John awoke slowly, his conscious mind swimming in the thick solution of medication running through his veins, searching for clarity. He could hear the soft melody of a violin somewhere in the back of his subconscious drawing him toward a steady baritone voice that spoke steadily over the hum of the dialysis machine.

Without opening his eyes, he lay there listening to the song and the voice, basking in the comfort it provided him.

"When I woke up it seemed to me that some snatch of a tune I had known for a long time, I had heard somewhere before but had forgotten, a melody of great sweetness, was coming back to me now," the rich, deep voice read.

John couldn't help the small smile that came to his face, a rare treat since his return to Chicago. It had been so long since he had been happy, and while the invoked memory was not happy in itself, it reminded him of times when he had the chance to be happier.

Finally opening his eyes to shatter the memory, John was surprised to see Peter Benton sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair next to his bed with a book opened on his lap, his full lips forming each word as he read aloud while his right thumb stroked over the back of John's hand he held carefully in his own.

"Peter?" he asked, surprised to see the man in his room.

"You're awake," the older man smiled fondly at Carter. "I was beginning to think you were going to sleep forever."

"What are you reading?" John asked even though he already knew the answer.

"White Nights," Peter replied, although he knew Carter had already known the answer. It was the same story he read every time Carter was in the hospital for one reason or other, and by reading it, Carter always came back to him.

"You know some people say Dostoevsky is depressing," John teased him, easily falling into their old routine with practiced ease, even without having done it in a number of years.

"Those are the people who don't understand the brilliance behind the madness," Benton replied automatically. There was no need for new words to interrupt their well-rehearsed script.

"But to understand a madman's brilliance, one has to be mad himself, does he not?" John retorted sleepily, the drugs in his system weighing heavily on his consciousness.

"Perhaps, but if a man knows himself to be mad, is it true madness?" Benton's final retort fell on sleeping ears as the younger man drifted back into a state of unconsciousness.

With a sad smile on his face he looked back to the book in his lap, skipping a few pages to reach his favorite line before he began reading again, "You're not a realist. You're a dreamer who doesn't believe in the dream." His voice continued steadily, never wavering in the quiet room, un-phased by the constant drone and beeping of machines and tubes hooked up to his companion.

While Dostoevsky would never be considered "happy" reading, the words always seemed to ring true for the two people in that hospital room, and they would continue to bring the pair back together until their time was done.

With that knowledge, Peter Benton continued to sit vigil and read, to himself or to his sleeping companion, even he did not know, but he would continue reading.