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Melissa insists on Zack taking the bed.
“It’s your bed.” He tries to argue, but she shakes her head.
“It’s my fault you can’t go home.” She says. “You just take the bed.”
“It’s not your fault, I was always risking getting caught.”
“Just take the damn bed Zack.” She says, and that’s that. It’s almost impossible to change Melissa’s mind once it is set, he knows that well by now.
So Zack takes the bed. He lies in it and stares up at the ceiling, exhausted but sleepless. Melissa gathers together blankets and lies down on the floor. “Night, Zack.”
“Night Melissa.” He replies, turning over and squeezing his eyes shut.
He can’t sleep. After the events of the day, adrenaline is pumping around his body. And while he is utterly exhausted, it isn’t enough to overcome his fear. He knows that this hideout is pretty safe, that Melissa has survived here for a few years, but he can’t help but imagine the Normbots appearing at the door. So he lies awake for ages, tense and alert and ready.
Because he is so alert, he notices a weird noise. Quiet, so quiet if there had been any other noise in the small hideout he would’ve never noticed. But he does notice. Is something squeaking, is there an animal or something?
No, that’s not it. And the sound is coming from the floor, next to the bed, where Melissa is. He hears her move now, turning in her sleep. Turning back again. And again that noise, something so alien from Melissa.
Is she crying?
He sits up and leans over to look down. Melissa’s face is screwed up, her body tense. And she is tossing and turning like someone filled her blankets with ants, back and forth, back and forth.
It looks like she is having a nightmare. But Melissa and nightmare barely seem to fit in the same sentence- unless, of course, referring what Melissa might give to others. And sure, the past few weeks have made it clear to Zack that Melissa is actually a person with emotions, with fears, a genuinely good, caring person, even if she has some hard outer walls, but…
A nightmare?
He mentally scolds himself for that assumption as he watches. Obviously living under Doofenshmirtz’s reign for so many years would affect someone like that. Obviously living in life threatening danger, at constant risk of being killed, or captured and ‘re-educated’ would lead to this. He has certainly had his fair share of nightmares.
So what does he do? Melissa does not seem like the kind of person who would be amiable to being woken up. She wouldn’t be mad, not once he explained, but she also seems like the kind of person whose automatic response to a sudden awakening would be a punch. He doesn’t want a symmetrical face in that regard.
But leaving her asleep to deal with whatever is tormenting her dreams seems cruel. At the same time, she’ll probably be ok. The nightmare will pass on it’s own, or she will wake up. He shouldn’t get involved.
Lying back in his bed and listening to her upset, pained noises isn’t exactly easy though. She’s his friend, he doesn’t like hearing her upset. His heart aches in his chest as he lies in silence, listening to her toss and turn and praying that she is ok soon.
She actually seems to get worse. Tosses and turns more and more, almost violently. Gets louder, upset cries that dig straight into Zack’s soul. And then she starts speaking.
“No, no…”
Zack winces, the pain in her voice is clear even when she is asleep. Whatever she is dreaming about must be pretty bad.
“Stop, stop, come back!”
He sits up and looks down at her again. She is agitated. Her blankets are tangled all around her like a net. “Milo!”
Ok, now he has to intervene. Melissa is so upset, so frightened, he can’t just leave her like this even if it earns him a panicked punch to the face. He slides out of bed and crouches down next to her. “Melissa?” He says softly.
No response. And even without waking her, he is risking some bruises here because her flailing is leading to him being hit with wild arms and legs. “How are you so strong, even while asleep?” He mutters, rubbing his side. “You got me right on that scar, ow.”
This time he reaches out and gently grasps her shoulder. “Melissa!”
He was right. She shoots awake with a gasp and automatically punches out at him. “Ow!” He exclaims.
“Zack?” Melissa blinks, only just noticing him. “Zack! Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”
“I’m fine.” Zack rubs his sore face and sighs. “Look, I’m symmetrical now.”
That does make her laugh, while rubbing her red eyes. “I’m still sorry, though. Why did you wake me?”
“You sounded like you were having a nightmare. Flailing and yelling and stuff.” Zack explains, watching her with concern. She sounds normal, but she looks shaky and upset.
Melissa sighs. “Yeah, sorry about that. I know I have nightmares, I just didn’t realise how loud and visible I am.” She explains. “What did I say?”
“Not much.” Zack assures her. “You said no a lot, you asked for something to stop or come back, you said a name. Milo.”
“Ah. Yeah, that tracks.” She laughs dryly. She reaches out for her ever present backpack and hugs it close, resting her chin on it.
“What were you dreaming about? Uh, if you don’t mind me asking.” Zack says awkwardly.
Melissa looks away, and he assumes that she won’t answer. Obviously if she was having a nightmare about it, it was upsetting, definitely something she wouldn’t want to talk about. But then she does answer. Her voice is so quiet that he has to strain to hear it.
“Same thing as always.” She begins. “When they took Milo.”
“Your friend? The unlucky one?” The one who was killed?
“Unlucky is an understatement.” She smiles, fond. Wistful. “At school, people called him a jinx. Because anything that could go wrong around him did. Anything. You ever been chased by a rhino?”
“No?!”
“I have. Because of him.” And that shouldn’t make her look happy, but it does. It’s a happy memory for her, clearly. “But anyway. I told you I was living with his and Sara’s family, right? So I was there when they were attacked. We tried to escape, but they killed his mom and dad, and then a robot got him. I tried to chase after them, but I couldn’t catch up, it was so much faster…”
She squeezes her backpack tighter, like a security object. Or like a person she is hugging. Zack can see tears pricking at her eyes and he shuffles closer.
“The last time I saw my best friend, he was being carried away by a robot yelling for help. And I couldn’t help.”
Zack looks at her face, grieving and guilt ridden and hurting. And he finds himself reaching forwards for a hug. He doesn’t expect her to accept it. But she does. She rests her face on his shoulder, wrapping her trembling arms around him.
She lets go and take a deep, shaky breath. It feels like she is reluctant to do that, she like is forcing herself. “He was right next to me. Right next to me. I can never forget, I’m always wondering what would’ve happened if I had just been better.”
“Hey, hey. It’s not your fault. It’s the dickheads running this tri state area. They killed him, you did everything you could.” Zack says firmly.
“Wha- oh. Yeah. They killed him.” If Melissa wasn’t clearly so upset, he might find her stilted reply odd. But as it is, weird behaviour is expected.
She looks down at the back on her lap. “You know, this is his backpack. He had everything in it, everything he needed to survive Murphy’s Law.”
“Murphy’s Law? Like, anything that can go wrong will?” Zack tilts his head.
“Yeah. He’s a Murphy- he has horrible luck, his dad had horrible luck, his grandad had horrible luck… and so on and so on.” She smiles. “Sara doesn’t, if you’re wondering. So he would carry all sorts of things in his backpack, to help him survive. Sometimes I still find stuff in there, and wonder why the hell he was carrying it around in the first place. Wind chimes, what was he gonna do with those?”
The way she talks about him is so fond, so loving. They were clearly good friends. Best friends.
“This backpack is important to him.”
“That’s why you carry it around everywhere?”
“Well, he’s also right in the fact that it’s very useful.” Melissa laughs. “Free hands are good. But yeah. Right now, it’s the closest thing I can have to him being with me.”
She snorts again. “Listen to me. Your first night living with me and I’m spilling my heart all over you. Sorry Zack. You can go back to bed now.”
Zack stands up and offers her his hand. “Lets just share the bed. It’s not exactly warm in here, and that can’t be good for your back.”
Another offer he makes today that he doesn’t expect to be accepted. Another one that is.
He gets the feeling that Melissa really needed that hug.