Author's note: If anyone's wondering, I have nothing against nurses. I like them a lot, actually. I also have fun making people up, and they happen to come up often …

(I'll say it if I didn't already) I don't own the characters.

Lindsay's mind was awash with nightmares of Jessie. There was no one particular nightmare, rather a series of them. She would awake quickly and silently in the middle of each, steady herself with Danny's deep breathing, and hesitantly go back to sleep. They started the same, but ended differently. It all began with the room in the school, then onto Jessie speaking to Danny, then they would change. In one, Danny's face looked sadly at her through the fire. In another, Jessie's eyes burned so brightly at her that she burst into flames. In a third, the building shook, and she held Jessie tightly in her arms as he stared calmly into her eyes. She watched him die slowly.

It was during one where the three of them were all burning brightly in a mass of rubble that she screamed. It was a soft shriek, loud enough to cause Danny's body to contract and jolt upright, eyelids still half-closed.

"Wassapening," he mumbled, Lindsay held tightly to his chest.

"Nothing, go back to sleep," she hissed. It was her seventh time waking up that night. She was tired, she was pissed, and she knew she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep unless she had Danny's deep breathing to lull her.

Danny shook his head, and wiped his eyes with the backs of his hands. "I'm up, I'm up."

"Don't. Go back to sleep," Lindsay whimpered.

"'S wrong?" Danny asked, squeezing her tighter.

Nurse Peter appeared in the doorway, grinning ludicrously wide for a two-in-the-morning visit.

"Now, how many times have I told you," he said, waggling his finger, "one bed per person!"

"Suck it, Pete," Danny sighed.

Peter stood for a moment with his jaw ajar, finger still raised and pointed, then shook his head and wandered away.

Lindsay's face was buried in Danny's chest. Her body was quaking with laughter. Danny grinned. He didn't care if the nurse put laxatives in his IV pole to get back at him. So long as she was happy.

"Ya gonna tell me what yer screaming about?" He whispered as he kissed her ear.

She burrowed into him. "Just nightmares."

"Talk about 'em?"

"What you'd expect, I guess. The fire. The bomb. Jessie."

Danny ran his hand up and down her back, pushing up under her shirt to reach the heated skin. "He wanted to die. Wasn't anything we could do, 'sides survive."

She lay quietly next to him, and turned her head up to look at the ceiling. "I guess." Once his breathing had slowed, she whispered her deepest regret into the flesh of his throat, believing that he wouldn't hear it. "He was sixteen years old."

"I know, Lindsay. I'm so sorry." His voice was soft and muted by sleepiness, but its strength and comfort remained.

So he's awake, she thought, and the fact comforted her more than the steady breathing.

"Danny?"

"Hmm."

"Could you stay awake until I go to sleep?"

"Sure. You have another nightmare and I'm asleep, you wake me, alright?"

She nodded. He smoothed her fingers, tracing them with one of her own – a stroking each line of her digit. The gentle tickling sent her into a different kind of sleep, a calmer one. The dreams were softer, and less real.

The test results for the baby were fine, as they'd expected. Lindsay was advised bed rest, or at least a more relaxing schedule for the next couple of weeks. Mac threatened her with lab work for the rest of her life unless she took three weeks off.

She spent her time lazing around the house, waiting for Danny to come home so she'd have something to keep her interested. He was usually tired and worn out. Mac had given him four days off. Lindsay had complained about Mac's blatant chivalry, but Mac told her he didn't care what she thought; he needed somebody working since Adam was still out with the flu.

When Danny was home, he wanted little more than sleep. Lindsay would rub lotion on the burn on his back, which was much bigger than he'd told her. It was a streak of red flesh that went from one side of his back to the other. Lindsay would kneel above him on the couch, hovering over his lower back, and check and dress the bandage. Unfortunately, the sight of Danny's bare back played upon her sexual desire, which only made Danny more tired in the morning when he woke at six to brush kisses to her forehead and race off to work.

The less energy Danny had, the more her stomach grew. She wondered if she was leeching his energy, consuming it in her bed rest, her changing moods, and heated encounters between the sheets of their bed. Finally, when he came home with his eyes already closed, she called Mac, and begged to be brought in.

She pulled a snow day on him, leaving him a note the next morning and some coffee in the microwave. She knew she'd made a mistake when, observing a fiber through a microscope, she heard rumors of 'the bomb kid's parents' in the lab. After some quick investigating, she knew the truth - Jessie's parents were indeed sitting quietly in Mac's office, holding hands tightly, staring Lindsay's boss in the eyes.