All around you, the world sleeps.

The plains, the mountains, the valleys. All is sleeping; all is dreaming of the great long grey; all has forgotten color. Ash and dust and bare rock and stark trees, as far as the eye dares to venture.

And there you stand on a monochrome ridge, so close to a dull slate sky you could touch it.

There. On the horizon, you can see it.

A single, shining point, like an old meteorite remembering its ancestry and springing back to life, ferocious and burning.

Miles and miles away. Miles and miles and miles and miles. But you can feel the heat on your face, drying out your eyes, chapping your lips. But something compels you to look, all the same.

You glance to the side.

Sitting beside you is the dog.

It looks up at you.

You look back.

And you get a good look at it for the first time.

It's... well. It's... huh.

Hard... to explain.

It's shaped like most dogs. And about the same size. But maybe it's a little bigger. Or maybe a lot bigger. When it sits it seems smaller, yet stands... larger, somehow. No matter how far away it is from you, it seems to be the same size. Like... it's always within arm's reach, even when it isn't, but it still is. Its proportions are ever so slightly off, you think. Limbs a little too long, paws a little too big. You try to count its fingers and your eyes begin to drift across the ground. A face a bit too short to be doglike. Or maybe a bit too long. As far as breeds go, you have no idea.

Its tail... well, you don't think it has a tail. Or maybe it does, just hidden by the angle. Hard to tell.

But it's black, and has gleaming white teeth, and has glowing red eyes. Of those three things you are absolute.

"It's been three days. You could have sent a letter."

Silence.

"You..." A breath. You lick your teeth. The world tastes very distinctly like nothing. "You're not even a dog, are you?"

What an absurd question. The absurdity of it clouds in the air. The dog seems to think so too, but is polite enough not to say anything.

"This is a dream, right?" You watch the words dissipate into the silence. "This is a dream." You nod to yourself, scuffing your boots in the grey silt. Reassurance. "My dream? Your dream? Ours, both—whose?"

The dog looks at you. Expectantly, perhaps? You've never been good at reading dog expressions. Or dream dog-yet-not-dog expressions, either.

"You could be—here—you're—" You struggle with the words, feel them stuck to the inside of your skull. The concepts are there, right damn there, so vivid in your mind. But your teeth and tongue can't free them. "... You're real, but you're not. You're real the way I'm not real, here. I'm not real, but I don't have to be. Not here. Since we're both... here and not here." Your brow furrows. No, no. It's coming out all wrong. It's not making sense the way it should.

It turns its eyes from you and continues gazing upon the distant blaze.

"It's always the—the same, the same thing. 'Come and see.' I'm here. But what—" You gesture at the red nova in the distance. "What am I looking at? What am I seeing?"

You pause.

"... Am I seeing?"

You pause.

"... Did I already see it? Will I see it? Is there anything to see?"

You pause.

"Am I... am I blind?"

They dog does not look at you. But staring at it, you realize something.

The dog's eyes don't glow. They never did.

They only reflect.

0-0-0-0-0-0

You reach out.

Your fingers grasp sheet and blanket, your fingernails scrape cotton, and nothing else. Finding nothing, you pull the blankets closer around you, burrow your face into your pillow with a soft groan, and—

You open your eyes, blink away the bleariness, let the color slowly flow back between the lines.

You lay there, staring at the ceiling. From the way the sunlight is coloring the walls of your room, it must be... nine— no, ten. Maybe even eleven. You need to relearn the concept of time, again. Like you're back to being four years old and making sundials out of stones in the dirt. You could simply turn your head and look at your alarm clock, but...

You don't.

You just lay there, just a little longer.

You're still in your clothes from last night, minus your boots. Your skin prickles with that weird slightly-sweaty-and-slightly-warm-clothes-feel as evidence.

You twist onto your side, looking at the space you've made in your bed. You run a hand over the bedsheet, expecting warmth, finding only your own.

Last night—

You curl in on yourself a bit, pulling your head into the crook of your elbow.

Last night, when she was holding you, when you wept into her chest. When you—so strangled by the delusion that dwells in the lowest of despair— almost upturned your face, hoping to find her mouth waiting. The last refuge of the desperate and the pathetic: anyone who will take them.

Something flickers to life deep in your abdomen. You decide it is disgust.

You could conjure a thousand different excuses. But you decide on weakness. It takes the least effort, and you've grown used to feeling shame.

The temptation still hums, static the color of heartbeats, deep down, where your muscle meets bone. You could REGRESS back, and—and maybe she would—

You bite down on the knuckle of your thumb. Hard enough to leave teethmarks.

Your other thumb pulls at your belt, adjusts your jeans. They feel rather alien all of a sudden.

With a grunt, you push yourself up, swing your legs off the bed, and sit there for a while, hands on knees.

Well, here you are, day one of the rest of your life.

You get up, take a step, and stumble over your boots (thoughtfully placed next to your bed). "Fuck," you mutter. Yes, the first word of the first day of the rest of your life is simply 'fuck.' Make a note.

You reach behind your bedside table and unplug the alarm clock. You just— you don't want to look at it.

You hook your fingers around the knob of the bedside table's drawer, hesitating, and pull it out.

The gleaming face peers patiently up at you. The second hand extends up to meet yours.

Black, stylistically geometric, decidedly Swiss, and still ticking like a dormant volcano.

You look at it. Must've cost Kurt at least a thousand, if not more. All of that time-fraud money. You'll need to get him one Hell of a birthday present to—

And then you remember Kurt won't be having any more birthdays.

You mechanically latch the watch on.

So you won't forget the time, or anything else.

0-0-0-0-0-0

You know that smell. Green tea. Longjing, gyokuro, fuck, you don't know—it's obscure enough that it doesn't show up on the Teavana website. You remember the first time Sarah was over and you offered her some coffee, and she just gave you a funny look and said "I work in a coffee shop, you know."

When you walk into your living room, Sarah is sitting at the kitchen counter, one of your PTSD management books cracked open in front of her, the stack on the floor. Two ceramic cups of something steaming.

She looks up from the book and smiles tiredly at you. "Hey." She slides one of the cups over to you.

Hair sticking out in all directions, circles under hazel eyes. Goddamn, she looks exhausted. Guilt scratches against the base of your spine. "Hey," you say. Your throat is still scraped raw from last night's monologue.

Her eyes flick to the watch, but she says nothing.

"So," you say.

"... So," she replies.

"You didn't have to stay."

"I know I didn't. But here I am."

"I mean, you have work—"

She gives a single-shoulder shrug. "A time-traveling friend revealing the secrets of time and space is a little more important than the cafe, don't you think? Thought things might get, how do you say... interesting. Had Todd cover my shift today. You remember Todd, right?"

You don't.

"Uh."

She chuckles. "Yeah, don't feel bad. Even Todd can't remember Todd."

Sure, okay. "Did you get any sleep?"

She tilts her head towards the couch. "Yeah. Miracle I did, considering everything you told me last night." She notes your bed-wrinkled clothing. "You sleep okay?"

"Yeah," you lie. You sit down next to her, letting the steam of the green tea warm your face. Odd smell. Not a bad smell, though. You could get used to it.

You sit in the quiet for a while, your shoulders touching; somehow that's too much and not enough.

And then: "What now?"

Sarah looks askance at you. "You're going to need to be more specific, there."

You grip your hands around the cup, wondering how hard you can squeeze before it shatters. "Sarah, I... fuck, I killed someone. I stole thousands through the stock market. I don't—I want to be normal, I want this to be normal. But... I don't know where 'normal' is anymore. I don't know where my 'crazy' ends and 'insane' begins. I don't know how to go back."

She turns around on the stool, looking at you critically. "First off, you're neither crazy nor insane."

You take a sip. Burns. Good. "I have my doubts."

"I'm serious. You won't get anywhere if you resign to thinking you've lost it."

You sigh. "I know."

"So here's what you're going to do. You're going to take it one day at a time, alright?"

You stare down into the tea. Your reflection stares back.

"Alright?"

"Sarah," you whisper, "I want it so bad. I want to turn it back—just a second—so bad." Because it's like perpetually being on the edge of orgasm, always on the verge of a needed sleep, forever being unable to remember something obvious but almost.

And she reaches out and grabs your wrist.

"Stay."

So you do.