The day turned into a night, and the night turned into a day, and Sky stayed with Kat. The tug in her gut, trying to pull her back towards life, back to her broken body, had turned into a dull ache that was always there, but only at the back of her mind, and Sky refused to give it any power.

They sat in the park. They walked around their old neighborhood, climbed onto the roof of the building where they had lived almost all their life, and watched how the sun went down, how the sky turned dark and the moon painted the landscape in shades of silver and black. The wind was cold, but Sky wasn't. She was warm, she was light, she was happy.

They talked about everything, except for death. They talked about boys, and about girls. They talked about school and capoeira tournaments, about vacations and trips to Italy, about family and friends - and about Marvel movies, Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter. They talked about going to find more weed, but then didn't, but just laid on the roof side by side - and Sky had no idea what day it was, how many times they had watched the sun go down and up and down, and she didn't even care. Time had ceased to exist. She rolled closer to Kat, laid her head on Kat's shoulder, breathed in her familiar scent, and dreamt.

In the dream, she was in a hospital room. She stood by the door, and the room was white and sterile, and cold. It took a moment for Sky to recognize the girl who lay on the bed hooked on machines. It was her, of course, even if it didn't feel like it. She didn't feel the tubes that were going into her body or coming out of it, nor the bandage on her head, the cast on her left arm.

The girl on the bed looked small, her face was puffy and covered in bruises. She looked nothing like Sky felt.

Sky tilted her head and tried to understand. She was here, standing in the doorway, but she was also there, on the bed - but not really. That was just her body, an empty, broken shell. She had no need for it now. Without it, she was complete, she was happy, she was light and fast and she would live forever.

Still, something was pulling her towards that broken body on the bed, like there was an invisible cord connecting them. It was harder to resist here than it had been when she'd been with Kat, and she couldn't help but take a step closer to her body, then another.

No. I won't!

With a gasp, Sky stopped herself, glued her feet to the floor, and took a shaky breath. No, she wouldn't do it! She had nothing to go back to. It was too hard. Life was too hard. She didn't want to do it anymore.

But then a man stepped into the room, passed Sky in the doorway as if she wasn't even there, walked to the bed, and took a seat on a chair next to it. He laid a huge cup of coffee on the nightstand - the rich scent of oriental coffee and sugar filled Sky's senses, like an echo calling her home.

"Hi, sweetie," Dad said silently and took Sky's hand to give it a gentle squeeze. "I'm here."

Sky looked down at her fingers. She felt that squeeze in her ghost hand, felt the warmth of Dad's touch from across the room. She walked closer to the bed, not looking at that weird body on it - it still gave her the chills - but instead keeping her eyes on Dad's face. Letting out a slow, deep breath, she took a seat on a chair on the other side of the bed, next to a monitor that was keeping steady beeping noises.

"Hi Dad," she breathed. "What's up?"

Dad was still looking at the body on the bed, his tired, red-rimmed eyes never leaving Sky's wax-like face.

"I miss you. And I don't know if you can hear me, so talking to you feels kind of silly..."

"I can hear you." Sky replied. "Dad, I'm right here–!"

Dad shifted on his chair, his fingers gripping her hand harder, but he didn't look up, he didn't see Sky, he only saw the empty shell he thought was his daughter.

"I need you to come back to me." He groaned. "Sky, please, hear me and wake up."

His words felt like a knife in Sky's chest. Dad's pain was too much to take, she didn't want to see it, she didn't want to feel it. Why couldn't Dad just be happy that Sky was finally with Kat? Why couldn't he see that things were finally as they were always meant to be?

"I can't go on without you." Dad let out, his voice getting caught in his throat. "I can't. I need you to come home, sweetie."

"And I can't leave Kat. Not again. Not ever again."

Dad sighed. He let go of Sky's hand and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired as if he had aged ten years in - what? Sky had no idea how much time had passed.

"What can I say? The nurses tell me to talk to you. They say you might hear me. But is this doing any good? When all I can do is to cry and beg you to come home-–" He stopped talking, took in a shaking breath, and wiped his tears. "--so I brought a book. I will read it to you, if that's okay. You used to love it when you were small, remember?"

"I remember." Sky drew her knees against her chest and hugged her legs tight, leaning her chin on her knees.

"Now I'm going to tell you about my brother–" Dad started reading, and Sky closed her eyes. Dad's voice was soft, soothing, it felt like home and just like that Sky was a baby again, she was just a small child and she was sitting in Dad's lap, and everything in the world was alright. "My brother, Jonathan Lionheart, is the person I want to tell you about. I think it's almost like a saga, and just a little like a ghost story, and yet every word is true–"

Sky drifted into a sleep, and when she woke up again, she was back in the park. She was lying on the grass, the branches of the maple tree arched high up over her, black against the blue sky and the sun.

Kat was sitting up next to her, and she was looking at her with a sad look on her face.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"Searching for weed," Sky grinned, and pushed herself up. "Where else?"

Kat didn't laugh, and Sky knew she didn't believe her. But she pushed her worries away, she took Kat's hand and their fingers entwined. She loved Kat, and Kat loved her and that was all they needed. Dad's voice was nothing but an echo in the back of her mind, the girl on the bed in that hospital room nothing but a bad dream.

But the next night Sky dreamt again.

She was standing in that room again, the girl who had been Sky was lying on the bed, and Dad was sitting in his chair next to her. And just like the night before Sky walked closer, unable to stop her feet, and took a seat in a chair next to the beeping monitor.

"These flowers are from the LaRusso's." Dad was explaining, pointing at a beautiful bouquet of pink carnations. "Sam is healing alright, the stitches will come off soon. And she has called me every day to ask how you're doing..."

Sam.

An image of Sam flashed through Sky's mind. Wide eyes, pale face, blood streaming down her arm. Sam was her friend. A friend she had helped in a fight, and–

And the rest was a blur. She didn't remember how she had gotten hurt, she didn't even care. The body that lay on the bed didn't feel like it belonged to her, the wounds didn't hurt, She wasn't the one who was dying.

Sky turned her eyes back at Dad, who was now pointing at another bouquet on the nightstand. Roses, blood red, with long stems and vicious thorns, and without a doubt Sky knew who had sent them even before Dad told it.

"Eli brought these," Dad said softly. "I know, you guys broke up. If you could speak, you'd probably tell me to get rid of them... But I don't have the heart to do it. He's so worried. Perhaps I have a soft spot for him. He reminds me of my younger self, I guess. But if you want to, I'll throw the roses away when you wake up."

"Don't throw them away," Sky sighed. "They are really pretty."

"They are rather pretty, aren't they? I think that boy is still in love with you."

From somewhere a memory of a kiss pierced Sky's foggy thoughts. Hawk's lips on hers, his strong arms holding her, his body pushing her against a wall and his lips were so hot, so needy against her mouth–

He loves me.

That realization felt like a punch to her gut. Hawk had told her that many times after their breakup, but she hadn't believed him. Now she did, but it was too late, wasn't it?

"And maybe you are still in love with him too?" Dad asked with a ghost of a smile. "I don't know, it's just a feeling... Maybe I should have asked about it, but I didn't..."

The rest of that sentence drifted away, Dad ran his fingers through his hair. He looked like he was about to cry again, and maybe to prevent that, he picked up the book from the nightstand and started reading again, his voice soon turning calm and soft again.

"--wild, pink roses that smell of summer– And I like flowers and grass and trees and fields and forests and beautiful, small lakes," said Jonathan. "And when the sun rises and when the sun sets and when the moon is out and the stars twinkle and a few other things that I can't remember at the moment–"

Sky closed her eyes and listened, forgetting everything else. She liked the smell of roses too, and soft grass under her bare feet, she liked flowers and trees and forests and clear lakes. And she loved sunrises and sunsets, especially when she was with Kat and they could watch them forever and ever and ever. Listening to Dad's voice, Sky breathed in the scent of roses as she sat in the chair, hugging her knees. But when she woke up, she was back with Kat in the park, lying on the cold grass under the huge maple tree.

"Where were you?" Kat asked again. She was sitting next to Sky, cross-legged in her black jeans and her Slipknot shirt, and her eyes were as black as the sky behind her.

"Nowhere," Sky replied, avoiding her eyes.

"Seriously? You leave me here alone for fucking hours? I thought you were gone—"

"I wasn't gone, okay? I just—"

"Don't lie to me. I didn't come back from the other side to get lied to."

"I'm sorry," Sky replied. She took Kat's hand in hers, felt the warmth of her palm, their fingers entwined - Kat's dark brown and her own pale ones. It was beautiful. Everything about Kat was beautiful. Sky didn't want to give it up, but—

—but she could still hear Dad's voice, reading the book to her. She could still smell the thick, sweet scent of the roses in the air, and her chest ached.

"Okay," she breathed. "I'll show you where I've been."

She gripped Kat's hand in hers, gluing their palms together. She would never let go of this hand, she would never–

And she followed the pull of the invisible cord, let it suck them both into that cold, white room that was now filled with the scent of flowers instead of a scent of medicine and death.

"Oh, okay," Kat said, taking a look at her surroundings. "Your Dad looks like crap."

Sky sighed and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "Well, what do you expect? I am dying, aren't I?"

Kat didn't reply. Her brows formed two high arches on her forehead, as she took in everything she saw - the girl on the bed, the book in Dad's hands, the flowers, and the gifts on the nightstand.

"I bet it wasn't your dad who brought the roses," Kat smirked.

Sky rolled her eyes.

"They're from Hawk."

"Oh. Does he know you broke up?"

"Yes."

"Pretty nice flowers to bring to an ex-girlfriend," Kat noted. "Just saying."

"There might have been... some kissing at a party. After our break up." Sky confessed. If ghosts could blush, she would have. "It probably made things a bit more complicated."

"Kissing?" Kat gave a sly grin. "He any good at it?"

"Oh, he's fucking amazing," Sky couldn't help a smile. "And he's amazing at... other stuff too."

"Aaahhh–" Kat laughed. "I bet he is. You'd better make up your mind about whether you want to haunt him or fuck him."

"Jesus Christ, Kat!" Sky groaned. "We broke up for a reason! Just because he was great in bed doesn't mean he was a great boyfriend–"

"Well, what do I know?" Kat shrugged. "My fucking days are over. I'm dead after all."

"I wish you'd stop bringing that up," Sky muttered. "It's such a mood killer."

"Seriously, Sky–" Kat said, her smile slowly disappearing. "It's time you hopped back in there. This has been a blast, but it's time."

Sky couldn't reply. She turned her eyes from Kat to her body on the bed - that strange doll-like figure who lay motionless on the bed, and she hated that sight. But then she looked at Dad, who was sitting next to her bed, reading the book, his voice soft and husky, dry from all the reading, and Sky felt her heart breaking.

"—Dusk grew deeper and deeper and the mountains blacker and blacker. Great black birds swayed above us and cried so dismally that everything seemed desolate. Karma Falls was thundering away and I was tired of hearing it. It made me remember what I wanted to forget. Sad, sad, everything was, and I'll never be happy again, I thought—"

"I don't want to go back," said Sky with a strangled voice, turning back to Kat. "I know you think I should, but I really don't want to. I want to stay with you, forever and ever, because I love you more than I've ever loved anyone."

"When do we ever get what we want?" Kat asked with a laugh but Sky saw the tears in her eyes. "I wanted to date Zendaya and instead I ended up dead."

"And now I end up dead too. It isn't that bad, is it? We can stay together forever, just like this–"

"Sky, no," Kat said softly. "You know better than that. How do you think angry spirits are born?"

Sky couldn't help laughing, even if her heart ached in her chest so that it was hard to even draw in a breath. "Are you seriously quoting Supernatural to me?"

"Well, why not? They got many things right, bitch."

"Jerk." Sky rolled her eyes.

"I'm being serious. It's time, Sky. It's time you go back to your life. It's time for both of us to go."

"But..." there were tears in her eyes, She wanted to scream. She knew Kat was right, she had known it all along because Kat was the one who was always right and that's why Sky would have followed her anywhere. And maybe that was the reason she had dragged Kat into this room in the first place, but still, it hurt, it filled her with dread.

"Kat, I have no idea how to go back even if I wanted to. That thing—" She pointed to the frail, broken body that lay on the bed. "It's just a lump of meat! How do I make it me again?"

"I don't know," Kat replied. "But we'll figure it out."

"How?"

"Hey, it's us. There's nothing we can't do."

And if that wasn't true, Sky didn't know what was. They were sisters, they were best friends, they were Sam and Dean, they were Thelma and Louise, they were Jean Gray and Ororo Munroe, and as long as they were together, anything was possible.

"--Jonathan, my brother, why am I not so brave as you? I couldn't see the precipice below me, but I knew that it was there, and I needed to take only one step out into the dark and it would all be over. It would go so quickly. "Rusky Lionheart," said Jonathan. "Are you afraid—?"

Dad's voice was soft and it only trembled slightly as he read. Sky knew this book. Dad had read it to her a thousand times, the corners of the pages were all torn, some pages had fallen free, because that had been her favorite book since forever, and that was probably the reason Dad had picked it. It was the one book he knew he could read even without looking at the text, even if tears were blinding his vision because they both knew the words by heart.

"No— Yes," Sky breathed, in sync with her Dad. "I'm afraid. But I'll do it all the same."

The smell of roses was heavy and sweet, it filled Sky's nostrils with every inhale, and suddenly everything made sense. She turned her eyes back at Kat, who stood next to her, tall, beautiful, her arms crossed over her band T-shirt.

"You look like you've got an idea," Kat said, arching a brow.

"I do." Sky admitted.

"Is it a bad one?"

"That's the only kind I know," Sky replied, grinning through her tears. "You're gonna love it."

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