A/N: Hey everybody!! Here's the next chapter. Thank you SO much for all your amazing reviews! keep them coming!! *hint hint*! Also, thanks so much to LaPaige for suggesting Jason's point of view. I couldn't do the whole chapter from his POV, but I did split it up a bit. Hope you approve!! ;) Enjoy!

Blackness. Pure, blissful blackness. There was such a sweetness to the solitude that Jason found as he hung in between life and death. Nothing could touch him in his current state, and of what he could actually remember and feel, there was mostly silence. Oh, how he loved silence.

Sure, there was the occasional well-wisher, but most of what they said slid over his mind like waves lapping over footprints left in the sand. One moment it was there in his consciousness, and the next, it had faded away.

Time also passed in a blur that meant nothing to him. He slipped in and out of semi-consciousness, never fully able to pry his eyelids open. Why would he want to? The darkness was so comforting, and so all-consuming. Everything was right in his world, until the girl came….

He hadn't been able to understand the murmurings that swirled around him, but as soon as her hand curled around his, Jason felt a jolt of energy fly through him, burning though every pore of his body and flying straight to his heart. By the way the hand tightened momentarily around his, the girl felt it too. After that, everything sounded clearer, and Jason was able to understand more. His mind filtered through what the girl was saying and then what the nurse was murmuring.

He was surprised that he could actually hear the door being closed. Such details had never been so clear to him while he had been…wherever he was at the moment. He wondered who the girl was, and if she was going to say something to him or just sit there holding his hand. He had almost started to slip back into the deeper blackness of his mind when the girl began to speak.

"I'm not very good at this sort of thing," Jessie said nervously, gripping Jason's hand in both of hers. "But, since I don't know anything about you, it seems only logical to tell you about myself." She smiled and squeezed his hand slightly. "Try not to fall asleep."

So she had a sense of humor. Jason could feel his lips wanting to curl up in a smile, but the muscles refused to obey his brain. His hand tingled as she touched him, and all he wanted to do was to be able to squeeze back. For the first time, he was able to hear the beeping of the heart monitor, and he could tell that the beats per minute were speeding up. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps there was actually something left to live for.

Who knew that talking to someone could be so difficult? Jessie felt herself squirm in her seat as she struggled to find something to tell Jason about. It wasn't a quiet spell that was keeping her from talking this time, it was simple fear. After all these years of shutting people out, could she open up and let someone in?

"My name's Jessie," she finally managed to say. "I'm seventeen years old and a junior in high school. I've been as foster kid for ten years and I absolutely hate it." She paused, unsure what she should say next. "I can't wait until my birthday," she finally said, revealing a small piece of her dreams, not facts, to this boy in front of her. "I don't know where I'll go or what I'll do, but I know that I'm getting out."

She was unhappy. Jason knew that feeling. She didn't like the way she was being treated at the moment. He knew that feeling as well. He struggled to understand everything she was saying, soaking it all in as though her words were water and he was a thirsty man.

"When I get home," Jessie promised him, "I'm going to look up everything I can about you. I want to know all I can so that I don't bore you."

Jason felt his heart swell slightly, though he didn't understand why. She could never bore him. Her voice seemed to sooth him yet coax him out of his restful state all at the same time.

Jessie felt the quietness creeping up on her and she found herself content to sit and hold Jason's hand until it passed. It was almost as though there were no words needed between them, just the simple, binding act of hand holding. It was almost unsettling to Jessie when the silence they were surrounded in was broken by the door to Jason's room opening.

Mrs. Nash stepped into the room and assessed the situation with pleased eyes. These two people, both feeling left out of their worlds, had indeed bonded already, just like she thought they would. "Well?" she asked cheerfully, covering up her thoughts. "Did you have a nice visit, Jessie?"

Jessie nodded. "I feel like I-" she paused, feeling foolish by saying something about the connection to the nurse.

"Know him?" Mrs. Nash guessed with a smile.

Jessie gave a small start of surprise. "How did you know that?" she asked sheepishly.

Mrs. Nash smiled. "I just did," she said vaguely. She shrugged her shoulders and nodded towards the door. "Diana's just about ready to leave, so I thought you might want to head back over to the wing."

Jessie frowned. "She sure has a short shift."

Mrs. Nash raised an eyebrow. "Short?" she asked curiously.

Jessie nodded and said, "I've only been here for, like, an hour." She felt that an hour was a generous amount of time, though it felt like much less than that.

Mrs. Nash did something then that surprised Jessie. She laughed. "Jessie," she said kindly, "you've been here for four hours. It's almost seven o' clock."

Jessie turned for the first time and looked out the windows behind her. Sure enough, the sun was setting, it's last rays of light barely seeping through Jason's window. "Oh," she said flatly, blushing. "I guess I should go."

Mrs. Nash smiled and watched with glee as Jessie squeezed Jason's hand and patted it, saying goodbye and that she'd see him tomorrow. Once Jessie's goodbye had been said, Mrs. Nash led her back into Diana's wing where the young nurse was just clocking out.

"There you are," she said huffily. "Are you ready to go?"

Jessie nodded obediently. "Yes," she said softly, trying not to be difficult.

"Then we'd better go," Diana muttered. "I want to get home and go to sleep. Goodnight, Mrs. Nash."

Mrs. Nash barely raised her hand in farewell before Diana was dragging Jessie out of the wing. The two young women rode down the elevator in silence, and then Diana led Jessie over to her car at the end of the parking lot. "Get in," she told Jessie gruffly. That was all that was said during the ride home.

However, it didn't matter anymore to Jessie. A piece of her heart seemed to have been filled in the time she spent with Jason and suddenly, trivial matters like what Diana or her parents thought of her no longer mattered. All she could think about was Jason, and when she got home, she knew that she would be doing some research of the eldest member of Connect 3.

The girl had said goodbye. The instant her hand had left his, Jason had felt some of the warmth and security in the room vanish. Everything became harder to hear, but he had understood what he had needed to hear most: her name. Jessie. Even her name sparked something in his stagnant body. The beeping of the monitor faded away as he sank deeper and deeper into the clutches of the comforting darkness. He would just rest a little more…until she came tomorrow.