Peter didn't sleep much that night, knowing you are sleeping in a room very close to someone who clearly is out of 
touch was not the safest feeling in the world. It gave him time to think though. With what the world had become after 
the explosion differences were more feared.  He wondered how Niki had been able to survive this long, seriously 
doubting that she had the ability to live on her own all this time without help. Having Jessica obviously was one 
reason, she obviously could act as a voice of rationality when NIki was able ot listen. But from her own urgency Peter 
gathered those moments were becoming vewer and fewer. He drifted off figuring that Niki and Jessica, herself, needed 
all the rest they could get.
**********

Tina walked into the apartment as she did every day. She had given up long ago on fixing the place up or changing 
anything. The violent rages it had caused in Niki scared scare more then the night she had first met Jessica. She 
hadn't beleived Niki's speeches about their being someone in her killing others. Hadn't exactly understood NIki's 
ramblings aboout it and even then had been questioning her friends sanity. The day taht changed it all was when DL had 
taken Micah and she had walked into Niki's room to find a colder then normal Niki. When this other Niki had answered 
her that Niki wasnt around she had hightailed it due to Niki's warnings about the other her doing things. It proved it 
all in that moment. She could tell it wasnt the Niki she knew she was seeing at all.

About a month later she had heard that Niki was in jail and then in psychiatric treatment. It was scary to think that 
Niki had not been wrong. A month after that she heard Niki was home and headed over. The woman who answered the door 
was the woman she had seen that day months ago, the one Niki had called Jessica. It was obvious that she was pretending 
to be Niki but there was nothing she could do. The warnings from Niki in confidence let her know how dangerous this 
woman could be. Things went on until the bomb hit in New York. It had made national news of course because of how major 
it had been and how many had been injured and killed. At that point she had gone to Nikis to look for her. The house 
was deserted as if they had left it in a rush. She worried what had happened but there wasnt a way to find out. She 
kept returning every few days and finally one day she walked in and there was Niki sitting at the table. 

But it wasn't the Niki she remembered. The woman before her might have looked like Niki but she looked completely lost, 
more lost then Tina had ever seen her. And then Niki said the last truly lucid thing Tina heard from her and the the 
last thing she ever expected to hear, "Micah's dead."
**********

Walking inside she saw a strange man on the couch. There wasn't any time to think about it she simply went up to him 
yelling, "What are you doing here?!"

She watched as the man jolted awake and backed up from her.

"What are you doing in this house?!"

Peter barely got a breath in to respond and cut her off, "Niki invited me. I swear."

Tina looked over at him wondering who the hell this man was. In all her visists to Niki it was haphazard knowing who 
would be answering that door that day. If it would be the Niki she had known or the Niki left over from losing 
everything she had ever known. Or if it might be the other woman, a mere shadow of the woman who scared her into 
abandoning Niki, reduced to moments of crying for help. It gave her a new understanding of the other side of the story. 
That even though what Jessica was doing was cuasing Niki to lose control for Jessica control was even more important 
having lived without it so long. 

The commotion had brought Niki out of her bedroom.

"QUIET! You'll wake up Micah!"

Tina barely controled the flinch. Micah had been a sweet boy who had been the core of Niki's existing. And from the 
various tidbits she got from Jessica's fleeting outbursts the core of her existence as well. Now he was reduced ot a 
figment in Niki's broken mind. It made her wonder of the irony of insanity. Niki's irrational belief was the only thing 
keeping her sane to her own self. But in reality to those around her she appeared quite mad.

"Hey, you know I wouldn't do that on purpose, Niki." Tina walked up to her and went to put an arm around her, realizing 
it was a bad day when Niki backed away from the perceived threat of any contact and moved herself far out of reach.

"Yes...I know. And he's a friend, I think, I remember him from the dark time."

Tina closed her eyes. The dark time Niki's way of referring to when things went bad and she lost everything. If she was 
referring to it like that now today was going to be a worse day then she imagined. 

With that final comment Niki went on preparing her day, stuck in and lost to a time that her fragile sanity couldn't 
bring itself to admit happened. And while she went on words coming forth from both parts of her split selves like an 
external dialogue. Tina and Peter could only look on knowing that they did have a partner in their fight to help her. 
Someone fighting to release themselves from Niki's veil of insanity before she herself went into the abyss Niki had 
already fallen into.
*********