not room 507, Thursday early morning

[nadiathesaint]

She lays very still, staring at the patterns the peeling paint makes on the molding walls, waiting for . . . something to happpen.

She hears something shatter very close to her, but she doesn't move. That's very important, she knows that somehow, that she doesn't move. That she doesn't blink or twitch or cough or sneeze or breathe--

All she can do is listen. That's what they told her to do.

Then something changes. There's someone with her, talking to her. She tries to focus, but the yellowed walls are fading.

". . . I'm your sister . . . ." the person says. She recognizes the voice, and though she shouldn’t, she smiles and rolls over—

And the world changes and she wants to scream, but she can't move, can't blink, or twitch, or cough, or sneeze, or breathe, because someone’s holding her face and pushing a tube down her throat and she can’t see.

She can hear, though, and what she hears. . . .

“There’s nothing we can do. We’ve tried everything, for months—“

“Are you telling me to give up on my daughter?”

You tell ‘em, Dad,

She hears his voice again. “Nadia’s not going to get better. I’ll just have to live with what I’ve done to my daughter. . . .”

NO! She tries to scream it, but she can’t move. She tries so hard to get past . . . whatever it was holding back, but she can hear them, all of them, the doctors and the nurses and her family and friends giving up on her.

“Pity, really. She had her whole life—“

“We’ve tried everything—“

“Nothing we can do—“

NO!

And then it works. She sits up, and she opens her eyes, and Sydney is there and she has a family and even Sloane, even Sloane she can forgive, because he got her OUT of that hell and she’s back. She’s missed so much but she’s back and she holds a little girl in her arms and watches her smile at her.

And then Nadia throws Sydney into the fire.

And Sloane pushes Nadia.

And she falls.

AND SHE FALLS.

and she falls. . . .

And the glass breaks, and it breaks her skin, and Sloane is talking some crap about death is his gift being necessary to prove his faith and he should have known it all along, and the world goes gray and red and she can’t move, can’t blink or sneeze or cough or twitch.

Or breathe.

Nadia woke up gasping for breath and sat upright in the bed, her hand flying to the left side of her neck where the glass in the dream had cut her.

It took her a few moments to realize that, no, this was definitely not her room.

And that was definitely Walter at the other end of the bed.

Huh.

Comments

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Wha-?

Walter made the abrupt shift from dreaming about London during the worst of the Blitz, complete with fire, screams, and a strange juxtaposition of vampires, to sitting upright looking around for the source of the sudden jostling.

There was a Nadia in his bed. There had been a Nadia in his bathroom and now there was one in his bed.

Huh.

"Dream?"

[nadiathesaint]

She was still gasping slightly, and still clutching her neck, but she nodded and shrugged. "Uh-huh. Sorry to wake you up."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"I don't mind." He scooched around to sit next to Nadia and put an arm around her shoulders. "I won't miss the dream you interrupted. Are you okay?"

[nadiathesaint]

Still gasping, still clutching, still nodding. "I'm fine,"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Uh-huh. Thus the gasping and clutching.

That didn't seem like a helpful observation for the moment, so he kept his mouth shut and kept his arm where it was.

[nadiathesaint]

After a few moments, she managed to relax enough to let go of her neck and catch her breath.

She felt like she should say something, but she didn't want to think about the dream, much less describe it, so she leaned a little against him and went with stating the obvious.

"I'm in your bed."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Walter leaned into the lean. "I couldn't just roll you off onto the floor." And didn't want to anyway.

[nadiathesaint]

"I appreciate that." She gave him a quick glance. "You didn't sleep in the chair or on the floor, then jump onto the bed when I woke up, did you?"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"No." He smirked sidelong at her. "We slept together last night. What do you think radio will have to say about that?"

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia bumped her shoulder against him. "They'll say 'dirty', obviously."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"Obviously. And now we know never to take seriously radio reports of dirty sleeping together." But there he was, in his pajamas, with his arm around a Nadia who had slept in his bed last night.

"Pip came by last night just after you fell asleep. Just so you're prepared in case he tries to take the Mickey out of you about it."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia wasn't entirely sure what "take the Mickey out" meant, but decided not to worry about it. "I can just imagine what his reaction was."

It might have included thumbs pointed in a skyward direction.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Somehow it had actually included a friendly death threat.

"Pup had gotten out and I didn't notice when we got in last night. He was bringing him back."

Pup, hearing his name, toddled out from under the bed, a dust bunny stuck to his forehead.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia patted the bed next to her to get Pup to jump up.

She had no idea if he was actually allowed on the bed or not, but he just looked very cute with the dust bunny on his head.

"Well, that was good of him. Wouldn't want Pup getting stuck in the walls."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Pup jumped up onto the bed and took the patting as an invitation to try to lick her face.

Walter snickered and plucked the dustbunny off Pup's head. "No, we wouldn't. He'd probably end up living with the gremlins."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid the face licking. Finally she managed to push Pup back a little and rubbed his ears.

"And having much too much fun with it."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Pup wiggled and wagged and licked the nice girl's hand. Of course he'd have too much fun with the gremlins. He'd run with them and play with them and rule through fear and threats of arbitrary impalement.

Walter shook his head and laughed at the image of Pup amidst the gremlins. "I think Furrball would be a greater threat to the gremlins' safety."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia raised an eyebrow. "Furrball was defeated by muppet chickens."

This was good. This was totally not thinking about weird dreams or possible awkwardness of her being in his bed with him while wearing his shirt.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"Yes, but muppet chickens are agents of Armageddon." How he managed to say that with a straight face was anyone's guess. "Whereas gremlins are just household pests."

[nadiathesaint]

"Marty might disagree with you. But I think Marty might be an agent of Armageddon as well."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"So we take him out first when Armageddon comes?" Hellpuppies, gremlins, muppet chickens, and murdering a classmate. Good morning, Fandom.

[nadiathesaint]

"Hire Angela to distract him? Or turn him into a girl. Or sick the laundry machines on him." There were, in fact, many ways of conquering Marty. Good to know.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"He was in on your laundry adventure last night?" Walter wondered if Marty had escaped in any better shape than Nadia had.

[nadiathesaint]

She nodded. "They shot at him with quarters. And he got hit by most of the fabric softener."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Pup decided that the nice girl was worth a snuggle and turned around to sit comfortably in her lap.

"So he's soft and smells good?"

Walter looked at his alarm clock and shook his head. "It's early. If you're not in a rush to sing to your door, you can go back to sleep. I think I'm going to."

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia smiled down at the hellpuppy in her lap. "Yeah. I don't have to be in class for awhile, yet." She leaned over to give Walter a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks again, for everything."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

She was agreeing to going back to sleep? And they were both in bed? And they'd already slept together? Was he going to stick his feet in her face again? Meep!

But the kiss made him smile and turn his face toward her in case she decided that another kiss with lips would be a good thing. "Likewise, I'm sure."

[nadiathesaint]

Another kiss was definitely called for. Because they were doing that now. Kissing. With lips and everything.

And sleeping together, apparently. In a totally not dirty way, of course.

So she kissed him.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

This kissing with lips and everything thing with Nadia was something Walter could get used to.

But not too used to right this minute, since they were going to go back to sleep and Walter needed that to be a physical possibility. Sleep, that is.

While Walter was oblivious to just about everything except lips and trying to remember that he didn't want to embarrass himself in his bed with Nadia first thing in the morning, Pup perked up on Nadia's lap and watched the goings on closely.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia was much too distracted with the kissing to notice Pup noticing the kissing. Or something.

But she was also thinking that if they did too much of this, there would be no sleeping, and she really did have to be able to get into her room at some point today, so she pulled back again after much too short not too long a moment.

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Good to know someone was sensible if it wasn't going to be the sensible butler.

"So." That wasn't breathy. No, not at all. "Sleep. We were going to do that. Which means we should lie down again." He picked Pup up off Nadia's lap and moved him to one of his favorite spots at the foot of the bed.

"Do you mind if I...?" There were hand gestures. Ones that might indicate his head being on the same end of the bed as hers.

[nadiathesaint]

Whatever the weird hand gestures meant, Nadia was pretty sure the answer was no, she wouldn't mind. She'd even let him have the pillow, this time. "Go ahead."

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

Being that Walter was no longer wee, he was pretty good at sharing. He lay down, scooting over toward the wall to give her as much room as was possible in a twin bed and patted the mattress next to him.

[nadiathesaint]

Well now. That sight alone deserved at least another kiss.

Down, girl.

Nadia smiled, then lay down facing Walter, giving him as much room as she could without falling off the bed. "Sueños dulces"

[walter-n-wires.livejournal.com]

"Good night. Morning. Whatever." Sleeping doesn't happen when you're smiling doofily at another person in your bed, so Walter closed his eyes, still smiling doofily.

It probably went away about the same time he fell asleep again.

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia did the shmoopie girly thing and didn't close her eyes for a bit, instead staying awake and watching Walter. She noticed the smile fading and frowned.

If he was having nightmares, she'd grill him about it, later.

She shut her eyes and fell back asleep.