A/N: Yes, the title comes from the Billy Joel song.

Mako is both surprised and unsurprised when she wakes up with the fading images of Raleigh Becket swirling in her mind. This is not the first time he's figured in her dreams, but it is the first time he's figured so…prominently. In fact, much of her surprise originates from how it's taken this long, almost a year for her dreams to take this turn. It's not uncommon, after all, for co-pilots to develop certain emotions, it's simply an effect of the Drift. The Kaidanovskys became who they were because of those effects, and there even were a couple of cases where those emotions defied one or both pilot's previously held convictions. But she had believed that she was free of that effect until now.

She rolls over in her bed, staring up at the white ceiling of her Vancouver hotel room, and tries to deduce just why he appeared in the subconscious ramblings of her sleeping mind. True that they're no longer in the same room; it's only the second night in a long time she felt ready to try to brave sleep entirely on her own. (In the aftermath of the assault on The Breach, Mako and Raleigh had taken to sleeping near each other. On the floors of each other's rooms in the Shatterdome; in chairs in each other's hotel rooms when they started being dragged here, there, and everywhere by reporters wanting exclusives; and finally in the same bed when there wasn't a chair and the floor was just too questionable for Mako to let Raleigh be a "gentleman" and sleep on it. It wasn't out of a physical attraction, but a need to be close to each other and protect each other from the nightmares. It was Drift-Hangover. They were always within arms reach of each other, too scared by the way the outside world was to let that security go. They let the reporters book them two rooms, always near each other, but only ever used one.)

Also, it's true that she thinks she might be ready to try to live again, after so much fear and pain and doubt and talking to the UN subcommittee and time. True that Raleigh is her best and closest friend. True that she feels like she still doesn't have a proper place in this world; that she doesn't know where she belongs or where her home is (home had been wherever sensei was, but he left this world). None of her musings really answer her question.

Just as she rolls back over to attempt sleep again, there's the quietest of knocks at her door.

"Mako? You awake?"

She is, in fact, awake, but awake and ready to greet a late-night visitor are two drastically different things. The first night he had sleepily padded into her room because of a nightmare that only she could understand, she had been dressed like she usually was for bed: a tank top and tiny shorts. Raleigh had blushed at the sight of her and focused on the ceiling, trying to avoid looking at her body. She couldn't fault the guy for trying to be a gentleman, even though he knew her body almost as well as she did, and Mako eventually bought some pj pants so he'd feel less awkward and more inclined to talk at her, not the walls.

But now, with him on the far side of the door, and the room empty of his presence, she had slipped back into old habits. Unable to find her old shorts, she had settled on wearing a pair of boyshort panties instead. She considers her state of dress and decides to find a pair of pants before she opens the door.

Raleigh knocks again. "Mako?"

She concludes she has to answer him, even with the pants not found. Her other half needs her and to leave him out in the hallway would be cruel. She slides her bare feet into flip flops and walks silently to the door.

"Raleigh?" she asks as she opens the door. She already knows he's out there, but she leaves the latch on, just in case.

"I can't sleep," he answers. "They're all there every time I close my eyes."

She doesn't need to ask who "they" are, and she lets him in.

"I'll take the chair," he says. He's obviously tired, since he's practically stumbling over his own feet. She briefly wonders if that's why he hasn't really looked at her, and reacted like a blushing virgin (which she knows he's not).

Raleigh starts to stumble, so Mako takes him by the shoulders and guides him toward the bed, forcing him to sit on the edge while she helps him take off his shoes. "Lay down," she says to him.

"I said 'chair'," he mutters.

"Raleigh, you need to sleep. Just lay down." She pushes on his shoulders, an ineffectual attempt to get him to lay down. "Did you sleep at all last night?" Raleigh is very good at functioning off little sleep, but he can only take so much of it.

He shakes his head.

"Please, Raleigh," Mako begs. He has a stubborn streak to match her own, and even now it shows.

"Only if you do, too."

The words shouldn't make her feel anything other than the relief of knowing that he will sleep. But they do. A strange tingle runs through her back. She chalks it up as the lingering effects of the dream, and pushes it away. "Alright." She climbs in next to him, and after a moment, she raises a hand to rub circles on his back, since she knows it helps him sleep.

But Raleigh doesn't fall asleep. He rolls around and grabs her hand, bringing her knuckles towards his lips.

Mako can feel her pulse suddenly race.

"Thank you," he murmurs against her skin,"for everything."

Of its own volition, her hand caresses the side of his face, feeling the faintest suggestion of stubble. "You're welcome," she whispers,"for everything."

The next morning when she gets up to brush her teeth, that's when he turns six shades of pink, stares intently at the ceiling and mumbles something about needing to shave, so could she hurry up and get dressed?