"No!" she again shouts back defiantly, and then pushes herself off the seat against the resistance of her buckled harness straps and does reach out--though not for the eject lever. No, not for the lever, but for his hideously burned, reddened hand, taking it between both of her own with careful tenderness. "We're in this together, and that's never changed. Not for me."

The smoke wells blackly around her now, congealing so Annie can no longer see the bed only inches in front of her, or the man lying under its sheets. But she can still feel him, can still feel his hand in hers. And then she realizes with a jolt of surprise--the first she's experienced in this latest twist on what some small portion of her sleeping mind realizes has become a recurrent nightmare--that he isn't pulling it away.

"It's all on the tape, Annie, " he says.

His voice now clearly that of her husband, but without the sneering, disdainful quality it has had in each previous version of this scene.

"Mark--"

"On the tape," he repeats.

Kindly.

Gently.

Oh, so heartbreakingly gently from behind the shroud of smoke, reminding her of how he had been before the cancer, how she had come to love him, how much about him she had loved what seems such a very long time ago.

"You already know everything you need to know," he says, all at once sounding as if he has moved further away from her.

Then Annie realizes that is exactly what is happening. She feels his hand slipping out from between her fingers--feels it slowly, inevitably slipping into the black. Try as she does, struggle as she does, she can't seem to hold onto it.

Hold onto him.

"Mark, Mark--" She breaks off in a fit of coughing and gasping, her lungs crammed full of smoke. Wishing she could see him in the blinding smoke. Wishing, wishing she could just hold on. "Mark, I--"

Annie awoke with her arm outstretched and her fingers clutching at empty air. Awoke in her darkened bedroom, sweaty, trembling, and breathless, her heart tripping wildly in her chest. The trailing edge of her inarticulate cries--cries that, in her dream, had seemed to take the form of her husband's name--were still on her lips.

The dream, she thought.

Once again, the dream.

Annie reached over to her nightstand for the glass of water she had brought in from the kitchen before climbing into bed, took a drink, another, a third. She swept the hair back off her forehead, released a long, sighing breath. Thank heaven she hadn't startled the kids with the noise she must have been making.

She sat there for several minutes, pulling herself together, letting her heartbeat and respiration slow to a normal rate. Then she put down the now-half-drained glass of water and pressed the illuminator button of her Indiglo alarm clock.

3:00 A.M.