Somehow, Peter went to sleep. When he woke up at five in the morning, the nonsense of his dream swam in his head for only a few seconds until it was washed over by the fresh, sore memory of Gwen hanging at the end of his web, the soul snapped out of her.

He didn't bother trying to fall back asleep. He knew it would be impossible. So he stayed in his room the whole morning, right through breakfast, just thinking of her and doubling over from the guilt and grief. By the time Aunt May was knocking on his door, reminding him to do a load of laundry for her while she was gone for another shift at the hospital, numbness settled his mind.

His phone rang, listing an unknown but local number. Peter was as ready as he could be for the conversation that was to come.

"Hi, is this Peter?"

"It's me."

"This is Nora Stacy, Gwen's aunt. I'm calling on behalf of Gwen's family." The woman's tone was factual, and no word carried an ounce of vivacity. "Have you been keeping up with the news?"

"No," Peter said, but he knew what the channels must have been talking about, of course.

"Okay, prepare yourself," Nora mumbled. "There's no easy way to tell you this – Gwen's been killed."

Now here was the part of the conversation that was truly painful: the acting. "How?" Peter asked, barely coming up with the shock required of someone who wasn't Spider-Man.

"It's unbelievable - it had something to do with Spider-Man and the power outage last night," Nora explained. "She was found at the Oscorp power grid. There's a clocktower there, and she somehow fell from the top and through the interior of it. Harry Osborn probably dropped her – we don't know details though. He wasn't cooperating as he was being questioned."

"Right..."

"I'm sorry," Nora said pityingly. "I'll contact you when the date for the funeral is set."

"Tell Mrs. Stacy and Gwen's brothers that I'm sorry for their loss. Like... really sorry."

"I will. Take care now."

Now was another painful part – breaking the news to his aunt and pretending he had nothing to do with the tragedy. To do this, he went through his phone and found an article outlining the events at the clocktower. "YOUNG WOMAN FOUND DEAD AT THE SCENE" was part of one of the headlines.

Peter made his way into the living room, where Aunt May was sitting and finishing off her pre-shift raspberry tea. For a moment, Peter thought of telling her later so she wouldn't skip out on her work in order to take care of him, but the news was too heavy to bear alone.

Peter stood over her, looking sullen. "Aunt May..." He slipped his phone over to her. Her eyes scanned the screen at first, then they were looking more intensely at the words.

"Oh no, Peter..." Aunt May said, then covered her mouth. She peered up at him and raised her arms. Peter lowered himself into her embrace. His knees rested on the floor and Aunt May bent herself over his slouched figure.

Peter suddenly knew what a spirit was, because he could feel his splitting apart. There was a piece torn off by grief, one by bad conscious, and another by the pain of lying about how much he knew about Gwen's death.

"I lose everyone," he said.