The Séance • Marvel

Civil War: Chapter 07

For the following week, every day before work Vanessa sat down with Jason trying to get him to interact again. Vanessa had begun to get frustrated with herself as nothing seemed to work. She was ready to give up. "Just one more time. What do you feel when you talk to me like this? Like is there some sort of magic flowing through you or something?" "No, I see you as I see everybody else. As if you were a person standing before me, but nobody else can see you" said Vanessa as she got up from the floor to where Jason was sitting.

Suddenly she had an idea. "Give me your hand J." "What?" "Just do it. Maybe we need to start smaller first, contact and then from far away." Vanessa reached her hand out and waited for Jason to give her his. When he did she instantly felt the coldness that all ghosts had, the coldness the reminded her that they were dead.

Vanessa concentrated on using her magic and transferring some to Jason. At first, there was nothing then a dark blue light began to appear in the veins of her arms and traveled down to her hands and into Jason. The boy then began to have a dark blue glow to his entire body. Vanessa was sure that if somebody else had been in the room they would see a glowing ghost.

Jason, still holding onto Vanessa, moved to pick up one of the shoes that Vanessa had thrown and instead of going right through and was able to hold on to it. "It worked," Vanessa said surprised. Once Vanessa let go of Jason the shoe fell right through once again. "Ok, we'll work on that. But, I have to get to work right now."

All throughout her shift Vanessa felt tired and wanted to do nothing but sleep. She had come to the conclusion that in order to give Jason the ability to interact with the real world she had to transferred some of her magical energy to him. Which gave her an idea of how she could potentially give him a corporeal body without having to hold onto him.

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Turns out that yes she had the right idea in her theory. The problem was that she ended up transferring too much of her energy which meant that she ended up passing out from exhaustion at times. Dr. Madison had noticed that the girl had begun looking more and more tired. "Are your nightmares back, Vanessa? You seem tired" "They were never truly gone, just less frequent. But, uh... no they aren't bothering me as much anymore" Vanessa said.

And this was true, most nights the vein the world of the dead stayed closed and ghosts couldn't get through. But, there were still nights when it would suddenly open and Vanessa was awakened by a ghost trying to reach her. "Then what is it that has you so tired?" Dr. Madison asked. "Just working on a project, takes a lot of my energy."

Dr. Madison seems to be analyzing Vanessa's answer, "Tell me about this project, Vanessa." Vanessa smiled and said, "I'd rather not. It's still a work in progress." Vanessa couldn't exactly say that she was trying to get her dead best friend to interact with the real world. "Ok, then let's talk about something else. Like the accident that killed your best friend and his family," Dr. Madison said. "I don't want to talk about that either" Vanessa said. "You have to talk about something. So what will it be? Project or Accident?" "That's manipulation Doc," Vanessa said, Dr. Madison stayed silent waiting for her answer. "The second one," Vanessa said reluctantly.

Vanessa had been going to therapy for about two months now and every time that subject of the accident come up she would deflect it. "Tell me about what happened," Dr. Madison said. "You have the report of what happened," Vanessa said with a bit of bitterness in her voice. "Yes, but I want to hear it from you," she said. "I was five I don't exactly remember much from it," Vanessa said, trying to get the subject to change. "Well tell me what you do remember," Dr. Madison said.

Vanessa was silent for a minute, then she took a deep breath and began to speak. "The Hayes Family had invited me to go on a trip with them for the day. They were our neighbors, a few houses down from where I used to live. I remember we were driving to the Boardwalk, it wasn't a long drive from where we were coming from. Thirty minutes maybe. It was a trip they'd done many times, but this time they encountered a drunk driver. He was swerving through both lanes, zigzagging from one side to the other. Mr. Haynes tried to drive away from him, but he wasn't able to. The man hit the side of the car causing it to flip and roll a few feet. Mr. & Mrs. Haynes and Jason all didn't survive. According to the paramedics when they found me I didn't have a heartbeat, but they were able to successfully restart it" Vanessa explained. She kept her head down, playing with the rings on her fingers, not looking up throughout the story. She hated remembering it. She hated that she had survived and no one else did.

Dr. Madison looked at Vanessa and continued, "What happens next Vanessa?" "I woke up in the hospital. My parents were both there, but nobody else was. They then told me what had happened to the Hayes. And that's it. They all died and I didn't, don't know why" Vanessa said. "After the accident, was that when everything started to change with your family? Your relationship with your parents?" Dr. Madison asked. "Just my mom. My dad died about a year after that. I was always close to my mom not my dad. After the accident, I was different" Vanessa said, referring to being able to see ghosts, "They noticed and didn't like the change. Tried to get me to go back to the same way I was before. It went on for a few years, but then it got to the point where we couldn't have a normal conversation without there being screaming. Then she kicked me out of the house when I was nine, said that until I was my normal self again I wasn't welcomed in their home."

Dr. Madison took some notes in her clipboard and asked, "Do you blame the Hayes for everything that happened?" "What!? No of course not if anything I blame myself for everything. Why did I have to survive and not them? Look at how horrible I've lived my life. Losing me wasn't going to have an impact on the world, they had a lot more to give than I do" Vanessa says, her eyes filling up with tears.

This was the first time that she'd admitted to feeling guilty about surviving whiles the entire Hayes family did not. "It's called survivors guilt Vanessa. You have blamed yourself for years for something that you had no control over. The only way to cope is to accept what happened. To process the guilt, the grief, the fear, and the loss, but to move on eventually. If you keep living in this idea that you shouldn't have survived then you will never be able to move on, and you will always feel this way" Dr. Madison explained. "Now tell me what happens after your family kicked you out."

Vanessa was tired, she didn't want to continue talking about the past. "Do I have to talk about it?" She asked. "It will help you heal," Dr. Madison said. Vanessa was silent for a few minutes then continued, "I wanted to get as far away from them as possible so after I got a bit of money I bought a bus ticket and come to LA. I was homeless from the point when they kicked me out up until I was nearly fourteen, stayed on the streets or homeless shelters most of the time. Started doing drugs when I was twelve and then on forward, sometimes drinking as well."

"Then when I was fourteen this woman took me in, gave me a home, food, and clothes. Her name was Dabria, she didn't have any kids. She treated me as her own child, cared for me, and loved me. During that point I tried to stay clean for her, to show her my appreciation, but it was really hard and I failed. She even helped me get my high school diploma a few years early, because as it turns out I'm kind of smart" Vanessa said with a slight chuckle, "She was my mother in all senses. Loved me, took care of me. And never once did she treat me the way my biological mother did. She died just after I turned eighteen, left me her apartment and inheritance which I am eternally thankful for. After that my life was just a mess. Fell even harder into addiction, everything just got so bad, but you already know that."

Vanessa chose to leave out that she'd trained with The Avengers for a few months. Dr. Madison smiled at Vanessa. This was the most progress that they've made since they had been together. "Here is what we are going to do Vanessa, you can't change the past. No matter how hard you try. The past can't be erased, but the future has yet to be written. And that is exactly what I want you to do. I want you to write a list of goals that you have. It can be as small as getting to work early or as big as achieving that project you've been working on. Then you will see that there are so many good things that happen and that most of the time they surpass the bad" said Dr. Madison. Vanessa nodded and thanked her for her time.

As she was making her way home she remembers a quote that Dabria used to tell her. "You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending." And that was exactly what Vanessa would do.