She woke up the next morning with a headache and a sore throat. Someone was sitting by her bed, and stood when he saw her open her eyes.

"Hey Buttercup. How are you feeling?"

It was Pete. Beautiful, friendly Pete, sitting there, with a look of concern and care on his face.

She climbed from bed and in seconds, they were wrapped in a hug, and she was crying softly into his chest.

"Shh..." He hushed, stroking her hair lightly. "It's okay, buttercup. I'm right here. Everything will be alright."

She didn't believe his words, but she couldn't help but feel comforted in his arms. He was the closest thing she had to a dad, now. Perhaps it was strange that she was seeking comfort in her sixty year old driver, but she didn't have much else.

They stood like that for a few moments, the old man holding her like lost puppy. Then, they broke apart, and Pete gave her a soft smile.

"How about we get you out of here, hey?" He said, and she nodded, wiping away her tears.

"Wait! What about Ella?" She asked, hastily.

Pete nodded, knowingly. "The nurses thought you would ask about her. She's fine, went through surgery on her lungs or something or other, and is recovering now. She's sleeping now, but the nurses want you to know that you can come back as a visitor any time. But for now, lets just get you home, okay?"

K let out a relieved sigh. Maybe everything would be okay after all.

The nurse came shortly after, gave her a rundown of procedures to do with release, and then checkups. Doctor Selwyn wanted K's condition monitored closely, especially the excessive mental breakdowns. K was to see a licensed psychologist, and monitor the 'issue'. K didn't mind she had to see a shrink. In fact, it was almost a relief.

She was also told that she would have to visit a financial specialist to deal with her parent's company, and the other responsibilities she had to take on, now, like owning or selling property, and everything else she had inherited.

She could already feel a headache grow in her skull at the prospect, but understood that it had to be done.

She was also told the date of her parents' funeral. Luke's would be a mass event, his agent had already decided, as the world was shaken by the superstar's devastating death, but her parents' funeral would be quiet, and civil, with any remaining family and close friends. A small but civilised procession, that her mother would approve of.

K had apparently already made a financial decision, or rather, the person that was briefly filling her shoes had, and that was to publicly donate to all of the families of the victims of the explosion to go towards individual funerals.

At some point, she had been given a list of the dead. A lengthy, large amount of names, that had made her feel sick. If the circumstances were different, she would have probably been to half of the people on the lists' funerals. But her situation being what it was, she didn't have the strength to go. Even though these were people she had grown up with, or grown close to, she was barely coping with the thought of her parents' and Luke's death.

She couldn't face the list.

Not yet.

In time, she told herself, you can face anything with enough time. For now, just face what you need to face.

So she did. She turned and faced the light of day. Leaving the hospital as an orphan, forever changed, but not letting her thoughts drag her down. Another time. She had something to do first.

"The car is across in the carpark, so we can walk through the garden on the way out." Pete said apologetically, as they left her room.

She nodded silently. "It's okay." She said, looked across at him. "I don't mind a little rain."

The day was completely different from the one before. The sky was swept with clouds, and a dreary drizzle was falling over the city like a haze.

No one seemed to really mind. It had been a very long time since they'd had a rainy day. The summer had been unrelenting, and not even the afternoon storms seemed to be bringing much relief. The showers were nice for a change.

Pete pulled an umbrella from the bucket as they were leaving, turned to K and cheekily lifted a finger to his lips. "We need it as much as the next." He said, with a soft smile.

He held the back umbrella over their heads as they walked across to the carpark.

They didn't speak much. Pete knew that K didn't feel like talking. Her mind was whirling with other things, and he knew she didn't need conversation. So they were silent. His presence beside her was enough.

"Pete, I was wondering if maybe you could take me out to the beach later this afternoon. The ones you took me to the other day, but closer to the cliffs. Not for anything bad. I just have something I want to do." K asked, once they were sitting in the dry warmth of the car.

Pete looked at her, briefly, the slightest of concern showing in his gaze, then nodded vaguely. "Alright. As long as I can come with you when you do whatever it is."

K nodded silently, and then they were driving, through rain, and in the rain, her vision seemed to blur. Perhaps she was just crying. It was hard to tell. But in her delusion and tears, she noticed how beautiful the lights were when blurred by droplets of rain. How the harsh red of the traffic lights softened to a glow through the window panes.

How the car headlights around her seemed to do the same.

It was pretty, and listening to the soft, orchestral music Pete was playing on the radio, K leant her head against the window, and shut her eyes. It was relaxing, and for the first time since waking up in the hospital that first day, she felt peaceful.

Entranced, feeling simply tired - not weary, or ill, or exhausted, just tired, for the first time since the accident - K fell to sleep in tranquility.

~ ~ ~

The world came back to her in a hazy daze. She found herself lying on a bed, a soft bed, her bed. She opened her eyes to look out the nearby window out at the grey of rain and drizzle. It wasn't late. The clock beside her bed read 2:26, meaning she'd been asleep for about an hour or so.

Feeling heavy, she climbed from bed and rubbed her eyes. She was still in the clothes Pete had given her at the hospital, and she felt sticky and uncomfortable, so she ambled over to her closet in search of something else.

She settled on a pair of black baggy pants, a singlet, and a knitted grey sweater. Then she slid on her Ugg boots, and headed out to the kitchen.

As she wandered through her living room, she could hear the sound of someone singing softly, and the smell of cooked chicken and hot chips invaded her senses.

When she pushed open the door, she found Pete, humming, and rolling some sort of dough in his hands. He looked up when she came in, and his face broke into a warm smile.

"Hey buttercup. How was your nap?"

She smiles back faintly. "Good. Thank you for taking me back up here."

"Not a problem, K. It's my job to look after you now. I'm like an unofficial nurse, or something. An illegal guardian." He gave her a joking grin, and she smiled back.

"You don't have to do that, Pete." She said in a soft voice.

He shrugged. "I want to. You've been through a lot, K, and you ought to have someone that is there for you."

She smiled gratefully, holding back the tears welling up behind her eyes. "Thank you, Pete. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have you."

He nodded. "It's okay, buttercup. Truly. I just want to try and help you out a little."

She looked to his hands, and took a deep breath, keeping bay the emotion welling up within her. "What are you making? What's that smell?"

Pete gestured to a plastic bag beside him. "Roast chicken and hot chips, for lunch. I figured you'd need some real food after all that crap they've been feeding you in the hospital. And I'm just making some bread rolls now. I thought fresh bread might be nice for dinner."

She moved to the plastic bag and pulled out the bag of roast chicken, and the waxed paper that presumably held the hot chips.

"Oh, Pete. You didn't have to do this." She said, her heart overflowing with gratitude.

"Don't worry about it. Really. You're going to have to get used to it. Besides, it was your money." He gave her a sideways smile.

She nodded, and composed herself. She then turned and pulled two plastic plates out from a cupboard by the sink. She tore open the chicken's bag, and the waxed paper, and began to dump handfuls of chips on each plate, and then slowly took apart the chicken. She grabbed her own plate and the tomato sauce, told Pete to come sit, and together they ate their hot, greasy, and absolutely wonderful lunch, sitting at the table by the balcony, looking out at a rainy, and hazy day.

It seemed in that moment, that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be okay.

"We can go out to the beach as soon as the bread is set to rise. It shouldn't take long, but until then, do you mind going down and collecting something from downstairs? The lady at the front desk sent a message saying there was a package for you down there." Pete told her, as she finished her plate. K nodded, not able to say anything, as her mouth was stuffed with hot chips.

Pete smiled warmly at her, and stood, taking her tomato-sauce smeared plate. She grabbed a napkin from the centre of the table, and wiped her fingers, then redid her hair and stood, swallowing the last mouthful of lunch, and wiping her face with the napkin.

"Okay." She called, into the kitchen. "I'll be a couple of minutes."

"Alright." Pete replied, and she left the apartment and headed to the nearby elevator.

When the silver doors slid open, she stepped inside, and hit the ground floor button. The elevator was glass on one side, and as it descended, she looked out at the water, misty with the rain, and the headlights moving across the highway nearby.

It was beautiful in the rain.

The elevator glided into the ground floor, and with a ding the doors slid apart, to reveal the warmly lit lobby, elegant lobby.

K stepped from the elevator and walked to the front desk, where a petit, short-haired brunette woman was typing on a computer. She looked to be about in her fifties, and wore a badge with the name 'Melissa' beneath the apartment building's brown logo.

The woman looked up and smiled softly when K approached. "Ms Keller. We're glad to have you back, but so sorry for your loss." She gave her a sympathetic but genuine smile. "Let me know if you ever need anything dear."

"Thank you," K said, in a quiet voice. Then, she spoke up. "I'm here to pick up a package? Pete said it was here for me?"

At this, the lady nodded, and collected something from beneath the desk. It wasn't an overly large package, perhaps the size of a textbook, and about as thick as one too. It was soft, though, wrapped with the postal services' red and white packaging.

"We don't know who it's from, but it was delivered a couple of days ago, while you were still in hospital. We thought perhaps it was something you'd ordered online?"

K shrugged. She obviously hadn't ordered anything recently, but it could very well be something she had ordered before new years. She couldn't recall ordering anything, but it wasn't unlike her to impulse buy things when she had a spacey day. The description on the packaging read 'clothes' so she figured that was what it was.

She thanked Melissa, grabbed the package, and headed back to the elevator.

On the way back up, she didn't watch the view through the glass. Instead, she found herself staring at the package, trying to remember ordering it.

For the life of her, she couldn't recall it.

Before she knew it, the doors had dinged again, and slid open. She stepped out of the elevator, shaking her head and heading towards her apartment. Whatever, she thought, I'll find out soon enough.

Inside, Pete called out to her. "The bread is done! Or, at least for now." He came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel, and saw the package under her arm. "How about you open that up, then we can head to the beach?"

She nodded silently, and headed to the next room, and the table they had been eating lunch at minutes earlier. She placed the package down and sat.

Some part of her felt ill, there was an off, churning feeling in her stomach, only faint, as she stared down at the package.

She pushed it aside and let out a sigh. Pete sat down beside her, and she pulled at the edge of the packaging, peeling it open.

Inside, she saw a familiar kind of silky black fabric, and her heart began to pound.

She pulled at the package roughly, and tore it open.

Inside was a black dress, adorned with diamond specks, with a lining of silver thread. A gorgeous, incredibly expensive vision of beauty. A dress that was far too familiar to her.

She hadn't ordered this online.

Her hands shaking, she turned to Pete. "My phone. Do you know where it is?"

Her voice was trembling, and Pete was suddenly concerned. "The police have it. It was at the crime scene, and was destroyed. Why? What's wrong?"

She shook her head, standing, panic setting in, fear filtering through her skin. She ran to her study, where the Mac sat. She had to punch her password in four times because her fingers were trembling so much.

When she was finally logged on, she opened google chrome, and, breathing heavily, looked up the Facebook site. Her account was already saved on the computer, so she didn't have the affair of logging in again. The mouse quivering as she moved it, she opened her overcrowded message box, scrolled through lines upon lines of apologies and get well soon messages, she went back to the day of New Years.

Just as she had remembered, there was a string of conversation between her mother's account and hers. Her mother had called her, anxiously, needing an opinion on what to wear that night. She'd sent a number of pictures of her in various dresses over Facebook, and asked her daughter for her opinion.

K had spent half an hour on the phone, while she herself was being fitted for an outfit. K had spend most of her time saying that her favourite was a black one with shining diamonds, that looked like a shining night sky.

Her mother hadn't agreed, though, rather, she continuously said she preferred a red one, that K thought was far too short, and was not designed for a forty year old woman.

In the end, K was fed up with her mother's stubbornness, angrily said, "If you already knew what you wanted, why did you bother calling me?" and hung up angrily. When she arrived that night, her mother was in a touchy mood, and wouldn't speak to her.

She was wearing the red dress.

The dress that K had preferred was laying on her kitchen table amongst torn packaging. She stared at the image of her mother in the black dress on her computer, and the churning in her stomach grew. She rose again, and pushed past Pete standing in the doorway, to get back to the table.

She lifted the dress, and from it, a note fell.

Hands shaking, she bent over and lifted the small sheet of paper. It was a typed message, on a small card, in black ink. The words on it made her blood run cold.

She didn't listen to anyone. Don't be like her.

That was it. No name, or signature. Nothing to trace the note back to anyone.

The sick feeling in K's chest was growing, twisting and churning. Something was wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

"We need to take these things to the police." She said, trying to keep her voice even, holding the fabric over one arm.

"What? Why? What's going on?" Pete said, staring with confusion at the black dress in her hand.

She shook her head. "Something bad. Really bad. I don't know what but..." She stopped, to compose herself, try and keep herself from crying. "This was my mothers dress. She never wore it, even though I told her she should wear it to the New Years party. We fought over it. I don't know who sent this, but it wasn't her and..."

She broke off again, and looked him, completely and utterly scared. He looked back at her, clearly confused, but she could see in his eyes that he understood her urgency.

"Alright." He said, swallowing. "Take the packaging, too, if you think it's important."

She nodded, and collected the dress, the packaging, and the note into her trembling arms.

"Here. Let me get a plastic bag to put it all in. That way you don't have to touch it." Pete said, and escaped into the kitchen. She stood still, trying to comprehend what was going on. Who could have sent the package? Who would send someone their dead mother's dress, with a sinister note almost acting as some sort of warning? It was sick.

Pete returned with a white shopping bag, which he held open while she dumped the items in. "Come on." He said. "Let's go."

He took the bag, grabbed the keys from the small table by the door, and they left the apartment.

The elevator seemed to take the longest time to reach the basement where the car was parked, and Pete must have pressed the button impatiently thousands of time, but finally they were below ground, and rushing towards the black sedan.

K couldn't help the tears pulling to her eyes. She wasn't quite sure why she was crying. She just knew that the wave of emotion had returned, and she couldn't hold it back.

So as Pete drove to the station, she began to cry. He didn't ask why. He just placed a comforting hand on her knee briefly while he drove.

"It'll be okay. We'll figure out what's going on, K."

She couldn't even nod. Unprecedented, a memory had taken a hold of her.

Author's Note

Hey my few, well appreciated, silent readers. Apologies about not updating last Tuesday, as I was, indeed, on a plane, and it was a little difficult to do so. Anyways, now I am back in my homeland, back to school, and with begin to do the regular Tuesday updates.

If you're hanging 'round, please let me know, so I know I'm not posting to an empty auditorium, or even just chuck us a vote so I know you're there. It's not that I write for the attention, but having some readers is duly appreciated.

Thanking you all for reading

- Amelia