Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed, or any of its characters… I just wish I did. The Princess Bride doesn't belong to me either, alas, but it is one of my favorite books… so darn it, it's one of Chris and Wyatt's favorites too!

Author's Note: My goodness, I was a writing machine this chapter. It just kept coming. I finally had to cut myself off because I was getting a little carried away with transcribing my hand written pages! I didn't want to make the chapter too long, but I did want to get to a good stopping point. There are two things that I promised in this chapter: A Chris Point Of View and a flashback… plus something that I know some folks have been wanting, but not something that I had mentioned would be in this chapter. What's that? Some interaction between Wyatt and a few of his friends. :) I hope you like it. Please R&R!

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You're not safe with me. The golden-haired girl's words echoed in Chris's mind as he stared dubiously at her retreating back. The dark-haired teen let out a frustrated noise and started after her again. The World of Dreams. She had called it something else in another language, but she'd translated. The World of Dreams… So he was dreaming, only he was convinced more than ever that this was more than just a dream. That girl that was running away from him now was the key to getting answers. Chasing after her though, was going to get old real quick if she kept this up.

She rounded the corner ahead of him and Chris let out the frustrated sound again. Yeah. This was definitely going to get old. He felt like Alice in Wonderland chasing after that stupid white rabbit. "Whoever or whatever 'Tomboy Onion' is, I'm sure I can handle it! Is that the 'her' that's not letting you leave? Hey!" he growled in growing annoyance. The girl didn't stop running. None of this made any sense. "Ugh! Alwynne!"

The scenery in the hospital's hallway rippled in front of Chris and he staggered to a stop as it once again carried out a metamorphosis before his very eyes. It wasn't the idyllic castle rose garden he had chased the girl through the first time, but the unnerving contrast to the hospital was just as severe. A farm with rolling fenced in hills replaced the miraculously dissolved hospital walls. He expected to see horses or cattle out there grazing, but there were none. Chris glanced down.

He made a face when he saw that not only had the environment changed, but his clothes had too. Plaid. A blue and white plaid shirt, a pair of worn in but a bit too tight for his tastes jeans and scuffed up boots now enveloped his frame. Plaid?! He couldn't change it, but not for lack of trying; he was stuck wearing something that looked like it had come out of his father's closet. As much as he hated to admit it, it did fit with the new setting that had molded around them. Chris made a face. Yeah, I'm dreaming and this just seriously turned into a nightmare.

Under his now booted feet there was a gravel driveway. Towering over him were massive oak trees, lining either side of the drive and stretching towards a big red barn. That was where he saw Alwynne's retreating figure go. The flash of the girl's red-gold curls swung behind her as she entered through the barn doors and out of sight. Knowing there was nothing he could do about his new attire, Chris resigned himself to it and took off after Alwynne again.

He slowed down when he reached the barn doors and cautiously stepped inside. He would have expected the interior space to be darker than the outside, but the unnatural and peculiar light was the same inside as out. Just as it had been omnipresent under the forested trees of the garden and in the hospital room the light just was. It was the same that as with that creepy feeling of dozens of eyes continuously watching him. He was getting used to that though. "Hey…" Chris called tentatively to Alwynne when he stepped into the barn.

She was towards the back of the long row of empty stalls, leaning on one of the doors. Alwynne lifted her head to look at him. She was still dressed in the pale blue sweater, jeans, and riding boots that had changed her Renaissance-wear in the hospital. When she saw Chris standing there her mouth opened in surprise and he saw worry fill her frosty eyes. Chris closed the barn door behind him.

It unnerved him a heartbeat later when both of the barn doors were wide open without anyone going near them. Then they were shut again. Just like some of the stall doors were doing, he noticed out of the corner of his eyes. More oddities of this place that he hoped that he could have explained. He just had to convince Alwynne not to run from, or try to kill him like she had when they'd met first. Chris moistened his lips and walked towards her, holding his hands up in a peaceful gesture. "Please don't run away again."

"You followed me. Why?" Alwynne asked, blinking owlishly at him. She really didn't seem so much like the confident, fairytale princess he had initially glimpsed playing the harp any longer. The thought dawned on him that it had just been some sort of character she had been playing and hiding behind. She looked at Chris then darted quick looks around the barn as if thinking of possible routes to escape. "You shouldn't have followed me," she whispered in her faintly accented voice. Irish maybe?

"I followed you because I need answers and because I didn't know what else to do," Chris said, folding his arms over his chest.

Alwynne frowned at him, "You shouldn't have. She could come at any moment. Time passes differently here than in the waking world." She nervously looked around again and turned so that her back was pressed against the stall door she had been leaning over when he first came in.

"The 'she' that you said is keeping you here?" Chris asked, trying not to let the girl's obvious paranoia get to him. "Tomboy Onion?"

The redhead's lips twitched a tad with Chris's humor, but even that didn't ease her fears of those mysterious she that Alwynne was so concerned about. "Tromlui d'iníon," Alwynne whispered, accompanied by a shiver. "If she finds you here she'll keep you from leaving too. I don't know how, but she will. She's done it before to others. I don't know how you got here--"

"Neither do I," Chris said, "but if it's just a dream I ought to be able to wake up, right? And you should too."

Alwynne shook her head, "I can't. I told you. But you… you should be able to. I don't know what would be preventing you. As long as she hasn't found you yet you should be able to wake. Or if not wake, you should be able to return to your normal dreams. This place is dangerous. It will be as long as she is able to enter it."

Chris blinked at her and tilted his head to one side, "Wait, my normal dreams? What's the difference?" Okay, so he had sort of figured out that this was more than just a dream. Hearing her put it into words just affirmed his suspicions. It still didn't explain how he had gotten here.

"I don't have time to explain this to you," Alwynne articulated.

Chris ground his teeth in frustration and glared upwards at the barn's rafters. He fixed his green eyes back on Alwynne and said with more patience than he was feeling, "I need to know what's going on if I'm going to help you."

"Help me?" Alwynne asked, staring at him again. She shook her head, "No. Close your eyes, go back to your dreams and wake. I can't protect you from her. She's too strong."

"Quit that!" Chris snapped, hands going to his hips, "I'm not going to leave until you explain and I don't care if she comes before you finish." Great, so the stubborn girl was trying to protect him. Well, he had plenty of experience dealing with stubborn people. Not only was he stubborn himself, but coming from the family he came from he'd had lots of practice.

Alwynne had her fists on her hips too now, somewhere between the frightened girl and the self-assured young woman. She must have seen the resolve on Chris's face, because she sank back, dropping to sit on a bale of hay that had appeared out of nowhere. Another appeared right behind Chris, sliding up behind his knees and forcing him to sit down with a soft 'umpf' of surprise.

"Everyone can enter Domhan'al'taibhream, but most people only enter it for fractions of a second while they sleep. Some, have an ability to enter this place as they choose, or to pull others in with them and keep them here, like her. It exists as a parallel to the waking world, a pale reflection," her words were soft as she tried to explain, "What happens here is real. If a dreamer's chance entrance happens at the wrong moment… like a person dreaming of falling… if they die in a regular dream, nothing happens, if they die here…"

Chris rested his elbows on his knees as he listened, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck begin to rise. Eerily this reminded him of a story he had heard his Aunt Phoebe and his Mother talking about that happened to his Aunt Prue when she had still been alive. Now he wished he had paid more attention to their conversation than he had. Not that it would have helped make any more sense of this.

The girl continued, "Most don't even realize they have ever been here or that it even exists. Then there are the Aisling siúlóir, those with the ability to enter this place as they choose. They will enter it eventually whether they mean to or not… but there have been so few. It is not a common gift and if untrained this place can be dangerous. Tromlui d'iníon makes the entrance an even greater risk. She claims The World of Dreams as her own, has claimed it as her own for a long time... those that she finds, she usually kills. That's why I think you should go. You should wake. If she finds you here…"

Chris moistened his lips and interrupted, "What about you?"

Alwynne lowered her haunted blue eyes, "Me, she keeps alive. Me, she forces to watch as she punishes those that walk her world without her permission. The last Aisling siúlóir, the last Dreamwalker, I ran into was so long ago… but it could have been just a few days, it could have been weeks or possibly years in the waking world… but the last, she…" Alwynne closed her eyes in order to force away the memory of whatever had been done. "I don't know how long I've been here. Time passes so strangely in the Dream."

Chris didn't like the sound of that. His mind was reeling as it processed the information he was being given. He wasn't about to be intimidated into abandoning her. He was convinced now that Alwynne was an innocent that he needed to save. She was a prisoner in The World of Dreams. He wished his father were here, Leo always seemed to know every obscure tidbit about magic, or where to find out more about it. But more than that, Chris wished that Wyatt were here. Well, Chris, you wanted to prove yourself on your own, now here's your chance, his mind hissed at him.

"Okay, so… are you trying to say that I've either randomly entered into or been somehow pulled into The World of Dreams," Chris didn't even try to pronounce the Irish words for fear of completely butchering them. She made the words sound so 'pretty' when she said them, "…or I'm somehow a Dreamwalker?"

Alwynne nodded, "Aye, and if she finds you here, you will wish that you weren't."

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The ride back to the Manor in the back of Phoebe's van with his younger cousins had Wyatt grinding his teeth together by the time they pulled up in the drive. Melinda, also in the back seat with him had an identical pained expression. The twins had started up a chorus of "The Song That Never Ends" the moment they had pulled out of the hospital parking lot and Pandora had joined them in singing it. It was still going on. Henry Jr. had his hands clapped over his ears, stuck in between his two sisters in the middle seat.

Wyatt was regretting more than ever not taking his grandfather up on his offer to ride with him. He'd also had the choice of riding with his mother and father in their car, but had let Paige and Henry take those spots.

"Mom," Melinda pleaded, "Make them stop! Dad! Do something!"

"Please!" Penny echoed from where she sat with her older sister and Wyatt in the rear seat. The singing continued, unchecked by parental intervention.

"Patti, Parvati, Dora… would you three please put that on mute for a bit?" Phoebe asked gently from the front.

"…it goes on and on my friend.
Some people, started singing it,
Not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it…"

Wyatt leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window and desperately tried to block the repetitive singing out. Wasn't he being tortured enough with Chris being in the hospital? He had to endure this added punishment too? Really, Wyatt loved his cousins dearly, all of them. Having such a close knit, large family was wonderful. Most of the time, he loved it. Had he not been as sleep deprived and upset as he already was, he actually would have been singing right along with them.

"Girls, please?" Coop attempted.

Wyatt looked towards the front of the van, if his Aunt Phoebe or Uncle Coop weren't going to try any more than that, he would.

"SHUT UP!" he snapped in a loud, commanding voice. The harsh sounding words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

All three little girls' mouths shut and they turned around in their seats to look at Wyatt in shock. Shocked silence followed. Wyatt's jaw tightened and he leaned back in his seat, arms crossing over his chest so that he could lean his head against the cool window again. Mel and Penny in the backseat with them exchanged looks with one another and scooted over to give Wyatt a little extra space. Silence. Blessed silence accompanied them the rest of the way home.

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"Oh, my God," Chris complained loudly, covering his ears and looking desperately towards the heavens for someone to rescue him, "Not you too!"

Wyatt, followed by Paige's twin daughters, Henry Jr. and Phoebe's youngest daughter, circled the beat up old couch in the attic that Chris was sitting on. "…Forever just because this is the song that doesn't end. Yes, it goes on and on my friend…"

Thirteen-year-old Chris flopped over onto his side and grabbed for a pillow to cover his head with. "Someone turn it off!" he pleaded, "Wyyyy…"

Penny poked her head into the attic to see what was going on. It was summer and a Saturday, the one day of the week that everyone in the family tried to get together for breakfast, no matter what. Wyatt's mother and Chris always woke up at dawn to fix the food and gradually the rest of the family members appeared to add their contributions. Whether they were in helping set the table, helping by not touching the food - like Wyatt, or in adding cheerful conversation, everyone eventually made it to the table together. It usually ended up with everyone spending almost all day together around the Manor. This particular Saturday had been no different.

"Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was and they'll continue singing it Forever just because…"

Phoebe's middle child laughed and hopped into the room to join the couch circling and singing. Her voice rose to join the volume of Wyatt's, which was impressively loud at the moment. "…This is the song that doesn't end."

Chris whimpered before screaming in desperation into the pillow he was using to cover his head. The desperate scream into the pillow suddenly turned into a grunt. "Oof!" he expressed as Wyatt climbed over the back of the couch to land on top of him. Wyatt grabbed the pillow Chris was using to muffle the sound of the obnoxiously loud song. "Get off me! Help! Mom! Somebody!"

"Yes it goes on and on my friend," Wyatt and his younger cousins chorused.

"My ears!" Chris griped, but now Wyatt was holding his hands too, pinning him down, "You weigh a thousand pounds, I can't breathe! You're killing me. Wyatt. Guys, stop, please!" Chris was panting and struggling, then finally he breathed out an exasperated, "Okay, okay! God! I give up…"

Wyatt laughed triumphantly and got off of Chris as his younger brother finally cracked and joined them, "Some people started singing it not knowing what it was…"

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The van pulled up into the driveway at the Manor behind where Piper had just parked. Wyatt's cousins climbed out quickly. The youngest three were looking at him with hurt expressions as they headed towards the large Victorian house. Phoebe and Coop didn't say anything when they got out of the van, except for Phoebe to say, "Wyatt, one of your friends is here."

Wyatt climbed out of the van, while the others finished piling out, and looked towards the beat-up blue truck that was parked on the street in front of the house. A tall, skinny kid with too baggy thrift store clothes and glasses was sitting on the roof of it. When he saw Wyatt the dark-haired boy waved. Wyatt glanced towards his family, who were filing into the house, and then trotted down the drive to meet the boy who was waiting for him.

"I thought it was safer to wait for you here instead of on your porch, in case your Mom got an itchy trigger finger or something," the scrawny and somewhat scruffy fellow said, without getting off the roof of his truck. His legs were dangling down the front windshield so that his feet rest on the hood. "You look like crap."

"So do you," Wyatt said, pulling himself up onto the roof of the truck with him. He was starting to feel extremely guilty for having yelled at his little cousins. They just didn't understand how serious it was and it wasn't their fault. Add to that the new found guilt for having tortured Chris with his cousins using that song in the past, because the drive home had made him realize just how very torturous that song really was. Wyatt scrunched his nose up as he got a good look at his green-eyed friend, whose usually messy mop of brown hair had been cropped into a very short military crew cut. "What happened to your head?"

D.J. Anderson ran a hand over his short hair scowled, "My Dad's new girlfriend happened to it. You know how I was thinking about making a brief appearance at the dance tonight? Totally not happening now. In fact, I may not go to school on Monday either."

Wyatt leaned back on his elbows, but just nodded in response.

D.J. shortly followed in leaning back. He had expected at least a small smile from Wyatt. "He's that bad, huh?"

The blonde teen shrugged and looked up at the clear blue sky above. Wyatt and D.J. had been friends since they were babies. They had known each other what felt like forever. Any friendship had its ups and downs and rocky moments, but even with D.J.'s half-demon background theirs always endured. D.J. was Wyatt's best friend, second only to Chris. They were sort of like the Three Musketeers, as unlikely a trio as they were. It was no surprise to Wyatt that D.J. had showed up, risking Piper's wrath since the eldest Halliwell sister was still angry at him for their last stunt, in order to personally check on Wyatt and Chris.

"I was worried when you didn't call me back last night, but I figured you needed some space."

"Thanks," Wyatt said tiredly.

"How bad is it, really?" D.J. asked.

"They're keeping him in the ICU," Wyatt answered, "He had to have surgery and he hasn't woken up since the ambulance ride to the hospital."

"My offer from my message last night still stands, ya know," D.J. said.

"As much as I would love to go take it out on some demonic parasites, no offense, rather than snapping at my cousins," Wyatt said, being almost as honest with D.J. as he would have been with Chris, "It probably wouldn't be the best idea. I've got zero control over my emotions right now, I'm running on empty, and I have no idea what that might do to my powers…"

D.J. nodded, understanding completely.

There was another truck making its way down the street towards the Halliwell Manor and Wyatt sat up. This one was a much newer, and gleaming, red model. There were two people riding in the cab and one more in the back. D.J. winced when he saw it and slid off of the roof of his truck to reach in through the open driver's side window. Wyatt raised an eyebrow and then cracked an ever so brief smile at the knit cap that his friend pulled down over his head hastily.

"What?" D.J. asked up at Wyatt, who was still on the roof, "I don't want the Friday Night Lights patrol to see my scalping."

Jake Garner's truck pulled to stop on the opposite side of the street and the teenagers hopped out. Wyatt dropped off of the roof of D.J.'s car and gave a short head nod to the trio. Jake, Fred, and Jason returned with their own nods. There was a bit of awkward silence between the group of five teenage boys, before Fred stepped forward and grabbed Wyatt in a bone-crushing hug.

Wyatt was too surprised at the unexpected gesture to do anything but stiffen his arms at his sides as the younger, but much larger boy delivered his embrace. Fred stepped back and rubbed his shiny, bald head. "They benched that guy for the rest of the game. I think Lincoln's coach was worried that our players might have a personal vendetta against him. We just took it out on the rest of the team," Fred said, breaking the silence.

"They decided to do the coronation at the dance tonight, instead of the game, in case you might be able to make it or something," Jason said, jamming his hands uncomfortably into his pockets. Silence fell on the group again. It was clear that none of them really knew what to say.

"We just wanted to stop by and see if there was anything we could do," Fred said, continuing the uncomfortable and forced dialogue.

"The cheerleaders decided to make a get well soon card while we were all over at Tori's last night," Jake said, pulling an envelope out of the inside pocket of his Letterman's jacket.

Wyatt raised an eyebrow when he caught the strong whiff of perfume coming from it as he took it. D.J. bore a similar expression from where he stood behind Wyatt, using the blonde teen as a buffer between himself and Wyatt's fellow jocks.

"Don't ask me what they wrote in it," Jake said, "But I really doubt some of it has a 'G' rating or would be parentally approved."

Wyatt heard a throat clear behind him and turned to see Melinda. She stood hesitantly off to the side, still on the lawn in front of the Manor. There was a distinct blush on her face as soon as Wyatt's friends turned to look at her too, "Wy, your Mom said to tell your friends they're welcome to come in for lunch if they don't want to leave… but that if you don't come in right now and eat something, she'll make you stay here at the house when the rest of us go back." With her message delivered, Melinda gave one last blushing look, mostly directed at Jake before she went back inside.

"We don't want to intrude on your family," Fred said, "as much as I love your mom's cooking. Give her a hug for me and tell your brother to get better. I still need his help in Trig."

"You take care of yourself too, Wyatt," Jake said, clapping Wyatt on the back, "I know your worried about C-squared, but you gotta take care of you too."

"The football's his," Jason said, "as soon as he's better, he can have the QB position back and you won't hear another complaint out of me for the rest of the season. Later."

Wyatt watched his three teammates climb back into Jake's truck and drive off.

"Well, that was awkward. I'd better get going too," D.J. said, "Call me if you want me to come over later. I mean it." After a hug that was far less bone-crushing than the one Fred had given Wyatt, D.J. grabbed the roof of his truck and used it to pull his legs up so he could get in through the open window. Wyatt raised an eyebrow at him and D.J. grinned, "I broke the door, haven't had a chance to get it fixed yet."

"Two words, D.J.: New Car."

"Two words, T.B.: No Money."

"Later," Wyatt said, actually finding his smile again however briefly as he headed up the lawn and then into his house.

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Lunch was as uncomfortably silent as the rest of the car ride had been after Wyatt had snapped at his younger cousins. Not even Paige had made any further attempts at lightening the mood. As frustrating as Piper had found her baby sister's attempts at telling her to relax and that everything was going to be fine, once Paige had actually stopped she missed her efforts to lighten everyone's spirits. When the meal was over, Piper's sisters had helped her clean up while all of their husbands and Victor took the kids to the conservatory to get them out from underfoot. If they talked or played games, Piper didn't know. Wyatt had gone upstairs to his room and shut the door.

When it was time to go back to the hospital, Victor offered to stay at the Manor with the younger grandkids so they didn't have to sit in the Waiting Room. That way everyone could just take the van too, instead of several different vehicles.

"Thanks, Dad," Piper said quietly, hugging him. When she released her father, she turned to go upstairs. Her first stop was her room to get a book from the drawer in her nightstand. The second stop was Wyatt's room. She lifted her hand to knock on the door and stopped when she heard Wyatt's voice from inside.

"…I know there'll be other dances, but I'm still sorry," Piper could hear Wyatt saying. From the pauses between his sentences, she knew he was on the phone talking to someone, "…yeah, I was looking forward to it too… I don't think I've ever seen Jess wear a dress before. Ever. Well, yeah, of course I wanted to see you all dressed up too… I'll tell him for you. You're wonderful, you know? Thanks for being so understanding. Yeah, I'll call you tomorrow to let you know how he is. You too. Bye, Cait."

When she heard him say 'bye', Piper rapped her knuckles against his door, "We're heading back to the hospital."

Wyatt had his door open in a flash, and was passing Piper to go down the stairs.

Piper and Wyatt were again the first two to take their turn going back to see Chris once they had arrived at the hospital. As everyone else settled themselves into the now familiar 'Visitor's Lounge', Piper walked with her oldest son down the hallway to the set of doors marked Intensive Care Unit. They had a brief introduction with the new shift of nurses on duty and then Piper stepped into Chris's room.

One of the nurses had gotten an extra blanket for him and had seen that he was tucked in properly. They had also removed the endotrachael tube and had replaced it with a partial-rebreather mask that was supplying him with a steady flow of oxygen. Piper moved one of the two chairs around to Chris's right side and she set her oversized pocketbook on the ground beside it. Before she sat down, she leaned over Chris and touched her hand against his face. "Hey, baby," Piper said, "I brought something for you…"

Wyatt was standing silently on the opposite side of the bed from her, looking down at Chris with the weight of the world on his shoulders. She bent and kissed Chris's cheek, then settled herself into the chair and pulled out the book that she had retrieved from home. Her eyes shone for a moment with the threat of tears that she blinked away, before she could open the cover. She began:

"THE PRINCESS BRIDE
S. Morgenstern's
Classic Tale of True Love
and High Adventure"

Piper turned the page and read again, "Chapter One, The Bride."

"Mom… are you really going to read that to him?"

"I thought this was your favorite book."

Wyatt opened his mouth to adamantly deny his mother's all-knowing claim, and then closed it with a sigh. The blonde teen looked towards the door as though to make sure no one else had heard his mother say that. "If you ever say that in front of someone who is not a member of this family, I swear I will disown you." He looked from Piper to Chris, then covered for himself, "Fine, read it… but only because Chris likes it."

Piper smiled and opened the book back up. She waited until Wyatt had settled himself in the chair by Chris's bed before she began reading again. Wyatt lowered the metal bar on Chris's left side and carefully took his brother's hand in his. Piper knew he had tried to say that he was listening to the story for Chris, but from the bare hint of a smile on his face as she began to read it, she knew it was the same one the book had always brought out before they were too old to argue that it was a 'kid's book'. She had always read it to them when they were sick and she hoped that maybe, just maybe there was some magic in that, which might help Chris recover faster.

"The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette. Annette worked in Paris for the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, and it did not escape the Duke's notice that someone extraordinary was polishing the pewter. The Duke's notice did not escape the notice of the Duchess either, who was not very beautiful and not very rich, but plenty smart. The Duchess set about studying Annette and shortly found her adversary's tragic flaw.

Chocolate.

Armed now, the Duchess set to work. The Palace de Guiche turned into a candy castle. Everywhere you looked, bonbons. There were piles of chocolate-covered mints in the drawing rooms, baskets of chocolate-covered nougats in the parlors.

Annette never had a chance. Inside a season, she went from delicate to whopping, and the Duke never glanced in her direction without sad bewilderment clouding his eyes.

The year Buttercup turned ten, the most beautiful woman lived in Bengal, the daughter of a successful tea merchant. This girl's name was Aluthra, and her skin was of a dusky perfection unseen in India for eighty years. Aluthra was nineteen the year the pox plague hit Bengal. The girl survived, even if her skin did not.

When Buttercup was fifteen, Adela Terrel, of Sussex on the Thames, was easily the most beautiful creature. Adela was twenty, and so far did she outdistance the world that it seemed certain she would be the most beautiful for many, many years. But then one day, one of her suitors (she had 104 of them) exclaimed that without question Adela must be the most ideal item yet spawned. Adela, flattered, began to ponder the truth of the statement…"

Piper continued to read the first chapter of the book to her two sons to the soft soundtrack of hospital machines.

"Buttercup, of course, at fifteen, knew none of this. And if she had, would have found it totally unfathomable. How could someone care if she were the most beautiful woman in the world or not What difference could it have made if you were only the third most beautiful. Or the sixth. What she liked to do, preferred above all else really, was to ride her horse and taunt the farm boy.

The horse's name was 'Horse' and it came when she called it, went where she steered it, did what she told it. The farm boy did what she told him too. Actually, he was more a young man now, but he had been a farm boy, when, orphaned, he had come to work for her father, and Buttercup referred to him that way still. 'Farm Boy, fetch me this'; 'Get me that, Farm Boy - quickly, lazy thing, trot now or I'll tell Father.'

'As you wish.'

That was all he ever answered. 'As you wish.' Fetch that, Farm Boy. 'As you wish.' Dry this, Farm Boy. 'As you wish.' He lived in a hovel out near the animals and, according to Buttercup's mother, he kept it clean. He even read when he had candles…"

Piper noticed Wyatt's eyelids getting heavy as she continued to read. Eventually she saw them slide over his exhausted eyes and his head dip forward against his chest. She didn't stop her reading to disturb him. He was probably going to stubbornly try to stay awake all night again tonight. He needed his rest. Piper continued to read, turning pages as she verbalized the author's writing. She had gotten to the part where Buttercup spent the night unable to sleep because of a Countess that had come to the farm that had looked at the Farm Boy, and in that time had come to a realization about 'Westley'. She had read Buttercups confession of her love to Westley and of the Farm Boy closing the door in her face. Finally she had gotten to Westley's admission that he loved Buttercup back and that he was going to go away, across the ocean, to seek his fortune so that he would have enough money to marry her. They had kissed.

Piper was just about to get to the part where Buttercup had learned of Westley's death at the hands of the Dread Pirate Roberts when the nurse paused in the doorway. Piper marked her place in the book and set it in her chair. She held up a finger to her lips to indicate Wyatt's sleeping and stepped out to speak to the nurse. All that the nurse wanted to tell her was that the doctor would be by in about an hour to speak to them about Chris.

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Wyatt hadn't stood a chance. His lack of sleep after playing football and then such a long and emotional night, added to the last several emotional hours had caught up with him. He'd tried so hard to keep his eyes open while he held Chris's hand and his mother read the book. They're not going to kiss are they… he'd remembered Chris saying that the first time his mother had read the book to the two of them, …gross! That was the thought that Wyatt dozed off to.

His head dipped forwards and sleep washed over him.

"So who is she anyway?" Wyatt thought he heard Chris's voice say as he began to drift towards sleep. His voice sounded so clear, like he was right next to Wyatt and there was a tingling of something in the back of Wyatt's mind.

"She calls herself The Daughter of Nightmares," Wyatt heard a young woman's liltingly accented voice say. Wyatt heard Chris laugh.

"Nightmares, great. Is that it? Nightmares? You're scared of her because she'll give you nightmares? Nightmares can't kill you…"

"They can here, Chris. I told you, if you die here, you die in truth. I know you want to help me, but you can't. What? What is it?"

"…Wyatt?"

Wyatt jerked awake with a start and swallowed hard. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. His mother's soothing voice reading that book and his exhaustion had just won out. Well, he wasn't going to let it happen again. He'd thought for a heartbeat there when he had closed his eyes that he'd heard Chris talking and his brother had called his name. Wyatt gave his little brother's hand a squeeze and then stood up. His mother was just outside the room speaking to one of the nurses.

"I'll be back bro, but I'm gonna let someone else come see you, while I get some coffee," Wyatt promised. With a doleful look at Chris's face, Wyatt left the room. He nodded mutely to his mother and the nurse she was speaking with and walked to the double doors leading into the ICU.

A tall woman in her mid-twenties was walking in. She had raven-black hair and the frostiest blue eyes that Wyatt had ever seen. The woman brushed past Wyatt without so much as a glance at the teen. She hadn't noticed him, but he'd noticed her. Or rather, he had noticed the prickle of the hairs on the back of his neck standing one end when her eyes had passed over him without acknowledging his existence.

Wyatt stood just in front of the doors, watching to see which room she went to. It was the one right next to Chris's. Wyatt wondered just whom it was that she was visiting and why he felt the urge to make his coffee break short so he could get back to Chris's side. His parents had always told him to trust his instincts.

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Author's Note: There… since I can't think of anything else to say, why don't you guys click that button down below and you do the talking. As in… write me a review!