Dreams

Amanda awakens with a start, finds a light beside her to turn on immediately and then in a panic rushes around the room to turn them all on. Her heart is racing, chest tight with rapid breathing.

She sits back down on the bed and tries to calm herself. Deep breaths. She looks in every corner, at every single thing that surrounds her in the room, making sure she can see the details of everything. There's no darkness.

She's good.

Carisi wakes up with tears on his pillow. She's not passing enough water. That's not a good sign.

His aunt's dying of renal failure.

He wipes them off and begins his day in a melancholy mood.

They meet in the Grand Dining Room for breakfast.

"Fancy," Rollins says, bemused.

"Yeah," Carisi says distractedly.

After they're seated by a hostess Carisi asks her, "Did you sleep well?"

"Not really. Had to sleep with the lights on."

"Really?" Carisi leans forward, a bemused look on his face. "Was there a ghost in your room?"

Rollins huffs. "Hardly."

"So why'd you sleep with the lights on then?"

"Bad dreams."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Total bummer. I'm so sore." She flips through the menu.

"Sore?"

"From waking up throughout the night I guess," she shrugs. "The bed seemed plenty comfortable. It wasn't that."

"Yeah, mine too. It wasn't the bed."

"What wasn't the bed?"

"My bad dream."

"You slept poorly too?"

"Yeah, except mine was closer to a haunting. A nice antebellum dream."

"Was it this place's influence?"

"Nah, I don't think so. This hotel is more turn-of-the-century. This dream was . . ." he pauses to think. "I don't know, more of the History Channel's influence I think."

"The History Channel?"

"Yeah, they were running a special on Yellow Fever – and my dream last night was about that. It was prevalent in this area prior to the civil war."

"Well, we are in the South, Carisi."

He gives her a wry grin.

Another fruitless day of searching ends.

"Damn, this poor girl. Who knows what her mother is doing to her right now," Rollins says as they drive back to Jekyll Island.

"Yeah," Carisi says distractedly. He's been distracted all day.

"You wanna talk about it?" Rollins asks him.

"Huh?"

"Your aunt and uncle. I know it's on your mind."

He sighs deeply. Yeah, they sure are. Last night's dream only emphasized to him just how much.

"You know Rollins, you're with someone practically your whole adult life – you've built your routines, your day to day around them. You always have someone handy . . . to talk to you know?"

"Uh huh."

"And then they're gone. That pattern is gone. Your whole life is gone. You have to start over without them," he says glumly.

There's a brief silence before he breaks it.

"How do you do that?" he asks, almost exasperated. "Cause it's not just losing the person, the one you love – that's hard enough. It's more than that. It's your whole life."

Rollins contemplates what he's said and then responds, "You build a new pattern?"

Carisi is still thinking about that as he slips into sleep that night.

The doc had just left. Mandy wasn't expected to make it through the night. She hadn't passed water in more than a day.

He lay with her in bed, holding her, comforting her as her surroundings continue to get darker. He had lit so many candles. There are over a hundred in her room now and had been for days.

"I'm so scared," she whispers as she holds onto him.

"I know."

And he knows it isn't death she's afraid of either.

"It's so dark there." She gulps. "In the ground."

"Darling," he says gently and strokes her hair in an attempt to soothe her.

"Don't put me in the ground. Don't put me in the dark. Please."

He starts to cry because he knows he has to. There are no alternatives.

The little girl is released from the closet. She falls hard to the ground as the door she had been pounding on is jerked open. There's no one in the hallway.

She hears her parent's carriage outside and knows they have just returned. She runs outside to greet her mother, clinging to her skirt and crying.

"Oh, not again," she hears her mother say, agitated. She picks up her daughter and puts her on her hip.

"Mama!" she says, still crying, but tries to gulp back her tears so she can talk. "Gubbernest was mean to me!"

"The governess again?" her father says impatiently. "Take her inside, this is embarrassing."

Her mother does, sets her down in the foyer and tells her sternly, "These things don't happen. Stop making up stories, Mandy. It's a sin to lie. Do you want God to deny you entry into heaven?"

"No," she answers, very afraid at the prospect.

"Good girl. Now go play outside and let your father and I unpack. Don't be a nuisance."

Amanda turns over in her sleep and finds herself in a different place.

The smile of a nice looking man, touching his hand the first time they dance, long afternoons on the veranda talking about anything and everything, excitement and a touch of anxiety as she places the veil over her face, taking that final step towards him . . .

And now she is in bed, awaiting him on their wedding night. She doesn't have the customary bridal jitters, she trusts him implicitly. No matter how scary this was purported to be she knew he would never hurt her. She's more curious than afraid.

The lanterns are lit on either side of the bed and burning brightly when he comes to her, looking more nervous than she expected.

"Here, let's put out the light," he says and bends over to blow out the lantern closest to him.

"No!" she shrieks, but it is too late. The lantern is out.

She starts crying.

"What's wrong, darling?" he asks gently, reaching out to her. "What did I do?"

"Dark. It's too dark." She is gulping in panic now. The light of one lantern isn't enough. "Oh God, please. . ."

"Let me light the lantern again then, darling. Hold on." He frantically searches the nightstand for the matches, lights one, and touches it to the wide fabric wick.

It blazes to life again and she springs forward to hug him, holding onto him fiercely as she lets out tears that had been held back in her panic at being plunged into the semi-dark.

"It's alright, darling. It's alright," he says. He holds her until her tears run dry.

"Thank you," she says as she releases him. "Thank you for that."

"Sure, darling. But can I ask you something? And can you answer me if you can?"

"I'll try."

"Why are you so afraid of the dark?"

She trusts him, so she tells him.

And to her amazement he believes her. Every word. She knows now that she will love him until her dying day.

He says to her, "Tell you what. We'll never extinguish these lanterns in here . . . And how about candles in every room, okay? No darkness. Ever. I can give you that. I can promise you that."

"Yes," she says, grasping his hands. "Thank you."

Amanda awakens feeling content, drifting in and out of pleasant dreams with an old-time Southern man who somehow looks, but doesn't sound like Carisi.

Carisi wakes with tears on his pillow. Again. Devastated by his dream of losing a frightened woman who looks just like Amanda and being absolutely unable to ease her fears.

Thanks to Skittle479 who in conversation reminded me that renal failure can be a consequence of Yellow Fever. :-)