Gina Marie dreamed of Ben.

She dreamed of the trip they'd taken to the beach when they were nine.

She dreamed of the color of his eyes, the shine of his straight as sin hair that always fell into his eyes.

She dreamed of the day he got sick.

She dreamed of the day he went mad.

She called to him, begged him to come back to her, to stop his hitting of the old mirror mama had hung in the hall.

She dreamed of the dead chickens, every neck wrung and spread in a circle around him where he sat in the yard.

She dreamed of the screaming, late into the night.

She dreamed of burying all the things he had broken out in the field where uncle would not find them.

She dreamed of the night of the fire... of finding him standing in the flames, silent as they licked at his flesh.

She dreamed of murmured voices through the library door... not quite right... they said... ill of mind... they said... dangerous... they said... brain fever... they said.

She dreamed of the moment she watched the wagon wheel him away to the sanitarium, still wailing of roses and blackness and death.

She dreamed of the moment she knelt in the dirt of thier lane as he was taken away from her... the very last bit of her old life gone mad from the pain she didn't know what to do with herself.

She dreamed of Ben.

Called to him.

Screamed his name.

Wept bitterly for all of it.

Until the fever released her at last, and she fell into a dreamless slumber. Ben's wagon disappeared, and the fog closed in around her like an embrace that carried the scent of evergreens and tobacco with it.

She curled into it, away from the bad dreams, and slept.

Bane held Gina Marie as she slept at last without dreaming.

She'd been wailing for hours now, crying out for someone he'd never heard her speak of and weeping fit to break a heart. Bane had hovered about the bed initially, as Mary Kathleen and Grandmother stood at each side, trying to sooth her as the poison left her system. The medic had said it would take time, that it would be cruel, but that in the end her fever would break and she would live.

He'd told himself he could endure it, until She'd starting screaming in agony, but not of physical pain. No, this he recognized as loss that painted her features even while unconscious. She'd sounded so very alone. And Bane too, had felt that loneliness before. It called to something in his chest, moved him to weep with her, to dismiss his female relatives from the sickroom and lock the door.

Gina Marie had thrashed about, her hair in damp ropes, twisted beneath her as she moved, her mind suffering as her body was healed.

It was then that Bane had stripped off his dinner coat and crawled into the large four poster bed to hold her still. Just to hold her really. He sat with his back against the wooden frame, Gina Marie cradled against him as she continued her screaming, weeping and fighting. She called for someone named Ben... She'd never spoken of anyone named Ben before this moment. Sick jealousy and immediately guilt came to him as he realized only a great love, a parting of ones own soul could have produced such a deepness of grief. While simultaneously understanding that only a death would've parted her from someone she loved this much.

Bane knew he was envying a deadman, even as he held Gina Marie's wrists gently entrapped in both of his hands to keep her from raking her nails across her own skin. The poison was bleeding from her pores, invisible and crawling to flee her body, the medic had warned this would itch.

But at last, She'd gone quiet, her breathing smooth, her body worn out. Exhausted himself, now the third night without sleep, Bane stretched out beside her on top of the coverlet, curling his body around hers protectively. He touched her hair, whispered her name and fell asleep.