With her face buried in her hands, Christine pressed the her palms into her eyes in a weak attempt to keep from crying. She knew that it would happen eventually, that her father would hit rock bottom with his M.S. and be unable to recover from it. She didn't, however, know that it would be so soon.

She could feel Michael's hand smoothing her hair back away from her cheeks. She had half a mind to ask him to leave and the other half told her to let him stay. She listened to the latter half and finally looked up. Christine would not cry, she wouldn't allow herself to. Not with him sitting right there next to her. With a great sniff, she looked up and he smiled down at her.

"It's still early. Why don't you try to get some more sleep?" He suggested. Reluctant, but still very tired, she nodded and he left to her fall back into a very restless sleep depleted of delta waves.

When Christine woke up, the sun wasn't in view from her window and she knew that it was no longer morning. Because she hadn't gotten to the delta stage in sleep, she felt as though she hadn't rested at all and when she sat up, she was immediately assaulted by a headache. But she moved passed it and stood up, grabbing some clothes and sprinting to the bathroom down the hall so that she could grab a shower.

With freshly scrubbed hair and teeth and clean skin, Christine was surprised to find that she felt a little better. After slapping on some makeup and throwing her hair into a pony tail, she dropped her dirty clothes back at her room and then met Michael in the kitchen where he was reading a book. She sat next to him and cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry about this morning." Christine mumbled a bit pathetically. Michael spared her a withered, quizzical look and shook his head.

"Don't be silly. I would have done the same thing were I in your place." He reached into his pocket and pulled out two folded pieces of paper. Christine took them when he handed to her and her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"Plane tickets. I'm going with you. ...If that's okay, I mean."

"Of course you can, but I was going to pay for it..." She said, suddenly feeling rather guilty. Michael scoffed and folded the page he was on in his book.

"Again, don't be silly."