OOC - Continued from "Finale"

The thunder boomed through the room and Tarin vaguely wondered if Alice was going to wake up again. It appeared that the one thing their little girl was afraid of, was thunderstorms. Tarin didn’t know where the fear had come from, or why it struck so deeply in her heart, but it was a plain and simple fact. It was also why she was curled up into his side.

The bed shifted and Tarin prepared himself to open his eyes and comfort a whimpering child…only to feel a much stronger hand shaking him. Tarin’s eyes opened slowly, to see Lee shaking him from much closer than she’d been when they went to sleep. The lightning struck again, illuminating the room and Tarin felt intense disorientation as he realized this wasn’t their bedroom in the mansion at all. His hand immediately when to Alice…only to find she wasn’t there.

“Alice?! Where are you baby?” he said, groggily, sitting up fully in the bed as the lighting continued to flash, the thunder continued to roll, and the rain continued to fall. A new noise joined the sounds, Tarin’s heart slamming against his ribcage as he tried to figure out exactly where he was and why Alice wasn’t there. She would never have gotten up and left the room during a thunderstorm this intense.

The lightning flashed again and Tarin looked around the room again, at Lee. Slowly, recognition filtered through the confusion and fear from Alice being absent as he woke up. They weren’t at the mansion…they were in their apartment. How though? Tarin thought as he looked around, when he’d gone to sleep just a little while before, Alice…his daughter…had been curled up beside him so he could protect her from the storm.

“Lee…where’s Alice?” he said, sudden emotion partially strangling his voice as he climbed from the bed to cross the room and flip on the lights. As the artificial lighting filled the room, Tarin’s eyes scanned back and forth, looking for any sign of the world he was sure he’d gone to sleep in. Nothing.

A hand went to his head, palm pressing against his forehead and Tarin shook his head, trying to clear the sleepy cobwebs that had formed there. They’d gone to the zoo that day…Alice was fully recovered from Haywire…they worked at the Mansion…Lee was in school…

Only they didn’t. They still owned the shop, they’d just moved into this apartment because of the salary they were being paid by Slate for working with the Kabal. They didn’t have a daughter…. But that couldn’t be…she’d been so real curled up next to him just a few moments before, Tarin knew it.

Back to the bed he went to sit on the edge, turning to look at Lee, his eyes still slightly wide with confusion and mild panic.

“There’s no way that was just a dream…” he said to her, “You were there too…we just went to bed a while ago. Alice was right here between us…please tell me I’m not crazy…”

Tarin didn't seem to be moving too fast, waking up too quickly, as she shook him, and with every fraction of a second that passed, Lee's panic and worry grew.

But then the lightning flashed again, and Lee's hand dropped away from her husband as her panic started turning into confusion. Only to have the panic flare up again as she heard Tarin sitting up beside her, heard his words. They were both looking for a little girl named Alice, yet how could that be? They were in their new apartment, she had just been sleeping in bed with Tarin.

They didn't have any kids.

Lee knew that was the reality, knew as she was looking around that that was the truth. So why did it feel like she had a daughter, why was she panicked that the girl hadn't been in bed there with them when she had woken up?

Tarin was moving now, heading across the room to flip the lights on as he asked her where Alice was. Lee couldn't even begin to decipher the emotions she heard in her husband's voice, just like she didn't realize that she was frowning, that a deep crease was forming between her eyebrows.

But if it wasn't real, what the hell was it? Both her and Tarin seemed to remember Alice being there daughter, yet there was no possible way. Closing her eyes, Lee ran her hand through her hair and just left her hand there, scratching her head slightly, until she felt Tarin sitting down on the bed again.

"I think," Lee said slowly, opening her eyes again to look over at Tarin as she pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "I think I must have somehow been in your dream," Lee continued, her voice still slow, still quiet. How else could you explain them both remembering something that clearly wasn't real.

But then Lee pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and her eyes dropped. "You really do want kids, don't you?" She asked, her voice barely audible now, as she glanced up at Tarin briefly through her lashes.

Lee knew, she knew that there had been a child, their child laying between them when they’d gone to sleep just a little while before. Tarin could tell by the look on her face as he sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hands through his hair. He was unsettled to say the least, they’d had a kid…a child.

Lee was affected too, Tarin knew it, knew from the way she was scratching her head and the way that the crease was forming between her brows. She spoke and Tarin shook his head, giving Lee a slightly incredulous look, “That was not like any dream I’ve ever had.” Tarin said, eyes unfocusing slightly as he thought, “I remember things Lee…things that aren’t possibly true…but they were real, I just know they were.”

It was all too real for Tarin and he swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump of emotion that kept rising in his chest. He felt like something was missing, and he was shaken up by it.

As he watched, Lee folded in on herself, sitting up in the bed and pulling her knees to her chest. Tarin had seen that before, it was a defensive posture. Lee always felt this way after she eavesdropped on his dreams, and Tarin couldn’t count out the possibility that all of that had been a dream. It was the only explanation, right?

Lee spoke again and Tarin’s head jerked in her direction. She was convinced it was all a dream, and that as a dream it was some kind of indication of his hopes and dreams. He thought for a minute and then shrugged his shoulders.

“Not right now.” He said softly, frowning across the room, then heaving a huge sigh as he kicked his legs around and leaned back against the headboard of their bed. “This dream though…I feel so empty right now. I guess that has to mean that I do at some point…” he shook his head and looked at the floor, "I'm sure it's just the dream...she felt so real."

Turning his head to look at Lee, Tarin’s heart went out to her. They’d had this discussion lots of times, and had always come to the same conclusion. Lee worrying that she was keeping Tarin from having something he needed and him assuring her that wasn’t the case. Only this time, Tarin realized that he really did want kids…at some point…at least right now he thought he did. He reached out his arm and draped it across Lee’s shoulders, scooting closer and dropping his head on her shoulder as he thought.

“It’s not a discussion that has to happen now Lee. Remember what Doc Prof said, anyway, there’s no reason to think that it couldn’t happen and that everything wouldn’t be fine.” Tarin paused, he didn’t want to push too much on Lee at once.

“Besides…” He added, slowly and carefully, “I’ve only just gotten you to myself, I don’t want to share you with anyone in the foreseeable future…and five or six years down the line, who knows where we’ll be or what we’ll want.”

Tarin experimentally closed his eyes and saw more things he was sure he remembered from another life and another time. That little face looking at him with his own blond’ish hair and Lee’s eyes.

“You’re sure it was just a dream?” he said, opening his eyes and looking at Lee, “She’d just gotten over being sick…really sick…she had powers that the virus brought out early.”

Tarin was right, it didn't really seem like a dream. But, they had both been sleeping, it couldn't possibly have been real, what else could it have been?

But, even though the details were fading, just like a dream after waking, even though Lee knew that she didn't exist, she was still feeling slight worry and panic because Alice wasn't there.

Tarin didn't react right away when she asked about him really wanting kids. He didn't react, so Lee's eyes slid closed, preparing herself for the worst. So she didn't see his shrugged shoulders, didn't see him shifting on the bed.

But she did hear his words: not right now. So he didn't want to have a kid right away, but he did want kids at some point. Taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment, her eyes still closed, Lee nodded once. He wanted kids. At least that's what he figured it meant with what he was feeling right then.

But then, why was she feeling what she was feeling? Lee didn't want kids, she hadn't wanted kids since she had found out about her powers, and before that she had really been too young to really know what having kids would mean.

So then why was she feeling all of this about some kid in a dream?

Lee's eyes were still squeezed closed, her arms still wrapped around her legs as she fought tears springing from some sort of combination of left over from the dream and the knowledge that Tarin wanted kids when she felt his arm draping across her shoulders.

"Doesn't mean I'll be able to do it," Lee replied softly, not opening her eyes yet. "Just because DocProf says that, doesn't mean ten years of being terrified of the thought of being pregnant is just going to disappear."

Tarin continued, though, and his next words actually made Lee smile a bit. At least they made her smile until he brought up the whole idea of maybe in five or six years.

"What else could it be?" Lee asked, only now opening her eyes to look at Tarin once more. What he was saying did sound familiar, but the details were already fading from her mind; about the only thing she did know for sure was that for some reason it felt strange that Alice wasn't there. "It's not like it could have actually happened."

She was squeezing her eyes together almost like she didn’t want to see him and Tarin sighed. Lee got this way every time the subject of children arose. She was so terrified of the prospect of what pregnancy would do to a baby that she never even allowed herself the chance to figure out what she really thought about the matter. Tarin couldn’t take back what he’d said though, not with how strongly he felt about it, not with the memory of his little girl curled into his side still fresh in his memory along with a thousand other things…feelings. Tarin shook his head again when Lee spoke.

“Then we’ll talk about it when it’s an issue.” Tarin said, “Don’t be silly about it, we’ve had this discussion before. Like I said, who knows what we’ll want, or what the world will be like, in five or six years. There’s always the option of adoption too. Stuff like that, things that we don’t need to worry about right now.” Putting things like this off didn’t usually help people get over them, but Tarin was still too shaken from that dream to be able to think about anything else.

At least she smiled for a moment when he talked about how he wanted her to himself for a while. The smile faded though at the idea that with time he’d want to re-open the discussion. She didn’t believe that the dream could have been anything other than a dream either.

Tarin frowned.

“I just don’t know Lee.” He said softly, “It wasn’t like the other times you’ve ended up in my dreams. This was a whole lifetime of memories.” Brown eyes narrowed as Tarin looked across the room again and a peal of thunder shook the windows of their bedroom. “Some of them are fading…but I can remember standing at the top of the Empire State Building…and going to the zoo. Lots of fear too, though. There was an epidemic. Is any of this familiar to you?”

They'll talk about kids, and being pregnant, and her being terrified, when the time came? Well, Tarin had said something like that before, the other time they had really talked about the possibility of having a kid.

And then Tarin brought up the whole idea of adoption. To be honest, that was something Lee had never even considered before that point. Always before, the idea of having kids had immediately brought to mind the terror of being pregnant.

Before she could really think much more into that, Tarin continued, mentioning how it didn't feel like the other times that she had managed to get into his dreams. And apparently he had all kinds of memories. Going to the zoo, the Empire State Building...

"I don't know," Lee said quietly, slowly, a frown crossing her face. The longer that she was awake, the more things were fading. Of course, the Empire State Building and the zoo sounded familiar, but they had already gone there a few times.

But despite the fading memory of the dream, or whatever it might have been, the feelings were still there for Alice.

"I really don't know, Tarin," Lee said again, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she finished speaking.

Now that the shock and panic were subsiding and she was just sitting there, a yawn broke through. Then she glanced back at Tarin as she dropped her hand after trying to stifle the yawn. "Do you think you're going to be able to sleep again tonight?"

She wasn’t immediately flipping out over the idea of adoption like she had with the idea of actually having a child of their own. It was a step in the right direction. Getting Lee to think about parenting in a positive light was the first step in convincing her that there was a possibility for them to do it the real way. Tarin’s eyes visibly widened when he realized what he was actually thinking about. Five or six years down the line…five or six years. He corrected himself, then snuggled more into Lee, snaking an arm between her curled up legs and her stomach.

She didn’t know…Tarin assumed she was talking about the dream. About Alice, about the whole lifetime Tarin had been dreaming about just a few minutes before. Some of it was fading, and he nodded his head. “Yeah…” he said, but couldn’t finish the sentence because…how do you finish that sentence? Again, Tarin tried to figure out exactly how he could have such strong feelings, such strong connections to a figment of the rapid firing neurons that dreams were made of.

It was true though, that’s how Tarin felt . Lee reiterated that she didn’t know and he squeezed her, pulling them back down to the pillows. “I don’t know either…” he said, but somewhere deep down Tarin knew that a pair of grey eyes were going to be haunting him for a long time. Lee asked if he was going to be able to sleep and Tarin nuzzled into her shoulder, heaving a small sigh.

“I think that’s the only cure for this weirdness. Plus it’s raining…a person has to sleep when it rains.” He said, squeezing Lee yet again, “Except I was a moron…and I turned that light on all the way across the room.”

Yes, Tarin really thought he could sleep again, and yes the cheery mood he’d just put on was a little contrived. Dwelling on this point was only going to lead to tears and fears, and there was no reason for that. Not when they didn’t need to deal with it at the present. There was always the future, and just like Tarin kept telling Lee. Who know what they’d want five or six years down the line?

After she had said that she didn't know, Lee heard Tarin agreeing, not sounding quite as convinced, quite as sure as he had been before.

But then Lee felt Tarin squeezing her, pulling her back to the pillows, and she couldn't help but smile slightly as she felt them hit, and she snuggled into him. This was why she had asked about going back to sleep, because even though she had herself curled up into a ball, she had wanted to feel Tarin. And he was nuzzling her shoulder, too, as he squeezed her again.

And, apparently because it was raining, they had to sleep. Lee wasn't exactly sure how much sense that made, but at the moment she wasn't going to worry about it too much; she really did kind of want to go back to sleep, worry and think about what the dream, or whatever it was, meant the next day. There certainly were times when procrastination could be a good friend.

"Well, I wouldn't call you a moron for that," Lee told Tarin with a slight rolling of her eyes, a small smile on her face. "But if it's that much of an issue, I'll go turn off the light." Wiggling slightly, Lee managed to become disentangled from Tarin's arms and slipped out of bed. Only to hear some slight grumbling behind her as she walked across the room.

Flipping the switch once she reached the far side of the room, Lee frowned into the sudden darkness. Despite everything she had said about it just being a dream, despite everything she knew she still felt about even just the thought of being pregnant, she couldn't help but feel that there should have been someone else there, if not in the room with them because of the thunderstorm, at least in the other bedroom.

Making her way back to the bed, Lee crawled in with Tarin once more, snuggling against him, her head nuzzling against his shoulder, even as there was still a slight frown on her face.

It was just a dream, she told herself again. Very strong and realistic, but just a dream. That's it, because really, what else could it have been? Taking a breath, Lee settled down to try and fall asleep again.