Nearly twelve hours later, Riley was still sitting on the couch, waiting for Lucas to come through the door. She hadn't heard from him since he went storming out, and she did everything she could to try to get in touch with him. Riley called his cell phone about twenty times, to which he didn't pick up. However, she knew that he got them. Each time after two rings, it would be sent straight to voice mail. Riley had called him enough to know that his phone rang about four times before it automatically switched over.

About four hours after Lucas took off, Riley called Maya to help her try and find him. The two friends searched all over the city to no avail. But there was one thing for certain that they found out.

When Lucas didn't want to be found, he made sure that no one could find him.

The doorknob slowly turned and the door opened. Riley turned her head and saw Lucas standing in the doorway, looking even more drained than he did earlier today.

"I, uh… I thought everyone would be asleep," he said groggily.

Riley shifted herself on the couch to face him. "Everyone else is. I wanted to wait up for you."

Lucas nodded as he walked towards the hallway, not wanting to talk about anything that happened. Riley must have sensed this, for she stopped him from going any further.

"You know, I got a rather unusual call today. It was for you actually."

He froze by the end table and made eye contact with her. "Who was it?"

She crossed her arms and stood up. "Your therapist. She was calling because she couldn't get ahold of you on your cellphone, and you listed the apartment as your second number. She said that you missed your appointment today, and was wondering where you were."

Lucas bit the inside of his cheek. "What did you tell her?"

"It doesn't matter," she responded as she shook her head.

"It does to me!"

Riley placed her hands on her hips. "You want to know what matters to me? What is going on with you? Why are you acting like this? Why are you seeing a therapist? Is this the real reason why you're on leave right now?"

"Riley, can you please just let it go?" Lucas harshly pleaded.

"No! I can't!" she shouted back.

"Don't yell, you just said yourself that the rest of your family is asleep," he muttered.

She narrowed her eyes. "Quite frankly, at the moment I don't care. I want to know why you've been acting like this because it's worrying me! Something is wrong and I want to know what it is, and I want to know now! I want my Lucas back! I want to help you!"

Silence fell over the two, yet the tension was still high between them. Neither of them broke eye contact, despite the tears starting to form in Lucas' eyes.

"Well," Lucas began as his voice cracked, "I don't know if that's possible."

The anger that was on Riley's face was replaced with confusion as she raised an eyebrow. "What?"

But before Lucas could answer, the tears started to stream down his face. All the anger that Riley was feeling washed away as she approached him, and she took ahold of his arm and led him over to the couch. Once the two sat down, Lucas let the tears flow more freely, and the crying soon turning into sobbing. All during that time, Riley wrapped her arms around him and let him cry. Whatever it was that had got to him, she hoped that this was helping in some way.

After a little while, Lucas finally started to calm down a bit. It was then where he slightly pulled away from Riley and whispered, "I'm sorry."

Riley shook her head lightly and placed her hand on his. "Don't apologize. It looks like you needed to do that for a while."

Lucas nodded and rested his head in his hands. "You have no idea."

"Does it have to deal with the crash?"

He nodded again. "Good guess," his muffled voice replied.

"Then do you want to tell me everything else?"

Lucas leaned back onto the sofa and sighed. "It's hard to talk about…" he trailed.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

A small smile spread over Lucas' lips; the first genuine smile that Riley had seen since he first came back. It took a little while before he spoke, but when he began, Riley gave him her full attention.

"It haunts me every night. What happened, what could have happened. The nightmares come every night… when I can get to sleep that is. I was avoiding Farkle when I was still there. Don't ask me how I did because I don't even know how I did considering I have to work with him all the time. Whenever anything got catapulted off of the deck, I'd jump. Just trying to fly missions was hard enough. My scores were dropping… not enough for the CAG to get involved, but being the person he is, Farkle did."

"Did you talk to anyone about it?"

Lucas nodded. "Yeah, but not until recently. The only reason why I went because Farkle cornered me and I snapped at him, like I did with you earlier today."

"So you were feeling like this for how long?"

"…about three months."

Riley's mouth fell open. "Three months? Why didn't you go to anyone sooner?"

He shrugged. "Like I told Lieutenant Commander Parker, the therapist on board the Enterprise, I thought it would go away."

She nodded. "Okay… so, what happened there?"

Lucas bit his lip and let a long pause come over the two. "She diagnosed me with PTSD…" he muttered. "And there's a chance I won't ever fully recover. The reason I'm on leave right now is for therapy, and at least in my opinion, it's not working at all. I know it's only been a week, but I feel as if something should be better by this point."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He sighed. "Riley, I love you, but this is hard enough to talk about right now… think how I was feeling when she told me."

Riley bobbed her head from side to side as she thought about the situation. "Okay, I'm sorry. But what happened to you down there to cause this? I know punching out is the last thing a pilot wants to do because of what your body goes through, but Farkle's okay! So why you?"

Again, Lucas bit the inside of his cheek. "Because you don't know all of what went on that night. You only know what the skipper told Captain McCall. No one else really knows what happened that night… Farkle kind of does but…"

"But what?"

"Farkle was lucky in a sense. He was able to do everything by the book until he was fished out. I… wasn't so lucky. Something happened to my ejection seat, so I didn't punch out at the same time he did. I got tangled in my shoot cords, and my clasp wouldn't unbuckle. Once I was free, the swells took my raft away," he explained.

Riley nodded but was still confused. "Okay, forgive me if I've gotten the wrong idea right now, but that doesn't really explain how Farkle could understand."

Lucas nodded. "You're right. He was there when…" he trailed, but failed to finish the thought.

After a few moments of silence, Riley coaxed, "When what?" She was hoping that it would help persuade the answer out of him.

"Farkle was in sickbay when I was looking at the light."

Riley's eyes widened as she tried to find the words to speak. "W-when you say 'the light'… you mean…"

Lucas nodded before she could finish. "Yeah, I do."

"For how long?" she whispered.

"I've been told it was five minutes, but it felt a lot less to me."

"What did you see?"

"Not much, honestly," he explained. "If anything, I felt more than I saw anything. And it felt as if He was saying it wasn't my time; that I have more to do before I go."

Riley nodded. "Okay… so if that's what you felt He was saying, then why are you feeling like this? Why is it all haunting you?"

"I don't know," Lucas groaned. "Maybe that if I go up again that something similar might happen, and this time it will be my time!"

Riley scooted closer to him and wrapped her arms around him. "I wish there was something I could say to make this all better instantly, but I can't. The only thing I can say is that no matter what happens, I'm always here for you. If you need to talk to about it, I'm here… if you need to vent about it, I'm here. If you just need someone to be with, I'm always here."

Lucas returned the embrace as more tears to his eyes and he kissed the top of her head. "Thank you so much," he whispered.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it! One more chapter left :)