Dana woke up to the sound of Alice muttering vaguely in her sleep. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but Alice was definitely uneasy, turning over every so often and seeming to get more agitated every second. Dana just watched her for a minute or two, wondering what exactly was going on in Alice’s head. As the muttering got louder, though, she figured she should try to wake her girlfriend up, remembering the black eye she’d gotten from Alice’s elbow not too long ago when she was still pretty much asleep.

“Al,” she said softly so as not to scare her, shaking her shoulder a little. Alice just shook her head and mumbled something unintelligible at this, so Dana shook her a little more forcefully. “Wake up, sweetie.”

“Huh?” Alice replied, still asleep. Dana had to laugh a little because it was actually pretty cute, but after a minute she shook Alice’s shoulder again.

“Come on, Al, wake up.”

Alice finally obeyed, coming back to consciousness with a start. Concern clouded her eyes when she realized that Dana had woken her. “Are you okay?” she asked, immediately putting a hand to Dana’s forehead. Dana gently brushed it away.

“I’m fine. You were having a pretty bad dream from the sound of things, though.”

Alice looked away. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Honey, it’s fine. I just hate it that you have such bad nightmares, that’s all.” She stopped and realized that Alice still wasn’t looking at her. “Hey, it’s all right. It might do you some good to talk about it.”

“But you’ve got physical therapy in…” Alice glanced at the alarm clock. “Less than six hours. I’m fine, Dana. It was just a dream,” she assured, but it was more than obvious that it was still bothering her.

“Yeah, well, sometimes dreams are pretty disturbing. It’s not like I’ll make fun of you if you got chased by a mutant wallaby through Starbucks or something. Or had to hang out with Harrison during the apocalypse inside a bombed-out school.”

“A mutant…Dane, seriously, sometimes I think you’re weirder than I am. Or at least have weirder dreams.” Alice paused. “It was another one where you died at the hospital,” she confessed in a whisper. “You know Papi’s friend, the Army chick? I was dating her after I had grief sex with Lara, and I never even talked about you at all. None of us did, we just kinda acted like you never even existed. God, that’s so fucked up.” She stopped, but Dana just took her hand and looked at her, silently willing her to continue. “I don’t know, Dana. In these dreams, I feel like things are really happening. You know how dreams are usually pretty fucked up, like, the scenery is different or something? In these, everything’s the way it is in real life. I guess the only thing that’s different is that everybody wears evening gowns all the fucking time. And Bette has no fashion sense at all.” She stopped again. “This is fucked up. Nevermind.”