[for adam] - I tell myself I am Alice but I cannot wake up

[curiously_cora]

I am in a room with mirrors to which I have the only key. My heart beats very fast, and I am afraid. I should not be here. Mohinder will not like it.

I look in the first mirror. I am there, my blonde hair a tangle as I fight with another boy over a stuffed toy and then another. The toys cry out in familiar voices and I let go, falling backwards, tumbling into the next mirror.

I am stabbing the boogeyman with a fork. I think I am going to eat him. He will do some good before he dies. But he does not die and I am on the ceiling. Small and frightened and screaming. My blood drops from my mouth, until a boy comes. The mirror shatters stabbing him and he dies, but the broken mirror sets me free.

I run and there is another mirror. In it toy soldiers march into dark caves. A tall man with eyes of steel tells me to fill the caves with gas, but I don't want to. Another big man with a sword comes and he saves me, his princess, and tells me the past is not written in stone. I don't understand, so I flee.

A scary man catches me and sings me to sleep. He is not Mohinder or Matt, and I am afraid to sleep, but I can't help it. I sleep, but I am not sleeping beauty. No one can wake me and I am trapped in my nightmare mirrors, spinning from one to another and another until I am screaming at the top of my lungs, shouting but no one hears.

I tell myself I am Alice. It is only a dream and I can wake up.

I do not wake, but the dream becomes nicer. A friend holds me and comforts me. Sometimes he looks like Mohinder. Sometimes I don't recognize him, but he is safe and I curl closer in my dream. "Coraline, you are safe," he tells me, but my name is Molly or Mohinder. I'm confused and I want to wake up.

Mohinder rolled closer to the warmth, reaching out instinctively to pull it closer, tuck it under his arm and against his chest. It didn't budge and nor did it feel familiar, except that it was male and strong and smelled clean. Whoever it was had obviously come to his bed willingly. The fleeting thought crossed his mind that it might be Owen, but his half-conscious mind dismissed the possibility before he could wake enough to worry over it.

Still half-asleep, he smiled and sleeked a hand over a strong abdomen.

Comments

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

"Wait. Please." His voice sounded unnaturally high, even for this body, and a little panicked, and he really didn't want this man, Adam, to leave him like this.

"Where does she sleep? Where are her clothes? Is she uh-uh--" What was the word? He could see it in his mind, but the harder he tried to reach it, the further it slipped away. Frustrated, he tried to think of things related. Drugs, especially penicillin. Bees. Shellfish. Citrus, Rodney McKay was -- "allergic," he said almost triumphantly, then finished, "to anything?"

Kneeling up on the bed, he looked over at Adam, trying not to scowl or pout with frustration. "I'll bring her home at night and try not to wear her out with my schedule. How old is she? Is she, am I, blonde? I was dreaming and I thought she was Molly the little girl I used to look after and--" Mohinder lifted a hand to stop his mouth, eyes going wide with horror.

When he took it down again, he breathed out slow and tried to force his mind to slow down. "This is going to take some getting used to."

[beentodamascus.livejournal.com]

Halfway into his trousers, Adam stopped, staring at the little girl who really didn't look like herself in her face at all. There was somebody else home. Adam had some horrible things in his time, but that was possibly the most disturbing.

And that was a lot of questions."

He took a deep breath.

"She's eleven. And, yeah, she's blond. She sleeps in there," He pointed to the open bedroom door. "Unless she has nightmares, which is why you're in here. She's not allergic to anything I'm aware of."

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

"Eleven," Mohinder repeated a little blankly. She and Molly were nearly the same age, and both blonde, and brave and curious. He already knew that from the dreams.

He felt very...weird and...not awesome at all. This body he as in, she could be his daughter, and he had to dress and bathe and feed it as it were his own and try to be himself at the same time and that was going to be very hard and it already made him want to cry a little.

But he would do his best to keep her safe and happy while he was in her body, he would. "Does she have friends or other family I need to know about?" When it happened the last time, he'd made a mental list of things he'd want to know if it happened to him. Most of the list seemed forgotten but relationships were important and he didn't want to damage any of hers. "Anyone she doesn't like? Anything she doesn't like?"

[beentodamascus.livejournal.com]

"There's...Cain. Wyatt Cain. He does dad duty as well," said Adam, pushing both hands back through his hair. "And Angela, I suppose. Montenegro. She's my...girlfriend. Angie spends a lot of time around her. And Lucy Penvensie. Though I'm not sure if they're speaking at the moment or not. Sorry."

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

"I know Lucy. She's a friend of mine, too. I'll make sure not to make a mess of that for Coraline. I've seen Angela at the lab." He gave Adam a nervous sort of smile. "I'm a, uh..." For a few scary seconds, he couldn't find the word, but he thought of his own father and it popped out. "Geneticist. I don't know Cain at all, but I'll try to find him too. They'll all be worried about her body probably right? So I want to make sure they know it's okay. Could you tell them if you see them so that no one worries too much? I promise I'll take good care of her."

Like she was his own daughter, and that was the weirdest part about it and the least awesome.

[beentodamascus.livejournal.com]

"I'm going to Angie's on th way to look for Cora, so I'll let her know."

He swallowed, a little wild around blue eyes.

"I have to go. You'll...be alright? You'll be careful with her?"

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

Coraline was braver than he thought. Instead of the pout and the clinging he feared, instead whn he lifted his chin, it stuck. He nodded sharply, despite feeling panicked at being an eleven year-old girl.

"I'll be okay," he said and the bit off all the other words that wanted to tumble out, except one solemn vow: "I promise." So what if he was scared? Adam would be freaking out over Coraline. The least he could do was keep it together long enough for him to go look for her.

[beentodamascus.livejournal.com]

More out of habit than anything, Adam leaned forward and kissed Coraline's forehead as he passed her.

"Be good," he said, before he slipped out of the door.

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

He hadn't expected the kiss and it made him feel both better and worse. Coraline's body didn't flinch from it, and it felt good, safe, to know Adam would look out for him, her, them...

It also felt bad to get a kiss intended for Coraline and to be told to be good, for more reasons than he could even think through because he was too busy collapsing on the bed and burying his face in the pillow and trying not to cry.

It took him a few minutes to pull it together enough to go into Coraline's room, but by the time he did, he felt a lot better, and ready to do some exploring.