Trust Me - a Sophitz story

Part 7

This one is dedicated to hpfangirl, because Sophitz is amazing!!

Chapter 7:

Fitz woke up to a beam of bright sunlight in his eyes and a quiet sobbing noise coming from around his chest. Looking down groggily, he spotted the top of a blonde head. Instantly he was alert. He tried to sit upright, but the small, thin arm around his waist held him down with surprising authority. "Sophie, I'm not going anywhere, I'm just sitting up," he whispered to the (significantly smaller) form of his girlfriend. Noticing that she wasn't awake, he gently shifted her grip to his hand, realizing she wasn't wearing her gloves when a rush of energy and power swept through his mind.

Slowly sliding upright, he pushed his back against the side of a wing-backed chair and pulled the now shaking Sophie closer to him. When he lifted her into his arms, she woke up slightly, punching him once in the shoulder as she thrashed against her nightmare, before falling still again. Deciding that Sophie was not enjoying her dream at all, Fitz slipped past her blocking so fast he barely had time to think and plunged into Sophie's terror.

Darkness pushed against him, sickly sweet blackness filling his nostrils, and voices looming in his ears, taunting him. Images of Sophie's human family, surrounded by everblaze, being tortured by Fintan, seared by Brant. Attacked with a melder by two strangely familiar figures in Neverseen cloaks.The figures turned, and the hoods fell back. It was Keefe. And Alavar? Next, the figures on the floor shifted, changing to Silvenly, Grayfell, and a baby alicorn, then Grady and Edaline, then Dex, then Bianca, Tam and Linh, and finally, stopping on him. The figure on the ground, the other Fitz, was bloody and tortured, bored and bruised, his normally bright teal eyes dull and hopeless, one eye swelled shut. "You're too late Sophie," The Keefe figure laughed in her face. "You're too late to save him, like you're always too late to save the people you love." Fitz, the broken Fitz surrounded by everblaze looked up at Sophie. "You failed me. You couldn't save me. You were too weak. To helpless. All you're good for is putting people in danger." Slowly, the world turned black, the everblaze leaving trails of light behind her eyes, and all that remained of the nightmare was the echoes of Brant, Alavar and Keefe laughing.

Pulling his consciousness free from the twisted dreams, Fitz breathed in the crisp air and daylight like a drowning man. Realizing the only thing he could do was wake Sophie up, Fitz tried shaking her shoulders, gently, calling her name, and playing with her hair. (The last one may have been his way of concentrating while think of how to pull her from the nightmares, but you never know.) Finally, resolving that it was the only way, Fitz transmitted to her subconscious and allowed himself to be pulled back into the darkness. But instead of watching the images, he blocked his mind to them, and instead started transmitting, and following paths of love, hope and happiness through her mind, searching for a way to wake her up. "Sophie!," he called, loudly, as he wandered through her mind, trapped by the nightmares. "SOPHIE! Wake up! Sophie!"

"What??!!? What's happening? Where? Who? I... Fitz...," Sophie shouted, her panicked voice falling to a whisper as she realized who was holding her. "What happened?" She asked again, hoping nothing bad had occurred while she slept.

"Nothing. I woke up because you started crying in your sleep, and when I couldn't wake you up, I entered your mind. I might have... seen your nightmare?"

Rubbing away the beginning of a headache, Sophie curled up in Fitz's lap. "I'm safe?"

"Yes."

"You're safe?"

"Yep."

"Everything's okay?"

"Yes, Sophie. Everything is going to be okay."

Seeing how helpless she felt, how helpless she looked, Fitz looked deep into her eyes and said, "Sophie Elizabeth Foster, you will always be fine as long as I'm here. Okay? I promise." And when she nodded, albeit somewhat reluctantly, he leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. "Good. Then yes, everything is perfect."

"How can you say that?"

"I'm with you."

"Fitz?"

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot."

"I know. But I'm your idiot."

"Yes, you are."

"Sophie?"

"Yeah?"

"Bianca is definitely listening."

"Hmm... Well," Sophie said, raising her voice as she added, "Bianca should know that it's rude to eavesdrop on your best friend and brother when they're having a moment!"

"Sorry, not sorry!" Came the slightly muffled voice from across the room, accompanied by a large pillow, flung at their heads.

Using telekinesis, not even trying, Fitz stopped the pillow, then transmitted, "Should we destroy her, my Cognate?"

"Show off."

"Yup."

"Let's go." And so, using their combined skills, they lifted all the loose pillows scattered across the room, and flung them at Bianca, burying her completely in pillows.

"Hey!" She shouted, "Not fair! DEX, DEX, DEX!! Wake up!! We must get revenge upon Sophitz!"

And so, after a tragic few weeks, a heartbreaking few days, and a truly awful night, the four of them. Dex completed at ease surrounded by Vackers, started the day (or more accurately afternoon, they had slept through most of the morning), with the kind of fun only best friends can have. And for a moment, everything was perfectly right.