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No, no, no! She tried! She had tried so hard to be good! She had cleaned out the ashtrays at home whenever she burned a match or a piece of paper! She blew out the candle next to her bed before she fell asleep! She had downgraded her bonfires from large to small, easily able to fit in the lid of a trash can and simply smothered.
Willow had tried. She wasn't hurting anybody! She just...really liked fire. Loved fire. Loved the warmth it gave off, the smoky scent of wood burning that seeped into her clothes and skin. She loved the colors of it; a balmy rainbow, flickering and dancing hypnotically against the oppressive darkness. The gentle sound of popping embers and cracking wood soothed her soul and relaxed her body. Willow respected fire; its beauty only matched by its destructive properties in the wrong hands.
But she wasn't the wrong hands; She was the right hands! Fire spoke to her like nothing else had before! So what if she really liked it? Was that such a sin? Some kids really like bugs or horses or chemistry. She liked fire. Why was that so wrong?
“I would recommend, to break her of this phase, sending her to a sanitarium where she can receive better help. Help from professionals. Do you understand Ms. Bennett?”
Willow watched her mother carefully. The woman was skinny and frail looking - like a strong enough gust of wind could break her in two. Her long black hair was pulled into a sloppy bun on the top of her head that bobbed as she sobbed. The doctor in white sighed.
“I know that this is asking a lot of you, Ms. Bennett, but this is for Willow’s sake. We can help her.”
Willow’s mother sniffled.
“Doctor please, please! Don’t make me do this! I...I can’t lose another.”
The doctor clucked sympathetically, nodding his head.
“Yes, I recall you having said that problem started with Willow after the disappearance of your sister. My condolences to you and your family.”
Willow’s mother nodded. “She was only five when it happened. Charlie...had always had a good head on her shoulders. I guess that just...wasn’t enough. Willow grew up so much like her...”
There was a long moment of silence. Then;
“How long will she be there for?”
No. No, this couldn't be happening. Her mother couldn't possibly be agreeing to this! Willow felt the blood drain from her face and her veins go frigid.
“A year, maybe more, maybe less, depending on her progress and recovery rate.”
Willow stood up from her seat. “Mother! No! You can’t do this!”
“Willow, please. This is for your own benefit-”
The firestarter turned on the man in white. “I wasn’t talking to you!” she snapped. With a softer expression, Willow turned back to her slowly crumbling mother. She shaking and sobbing into her hands.
“Mother please...if you want to get rid of me for a while to figure this out, then send me out to the cabin. I can be by myself for a spell and we can see how that works. Please mother. I dont want -”
To go to that place. That place with the screaming that echoed through her bones and chilled her marrow. The place that reeked of urine and chemicals. The place where she saw grown men chained to their walls and their beds, struggling to get free and howling unintelligible insults to the practitioner-made-wardens.
“You can’t get help there Willow. Not the kind you need.” she responded.
“I don’t need help!”
“Yes Willow! You do! I love you and you. Need. Help!” Her mother took a shaky breath. “Besides, I sold the cabin. We haven’t used it since you had been born and since Charlie- didn't need it, I sold it to the city.”
That had been it; her only escape. Her mind was frantic. There had to be a way out! There was always a way out! Always-
Someone grabbed her arm. Hard.
The man in white started to drag her out of the room.
“Willow!” her mom called out, standing abruptly.
Willow was already trying to wrench herself free from the doctor’ grasp.
“No!” She screamed. “Let go of me! You don’t have any right! Don’t touch me! Let go!”
“Willow!”
She struggled in the man’s grasp, digging her heels into the ground to slow him down and sinking her nails into the flesh of his hand.
It did nothing. The doctor didn't even bleed.
“Willow!”
He dragged her over to a table on which was a variety of syringes. The firestarter kicked and spat and cursed, her pleads becoming more higher pitched as panic and fear washed over her. Calmly, the doctor picked up a needle and smiled down at her.
“Willow!”
Willow came to with such a violent intake of air that her back arched off of the ground. Smoke filled her lungs, but didn’t bother her the way it did most people - she breathed it in as if it was clean air. Panting heavily, she sat up, hand pressed to her chest.
She was trembling; shivering as if she was cold, despite her hazardous proximity to the fire. A cold, clammy sweat had overtaken every inch of her skin making her feel damp and uncomfortable. Her lungs burned as though she had just run a marathon.
It had been a long time since she had thought of that moment, nonetheless dreamt of it....
A hand was placed gently on her shoulder.
Wilson looked miserably distraught and confused. He was kneeling down next to her - obviously the scientist had been the one to awaken her from her phantasmagoric memory.
“Willow? Are you alright?” He asked.
The words “I’m fine” wanted to come out, but Willow stopped herself. She owed this man more than a simple brush off. Three months on companionship and survival had ensured that.
“I’m...I’m okay now.” She breathed. “Just...a nightmare is all.”
Wilson looked a slightly relieved, the tension in his shoulder loosening. “Ah. Well, yes. One does get all sorts of terrifying dreams when confronted by this ghastly world.”
The words left her lips before she could stop them. “It was from before I came here.”
He cocked his head slightly - something Willow recognized meant he was curious. Whatever he wanted to ask must had been too forward or rude for him, however, for insteading of inquiring Wilson responded with a soft “Oh.”
It was quiet for a spell, the only background noise being that of the crackling fire and the snores of nearby beefalo. Willow had always found it creepily erie at night when not camped nearby the animals. The lack of crickets and other noise making nocturnal animals only reminded her that she was stuck in a different world than her own.
Wilson remained sitting next to her, head bowed in thought. She knew better than to disturb him and laid back down on the mat, intent on continuing whatever little bit of sleep she was going to get.
Despite knowing that sleep would be hard fought after she dream.
“Do...” Wilson started, then paused and cleared his throat. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She turned to him. He was sitting crosslegged across from her, fiddling with a piece of paper and a bit of charcoal. His being screamed nervous energy and he refused to meet her eyes.
Did she? It wasn’t something she talked about often. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t something she talked about at all. It wasn’t even something she liked thinking about. Although her dream had taken its own liberties with a good few detail (the man hadn’t been wearing a white lab coat during the meeting, and he never dragged her away to inject her with some malicious mystery fluid. He had been pleasant and polite almost the entire time. That just made Willow want to punch him more.) the rest was scarily accurate right down to the type of hairstyle her mother had worn that day. It was enough to churn the bile in her stomach.
However, whether or not she talked was also dependent on another matter entirely.
“Wilson,” she sighed. “I understand you’re a scientist, so I’ll give you some leeway, but don't try some psychology bull on me, alright? Its late and I’ve had a nightmare. I don’t need you to tell me that the reason I broke out into a cold sweat was because I’ve secretly harbored feelings for my mother, or something.”
The blush was worth it. It started on his cheeks and spread to the tips of his ears and the base of his neck. It was adorable.
Or- or it would have been if Willow had thought such things adorable! She was just...amused at having made him uncomfortable.
Yes. That.
“I-” he gestured to her with the makeshift pencil, only to look at it and the paper and toss them away before continuing. “I am a gentleman Willow. A gentleman and a friend. I’m not here to psychoanalyze you. I’m saving that for when we get out of here and I can record it with proper equipment that is also suitably fire proof.”
She smiled and huffed at his joke.
“I was merely asking because it's proven that speaking about one’s dreams to a confidant makes them far less likely to happen again.
Willow swallowed back a bark of laughter. “Oh, proven, huh?”
“Yes. By me. I would show you the report, were they not back in my trunk in the real world. Although I would warn you; at the time I was rather fond of using multicolored crayons.”
They locked eyes, the meaning behind the joke not lost on the firestarter. There was another long moment of silence before Willow closed her eyes.
“It was about-” she could quite get the word out, so she went with the name instead. “ Rainbow Times.”
Wilson sniggered. Willow cracked an eye open at him and frowned.
“I apologize,” he offered. “But that doesn't sound very frightening.”
“Its a sanatorium.” Ah there it was, the word bitter and acrid on her tongue. Wilson paled.
“I’m sorry I didn’t-” he attempted, but she waved him off.
“Don’t get your pants in a twist; you didn't know.” He swallowed so hard Willow could hear it, and nodded.
“Besides that wasn’t...exactly it either. It was a dream of the meeting with the doctor who told my mother it was the only way to break me of my...habits. My mother was crying and I pleaded with her to not let them take me away...” But they had.
“Can I...” Wilson trailed off, but Willow knew what he wanted.
“I was there for a year and a half. Or, at least, that's what my mother told me. Time was hard to keep track of in there; sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and never what you thought it was.” That alone had been enough to make a person mad. “I got out when I was nearly twenty.”
Willow pulled her lucky lighter out of her pocket, smoothing over the engraving with her thumb.
“I hated it there. There was no fire. It was all needles and drugs, screams and gibberish.” Her words dripped with venom and anger. “It was cold, clinical-”
“Scientific?”
Both of her eyes popped open to look at her companion. Wilson looked horrified.
But not with her.
“How can you even stand my presence?” He asked in a near whisper.
Willow propped herself up on her elbows. “Wilson you’re not the same as them.”
“How am I not?”
A blaze was forming in her heart, angry and hot. How dare he! How dare he think so little of himself as to compare himself to...to them! She stood, towering over him.
“First of all, you’re a gentleman. You treat people with respect. No offense, but you don’t lie very well. All you’re experiments were, as far as you have informed me, were done on yourself or on lab rats.” Her voice was getting louder, bordering on shouting. “You don't chain people down to tables, hook them up to electric torture machines! You don't make people disappear! You didn’t back Stacy into the bathroom when she had too many meds!” Willows throat clenched at the memory. The terror that had seized her up, how she was just shuffled away when she had tried to help. How they had ignored her pleas with sanguine excuses and placations. “You don't try and fix someone who isn't broken!”
She was breathing hard. Her eyes burned, but she refused any tear exit her body. Wilson needed to understand.
There eyes were locked, his wide, shocked at her outburst, hers blazing with an unearthly fire.
When he didn’t respond, Willow sat back down heavily. Raising a hand to her head, she pressed her fingers into her temples. She was tired. Too tired to deal with this anymore.
“This isn’t... how I thought this discussion would turn out. Wilson, you are a great man and a good scientist. One of those things is more important than the other.” She sighed. “I’m tired. Goodnight Wilson.”
Willow went to lay back down, but a cool hand over her own made her stop.
His expression was all but unreadable, but it gave the feeling of someone who was vaguely nervous. His hand curled around hers, her warm fingers entangled with his chilly ones.
Her breath quickened and a heat started spreading across her face at the touch. It was as if someone had sparked a tiny flame in her belly, flickering and flushed.
“I would would never try and hurt you or change you.” He smiled - genuinely smiled - and it made her heart flip in her chest.
“I think you are beautiful just the way you are.”