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It was a good day, but from as far back as Stephen could remember, every day was good since Wanda was there. They would fight and argue, often. Wanda would lift various objects by force of thought and pretend to throw them at him. He would sometimes open portals and disappear for a few hours when he needed to think, to be alone. But then he would always come back and get close to her again.
Some of it he did, some of it Wanda did. It was never a boring existence, because both were proud, powerful, a little touchy. But they were also different. Wanda with her chaos, Stephen with his (sometimes imperfect) rationality.
They formed that perfect balance.
Stephen would wake up early. Wanda would wake up later, then join him, hug him, resting her face against his back. Then he would drop everything to devote himself to her.
What he loved most about Wanda were her sudden and intense outbursts of affection. And he, who had not known how to let himself go for so long, now found it natural to hold her close, to return those kisses, those caresses, that gentleness in the same way or almost.
That morning Wanda had woken up earlier than usual. So she had gone down the stairs, skipping that creaking step. She had spotted Stephen fiddling with something in the kitchen. So she had walked over and wrapped her arms around his abdomen, making his gasp.
"But you look, and that I wanted to surprise you by bringing you breakfast in bed," Stephen said, standing with a cup in his hand, motionless with Wanda's arms around his body.
"Really? You make such strides, Strange. You're getting romantic."
And whose fault do you think that is? He wanted to ask her. Wanda was bringing out the most irrational part of him and too bad it wasn't, in fact. Sometimes it was good to be more exposed, more fragile. As she was also exposing herself.
Wanda loosened that embrace, Stephen turned away, a few centimetres separating them.
Beauty lay in the seemingly mundane, the normal.
Routine, theirs. Stephen now grabbing her chin and kissing her. Wanda growing vegetables and fruit in their garden. A constant, perfect repetition.
Which was then ripped away from them, every night.
*
Every night the same dream, but with some variation. It changed what happened, but the setting and the person were always the same. Stephen had long since learned that dreams were never just dreams, but that they represented a different vision of himself. That he lived in who knows what universe and that he made a very different life. Such things had already happened to him. Of other selves he had already met, of other lives similar to his own, but different, he had known them. But never would he have thought that in one universe there could be a version of himself that was with Scarlet Witch, with Wanda.
The same Wanda who had unleashed pandemonium, who had killed in order to get her happy, perfect family back. The same Wanda who was now gone.
This was quite absurd, ridiculous and in his universe such a thing could never happen. Not just because of Wanda's departure. Stephen had only ever loved Christine. In every universe, he had told her. Or perhaps, in every universe but one.
However, it didn't matter now. He was tired, though. Tired of waking up every morning and carrying the feelings that remained with him from those dreams.
The feeling of Wanda's lips, for example. Lips he had never touched, yet he felt them right there, on his own. The feeling of her smell (which he did not know) on him. Everything remained vivid and nothing faded. It seemed that fate was having fun teasing him.
Events had forced him to approach Wanda as an enemy, as a fury to be stopped. Two enemies who then ended up falling in love was good stuff for a cheap movie, certainly not for reality. Not for his, at least.
And besides, it was never going to happen. He would have gone on living his life, as he was already doing. Though along with the dreams, the feeling of melancholy that clung to him like her (like a version of her) did not fade.
Scarlet Witch - Wanda - was no more. And even if she had been, that wouldn't necessarily have implied a relationship between them. And that should have been enough for him to put his heart at rest. But no. He wondered why he was dreaming about a life that was not his, witnessing scenes he would never experience. And if the first few times in thinking about it he had felt a sense of alienation mixed with discomfort, later he found himself wondering why.
Why did he keep dreaming of his other self? What was the purpose? And the more he thought about it, the less sense he found in it. He went to sleep every night aware that he would have to witness a life that was not his own. To witness every quarrel, every happy moment, even the most intimate moments, the memory of which disturbed him. In another universe, they loved each other. And they seemed to love each other very much indeed. In this universe, he was alone, she defeated.
But it was almost consoling to think that somewhere there was a happy version of him. Even if it was with someone he never imagined.
He didn't know Wanda. He knew her story, sure, but he didn't really know her. By dreaming about her he had learnt to know her (or at least to know that version of her). He had learned what she loved - sleeping in company, cats purring, sweets. He had learnt what he hated - insensitivity, fussiness, when she came teased too much. And sometimes she also hated her most emotional and fragile part, even though the other universe's self was quite good at holding that part, at loving it. He had learnt her habits: getting up late, cultivating her garden even in the hot sun. Picking fruits from the trees (especially apples), tasting them. Reading mountains of books all at once and leaving them haphazardly somewhere. Sleeping with him. And finally the sound of her breathing.
Stephen Strange, night after night, had grown accustomed to living a life that was not his own and there was no waking up that could blur a single detail. In that life he loved Wanda in a profound way, in a way he did not believe possible. Not her. And yet he did.
His life was going on and on and had begun to divide into two parts: life while awake, without Wanda. And the one while asleep, with her, somewhere, in a world where everything was fine.
*
Wanda was beneath him. She had finished kissing him, being kissed. Then she had let out a sigh and lay down beside him. Stephen often looked at her, stared devotionally without even realising it. Wanda, on the other hand, did, and there she granted him some irresistible smile.
"Hey, why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, stroking his cheek.
"I look at you the way you deserve to be looked at. It's just that sometimes I get to thinking. Ironic that we found each other, isn't it?" he asked. Wanda thinned her gaze, moving closer, preventing him from speaking any further and asking questions, giving him a passionate, unguarded kiss. As only she often knew how to be.
"I would say more extraordinary," she whispered, pulling away slightly and looking into his eyes. "Tell me you love me."
Sometimes she was like a child. She would cling to him and hold on, look at him with those clear eyes of hers. And Stephen shivered a little each time. He would caress her lips and tell her. I love you.
*
Interrupting Stephen's dream this time was something suffocating. A feeling, more like something that crept in even during a good dream: the feeling that someone had entered his house and was now watching him. In particular that Wanda was watching him. A silly fear.
Now sitting on his bed, in his empty, lonely house and his heartbeat slowly returning to its normal rhythm, Stephen breathed. He felt deeply uneasy and terrified, not by Wanda's possible presence there. But by the confirmation of her absence. By what he would have felt and done if she had been there with him. He said to himself, Strange. Now don't be a sentimental fool. Distinguish your reality from someone else's.
He understood all too well what happened when one clung to something that did not exist. And this he repeated to himself, as the realisation ripened within him that he loved that reality. Of loving the Wanda of his dream, which was then the Wanda of his own reality, but also a little different.
Of the Wanda of his universe there was no trace. Perhaps she was dead, perhaps not. But even if she was gone, what would it matter?
Tell me you love me.
It had been a few nights later that he had heard that voice clear, crisp, as if it were real. And Stephen, who had never feared the dark, had been unable to make any sound for a few moments when he had seen a shadow in the darkness. He must have been dreaming again, there was no other explanation.
"Who are you?" he asked instinctively, aloud. As he pulled himself up, as he was on the alert. If he got no answer, it was a sign that he was about to go mad. If he had received it, he was probably going mad just the same.
"Stephen, you know who I am," a voice replied. The same voice of his dreams. The one that reserved sweet words for him, laden with love. It was still dark and only the moonlight allowed him to spot Wanda's silhouette.
"W-Wanda?" he asked, uncertain. It was a dream. Just a dream. Nothing but a dream. But his dreams were so different. Then Wanda stepped forward and Stephen saw her a little better. Beautiful, as he was now used to seeing her. With that expression, at once sweet and pained. Hard to believe she had been his enemy. Dangerous and furious, now so human, even fragile. Stephen breathed deeply to come back to himself.
"You survived. And you are here. Why?" he asked, direct and a little wary. Wanda did not smile, she was serious, looking at him in a strange way. In fact, it wasn't strange, it was all too familiar, and it terrified him.
"You dream about him too, don't you? I mean us," she said. She looked almost embarrassed. Stephen had thought he could live peacefully. That could have been his alone, loving and bonding to a life and a person that would never be his. But now everything changed, perhaps.
Did Wanda dream every night of what he dreamed of? Their life together, perfect?
"It doesn't matter. That's just a version of us, that's not us. You do realise things have been a tad complicated" Stephen was trying to turn on the light. But then he thought again. He was afraid to see her expression, now partially hidden. He could not then see how Wanda was torturing her fingers, biting her lip, uncomfortable, embarrassed, guilty.
"I came here neither to ask for forgiveness nor to be accused. I just wanted to know if you too have seen us, and the answer is yes. I have already been there. For a long time I clung to the idea of wanting my children back with me. But we know how it went,' Wanda's tone was harsh. Against herself.
"So what do you want from me?" asked Stephen. There had been moments when he had feared Wanda. Now he wished he could hold her as he did in his dreams. Wanda shrugged.
Just wondering if this time might be different.
"Nothing. It's nothing, you're just dreaming. You're not awake," she whispered. For a moment Stephen had the impression that Wanda had brushed his lips with her fingers. Maybe that really happened or maybe not. But that certainly couldn't have been a dream.
He was awake.
Although at first Stephen was certain he had not dreamt, in the following days he was plagued by doubt. Wanda had come and gone, never to return. But she was alive and that gave him relief. He would do no more harm. He did not forgive her for everything she had done. But he didn't feel angry either. And he missed her. He missed something he never had.
It was an injustice. To obsess over something that did not exist (but could have existed) would only end up consuming his existence.
He had to move on, really wake up.
Wanda's had been a real act of madness, not the first in her life, at any rate. She thought about it often, about the people he had killed, the evil she had done. So he had tried to punish herself, isolating himself from everyone.
The life and family he had longed for did not exist and only now was she learning to come to terms with it, to move on. The other thing he was learning to come to terms with was the dreams he shared with Stephen. There was a world in which they lived together, happy and in love. A world where maybe they would have their own family. This was a thought that often came to her mind and which she immediately banished. She had already lost too much, to bind herself to someone would expose her again. And besides, she didn't even think she deserved that love and happiness, but that hadn't stopped her from going to him, to find him. Maybe she had frightened him. Who could blame him? She frightened herself too, for what she had done and for the life she now had to rebuild.
She had always liked secluded places in the countryside and even more she liked to cultivate them, a passion she had discovered during her months of solitude. The trees were in blossom, in particular the apple blossoms were beautiful and lush Wanda took care of the pink and white flowers that had grown thanks to her care. Proof, perhaps, that she was somehow able to give life. But that did not . But that did not matter: there would be no more room in his life for love; to go looking for Strange had been stupid.
He had gone looking for him in the vain hope that he would return the favour. But Wanda avoided thinking about that. It was only a vain hope, indeed. But there it was.
"Wanda"
Wanda almost dropped out of her hand the tongs she used to cut away the weeds. Stephen's voice would have recognised her anywhere because she heard it every night in her dreams. They had met in a place like that before, only last time it had all been an illusion. And this time it was all too real.
"Stephen" she called his name. Her heeks, despite herself, flushed red, her eyes with an extra sparkle. "I didn't think you'd come."
Now it was she who thought she was dreaming.
Stephen approached, looked around. Wanda lived in that place all by herself. They looked at each other and although they already knew each other they felt a certain awkwardness, because of their pasts and what they had shared elsewhere.
"I guess I was going to go crazy anyway, so I might as well come here and try to figure it out. I see you've taken up farming, for real."
Wanda bent down to pick up the tongs, her expression embarrassed and sullen.
"Please refrain from making that accusatory expression. I punish myself enough already."
"That was not my intention," he replied. "Judging by your foray the other night, I suppose finding out about our alternate versions upset you."
Wanda, her back to him, felt it. A few inches from herself. So she turned and in doing so felt the flowers brush against her hair.
"That's exactly the problem. It shocked me at first. To think that there is a world where you and I are together and are happy... it's not something I expected. The thing is, I dream about it every night. And somehow it's like I got used to it. But every day I would wake up and find myself living a different reality. You know, I've been there before and it seems like fate has turned against me. Like with my children. Who don't exist," the last words became a whisper. She thought it would be difficult to talk to Stephen, but it was so easy.
It was absurd to think that they could love each other. But in a universe so vast and of a thousand oddities, it was perhaps not the strangest thing.
"I do exist, though. And you exist too," Stephen said, serious, looking into her eyes. "Somehow it's like I've connected with you. Not to the real you, though."
And Wanda felt a chill as she realised they felt the same. She too had connected with him, even if it was a different Stephen, a different life.
"Just because there is a universe where we are together, it doesn't mean we have to be together here too," and she made to turn away again. First she approached and then she turned away, feeling like a madwoman.
"Then why did you come looking for me?" Stephen gently grabbed her by the shoulder. He didn't want her to turn away, he wanted to look at those eyes unfamiliar and at the same time familiar. Wanda then found herself in his grasp, the flowers still stuck in her hair.
"I don't know why I did it. Maybe because I'm always chasing a happiness I can never have, it's clear by now. Oh, please. Don't tell me you've become sentimental, You can't be serious about me. I've hurt a lot of people. We've fought. You can't... you should think I'm crazy and stay away from me.
Her tone was not firm, however. Even just brushing against each other caused both of them a feeling akin to a shiver.
"I never said you weren't crazy, but soon crazy would make two of us if I leave now and keep dreaming about it. What's the matter, Wanda? Do you not like me or are you afraid? Because in the second case, there'd be two of us who'd be scared. We haven't been very lucky in love, have we?"
Wanda could feel him shiver. As if he wanted to touch her face. And he might as well have done so; she would not have moved from his touch. That they had both been unhappy, there was no doubt. They had lost so much and now they had met each other halfway.
"No, that's true, but... what if it doesn't work? Somewhere we are happy, but it may not be the same here."
They were going to be such a mismatched pair, she was sure. So different, though not as much as she thought. Like her, Stephen had lost love. And he had found her again. He told herself: what if it had all happened for a reason, to arrive at that very moment?
"It could happen, I can't tell you. I'm trying to be rational, to tell myself to let it go. I have already loved once, to jump into this would be masochistic. But maybe I jumped the moment I decided to come here."
Stephen did so. He moved his hand, moved it to her cheek, warm and flushed. It was not a witch he had before him, it was a woman, just a human being like himself, strong but fragile at the same time. Wanda closed her eyes and felt that new and familiar thrill.
"This must be a dream. I must be dreaming,' she said. How many times had she dreamt of such moments? The difference was that now she felt it even more clearly.
"I'm afraid you are as awake as I am. I don't know how it will go, I'm not even sure I want to know. All I know is that I want to get to know you. Really get to know you and do all the sentimental stuff I don't know how to do anymore. And then what happens, happens. That's pretty crazy of me."
Wanda had to smile. Stephen, I know who you are, she would have liked to tell him.
And you know who I am, she would have added later.
And then, she would have wanted to say what if it hurts? What if we get lost? What if it all goes wrong, what if we find out that in this universe we cannot be together? If we fight, if we come to hate each other? If I go crazy, if you go crazy?
She didn't need to add anything because Stephen saw those fears in her eyes. In which he reflected himself, him with his fears.
"Pretty crazy, yeah. I wouldn't have expected that," he said, making himself shy. Then Stephen lifted his gaze, noticed the flowers in his hair and took them between his fingers to remove them.
"Apple blossoms. They're really real this time."
Wanda narrowed her gaze, getting serious for a moment and then smiling.
There was a self that loved everything about him. She had the impression that even there, even now, loving him would not be too difficult.
"Witty. Don't worry, I'll be good from now on. I get it now."
"I don't doubt that, Wanda. But I'll still keep an eye on you. You are indomitable," Stephen told her without any tone of reproach, but rather, of admiration. She knew that he had forgiven her. That she understood him. That love sometimes made one so crazy as to do unspeakable things.
Help me to forgive myself, she told him with her eyes. It was good to be able to speak even without using words.
"What a flatterer," she said, blushing and then pointing to her house. "May I offer you a cake made with my own hands?"
Stephen noticed her tone, gentle and hiding a hint of mischief.
"So be it. I accept gladly."
It seemed to both of them that they were dreaming. That they were seeing a life that did not really belong to them, as they did every night.
Instead they were awake and alive, and the future all to be written and discovered.