Thoughts destroying diseased cells in your body? Yeah, right. But she had to admit, the meditation part was relaxing. And she wasn’t beyond admitting that it might have helped her a few years earlier when she’d gotten that terrible virus that had almost spelled the end for her. When she was at her sickest and barely able to open her eyes, much less talk, Ryker had sat beside her bed, talking her through a visualization of the virus. She’d grown up a huge Star Wars fan (yes, she’d had her tomboy phase). Ryker told her to picture the virus as the Empire’s TIE fighters. She chased the TIE fighters in her own X-wing fighter, her trusty droid riding behind her, both of them blasting the viral spaceships to smithereens.

She remembered the day Ryker had whispered to her, bringing her back to the big battle, and there were no TIE fighters left to blast. Within hours, she was up and asking for a cheeseburger, which she was promptly told she couldn’t have.

Of course, the virus could have just run its course, but Ryker swore that she had defeated it through the power of her thoughts.

I’m thinking of one of those bamboo huts on the water in Bora Bora.

Even if she couldn’t make one appear in her living room, it was nice to just visit. She was too tired to be pissed at Ehlers-Danlos and lupus today.

Settling into her pile of pillows, she thought she saw a gray shape flit from right to left out of the corner of her eye. She turned and stared at the spot in the kitchen where she thought it had disappeared.

It’s not really there. Stop thinking about it and it’ll go away.

Kate pulled the sheet up to her neck, reflexively snuggling closer to Buttons.

She shut her eyes, turning the volume on the television up so she didn’t feel so alone. Voices. She needed voices.

“Keep an eye on me, But-But. I’m going under.”

Buttons whimpered in his sleep.

* * *

“Wake up, sleepy peepy.”

Kate felt something pressing against her head. She opened one eye, saw Andrew leaning over her, traces of his cologne on his neck.

“What time is it?”

“Almost seven,” he said.

She painfully pushed herself up into a sitting position. Grandmas move quicker and more gracefully than me, she thought. “What time did you get home?”

He sat on the edge of the daybed. He’d changed out of his suit and into a Notre Dame T-shirt and jeans. Kate rested her hand on his chest, felt his strong, healthy heart pumping away.

“A little after five.”

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

He smiled. “I tried. You were out cold. I even checked to make sure you were breathing.”