She felt someone shaking her, and heard a panicked voice. She could feel wet and cold metal underneath her fingers, her hands clasped around a bar.

She was standing on the cliff, looking down on the water. She was underneath the water, looking up through the blue at the rays of light falling upon her.

She was holding her brother in the wild waves.

She was surrounded by fire and light. She could see the ocean through the smoke, a little boat bobbing up and down.

She was sitting beside a bed. Her mother's hospital bed, as her mother slipped away.

She felt like she was grasping at sand, trying to hold it in her fingers, but it kept falling through.

"You're alive, K. Come back. I need you to come back to me." She heard a voice. It was Pete. He was standing on the cliff, beside her, shaking her, trying to cling to her clothes.

She wasn't really beside him, though. She was in front of him. She wasn't looking out at the waves. She was looking back at him, on the other side of the fence.

She was standing on the edfe of the cliff, outside of the protection of the metal railing. She had climbed over.

She was shaking.

"K," Pete said, and his voice rang through her head. She was there. She wasn't stuck in the past. She was there, standing at the cliffs edge, clinging to a fence, that if she were to let go, she would fall. "K, please. Come back over here. You have things to live for. I know life is hard, sweetheart, but you can't die yet."

She was breathing heavily. Then nodding. And crying. The tears streamed down her face, falling and falling. Pete was crying too, holding her, clinging to her clothes, trying to keep her from stepping back.

"I know." She whispered, her voice filled with pain. "I don't want to die. I don't want to."

She started shaking her head, filled with hysterical fear and sadness.

"I don't want to die." She began muttering, over and over, and Pete was nodding, helping her back over the metal bars. They were both shaking.

The rain was plummeting around them, and they were both drenched.

"Come on, K. It's okay." Pete whispered, as he helped her back away from the cliff, back towards the road, where the car was parked.

She cried as he led her back to the car, and set her in the front seat. A moment later, she was wrapped in a towel, sitting in the passenger seat with the heat on full blast.

"I'm taking you to the cafe nearby. We can get you dried off there." Pete said, but K wasn't listening. She was shaking, and her skin was pale. Her eyes were glazed over. She couldn't quite explain it, but it was as though she wasn't there. Not really, as though she was floating, not really sitting in the car, but looking down on a shell-like image of herself.

It was as though she couldn't feel her surroundings, or see the ocean in front of her, or hear Pete talking calmly to her as he, drenched to the bone, drove the car to the cafe nearby.

She saw herself being helped out of the car by Pete, the umbrella coming up, as they were sheltered from the wind, behind high rise apartment buildings. Inside the cafe was warm, like the car, and K was aware of the clinking of metal on china, and the smell of hot chips.

She was brought to the back of the cafe, and then pete was talking to the manager quietly, looking with concern at K's pale skin.

The manager looked worried too. In a matter of moments, she was sitting down, and being wrapped in towels, dry towels. K wanted to know where the towels had come from, and tried to make the words to ask, but couldn't make a sound.

So she just opened and closed her mouth like a fish, gasping for breath.

"Do you want us to call for an Ambulance?" She heard the manager ask, but Pete shook his head.

"No, she's been through a lot these past few weeks, I don't want her to have to go back there."

Few people came to the cafe. K kept herself from tuning out completely by counting each time someone knew came into the cafe.

Pete was wrapped in towels too, sitting beside her at the table. The cafe staff brought them both hot drinks, but she didn't drink hers. She barely even noticed it was there.

Gradually, her shaking stopped, and her mind seemed to become more grounded, she could feel herself slowly coming back to earth.

"K. We're going to take you home now, okay?" Pete said, rising from his chair, and laying comforting hand on her wrist.

She nodded, and stood with him, unwrapping the towels from her shoulders. "Where do I put these?" She asked, her voice soft.

Pete took them from her. "I'll just give them to Lucy, the manager. She lives in the apartment upstairs, so she lent them to us. Won't be one moment."

With that, he disappeared, out to some kind of break room at the back of the cafe. He was back within an instant, wearing a comforting smile. With a sigh, he grabbed K's hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

"You're okay, buttercup." He muttered, quietly. "You're okay."

With that, they grabbed the umbrella from the buckets at the entrance, pushed it open, then headed back out into the rain, to the car parked outside.

Pete opened the door for K graciously, holding the umbrella above her as she climbed in, then headed round to the driver side, stowed the umbrella in the back seat, and climbed into his own seat.

The rain seemed to be easing slightly, giving way to an almost mist-like shower.

Pete turned the radio on to some indie, ambience station, playing some acoustic guitar track, then turned the car on, and put the car into gear.

The sound of the engine rumbling beneath her was the last thing to fully bring her back to earth, and she let out a sharp gasp of breath as she felt herself fully coming back, everything coming into focus fully around her.

And she saw the ocean.

Not in a memory. In the present, they were driving past the boulevard, and the beach. Down there, where she had been the day of new years eve, she saw a boy, a shaggy haired teenager, coming from the waves, holding a surfboard. He stood out in his black wetsuit because he was the only one on the entire length of the beach.

And he was familiar.

"Stop the car." K said, suddenly, and Pete screeched to a halt, panicked by her sudden gasp of air, and request.

Before he could even ask what was going on, she was grabbing the umbrella from the back seat and climbing from the car. "I can't explain." she said, speedily, before she slammed the door shut and rushed across the road, to the walkway down to the beach.

She didn't run, because it was too hard holding the umbrella, but she walked as fast as she could. Then, she stopped at the top of the beach, and watched as he trudged up the beach towards her.

When he got closer, he looked up, and stopped in his tracks, frowning at her.

"I know you." She said, her heart pounding. He nodded.

"You're K." He said, shifting in the wet sand.

"Your name is Quincey. I met you here, on New Years Eve." She said, unsure of why she felt so weird at seeing him.

"Yeah." He said, bitterly. "I gave you my number, but you never called."

She felt taken aback by this. "Look, I-"

"What are you doing here?" He asked wearily, as though she was tiresome, cutting her off mid sentence.

She found herself frozen, mouth open, and she could feel tears rising to her eyes. His bitter expression seems to meld into concern.

"Are you okay?" He asked, taking a few steps closer.

She shook her head, and after a moment, started to splutter out words and fragments.

"I killed my brother- and my parents- and- and Luke, and my friends, and... everyone!" She started to cry, really cry, the tears falling down her face like the rain falling around them. "It's all my fault. I killed them all..."

The boy was stunned for a few moments, then he put down his board and stepped closer. "I'm sure it's not your fault. Calm down, and tell me what's going on."

She took a deep breath, and looked away from him, and out to the waves. As she wiped at her eyes, she looked down at the sand. "I'm sorry, I don't even know why I'm here. I just saw you and-"

"Shhh," He said, coming closer. "It's okay. Just-" He hesitated, and smiled a little. "Just fill me in a little on why you haven't taken up those surf lessons I offered?"

She smiled at him slightly at his poor attempt at a joke. "I... Well, that night, after I saw you, my parents had a new years party, at this function centre down the coast a bit," she sighed, looking out at the ocean, "it was a big thing, with all of my family, and friends, and my boyfriend or maybe my ex even showed up. But..."

She sighed, unsure of how to continue. She looked up to see Quincey staring at her attentively. So, with a deep breath, she said it straight. "At the party, there was an attack. An explosion. And it killed almost everyone there."

Quincey stared at her open mouthed. "You're Brooke Keller?" He asked, and she nodded mutely. "Well, that explains why you looked so familiar. I saw your story on the news last week. I'm so sorry."

She shook her head, looking away. There was a few moments of silence. He probably didn't know what to say. She couldn't say anything. The lump in her throat had grown.

"Did you get caught in the rain?" He asked, suddenly. She looked up at him, surprised, and he looked worried all of a sudden. "I'm sorry, was that rash? I didn't mean- Just..." He trailed off, and gestured to her head. "Your hair is wet, is all, and I was wondering if you got caught in the rain."

She nodded. "Up on the cliff. I was looking at the waves."

She didn't tell him any more. From what she saw, she didn't need to. He was giving her a knowing look. "I've done that too." He said, quietly, and for a brief moment, their eyes met, and K could see his own pain, brewing in his stormy eyes.

"Why were you surfing?" She asked him. "In the storm."

He shrugged. "The waves are nice."

K looked away from him and out to the raging seas. "They don't exactly look nice." She said, staring back at him.

He looked to his board, lying in the sand. "I prefer it when there's no one else out there. No one to judge me."

"Also no one to save you if you need to be saved. It doesn't exactly seem like a very good plan." There was an element of worry in her tone. Fear. Perhaps she saw something in Quincey Jackson. An element of similarity, to the little brother, that had had no one to save him, either.

He didn't say anything further, just looked at her, curiously.

"Do you want to get out of this rain and go grab something to eat?" He asked, and though K was surprised by how casual he was, she felt comforted that he wasn't telling her the things that everyone else was. Thinks like 'everything will be okay,' and 'you'll be alright.'

It was almost a relief. As though things didn't have to be okay in the future. She could be alright now.

So, she nodded mutely. "I'd love to."

He smiled at her, picking his board back up. "Okay. Lets just go up to my car, so I can get out of this wetsuit and grab a towel, and put my board away. It's just a little ways up the hill."

He started walking back up beside her, just half under the umbrella, so she shifted it so he was fully under. He chuckled.

"Doesn't do much good because I'm wet anyway, but thanks anyway." He said, throwing her a warm smile.

She smiled back. "No problem."

Together, side by side, they trudged up the boulevard to the hill which Quincey had said his car was parked. K stared out at the ocean, the crashing waves, stealing sly glances at Quincey's face.

He was cute, the perfect vision for a typical surfer vision, but with each glance, K noticed more about him. He wasn't just an average shaggy haired surfer. Underneath his right eye was a scar, only small, going along the ridge of his cheekbone. It was barely visible, so she hadn't noticed it before, and it looked old, but the thing that startled her was that it was there. It wasn't just your run of the mill, rough Friday night punch up scar, it was precise, as though his face had been whittled at with a knife.

A sick feeling filled K's chest. What had the boy beside her been through? What was the story of this beach head that she had just poured her heart out to? That she had just cried to on a beach?

A practical stranger that she had told her life story to, that was now taking her to get hot chips.

"How did you get your scar?" She asked, suddenly, and they stopped. He looked at her curiously, running his finger along the scar tentatively.

"My dad." He said, holding her gaze. "He was an abusive drunk. gave it to me when I was a kid."

They just stared at each other for a few moments. K didn't say sorry to him. She just slowly drew her own free hand up, and ran her own finger along the thin white line. It was a slow gesture, and she could feel the intimacy in it. But he didn't stop her. She finished tracing the line, and her hand slid from his face.

Then, he swallowed, and she watched as his adams apple bobbed up and down. He moved around her, to the car behind her, a beat up, red, four-wheel-drive.

"This is me." He said, his voice soft.

K nodded, and watched as he climbed up and clipped the board onto the roof racks. Then, she followed him around the back of the ute, and waited as he peeled the wetsuit from his wet skin.

"Where is your dad now?" She asked, quietly, as he began to dry himself off with an old orange towel.

"Jail." He said, with a sigh. "He got done for hitting my mum when I was ten, because he broke a bone, and had to be taken to hospital. When the nurses asked how she got the injury, she started to cry, and it all came out. His sentence is almost over, though."

"How is she now? Your mum, I mean." K asked, kicking at the loose gravel under her foot.

Quincey didn't answer straight away, pulling a baggy dry t-shirt on, and pulling the rest of his wetsuit off, and sliding on a pair of board shorts.

Once he was dressed, he turned to her, and smiled. "Well. Time's been good for her. Healed most of her wounds, inside and out. She's dating again, and whenever I see her, she's usually happy. Sure, she probably still has her days, as we all do, but for the most part, she's fine. She's worried about his release, though. She's not sure if he's gonna come after her, or whether he's a changed man."

K was silent for a moment, then she looked up to his face, and asked, "How about you?"

This caught him off guard for a moment, and she saw the flash of pain go across his face, then he concealed it and shrugged. "I'm coping fine."

"Fine as in surfing in the middle of the storm?" She asked, tentatively.

He sighed. "Yeah. Well, like I said, we all have good days and bad days, and today is just one of 'em."

"I know how that feels." K said quietly. "Sometimes it seems as though there are only ever bad days, as though I'm just trudging along a hike, waiting for the moment I can stop, and rest for a little..."

She trailed off, realising she was ranting slightly, but found that Quincey was looking at her with a curious look.

He nodded. "That's exactly what I feel like." Suddenly, he looked guilty. "I mean, I'm sorry. A couple of scars don't exactly match up to losing your entire family, I know..."

K shook her head, frowning. "Don't say that. Don't discredit your own trauma, just because someone else's is greater. If you've broken your foot, but someone else has broken their back or something, that doesn't mean that your foot is going to hurt any less. Pain is pain, regardless of others."

They were still, now. He was fully dressed, and had put the wetsuit in a bucket in the back, so he was just standing there, their eyes locked. There seemed to be some sort of unspoken communication going on between them, but K couldn't figure out what it was.

Quincey took a deep breath, and opened his mouth to say something, but just as he was, K saw Pete's black sedan coming over the hill through the rain. Quincey noticed her distraction, and turned, so he could see it too.

"I'm sorry." K said, looking back at the shaggy haired boy. "This is my driver, Pete. I kind of abandoned him when I saw you. I should probably..."

The car pulled up beside the rusty red Toyota, and she saw hurt clearly on Quincey's face. She felt awful of a sudden, as though she was snubbing him, but she didn't now what else to do.

So, with a sorry look, she opened the passenger door and sank into the car, closing the umbrella and stowing it in the back.

Quincey shook his head, confused. "What about chips?" He asked, hopefully.

K gazed at him sympathetically as she shut the door. "Another time. I have your number. I'll call you?"

He just shook his head silently, and shut the back door of the Toyota.

Pete said something to her, that she didn't hear, and then they were driving, and the boy with the shaggy brown hair grew smaller until they turned a corner, and he was gone.

Confused, and filled with all kinds of feelings and emotions, K shut her eyes, and sighed. As they drove home, she just listened to the rain falling on the roof, and thought about Quincey Jackson.

Perhaps she should have felt guilty about having these warm feelings in her chest so soon after Luke's death. But she didn't.

She felt hopeful.

As though, maybe, the cute surfer with a scar under his eye, might just be what she needed to keep her from falling apart completely.