“You can’t mean...” Jared returned, looking over at her with a combination of shock and worry then.

“Well, that is when you had your last vision; after we...” she reminded him, her voice trailing off as she looked away again. She then added, even more softly, “hell, you were still inside me when you had it. Doubt you forgot that.”

Jared just continued to look over at her with even more concern then, “Lili, we both know that you’re not emotionally ready for that...you may not even be physically ready for it, considering.”

“We’re talking about saving two people’s lives here, Jared. As scared as I am about having sex again, I’m even more scared about anyone else dying when some vision could have stopped it” she insisted, though the way her eyes still refused to make contact did make it hard to believe in the conviction of her words.

Jared was silent a long moment, forcing down the tiny voice in his head that wanted to give in to her theory, as badly as he did miss her touch. But the more logical voice had always been louder with him, and that was the voice that found a response, “but we don’t need another vision, necessarily.”

Lili scoffed, “you know some other way to get through to Kyle?”

“What I mean is, that last vision that I did have, it already gave us a partial insight about this whole idea of Kyle’s and its chances of success” he argued, though gently.

“I must’ve missed that part” she scoffed, though her voice remained just barely audible, as she winced slightly when she pulled her knees up to her chest to rest her chin upon them.

Jared did not let that wince go unnoticed, “see what I mean about you not being physically ready either?” he had to reiterate.

Lili just scoffed, “I have a huge scar across my stomach. Last I checked though, that wasn’t the most important part needed for sex.”

Then it was Jared who scoffed, “the point I was making about the vision is that in it, we were three years into the future, and remember, we were all here, including Kyle” a small pause from him as a slight crack appeared in Lili’s resolve, “so either he doesn’t go at all, or he doesgo, and survives” Jared pointed out.

“Was Will in your vision too?” she had to ask, but quickly moved on, “but the problem is, we’re just assuming that your visions always come true. Just because they have so far...” she shook her head again, “nowhere does it state that that is a cold, hard fact.”

“If they don’t always come true, then what’s the point of me even getting them?” Jared returned her question, which just caused her to scoff again.

Lili then had to retort, “and we could also say, what’s the point of seeing things before they happen if they can’t be changed?”

“Do we really wanna change Kyle surviving?”

“Well some of us don’t” she mumbled, “the point is, if they’re supposed to be warnings, then that would mean they’re not set in stone after all, now wouldn’t it?”

Jared then shook his head, realizing that even after all this time, there was still so much that they hadn’t figured out about these abilities of his. And he doubted they would figure it all out that day, so he attempted to return to their earlier topic instead, “Lili, the point I was trying to make about us crawling into bed just to trigger a vision again, is that we both know that you don’t wanna do this. You’re not ready to. So, why are you trying to push for it when you know all of these facts?” he had to ask.

Her breath faltered as though holding back tears then, “because, I have to do something, anything I can to keep us all alive. I owe it to all of you to finally be of some worth, some way. Even if it’s only as your anchor...or your trigger” she stated softly.

----------------------------------------

It was nearly three am when Lili finally gave up on trying to fight her remaining upset and force sleep to come. Instead, she moved quietly out of the shack, back to her favorite spot by the river, beneath those eerie stars above. But as she sighed sadly and looked up at them, the thought of losing Kyle, or even Will, just became too much for her as she finally let herself break down in those tears now that she was away from the ears of her companions who remained asleep inside the shack.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, sobbing quietly into her hands beneath the stars as a year’s worth of sorrow took advantage of her finally releasing it from behind those floodgates she had tried so hard to keep tightly locked for so long.

She then startled from her emotional breakdown though when she heard footsteps approaching, cursing herself for forgetting Ian’s one rule: Bring a damn gun. She tried to stand as silently as she could, her eyes moving to the tree line that the footsteps seemed to approach from and staying glued there. She attempted to make no sound as her feet slowly carried her back towards the shack at nearly a snail’s pace, simply to preserve as much silence as she could.

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A moment later, Kyle’s outline came into view. Recognizing him caused equal parts anger, worry and relief as she just shook her head as he came closer, seeming a bit startled himself by finding her out there at that hour.

“Lemme guess, insomnia again?” he greeted her, though spoke quietly as to not alert any of the others to his presence as his walk had left him too tired to deal with any more conflict with either of the men right then.

“You walked all the way back here, alone, at night?” Lili scolded him as the two met somewhere between the shack and the riverbank.

“Well, my personal teleportation device, err Will, seems to have gone missing” was his only excuse, to which Lili only shook her head again. Though as she made that tiny movement, he noticed that she had obvious tears upon her cheeks.

“What?” she asked, caught by the immediate change in his expression.

“Ian said you were having anxiety attacks again, I thought he was just being an ass and trying to make me feel guilty” Kyle stated, though quietly.

Lili scowled at his observation as well as his words, “ever think that maybe you should occasionally listen to him, Kyle? He and I may not have a two hundred IQ, but everything he does is to keep us safe. You know that.”

“Is this where you try to talk me outta it too?” Kyle sighed, averting his eyes.

“Kyle, you’ve gotta know how dangerous the whole idea is, insanely dangerous. Why in the world would you wanna do something like that? Take that big of a risk for very little chance of success?” Kyle just shook his head rather than offering any of his previous arguments, doubting any of them would work with her either. Lili sighed heavily in the face of his silence before she had to speak up again, “Are you still cutting too? Or is this your new form of death wish?” she decided she had to cut him deep right then to get him to listen at all.

His eyes came up angrily at her calling him out on that particular weakness, before his temper got the best of him, and he shot back, “are you really the one lecturing me about having a death wish? The woman who wished she had died less than a month ago, cause the pain was too much for her? That woman?” he growled, cutting her right back.

Lili just shook her head in disbelief, as she bit back more tears, “that was real physical pain, Kyle. I nearly bled to death right here on this ground, alone, while Jared was trying to save you” she cast him another dark look, “I don’t see how you can compare the two.”

“Yeah, and what about how badly you’ve wanted to die since that day? Got a good explanation for that one too?” he shot back.

Her anger flared as she stared back at him for a long time, “you’re the one person who should understand that kind of depression, I would think.”

“I could say the same to you” he returned, his volume only dropping ever so slightly on the statement.

Lili no longer had the strength to argue with him anymore as she dropped her head and let the tears come again, no longer having the strength to fight those either right then. Kyle looked on with renewed silence as obvious cracks appeared in his own resolve in response to those tears then, not ever able to fully push down his feelings for her for too long.

Finally, she spoke again, “no bullshit Kyle...is that really what you’re trying to do? Are you really trying to kill yourself with this insanity? Please, I have to know if I’m really fighting this hard to save someone who doesn’t wanna be saved at all. Give me that much” she asked him in what was more of a pleading tone than an angry one right then.

Kyle was silent a long moment as he seemed to honestly be searching for that answer, his own blue-gray eyes cast down as sadly as hers then. But before he actually could find the most honest answer he could for her, the two were interrupted as Jared stepped outside then as well, despite the hour being nearly four am now.

“Sorry to intrude,” Jared began a little breathlessly, clad in only a loose fitting pair of jeans that they assumed he had been sleeping in, “but...” another awkward pause, “I managed to actually trigger another vision, finally.”

Both looked shocked by that news, Lili even more so, “but how?” she had to ask.

That was when Jared was glad for the darkness around them as he looked down with a blush, “isn’t the vision itself the more important news here?”

“Actually, if you finally figured out how to trigger them” Kyle began, “I’d say that’s pretty damn important too.”

“Vision first, trigger later” Jared responded, a little too quickly, which only caused a more skeptical look from at least Lili.

Ignoring whatever subtext there may have been there, Kyle moved on, “ok, so what was this vision?”

“I saw the ship again” Jared began, causing them both to look up quickly, “more than saw it, it almost felt like I was there, but I’m sure I wasn’t. At least not in the physical sense. At least I don’t think so” he added, trying to call the details back to his conscious mind.

“You sure this was a vision and not just, say, a memory?” Kyle had to propose that theory due to his inherent analytical nature alone.

“Believe me, it wasn’t like it was when we were there” Jared assured, “it was definitely the crashed version of the ship. I know that much.”

“So, was this an actual vision then, or have you suddenly learned to astral project too?” Kyle scoffed, then couldn’t help adding, “I figure if anyone here was gonna catch something from ghost, it’d be Ian” he couldn’t help a tiny smirk at his own words, though the other two just shook their heads in response.

“Pretty sure it was a vision” Jared assured.

“Ok, so you saw the crashed ship again, great, but you already saw that. Did you actually see anything new?” Kyle pressed.

“See? No” Jared denied, causing them both to appear slightly deflated, “but I did hear something new” he added, as both of their heads snapped up.

“You heard something? In the crashed ship?” Lili asked, with the tiniest glimmer of hopefulness appearing for a tiny moment.

“Yeah, I think so” Jared agreed, though trying to keep his expression somber as he did.

“What? Like machinery, or some animals scavenging around? What?” Kyle pressed.

Jared took a deep breath before offering them their answer, difficult as it was, “honestly, it sounded like someone...crying.”