Tarin was making his way towards the car, every step seeming like a monumental effort as he did so, his whole body starting to tremble as he knew what he was going to have to do. This, in particular, was hard. Why had he shared so much detail about why he was scared of tight spaces? It was going to be hot in there, the air would be heavy. He stumbled a step as his legs tried to make him stop.

He couldn’t stop, they were there, the people who always ‘took care of things’ when something didn’t go right with a test, or if someone came back after something had happened in public. Tarin glanced at the nondescript man, did they want him to fail? The man did nothing but look back and Tarin took another step forward, stomach rolling over inside him.

Suddenly she was there. There was something in the back of Tarin’s mind, he should know who this was. Had she been there when he’d found the group? In the crowd the night he’d been initiated?

She’d been there other times like this, but she…hadn’t? The woman spoke, saying he didn’t have to do this and Tarin turned, subconsciously stepping between her and the people from leadership. They weren’t moving though, it was like they were frozen, just standing.

What was happening? Was she a mutant from another group?

This wasn’t really happening? He didn’t need to do this? He needed to wake up?

Wake up? He was awake…

”Lee?” The name came to him just as the dream shifted again.

This time, Tarin knew where he was. He also knew it was a memory. He was standing outside the warehouse as it burned. He was as he’d been that day, he could feel his hair brushing his collar and down around his face, curling slightly like it did when he let it grow. He’d been nineteen or twenty when it had all come down.

Normally when he dreamed about this he could feel the heat, the pain from the mild burns…sometimes he couldn’t get away. Right now though, it was like he was standing outside the whole event, watching like a bystander. At the thought something changed and Tarin ran a hand through his hair. It was like it was now, he wasn’t trapped as that terrified kid anymore and he sighed.

”Are you really here?” he said, looking around for Lee. She had mentioned a shared dream thing before, was it happening again? Was she just a figment of his imagination? Tarin was exhausted…if you could be exhausted in a dream, but he realized now that what had happened tonight hadn’t been nearly as bad as it usually was.

Lee noticed as she stood there facing Tarin that the people 'watching' weren't really moving. They hadn't really reacted to her bumping into them, to a stranger interrupting their 'test'.

Lee also noticed that Tarin had placed himself between her and the group. But he just looked confused.

Eventually, Tarin figured something out, asking her name. Only for the dream to change yet again. Could she not get some stability in the dream so that she could actually get Tarin to wake up?

This time when the dream stopped again, she was standing in front of a building fire. It…was intense.

Lee also didn't know where Tarin was until she heard him speak. Turning in that direction, Lee saw him standing about ten feet away.

"I am," Lee replied with a nod as she walked over to him. "But none of this is actually happening. You need to wake up, Train."

She was actually there…

Tarin mulled that over for a few moments as he watched the building burn. This was a pretty incredible development. Lee seemed a lot more worked up than he was at the moment too, ”I know, it’s a dream, right?” he said softly, ”Well, a nightmare, flashback, whatever.”

Looking over at Lee, Tarin frowned slightly.

”Could you always do this?” he asked, wondering how they’d never talked about it before, ”Or is this some kind of weird shared dream thing like the one you told me about?”

If it was strange to be having this conversation right now like this, Tarin hadn’t noticed.

Lee came to a stop beside Tarin, his face lit up orange by the flames. As he stood there watching the building fire.

Calmly.

That was not something that Lee had seen yet since entering the dream. He also seemed to now be realizing that this was a dream rather than him actually living through the events that had been depicted.

"It is, yes," Lee confirmed Tarin's question. "But you weren't waking up like you normally do. And it sounded like it was getting bad…"

So she had decided to invade his dream in hopes of being able to wake him up.

Finally, Tarin turned to look at her, an unsurprising frown on his face as he asked more questions. "Always?" Lee repeated as she looked back at Tarin. "I don't know. It first happened with Kevin's father. But it really only happened enough times for me to learn how to not do it. And hasn't in probably 15 years."

It was a dream and Lee hadn’t been able to wake him.

Huh.

Why he was so calm now, Tarin didn’t know. Usually these kinds of dreams left him sweating and shaking in the middle of the night. Maybe that would be the case when he actually woke up, but there was something grimly satisfying about watching that building burn while not being a part of what had happened.

What kind of person did that make him?

”It’s always bad. I don’t know what was different” he said grimly, shaking his head.

Lee was explaining now. She didn’t know if she’d always been able to do this, but it had happened before. With Kevin’s Father the first time. Did that mean Lee had done this often?

They’d talked about everything else, why hadn’t Lee told him about this? It didn’t really matter or bother Tarin, but he was curious.

”Thanks for making it easier…” Tarin said, looking over at Lee, ”Normally it all has to play out…” They’d even skipped some steps tonight.

”Guess you probably want to get out of here….” he said a moment later, looking once more at the burning building.

It really didn't surprise Lee that these dreams, these nightmares were always bad. With how she had seen elevators affect him so many years later, things had to have been bad. She hadn't needed to hear details, or to see it, to know that.

When Tarin turned to her again and thanked her for making the nightmare easier, Lee just looked at him for a few moments. This had been easier? Unless it was because she had let him out sooner than what would normally happen, Lee couldn't easily imagine how things in the dream could have gotten worse for Tarin.

"Your welcome?" Lee said, a little uncertainly. "Though I would have much preferred being able to wake you a lot sooner."

As Tarin turned to look at the fire again, he guessed that she wanted to get out of 'there', as in his head. Her? What about him?

"I don't really like doing this," Lee admitted. Then she shook her head. "You don't want to wake up anymore?"

The look on Lee’s face when he thanked her for making things easier made Tarin shake his head, ”I told you I was f*ck*d up.” he said with a sad smile as she responded.

Waking up sooner would have been nice, but there wasn’t much that Lee could have done about it. In fact, as he’d said earlier, she’d made things monumentally earlier.

She didn’t like doing this? Who would? Tarin couldn’t help but think as he watched the flames and Lee asked him another question.

Did he want to wake up? Part of Tarin wanted to say no. Maybe if he stayed asleep the rest of the night would be dreamless. That wasn’t very fair to Lee though, not after everything she’d just seen.

”You’re right.” Tarin said, unsure for a moment how exactly he was going to just…wake up.

”Gonna do that now….” .

And he just…woke up.

It wasn’t an easy thing to do and Tarin had to force his eyes open. After a moment though, he was awake…and yeah…the shakiness and the sweating, were definitely there. He was also facing the wall. Blinking a moment at that, Tarin shifted back to his other side so he was looking at Lee.

”Was that real?” he said softly, figuring if it hadn’t been and Lee was still asleep she would never know.

Lee frowned in return when Tarin responded. Yes, he'd told her that, and yes she'd figured that out from some of the things he'd told her. But

But so was she, if in different ways.

That was probably something better to talk about once they were both actually awake.

Though it did look like Tarin wasn't sure if he did want to wake up
After a few moments, he finally agreed that he would wake up.

The next thing Lee knew, she was opening her eyes, back to sitting in the bed in the darkened bedroom. Pulling her hand back from Tarin's shoulder, Lee sat and waited for him to wake up.

"Was that real?"

"It was," Lee admitted, her voice also soft in the stillness of the night. "At least as real as dreams are. I'm sorry. I just…you weren't waking up, and I wasn't sure how else to get you out of the nightmare…"

It had been real.

Lee was sitting up and looking at him in the dark and Tarin pushed himself up into a seated position as well, leaning back against the wall. It was cool and felt good and as Lee spoke, Tarin shook his head.

”I know the dream was real…” he said, ”I’ve had it a lot over the years…I was trying to find out if you were actually there.”

It was awkward now. What Lee had seen…been a part of…what’s not something he’d even thought about sharing with anyone before. And she was apologizing?

“Please don’t apologize…” he said, ”I should be apologizing. I never wanted you to know all of that…” Lee hadn’t seen everything, she’d helped him figure out that it was a dream before the last two things had happened. Tarin knew that the spirits made Lee uncomfortable, so he thanked heaven for small miracles because the last two things had involved a lot of spirits.

“Anything you need to know?” he asked dully across the dark space.

Lee nodded when Tarin told her that he'd had that dream many times over the years. The nightmare. That made sense. She just hoped that he had had it less frequently as the years went on. "Yes, I was actually there," Lee said, her voice dropping down into a whisper.

Then Tarin was telling her not to apologize, and Lee shook her head. "I know you didn't," Lee told Tarin as she looked straight at him. "And that's exactly why I should be apologizing, Tarin. I was trying to wake you up, but I still intruded into your dream, in your head, and I'm sorry for that."

Was there anything she needed to know? Needed? There were definitely things she wanted to know, such as how, why had he been so willing to climb into that car trunk all on his own?

But he hadn't chosen to share any of what she had just seen.

"No," Lee said instead. "Unless there's something that you want to tell me. Except," Lee paused a moment before continuing, a harder tone creeping into her voice. "If by chance you ever do see any of them, you'll tell me."

Tarin frowned when Lee insisted on apologizing for what she had done, then shook his head.

“Nobody ever came for me.” he said, trying to find words for something that didn’t even make sense to him.

Lee felt like she had somehow intruded or crossed some kind of line. ”You seemed surprised, but that was so much easier, even if it didn’t start that way…so, don’t apologize.”

He paused and shook his head again, so many feelings rolling around as Tarin tried to figure out exactly what he felt or if there was anything he wanted to tell Lee.

Would he tell her if he ever saw one of them? ”Of course I will.” he said, ”But what if it’s them on this side?”

After that Tarin paused for a second, was there anything he wanted to tell Lee?

”It’s hard for me to talk…it’s not so hard to answer.” especially not direct questions from Lee. It had been like that from early on in the time they’d known each other.

”Are you okay?” he asked. He had lived it, but that was different from seeing it. Witnessing it. It was worth asking at least.

Lee didn't understand how there could have been so many people in that house when Tarin had been beaten and shoved into that closet, how he had yelled and screamed, couldn't understand how he could have screamed the way he did in the middle of the night when he was shoved in that box, and nobody had ever come. How could no one have come any of those times?

It was disgusting, and Lee wished that she could somehow go back and actually save a young Tarin, not simply help wake him from the nightmare.

Tarin agreed to tell her if he ever saw someone from then, but brought up a good point of what if it was this world's version of them. "We'll figure that out when it's an issue," Lee said simply.

It was easier for Tarin to answer rather than to simply talk. Lee nodded her understanding, but before she was able to ask anything, say anything, Tarin asked if she was okay.

Again, Lee just stared at Tarin for a moment. It was his past, his nightmare, she had simply intruded. Lee knew that she had been heartbroken by the state she'd seen Tarin in inside the dream, and the rage she felt at the people who had done that was even stronger than the day she had first learned about it. But was she ok?

"I knew you had been young, but seeing it…" Lee started speaking before she had even figured out how she was feeling. "You looked like you could have been one of Kevin's friends."

Lee paused, taking a slightly shaky breath. Though he had been older than Kevin when that had all started, seeing Tarin like that had really hit her with the fact that Tarin really hadn't been all that much older. In another world, that could have been, could be, Kevin.

"None of that should have happened to you. To any of you."

They’d deal with it if it was an issue. Tarin really didn’t think that it was going to be an issue, if his memory was correct then everyone who had been remotely attached to the leadership had been a white afterburn in the eyes after the girl had turned into a mini sun. Why they’d all gathered in one place, Tarin still didn’t know. It was a question that had bothered him for months, if not years after the fact. Still, in all the time after the fire, Tarin had never seen a single one of them.

When he asked Lee if she was okay, Tarin noticed that it took her quite a while to speak again. Was he saying the wrong things again?

When Lee did speak, he pressed his lips into a thin line, ”That’s why I got so upset the day after the danger room…” he admitted. At the time, Tarin hadn’t been able to put it into words, but this was it. Suggesting to do anything like that to Kevin had hit such a visceral chord in him that he’d completely shut down.

It shouldn’t have happened to him? Or any of them?

”No…” he said, ”But it did…”

Lee had known that what she had said about Kevin that day would have upset him. That had been Lee's entire point in saying it: to upset Tarin to realize the point she was trying to make to him.

It had hurt herself to say those things, but now, after seeing what happened in Tarin's dream, it was even worse.

Scooting over in the bed a bit, closer to Tarin, Lee reached her arms out to hug him. "I know there's nothing I can do to change it," Lee whispered. "And what I wouldn't give to be able to. But I wish I could make it easier for you now…"

Lee just sat there, hugging Tarin with her eyes closed for a good minute before finally pulling back to look at him. "But why in the world were you going to that car willingly?"

This was part of why Tarin had never pushed to give Lee details about what had happened to him when he’d been a teenager in his New York. Tarin had known how upset Lee would get and because there was nothing that could be done to change what had happened to him, he didn’t want Lee to have to try to wrap her head around it all. Now they were there though and she was reaching her arms out to hug him and Tarin wrapped his around her and held her close, dropping his chin onto her head as they talked.

She wished she could make it easier for him now? At that, Tarin shook his head, ”God Lee…you have no idea.” he said softly, ”My life has never been this easy.” She really didn’t know.

They sat like that for a few moments and Tarin relaxed against her a bit, loosing his arms as she pulled back to look at him, and asked why he’d been willing to enter the car on his own.

“Did you see all the people?” he asked softly, waiting for her to answer to the affirmative.

”They oversaw all of the tests. They’d decided a while back that if I fought, that indicated failure.”

“I knew what failure meant.” he said, tightening his arms slightly, “I’d seen people fail their tests.”

Tarin was quiet for a few moments again, “I don’t know how I did it….”