~ Sweet Dreams ~

It had been about a week since Luke had returned to London. For how long, he wasn't too sure yet. For the moment he had thought it would be weird to be living with the Professor and Flora again after the two years he had stayed with his parents back in Misthallery, but had he been wrong. Everything still felt like the same home it had been to him for years. After all, the two of them had always been like family to the boy.

It had still been late at night – or very early in the morning, to be precise – when Luke woke up from a nasty dream. Even though he couldn't remember a thing, it remained impossible for him to catch sleep afterwards. After almost an hour of tossing and turning and getting more frustrated each time he looked at his alarm-clock, the 15-year old went downstairs to get some warm milk. And maybe a quick snack. He'd look for something. Putting the milk in second place on his list of priorities, Luke searched through some cabinets in the dark and as quiet as possible, fixated on not waking the Professor. For some reason, it didn't seem very gentlemanly to him and the Professor would wake up in the middle of the night to lecture him on this. Well, at least that was what Luke was thinking at the moment. He did realize he might've been acting somewhat paranoid at the time. The Professor was a heavy sleeper.

While continuing his search for sweet goodies, the boy got startled by a sudden noise in the living room. Cautiously, he looked into the room, which had once been separated from the kitchen by a single door. Luke still felt sorry for causing his mentor to spill his beloved tea all over himself when the boy opened said door a little too sudden that specific morning. It had been removed mere moments later. In the living room he saw several bookshelves, the fireplace, the 2 couches and chair surrounding the tea-table placed in front of it, … Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary except for maybe the small spot he saw moving over the back side of the couch facing away from him. Recognizing the small red bow, Luke put on the lights. Flora stared at him in shock for a moment, but quickly turned her back on him again. That moment had been enough for the boy to have a look at her tear-stained face.

"Hasn't the Professor taught you it's rude to sneak up on a lady?" Flora hid her face as she heard him moving towards her.

Luke shrugged. "Must've missed out on that lesson."

To his own surprise, this earned him a chuckle. "As if you'd miss out on any of his lessons," the young woman said jokingly. The moment he had returned to London, it had surprised Luke how much the girl had changed and matured over that relatively short period of time. That was, in appearance. On the inside, she was still the same Flora who had decided to leave her own little village behind years ago, be it more open to him and the Professor as she had gotten to know them better.

Luke leaned onto the left side of the two-seater, trying to look at Flora. He sighed inaudible as she turned her face strict to the other side, looking down.

"Do you want me to get you anything?" he asked softly.

"Maybe some water," Flora answered. "and an aspirin," she added, rubbing her forehead.

When Luke returned with a glass of water for himself as well, he sat down on the other side of the couch, remaining any distance between them Flora wanted there to be. If there was one thing he had learned from his mentor, it was to always put a lady's needs first. And if what the lady needed was to sit down in silence for a while, they would do just that. But Luke had still been very glad when she started talking anyway after sipping her glass and taking the medicine.

"I've just been giving too much thought to a dream I had, that's all," she broke the silence, seeing how Luke wasn't going to leave just like that.

Luke felt like he needed to keep the conversation going, or she would just shut herself off again. "Then, what did you dream about?"

Flora looked at the window at the other side of the room and smiled just slightly. "My mother," she spoke. "I've been dreaming quite a lot about her lately." The girl turned a bit more in his direction. Luke now looked down, not knowing what to say to this. Flora thus continued. "It must've been two weeks ago when the Professor woke me up in the middle of the night." The younger boy now looked back up curiously. "Apparently, I had been screaming out to her for some time by then. I'm actually glad I don't remember that dream." Thinking back only made her start sobbing again. Luke moved a bit closer to be able to rub the girl's back. Feeling concerned about her not only for this time, but also about the earlier dreams he asked if he should get the Professor for her. He didn't exactly get the response he had been expecting.

Flora now looked him straight in the eye. "Please, don't." She then covered her eyes with her hands again.

"Ok than," Luke answered surprised. "I probably shouldn't do that."

"D-don't get me wrong. I appreciate everything he does for me, but, but …" Flora found herself at a loss for words. Once she found them again the girl blurted out: "He keeps asking me about it while I myself have no idea why I started thinking about her this much after all this time. I just don't know!"

Luke had never seen her like this before. Neither had he ever thought he'd see her like this. As tears started to flow down her cheeks again, the girl leaned onto Luke's shoulder, holding him tight and sobbing almost uncontrollably. The boy softly caressed the girl's back.

"He does have the tendency to do that," he had to agree.

When after some time Flora started to regain control over her tears and stopped sobbing she softly asked, while still holding onto Luke: "You're not going to tell him, right?"

As he had heard something he recognized as hope sounding through her voice, the boy shook his head. "But I do want you to promise me you'll talk to either of us if something continues to bother you," he stated clear enough.

The young woman pulled back and wiped off her tears with the sleeve of her nightgown. "Yes, sir," she chuckled.

They sat in silence for the time following. Both sitting with their backs against the back side of the couch, Flora pulled up her legs and leaned down to have her head now resting onto Luke's right shoulder. She pulled a blanket off of the back and put it over her bare legs. All of a sudden they saw two eyes piercing through the window in the darkness of the night. A calico cat was sitting on the window-sill, licking its paws and washing itself. The older of the two recognized it as the cat she had seen walking around several times in the past few weeks. The number of times had, in fact, increased lately. Let's say since about a week. This was only a rough guess though.

"You've been feeding it, haven't you?"

"Maybe." Luke looked down at the girl beside him. "Would you tell the Professor?"

Flora smiled and shook her head. "I don't mind having it around. It's nice to see it just minding its own business when cleaning the house and such."

"Then yes, I have been feeding her," the boy said. "Just some leftovers though."

"Oh, so it's a girl?" she asked. Luke nodded, even though she couldn't really see that right now. If she really hadn't been sure about it, the girl would've looked up for a moment. Flora had suddenly felt like changing back to the earlier subject, saying: "At least tonight had been a nice dream." Having come to peace with the thoughts of her, the girl now felt confident enough to talk freely about her mother. She sat back upright, this way being able to face Luke. "I had been sitting out on the flower fields with her, picking all kinds of flowers to make her these little bouquets." She was staring just a little over Luke's shoulder while remembering this. "She'd always put them in little vases when we got back home." He thought Flora looked truly happy while telling him this. The boy got caught off guard when she suddenly turned her attention to him. "Haven't you ever done anything like that?"

Luke shrugged. "I don't think so." He then chuckled. "There was this big forest just behind our backyard where I would go and play quite often. There weren't many flowers to be picked," He too, looked happy thinking about those times. "I would, however, bring home a squirrel every now and then."

The girl giggled at the thought of a younger Luke carrying and talking to a fluffy little squirrel.

"Mom didn't really like those, though, and demanded I'd put them right back where I found them." Luke chuckled. "Might've been fun if she put those in cages and kept them like yours did with the flowers."

Flora now laughed out loud, soon getting a hand put over her mouth as the other thought about the sleeping Professor just one level above them. And on the other side of the house for that matter, but the poor boy was just getting a little paranoid once again.

Once finished laughing, she commented: "You might want to reconsider that thought."

Luke looked at her with a questioning look on his face.

"The flowers died after a day or two and mother would throw them in the garbage bin, hoping I wouldn't really notice," Flora stated indifferent.

The boy felt a shudder crawl up his back at the thought of what might've happened to the poor little creatures. "Thanks a lot," he looked the girl dead in the eye. "from now on, my every dream will be haunted by the image of dead squirrels in a garbage bin."

"You're very welcome," Flora giggled, blocking out said image.

Luke yawned, causing Flora to look up at the clock set on top of the fireplace. They had been sitting around for over an hour now. With only a few more hours of sleep left, the boy felt like they should get back to bed soon. That was, if he didn't want to get lectured by his mentor. During weekends, it had happened more than once that the Professor would casually walk through the hallway a few times, casually knock on Luke's bedroom door before casually opening it and having an old-school alarm clock ring just inside. It didn't really help a lot for the poor boy to have his head situated right next to that door. 'Luckily' for him, this only happened whenever he wasn't yet awake by the time the Professor had finished eating his breakfast and reading his daily newspaper, which took him about half an hour at most. Flora, of course, the man wouldn't even dare to bother.

"I'm guessing we should head off to bed again," the girl said, standing up from the couch and stretching out.

Luke, however, had immediately used the extra space to lie down and grab the blanket which Flora had tucked in the outer corner earlier. "Don't wanna," he murmured.

"You sure?" Flora asked, hovering and slightly tilting her glass of water over his head.

"Fine," Luke sighed. He got up and neatly folded the blanket in half before putting it on the back side again.

The two youngsters took their glasses to the kitchen and cleaned them off before putting them back in place. Luke thought it extremely important not to leave any traces behind as the Professor would probably notice every little detail that had changed if even the slightest.

"We should do this again sometime," Flora whispered while putting the towel they had used back in its original spot.

"Just set a time and date and I'll be there," the boy answered jokingly.

As the two reached Flora's bedroom, they whispered soft goodnights before Luke went off to his own. Once there, he swiftly slid underneath the warm covers. He knew, or maybe even hoped, somewhere along the lines of sleepiness that this hadn't been his last night without much of a good night's rest if he were to stay in London. And he did know he was here to stay for quite a while. Holding Mr. Teddy close to him, the boy only shortly muttered something before closing his eyes and letting sleep take over him.

Sweet dreams.

A/N After re-reading it for the 100th time, I still feel like there's something missing/wrong here.. But other than that, I'm quite happy with it. I hope you like it.
Please review *

xSelenicSoulx