My alarm blared from my bedside table and I thumped it a few times to silence it. I reached up unconsciously to stroke the ring where it hung above my head before I rose to hit the bathroom.

I hit play on my answering machine as I passed it. "You have no new messages." I wanted to tell her to shut up, but honestly, no new messages was not a bad thing. It did mean that the twins didn't want their stuff back. Which means that even after Smecker told them what a hooker I was (and I'm sure he played it up for all it was worth) they didn't hate me enough to ask for everything back.

If they had been women I would have thought they were doing it to make me feel worse (as if that were possible), but that wasn't the twins. I didn't take it positive enough to assume that they forgave me, but just knowing that they didn't hate me was enough.

It had been six weeks since I talked to Smecker on the phone that day in Doc's, and I hadn't heard anything back from his, except a random on word message: "Safe." Then a disconnect. I hadn't erased it. I had to listen to it every once in a while to convince myself that he had spoken to them and they were safe. I could live with that.

I was doing as well as could be expected. In fact, I had gone all of the previous day only thinking of the boys about a dozen times. A marked improvement over the constant barrage of images and sounds and memories that I had lived constantly under for the last month and a half. I sighed and headed for the kitchen.

A quick breakfast on my way to work. I had been experimenting in the kitchen since the boys left, making an effort to keep my mind occupied and my time filled. And, who knew, I actually could eat most of what I cooked…not to say that it was good enough for me to force on other people, but I hadn't died yet, so…plus.

I hit the button to start the coffee as I pulled two strips of bacon out of the pack and set them cooking as I dropped two pieces of bread in the toaster and cracked an egg in a pan. I was still waiting for the white to turn a uniform color when the bacon began to sizzle and the coffee started to perk.

All of a sudden my vision went green. My stomach turning as my brain told my body that I was standing in the middle of a room of not-so-fresh corpses instead of my kitchen in the middle of breakfast. I could feel the bile start to rise in the back of my throat and I tried to breathe through my mouth to keep it at bay, but that wasn't happening.

One hand over my mouth and nose, I bolted for the bathroom and everything came up in a flood. I had just sat back confident everything was out when a dry-heave came on me and I retched until my entire body turned inside out then I dropped the lid, flushed, and blew my nose on a square of toilet paper.

What the hell was that all about? I thought to myself as I sat with my back to my tub staring at my medicine cabinet, my handcuff keyring visible for some reason then past that out the door to the twin's ring where it hung on the chain above my bed.

My bed.

Something about that seemed important.

My bed?

Oh. Hell. My bed.

My mind started whirling counting weeks without bleeding and I arrived at seven at the exact moment my smoke alarm started screaming in the kitchen where smell of coffee and bacon had caused *me* to throw up.

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. "Oh, fuck, no," I said to myself as my gorge rose and I threw up again.