In Dreams

by Erin Griffin

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Rating: PG

Pairing: You'll figure it out soon enough...

Summary: The worst nightmare could only mean that what you saw in your unconsciousness isn't real.

Disclaimer: Nope, my parents weren't cruel enough to name me WB.

Author's Note: ... I think I just confused myself...

All was quiet. Well, that isn't quite true. I hear the wind blow outside, passing my window in a soft breeze. I hear small noises of the night: various people walking on the sidewalk, stray cats howling out their pain, laughter coming from the neighbors' apartment next door. I hear my own heartbeat as I wait for her. So truthfully, all is not quiet, as the world still turns; it is even turning to me, even if it revolves around this moment... around her. She's late. She's almost always late. I always tell her that she should buy a watch, but she never does. Finally I see her. She is so quiet in arriving, which isn't at all like her. Normally I could hear her arrival, even if she is a block away. That is the advantage to having my powers. I guess I was wrapped up in my thoughts this time.

"How are you liking your new apartment?" she asks as she approaches me. I feel her presence as if she is touching me, but she has yet to come within a 6-foot radius of me. I shrug as if I didn't care for her question.

"It stinks. Whomever owned it before me liked to drink, and I'm assuming that they couldn't hold their liquor half the time." I say, allowing her inside. I know she can't smell it. She has this look upon her face that says so clearly.

"Then why did you move? I thought you liked living above the Dark Horse," she says. I stare at her, and I can tell she knows what my answer is going to be.

"You know why." I whisper.

"You were trying to hide from me." She's hurt- I know she is, but that doesn't stop the next words from escaping my lips.

"Maybe I was." I say.

"You know you can't. You know I will always come." She lowers her voice. "You know that you will always want me to come." She is right, but there is no way I am going to tell her that. She is never going to know that I spend my days thinking of her, wondering what she does during the day and if she thinks of me at all. I know the rules, and so I automatically know that she doesn't. At least, not in the ways I think of her.

"Yeah, so I've learned," is all I can say. I turn away from her as I try to still my heart. It feels as if my insides were on fire and no matter what I did, no matter what I told myself, it would never go away. "You will always torture me this way. Soft and slow." I mutter. I know she heard me. Even though she doesn't have the powers I do, she always seems to have the good hearing I have, or maybe here, in this moment of time, she can just read me more than she can in any other.

"Not torture you. Never to torture you."

"Then why must we have these... these rules? Why can't you just love me? Out there?" I point around me, and I know she knows my meaning.

"Because you wouldn't love me any other way." She blurts with a hint of sadness.

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do." she insists.

"I have changed since this first started. I see you in every face I see. What do I have to do? What do I have to say to make you believe that I need you during the time you're not here?" I ask her. She doesn't speak for many seconds, and my nerves twist within me as I wait for her reply.

"You don't have to say anything, Helena." She approaches me, and kisses me softly. "Just let it be. Morning will come as it always does, you will live your life as you always do, and I will be back tomorrow night... as I always am." She says. She takes my hand and I allow her to. She kisses it ever so softly. I close my eyes and concentrate on the touch, but my heart has given up, almost as if it had given the ultimatum of all or nothing. Now that my whole being knows that it will be nothing, my soul doesn't wish to try to enjoy it 'while it lasts'. I suppose I want to get out while I can before it gets out of control- or shall I say more so- and I won't be able to handle the consequence later on. Her fingers press against my lips. "Shhh." She says as if to silence my head. For a split second, it works as my mind concentrates on her pulse; it seems to pound in a slow and steady rhythm against me. She is calm, and I envy the fact that I could not- no matter how I try- make myself the same. Do I not make her feel the same way? Does her heart not pound in every crevice of her chest at the mere mention of my name as mine does for her? I feel my face fall as the thought that maybe she doesn't even feel for me now crosses my mind yet again since we have been together like this.

She is a phantom. I know this. I always have, but why am I thinking of her as if she is real now? This is a dream. I do not know when exactly they started, but they are here. No shape in the reality I know is this cruel to hurt me like this. How could I not have known that this twisted fantasy was hurting me until now? It is all a dream, Helena. I know this is. It has to be. It has to be.

*Sticks tongue out at everyone* Oooh, cruelty. I let you decide the paring, even though I said that you'll find out.... hmmm... That has to be DeeGee's best mischievous thing she's done yet...