Dair felt as if he was reliving history. It was only just shy of a month since Serenity had been in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound. And now she was back, and he didn’t have a clue why. At least with a bullet he knew. He knew what would have to be done to save her. But now? Now he had no idea. She was beyond his reach. He’d laid his hand on her head multiple times attempting to reach her mind, and he couldn’t. It was as though a wall had been erected between him and her subconscious. It was maddening.

He paced the dim room, cloaked in his darkness, because he couldn’t stand the worried looks Darla and Glory kept shooting him. He knew he was making the room colder and causing it to have that strange shadow-less quality, but he was barely keeping his emotions under control. After having been in the prison, surrounded by that evil and enduring the things he’d been shown, he was already standing precariously on the edge of madness.

Is this what love was? If so, why did humans want it? And sometimes they went through it many times. Why? Why feel this pain, this agony, and complete helplessness? How did they endure the twisting of their heart, the ripping of their soul, and the destruction of half of themselves? He was an immortal. He needed no rest, no sustenance, no healing, or anything else humans needed, and he felt as though at any moment he would cease to exist. She was everything to him. She was the smile on his lips, the joy in his heart, the sun on his face, and the light in his darkness. There was no longer Brudair unless there was Serenity with him.

He walked back over to her bed and took one of her hands in his. She was cold, and it made him miss the warmth she usually gave him. Her skin was pale, causing her to look sick, though they couldn’t tell him what the sickness was. “Come back to me,” he whispered as he leaned closer to her.

“It’s not about whether or not I can do this without you, Serenity. It’s that I don’t want to. I don’t want to experience a single second without you to share it with. You’ve ruined me. You’ve blessed me and damned me all at once, and I am lost. Please, Princess, open your eyes.” He waited, staring without blinking, begging the Creator to fix her, heal her, do whatever it was that was necessary to bring her out of whatever this was.

“Is he here?” he heard Glory ask.

“Yes,” Darla answered.

“How do you know?”

“Because he looks at her as though the sun rises and sets with her every breath. If she needs him, he could no more leave her and survive than air could leave this earth and humans survive.”

“Whoa.,” Glory breathed out. “I want that.”

Darla chuckled. “Patience, Glory, and you will have it.”

Dair tuned them back out as he brushed Serenity’s hair away from her face. He kept thinking that at any moment she would smile and her eyes would trap him as they often did when she stared into his.

His mind wandered back to the last conversation he’d had with her. He knew she was still having nightmares, but she hadn’t said anything about her being unable to awaken. Is that what this was? Was she stuck in the hell that had become her sleep? How poetic was that? Her lover was the Sandman, controller of dreams, and she was stuck in a nightmare.

He released her hand again as he felt the cold fill him. She was cold enough without him making it worse. He stood and walked over to Darla and let his cloak fall.

“Queen of Sheba, warn a girl!” Glory jumped.

He was too focused on trying to figure out what was wrong with Serenity to care about whether or not Glory was frightened when he suddenly appeared. Serenity probably wouldn’t be happy with him, which was the only reason he turned to look at Glory and said, “My apologies.” His voice sounded as dead and empty as he felt and, judging by the way her eyes widened, his own eyes were probably swirling like a hurricane.

“Dair,” Darla said in her calm way. “Did you want to say something?” She was talking to him as if he were a cornered animal that would snap at any moment. Smart woman.

“Did you see her before she went to sleep, before she ended up like this?” He turned and motioned to Serenity.

“I did, and no she didn’t say anything about feeling bad. She was tired.”

“Did you ever hear anything from her after she fell asleep? Any indication that she was having a nightmare?”

Darla shook her head. “I never heard anything. I should have gone and checked on her.” Dair held up his hand to stop her.

“Blaming ourselves or anyone else that isn’t truly responsible is not productive or helpful. Use your energy where it is effective.”

She gave him a single nod and seemed to pull herself together. They all turned when the door opened, and Wayne walked in. “I can’t find a damn doctor to save my life. I mean if I needed my life saved, I’d be up a creek without a crash cart.”

“Wayne,” Darla said sharply.

He looked at Dair and then over to Serenity. “She would be as irritated as I am.”

He was right, Dair thought. If she had a loved one in a hospital bed and needed answers and couldn’t find a doctor to help her, Serenity would search every floor and every room until she found one.

Dair turned to look at Serenity. He hated to leave, but he could find a doctor quicker and would have no problem convincing him or her to come to Serenity’s room.

“I will be back,” he said and, without further explanation, disappeared. He sought out the thoughts of the sleeping until he found what he was looking for. A man dreaming about the last surgery he’d performed. Bingo.

Dair appeared in the dark room and stared down at the doctor. He was catching some sleep in between shifts and Dair was sure the man deserved the sleep, but his Serenity was more important than the man’s rest.

“Wake,” he told the man’s mind, and his eyes popped open.

“What the—” the doctor started to say, but Dair shook his head, and his mouth shut like a hinge snapping into place.

“I need you to come to room 367,” Dair told him. “Something is wrong with my fiancé, and you will help her.”

The doctor stood and backed away from Dair. “I’m not familiar with her case.”

“I imagine you can read and are capable of learning or you would not have made it through medical school.”

“I’m a surgeon. I may not be able to treat whatever is wrong with her,” he argued.

“Then you will find someone who can.” Dair pointed at the doorway and took a step toward him. The doctor hurried to the door and out into the hall. Dair trailed the doctor, knowing he was terrifying the man but unable to bring himself to care.

When he pushed the door open to her room and motioned to the doctor to enter, the others in the room stood abruptly and all spoke at once.

“Quiet,” Dair snapped. “Let him do what he needs to, then you can ask him questions. Chaos does not bear the fruit of efficiency.”

“Is it just me or is he creeping anyone else out?” Glory whispered.

The doctor raised his hand.

Glory frowned at him. “He’s allowed to creep you out. We need you to fix her.”

The doctor walked over to Serenity’s bedside, but before he could touch her, Dair was beside him, grabbing his wrist. “Look at me,” he demanded.

The man turned his face so that he was looking at Dair. “W-what?” he stuttered out.

Dair searched the man’s eyes, attempting to see if he could feel the presence of evil in him, but he sensed nothing. “If you hurt her, I will end you.”

“Dair,” Darla said coolly, “scaring the man to death won’t help Serenity.”

“It might, if it keeps him from doing something stupid,” Dair countered.

The doctor took his stethoscope and placed one end on her chest while the earpieces were in his ears. The room was completely still and silent as he examined her. He took a small penlight and opened each eyelid, shining the light at them. He checked pulses in various points on her body. When he was done, he walked over to the computer hanging on the wall with a keyboard on a hinged shelf and began typing. He was quiet as he read what was on the screen.

Dair knew the man was just doing what was necessary to learn her medical history, but it was nerve-wracking to wait.

“The CT shows overactive brain patterns,” he said, finally breaking the tense silence.

“Is that bad? What does that mean?” Glory asked.

“It means she has brain activity, which is good,” he answered.

“Why do I feel like there is a ‘but’ coming on?” Glory frowned.

“But,” the doctor said pointedly, “It doesn’t explain why she’s essentially in a coma. And there is nothing to do for her but wait. There have been studies done that show proof that people in a coma can hear what’s going on around them, so talking to her, playing her favorite music, or reading to her might help bring her out of it. I’m sorry.” He looked at Dair. “There really is nothing else we can do. Have they had a physical therapist come in to show you exercises to do while she’s in bed so her muscles don’t atrophy?”

Dair shook his head.

“Then I’ll make sure an order is written for one and have them here first thing in the morning. It’s essential to keep her physical body from being too stationary.”

Darla stood up and reached for the doctor’s hand. “Thank you so much. I know that Dair sort of forced you, but you have to understand, she almost died a month ago, and so we’re all a little in shock and very scared.”

The doctor nodded, and Dair could see true empathy in his eyes. “I do understand, and I am sorry there isn’t more that I can do.” He left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Without looking at anyone, or acknowledging that they were even there, Dair sat on the bed and then stretched out beside Serenity. He wrapped an arm around her stomach, pulling her close into his side. His head was above hers so he tucked it down until his face was buried in her hair and his mouth near her ear. The rest of the world faded away, and it was just him and his love.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw you?” Dair asked. “You were helping with a rummage sale. Everyone was mucking about, here and there, but you, you, Serenity, had it all together. Ever patient, ever kind, never once snapping at anyone for asking you the same question a hundred times.” Dair smiled as he saw her in his mind’s eye. She had been beautiful then, but now, there was no description that could do her justice, not in his eyes.

“I had to know you,” he continued. “I had to know this wonderful creature who gave without expecting anything in return and who smiled when it was the last thing she wanted to do. You captivated me. Your soul enveloped mine, shining all your light and goodness into my dark existence, and I was yours, hopelessly yours.” He closed his eyes and let his memory take him back to the night when he’d been in her room and spoken to her without revealing himself. He’d wanted so badly to touch her, to let her see him and touch him. Dair had never been touched by a human. Oh, he’d touched them because it helped when he was weaving dreams into their minds. But he’d never had a person touch him. For some reason, the idea of Serenity being the first person to willingly touch him had taken his breath away.

“What if I hadn’t taken the chance,” he said softly, his breath ruffling her hair. “How different would our lives have turned out if I hadn’t come to you that night or if you had chosen not to meet me? I would have missed out on you and all the wonderful things about you. You might not be alive, and the world would be a darker place without you.”

Dair didn’t want to imagine a world where Serenity didn’t exist. He didn’t want to think about how empty his existence would have continued to remain if they’d never come together.

“No matter what, Serenity, I will forever be grateful that you said yes.”

He began to hum because his emotions were such a mess he didn’t know what to say short of begging her to wake up. The words of the song he’d sung to her the night she’d been shot, when they’d been dancing, spilled from his lips, and they were still just as true.

“How long do you think he will lay there?” He heard Glory ask.

“For as long as it takes,” Darla answered.

* * *

Lucifer kicked a corpse that had been crawling across the floor. Things were not going as planned. Dair was supposed to kill those men in that prison. And he would have if that child had not shown up. And who was she to be encouraging anyone after what had happened to her? Why wasn’t she curled up in a ball crying about her innocence lost, blubbering and begging someone to save her? Why the hell were these people not dropping like the flies they were?

“Master.” He heard the demon behind him.

“Unless you have Brudair’s head on a spear, I don’t want to see your face.” When he heard the minion flee, he snarled. Did he have to do everything himself?

“There’s still the school,” he muttered. “The school is falling, and more and more children are going missing. There’s no way they can stop what has been put into motion. It is moving at a speed that would trample them if they got in the way.” Which, of course, he hoped they tried. Seeing that meddling angel and that resilient child crushed would be a welcome end to his week.

The only other thing going right was with his sweet, wilting Serenity. She was locked in her head, sinking into the nightmare that he had created. By the time he was done with her mind, it would be nothing but a puddle.