"Clydie? Tell me just what the fuck is happening here!" Julian rasped, lifting her up to a sitting position.

Shaken and confused, Clydie glanced around, jolted to find that she was lying on the floor of her dad's gazebo...wearing nothing but the tank top and panties she'd gone to sleep in. As her awareness of her surroundings and herself increased, she realized that she was freezing, that she felt ice cold inside, right down to her very bones. And as she looked past the gazebo, she realized why. The sky out over the harbour was still grey with the early light of dawn, leaving the rest of the world hidden in the shadows and the mist.

"Yer freezing, Clydie!" Julian bit out, and she was abruptly scooped up off the cold wooden floor and into his arms. He rose to his feet and spun around, rushing down the gazebo steps...with such speed that it almost seemed he wasn't carrying another person with him. "Dammit! There's not an ounce of warmth left in you! How the hell long have you been out here!"

She could not tell him how long she'd been lying in the gazebo, but certainly long enough for all the feeling to leave her extremities.

Swiftly, Julian strode through the shadows and the damp mist hanging low in the air, pointing them toward the back door of the house, which she saw was standing wide open. Reaching it within a blink, she was whisked inside, Julian kicking the door closed behind them before rushing her through the dim silence and up to her room, closing that door behind them before heading for the bathroom.

"Let's get you into a hot shower. That'll put some heat back into your bones," he said and Clydie felt herself stiffen.

"No! The-the pipes are loud! It'll wake up my mom and dad!" she croaked out past her stiff and numb lips.

The very last thing she wanted was for Ella and Frank to wake up and see her in such a shape. They already weren't speaking to her. If they found out she was falling back into those episodes of waking up outside the house, they'd take her straight to the nearest hospital and check her in.

"Is that what they do, Clydie? Do they put you away every time yer goin' through something they can't understand?" Julian asked and she felt a start zip through her as she realized she was thinking out loud.

Unable to take her into the bathroom, Julian shifted course and veered toward the bed, carefully laying her out on the mattress before straightening up and coming out of his tee shirt. He stepped out of his shoes and the his gym shorts, leaving his boxer briefs on. She didn't have more than a quick instant to take in his long, lean legs and ridged stomach before he was stretching out beside her and reaching for the blanket, pulling it up over both of them. And then she was wrapped in his arms, pulled against him so that her head was on his shoulders and she was snuggled against his heated flesh.

His hands immediately began moving over her back and arms, trying to lend her some warmth that way. And Clydie, shaking uncontrollably and her teeth clicking together with painful force, closed her eyes and let herself breathe in Julian's wonderful scent. She was so cold, even her bones were aching and she found herself trying to get as close as she could to Julian, but even being pressed right up against him didn't seem quite close enough.

"Its alright, Clydie. You'll warm up in a minute or two," Julian assured, sliding his large hands beneath her tank top, allowing them to run along her bare skin from her shoulders down to her bottom, letting his finger tips dip just beneath the waistband of her underwear.

That brisk movement from Julian's large hands, along with the warmth emanating from all the rest of him, was blissfully wonderful against her frozen skin and she couldn't keep herself from trying to get even closer to him. In turn, Julian tightened his arms around her and shifted them both so that she was as close as she could possibly get...so that they were pressed together in a way that seemed to help Clydie's internal temperature rise by a few degrees.

"Is this helping?" Julian asked and his voice was suddenly low and gruff sounding.

She nodded against his shoulder, her stomach clenching sharply as she realized that not only the air around she and Julian was changing, but that something about Julian himself was...changing. She was suddenly very aware of that part of him, beginning to throb like a steady heartbeat and almost before she knew it, was as hard as stone between them.

In the back of her mind, she knew she should not allow Julian to continue to lie in her bed, knew she should stop what was happening and get herself away from him, but...it was so heady, what was happening against her belly, what Julian's hands were doing to help warm her flesh, that she didn't want to stop it. It was dizzying, being held against Julian's body, feeling his bare chest against her, feeling the hairs on his legs prickling at her, and his lower half throbbing against her belly. Beneath her hands, which were splayed out against his broad chest, she could feel his heart beating hard and fast, feel the way his breath was quickening.

In the matter of a few of those quick breaths, the way his hands were moving on her suddenly changed and no longer did the intent seem to be to warm her flesh, but to simply feel her beneath his palms as he slid his hands along her spin and just down into her underwear and then back up again, putting just enough pressure on her to make her arch against him.

It felt nice, the way he was touching her. It felt nice, his hands moving along her flesh, sliding up to her shoulders and back down to her bottom. It felt nice being held, being in the moment, feeling comforted and...safe. It felt nice listening to the way Julian was breathing as if he'd just finished a brisk run.

All those things felt nice...even though she knew she shouldn't be allowing them to happen because it was wrong. This was her parents' house. They were right down the hallway. And her father would be livid because she allowed something so disrespectful under his roof.

"Clydie," Julian whispered her name, pressing his mouth to the top of her head.

It was disrespectful, but it was also...wonderful. And it wouldn't hurt anything to allow it for a few minutes more.

She didn't respond to Julian's whisper except to breathe his scent in as deeply as she could and move her hands from his down to his waist, but daring to go no further.

"Clydie," Julian whispered again and she buried her face against his neck, squeezing her eyes tight.

If she kept herself in the darkness, it wouldn't seem so wrong. It would seem like a dream.

Julian suddenly shifted them both and then she was no longer beside him but underneath him, his weight pressing her into the mattress. She couldn't say how it happened, but Julian's hands were tangled into her hair and her arms were wrapped around him and somehow, her legs had opened to him so that he was settled between them, his hips pressing against hers in a way that caught her breath and had a surge of moisture gathering in her center.

She barely had time to take in the sensation of having another body touching hers in such an intimate way and then Julian was kissing her, his mouth capturing hers in a hungry, searching way that caused her head to spin and her eyes to fly open. She found Julian's eyes open, too, and those grey pools were no longer aloof and unreadable. She could see things swirling there in those sea colored depths that sent red hot sparks skittering across her flesh, which no longer seemed so frozen and numb.

Having Julian's mouth on hers, having his tongue running across her lips, while those grey eyes were burning into hers shattered any notion of pretending that this was a dream. This was no dream. This was as real as it could get. Julian's lower half, hard and pulsating against her, was as real as anything she'd ever felt.

She wouldn't stop it, though. Not yet...

Without warning, Julian pulled away from her and was out of her bed and on his feet, looking at her as if he'd been the one who'd just awakened from a rather startling dream. "Clydie, I'm sorry!" he breathed raggedly, running a hand through his hair. "I-I don't know what I'm doin', fer fuck's sake!"

Abruptly feeling shaken and confused, Clydie sat up, reaching for the comforter with a violently trembling hand and pulling it up to her chin. Awash in humiliation and lingering heat, she opened her mouth to say...something, perhaps to apologize for...well, something, but the only thing that came out was a choked, breathy, pitiable little noise that reminded her of the sound some timid and wounded thing might make. That sound, that despairing and broken noise mortified her right down to her very soul, but hearing it seemed to jolt Julian, who visibly flinched.

"Shit! Shit!" he swore, snatching up his gym shorts and pulling them on, effectively covering the fact that his body was still...feeling the effects of the previous moments. He quickly put his tee shirt back on and then stepped into his shoes and just when Clydie thought he was going to turn and bolt from the room, he stunned her by coming over and sitting down on the side of the bed. "Lie back and cover up, Clydie," he told her in a gravelly sort of tone. "Yer still not warm enough."

She did as she was told, lying back against the pillows and keeping the comforter pulled up to her chin, feeling her cheeks beginning to burn beneath Julian's now hard gaze.

"I'm sorry, Clydie. I had absolutely no business doin' that. I...I..." he paused, raking a hand through his hair and letting out a hard breath. "So, can you tell me why I started on my mornin' run, only to find you outside, freezing to death, and gasping for air so that yer lips were blue?"

That question seemed to forcibly snap Clydie back to the reality of how Julian had come to be in her bed in the first place. "I-I'm not sure how I got out there," she told him hoarsely. "I was...having a dream...and then you were telling me to open my eyes."

Julian lifted a brow. "A dream? A dream wound you up lying in the gazebo, gasping for breath?"

She nodded, oddly close to tears. That dream was one of the worst ones she'd ever had. She usually couldn't remember much once she woke up, but this time...she could remember every detail.

"What were you dreaming about?" came the question.

She didn't want to speak of it, but how could she not? "I-I think it was about one of...them," she rasped past her dry throat. "I...or she...was being...choked. Someone was choking her and..."

"And what?" urged Julian.

Clydie pulled in a long breath before answering. "She was being...assaulted," she whispered, hoping Julian could figure it out from there because she did not want to get any more in depth than that.

Julian's brows shot upwards, but his eyes narrowed. "And you were...seeing this?"

"Not really seeing. It doesn't work that way for me," she told him. "But, I knew what was going on. I knew...what he was doing. He was assaulting her, he strangled her...and then she was gone. And I woke up outside with you."

Julian went quiet for a moment. "You didn't see who was strangling her? Or who was being strangled?"

She shook her head.

"Does this happen often? You waking up outside the house?"

"Its happened before. A few times," she replied. "But, those dreams were about my sister, I think. This one was...different than the others."

"Clydie, I'm not sure how to—" Julian's words halted and something rolled over his features that sent a cold shard of fear stabbing through her chest. "Clydie, tell me you put those there."

Clydie followed the line of his gaze off to the right, toward her nightstand, her own gaze landing on the two open pill bottles lined up there. A gasp flew out of her and she sat bolt upright, her heart hammering so hard in her chest she felt her breath catch.

"Goddammit!" Julian swore.

Without hesitation, he snatched the bottles up, paused long enough to pick the lids up out of the floor, and then strode directly over to the window, unlatching it, shoving it open, and dumping the bottles out, letting the pills get scattered on the wind. Once that was done, he shut and latched the window and stalked into the bathroom, dumping the bottles into the trash can before reappearing and coming back to sit with her on the bed.

"Clydie, I don't care how you do it, but I want the rest of those pills," he bit out. "Have your mama help you if you need to. Tell her anything you have to tell her, but those pills need to be put into my hands as soon as possible!"

There was such a sense of urgency that Clydie felt a line of offense snake through her. "Do you think I'm going to take those things? Because I'm not."

"Clydie, love, you just woke up mostly naked, out in the backyard, with no memory of how you got there. How can you be sure what you might do?" he asked, dead serious. "Maybe it wouldn't take much to get you to down a handful of those things. And I...I can't have that."

He had a good point. Regardless of how the pills were actually getting into her room, she had no control over what happened during one of those strange nightmares. She very well could swallow a handful of pills and have no idea that she was actually doing it.

"I'll try my best to find them," she promised, not really eager to be coaxed into overdosing. Something like that, if it didn't kill her, would land her in lock down probably indefinitely.

"Good. Because if this keeps on, I might have to fall to tearin' this place apart with my bare hands," Julian admitted, a nerve in his jaw working.

It could come down to that because she'd looked for hours and still hadn't gotten through all the boxes.

Julian let out a somewhat unsteady breath. "Clydie, I don't want to leave you, but I have some work of my own to do today. You'll be alright here, won't you?"

"Julian, I've been alright all this time," she pointed out.

She appreciated the concern, but Julian Donovan had only been in the picture for a scant few hours. She had been living her life for nearly twenty years without him and managing to get by. Somehow.

There was a small measure of self-reproach that crossed his features. "I can't help but be worried, Clydie. I mean, how could I not be?"

She nodded, suddenly feeling the air between and around them beginning to shift and change so that her stomach clenched with anticipation, reminding her of what they'd been doing only a few minutes before.

"Do you mind if I worry about you?" he asked, reaching out and smoothing her hair away from her face.

She gave that question a moment's thought. "No. I don't mind."

Julian's eyes darkened a fraction, so that they took on the look of a stormy autumn sky. "Did you mind what we were doin' a little bit ago?" he wondered, his voices dropping by several octaves.

"No. I didn't mind," she replied. If she had minded, she would have stopped it.

"Would you mind coming to my place for supper tonight?" he questioned, trailing his thumb down her cheek.

Dinner with a handsome man, who'd been nearly naked and lying on top of her only a few minutes before? "I wouldn't mind," she answered, abruptly thinking that perhaps supper should have happened before she'd actually allowed the handsome man to be on top of her. But, oh well. She couldn't go backwards.

"I'll come around for you this evening? About five?" he posed and she thought he was going to lean down and kiss her, but he didn't.

Trying to ignore the disappointment, she nodded her agreement. "I'll be ready."

"I hope you can choke down my futile attempt at cooking," he smiled, letting his thumb trace a slow circle on her cheek.

She lifted a shoulder. "I can cook if you can't."

"Well, I may have to take you up on that," he admitted and again she thought he might lean down and kiss her, but again, he didn't. Instead, he ran his thumb across her lower lip, sending a bit of a shiver coursing through her.

And then he stood, readying to leave.

"Thank you, Julian, for helping me with...everything," she said, because she felt as if it needed saying. "And thank you for not treating me like I'm crazy."

That was perhaps the most important bit.

Julian gave her a very serious look. "I know you aren't crazy, Clydie. And I mean to do everything I can to help get you through this."

She offered a nod, not wanting to burst his bubble, but helping her get through this was probably going to be harder than he figured, considering that her parents and a team of professionals had spent two years trying and had failed at every turn.

"I'll come around in a few hours. Take care until then." With that, Julian strode from the room, closing the door behind him.

Left alone in the silence, Clydie couldn't help but wonder just how, considering the way it had started, the rest of her day was going to go....