Chapter 7

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Casey felt the icy water streaming into the car, flooding up under her legs. She kept trying to scream but she just gulped more water. "NOOOOO!!!"

"Casey, wake up!"

Casey fought the hands at her shoulders, pushing away with all her might. She still couldn't breathe. Maybe if she could just swim to the surface, she would be able to breathe again. She flailed her hands in the air, but then when they connected with hard, bare flesh, her eyes shot open.

Anguished crystal blue eyes looked back into hers in the darkened bedroom. Carter was sitting next to her on the bed, trying desperately to pull her to consciousness. "Casey, you're having a nightmare!"

Casey's chest was heaving as she realized that she wasn't in her car. She wasn't drowning. She looked around the room, and she remembered the new life and the "mission" God had given her that day.

{As you heal his heart, you'll discover yours.}

But right now, Carter didn't appear to be the one that needed healing.

Carter saw Casey's eyes begin to focus on things in the room – the windows overlooking the garden, the vanity table, the door to her walk-in closet, and finally on him. The only sound in the room was her panting hiccups – she had been sobbing hysterically when he heard her from his room next door.

"Ohhh, Carter...I'm ...s....sor...sorry," Casey stuttered, her breath still coming in gasps. "I never meant.....I woke....." She put her hands to her mouth and her eyes became even wider, if that was possible. "Oh, God...did I ......did I wake .....Jon?"

Carter glanced over at the portable crib which Jerry and Charles had erected in a far corner of the bedroom. "I don't think so. It seems like his first day at home really tired him out." Carter looked back at Casey, glancing down to realize that he was still gripping her forearms. "Are you OK now?"

Casey caught his gaze and then noticed for the first time that he didn't have a shirt on. He was wearing some kind of silk drawstring pajama bottoms, but no top. His pectoral muscles glistened in the moonlight as he flexed his arms to release his grip on her. "Fine. I'm .....ffff...fine."

Casey cupped her hands to her mouth but she was still trembling. "Yeah, right.....you look fine." Carter reached over to grab a box of tissues off her nightstand and offered her one, which she gladly accepted. He took another tissue himself and began dabbing gently at her cheeks. "You were crying pretty hard. Must have been a heck of a nightmare."

Casey nodded and placed the wadded tissue to her mouth. "It was."

"Want to talk about it?" Carter seemed uncertain, and Casey suddenly realized he was taking a chance. He was reaching out to help her, not sure if the old Casey would return to hurl it back in his face, like she had the drink on the videotape. But he re-positioned himself on the bed, drawing one leg up under him to sit on it, and then ran a hand softly down her arm. "I wasn't really asleep yet, and I can be a pretty good listener."

{Careful, Casey. You can't really tell him what the nightmare was about. If you get into the whole drowning thing, he'll start to think you're crazy again.} "I think.....I think it was about the day I......when I......"

"....died?" Carter supplied softly.

Casey nodded and hiccuped softly into her tissue again. "I was just kind of floating in the air, and it wasn't a bad thing, you know?" Carter shifted his stance to lean back against the headboard of the bed, not putting his arm around her but sitting so close that his bare arm touched her skin. "There wasn't any pain anymore, and there was this beautiful light."

Carter nodded. "So then, why was it so frightening?"

Casey shook her head in confusion. "Somehow, when the dream went on, I didn't come back." She turned to him with tears in her eyes. "I stayed .....dead, I guess. And I could hear the baby crying, and everyone was saying what a shame it was that the baby wouldn't have a mother, and Jon kept crying, and it just......I just......." The tears started rolling down her cheeks again, even though she was lying. Casey knew that she already loved Jon so much that the dream she *described* would have the same effect on her as the dream that she *had*.

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