You'll never know, your weight in my heart as you sleep peacefully on my shoulder.

**

Luke's Point Of View

A whimper leaves her soft lips and a shudder runs through her body as the fight drains out of her eyes slowly.

"Go to sleep baby. I won't let anything happen to you." I slide my arm under her knees and the other around her waist, lifting her into my arms, her head falling onto my shoulder heavily. I want to sit right here on the ground and watch her while she sleeps. I almost don't have the energy to keep going after what I just witnessed. Almost.

"I can't remember him! Help me, Luke!" Sierra's words ring in my head, stabbing the corners of my damaged being painfully. I didn't know it was possible to feel someone's pain more than your own, not until now.

I push the car door open with my leg and lay her down on the seat. She is mumbling incoherently now, her eyes fluttering while she drifts away to a deep sleep. The medicine she took must be helping her calm down and sleep. I've never witnessed anyone else have a panic attack, just my own so this was a foreign sort of terror. 

I have no idea what triggered her but it was something important. She kept talking about a guy, a Heath? Was that a family member? A boyfriend? It better not be a damn ex-boyfriend. I'll track him down and kill him for causing her this much pain.

I push Sierra's hair back from her face and kiss her on the cheek.

"Luke." She mumbles and turns her head in sleep.

"Shhh, baby. We're going home." I soothe her in hushed tones. I wish we had a home that I could take her to and nurse her back into her happy, good nature. Shutting the door on her side, I jog to the drivers side and get in. Turning the engine on, I feel a hand brush my leg.

"Luke..." Sierra mumbles again, so quietly that I barely hear it. Her hand is wondering slowly, looking for something.

I take her hand in mine and intertwine our fingers. Her soft hand limp, in mine. She sighs, it's what she was looking for. I clutch onto her hand and put the car in drive.

---

I don't drive back to my house with the band. They will have too many questions for me and all we both need right now is peace. Sierra is fast asleep in my arms as I push open the door to her hotel room. The people in the lobby gave me weird looks and the worried ones offered help but I refused. They probably thought I was taking her up to do something wrong.

I pause for a second when I see that the lights are on in the room and light music is flowing through the speakers. Someone is here. 

Fucking great.

"What are you doing here?" I ask at the same time that Adelaide shrieks, "What happened?" She jumps off the bed and runs up to us.

"Can you not shout? She's asleep!" I hiss at the annoying, bubbly girl.

"Did she have a panic attack?" Addy asks, ignoring my glare. How does she know that?

I choose not to answer and turn away from her, laying Sierra down on the bed and smoothing a pillow under her head. She looks so peaceful in her sleep it is overwhelming, compared to how she was just fifteen minutes ago.

"Can you answer me?" She questions again, coming to Sierra's side and pushing her hair back from her face. Adelaide's expression is filled with motherly concern for her best friend and for a second I don't hate the girl that much.

I take one of Sierra's feet and untie her boots, massaging her feet a little as I take the shoes off. She sighs in content at my touch.

"Yes, she had a panic attack. She's fine now." I sigh at the furious girl in front of me. I really didn't know how Ashton puts up with her extreme moods all the time. He's a very peaceful guy.

She nods and looks back at Sierra's sleeping form, "What happened?" I decide to tell her because I know she won't leave it alone until I do. Plus, the sooner I tell her the faster she gets out of here.

"She saw someone she thought she recognised and went up to the guy, but it turned out to be some random kid. She had a full on breakdown after." I run a hand up and down my face, trying to rub the exhaustion out of it. I will never forget her horrified expression and tear filled eyes begging me to help her remember.

"Heath? Is that who she thought he was?" Addy asks me knowingly.

"Yeah, who the fuck is he?" 

"He's— um—you should ask her, not when she wakes up! Of course, she'll freak out again. But—When you know, you're free or whatever." She rambles.

"Why can't you tell me? Aren't you her high and mighty soul sister or some shit?" I pull the blanket over Sierra and sit next to her, examining her hands.

In my peripheral I see Addy flip her hair over her shoulder, annoyed. "That's exactly why I can't tell you, dick head. It's not my story to tell you about. She will tell you in time."

"Fine. Can you leave now then? She needs sleep and your yapping isn't helping." I take off my shoes too, putting my phone and keys down on the side table.

"Uh, this is my room too? You leave." She scoffs.

"Go get another one. I'm not leaving her." I dismiss her before she gets further on my nerves.

"Well, I'm not leaving her either, so you should go back home. I can take care of her. This has happened before." Adelaide reasons with me, ready to argue further if needed.

I slowly turn my head towards her. "You can either leave by your own choice, or I will kick you out myself. This day hasn't gone the way I had planned it too and I really like my plans. Don't piss me off further alright?"

"Fine! I can't believe you!" She shrieks again and grabs her phone off the table, takes one last look at Sierra and storms out of the room. I huff with relief and lock the door after her.

Going to the bathroom, I take out the first aid kit from a cabinet under the sink. Sierra has gashes up her arms from when she banged them on the ground. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply so I don't smash or break something.

You can't be there for her if you lose control. Not today.

I go up to the bed and sit next to her. The sleeves of her t-shirt aren't too long so I don't have to take her top off. I wipe at her arms with a wet cloth to get the dirt out and then wipe her cuts with alcohol from a tiny bottle in the kit. She doesn't wince or move but sighs lightly. She does that a lot, sighing like she's trying to get that extra bit of peace inside her fragile body.

---

Sierra

I feel light headed. Almost like a huge dark cloud is taking up space inside my brain. This is the after effect of a panic attack. Oh god. I had a panic attack.

No no no

I open my eyes to a dark room. The only light is a thin strip under curtains from the sun. How long did I sleep?

My entire body hurts and the hand under my head stings a little too. I lift up but feel something heavy over my waist holding me down.

Looking over, I see Luke sleeping peacefully beside me. His arm is wrapped around me and the other over my head, laid on my pillow like he was trying to protect me from something.

I slowly turn around to face him, listening to the light snores leaving his lips. He must have brought me back here.

My head is still cloudy so I don't remember much from yesterday and I know better than to force it out. The back of my head throbs like it always does the day after a pain attack, indicating the day long headache I will have to bear with.

Luke's eyes flutter slightly, wincing, I quickly plop my head back down on the pillow, hoping he doesn't see me awake and wake up as well. He has dark circles under his eyes, showing that he hasn't slept well in a long time.

I reach out to run my hand through his messy hair but pull back when my eye catches white band aids all over my arm. Shit.

What did I do? I lay there silently next to Luke, trying to push through the cloud covering my mind and thoughts but I only have the feeling that I gave Luke a very hard time last night.

Examining my arms I almost jump out of my skin when there's a light knock on the door. I slide off the bed silently, wincing at the pain in my head and body. My stomach growls a little as I straighten up and take a step forward, quickly looking back to see if the sound woke Luke but he's fast asleep.

The digital clock on the nightstand says that it's only seven in the morning. Who the hell is it this early?

The knock sounds again, too loud this time. I move as fast as I can towards the door and swing it open with a frown, ready to go off on whoever it is.

Ross is standing there, his hair still wet from a shower.

"Sierra!" He greets me loudly and I put my finger up to my mouth, signalling him to be quiet.

I close the door behind me, hoping the fuss didn't wake Luke up. He needed the rest. I have to thank him for looking after me last night, I can tell he was the one that took care of my cuts too. The smell of antibacterial on my arms is still strong.

"What happened to your hands?" Ross asks me, more quietly, this time, taking my hands in his to examine them.

"Nothing. Just fell." I shrug at him, pulling at my hands in his grasp.

"Fell? Seriously?" He raises an eyebrow at me, smiling.

If I was in a better mood and I didn't have the worst night I probably would have smiled along with him and might have actually been in the mood to have this conversation.

"Okay. So um, I came down here to talk to you about something. Is it a good time?" He asks. It probably isn't that important anyway because he's asking me if it is a good time, looking directly at my face which is probably a train wreck after last night. He can't be that oblivious right?

"Shoot." I motion for him to go on, leaning against the wall in the corridor.

Ross takes a step closer to me and I feel a little uncomfortable at how close he is but I'm too tired to acknowledge it or move away.

"Promise me you won't hate me after this?" He looks a little worried now.

"Uh. Promise?"

"Okay, so um--I really like you, Sierra." It takes me a second too long to decipher what he is saying.

He sighs and continues. "I've been waiting to tell you for so long and I just didn't know when I should. I'm never this nervous with any girl and wow, I'm just, you're so amazing and—"

I put my hands up to cut him off but he takes them in his, pulling me against his body. His lips land on mine suddenly and like a trigger in my brain, all the events from last night flood back into my head.

Panic attack. Heath...That boy wasn't Heath. I thought wrong.

Ross's lips move against my immobile ones and I'm too frozen to push him away.

Images of me beating my hands against the ground and screaming at Luke flow back, Luke holding me against him and calming me down.

My head snaps back at the weight of it all, Ross has pulled away now but his lips are only an inch away from mine. I gather all my strength to shove him away from me when a door clicks open.

"Sierra?" Luke's raspy voice pauses everything in my world.

A/N:

My characters are always 'realising' things. I need a thesaurus. Ugh.