The sun was bright, the way it had been all week, but somehow it looked gray. Not just looked, but felt. I was too hot; I was sweating. The humidity felt claustrophobic and I couldn't breathe. It didn't change the fact that I felt cold, clammy to my bones.

I lay out in the sun, the heat beating down in waves over my face. Normally I would have shielded my eyes with my elbow, my arm bent over my face, but now I was staring directly up at the sun in its gray sky. That was how I knew. I am dreaming.

The realization happened, and a moment later I heard the screaming. Ned's voice was screaming, screaming for help, screaming for me to come. Was I the only one there? I didn't notice getting to my feet, or running across the lawn, because I somehow I was just in the house, running through empty room after empty room. There was no one else there. They'd left us behind.

I was on our floor, on the other side of the house, and Ned's voice, now sobbing, led me to Tom's room. I darted in, but the room was empty. The bathroom door was open, and as I went in, I saw Ned sitting on the floor by the edge of the tub, sobbing, his eyes red-rimmed, and I saw with horror that there was a body in the tub. Even though it was face-down, improbably face-down for such a shallow tub, I knew it was Tom.

I screamed then, a loud shriek that tore at my esophagus and thrust my stomach into my ribcage, and because I was dreaming I knew that the only way to escape the horror was to wake up, so I did.

I woke up screaming.

There were birds singing outside, but the sky was still dark. It was three, maybe four in the morning, then. The curtains that I loved to watch dance were blowing in the wind, but they disturbed me. The calmness of my bed disturbed me. The birds disturbed me. I would never get to sleep after that.

I sat up, pushing the covers off of me, slipping my feet into the slippers it was really too hot to wear and moving as quickly as I could to the door. Just stepping down the hallway as almost too much for me. I almost ran, but I didn't know if running would be worse, because I had run in my dream. I wanted to be outside as badly as I wanted anything, but there was something else I needed to do first.

Tom's door was well-oiled, but it shuddered a little as I pushed it open. I didn't have to step into the room to see that he was there, on his bed, and I didn't need to get closer to hear the steady, even breathing to know he was alive, but still I stepped closer anyway. My heart was still pounding, and I could feel jitters running up and down my spine. Had it been the future? Was that what that had been, some kind of premonition? Impossible. Tom couldn't drown in his own bathtub; he couldn't even stretch out full length in it. It had been a dream, just a bad dream, and nothing more. I had known that even when I was sleeping.

It felt awkward to be sitting there, watching Tom sleep, so I turned around, and tiptoed out into the hallway. I made my way downstairs as fast as I could without tripping over myself, and then out the side door, and across the dew-soaked lawn. I left my wet slippers on the grass and, barefoot, made my way down the driveway, picking my way over stones. The soles of my feet were tender.

I didn't look up until I got to the end of the driveway, all the way away from the house. I had gone off the grounds a lot, of course, but it was too early, and I was too afraid to walk along the road alone. Instead, I leaned against one of the brick pillars that marked the entrance to Mansfield, and gazed out over the road. I could see the buildings of the campus from here-the dorms and the science center and the chapel, then further away the performance building and the languages building. Ned had pointed them out to me the way one would point out constellations. I had never set foot on the campus itself.

It had been a dream. Just a dream. I'd had dreams before, some of them bad, some of them terrible, in fact. Dreams had woken me up in terror. But even knowing that it felt like the first nightmare I had ever had, and the only dream I would ever have again. And I had to resist the urge to go back to Tom's room and make sure, make certain, that he was really breathing. And then I would go to Ned and check that he hadn't been crying, and then it would all be-

"Fawn?" The voice came from beside me, so suddenly that I shrieked and almost fell as I turned. Henry Crawford, his blonde hair strangely luminous, held up his hands to calm me. "Whoa, God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle-are you okay?" He reached out to steady me, then stepped away, one, two, three paces. His crisp shirt was a little mussed, but it made him look softer, and for some reason I liked that.

I was breathing hard, but I was breathing. "Fine. I'm fine." I tried not to show how much it surprised me that I had spoken, but he blinked, and I shut my mouth with a snap.

"I'm sorry, I-I was making a lot of noise, I thought you'd heard me." He glanced down at my feet, shuffling in the scrubby grass by the pillar. "What happened?"

I would have expected him to ask me what I thought I was doing, that it was too early for me to be out of bed. I would have expected him to talk down to me. He spent so much time with Mireille, after all.

For some reason the thought of Mireille made me angry. If Tom were drowning, would she try to save him? And this man n front of me, Henry Crawford, would he even blink an eye? I thought of Norris, the ten people who had showed up at his funeral, the way they had already forgotten about him. What did this person care about me or anything else?

I had never felt contempt before. I had never known what it felt like, but I knew now, and now all my rage was focused disproportionately, piled unfairly, on Henry Crawford.

"None of your business," I spat. I didn't even take a moment to notice how bizarre it felt to speak to him, a stranger, without pausing.

He recoiled as if I'd hit him, raising his hands higher in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." he turned away from me, making as if to head up the driveway, then hesitated, and turned back. "Have I done something to you? Killed your puppy or something, hurt you somehow?"

I sighed, leaning back against the pillar. "Nothing. You haven't done anything. To me."

"Yeah. I know. So what's with the attitude?" He folded his arms across his chest, peering down at me, glowering.

I deflated suddenly, as suddenly as I'd snapped. "Sorry."

There was a moment of perfect silence. I didn't glance up at him, and he was so quiet I thought he had slipped away as stealthily as he'd approached. But he spoke again, and his voice was much softer than it had been before.

"Fawn. What happened?"

I looked up at him again. He was frowning still, but I didn't think he was angry, and at the very least he wasn't angry with me. There was concern in his eyes as well, but for the most part he was calm, waiting for me to explain the way one would wait for the inevitable. I felt myself melt a bit more, or maybe my anger dissipated, or maybe I was starting to feel how early it was, how tired I was. I didn't like him, and I certainly didn't like what he and Mireille were doing, but he hadn't deserved to be snapped at. He deserved and explanation, and it would have to come from me.

So I looked back up at him, and I took a breath, then another one. "Sorry. Bad dream," was all I could get out, but it was something at least. I felt my throat clench, and I swallowed a few times to try to relax it away.

He raised an eyebrow. "It must have been a really bad one, then."

I nodded. He nodded in return, then stepped back to lean against the opposite pillar, his arms still crossed over his chest. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I looked at him in surprise, and he laughed, throwing his head back. "Man, you really don't like me, do you? I'm not a monster, you know."

When he laughed he reminded me a little of Mary, but when he looked at me he had none of her fierceness, none of that focus that made me uncomfortable. I breathed and breathed again, and my throat opened enough for me to say, "I know."

"Oh good," he said, looking amused. "Well as long as we have that out of the way..." his face sobered a bit, and he said, "So do you want to? Talk about it?"

I tried to tell him that it didn't matter. I tried to tell him that it was just a dream. I tried to tell him that I was sorry I'd been rude, but it really was just something with me, in my head, and that talking about it would make me more anxious than not talking about it. I tried to say that if there was anyone I would talk to about my dream, it wouldn't be him, no offense, but it just wouldn't be. Henry Crawford was a stranger to me. I couldn't share things like that with a stranger. I couldn't even share them with my best friend. How could I tell Ned that I'd dreamed his brother had drowned? No, no, it was best, I tried to say, that we just leave it alone.

But still, thank you for your concern. And I'm sorry again for my rudeness.

That was what I tried to say. What came out of my mouth was more of a strangled squeak before my throat closed off completely and I coughed a little, choking on my weakness. There was a moment, and I tried to speak, that Henry Crawford's eyes widened, and his face became more and more serious as he watched me struggle into silence.

Embarrassed, burning with humiliation, I turned away from him, wanting to run away as fast as possible but so tired that I wanted to fall back into my bed and sleep, dreamlessly, for days. Oh, God.

"Wait, wait, wait," he called, but I was off, I was walking down the driveway. I remembered how in my dream I had suddenly appeared in the house without having to cross the long distance of the lawn to get there, and I wished I could have that power. The drive seemed interminable, and I thought I could feel Henry Crawford's judgement burning into my back.

He caught up to me easily, and fell in stride next to me, but not too close, as we approached the house. He didn't say anything, and God knows I didn't say anything, but I found myself grateful for his silence. Mary might have tried to cover it up with a story or a promise of some kind. Henry Crawford didn't seem to see the need for that.

The path diverged, one way to Mansfield proper and the other to the gatehouse, and he cupped his hand around my elbow, bringing me up short. I couldn't look at him, I couldn't bring myself to, so I looked at a button on his shirt instead. It gleamed in the light that illuminated the side door.

"Are you gonna be okay?" His voice was softer, here closer to other people.

I did look at his face then, and again my surprise seemed to amuse him, but he just smiled a little, clearly waiting for an answer. I nodded, and despite myself brought a hand up to his arm and gave him a short squeeze of thanks. I certainly hadn't earned his concern, not with the way I'd talked to him.

He watched me for a moment longer, then dropped his hand, my own falling with it. "Sweet dreams, Fawn." Then he turned away and walked out of the circle of light, walked off toward the Grant's house, and disappeared from sight.

I went back to bed, and I did dream again, but this time my dreams were of a completely different kind. I woke up later in a better mood, but no less disturbed.

"It's called Party Castles? Are you serious?" Ned didn't even try to conceal his disapproval.

"Yes, brother mine, it is indeed called Party Castles. And yes, yes, yes, it's a reality show, and you can sneer all you like, but it's a fucking hit, and the people'll eat this place up with a fucking spoon." Tom's arms spread wide, taking in the whole front of the house, then came together to form a small rectangle in front of him, a tiny silver screen. "I mean, just look at this place! And who the hell has heard of it?"

"Everyone, when we're done," Yates put in, rising up on his toes in pleasure.

"Yeah, good, because it's not like an internationally-acclaimed university gets enough press as it is." I glanced at Ned in surprise at his tone, but he took no notice of me. It wasn't like him to be so sarcastic.

"I'm not talking about the school, Nedward, I'm talking about the house. They're different, you see." Tom's back was turned to me, but I imagined I could see his lip curling just ever so slightly. Tom had felt contempt strongly and often, it would seem. "I want to show the world the house, and how amazing it is."

"Aren't there other shows? Other channels? National Geographic, or PBS, or something?"

"Yes, there are, but they're boring. This place isn't boring."

Now Ned did glance at me, and sighed just slightly. I raised my eyebrows, giving him a sympathetic smile. He turned back to Tom. "You mean the money isn't boring."

Tom rounded on him, but casually, his hands in his pockets. "So what if I do? There's more than one way to earn a living, you know." He tilted his head to one side, "Or are you just worried that Miss Fancypants will be shown the darker side of the Bertram family?"

I glanced nervously from one of them to the other. Since his arrival, Tom had refused to call Mary by her first name, but had instead opted to call her by a series of nicknames that were just polite enough to be marginally endearing when in her presence, but always turned mocking when she wasn't in the room. Normally Ned would have corrected him calmly, but nothing about this was normal anymore, and Ned's hackles were raised.

"No, I'm just worried about what this is going to do to the house. Our privacy. And do you have anyone's permission to do this? Mom's? Dad's?"

Tom smiled a shit-eating grin that would have stabbed Ned in the ribs if it could reach that far. "Got it. Mom signed a permission form and a waiver last night."

"A waiver? Why would we need to sign a waiver?"

"In case of a fucking tornado, Ned. In case the ground opens up underneath us. In case fucking Voldemort comes out of the fucking sky and decides you're fucking Harry Potter fucking reborn. Okay? It's a standard thing."
"Standard," chirped Yates, rising up on his toes in pleasure. "Totally normal contract for reality shows."

"We don't have anything to worry about here, okay? It's just a fucking TV show."

"Just a TV show," Yates said, "We have absolutely nothing to worry about."

If Ned wasn't going to strangle Yates, I actually thought I was going to come close to it.

"Well fine. I'm not doing it," Ned crossed his arms in front of his chest, driving the point home.

"I never thought you would, Neddy-Ned." The grin was back, but full of triumph. Tom turned to me, almost as an afterthought, " And Fawn, you can sit this round out, too, if you want."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks." I could think of nothing I'd like less than being on TV.

Tom shook his head in wonder, "I don't think I'll ever get used to that." He reached out a hand and ruffled my hair, before swinging his arm around my shoulders and pulling me to his side. "Let me show you what I was thinking for rearranging the furniture..." he led me away from Ned, but I turned my head to glance at him. His eyes were on the ground, the muscles in his jaw working. I could see the frown line in the center of his forehead. Beside him was Yates, almost tip-toe in happiness.