Posted Sunday, December 30
If you got here by pressing the "last chapter" link, you might want to go back. This is the third chapter I've posted today.
There are more author's notes at the end.
Nightmares
Epilogue: Friends
Except it wasn't over, not really.
Jean slept soundly for the rest of that night. Come morning, both she and Scott were brought (separately) into the professor's office for a lecture. Even if no one had been at fault for the nightmares, the fact that neither of them told anyone, instead choosing to sneak into each others' rooms night after night, was definitely against the spirit of the school's rules, if not the wording of the rules.
"Don't worry too much, Jean," Professor Xavier said at the end, offering her a sympathetic smile. "These things happen to all telepaths. It's part of the learning process."
He grew quickly became serious again, though not as severe as he had been during the rest of the lecture, adding: "But if it happens again, let me know. I can't help you if I don't know."
The next time Jean had a nightmare, it was one of her own. It was clearly Annie and clearly a car crash. Clearly her own (distorted) memories of her childhood friend's death, completely lacking a single lick of fire or the reddish tint that had become common over the last few weeks.
The professor was the only other person to awaken and come to comfort Jean.
School started, which was even a greater relief than Jean had originally thought it would be. Being caught meant that she now had to concentrate to keep herself blushing whenever she was around Scott. She couldn't be in his presence without being reminded of that night and what she had done, how she had violated his mind, even if it was unintentional. Scott had every right to hate her for that telepathic bond. He claimed he didn't, in their stilted conversation the morning afterwards, but she knew there was no way he could actually understand what the bond meant and not hate her for it.
Especially since now she kept catching him give her unknowable looks, looks she was afraid to decipher.
Which was why school was doubly a blessing. While she had only hoped, but not expected, to make any friends (not after everyone at her last school had labelled her a freak), Jean did. Real friends. A group of girls asked her to sit with them at lunch the second day, and by the end of the first week, they were already making plans to tryout for the soccer team.
But somehow, as exciting as her new friends were, Jean was more thankful for the relief that they brought to her strained… whatever she had with Scott than for their own merit. She wasn't avoiding her fellow mutant now; she was simply too busy getting to know her new friends. She had a social life for the first time and it thrilled her. It wasn't her fault Scott had other friends, different friends.
But still, the nightmares continued.
Not as often as before, and Jean had just about convinced herself that she'd grown out of that phase when, right before she went home for the Christmas break, she experienced her first nightmare while Professor Xavier was away and unable to settle her down.
As always, it took her a few minutes to figure out that she was safe in bed. Her best friend wasn't dying beside her (inside her)—that had happened years ago. But this time, it seemed to take even longer for to remember what was real and what wasn't. Even though she was sitting up in bed, trying to slow her breath down, Jean could have sworn she was still dreaming when she heard Scott's voice.
"Are you alright, Jean?"
She turned to look at him, but didn't answer right away.
"Jean?" Scott took a step closer, then, thinking better of it, turned back to flick the switch on her wall. Only when the light flooded Jean's room and she could see him clearly did she realize that he was really there; it wasn't a remnant of her dream.
"Sorry Scott," she mumbled, wishing there was an inconspicuous way to burrow underneath her covers. It hadn't been this embarrassing in the past, but then in the past she didn't know it was her that—
"Oh, no!" she said, dread of her nightmare being replaced with dread that the bond was back. "I didn't wake you, did I? I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it!"
Just as she was on the verge of tears, Scott shook his head. "I wasn't asleep."
"Oh. Oh," she repeated, trying to calm down. Her face crinkling in confusion. "What?"
Scott avoided her gaze—actually hanging his head to look down at his feet or the floor so that Jean could know without a doubt that he wasn't meeting her eyes.
"I couldn't sleep," he said again, as if it might explain everything this time.
"Oh." Jean couldn't think of anything else to say. She moved to the edge of the bed so that he'd have room to come sit beside her, hoping that maybe this return to form would ease the tension between them, maybe even allow them to have a real conversation, but Scott hung back, shaking his head.
"We're not allowed, remember?" he asked.
"I forgot," Jean admitted, her face burning because there was no excuse for her forgetting, especially since just a second ago she'd been thinking how strangely awkward this visit was compare to the older ones.
"Come on," Scott said, jerking his chin in the door's direction. "No one said anything against us going downstairs and watching a movie."
Jean pulled a robe on over her pyjamas, even if Scott had seen her in less. On the way down, they bickered lightly over what movie to watch (Scott wanted The Empire Strikes Back while Jean preferred Return of the Jedi, so they compromised and put in A New Hope), but kept the conversation clearly away from the topic of nightmares. Curling up on the couch, in separate afghans, Jean was all start the movie when out of the blue, Scott said:
"We never do this anymore."
Jean's hand froze over the "power" button of the remote.
"Well, we, umm, kinda aren't supposed to," she said bashfully.
Scott's cheeks coloured, too, slightly, and Jean hoped he wasn't having second thoughts or regrets. It was only A New Hope. Surely none of the adults would yell at them for watching that. It wasn't as if they were in the same bed; they weren't even sharing a blanket this time.
"No," he mumbled, hurriedly. "That's not what I mean. I mean we're just—we're not really friends anymore."
Jean forgot the remote completely. "Of course we're friends. How could you think that?"
"Well, we don't do anything together. It's school. You have your friends and I have mine and… well, I don't think Professor Xavier meant we weren't allowed to talk ever anymore, just that we weren't supposed to, well, sleep together." His cheeks started to burn as he mumbled those last words. "Fall asleep together," he corrected himself.
"Oh," Jean said. She fiddled with the blanket, poking her fingers through the crochet holes for lack of anything better to do or say. The silence held for a moment before Scott sighed.
"I guess that's my answer," he said, very softly.
"No." Jean wasn't exactly sure what he thought the answer was, but if his tone of voice was anything to go by, it wasn't something she wanted him to think.
"No?" he repeated.
"I'm sorry, Scott," Jean said even though she still wasn't exactly sure what she was apologizing for. But she did know that he was right; they didn't talk anymore. They didn't do anything with each other anymore. And surely Professor Xavier didn't mean for that to happen.
"I didn't… I wasn't trying to…"
Jean tried again. "I do want to be your friend. School has just been so busy, and then there's soccer, and I'm meeting all these new people, and I wasn't trying to ignore you. I promise."
"Good."
Jean looked up to see him give her a dazzling smile, the likes of which she had never expected to see from the distant boy she'd met so many months ago.
"Scott?" she asked hesitantly.
"Let's try this again," he said. "Okay?"
"Try what again?" Jean asked, confused at where the conversation had gone.
"All of it. Everything. Let's forget about, well, everything, and try this again."
Forgetting about everything sounded like a perfect plan to Jean. She matched his smile and for the first time in months found herself able to look at him straight in the face, trying to meet his eyes behind the mask.
"Okay, let's do it. Let's start over," she said. "Friends?"
"Friends," Scott said.
That's it. The end. All over but the crying or, in this case, the author's notes, even if they are a bit whiny.
Before I start, I want to say that this is not a plea for reviews, so please don't take it that way.
There are a couple of big problems with Nightmares, I know. It's been several years since I watched the cartoon, so I hope I didn't mess up anything in canon too badly. It was also my first attempt to write something in non-chronological order, and I can think of at least one plot hole that arose because of this. Every time I tried to fix it, everything just became more confusing, so in the end, it still remains. Oops?
I don't like this story. It's been done before, and by better authors than I. (And by "done before" I don't mean the finished product, but rather what I was attempting to do.) I probably never should have written it.
But I did start it. And since I started it, I felt the need to finish, since I hate coming across unfinished stories. And it will remain up, even if I'm unhappy with it, because I hate searching for a fic I've read long ago, only to discover the author has taken it off the net.