Playing It By Heart: A J.C. Fanfiction Saga

Chapter Eight: In Dreams

Tires squealing. Spectators gasping.

A thunk. Then nothing.

Emma screamed.

Her legs turned to rubber, and she couldn't move.

So she screamed again. And again.

Finally her legs moved, and she ran through the crowd. An arm tried to stop her. but she caught a glimpse.

The body.

Emma screamed again.

J.C. stumbled out of his bed and dashed into her room where Emma had thrown off her blanket, curled up in a fetal position and lay shrieking. He came to her side and grabbed her hand. "Emma!" he called. "Wake up!"

Emma's face was still contorted, and she continued to writhe and scream.

"Emma!" J.C. yelled louder, shaking her shoulders. "You're dreaming! Wake up!"

Emma bolted up in a cold sweat. She blinked and looked around the darkened room. She swung around to see J.C. holding her shoulders. He examined her expression.

"It was a dream," he said gently. "You're here. You're safe. I'm here, OK?"

Emma, drifting into consciousness, shook her head and began to cry. "It really happened. It's not going away," she wailed through tears. "I still see it."

J.C. climbed onto the bed and held her the way he held Mia the night before, cradling her on his lap.

"You can cry, it's OK," he said, stroking her hair. "I'm here."

And Emma began to cry again, letting the horrors sink into her core, defiantly daring the nightmares to come forward so she could rebuke them. She wasn't alone. She would make it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For three nights Emma had terrible nightmares. Each night had a little less detail, as she struggled to forget and get her mind to other things. Each time J.C. came into her room and lay behind her, holding her protectively as he'd held the baby, until she fell asleep, then crept back into his own bed.

"Think about something else," he would urge into her ear. "Someplace peaceful, where you can't get hurt and Kevin can't get hurt."

It was then that she dreamt of a sunflower field. A soft summer wind. And she, in a sundress that swished around her knees and J.C. in a cornflower-blue shirt that made his eyes luminous. They walked in the field and just talked. About everything and nothing, like they always did. They laughed and held hands. Emma was happy.

When that dream arose, Emma's nightmares began to subside. During the day, as she sat around the kitchen table with Taryn and J.C., she would occasionally space out, and a horrific image would flash through her mind again. She had a picture of Kevin that Laina had given her to make her remember him alive and smiling and not the way she saw him that day. And whenever her eyes darkened, J.C. steered conversation toward her so that her mind would leave the murky memory.

Those first few mornings, Taryn made brunch and J.C. had fun coaxing Emma out of bed. J.C. was a sound sleeper himself, but Emma was worse. It was usually noon by the time she decided -- or J.C. decided for her -- to get out of bed. When she stumbled out, J.C. and Taryn were halfway through their meal, and she'd slowly wake up as they chatted animatedly to her. J.C. learned most of Emma's history this way, and was fascinated at filling in missing pages of the girl he knew.

"Emma," J.C. called as she walked to the refrigerator to get a Coke. "You never told me you stalked your residential advisor."

"Of course not," Emma said playfully. "Why would I ever want to tell anyone that? But you know, if you saw him, you'd stalk him too. He was all that and a bucket of chicken."