Hot.

It always begins with heat, and even in the dream he knows this is wrong but it has always been like that, the feeling of heat and pressure. Then there's the darkness, pressing in all around him like a woolen blanket, only this blanket is miles thick and hard, because it's rock, and it won't move no matter how he pushes at it. Finally, there's the soft, insidious dusty airlessness that sucks hope and cunning and energy out of him, until it all merges into one long struggle, lungs laboring for that last miniscule sip of air, the coal dust swirling into his lungs along with the emptiness, the terrible tightness as he gasps and gasps uselessly, every muscle and nerve screaming for air ...

Jim wakes, wheezing, fighting, sitting bolt upright in the bed, eyes wide and his whole body shaking. It takes him several long, sobbing breaths to come fully awake and realize that no, he is not buried half a mile underground in the bowels of a coal mine, dying an inch at a time. He's covered in sweat, the sheets are damp with it, and he's shaking like a leaf.

Beside him, Pam stirs in her sleep and he holds himself very still, hoping not to wake her. He doesn't want to have to explain himself to her. He rubs his face with his hands, feels the wetness, tastes the salt there.

The fire started in the shaft, the only entrance and exit from the mine, and in seconds it became a roaring column of fire, so intense that it shot out of the mouth of the mine for thirty feet, like a colossal flamethrower. Inside, dense clouds of choking smoke and a fog of white-hot gasses rolled through the mine faster than a man could run. The housing above the shaft caught fire and collapsed, adding to the flames even as the men trapped below ground ran for their lives, deeper into the darkness, praying that something, anything, would douse the inferno before it caught them...

He swings his feet out of bed, stands, walks to the windows. He knows it's January outside, colder than hell, and the recent snow is piled up in the corners of the window. Even so, he wants to fling open the window, let the air in. He compromises by easing it open, just an inch, just enough to feel the bite of the cold air. He tells himself he is not, could not be smelling smoke on the wind. It's just his imagination.

He slides the window open a little more. The slow-stirring air barely moves the white curtains, just enough to make them puff into the room, then get sucked against the screen, then puff again, as if the world were breathing. He pulls a long slow breath into his lungs, pushes it out again. He braces an arm on either side of the window frame, not caring that he is naked, and stares up into the night. It's overcast, a blanket of cloud against the earth like a layer of white smoke. He could close the window, turn on the heat—but he wants fresh air right now. He needs it. Nothing recycled, nothing ... stale.

"Jim?"

He tenses, not turning. "It's okay. Go back to sleep, Pam."

She stirs, and he hears the mattress creak. Hears her soft barefoot steps approaching. Then her arms go around his waist from behind and he feels her naked body pressing up against his back. The electric feel of her against him sets his skin to humming, distracts him. He puts his hand on hers to still her.

"I'm too hot for that," he says. He tries to make his voice kind, to tell her that it isn't personal, that he needs room around him right now. He hopes she won't be put off by it.

"Too hot to sleep?" She releases him but stays close. She understands, somehow. He should have realized that she would.

He's tempted to say yes, to let the little white lie explain him to her in a safe, harmless way, to keep this drama inside his head and not burden her with it. But he can't lie to her, was never any good at it. He half-turns, looks at her, the goddess of his dreams.

"No, not really," he says. He drapes an arm across her shoulders, brings her close, skin to skin. She feels almost clammy against him. He wants to let her go but he doesn't want to hurt her feelings.

"Bad dream?" she asks.

"How do you always know?" he whispers, half-laughing, resting his chin on her head. "I swear you read minds."

"Only yours," she says back. "I speak 'Jim' pretty well now."

"Yeah, you do." He rubs a hand absently up and down her arm, still looking out over the dark city. Streetlights glow pink and amber, arcing off into the darkness, growing smaller in the distance. "This happens to me now and then," he says, reluctant to get into it.

She moves out from beside him and laces her fingers through his. They are cool and strong, and he knows without looking that there is charcoal dust under her fingernails because she was sketching earlier that evening, before he came up behind her and put his arms around her and seduced her into bed with one long kiss. Maybe it was seeing that charcoal pencil fall to the table from her fingers that triggered this memory.

Although it's not really a memory. A memory of an imagined scene, really.

Black damp, the miners called it, a combination of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, a deadly mixture that took the place of true air as a fire burned, and left nothing for a man's lungs but black smoke and a quick death. Racing away from the fire down the long east gangway, the miners slammed shut the gangway doors behind them, hoping they would keep the insidious poison cloud out and trap the few precious square feet of good air in with them. At the end of the thousand-yard gallery, they came to the end and turned, at bay. They built a hasty barricade and used everything--their own clothing--to cram into every nook and cranny, barring the deadly gas, trying to keep whatever fresh air was left from escaping. Then they smelled the rotten egg smell that told them the coal itself was burning...

"I was fifteen," he says. "Junior high. The Pennsylvania Historical Association had this big memorial they were putting up, to commemorate the Avondale mine disaster."

"I remember that," she says quietly. "We studied it in school."

"Yeah. Hard to grow up in coal country and not hear about it," Jim says. He looks down at the top of her head, sees her hair is a little tangled from the bed. He catches a handful of it, stroking his fingers through it. Silky. "My great-great-grandfather was one of the victims."

She looks up at him, her eyes dark. "Oh, Jim. I'm so sorry." A world of compassion in her voice. Her generous heart and quick empathy never fail to move him.

"Hey, I never knew him," he reminds her, trying for some emotional distance from the nightmare, not her.

"But he keeps you up at night. You know him that well." As always, she goes right to the heart of it.

His throat feels tight; he clears it. "Anyway. Avondale. A fire in the mine killed over a hundred men and boys, in September of 1869. One of them was Alan Halpert, who had just come over from England the year before with his family."

Her fingers, still in his, squeeze gently. He squeezes back. "My dad insisted on going to the dedication of the memorial, all the way to Plymouth, other side of Wilkes-Barre. All the way there, and then all the way back, he kept telling us the story as it had come down in the family."

She puts her head against his shoulder. "How awful."

"Yeah. In a car, you can't get away, and unfortunately no one had invented iPods yet. So I had to hear every damn detail."

She is so silent he can hear her breathing, feels her breath on his arm. It feels warm, which he doesn't need, but it's her so it's good. He rubs his thumb over her fingers absently.

"Anyway, I had nightmares for months afterwards. Couldn't sleep without a light on, kept dreaming about being trapped, buried alive..." He breaks off, feels his chest heaving. Imagines the blackness closing in. He can't help it.

She rubs her head back and forth on his shoulder. He feels her hair against his skin, sleek and glossy. Being naked with her still amazes him. He's never been with a woman who still made him dizzy after so many months, a woman who can still make him lightheaded just taking off her clothes. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to that, hopes he never does.

"You didn't tell anyone about it," she says. She doesn't ask, she knows.

"No one until you."

He knew it was hopeless, knew as soon as the rotten egg smell of burning sulfur-laden coal seeped into the dark and airless room. He heard the men around him praying, then going silent as they realized that praying aloud only used up their air faster. He heard someone call his name, realized with a breaking heart that it was David, and then felt his son's seeking hand. Even as his breath came short, he pulled his twelve-year-old son close, feeling the tears fall as he realized that he would never see daylight again, see this son's face or any of his children again, never see grandchildren. He cradled his dying, choking son in his arms as he had when the boy was born, trying to shield him from death, feeling the cold rock around him draining the life heat from them all even as the fire at the other end of the shaft ate the last of their air.

Jim feels a tear on his cheek, the only cool spot on his body as it evaporates into the air. He tenses, wondering if she knows he's crying, but then relaxes. She's seen his tears before.

"I know it's not real," he says, to himself as much as to her. "I know it's just my ... uncontrollable imagination."

"But what you feel, that's real," Pam says quietly.

"Yeah."

She says nothing, just stands and breathes with him, quiet in the still, soft night.

"Maybe it's just something that gets into you, living in coal country," he says, very quietly. He's not usually given to this sort of talk, but it's five in the morning and he's ready to say things he doesn't normally say. "You know, subconsciously, that you're walking over tunnels and shafts, that there's black seams and empty galleries under Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and Plymouth and other towns."

"I was ten before I knew that not every town had a mine in it," Pam says. She's quiet again, lets go of his hand, slides an arm around his waist. She presses up against him, and he forgets about the cold night because she's soft and comforting and he needs that to push the darkness back into the corners of his mind.

"He didn't die completely," she says.

He frowns a bit, looking down. She meets his gaze solemnly. "What do you mean?"

"Your ancestor. Great-great-grandfather, you said? He left someone behind, obviously, or you wouldn't be here."

He nods. "My great-grandfather was three when his father died in the mine. My great-great-grandma took the family and moved to Scranton. She never went near a coal mine again. She wouldn't even use coal to heat her house. The kids didn't understand it for a long time."

Pam shivers and he knows it's not because she's cold. "I understand."

He puts an arm around her shoulders, draws her against him just for the comfort, not even -- or not mostly -- a sexual gesture. Just for the alive feel of her. "Of course you do."

He feels her lean into him, feels her strength and her softness and the quiet solidity of her and wonders how he ever got this lucky.

"So now you know," he says, trying to be light. "I avoid basements, caves and Dwight's root cellar."

She pulls back a little, looking up at him. "Claustrophobia?"

"No, no," he says quickly. "Not full-blown. I have no problem with, say, cars. Or elevators."

They share a smile.

"Or supply closets. Definitely not," she says. A tiny flicker of flame at the back of her eyes, a banked heat he has come to know and appreciate in an otherwise demure Pam. He tightens his arm around her possessively.

She looks away, out the window, lifts her hair off her forehead with one hand. He looks down, watching her move, so quick and smooth and graceful. He loves it that she can be naked with him and not be self-conscious.

"It's cold," she says.

"Yes," he says, meaning something else. She catches his meaning, meets his eyes again, laughter in hers.

A cool puff of air floats in through the open window, billowing the curtains. The night whispers at them. He circles her into his arms, pressing her close, not caring that their skin sticks to one another. He feels her moving against him, feels her breasts against him as she inhales, feels her breath on his skin as she exhales. He buries his face in her hair, smells her skin and soap and shampoo and the fabric softener from the sheets.

"Thanks," he whispers. He doesn't have to say what for.

She twines her fingers in his, steps back, pulling him away from the window. "Come back to bed." Her voice is soft as moth wings in the night.

He remembers that darkness and pressure and heat don't always spell death. He remembers that all of his ancestors, and all of hers, all of everyone's, are underground now, that someday she and he will be too, and it's not a morbid thought. It feels like connection, a link to a long line of bones of people who lived and loved and worked, who would be glad to know their line survives in him. He remembers that his great-great-grandfather died with his son in his arms, sheltering him even in his last breath, a gesture of love, defiant. Death always wins, he thinks, but only temporarily. Love and memory live forever.

She pulls him down into the bed, and night closes in silent and calm around them. The heat in his mind is still there, but charged differently now.

She always leaves him breathless, in a good way.