Carly shifted and stirred.

The bed felt odd.

She scrunched deeper into her comforter and pillows, trying to pull more warmth around her. Her eyes slowly cracked opened and she found herself staring blankly at her nightstand and the picture of Sam in the kitchen. And she remembered. Sam had come to her in the kitchen. She had touched her hands. Carly had passed out.

She woke up a little more. The feeling of Sam lingered. In her mind and here in their bed. The comforter fell against her back as if Sam was there, pressed against her back, hands wrapped around her waist. She slowly reached her hand behind her to feel the emptiness on Sam's side of the bed.

Carly froze. Ice ran through her body and she turned cold. Instead of reaching behind her, she slowly moved her arm forward and found the lamp. With a press of the switch, the bedroom was flooded with light. She drew her arm back into the comforter. And she laid there motionless.

After several minutes, Carly summoned the nerve to pull back the comforter and swing her legs out of the bed. She pushed herself up and took a couple of hesitant steps away from the bed. She stopped in the middle of the room and took a deep breath. She tried to summon the nerve to turn around.

Slowly, as if her legs had no will, Carly turned around to face the bed. She froze in mid turn as her eyes found it. Her eyes went wide. Shock hammered her body and she felt her sanity begin to slip away.

Sam was sitting up in the bed, on her side of it, staring at her with concern.

"Carly?" Sam said and the world began to tunnel out in Carly's eyes, as if Sam were at the end of a very long tube.

She saw Sam jump out of the bed and race to her. An interactive delusion. She felt herself begin to drop, her legs no longer able to support her weight. And then Sam's arms were on her, holding her up, hugging her and falling with her to the carpet, holding her tight.

Carly started crying as Sam tried to soothe her, stroking her hair, putting her lips to Carly's cheek. The touch of Sam was like electricity and Carly felt that she was slowly going mad.

"Carly," Sam warned. "Stay with me this time…"

Carly slowly looked up at Sam's face, hovering inches above her own, and found worried grey-green eyes. They looked at each other for forever and a smile slowly grew on Sam's scarred face. Carly reached a hand up and touched Sam's face and felt solidity and warmth. A confused look dominated Carly's face.

"Sam…?"

"Yeah."

"Am I going mad?"

"Why would you think that you were going mad, Cupcake?" Sam's eyes twinkled.

Carly searched her eyes for something. "Are you dead?" she said plainly.

Sam shook her head, chuckling. "I guess you're the last to know, Carls. I'm invincible."

"Are you really here? Or is this a dream?" Carly whispered.

"I'm really here, babe. You don't get rid of ol' Sammy that easily." Sam helped her girlfriend to her feet and led her back to the bed. They sat together, facing each other, fingers interlaced. "And, if you hadn't have destroyed your phone, you'd already know this. No wonder I couldn't reach you."

Carly furrowed her brow. "Reach me?"

"Carls, I've been trying to call…" Sam took a deep breath. "After the plane went down –"

"Wait! How did you survive the crash? Spencer said –"

"Shh…" Sam soothed. "Look. The plane I took was a little sketchy, but the pilot was the only one willing to fly through the storm. I sat in the back since he had a mystery passenger in the front with him. The kind with no names, no faces. Get what I mean?"

Carly nodded, not really getting it.

"Yeah. Anyway, the guys a bit of a whiner, but whatever. As long as it gets me home to you, I figure. So, we're flying low, trying to avoid radar or something, not really sticking to a flight path, when the wings ice up and the engine stalls and suddenly down we go. Boom! Right into a pile of snow."

Carly listened, her eyes never leaving Sam's. Her grip like a vice in case Sam was only a vision and could vanish at any moment.

"I'm in the back and being, well, invincible, I survived," Sam beamed. "The other two, well, were killed on impact. I crawled out and started going down. I figured, what with the storm, I had a better chance at walking out to a road or something."

"But, Spencer found your jacket…"

"Yeah, I had to give it to the whiner to shut him up. Oooh? I'm sooo cold, he minged. After the crash, I couldn't get it off him, so made due with a blanket from the back seat. It took a couple days, but I reached a cottage with a phone. I tried to call you, but you wouldn't answer. So, I got some warm gear and some food and followed this mountain road down to a highway and thumbed a ride. I tried to call you from a couple of truck stops, but…hey, why didn't you answer your phone, anyway?"

Carly shook her head, laughing. "I only wanted to talk to you…"

Sam grinned: "Figures… I got into town and grabbed a cab home as quick as I could."

Carly narrowed her eyes. "Wait a minute…didn't you have pizza in your hands?"

"Oh…yeah…I stopped for pizza on the way here…" Sam looked a little sheepish. "You know me…"

Carly grinned and shook her head, hugging her hands behind Sam's neck and pulling her in for a long, slow kiss. Sam's lips were the only food Carly wanted right now.

Their lips devoured each other's passion for an eternity. Carly hugging Sam's neck; Sam hugging Carly's back. And Carly never once closed her eyes. She watched her lover like a junkie does the needle. There was no way Sam was going to get away, delusion or not.

Sam eventually broke the embrace to get some air. "Wow…I should go away more often…"

The look Carly gave her spoke volumes against that idea. "Not likely…" A thought popped into her head. "Oh my good God! Spencer! Freddie!"

"Woah, Miss Frantic…" Sam stopped her before she took another panic attack. "I called them from the pizza place. I didn't even know they were out there looking for me. Shoulda guessed that, I suppose." She shook her head and laughed. "And that dumb-assed Fredweirdo was still out there looking for me. Jeeze, I knew he had a crush on me, but…"

Carly thumped her in the arm. "Be nice…" But, they were both all smiles and warmth.

Carly stopped laughing and gave Sam a very long and hard look. As if she was really trying to puzzle her lover out.

"What?" Sam asked nervously.

"You must have been…it must have been hard. The crash. The cold. But, you kept moving. Kept coming home…"

"To you, babe. Always to you. Just like Mama promised."

"You really are invincible."

"Only as long as you're here, babe." Sam patted Carly's knee, then stretched and got up from the bed. "But, right now, I'm sore and tired and what I really want most of all is a cup of coffee…"

"Um…" Carly blushed… "About that…"