***ALEX***

"This is obviously your dream, Feathers."

"Huh? Why would you think that?"

Fionna gestures to the rain-lashed windows of my living room. "Because when I make a dream, it's a sunny, warm day. Not a cold and rainy one."

I crane my neck to look out the window. "Well, since it's so cold and rainy, that means we can get nice and warm. Huh? Huh?" I snuggle closer to Fionna, wrapping my arms around her as best I can, considering there's a fuzzy dark-brown blanket separating our bodies.

"You wanna get nice and warm, but you don't wanna get under the blanket with me?" Fionna taps the tip of my nose with her index finger, prompting me to try and bite it playfully. "What's the matter? Afraid I'm too delicate for you?"

"There's something I'll never have to be afraid of," I say. "And if you wanted me to really get up close and personal with you, all you had to do was ask." I roll over so my back's against the back of the couch, then look down at myself. "Of course," I say slowly, "how can you be sure this isn't your dream instead of mine?"

"What makes you say that?"

I gesture at the outfit I'm wearing right now - dark gray hoodie, red T-shirt, beige cargo shorts. "I don't normally wear the right combo of clothes to cosplay as Hiro Hamada."

Fionna rubs the back of my head. "Aww, but I really miss tangling my fingers in that wolfy fur you used to have."

"Wolfy fur, huh? Never heard it put that way before. And don't change the subject. Did you or did you not make me dress like this?"

"Why not?" Fionna snickers. "You wear it well."

I climb off Fionna and start walking towards the stairs. "Don't get me wrong," I say, turning around for a second just to see her get up and follow me. "I love Big Hero 6 and all. But I don't love it that much. And I'm not really a good Hiro. About the only thing I have in common with him is a serious Pop-Tart addiction."

"You have a Pop-Tart addiction?"

"Well, I used to, when I was Hiro's age." I laugh under my breath before stepping into my room. I then open my closet door and stand behind it while picking out some longer pants and dropping my cargo shorts.

"Why're you hiding from me, huh, Feathers?" Fionna asks. I poke my head out to see her leaning casually in the doorway. "Come on, I've seen you shirtless. Why not pantsless?"

"Access denied, sweetheart." I flash her a grin before tossing my shorts onto my bed, then clumsily sliding my favorite pair of gray jeans onto my legs.

Fionna sighs contentedly as she sees me step back into view, laughing as I present her with views of my lower half at multiple angles like a runway model. "You wear that well, too," she says. "Hell, you wear that even better."

"See? I told you a quick change would be an improvement."

"You never said that. But seriously, has anyone ever told you how hot you look in skinny jeans?"

I raise my eyebrows. "These are slim jeans, Leftenant," I say in one of my many British accents - this one modeled after Ichabod Crane from Sleepy Hollow (the show, not the movie.) "I would never degrade myself by wearing the devil's trousers!"

"Slim, skinny," Fionna says, weighing her hands. "Same difference, really." She grabs my hand, then leaps onto my bed. We both land on it roughly at the same time, causing the springs to bounce and creak dangerously a few times before the mattress settles under our combined weight. I lie on my back, using my network of pillows to prop myself up (lying in a horizontal position faceup is murder on my wings), and hold her next to me, stroking her hair and caressing her shoulders.

"I'm just waiting for someone to come in and think we're doing it," Fionna laughs, looking around and seeing our fairly compromising (if relatively chaste and fully-clothed) position.

"Be careful, love," I say. "If it really is my dream, all I have to do is think it and it'll happen." Of course, I think, that depends on what 'it' refers to.

Do me a favor and wipe that stupid smirk off your face, Fionna says.

I shake my head, keeping my dumbass grin firmly in place. I don't think so, Fi. Still smiling, I raise my head and start kissing her. Soft little pecks, with Fionna's hand on the back of my head, pushing mine closer to hers. I also pick up the mini-remote for my iPod speakers, and turn them on. Immediately, the song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" comes on, and I hastily hit the skip button before Fionna can hear Vampire Weekend's little ditty about sex. Next up - "Sledgehammer." Even worse. Okay, I think this is definitely my dream, then.

I skip ahead a couple more songs until I finally find one that isn't really so obviously romantic, if at all - "Ghost," by Mystery Skulls.

Fionna kisses me again and then says, "How'd you know I loved this song?"

"Men's intuition."

"Yeah, sure. Let's go with that. Hey, speaking of manhood, you've turned into a regular stud since we last met," she says, her hands gripping my sides and her thumbs sliding over my shirt, feeling the muscle underneath. Still wiry, but much more solid than it had been six months ago. "And you got a sweet new tat. Speaking of which, could I see it again?"

I push off of Fionna's body and move over to one side, then pull up my sleeve. She runs her fingers up and down the length of my tattoo, then slides away from me and gets up to stretch her legs. "Now, I dunno about you, but I'm feeling pretty hungry."

"I can imagine," I say. "Kissing me must really stir up your appetite."

"Which one?" Fionna asks, winking.

"You're making me wanna go crazy on you now."

"Slow your roll, Feathers," Fionna laughs with another wink. "I love you, but I thought we were gonna hold off on the real passion."

I get off the bed too and start hugging her from behind, nuzzling her neck. "Keeping my feelings in will only make them come out more strongly in the end."

"Exactly." Fionna turns around, kisses the tip of my nose, then leads me out of the room. "Wait a minute," she says, stopping short after about ten seconds. "I have no idea where I'm going. This is your dream, after all."

I roll my eyes and take Fionna into the garage. "Yeah. You know how I can tell? My room was clean. In real life, it's a total mess. You know, stuff all over the floor that doesn't belong there. No sense of organization."

"I've seen Gabe's room at Castledown," Fionna points out. "After that, nothing would surprise or disgust me."

"True," I say. "I once visited his room and found a lost piece of underwear behind his bed. Like, yuck. Who does that?" I shudder as the memory, which I'd thought I buried long ago, comes back. "The worst part was, the underwear wasn't even his."

"How would you know?"

"Gabe's not a boxer kind of guy."

Fionna laughs uproariously. "And how would you know that?"

"Because our mom used to give us boxer briefs when we were little kids, but we both switched 'cause we got tired of losing track of whose underwears were whose every time she did the laundry."

"Does 'underwear' even have a plural?"

"Why is that the thing you focus on?"

"It's better than imagining you and Gabe accidentally wearing each other's tighty-whities."

"Well, we didn't wear tighty-whities, but I get your point." I reach into my pocket and extract the car keys that have just appeared in there - it takes some time because my predilection for slim jeans means that I have to work to get my fingers into my pockets.

"Ford keys for a Nissan?" Fionna asks, looking from the keys to the car.

"The Nissan is my mom's," I say, laying a hand on the dark brown Altima's fender. Within seconds, the car's body starts to change shape and color. A few nasty metal-grating sounds later, my dream car shows up in place of Mom's boring old sedan.

"That's more like it." Fionna wolf-whistles at the sight of the brand-new, glossy black Mustang. "But aren't you afraid it's gonna get wet in the rain?"

I stroke the car's low roof fondly. "She can handle it."

"'She?' What's her name?"

It takes me only a second to come up with one. "Michaela."

"And who is the real Michaela?" Fionna raises her eyebrows. "There's gotta be a reason why you picked that name."

"It's my first car, so I named her after the first girl I ever had a crush on, when I was seven."

Fionna walks around to the passenger door. "Well, that makes perfect sense. No, don't trouble yourself, Feathers," she adds as I come around to open the door for her. "Gentlemanly you might wanna be, but I can do this without your help, thanks."

"There's the Fionna I know and love," I say, smiling as I take the wheel.

"But what makes me wonder is, how do you remember the name of your first crush and not my birthday?"

I look back through the rear windshield and watch as the garage door opens. "I don't think you ever told me when your birthday was, Fi."

"You sure about that?"

"Pretty sure. Did I ever tell you - no, wait, Gabe probably told you when our birthday was."

"February 12th."

I nod, then turn the car on and back out into the rainy street. "Good. And when's yours?"

Fionna smiles and taps her fingers on the gear selector. "Feed me first and I'll tell you. Oh, and by the way, why does this thing not have a manual transmission?"

"Just 'cause it's my dream doesn't mean I can do whatever I want," I say. "I can't drive stick in real life, so I wouldn't even begin to know how to do it even in a dream."

"Too bad," Fionna says. "You could have probably done some serious speed demon shit to impress me."

"Maybe later." I change from reverse gear to regular forward driving, then hit the gas gently. Being a Mustang, Michaela is very responsive to the touch of my right foot, a lot more so than Mom's old Altima, on which she's been training Gabe and me during our school breaks. Which means she speeds down the street like she's fleeing a nuclear fireball.

"So where are you gonna take me to eat?" Fionna asks.

"A little place that just opened up on the bayside," I say. "It'll be a bit of a drive, but you'll love it, trust me." I speed down Redtail Lane, then keep on driving. Along the way, I put on the radio. Right now, Alice 97.3 is playing a Neighbourhood song - "Sweater Weather." Normally, this is a song I like to skip unless I can't find anything else (I don't like it nearly as much as I like "Afraid"), but I keep it on this time, because it actually feels appropriate for this dream. Especially when Fionna takes my right hand (leaving me driving with only my left on the wheel) and holds it inside the too-long sleeve of her own sweater.

Soon enough, we arrive at our destination. This place actually exists only in this dream world - the real-life bayside in Spellman has no development whatsoever, because it's mostly a stinky, smelly stretch of pools where bay water evaporates and salt can be collected.

But in my dream, the bayside is a place lined with excellent restaurants and shops - the best in town, in fact. And the place where I want to have lunch with Fionna is among them. Alana's Seafood Grill.

Fionna frowns at the swinging wrought-iron sign in front of the door. "Fish? I'm not a water elemental like you."

"Don't tell me you don't like fish."

"I do, but it's never my first choice."

"Well," I say, shutting off the engine, "that'll change when you've had the salmon at this place. It's to die for."

"Literally, in my case," Fionna laughs. "If it's as good as you say."

"Yeah, poor choice of words there. I'm sorry."

Fionna gets out of the Mustang. "It's all good. No hard feelings." She puts on her hood and walks up to the front door of the restaurant.

An hour later (according to my watch - it feels like no more than five minutes have passed), we've had a delicious early dinner - the both of us ordered the same surf-and-turf plate with medium-rare sirloin, wood-fired salmon, and Chilean parmesan-baked razor clams. And Fionna has finally been convinced that my dream restaurant serves truly amazing seafood.

"So, when's your birthday, huh?" I ask while waiting for our check. "You said you'd tell me if I got you something to eat."

"I did, didn't I?" Fionna laughs, shaking her water glass to dislodge a few stray ice cubes at the bottom. "Okay. It's July 29th."

"Cool. Just two days before Harry Potter's, huh?"

"That's right."

"You'd still be sixteen, then?"

Fionna nods as she downs a couple of little ice cubes. "Uh-huh. And look at you, all big and adult-y looking at seventeen."

"Ooh, what an insurmountable gap our age difference is."

"I know, right?"

The check arrives. In typical fashion, Fionna refuses to let me pick up the entire tab - she insists on supplying enough cash to cover her own meal. At first, I refuse to relent, but then I decide to impress Fionna with another dream-trick to compensate.

"It's not gonna be anything life-threatening, is it?" she asks, placing a twenty on the check.

I add a twenty of my own and say, "No. Besides, if you die in the dream, you just wake up, right? In the Second Universe. That's where you are, right?"

"Yeah."

"What's it like over there? I keep forgetting to ask."

Fionna laughs for a full minute straight before answering. "Just get your trick thing over with. I can tell you're dying to show me."

I take my own turn laughing at Fionna's pun. "As you wish."

As soon as our meal is paid for, we leave the restaurant and make our way back to Michaela. Fionna gets into the car quickly before she can get too wet. I'm about to do the same when I spot an instantly recognizable figure in the window of a black pickup a few spaces away.

Sitting in the driver's seat of that truck, wiping the fogged-up window clean so he can see out, is my biological father.

What the fuck is he doing here? I think, glaring at Elijah. To my surprise, he doesn't glare back. Instead, he climbs out of his ride and starts trying to approach me.

Not if I can help it, I think. I get into Michaela and tear out of the parking lot as quickly as I can.

"Hey, you're really going fast," Fionna says with a nervous titter. "Is this part of the trick?"

I take my eyes off the road just long enough to gaze into Fionna's eyes for a split second. "Yeah," I say, my voice stiff and strained. "Just part of the trick."

"Don't lie to me, Alex," Fionna says, holding on tightly to the handle above her door. "I can handle the truth, whatever it is."

My eyes flick over to the rearview mirror. Elijah's following me in his truck.

"Just buckle up and sit back," I say. "And be afraid. Be very afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

I don't answer Fionna verbally. Instead, I drive onto the freeway, onto the approach to the Spellman Bridge. (Not to be confused with the Spellman Bridge that serves as a portal to Earth, this is an actual bridge across the bay and nothing more.) As I get closer to the bridge, it gains an additional westbound lane and doubles in length, then the western half rises into the air. Basically, it becomes a ramp into the sky.

"You're not serious," Fionna groans.

"I certainly am." I grit my teeth and floor it, speeding onto the bridge at 115 miles per hour. Elijah tries to accelerate, but his big old pickup can't even come close to matching Michaela's speeds.

Adrenaline floods all my veins as I hit the newly-created ramp. My knuckles go white as I grab the wheel in a death grip. I never knew I could get this kind of high before, but I guess my subconscious has a lot of secrets to tell me.

"Holy shit, Alex," Fionna says. "You're insane! You're completely insane!"

"I already knew that," I say even through my shallow breaths.

Elijah's truck finally drops totally out of sight as Michaela launches off the end of the ramp. Fionna and I, meanwhile, start screaming our heads off like we're on a roller coaster. I hold her hand so tightly, I'm sure both of us are losing blood flow to those particular extremities.

"Fionna?"

It's a guy's voice calling her name, but not mine. Our screams fade out, then we exchange glances for just a moment before Fionna vanishes.

The next thing I know, the ground is rising quickly to meet Michaela's front end. At the exact moment of unmercifully destructive impact, I find myself once again in my own bed, my arms, legs, and wings all tangled together in a sweaty mess.

As soon as I rearrange my body, I sit on the edge of my bed, my head in my hands. The last thing I needed was another Fionna dream. And yet, there it was. At least it wasn't as sexually charged as the last one.

But still, there's no excuse for me continuing to dream about kissing her and taking her to dinner. She's dead. That ship has sailed.

Sowhy do I feel like the only thing I want in the world is to have her back?