[This should've been chapter six or thereabouts -- right before Steve visits Joe at work. Ah, well, something for the rewrite]

Friday morning Chris Gagnon woke up feeling like he'd been run over by a truck. He was tired and achy and his mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died. He wasn't too surprised, he'd had beer last night. A lot of beer. He rolled out of bed, holding his throbbing head.

The worst part of it was the dream.

They'd stopped when he was eleven. After the fire, when he'd left Arizona. They came back again when he was in high school. It used to be that drinking made the dreams stop. Alcohol deadened his brain, kept the visions away. Kept Alex away. And they'd stayed away, since college. He'd thought they were gone for good.

They'd started again, four months ago. This time everything had been a little fuzzy, like real dreams. He thought they were real dreams. He'd hoped they'd been real dreams.

Not last night. He couldn't remember too much, but he remembered dancing, and sex, and Joe.

He groaned a little as he thought of Joe. Until the traffic stop, the man in his dreams had been vague and faceless, almost generic. Now there was a face to go with the body. The face that had been there for months. He just hadn't wanted to accept its existence. Faceless was a dream. Faceless wasn't real.

Chris stood. He was shaky, feeling weak as well as hung over. His t-shirt felt grubby and stuck to his body. His boxers were riding up. When he shifted them he felt an uncomfortable tug in his pubes.

He'd had a wet dream. He was thirty two, and he had a wet dream. About Joe Hennesy.

He stripped angrily, tossing his dirty clothes onto the heap by the closet door. He stumbled into the bathroom and turned the shower on. It was hot and pounding, just what he needed to feel better, to wash the night away.

Chris was toweling himself off, feeling a little better after his shower, when he saw Toby standing in the doorway.

Just seeing Toby made Chris's morning better. He'd had four years of hell with Megan, four years of constant abuse and nagging, and even then, no matter how badly he felt, just holding his son made everything good.

She was gone, but Toby was there, his little man. He was a slight boy, his brown hair straight and shaggy, hanging over eyes as dark as his father's. He had his father's beak of a nose, his coloring somewhere between Chris' easy tan and Megan's fair skin.

He was adorable, standing there in his Scooby-Doo pajamas. He held a red gingham rabbit and was rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Papa? I don't feel so good."

Chris was over in a heartbeat, on one knee in front of Toby. He did look uncommonly pale, and as wobbly as Chris still felt.

He felt Toby's forehead, but the boy wasn't hot.

"What's wrong, sport?"

"Feel weak," Toby mumbled.

"Your tummy hurt? Anything achy?"

Toby shook his head no.

Chris gathered him into a hug. He was worried, very worried. Toby had been feeling like this on and off for the past four months. They'd been to the doctor's, more than Chris wanted to think, but despite all the tests nobody had found anything wrong.

"Do you need to see the doctor, Toby?"

The boy shook his head, more vigorously this time.

"Okay. Why don't you get dressed, then we'll get some breakfast and take you over to Aunt Mary and Uncle Steve's for the day."

"Pop tarts?"

Chris smiled. "Sure, Toby. And a big glass of orange juice, Okay?"

"'kay, papa."

Chris held the smile until Toby had turned into his room. When the boy was out of sight he slumped to the ground, holding his head in his hands. The dreams and the hangover were forgotten. There was something wrong with his son, and he was scared to death that Toby was going to die.