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He still dreams about it sometimes. The deafening gunshot, the crumbling laboratory all around him. Her hand, slowly slipping out of his grasp. Whispered words of regret, a desperate plea, and something that could’ve been an apology, almost.
She falls into the endless abyss below, and he thinks a part of him might’ve been ripped out that day, leaving a gaping hole that refuses to heal even as the years stretch on.
This time, he’s falling too. He braces for the impact that never comes, and his limbs flail helplessly for purchase. He wants to scream.
He gasps for air, and the nightmare dissipates in an instant, leaving him alone in a dark room, his bed covers kicked into a tangle at his feet, his shirt drenched in sweat.
A hand touches his shoulder. Leon flinches lightly, before relaxing into it. It’s a calming reminder: He’s safe now. It’s all over. It was just a bad dream.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and for a moment, he doesn’t know if he’s apologizing for waking her, or for failing to save her all those years ago. Maybe both.
Beside him, Ada shifts, putting an arm around him and pulling him close. She doesn’t say anything - Ada has always been a woman of few words - and he doesn’t think he’s ever appreciated her silence more than moments like this.
“I’m a light sleeper,” she says after another moment, and not for the first time he marvels at the way she does it so effortlessly - ease his guilt and lighten his burdens all at once.
He holds her hand in his and kisses her knuckles reverently. They settle back in, and he holds her tightly yet carefully, like she’s a mirage, an illusion he’s not entirely certain exists. But her arms wrap around his body, and her heartbeat is a steady rhythm against his ear, and he knows this is real. She is real.
“I’m here,” Ada whispers, her chin nuzzling against the top of his head. “Go back to sleep. We still have a few hours yet.”
So he does.
The dream will return another night, but he’s no longer afraid. When it does, they’ll be ready for it.
In his dreams, he is burning.
It’s unlike any fire he’s ever known. It’s dark and winding, taking root in his bones, spreading its poison through his veins, turning them leaden and inky black.
And then, slowly, it takes hold of him.
His limbs are moving even as he screams for them to stop. He’s not in control anymore, he can feel it worming inside his mind with every passing second.
His body feels like a cage, and the fire within him threatens to burst through.
His hands close around her throat, slowly squeezing the life out of her.
Leon.
Leon.
“Leon.”
He gasps awake once more, his vision immediately filled with Ada, gazing down at him with a light crease between her brow. It takes him a moment to realize his fingers are digging into the skin of her shoulders so hard his knuckles have gone white, his vicelike grip just inches away from finding its way to her throat.
Like a startled animal, Leon releases her.
“Oh God,” he breathes. The air in the room is suddenly too suffocating. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey,” she says, touching his chin and guiding his gaze back to hers. “It’s alright. You’re alright.”
“I hurt you,” he says, both a realization and an admission of guilt. He glances at her right shoulder, and hopes to whatever sadistic God that might be out there that he won’t find bruises there come morning.
Ada responds with something akin to light amusement. “I’m tougher than you give me credit for, Kennedy.”
Leon buries his face in his hands. Something stings at the corner of his eyes, but he steadfastly ignores it. “It’s not right. This isn’t right, Ada.”
She remains silent for so long that he finally lifts his head to look at her. In the darkness, there’s something almost sad about her expression when she looks at him.
“Nothing ever is,” she says finally, voice uncharacteristically quiet. “It is what it is. All we can do is keep at it.”
“For how much longer?” he asks, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice.
She meets his gaze, gentle but firm, loving but resolute. She takes his hand. “For as long as it takes. Until we see it through.”
It’s not the answer he wants. It isn’t the answer he’s looking for, either, but it is something, and he holds on to it, tries to find strength in it.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he offers, pulling the covers off himself and swinging his legs over the bed. He can’t stop a shiver when his feet hit the cold floor, and Ada chuckles lightly.
“Not gonna happen. We both know you sleep better next to me,” she says, a glint of playful satisfaction gracing her lips. “Come on. You know you want to.”
The offer is indeed tempting, but Leon wouldn’t be Leon if he didn’t at least try to fight it. “What if it happens again?”
“I’ll wake you. I won’t let it happen.”
It sounds like a promise, and for the first time that night, Leon feels the pressure nestled between his shoulder blades loosen, if only a little.
Nightmares are only that, nightmares. In the end, he will wake from them, and they shall hold no more power over him.
He should’ve known there was something different about her. Something crueler and harsher, something not quite right that he can’t place his finger on. Blue against red. Red against blue. It’s so stupid, in retrospect, but perhaps that should’ve been his first clue.
But Leon is in love with Ada, and for that he’s willing to chase after a woman wearing her face, despite the warning signs, because when isn’t he chasing after her? Perhaps it had been so long now that it had become something of a habit, an instinct even, that he never one stopped to wonder why she was trying to harm him.
In all the years he’s known her, with all her puzzling behavior and cryptic responses, never once has Ada tried to hurt him.
He hates that sometimes, when he’s just woken up from a bad dream and his mind is still chasing away the fog of sleep, for just one split second, all he can see is her.
“Please,” he breathes, flinching away from Ada’s touch. “Please don’t.”
Ada withdraws her hand, and Leon does his best to keep his gaze anywhere but on her face, because he’s not ready to face her right now. He’s not brave enough to look her in the eyes and see what must be hurt or disappointment or even anger.
He just needs a moment to himself.
“I’m sorry,” he says. He’s been apologizing a lot lately. “I didn’t mean to-”
“No,” Ada cuts him off, and he wonders if her tone is more curt than usual, or if it’s his imagination running wild again. “I understand.”
Something within his chest constricts briefly. She shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of his trauma regarding Carla Radames, especially when she herself was a victim. She shouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of him being too trusting. Whatever happened with him and Carla, whatever residual fear he still holds for the woman who looks like her but isn’t her, that should be his cross to bear, not hers.
She’s pulling away, presumably to give him space, but the idea of being even a few more inches farther from her seems so unbearable that Leon instinctively pulls her into his arms.
To his surprise, Ada doesn’t fight to break free. Instead, she sinks into his embrace, like she needed it as much as he did, like she needed him as much as he needed her.
“I should’ve known,” Leon says, and it sounds like an apology even though it isn’t one. “I should’ve realized she wasn’t you.”
Her arms wind around his back, squeezing tight. Her voice is in his ear, barely above a whisper. “I know.”
It’s a forgiveness if he ever heard one, and his entire body nearly sags with relief.
It never gets easier. In fact, it only seems to get harder with each passing day. Their lives will never be easy, not for a long time, if ever. But all dreams end, and when they wake again, they will find each other and heal a little more, and knowing that is enough to make it more bearable, if only for a moment.
But he wouldn’t exchange a moment with Ada for a lifetime without her.
And maybe one day, there will be no more nightmares.
end