She sank to the floor, breathing heavily. She looked at the phone. It was only a few feet away. She had to call Maria.

--

The front door banged into the wall as Max flew to the telephone and hit the speed dial.

“Hello?” The voice was muffled by sleep. Max glanced at the clock on the wall. Almost 2:00. It would be midnight there.

“Maria, have you heard from Liz?”

“Max?” Maria pushed herself upright. It had been more than three months since she had heard from Max. She glanced at her clock. And he calls now? “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Have you heard from Liz?”

Maria frowned. His voice had a definite edge to it. It wasn’t the tired, defeated voice he had the last time she talked to him.

“Not today. Why?”

“Has she had the baby yet?”

“No,” she shot at him. “Not that you care,” she mumbled under her breath.

Max heard her comment and felt a stab of pain, knowing that’s what Liz probably thought of him as well. He pushed it aside. “Maria, you can think whatever you want of me, I don’t care. Right now, all I care about is Liz. Where is she?”

Maria glanced at Michael. “Max, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know… I’m not sure. I just know there’s something… she’s in trouble. I can’t explain how I know, I just do.”

--

Liz listened to the persistent beeping of the busy signal for a moment and then dropped the phone to the floor next to her. It was all too much. She was alone. She had been alone for too long and she didn’t think she could take it anymore. She picked up the phone again and started to dial a number, then slammed it back down. She was not weak. She chose to do this without him and she would finish it without him. Her teeth ground together as the pain intensified even more. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and curled against the wall, feeling small movements beneath her hands. She smiled despite the agony she was feeling. At least she knew the baby was still okay.

--

Max stared in disbelief at the phone in his hand. She had hung up on him. He had been telling Maria how worried he was and then she was gone. He ran one hand restlessly through his hair. He had to do something.

It was a long shot. If there really were something wrong she probably wouldn’t be asleep, but at least he would be doing something. Pacing the apartment, sick with worry, wasn’t going to help either. He bolted to the bedroom, grabbed the picture where it lay on the table next to the bed and lay down.

“Calm down, Max. You’ll never get anywhere like this. Deep… breaths.” He forced himself to even out his breathing, to close his eyes, to shut the fear from his mind and just think about Liz.

He was in the hallway again. He looked around rapidly, then closed his eyes and reached out. He grabbed hold of her presence and started in the direction the feeling was pulling him. He stopped outside a door. He lifted his hand to the knob and hesitated. He didn’t know if he could take another dream like the last one. He slowly pushed open the door and stepped into...

… whiteness.

It was the South Pole, the Arctic, someplace cold and filled with ice and snow, and he was standing on a glacier. Liz was huddled under an overhang of ice.

He ran to her, slipping, nearly falling, heedless of his environment. He stopped a few short feet away. She was laying on her side, her back to him, shivering as she wrapped her arms around herself in a feeble attempt to keep warm. She made no sign of knowing he was there.

He moved to her side and dropped to his knees next to her. She was freezing, shaking uncontrollably. Max wondered if it was possible to die in one’s dreams.

“Liz?” He laid one hand on her shoulder.

She jumped, startled by his touch and the sound of his voice. She tried to turn over, but was too stiff from the cold to move. Max moved to the other side of her and started to rub her arms, trying to restore the circulation. Then he noticed the rest of her body. She was rail thin except for her swollen belly.

“Max?” Her voice was a whisper, an effort.

Liz had turned her head to face him, the hair falling back from her face. And he saw her. For the first time in months. And it frightened him. She didn’t look like the same person. She didn’t look like she could possibly be alive.

“Max, is it really you?”

He gently brushed one hand over her cold cheek. “Yeah, it’s me,” he whispered. “I’m here, but honey, why are * you * here?” He gestured to the bleak landscape.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember falling asleep.”

Max gathered her into his arms, pulling her close, enveloping her body as completely as he could to protect her from the cold. “What do you remember?” He murmured in her ear.

He felt her swallow and then struggle for breath. “It hurt. And I tried to call Maria, but I couldn’t get through.”

“What do you mean ‘it hurt’?”

“Something’s wrong, Max.” Liz raised her face to meet his eyes. “I’ve been sick for so long and now… it hurts so bad and… I expected some pain, but this… this feels wrong, Max.”

Max tried to swallow the lump of fear building in his throat. He kissed her forehead, his thumb brushing against the tiny ice crystals that had formed on her cheeks. She was getting colder, despite all his efforts. He would have to make her leave the dream soon, make her wake up. He didn't know if dreams could affect the physical body, but he didn’t want to take any chances. She was already too weak.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I wanted to, Max. I almost did, but… I said I could do it without you and Maria was going to arrive in a couple of days anyway and stay with me until our daughter was born and… I didn’t know if… well, if you even wanted anything to do with me anymore.”

Max closed his eyes as he rocked Liz’s trembling frame. “Don’t think that. Please, don’t ever think that. I’ve been going crazy without you. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered into his shirt.

The screaming in his head had lessened. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the dream plane or because he was with Liz and…. He tentatively placed one hand on her stomach and was immediately greeted with a sharp kick to the palm of his hand. Liz’s words suddenly registered in his brain. “Did you say ‘our daughter’?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure it’s a girl?”

“I just know.”

Max grinned as the baby – his little girl – squirmed under his hand. Liz shifted against him, emitting a soft moan.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just getting kicked in the ribs. That other pain is gone. Maybe because I’m asleep?”

Max nodded, pressing his lips into her hair, preventing Liz from lifting her own head to look at him. He didn’t want her to see him. He didn’t want her to see just how afraid he was. He continued to caress her stomach, reveling in the fact that Liz wasn’t pushing him away.

She smiled faintly and placed her cold hand over the top of his. “I dreamed of this,” she whispered. “Even when I was awake I would dream of this. Of the two of us, experiencing our first child together. It was like something out of “Leave it to Beaver” or that show with Donna Reed. You’d come home from work and kiss me. And then you’d kneel in front of me and kiss my stomach and rub your hands over it and talk to our baby.”

He smiled against the top of her head. “I don’t think they were allowed to show stuff like that on those old shows.”

Liz giggled. “You’re right. They couldn’t even make babies sleeping in those twin beds.”

They were both silent for a moment. Max held her a little tighter.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t make your dreams come true.”

Her shoulders hitched, but she didn’t make a sound. Max felt a tear slip from his own eye and fall into the crown of Liz’s hair, instantly turning to ice.

“I’ve been so scared, Max.” She was sobbing now. “I’ve been so scared and I wanted to come home, but I was afraid that you’d still feel the same way. That you wouldn’t want her.”

“No. No, that isn’t true. I want both of you in my life. I don’t have a life without you. Liz, please tell me where you are. I’ll come and get you right now. I don’t care how far away you are.”

Liz made a strangled sound, like she was choking on a laugh. “Not yet. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want you to leave me. Not yet. Just stay for a little while. I’m so tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. Just hold me while I sleep, Max?”

“Just for a few minutes, Liz. It’s too cold here. We have to get you back home.”

She didn’t answer him. That little trace of fear that had been worming it’s way through his brain, even after he had crossed into Liz’s dream, suddenly flared as the screaming started in his brain again. Liz had told him she didn’t remember falling asleep, all she remembered was that she was in pain…. The realization hit him: She wasn’t asleep -- she was unconscious. That’s why she was in this desolate place, growing colder and colder. And now she was falling asleep here. But you didn’t sleep in your own dreams.

“Liz,” Max shook her roughly. “Wake up! You have to wake up.”

Her eyelashes fluttered as Max continued to shake her.

“Please, Liz. You can’t sleep here.”

“I… I’m awake.”

“Liz, listen to me.” Her eyelids fluttered closed again. “No.” Max held her up, gripping her arms tightly, forcing her to look at him. “Listen to me. You have to wake up now. You have to leave the dream and wake up. Do you hear me?”

The panic in his voice got through to her. She nodded, forcing her eyes to stay open. “I’ll try to wake up now.”

“Don’t try, Liz, do it. You have to save yourself… and our daughter.”

She heard him. He could see how that affected her. She would do anything to save this baby. Liz nodded. Her brow furrowed in concentration…