A/N: One-shot? I'm flattered. All I see is flimsy plot, underdeveloped characters. Nevertheless. No end in sight.

Edit: Italics for flashbacks. Didn't show up when I uploaded it to the site, sorry.

I dreamt of lines. Lines that pitched up and down and disappeared into ends I couldn't see. I dreamt of slow rhythmic throbs of a heart that became tinny, recurrent beeps of a machine.

It was cold, so cold. I looked for a breath escaping between my lips but it was dark, then, and suddenly so warm. So heavily warm, sitting between my eyelids in the dark that wasn't really dark, but an explosion of bright white lights that sent me reeling in pain.

"She's awake."

It was only when I heard a voice I knew I wasn't dreaming or dead, and I was so afraid for moment that I'd spend forever in that place with the beeps and cold. I knew because it wasn't the voice of an angel or the loud deep booming one everyone supposed God had. It was old, tired, and motherly.

"Is she okay to talk?"

I open my mouth to tell them, but all that comes out is a disjointed whimper ripping out of my throat like fire. The cool stiff edge of a straw is put up against my lips, and the liquid is warm and bitter. I turn my head away at first, until it slides down my throat like honey and the ache is gone.

A man leans over me, his hair is wet and his blue uniform is dripping onto my white sterile sheets. He smells like the sea, and his fingers are wet and cold when they touch my hand. "Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital?"

The look he gives me is sympathetic, the one I've seen so many times before, only but this time it's not laced with disgust. "Yes. Is this yours?" He holds up an old tattered wallet and speaks slowly. His voice is so loud and I try not to cringe.

I nod, and he opens it and rifles through the meagre, soaked contents, speaking mostly to himself. "Uh, there isn't much in here. No cards, ID, receipts…"

It takes a few seconds for me to register the direction his words are taking. "Spencer Carlin. I'm eighteen."

He nods, wincing at the hoarse, forced quality to my voice. "Is there any family we should call?"

"I don't have any family."

He looks as if he's about to object, when the old voice cuts in. "Sir, the poor girl needs to rest."

He knits his eyebrows together. I close my eyes and dream of better things.

The nurse pushed our gurneys apart, checking the time with a wayward glance at the wall clock.

"Past midnight already, girls! Stop talking and sleep."

Safety precautions had kept us from participating in camp activities for the rest of the day, and made for a completely unnecessary overnight stay in the on-site ward. I had enjoyed the seclusion at first, until Ashley wrestled my sketchpad away from me and coerced me into keeping her company. I feigned exasperation at first, until I realized it was mostly just Ashley keeping me company.

As soon as the nurse disappeared back into her office, Ashley turned to me with an elfin grin. "Still up for a swim tomorrow?"

I groaned. "After spending today with you? Anything."

She laughed, knowing I meant none of it. "I'm teaching you even if it means you're going to be a grouch all day, Carlin. I don't break promises."

I hid a smile. "Stop calling me Carlin. Only Glen gets called that."

"Glen?"

"My brother."

She allowed a very slow grin. "Really? You're bossy, I thought you'd be an only child."

I swatted her bed, the only part I could reach. "Speak for yourself!"

The nurse made an obnoxious shushing noise, but I caught an unmistakable wicked glint in Ashley's eye before she turned her face to the dark.

"Sweet dreams, Spencer."

"…saw Spencer at the docks, midnight, she called in and asked us to check it out."

My room is dark when I wake next, the hospital lights have dimmed but I can make out the silhouettes of two people in the doorway to my room.

"If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have made it in time."

"Have a little more faith, officer."

"Yeah. She was pretty spooked, too. But she's been asking about Spencer… it's amazing how compassionate she is, considering her reputation and all…"

"You know the confidentiality policy."

"I know. But Spencer's like what, the fifth this month? She's the youngest of them all, even. Where do they keep coming from? Throwing away their lives like…"

"She's the only one that hasn't had anyone come for her."

"And we can't put out an alert until she wakes up. Barely legal age but we have to follow protocol…"

"Someone always comes, officer. You should go back to the station."

I roll over and bunch the sheets around my head, drowning out their voices.

Ashley called every night for the first month. It would be anywhere from ten at night to three in the morning, but I gave her the green light to wake me up. Most of the time, I couldn't sleep until I heard her voice.

"Hey Einstein!"

"Hey Sherlock." I traced the dark still ceiling with my eyes as drowned out voices and a faint pounding bass beat came in over the line. "Where are you?"

"E…" She paused to giggle at a distorted male voice. "Ego."

I smiled at the sound. "Having fun?"

"Lots. I wish you were here!" She slurred and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut to try to stop wondering if she meant what she said. The Ashley Davies I knew always meant what she said.

The alarm radio on the nightstand flashed four AM in fluorescent red and I counted the measly hours I had left to sleep. I smiled, remembering waking up to her newest single that morning. I had wanted to tell her, but now just didn't seem like the right time. "Yeah, me too."

"Spence, you sound tired." She sounded miraculously sober for minute, and I stopped minding the bass beats and buzzing voices. "Have you been up all night?"

"Uh, yeah. I couldn't sleep," I admitted sheepishly.

"Sleep, okay? You shouldn't stay up for…" She paused, and I could hear the rasp of a breath over the line. "You need to sleep, Spence."

"I will. Hey, so, when are you coming to –"

I broke off when her end erupted in noise. "Spence? I have to go. I'll call you later, okay?" She paused for effect, or maybe to consider her next words, then added firmly, "I promise."

"Okay."

I slept soundly for one more night.

"Hey, Ash? You haven't called yet and I have school in an hour so ah, hey. I hope you're safe. Having fun. Call me later, okay?" I lingered awhile, hoping that she would miraculously pick up and greet me in that way that made me smile.

And so it came down to that on every thoroughly long night, I would speak to her machine.

The dim sunlight slants in such a way that if I hadn't recognized the newest addition to my bedside table, I wouldn't have noticed it at all. I reach out for it before it'll disappear and I'll realize that this, this is all a dream.

The paper is coarse, it hasn't been long enough for me to not recognize the texture of sketch paper. It's been folded into impeccably perfect quarters and I open it to lips, full soft perfect lips with the beginnings of a smirk, the gentle slope of a feminine jaw, curly multi-toned hair and eyes that are still two faint smudges, two faint smudges I'd erased them into over and over again six years ago.

I could never get it right. No, especially not the eyes. There was no way I could've captured Ashley Davies on paper, not the way she smiled or the way she spoke or the wrinkle on the bridge of her nose, and certainly not all three at the same time. There was no way I could've captured her, her voice, the way she laughed, the way she seemed to look at me, not in any way that could've done her any justice. I wanted to remember her, but, how could I have captured her in a way less than the way she was?

My breath won't leave my chest because she was here, and now she's not.

But now, it all comes down to one moment: Ashley Davies finally calls me back.

"Sweet dreams, Spencer."

How long have I been awake?

One year, three months, and six days.

But I know I'll sleep soundly tonight.