"So, you're on our side now?"

She watched him sleep, trailing a hand along the back of the ugly couch with faint distaste. He'd pulled a red and brown, woolly, knitted afghan over his legs and fallen into slumber fully dressed. He even had his cowboy hat on. In his dreams. If a person dreamt about sleeping, you had to wonder how tiring their days were...and what they didn't have the energy to imagine anymore.

She leaned over, gently removed the hat and placed it on a side table. He stirred...but didn't awaken. "You want to help us, Valenti?" she murmured, crossing around the side of the battered, old couch and sitting down on the edge, near his feet. "Why? Why us? What do you have to gain?"

He didn't answer...stirred restlessly under the afghan. She wondered if he'd hidden the orb in his dream...if she could find it if she ventured into the other rooms of the small house he'd erected in his mind plane. She had no doubt that it mirrored the house he and Kyle really lived in. He was too tired for anything else.

But she didn't rise from the couch. Didn't go looking. Instead, she continued to watch him sleep, noted the lines on his face--the worry furrows between his brows. Was he worrying about Kyle? She doubted it. It looked like his lips were forming other names...Max...no, Son, don't listen to her...Kathleen, Kathleen, stop! He had a son...a flesh and blood son. He had a dad...a flesh and blood dad. He'd had a wife. Real family. Things she couldn't conceive of or had never had herself. Things she wouldn't give up if she had them. If she knew where she'd come from. "Why are you so wrapped up in us?"

In sleep, he dreamed he was having a nightmare. About Topolsky. About Max. Isabel knew she wouldn't get any answers. Just more questions. She stood, smoothing off nonexistent wrinkles from her silken pajama pants.

Before she edged past the Sheriff, she gently pulled the afghan up to his chin, like Mom used to do when she'd cried herself to sleep those first few years at the Evans'. "Good night," she whispered, softly. "And thanks for trying." No matter what your motives might be.*

But, then, just as she was about to slide past the coffee table, his hand swung out...captured her wrist. She looked down, too shocked to yank out of the unsurprisingly firm grip. His sleepy eyes were open...blue pupils unfocused but intense nonetheless.

"You're welcome," he told her, in that whiskey drawl that reminded her of TNT westerns.

And all of a sudden, he was asleep again. Still. Like he'd never moved. She couldn't even recall seeing him pull his hand back. She swallowed hard, feeling her heart rate go back to normal and her own dream plane start to disconnect.

"So?" Michael's voice. Insistent on the phone. Impatient. And muffled. She could hear Maria in the background.

They were probably doing naked things. Things she didn't want to think about at 4 in the morning. "So, he's clean, okay? He's all right, Michael!" she gasped urgently into the receiver, burrowing under the sheets.

"Are you sure, Iz?"

And behind that insistent question, Maria's grumble: "Of course she's sure...she's Queen Amidala."

She was too worn out to take offense, knew that both Michael and Maria were wired. Michael had refused to let her heal the bruises Max's fist had left.

"Yes...yes, I'm sure. Valenti won't use the orb against us. I think he wants to help."

A beat. Silence. Then, more muffled noises.

"I believe you."

"Me, too...for what its worth." Maria again.

"Thanks, Guys."

She hung up listening to them murmuring low lovewords to each other. Reassurances. But she was reassured, too, wasn't she? Even though she had no one to hold her.

It took a long time to drift into slumber...she didn't even mind when the alarm went off at 6:30 to wake her for school. It was a safe hour of true rest. Despite everything.

You're welcome.

The sunlight streaming in through the sliding glass door was what woke him up. Or maybe it was the muscles screaming at him for curling up on the couch. His legs tingled as he stretched them out. His back popped as he worked the kinks and rolled to a sitting position. When he dragged a hand through his hair, he wondered, idly, if he'd taken off his cowboy hat before lying down last night. He certainly hadn't removed his boots.

He could still see the panic in those six kids' eyes as fresh as if they stood in his living room. The terror that Kathleen Topolsky had brought to them with her mad ravings. He'd felt the same terror. He felt it now. And his resolve was twice as strong. No one...no one would hurt Evans or his friends. Not on his watch.

"Definitely not on my watch," he murmured. "You'll be okay, Isabel."

As his feet hit the carpet, he felt his entire body stiffen again.

Isabel?!?

He shook his head, shrugging off the strange sensation of the young woman's face and her voice. It was almost as if...as if...no. It couldn't be. He stood, wincing as his joints ached. He would do his best to help them. Max...Liz Parker...Maria...the Guerin boy...Alex Whitman.

And Isabel, too.

"I promise."