19 February 1980
 Milwaukee, Wisconsin
 Milwaukee County Morgue and Medical Examiner

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It felt like there wasn't enough air in his lungs. His body refused to collect oxygen the way it was supposed to, couldn't direct it down the right tubes, couldn't expel the carbon dioxide quickly enough.

He couldn't breathe.

The medical examiner on the other side of the glass window began peeling back the blue sheet covering the body, and Hyde stiffened. He was frozen in place, every muscle locking painfully as his mind screamed in helpless silence. The blue sheet was folded neatly above the woman's breasts, exposing the V line of the purple sutured Y incision. Her body was unnaturally stiff like a mannequin's and her skin was a pale greyish-blue hue. Her eyes were closed and her raven dark hair was oily and slicked back behind her head, the tips pooling around her shoulders.

"It's not her," he heard himself say as a stinging sensation hit the back of his eyes.

The man in the white lab coat pressed the intercom button and spoke words that Hyde didn't hear. His eyes flickered back to the medical examiner on the other side of the glass, watching his gloved hands return to the blue sheet and drape it back over the nameless woman's face.

His stomach churned at the sight and he sharply turned away, balling his hands into fists. He held them tightly at his sides and waited for the wave of nausea to pass.

Christ, of course he'd be the one sent to the morgue—to identify the raped and the murdered, to try to find Jackie in the cold, seedy underbelly of the city. He'd been playing over a mantra inside his head that the girl on that slab wasn't his girl, and he had never been so relieved and repulsed all at once when the cold, dead face revealed to him wasn't Jackie's. He had almost sighed in relief—in fact, he had a little—but the thought that he'd have to do this again only made his stomach lurch and roll in mutinous waves.

The medical examiner who worked the intercom must have been used to people getting sick over seeing dead bodies, for he directed Hyde towards the washroom. Hyde just shrugged him off and turned down the hall towards the exit. He had to get the fuck out of there—now.

He reached for a pack of cigarettes as he walked. His hand was shaking as he brought a cigarette to his lips. He felt like an addict suffering from withdrawal. As he rounded the corner, the girl behind the reception desk made a tsking noise at the sight of him and pointed to the non-smoking sign, but he just ignored her and took out his lighter, barrelling through the doors and out into the cold early morning air.

Once outside, he inhaled sharply through his nose, the unlit cigarette still dangling from his lips. The fresh air did nothing to calm or invigorate him. Instead, his stomach knotted painfully and an acidic liquid bubbled up his oesophagus. Shortly thereafter, he was doubled over, spilling the contents of last night's dinner, a gallon of coffee and his cigarette onto his boots and the asphalt below.

After another round and a few more of dry-heaving, his stomach stopped clenching and he spat the rancid taste of bile from his mouth. He stood up and shakily wiped the back of his hand across his lips. He considered taking out another cigarette but decided against it. Instead, he fished his keys from his jeans pocket and haphazardly made his way across the street to his vehicle like a man in a drunken stupor.

The sun was already beginning to rise, blanketing the city with a soft orange glow. He inhaled a frosty gulp of air and exhaled slowly, a feathery mist marking his breath. He rubbed his freezing hands together for warmth, the cool metal of the keys impeding his progress, and caught his haggard reflection in the shiny black chrome of the El Camino. With a grimace, he slipped his aviators back onto his face and opened the door.

He suddenly felt terribly old.

⋆ 𖤓 ⋆

The traffic was heavy on the route to Highway 41-N out of Kenosha. The roads were already congested with early morning commuters, and Eric felt a rare wave of road-rage wash over him as a middle-aged woman in a grey sedan cut him off while simultaneously applying her makeup.

"Wanna leave some road for the rest of us!" he bellowed, waving his fist at her before slamming it down on the wheel.

Donna shifted slightly in the passenger seat, noting the annoyed look on her boyfriend's face. They had just left Memorial Hospital with no sign of Jackie, not even close. The Jane Doe had turned out to be an escaped mental patient in her early thirties. Donna had a feeling that the majority of the women 'fitting' Jackie's description would just be any old woman with no identification. It would be a wild goose chase with no goose, and the thought that they wouldn't find her friend made her feel sick to her stomach.

"Hey, Donna—" the ire in Eric's tone had been replaced with something akin to hesitancy "—what was the first place on the list you gave to Hyde?"

The blonde visibly shook, startled by Eric's question. Then her stomach rebelled in remembrance, and she swallowed hard. She looked up at the rear-view mirror to check on Fez. His face was turned towards the window, staring off into the unknown distance.

"The county morgue," she whispered, hoping Fez's attention was wholly fixed elsewhere, like on that invisible moving spot outside the Vista Cruiser.

"Oh." Eric's grip on the wheel tightened and he licked his lips. "Uh, are we—are all the places like that on the Milwaukee list?"

"No." She shook her head, threading her bottom lip with her teeth. "Most of them are hospitals." Most of them.

"So there will be, uh, live people, then?"

She nodded mutely.

"Car accidents?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Your mom didn't write down the grisly details."

He nodded and inhaled sharply, his eyes still trained on the road. "Man, I really hope Hyde didn't have any luck with his first search."

"Me too."

"What are you two talking about?"

Donna turned at the sound of Fez's voice while Eric eyed his friend from the rear-view mirror.

"Directions, man," he said. "Donna's giving me directions for the next hospital."

She shot him a grateful look, and Fez nodded dumbly.

"I should have never fought with Jackie," he said with a voice that no longer held any real emotion. He had spent his tears hours ago.

"What did you two fight about?" Donna asked hesitantly.

"I asked her to marry me."

Donna and Eric exchanged glances before simultaneously shouting, "You WHAT?"

"I asked her to marry me," he repeated. "What, were you two not listening?"

"Yeah, we were, but—" Eric gestured lamely with his hands before settling them back down on the wheel. "Donna, help me out here."

Donna turned around in her seat. "So, why the fight? Was the diamond not big enough?"

Fez shook his head. "She said no."

"Jackie said NO?" Donna was gripping the shoulder of her seat as though she were about to rip it off. "No way!" Her brow furrowed. "But wait—I don't get it. If she said no, then why the fight? I mean, aside from the obvious."

"Yeah, Fez." Eric glanced at his friend in the rear-view mirror. "You guys have only been dating for a little over a month. I wouldn't think you two were ready for marriage."

"Says the man who ran out on his own wedding," commented Donna with a raised brow.

Eric cringed.

"I'm not ready. We're not ready. Whatever," mumbled Fez, clearly frustrated. "I don't know what I was thinking. I was scared I'd lose her."

"Lose her?" Donna shook her head. "Fez, you're like her ideal guy. She made a list and everything."

"And yet she cannot imagine herself marrying me," he retorted grumpily.

"Well, maybe not now, but that's a good thing, Fez."

"Yeah," Eric added. "You don't want the marriage-crazy Jackie."

"I suppose." Fez turned back towards the window. "It would be nice if she actually wanted to marry me, though."

"Wait, so let me get this straight." Donna had her head cocked to the side in full analysis mode. "You proposed, she said no. You admitted that you might not be ready for marriage in the first place and you really only asked because you thought she'd leave you or whatever—so why the fight?"

Fez glanced up at the blonde, his expression sheepish. "I may have told her that Hyde was right: that she made men stupid."

"Damn," murmured Eric with a shake of his head. "Even I'm not that stupid, and I've said some pretty stupid things in my time."

"If that ain't the truth," said Donna with a nod.

"Ai, I know!" Fez groaned, cupping his face in his hands. "I am such an idiot!"

"Yeah, you are," Donna agreed, a hint of disgust lacing her tone.

"What Donna really means to say is don't beat yourself up over it, Fez. Let Jackie do that for you." Eric offered his friend a thin smile. "Cause when we find Jackie—and we will—you can apologise and grovel accordingly." He then cast a nervous glance his girlfriend's way. "Right, Donna?"

The blonde blinked twice before nodding. "Yeah, right. Jackie'll be tearing you a new one for sure, Fez."

"You think so?" Fez's tone was hopeful, almost saccharine. "That would be lovely." He took a deep breath and smiled. "Thank you, my friends. I really hope you are right."

Eric turned his attention back to the road then, silently steering the Vista Cruiser onto the Highway 41-N exit to Milwaukee while Donna watched the vehicles and the scenery whizz by.

They really hoped they were right too.

⋆ 𖤓 ⋆

"I'm afraid you wasted a trip." The doctor with the harelip had informed Hyde matter-of-factly. "The former Jane Doe was identified and released early Monday morning."

When Hyde shifted into an aggressive stance, the doctor flinched and stepped back, holding his clipboard like a shield.

"Uh, sometimes it takes a while for the information to register in the system."

Frustrated, Hyde exhaled sharply through his nose. The muscle in his jaw spasmed erratically as he tried to control his flaring temper. It wasn't the doctor's fault that he had visited three places already, two of them being morgues, and had found no trace of Jackie.

He'd been relieved that the two dead women he had identified were not her, but this other girl was alive and, well, he'd been holding onto the slim hope that she was his Jackie. But now that hope was shattered and there were only a few places left to visit on his list. He suspected that none of them would pan out the way he wanted.

Mumbling curt words of thanks, he turned around and headed for the door, any door. His shoulders had slumped forwards in defeat. He was so tired that he was walking in a circle, unsure where he was or where he was going. A few seconds later, he found himself standing in a waiting area. The furniture here looked old but comfortable. Hell, one step above a muddy ditch would've been the Plaza Hotel to him right now.

With tiredness and lethargy steadily seeping into his limbs, he dropped himself into a chair with plush green seating. The payphones were off to his right, parked next to a soft drink machine. He knew he should get up and use one of those phones, call WB and leave a message for Forman and the others, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He just didn't have the energy.

He started to nod off. Inevitably, his thoughts drifted to Jackie.

The days since he'd last seen her somehow seemed much longer than what was real. The hours since she had gone missing had stretched out, agonising and jarring like shards of broken glass beneath bare feet. A brief image of her sitting in his lap, her eyes looking into his with such warmth and love, flashed through his mind and he winced in pain. He didn't want to think about that now; the raw heat of the memory juxtaposed with the cold reality of time.

He didn't want to voice his thoughts aloud, but he was beginning to worry that Jackie wasn't in Milwaukee at all, maybe not even in the state of Wisconsin. She had dropped clean off the face of the earth as far as he was concerned. The very real thought that he'd never be able to see her again was leaving an ache in parts of him he hadn't even known existed, filling him with an all-too-familiar sense of emptiness and dread. And now he was left clutching at memories that didn't care to be dismissed as she silently dissolved into his bloodstream.

Inhaling deeply, he opened his eyes and sat up in the chair. He pressed a hand to his sensitive stomach with a groan. It hadn't felt right since the drive to Milwaukee—no, it hadn't been right since he found out Jackie had been missing. Throwing up outside the morgue hadn't helped. It had only made things worse.

He wanted to chase back the nausea and ache with a bolt of molten whiskey straight from the bottle. He wanted to feel the alcohol burn in his throat and distract him from the burning in his stomach and in his heart. He didn't want to go back out again and search for Jackie when he'd only be shown more dead bodies and lost women, and goddammit if one of those bodies wasn't going to end up being hers.

Cursing softly, he doubled over and held his head in his hands. Christ, he didn't want to be in this place; he didn't want to be anywhere near death anymore.

After a moment, he dropped his hands and settled back into the chair with a tired sigh of defeat. He flipped up the collar of his jacket and his eyelids began to slide shut without protest. Sleep came quickly then, and dreams followed soon thereafter. Dreams of hands running through a tumble of dark curls, of sweet kisses, long and hot and languid on his lips, of soft laughter vibrating against his skin.

Most of all, he dreamt of finding her.

⋆ 𖤓 ⋆

The dream was collapsing.

Everything drifted away from her; memories and thoughts spun out of time and space. But ever-present was this feeling that she was looking for someone, or maybe that someone was looking for her.

She tried to make out his face, but the details were a little too foggy, his body too vague where her memories failed to flesh it out. She could sense him near, feel him dipping his face into the curve where her neck met her shoulder, finding that magic spot just behind her ear. It felt so familiar, so right.

Slowly, he pulled back and their eyes met. Blue eyes—blue like the sky, like the ocean. She would never forget them, she told herself. Never. She would commit his image to her memory. She would never forget.

But the dream was already collapsing.

It was almost time.

⋆ 𖤓 ⋆

Hyde's hands were a torment to him as he slept; they wouldn't rest. His fingers twitched as he slumbered, shaping the words of his dreams to music. Zeppelin played over and over in his head, and his hands reacted, tapping and strumming, reaching for tiny soft hands he had once held so often before all of this.

His hands jerked as the music in his head began to sharpen in his ears, shrill and tinny and nothing at all like his dreams. He awoke in a daze, groggily palming his face with a sigh. He glanced around the place and took in the décor. He was still at St Mary's Hospital. Some sort of disco crap was humming on the speakers, creating a dull beat in the background. He shifted in his chair and winced in pain. His joints were stiff from the awkward position he'd fallen asleep in, and his right leg was tingling with the pins and needles of paraesthesia.

He glanced down at his watch. He had only been asleep for twenty minutes. He studied his watch again, as though he could will it to magically read a different time, before he decided he had better call WB and leave a message for Forman and the others. They were most likely on their way to Milwaukee by now, if they weren't here already. It'd be better all-around if he had them meet him here. He couldn't go see another dead body by himself again. He just didn't have the will or the strength left in him anymore.

Smoothing his hands down his jeans, Hyde stood up. He tried to shake out the pins and needles sensation in his right foot before going over to the payphones. He yawned loudly and brought his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, pushing up his sunglasses. He'd need to buy some Tylenol. His head was killing him.

He dropped his hand and fished a dime out of his jeans pocket. Pressing the money into the coin slot, he was about to dial WB's number when a busty-blonde nurse brushed past him, knocking into his shoulder. The young woman looked ready to cast him a seductive smile in apology when she noticed the tired scowl on his face and decided a whispered acknowledgement might be best. He wasn't in the mood to flirt.

Once the nurse was out of sight, he turned back to the phone and tried to recall WB's number. That was when he overheard murmured voices from behind.

"How's your sleeping doll doing, Paul?"

"Jane Doe? No progress yet."

"I still can't believe no one's come to claim her yet."

"Yeah, she's like Sleeping Beauty without her prince."

"I'd volunteer my services."

"Something tells me that girl has a boyfriend who wouldn't appreciate your services, Jim."

"You're probably right. A hot little thing like her most likely has her own fan club."

Not bothering to return to phone to its cradle, Hyde abandoned the payphone and walked over to the two doctors.

"Hey, man." He looked back and forth between the two. "You have a Jane Doe patient here?"

The younger doctor, Jim, who appeared to be in his late twenties, carefully studied Hyde's unkempt rocker appearance with some disdain. He looked like he was about to retort when the older doctor, Paul, interjected.

"Yes, why do you ask?"

"Uh, my friend went missing Thursday night." He ran his fingers through his curly 'fro. "She was heading to Milwaukee for a job interview. I've—I've been looking all over for her, gone to a few hospitals, the county morgue..."

"Thursday night, you say?" asked Dr Paul, and Hyde nodded in the affirmative. "Could you tell me what she looks like?"

"Real small," he said somewhat excitedly, although he tried his best not to get his hopes up. "Around five, five-foot-two, brown hair, brown eyes; real pretty."

"Sounds like our Sleeping Beauty, all right," said Dr Jim with a grin, and Hyde felt the sudden urge to pop the man in the face.

"Sleeping Beauty?"

"My young coma patient," answered Dr Paul. "She arrived at the hospital late Thursday night—a car accident victim."

Hyde swallowed hard. "Can I—can I see her, man?"

"Of course." The doctor, whose name tag read Dr Connors, turned and signalled for Hyde to accompany him. "Follow me."

The doctor led Hyde down the brightly lit corridor and out through a pair of doors to another section of the hospital. The walls were bare and beige, and the ceiling lights flickered with the quiet hum of fluorescence. The hallways gave off a vaguely nauseating and complex aroma of medical disinfectant and bitter coffee.

He kept a slight distance between himself and the doctor, hesitantly following him into a darkly-lit room. He felt like he had just entered a dream or some poorly scripted drama. The room itself was buzzing with electricity and the whirling of blinking machines. There were four beds and only two were occupied. An old woman slept soundlessly near the door while at the back of the room, next to the window, was a half-closed curtain portioned around a bed.

A nurse was tending to an IV bag. She turned slightly and glanced at the doctor and Hyde as they approached. Letting go of the bag, she reached for the curtain and carefully pushed it back, allowing the two men to enter. A hospital bed was nestled between the beeping machines, and in the bed rested the small body of a sleeping girl.

Hyde couldn't see much at first from behind the doctor, so he manoeuvred around in front. The girl wore a powder blue hospital gown with a loosely woven yellow blanket covering her from the waist down. Her face and arms were severely bruised and scratched, both carrying some butterfly bandages, and her ribs looked to be heavily wrapped with gauze, as indicated by the way her gown fitted over her torso.

Her scalp had been shaved in a spot about the size of a silver dollar just over her left ear and was dressed with a small bandage. In the spaces that weren't covered or heavily bruised were small, white electrode pads attached to her skull, temples and chest. Needles and tubes ran from her inner left forearm to an IV bag while another ran from her right arm to a nearby monitoring machine. A two-pronged tube that fed oxygen to her lungs was hooked into her nostrils. Another tube, the feeding one, he presumed, hung behind her.

Her eyes were closed and puffy, and her face was swollen and bruised. It all seemed too surreal to be true, but underneath all that tubing and wiring was his doll, his Jackie.

His voice cracked, "J-Jackie?"

Fear spread through him like a rumour. His mind was kicking into gear, trying to register the limp, broken body lying in front of him as Jackie, his Jackie. He found himself caught with half his brain in the real world while the other half was trying desperately to retreat into the world of make-believe: one that did not consist of a comatose Jackie.

"Is that your friend?" asked the doctor, and Hyde nodded dumbly. "Could you tell me her name?"

"Jackie Burkhart," he rasped, his voice sounding weak and timid to his own ears.

He reached out to touch her but quickly pulled back. Would his touch hurt her? She looked so fragile.

"Can you tell me where she lives?" the doctor asked.

"Point Place," replied Hyde in a daze, as he watched the slight rise and fall of her chest.

"Wisconsin?"

He nodded again.

"Well, at least now I can finally search for her medical history."

Hyde glanced up, finally registering the doctor's words. He needed Jackie's medical history to help her.

"Uh—" he cleared his throat, trying to get his voice back "—if you want that sort of information, you can call a friend of mine. She's a nurse at Point Place Hospital. Plus, she knows Jackie."

"That would be great." Dr Connors smiled slightly before taking a pen from his jacket pocket. "Could you give me her number?" Hyde gave him the Formans' number and the doctor motioned to the chair beside Jackie's bed. "You can stay here if you'd like."

"Yeah. Thanks, man." When the doctor was about to leave, Hyde suddenly turned around. "Wait, uh... Will she wake up?"

"We're not sure." Dr Connors offered a delicate shrug. "She could wake up in a few days or a few weeks or not at all. The good news is that she's begun breathing on her own and her vitals are up. Aside from her current condition, she's in remarkably good health. It's just a matter of her brain telling her body to wake up."

Hyde nodded mutely and turned back towards Jackie as the doctor left the room. He scrubbed his hand over his face with a sigh. He almost couldn't bear to see her like this. Awake, she was always so full of life, even when she was mad, especially when she was mad.

Christ, how he loved to rile her up when they were together—just to see how her eyes would light up and how her chest would heave. She was beautiful when she was angry, gorgeous when she was truly happy. But now she wasn't anything. She wasn't angry or happy or upset. She was lost and broken, and it killed him inside.

A wash of fire and ice swam through his veins and his hands began to tremble. Jackie was alive. She wasn't dead. She wasn't being hurt by some stranger. He should've felt relieved, happy even, but seeing his girl lying in a hospital bed with needles and tubes sticking out of her little body made him want to lash out. He wanted to touch her, to grab her in his arms and hold her close. But she was so fragile, like if he were to touch her she might just dissolve or shatter into a thousand pieces. Instead, he grabbed a nearby chair and pulled it up beside her bed. There he sat and waited.

He sat there watching her for a full minute before finally gathering the courage to take her hand in his. It was cold and limp, and he felt a lump form at the back of his throat while he tried to coax some heat into her pale olive skin. He tried to think of something to say to her, but his mind revolted, reminding him of the last words he had spoken to her before she left.

Bye, Jackie. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

A muscle worked in his jaw and he tried very hard not to grind his teeth. The tension in his mouth worked its way down to his neck and back, extending throughout his body. He felt like shit and, what was more, he knew he deserved to feel this way.

He turned her small hand over in his. She was so tiny and helpless. He knew he should call the others and let them know that he had finally found her, but he couldn't seem to move or will himself to stand and walk away from her. Not yet. Her hand was locked in his now and he wasn't sure who was holding whom.

Just a little while longer, he told himself. Just a little while longer with her and then he'd call.

He leaned in close, taking off his aviators with his free hand and hooking them into the collar of his shirt. She had always preferred him this way: his eyes exposed and his emotions unmasked. Vulnerable. He knew she deserved this, deserved this small sacrifice of his Zen but, more than that, she deserved his words—words that had never come easily to him.

"Hey, Jackie, it's me." He cleared his throat and glanced at her hand, threading his fingers through hers. "You know I'm not so good with words. I'll never be that guy who says the right thing at the right time. In fact, I'm the opposite of that guy: the one who always seems to mess up and says something that hurts you instead."

He tried to open his mouth to speak again, but the words wouldn't come. He ran his thumb over the curve of hers and closed his eyes. Of all the times he could be struck mute, when he really had something important to say.

Why couldn't he say anything? No one was around, except the old lady sleeping in the corner, and Jackie wasn't even awake to hear him. So why was this so fucking difficult? Why couldn't he just speak?

"Dammit, Jackie! I need you to wake up, okay!" He bent over, bringing her tiny hand to his forehead. "I need you to say something, anything. Yell at me, nag me, whatever."

But there were no words, no sounds except the gentle hum of the machines that kept her little body alive. It was as if her silence was daring him to be the man she had always wanted him to be, always knew he could be: the man who would say what she needed to hear despite his own damn pride.

"Jackie," he whispered, "I need you in my life, okay? You're—you're my sun. My day can't begin unless you're there to bug me. You're that annoying glare in my eye that I can never seem to get rid of—" he smiled and brought her fingers to his lips "—that I don't want to get rid of." He kissed the small cuts on her fingertips, brushing soft lips over healing wounds. "I know lately it seems like that's all I've been trying to do: put you down and push you away.

"Alright, no 'seems' about it. I have been doing those things. I've been a real asshole to you for a long time, and you don't deserve it. You never did. And I—" he tenderly kissed her knuckles "—I'm sorry, Jackie. I'm really sorry."

His eyes went to her face, her beautiful, bruised face, and he swallowed painfully. This wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough.

"And one more thing—I lied." He licked his lips nervously. "I did know." His grip on her hand tightened and he stood up so that he could lean in close to her ear. "So if you wanna find out what I meant by that, then you're gonna have to wake up. Do you hear me, Jackie? You're gonna have to wake up, because I'm not telling you anything more with your eyes closed."

His lips brushed along the shell of her ear, whispering her name one last time before his mouth moved to her lips, planting a delicate kiss there. He poured all of his gentleness and hope into that brief kiss, hoping she felt it, felt him. Then he slowly pulled away and sat down, bringing her little hand back to his head.

She couldn't leave him, not now.

Then Hyde did something he hadn't done since he was a child: he closed his eyes and prayed.

⋆ 𖤓 ⋆

The girl with no name swam through the turbulent waters, flailing and thrashing against nothing and everything until she was being lifted, soaring upwards like a cork out of a bottle, like an eagle in flight, like a Zeppelin in the sky—always ready to drop back down, always losing momentum despite herself.

Maybe she was screaming, maybe she wasn't, but her ears weren't working either way. All the sounds were mixing together, echoing back and forth, passing through the fire that was her mind. Then, her world of illusions shattered. Her silver cloud evaporated, shrivelled and contracted with cruel speed. She could almost hear it pop, the little 'oh' that her world made when it realised she was still a part of it.

She tossed her head back and gasped, taking in the sweet air that was full of blood and life and the masculine scent of man, of jeans and cotton, the faint aroma of salt from sweat and the musk of aged wood. Something warm grasped her hand and pulled her upwards. It was like a pinch at the back of her mind, signalling her to wake.

Hesitant eyes fluttered open into tiny slits, allowing precious, blinding slivers of light to flood across her irises. She swallowed dryly, an audible click at the back of her throat. She tried to breathe through her nose but found something lodged in there, bursts of oxygen flooding her nostrils.

The hold on her hand tightened, and she feebly squeezed back. Suddenly, the grip loosened and she could hear the sound of a chair being kicked back. Still, she couldn't see. Everything was too bright, too blurry.

"Jackie?"

Someone was speaking, jumbled words in her ears, like someone talking on the other side of a wall. Her hand moved, engulfed by someone else's—a big hand, a warm hand. Who was holding her? Was it the man whose name she couldn't recall?

She tried to turn her head and grimaced at the pain, both physical and emotional. No longer could she see his face; it was lost to her now. His toothy boyish grin, his curly hair, his sky blue eyes—all gone. Had she imagined him?

"Jackie?" The voice was clearer now, distinctly masculine. The name was on his lips like a whisper, a butterfly kiss too beautiful for words. "Doll?"

Was this the man of her dreams? She didn't know. She could no longer recall his name or his face or the colour of his eyes. Why couldn't she remember the colour of his eyes? Had she ever known? It was all too confusing and painful. She just wanted to drift back to sleep, back into her terrifying but familiar dreams.

"I can't—"

She reached out, touching his cheek, and he leaned into it. She still couldn't make out his face, but that expression, no matter how blurry, she could sense it. He looked relieved, so grateful, but she couldn't understand why. Had someone been hurt?

She tried to speak, grasp for words or some sort of understanding, but nothing came until she whispered, "W-where is he? Where is he?"

The stranger's face fell. His grip on her hand loosened. "Fez? He'll be here soon." He turned away from her. "I'm—I'm gonna go get the doctor now."

Her hand fell from his face, and she croaked a raspy "Thanks" before shutting her eyes.

Thank you, whoever you are.

His warm hand slipped out of hers, and she felt a slight clenching in her chest at the loss of contact. She tried to focus on his face before he left, to look at him properly. Did she know him? But the effort proved too much, and she was so very tired.

Helpless, she could only follow his blurry, retreating form before her eyelids slowly slid shut. The cold grey fingers of unconsciousness were curling into her brain again, peeling away at one last thought:

Who am I?

⋆ 𖤓 ⋆