7:46 PM 08/01/2004 {Summer of 2004}
Lincoln
Things had begun to progress, I noticed. Ms. Perry had begun to fill me in about how the paperwork was going smoothly, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the PRT was still going to open the door one day, and take me away, except this time, I wouldn't be able to run away.
It was an ever-present idea in my head, and Ms. Perry said it was natural, and called a survival instinct, and that it was normal. I didn't quite believe her.
I didn't think that others had nightmares like mine. I missed the break the medicine gave me from them, but Ms. Perry had told me that they lost effectiveness the more I used them. Peaceful sleep was becoming something of the past.
The sounds of running footsteps, the smell of the ocean, and that damn fucking whistling tune often played over and over in my nightmares.
Sleep was quickly becoming the biggest challenge, but aside from all of that, I think the worst feeling I had, was missing Patty.
She and I had been nearly inseparable, always finding ways to escape the foster home, or set up signs for the others, or just... just being there for each other.
It had been to the point that the everyone would always think that if she were someplace, I wasn't too far behind. I remembered this one time I'd stayed at school reading in the library for as long as I could convince the librarians to let me, only to find a pissed off Patty at home, surrounded by half the foster home staff, because and I quote;
"He'd turn up for her eventually"
The memory managed to worm out a laugh, and I desperately tried to hold on to that feeling, before it was gone, and the near-numbing levels of exhaustion towards everything came back. My mind wandered back to happy times with Patty, but...
She was dead. I had to get that through my thick skull.
Whoever she had become, it wasn't the Patty I had known when we were growing up.
I felt the phantom hand of hers caress my cheek, and I couldn't move.
Shivers ran down my neck, and my breathing stopped.
I began to panic as all I could manage was short, shallow breaths. I couldn't breathe.
The cold realization that I couldn't call for help began to sink in as I fought to breathe. Yet, past the instinctual levels of panic shooting through my head, I felt the feeling of exhaustion settle over me, like a blanket.
The darkness that had welcomed me before returned, it's cold, dark arms wide open, as I heard distant echoes of happy giggling ringing somewhere, reminding me a little of how Patty used to laugh, when I told her about Mr. Thornwood's wacky adventures with his cat as we hung out after school.
I felt a smile bloom on my face, as everything started to become a little fuzzy.
But no. I felt reality shift into focus as I felt my head begin clear from the fuzziness, a wet sensation around my mouth, and the sides of my face itching slightly as something brushed on them.
My eyes focused, and I looked straight into Ms. Perry's red face. When she noticed I was better, she leaned back, her face full of fear, as she practically deflated in relief.
"Uh… What happened?" I asked, the alien sensation of being torn from my past, the happy past, into this dim present, made it hard to think.
"I think you were having a panic attack. It was partly my fault, I apologize." She said in a flat voice. "I thought by lowering your dosages, we could wean you off of the medication- You've been showing signs of dependency, and I wanted to nip it in the bud. I… didn't expect things to go so horribly." She explained, her eyes downcast.
Wait.
So she'd been the reason I'd been having nightmares?
It took a minute for the anger stuck in me to start to thaw, but as it did, I felt my mind cloud over, as I struggled between trying to blame her, or to ask her for help.
I felt so lost.
I wanted to, get angry, I mean. But… I had seen some of the older kids in the foster home go down that road, and it was terrifying, and… she had saved my life, I think.
My pent-up frustration started to evaporate.
"I… couldn't breathe." I said, shuddering. The feeling of fighting my own body to breathe, and losing, was thoroughly burned into my mind.
I couldn't help but take in deep breaths, savoring the feeling.
"You'd been nearly unconscious for nearly twenty seconds, so I had to perform CPR as fast as I could." She muttered impatiently, ignoring the flinch I couldn't control as she rested her hands gently on my shoulders, though her voice sounded strained as she tried to make me understand the full scope of what that meant.
"Look. Irreparable damage is done by the thirty second mark. I had felt your fear the moment the panic attack must've started, but... it was so mixed in with happy feelings, that I thought you'd been dreaming." She said, her eyes turning misty, and her nose turning a bit pink as she struggled to look composed.
"Your powers... they mutated a panic attack. Made it stronger- more real, I think. Fuck! I should've been more careful!" She cursed, her shout echoing in the dark, empty room.
I hesitated, but reached out to her back, doing something that Patty would do when I felt bad- rubbing small circles on my back.
That seemed to make it even worse, as tears began to drip as she looked distantly into the bed-sheets.
"I...I've always relied on my power to determine how to help my patients…. What if this isn't the first time this has happened? What if I'd ignored you, and waited just another minute?" She mumbled to herself as she abandoned any attempt to compose herself, leaning a little more into my palms.
"I'm alright." I whispered, trying my best to make her feel better.
Truthfully, I didn't know what the hell I was feeling. I felt a little numb again. The anger was pushed even further down than before, and the rest of my mind still trying to process what was happening. Part of me couldn't believe she was getting upset over me.
"No!" She nearly shouted, voice hoarse.
"I was this-" She held her thumb and index finger centimeters apart "- close to ignoring you. And you know what saved your life?" She asked rhetorically, ignoring my lack of response.
"What saved your life was the afterthought that 'Maybe I should check it out." She said in a mockery of her own voice, filled with something that was beginning to feel familiar. Self-hatred.
I sat up, setting aside my own jumbled mess of a mind, and just… ignored the signals in my mind screaming 'danger!', and gave her a stiff hug.
She was one of the only people, I think, who really cared, at least in that moment, about me. My safety had been the center of her world, at least for a second, and that was just… unbelievable, hard to understand.
She relaxed even more, sagging against me as she took in deep, shuddering breaths.
Her hair tickled my nose, and I couldn't describe it, but her smell helped me feel better.
Safe, I think.
So, we both sat there, before her breaths slowed, and evened out as the hiccups slowly went away.
She was asleep.
I felt my own eyes droop as her warmth reminded me of the radiator we'd had back in the foster home, something I'd curled around during the winter, the hard wood floor around it having always been warm, unlike the rest of the cold, clammy floors everywhere else in the foster home.
I held her a little tighter, before going to sleep, myself.
I didn't have nightmares.
{A/N: The first reviewers, or commenters (AO3 exclusively), will be given a shoutout in the extra chapters, should there be one next week!
- R.M out! }