||"I went to the desert to forget about you. But the sand was the color of your hair. The desert sky was the color of your eyes. There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you."||
The moment Vera stepped out of her room, locking it behind herself, Wanda got out of bed and headed straight into the bathroom, closing the door and turning on the sink water.
She then sat down in the empty bathtub and draped her legs over the edge, resting her head against the cold linoleum.
"Nik," she rubbed her nose, feeling it clog up with emotion. "Where are you?"
A burning fear that he wasn't there began to seer its way through her heart, and that gnawing headache--it began its bloom at the base of her skull, nibbling at her meninges, forcing in pain where it was not wanted. Wanda was ready to rip her head off.
"You should rest, Wanda," Nik spoke, appearing beside her in the tub. He looked just as he did in her dream, but grayer in a way. Less alive. "You need it."
"I had a weird dream, Nik," she confessed. "I don't know what to make of it."
"What was confusing about it?"
Wanda licked her lips, suddenly parched. How could she explain such a thing to him? All it was was a dream, but still, she felt as though it meant more, like she should be paying attention and not disregarding it as something as simple as a figment of her imagination. Dreams for Wanda always meant more.
With her magic, she shut the light to the bathroom off, sighing as the darkness numbed her headache a bit. The running water in the sink sent a calming chill up her arms.
"The dream Wanda," Nik urged her on, and she clicked her tongue and shut her eyes, even though the room was already concealed in darkness.
She thought back to the Sokovian forests she had grown up in; she could still feel the scrape of the bark as she slid her fingers across its rough exterior. It was so easy to recall this dream, so easy to remember every aspect of it, down to the breeze of the wind as it glossed over her. There was something about this dream that she needed to decode.
"I was back home," she began. "Back in Sokovia."
A coolness grazed her as she felt Nik move beside her, and she wanted to lean into him and ruffle his curls but she couldn't move.
"I miss our time over there, Nik. Badly."
"I do, too, Wanda." He sniffled, and though the room was as dark as a stormy night, she knew he was crying. "Go on."
"I saw you there, and even though I knew I was dreaming, you insisted that I was not."
Nik didn't respond.
"You said I visited you...that you were always there when I dreamt of home."
Again, no response.
"I keep thinking of the times these last few weeks of when you'd ask me if I ever remembered any of my dreams." There was a long pause between them. "I wonder, Nik, if you know I dream of home."
A sound nipped at her ears, and for a second too long she believed it to be Nik, grumbling beside her or doing something she couldn't see in the dark, but then she realized it wasn't him at all, and it had in fact been the sound of her door hissing open, which meant Vera had returned, and before Wanda could stand from the tub, there was a knock, and a moment later her nurse appeared, confused by the lack of light.
Wanda opened her mouth to stop Vera from turning on the light, afraid that her nurse were to find Nik sitting beside her in the tub, worried that her secret would be unveiled. But it was too late, and Vera flicked the switch on and in a last attempt to conceal her friend's presence, Wanda shot her hand up at the fluorescent lights above with a powerful hex, forcing the bulbs to shatter and the glass to sparkle around them.
