Daria nodded twitching her ears to get them to stop ringing. The scene melted slowly as she began to wake up, Mike began to fade as she slowly slipped into conciousness. Her eyes parted slowly because the rising sun was so bright. She could feel Mike behind her and shivered a bit from the cold.

Mike, however, was still fast asleep, whatever dream he'd slipped into from hers (if any) a mystery. Out of reflex, he huddled her tighter as she shivered.

Daria tried to calm down. She glanced at the clock. It read 7am. It was much too early since they'd fallen asleep so late, but it was her birthday today and Daria wished she could rest a bit easier.

She slipped back into slumber.

When she fell asleep this time they were back on the lawn. It was completly still and she was thinking about General whitmore. She was well aware she was dreaming this time. And Mike came to stand beside her.

This time, it seemed to be Mike's nightmare... although his dreams evidently were much less organized than hers. The emotional content was high, but because of all his... lapses in control, his memories were much more fragmented and much more prone to mixing.

On the lawn lay bodies. Closest to him were soldiers, all killed in various telekinetic manners. Circled around them were other injured forms, some bruised and battered, some unconscious, and a few crippled. Near a tree were a few cowering at seemingly nothing, although on closer inspection they seemed insanely terrified of the sunlight.

Mike was shaking, trying to look away from each body, but finding a new one each time he turned his head.

Daria slipped her hand instinctivly in his.
She knew it wasn't real, but it disturbed her nonetheless.

"And this is..." she began "Not my dream. Where are we, Mike?"

Mike was beside himself turning away from Daria as he felt her touch him. He had a terrified look on his face as he scooted back, tripped over one of the soldiers, and scooted himself back on his arms.

He seemed to panic even more as he recognized her. "No, NO! Stay back, stay away! I don't want to hurt you!"

Daria reached out towards him as he fell, wincing. This wasn't a side of Mike she liked to see. SHe always wanted him to be happy.

"Mike, relax, its alright. It's just a dream." She approached him as she spoke, carefully stepping over the bodies with cat-like balance. "You're not going to hurt me, we went over this."

There really wasn't anywhere for him to go. He was on the ground, and he couldn't really shuffle himself backwards faster than she could advance. So he stopped, closing his eyes, and looking down at the grass.

"I didn't want to... Never wanted to hurt anyone... never wanted to kill anyone... why did they make me do it..." he whispered. Tears formed in his eyes, but turned to blood as they ran down his face. He noticed when he wiped the tear from his cheek, a horrified look crossing his face. It became apparent then that blood was really everywhere... his hands, his shirt, his clothes... it didn't come off of him when he touched anything, he so he couldn't wipe it off, though he frantically began to try to wipe it on the grass.

Daria knealt beside him. "Relax, Mike, relax." She said pushing the presence in her mind gently so that she could be closer to him mentally.

She began to teleport the stains like she teleported water from her hair so that soon, there was less blood and Mike could calm down. "Who made you do it, hunny?" she asked.

"They did... they all did... they hate so much, and it makes me hate... and then I can't stop. And when I wake up, I find out I did that," he whispered, pointing to the injured people in the outer circle. "Some of them deserve it... and I think it'll make it right... but they all come here, and I can't make them go away..."

Oddly, the blood wiped off wherever Daria touched him, but seemed to disappear rather than wipe onto her.

"They, you mean people? Like everybody? Mike, I thought you had that under control?" she asked puzzled. When she'd first met him, she knew he had heard or seen people's dreams..she had no i dea he acted on their desires.

"Them," he whispered, pointing at all the bodies around them. "I told them to stop, but they wouldn't leave me alone..."

He buried his head in his hands, "And they keep coming back... can't forget..."

Daria reached forward, immediatly understanding now. She pulled his head to her chest and let him cry.

"Mike, honey, it's not that bad. You were doing what you thought was right. And no one is mad at you." She looked at the soldiers. "There is a good chance that had you not done what you had done, amny good people would've been hurt." she brushed her hand thru his hair. "And it's behind you now, Mike. You don't have to be so hard on yourself."

"Didn't even think about it, just killed them," he whispered, his voice rasping slightly as he curled tighter, "I'm a monster... I'm a murderer... It was so easy, I just thought and they stopped..."

"Couldn't let them hurt you... can't let anything hurt you, not even me..."

Daria didn't really know what to do. It was so much easier for Mike to sooth her since he had his empath powers. He was still in her head though and she did the only thing she could do to get him to relax. She transmitted to him images of what her life at the mansion and in general would've been like had she not talked to him in the infirmary that night. She would've been closed up, angry and extremly lost.

"If monster means hero then I'm with you. I would never have been able to grow without you Mike. And" She put images of Sarah and Kitty into his mind, then Tricity. "It's quite possible that they wouldn't have lived."