"Ellette? Wake up!"

She slowly opened her eyes to find a concerned, but otherwise normal Rand shaking her awake. She tried to calm her ragged breathing and wiped at her face. The emotions evoked from the dream were still raw, and she couldn't hold back the tears. She pulled herself into a sitting position and put her face in her hands.

Rand got up and fetched a box of tissues. "What happened?" he asked, handing her one.

She wiped her cheeks and shook her head.

"It was just a dream," she muttered, all too aware that her dreams were rarely just dreams. She took a deep breath, wadding the tissue in her hands.

"More like a nightmare," he suggested, though he too, knew that her dreams were anything but normal. Ellette nodded and looked at him, half expecting to find his eyes once again empty and dead. She struggled to blink back more unbidden tears. Hesitantly, he put a comforting arm around her shoulders. "You going to be alright?"

"Yeah," she said hoarsely, her throat still tight. "I just won't be able to sleep the rest of the night." The initial terror had begun to fade, and she knew she'd be fine once she calmed the flutter of her heart and shaking hands. He squeezed her shoulder and pulled away, but didn't get up from the edge of the cot.

In the awkward silence, the night noises once again began to fill the air. Ellette pulled her knees up to her chin and shivered slightly. Rand sat, shoulders hunched, gazing over the shadowy room. A gunshot sounded in the distance and the blare of sirens followed a while later. Rand turned to study her, the poor light betraying each hardship he'd endured through time etched across his face.

"What was it... what did you dream that was so terrible?" he asked finally.

She just shook her head. Describing the still too vivid image would bring her to tears again. She didn't like to cry.

"It wasn't so much what I dreamt, it was the frightening realness of it. The fact that I can't tell the difference between my dreams and reality is disturbing." She stretched her legs out before her. "At least I know this one wasn't real." On impulse, she reached out and ran a fingertip along a scar tracing his arm.

He flinched self-consciously.

"So long as it isn't real, again."

Somber understanding filled his dark eyes.

She sighed and turned to look at the sliding door that led to the balcony. There was no curtain, and it stood shut and locked. For once it had only been a dream.

"You going to be all right now?" Rand repeated. He hovered, not wanting to overstep his bounds, but not wanting to neglect his duties as a friend. She nodded and he got up. He kissed her lightly on the forehead and went back to his room. She watched him fade into the shadows. Despite her fears, sleep, dreamless this time, overcame her once more.

***

The bus was miserable, smelly and overcrowded. Though it stopped in front of the old apartment buildings from Rand's, Ellette got off at about two blocks away on the opposite side of Leeson Park. She stood looking down the main path that ran through it. It was the most well-kept area of the park, and the safest.

Tourists, uptown joggers with their little cans of mace and walkmans, women with children and strollers and probably a little can of mace, and a variety of people with dogs, mace included in a handbag, wandered along the main path and a few of the other more well-patrolled areas through the park. The view from the bus stop, with the bright light of the late afternoon sun, the park looked like a cheery, hospitable place. Once night fell, from her Old Town apartment view, she knew that the scene would be much different. She started along the path.

Gravel crunched beneath the tread of her boots and leaves fluttered in the breeze. The trees seemed to crouch over the path, creating a canopy overhead. A woman with a child in tow nodded to Ellette as she passed by. Ellette watched her go, realizing that the woman was as young as she, with a three-year-old child. Once again she marveled at how quickly time seemed to pass, how much she seemed to miss, as well as how thankful she was that she had what she had.

She wandered on, passing the panhandlers and buskers. The shadows were elongating, curving over the land when the shade of the trees didn't hide their existence. Ellette paused at an intersection in the path to let a biker hum by. A busker with a guitar called to her from the foot of the aging wooden bridge.

The busker was a tiny woman with a wild mess of auburn curls haloing her head. She was barefooted with corduroy bell-bottoms and a halter-top that revealed much of her fair, freckled, and sun-burnt skin. She sat at the foot of the bridge with an acoustic guitar in her lap and the case lying open before her. A couple of coins lay in the case, glinting brightly in the late afternoon light. Ellette paused for the briefest of moments to take her in and then started off again.

"Wait!" she called.

Ellette turned.

The little woman squinted up at Ellette, and nodded her head. "Some dreams you must have."

"Dreams?" Ellette asked, caught off guard. "How would you know?"

"Ah yes. Dreams." The woman gave her guitar a considering strum. "Dreams as real as waking for you."

Ellette considered the smaller woman, wondering if she was insane, high, or perhaps serious. "Who are you?"

"Jessie, folks call me." She leapt to her feet. "Though who I am only I know for sure." The woman held her guitar by the neck and thrust the other hand forward for Ellette to shake.

Ellette took her hand, and for the first time caught a glimpse of Jessie's perfectly sane, startling green eyes. "My name's Ellette."

"Hmmm. Fae woman." Jessie nodded again, her nest of hair bouncing with the movement.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're very fae. If not in blood, in spirit. Even your name says so. You know that, though. You have dreams. Wild, real, frightening dreams." Jessie grinned, flashing a set of perfect, white teeth. "By the way, you should never give your true name," she said grimly. "It holds power, but don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

"How would you know? I mean about the dreams." The woman had definitely caught her attention. She was intrigued, to say the least, though she wished she knew what the word fae meant exactly.

"It's obvious in your aura," Jessie answered with a bob of her head. Childlike energy seemed to radiate from her and yet she had a graveness about her. "Yep. Very fey."

"Can you tell me anything about these dreams, why I have them?"

"Simple. The answer is within yourself."

Ellette had begun to lose her patience. She wasn't so much irritated with her as she was at herself for being drawn in the first place.

"Oh, sure that helps. Well, Jessie, it was nice meeting you. Lucky guess about the dream thing. Here's a dollar for your efforts." Ellette tossed the money into the case and started off again.

"You have dreams where you help people. Many many people," the little woman shouted. "You were once one of the few that remembered, cared, and could help. You have forgotten them. You have betrayed them! Your nightmares are a manifestation of their suffering," the woman rambled, pointing at Ellette's receding back.

Ellette wished she hadn't listened, but she did. She heard every word. The sense they made was frightening, but when turned again, the woman was gone.