more manageable now than the prospect of surviving another twenty-four hours through it. Even the huge and alarming uncertainty of what would happen to her when she carried out her plan wasn't enough to sway her decision in the opposite direction.

Her mind was made up and she was oddly at peace with the knowledge that it would all be over soon, one way or another.

The Heavenly breeze that floated lazily through the richly autumn colored leaves of the big fir tree next to the choir chapel should have and would have been comforting to any other angel of God, but Andrew was in another world and not even that could begin to touch the foreboding sense of anxiety that was building within him. He sat down onto the bench by the chapel door like a stone sinking into water to wait, as he had high hopes to run into Adam today. By word of mouth, he'd learned that Adam had been frequenting the chapel in between assignments for a reprieve and so, because he had no assignments of his own to speak of for the next little stretch of time, Andrew planned to wait until he came. To say that he was weary would be an understatement for Andrew. Over the last few weeks, he had not only been diligently working a full case-load of assignments, but also searching relentlessly for Adam with anticipation that the help he sought from him would be generously received. If nothing else, Andrew fervently hoped that he would point him in the right direction, and at the very least, be the friend that he knew him to be and listen without passing judgements.

Since there existed no concept of time in Heaven, Andrew had no clue as to how long he waited on the bench, but the feeling of relief that flooded through him when Adam finally approached was such that he might have waited all day. Even from several hundred feet away still, Andrew could clearly see that Adam's expression was troubled and suddenly, the chill of apprehension that he'd felt in his heart the last few weeks spiked intensely. The way that Adam walked purposefully toward him was unsettling as well, though he tried not to show any of these emotions on his face. Instead, he plastered on a small smile and continued to wait.

"Andrew," Adam called out when he was much nearer, "It's good to see you old friend." Closing the now short distance between them, Andrew stepped forward and returned the brotherly embrace before replying with his own greeting.

"It's been too long, Adam. How've you been?" Andrew paused before asking the next question, "You look like you have something on your mind. Tough assignment?" He could only assume that a previous assignment was what was troubling Adam, as they'd both had their fair share of them in the past, and he could recognize the look anywhere.

"Actually, yes. It's going to be tough," Adam said quietly, averting his eyes from Andrew's and pausing, looking beyond him to the horizon, as if he was silently drawing strength from the beauty of their surroundings, before looking back. "Andrew, I … I've just come from meeting with Tess and Sam."

There was a beat of silence and Andrew wasn't exactly sure that he'd heard Adam correctly. If he had heard right, it didn't sound like the typical lighthearted discussion that old friends generally shared when they'd been apart for a while. He shook his head and tried to make sense of this unexpected news.

"Hold on, you did … what?" Andrew was definitely throughly confused. "Adam, I've been looking for you for weeks, what do you mean you came to find me? I don't understand …. and what about Tess and Sam?"

Adam took a moment to gather his bearings and to keep his emotions in check. Having just found out himself, he had no idea how to come up with the appropriate words, as if there even were an acceptable way to say what he needed to say. He could hardly even believe it himself, but didn't question the severity of the situation at hand for one minute after Tess had sought him out and clued him in and Sam had confirmed it all.

"Well, to answer one of your questions," Adam began hesitantly after a long moment of silence, "The angels in charge of all of us are a lot smarter than they seem sometimes. Tess has known all along what you were planning, or she suspected it at least, don't ask me how. Divine intelligence, I'm sure."

Adam let those words sink in, knowing that Andrew would be taken aback by them and knowing also that what he would say next would make him forget those particular words instantly. The pause, however, was as much for his own sake as Andrew's. He took a steadying breath and plunged ahead, for fear that if he didn't start now, he'd never be able to get it all out.

"Anyway … Tess came to me a few weeks ago and told me to look out for you, that you might come asking for my help. She explained the situation to me, from the very beginning, and told me about the … separation. How you'd finally after eight months, been taken off probation and were allowed to work by yourself again. How she suspected that you might try and find her the moment you weren't being watched all the time." Adam was careful not to say her name or go into too much detail just yet. He could already see the affect that his words was having on his friend and he hated that the very worst was still to come.

"She cautioned me against helping you, against getting myself too involved. She didn't want me to get in trouble too, I guess. But I couldn't just do nothing, not now that I knew what was going on. She's my friend too," Adam said sadly, once again hesitating before continuing, bracing himself for what he would say next, "and so I asked if it would be alright for me to check in on her, not visibly of course, but just to see if she was alright. For a long time, they said no. I'm not entirely sure that they trusted me not to say or do anything besides observe. They figured I would tell you if I knew where she was. At this point, Tess was fairly certain that you were looking for me to try and do just that. It was Tess who finally convinced Sam that it wouldn't hurt anything or anyone if I checked in on her occasionally, if I didn't let it interfere with my cases."

At that, Andrew again lowered himself back onto the bench, for it was too much all at once and he could no longer find it in him to remain standing. He didn't know what to think, how to process this information, what to say in return … it was all so surprising and a blur of words that made no sense, that made him want to yell and cry and strangle Adam all at the same time.

"Okay ..." Andrew started, his voice not much more than a whisper, "so you know where Monica is. And you already knew that I was looking for you, for your help. Because Tess somehow figured it out. And … you've been seeing her, all this time … is that what you're trying to tell me right now? Is that all you're trying to tell me?"

Andrew did what he could to keep his tone even and level, to not allow the myriad of emotions that he was feeling to be heard through his voice, though he was sure that his face was telling a different story entirely. He closed his eyes to ward off the undesirable tears, not wanting to give Adam too much insight into just how painful this was to hear.

"Andrew, it really isn't like that," Adam tried to explain quickly, "It's not like she even knows, I've been going when she's asleep. They were adamant that I not reveal myself to her at all, that was the condition of me being allowed to go." And then Adam knew that he was running out of time before he would have to say the rest, before Andrew could get too upset and walk away,

"Andrew, she's … not in a good place."

Andrew refused to look back at Adam, too afraid that he would lose control over his sudden anger and not be able to continue this conversation in a civilized manner, and he was slowly beginning to realize that the apprehension that he felt in his heart might very well be due to what Adam was leading up to saying.

"Of course she isn't in a good place! How could she possibly be in a good place? I already KNOW that, I can feel it. Don't tell me that's all you came to say! I figured that one out on my own, months ago!" Andrew responded hotly, "So really, if that's all, please just go. You're obviously in no position to help."

"I wish that was all, but unfortunately … that's the better half of the news," Adam replied softly, fighting to keep his expression calm, "You know I don't do the same kind of work that you do, even though we're both technically Angels of Death. I very rarely spend time working on cases, and when I'm called, it's usually for the privilege of transport only ..."

This time, Adam didn't pause for Andrew's benefit, but to once again gather the strength to say what he had to. Never in several centuries of existence could he ever have imagined delivering news such as this, and it was overwhelming to try and deliver it when he knew that it would most-likely destroy the angel whom he'd considered a brother for more than a few of those centuries.

"Andrew … my next assignment is Monica."