One night turned into days spent not only with Gina, but with Joey, her son, as well. The three of them had come together, after a bumpy first breakfast, bonding through their memories of Rhys as they went through his belongings in his Brooklyn apartment. Joey, though initially wary of Adam, had slowly begun to seek out the tall man's company, full of questions about his childhood and his job and how he knew "Uncle Rhys", what they were like as children. It wasn't an instant connection, but it was enough that Gina could see the potential and was glad of it, pleased that, even in his distress over the loss of a treasured friend, her son was open to sharing her just a little bit.

Things had settled into something of a routine - with compassionate leave, Gina had been able to spend the last days of the working week with Adam, helping him go through the legal knots while Joey was at school. Then, when school was out, they would slip over to Rhys' apartment and spend a couple of hours going through their friend's personal belongings, sharing stories about him, beginning the process of mending the hole left behind by his loss together. Dinner was a family affair - and yes, Adam was family whether he admitted it or not - and after homework and relaxing time with his mother, Joey would slip off to bed, leaving the adults together for the rest of the evening.

Gina didn't want Adam to be on his own, and had gently manipulated both men in her life into thinking that Adam staying with them was their idea with just a seemingly absent mention of it to Joey. And though they were still just getting to know one another, she couldn't deny that it felt right to share those familial aspects of the day with Adam and Joey, enjoying the sense of true family despite the darkness that had created it.

Adam found himself slipping easily into the role Gina had opened up to him, surprised at how well he and Joey got along, how easily the boy seemed to welcome and accept him into their lives. It had been awkward at first, but as the days wore on, the three of them became more comfortable with each other, and Adam found a certain amount of healing in the company of Gina and Joey, and a sense of family and home he hadn't felt in years.

Going through Rhys' meager belongings had been difficult, but the apartment held few personal effects. The Rhys that had lived there had been an amnesiac, with no memory of his past or his true identity, and yet, there were a few small remnants of the life he'd known before the accident that had taken his memory. Small things, insignificant and meaningless to most, but not so to Adam. A silver cross that had once belonged to Dylan, a St. Jude medal that had been passed along by David. Adam knew they wouldn't find many of Rhys' personal belongings there - a few photographs, old record albums, and a mountain of mail and bills. It was the car that held most of Rhys' secrets, and the house he'd grown up in with Dylan.

The grief could be held at bay during the day, when there were tasks to keep hands busy and minds on other things, when the presence of Joey reminded both Gina and Adam to keep themselves on an even keel while the boy wheeled wildly from tears to laughter with each hour that came. But it was the quiet and stillness of the night that gave them respite from this pretense, allowing time and leisure for tears and tearful remembrances in one another's arms, wrapped close together as with words and warmth and touch, they learned each other and slowly deepened the bond they had begun to weave between them.

Time heals all wounds, so they say, and Adam knew the pain caused by Rhys' death would take time to heal, but it was healing, slowly. Adam knew that the worst was yet to come. He and Gina both knew that he couldn't stay there forever. Eventually, he'd have to go to Chicago to get Rhys' car out of impound and travel to Pennsylvania to start the long task of sorting through the house that had once belonged to Dylan, a trip Adam was dreading and hoping to put off as long as possible. He hadn't yet asked Gina to come along, knowing she had her hands full with work and with Joey, and she hadn't asked when he was leaving. It was a question that seemed to loom unasked between them, neither of them wanting to burst the little bubble that had formed around them these last few days.

If it had been just her, he would not have needed to ask. She would have dropped everything to travel with him, to heal with him, to help him with the painful tasks that still lay ahead of him. But Joey had to come first, and she would never pull her son out of his happy placement here just for her own selfish wishes. As the days went on, it was this that weighed on her mind, unable to keep from worrying over what would happen after Adam left them. Would he come back" Or would he want to leave behind everything that reminded him of Rhys" She didn't want to think the worst, and yet ....they didn't know each other well enough to be able to predict what might happen next.

So she clung to him at night, sharing her tears, her smiles, her dreams, the little details of her life, hoping to snare his interest with the promise of a family that would always be here for him, secure his wish to come back to them - to her - whenever he could. Even in her sleep, as the night spun gently into the early hours of the morning, the house nestled in the quiet of slumber, she curled close, her heartbeat palpable to him through her chest, strong and steady and increasingly his to affect with a word or even a look.

Night after night, he held her close as she drifted off to sleep, growing more secure in knowing he was welcome in her home, slowly opening his heart to both her and Joey, letting them see his faults as well as his strengths, letting her at last know the depth of his pain and loneliness and allowing her to fill the void that had been left by David and Rhys' deaths. Slowly but surely, the mutual attraction and affection was turning to love, surprising even him, though he had yet to admit it, and as each day passed, he grew more reluctant to leave her, clinging to her as she clung to him, falling asleep with her close, whether he was holding her or the other way around, safe in each other's embrace. It was early on the ninth morning after Rhys' death that everything they believed, everything Adam had witnessed in Gavarnie, was challenged by one little phone call.

It was early in the morning, still dark with night, that the cell phone Adam left on the nightstand, more out of habit than necessity, interrupted their sleep with an incessant and irritating buzz of vibration.

The annoying rattle of buzzing vibration wasn't loud enough to break the peace of the room outright, nor to intrude between the couple that rested in the midst of pillows and quilt in the middle of the bed close by. Curled to Adam's back, her thighs tucked behind his and her arm wrapped warm about him, her hand pressed to his chest, Gina stirred just a little, aware of the sound in her sleep. A small frown touched her brow, a soft groan of protest creeping from her throat as she nestled in closer to Adam, pressing her face between his shoulderblades.

Asleep in Gina's embrace, Adam slept deeper and longer than he had in a very long time, and yet, there was that incessant buzzing that intruded on his dreams - sweet dreams of a life with the woman at his side and the son he was quickly coming to love as much as if he was his own. He murmured a groan, shifting against the warm cover of blankets and limbs, as he stretched an arm out to blindly grope for his phone, assuming it was important. If it wasn't, whoever had awoken him was about to get an earful.

More asleep than awake, but aware of what she was hearing and feeling, Gina's arm tightened about Adam for a moment, unconsciously denying him the chance to escape, if that was what he was doing, before relaxing once again. A soft girlish sound echoed from the back of her throat as she shifted again, drawing herself up until her head lay on the pillow behind his, touching a dozing kiss to his neck. "Throw it out the window," she suggested in a sleepy murmur, reluctant to stir anymore than she had already.

Adam halted his pacing as he looked over at Gina. Seeing how this was as painful for her as it was for him, all the anger suddenly went out of him, and he was left with the guilt and the grief. What was he doing, causing her and Joey all this pain" They'd been happy before he'd come here, hadn't they' He slumped onto the bed and picked his phone up, hitting a button to check where the last call had come from, frowning at the number that came up. "It's his number. How can that be possible?"

She moved to the bed with him, finding a place to kneel at his back, her arms reaching to curl about him as she rested her chin on his shoulder, warm and reassuring in the darkness. Her eyes looked down at the phone in his hands thoughtfully. "Did Nat take his cell with her?" she asked softly, already considering one source of corroboration. "You have the authority to pull cell records, that would tell us where the phone was when the call was made."

"Yeah, she's got his cell," he replied, mulling it over in his head. Pulling cell phone records would be a piece of cake. That wasn't what bothered him. What bothered him was the fact that if Nat had Rhys' cell and that's where the call came from, who had made it' "I know what I saw, Gina," he said, shoving a hand through his hair again, leaning into her embrace as he studied his phone thoughtfully. He'd seen some strange things in his dead, but he'd never seen anyone come back from the dead. Then again, Rhys had defied death more than once, almost as if Heaven wasn't ready for him yet.

"How much do you really know about Nat?" Gina's mind was evidently considering the same worrying possibilities as Adam's, though she didn't have the experience of actually meeting the woman to go on. "Does she know enough about all that stuff to use his body for something unnatural" Is she a witch or something?" Somehow, that was easier to mull over. It was less painful to think that a Russian stranger was abusing Rhys' corpse, rather than to think that he was back and had failed to come straight to them.

Adam knew Nat well enough to know that possibility was unthinkable. The three of them had nearly died together. Adam's brows furrowed as a thought came to mind. Maybe they had all died together. He raised a hand and idly rubbed at his throat. He'd been dead, hadn't he" Or nearly dead. Healed by an angel. Rhys was an angel. What the hell was going on' "It's not Nat. She loves him." Maybe it was time to tell Gina what had happened in Gavarnie.

Gina's frown deepened. She trusted Adam to tell her what she needed to know, but there seemed to be something more that he had not told her, something that was perhaps more pertinent now than it had been before the mysterious phone call. Touching her lips to his cheek, she moved to draw him back down on the bed with her, too chilled by the night air to countenance staying above the quilt any longer. "So tell me what you think this is."

He leaned over to set the phone back on the nightstand, before sliding beneath the covers at her urging, staring up at the ceiling, lost in thought. "Angels or demons," he replied. It had to be one or the other. "I hope it's angels." He was quiet a moment longer as he mulled it over, unsure if he should tell her more of what had happened in Gavarnie. He'd already told her that Rhys had died a hero, and she knew enough about what had happened over the past few years to know about the impending Apocalypse. That was, after all, how she'd lost John, but she didn't know much about what had happened afterwards. "I think I died, Gina."

Lying with him beneath the warming covers, close enugh to be cheek to cheek, she gazed thoughtfully into the darkness as he said this. Angels, she wanted to believe in; demons, she had no choice but to believe in. "You died?" she repeated softly, not sure how exactly she was prepared to take this. "Adam ....if you died, how are you here now?"

"You're gonna think I'm nuts," he warned with a low, humorless chuckle. After everything he'd seen over the last few weeks and months and years, it was a wonder he wasn't certifiable, but he'd been raised by a hunter who was also a shaman and taught that there was more to the universe than could be judged by the senses.

"Try me." She slid closer, curling her arms about him as her expression relaxed just a little. If he could laugh, however humorless, then things were not quite so appalling as they first seemed. Besides, she'd seen enough to understand that the world beneath the one she lived in was far beyond her comprehension. She would believe anything he told her, simply because it was Adam telling her.

He turned his head toward her, needing to meet her gaze, needing her to see the truth in his eyes and know that he was telling her the truth. "Raphael," he told her with a straight face. "The Archangel Raphael."

To her credit, she didn't offer up any sign of derision, or instantly assume he'd been fooled in some way. She did, however, hold his gaze a little harder than was entirely necessary, finally blinking slowly as a gradual nod brought her chin up and down. "The Healer," she said softly, drawing on her knowledge of catechism and the Bible to offer something tangible. She swallowed, feeling ever so slightly detached from what she was hearing, though her embrace never faltered. "I don't understand."

He shifted on the bed, turning to face her. If he was going to tell her what had happened, if there were going to be no secrets between them, then it was going to be face to face. "I was spirit walking. Do you know what that is?" he asked, waiting for her reaction. He knew John had been a mage, but he hadn't know John very well, and he didn't know how much John had told her about his work.

A faint crease appeared between her brows as she frowned thoughtfully, not denying the truth of what he said but just seeking through her meager memory of John's activities that she knew about for some reference to make sense of what Adam was telling her. "Is it like dream-walking?" she asked finally, her voice soft in the darkness. "Sending your, I don't know, your soul ....out into someone else's mind while they're asleep?"

He was glad she at least at that point of reference to go from. It would be easier to explain what he'd been attempting if she already had a basic understanding of the concept. "Sort of, but not exactly," he replied. "It's more like traveling through the astral plane. I'm not sure I'd call it your soul exactly, but it's close. It's sort of like astral projection. Your body is at rest, but your consciousness is somewhere else." Explaining that was the easy part; explaining why he had attempted it was another matter.

"Like an out of body experience, but you're in control," she simplified it further, hoping she had the reference right. Knowing that he had been spirit-walking didn't really help her to understand why he thought he had died, but it was his story to tell and she couldn't rush him. Besides, she wouldn't be going back to sleep tonight, she was certain of that.

He met her dark, worried gaze with warmth and stark honesty in his own dark eyes, sliding his arms around her to enclose her in his embrace. "I'm not going anywhere, Gina. Not if you don't want me to," he told her softly, lifting his head off the pillows to light a tender kiss against her lips, sealing his promise with a kiss, his heart open and yearning and hopeful, for the first time in forever. And if Rhys really was alive, he couldn't wait to see the look on his friend's face when he learned they were together.

"I don't," she felt herself whisper, the words lost into the kiss he gave her, feeling her body shudder with the gentle release of a tension she hadn't even realised she'd been carrying. "I don't want to be without you," she managed to say, drawing her eyes open as she looked down at him once again. "We need to go slow, for Joey. He likes you, Adam, he just ....he's not used to sharing. Not yet." She leaned down to touch a second kiss to his lips, shifting her weight onto one arm to allow the other hand freedom to roam over his skin. "But he will be."

He knew before they'd gotten involved that Joey came first in her life, and that was as it should be. He would, in fact, have had it no other way, and was quickly becoming fond of the boy who was her son. "I've waited this long. I can wait a little longer," he assured her, confident that given time, she'd come to love him the way he loved her, and hopeful that Joey would accept him, if not as a father, then at least as a friend. He wasn't quite sure yet where they were going, but he knew it was in the right direction. He brushed an affectionate thumb against her cheek, all too aware of the warmth of her body pressed closely against his. "I could ask for a transfer to New York," he ventured, unsure what she might think of that suggestion. If he didn't ask for a transfer, then he'd be away more than he was here, but maybe he was rushing things.

"Maybe we should hold onto Rhys' apartment, then," she murmured, comfortable in the tender wrap of his arms and the enveloping darkness around them. "You're gonna need somewhere to stay for a little while, if you get a transfer." She bit her lips, utterly failing to stifle the smile that rose as she contemplated this prospective state of affairs. "I wouldn't ask you to do it, baby, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you to."

She answered several unasked questions he'd been pondering with her reply. So, she wanted him close, but she didn't want him to move in with them, not yet anyway. He knew it was more because of Joey than anything else. If they kept going the way they were going, it was only a matter of time before they'd be a real family, but he'd waited this long; he could wait a little while longer. "It's up to you, Gina. I don't want to rush you. I know all of this is kind of sudden. Hell, it's a surprise to me, too." He smiled up at her, a genuinely happy smile. The truth was, he'd walk through fire for her if she only asked it of him.

"Well ..." She drew the word out on her smile, lit up like a fizzing firework from the inside at the future that was opening up in front of her. Not only love with a man she'd been secretly admiring for over a year - who'd been in love with her far longer, let's not forget that little detail - but a father for Joey whom the boy could respect and enjoy. The chance to be a family again. And hopefully this time it would last. "They do say you should be careful what you wish for. Sure you can deal with moody kid and overworked mom 24/7?" Her eyes sparkled playfully as she looked down at him, already knowing the answer to her tease.

He chuckled at the description she gave herself and her son. "I put up with Rhys all these years, didn't I?" If Rhys wasn't the epitome of moody, Adam didn't know what was. "Maybe you won't be so overworked, if you've got someone here to help," he continued, wordlessly promising not to be a burden, but a help, a true partner in every way. "There's no guarantee I'll get a transfer, but I can try."

She giggled at the mention of Rhys, the sound charmingly youthful and free of the cares that usually weighed her down, unable to keep herself from hoping that perhaps the person who had called really was Rhys, back from the dead. "We'll work something out," she promised Adam through her smile, her lips brushing his for a moment. "I got no intention of letting go."

He returned her kiss, sighing softly against her lips. "Do you really think it might be him?" he asked as their lips parted, his mind circling momentarily back to Rhys, now that he'd mentioned him, afraid to hope. The grief they'd felt had been devastating, but at this point in time, he had no other explanation for the phone call.

She nuzzled close, resting her forehead against his for a long moment as she breathed in and out with a gentle sigh of her own. "Stranger things have happened," was her answer as her fingers combed into his hair. "I know you can find out for sure. In the morning."

He smiled up at her, feeling strangely hopeful, wanting to believe. Stranger things had indeed happened, and the last few days were proof of it. He'd never in a million years have expected this to happen, and he felt like the luckiest man in the world. Maybe she was right; maybe it was a miracle. If anyone was capable of one, it sure as hell was Rhys. Adam laughed at the thought of that, and rolled her onto her back, kissing her neck as his hands found her breasts. Morning was still a few hours away. Neither of them was sleeping. And he knew the perfect way to pass the time.

((I have to admit, I'm practically in love with these two myself. They're so sweet! Anywho ....:smile: Thanks to Adam's player, as always, and big kudos for inserting the other end of that phone call so seamlessly!))