A/N: Like I said, I was re-watching season one. Even though I'm not up to the part where Rufus kidnaps Patty yet, but I was reminiscing; I know being kidnapped, and especially by a maniac obsessed with immortal life, can be a bit traumatizing. This is future!Peddie and dedicated to sinfullysarcastic because we've been talking for a while and I swear, we're the same person when it comes to this show.
I have a bet going on with my best friend, Paige (clarksonwriter17), that I'd have more stories published on here than her by December 31st, 2013. She has 37 stories published so far, while I only have 30, so I need to publish 7 in one month, since today is the first day of December. (I still can't believe it's one month to 2014. Jesus.)
Don't Be Afraid chapter 46 was supposed to be published today but WHATEVER. You get this one shot instead. The next story will be a Peddie three-shot and will be published on December 5th, so...anyway, I do hope you enjoy this! I'm still on s1 on my rewatch, so it's fun to watch Patricia, who doesn't know she'll meet Eddie in only a short amount of months. Plus with the Jara arc and all the Fabina moments and I just can't with this season.
"Whatever. You're still a nightmare."
/o~~~o/
She didn't scream.
She didn't wake up in a cold sweat. Her eyes opened, and she wasn't in the warehouse. Patricia Williamson was in her bedroom, in the middle of the night, the electric alarm clock practically screaming at her "IT IS TWO THIRTY THREE IN THE MORNING!"
She inhaled. Exhaled. Blinked, and looked around the room one more time. Felt the soft cotton sheet underneath her fingertips. Saw, in the dim light of the November morning, the lamp on the other side of the room.
"Eddie?" Patricia breathed, careful not to break the stillness of the night. "Eddie? Where are you?"
She moved her body around, so quiet and slow it was as if she had been lying out in the cold all night. Her blue-green eyes scanned over the other side of the queen-sized bed, only to find it empty. Patricia remembered, then, how Eddie had left the morning before, to go to England for his dad's funeral. Patricia couldn't attend because of what her job required of her, but she send Eddie off with grieving of her own.
If he wasn't even in the country, he couldn't help. And she supposed no one could, not really. No one really knew what it was like.
She collapsed on her side of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, just like eight years ago, when she was fifteen; staring up at the blank wall with the same exact wish that she was staring up at the stars.
Not quite scared, but not quite content either, Patricia closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. At least, this time, she'd have a dream, whether it be pleasant or terrifying. Once again, like when her best friend disappeared, when no one seemed to get it, and when the most important person in her life left, she was alone.
/o~~~o/
Eddie returned home soon after that night, but he couldn't understand why his wife was spooning him all night long when she never did that on a normal night. Patricia liked her space at night, so Eddie granted her that one wish of wiggle room.
However, when Patricia was spooning him for three nights in a row, Eddie told her he'd grant her another wish, in response to whatever was bothering her; his teenage self came back to play when Patricia pushed herself off the bed, opened a cabinet drawer, and dropped the condom into the trash before winking at him, quite seductively, if she did say so herself.
/o~~~o/
It was a full eight months later and Patricia had convinced herself that her nightmare, her sudden urge to find her husband and snuggle next to him, for him to reassure her that Rufus was gone, he was in the Underworld with Senkhara and the mask of Anubis, had kicked her in the ass.
This time, she did scream.
And it wasn't bloodcurling, like many horror authors seem to think all screams sound like. It was a quick, breathless scream. Her body shot up, her back straightened as if she were back in high school and Mr. Sweet was lecturing everyone to sit straight and Patricia did as she was told, not knowing that she'd be shagging his son later in life.
She was sitting up straight, the electric clock screaming at her once again. The sheets never felt softer, comparing them to the hard chair she had sat in for three days, eight years ago.
She closed her eyes and tried to rid herself of the memory, but it all came back to her in colors: the blank brown walls of the building, the smell of hamburgers and chips for breakfast, and the feeling of a century-old man grabbing her wrist and covering her mouth, forbidding her to make any sort of sound.
Inhale. Exhale.
Patricia opened her eyes, quite alone, the clock on the nightstand reading 3:05 compared to the original 3:02 she saw when she first shot up out of her slumber. The red numbers screamed at her in the quite night, and in her mind somewhere, she could hear the sound of her husband's snores, knowing that he was sleeping on his back because that was the only time he snored.
"Oh," Patricia moaned, cradling her stomach as she fell back against the pillows. Their daughter, growing inside Patricia, was growing bigger day by day; and so was Patricia's stomach. She'd always had a difficult time falling asleep, ever since she got pregnant last November; it was now July of 2022, and the only thing different about her life was how uncomfortable Patricia was.
However uncomfortable she was, she lay down, rubbing her stomach, thinking of the argument Eddie and she had fought the other day about what they were going to name their baby girl; she had suggested Madison, but Eddie had contributed the name Kawthar. He said it meant "river of paradise", but Patricia's retaliation was that their lives as parents were never going to compared to paradise.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but the only thing invading her mind was the feel of Rufus's hand, gripping her wrist, dragging her behind the boxes, his disgusting voice, treating her as if she was nothing more than dirt—
"Patricia."
"Ah!"
She turned around to see her husband, wide awake in the middle of the night, his hair standing on, making Patricia think of his rebel days in 2012. Eddie helped her sit up, knowing how hard it was now that her stomach could be compared to a balloon quite accurately. "Are you okay?" he asked, his hazel eyes shining.
She nodded, and closed her eyes, but Eddie's touch as he stroked her arm reassuringly kept her awake. It was almost all too real. "Was the baby kicking?" he wondered, smiling, ridiculously happy. Eddie had been so supportive, anxious, and excited throughout Patricia's entire pregnancy; it was so cute to watch.
There, she could have told him about how she'd had a nightmare and nothing more; she couldn't explain it, because she didn't know why she kept having them. When she was younger, Patricia had a reoccurring dream that her mother had given birth to a different child before Patricia and Piper, but had given her away for adoption. There was nothing truly special about that dream, but it happened a lot when she was in grade school. Why were the nightmares coming back now, why did Rufus choose to haunt her at a time like this?
"I think so," she lied, making Eddie smile even wider and caress Patricia's belly. "Hi there, baby girl," he whispered. "You're coming soon, Gemma."
"Who the hell is Gemma?" Patricia wondered, grinning, trying to decipher Eddie's features, as they were still talking in the pitch black night.
"Our baby," Eddie told her, as if it was obvious. Eddie rolled her eyes when Patricia huffed and started to explain why that name was bad, and that was when Patricia realized that even eight years later, they had never really changed.
/o~~~o/
Maybe it was a twin thing, but on August 18th, 2022, Patricia gave birth to twins; one boy and one girl, born healthy and happy. Christina and Anthony Miller both took after their dad; with blond hair and hazel eyes, the two would grow to be copies of Eddie.
Both Patricia and Eddie could say that Tina and Tony weren't easy children, especially with two little children in the house. When Patricia was fifteen, she was confident that she didn't want children. She wasn't motherly material; if anyone remembered how she reacted when something precious to her went missing (i.e. Joy Mercer), what would happen if Tina destroyed something with her mouth or Tony spit all over the nice carpet in the sitting room?
However, on August 18th, Patricia couldn't have been less of a mother. Eddie, standing next to her in the hospital bed with Willow taking a picture of the brand new parents, she didn't know that the twins would require someone holding their hands as they slept every. Single. Night.
/o~~~o/
They had been blurred before, but now Patricia saw his face. Rufus's ice-cold blue eyes, as blue as the ocean or the sky, stare into her soul each night as he grabs her ankle and calls her a little fool.
The chilling sound of his voice as he calls Jason with Patricia's pink hair streak in his hand infiltrates her mind, overruling the sound of the wind as November comes around again, 2023 right around the corner.
His stiff hand around her waist and over her mouth, forbidding her to scream out or call for help, returns to her senses, and she'll feel trapped, because that was the only emotion Patricia felt during those three days she was in the warehouse.
She willed herself not to scream this time, because she wasn't weak. She was Patricia Grace Williamson. She was a Sinner. She was blasted blind for 24 hours, she fell from the Senet board with Amber to meet up with Alfie and Nina, she defeated Denby's wrath and her hatred of Patricia and Eddie as a couple, and she was kidnapped by Rufus Zeno and survived.
She didn't do screaming. Or crying. Or yelling. She was a tough cookie, and she could handle tough situations, and she wasn't one to cry when she had a nightmare about her time trapped in the warehouse.
She was breathing hard, however, but no scream escaped her lips. She trembled in the cold December evening, forgetting that blankets were right at her feet and she could cover herself up and the cold would disappear. Patricia ran her hand through her chestnut hair, letting her bangs fall in front of her face.
She turned her body to the side, no longer feeling uncomfortable — these past four months since she gave birth had been heaven to Patricia because she could actually lay down and sit up without experiencing any pain or urges to do the other — and looked out the window, seeing nothing but white snow carpeting the windowsill. She could practically feel the cold within her bones.
With her left hand, she lifted it out from under the thin throw blanket she had over herself and rubbed her forehead, trying to soothe the headache. This had been happening every night; and it happened so often, and it came so quick that Patricia had condemned Eddie to sleeping with the twins in the nursery every night so the babies wouldn't hear her screaming when she dreamed of Rufus grabbing her ankle or feeding her a hamburger for breakfast or trapping her in the van.
Inhale. Exhale.
Patricia slowly lifted herself off the bed, and draped the throw blanket around her shoulders. It wasn't enough to warm her, but it was enough so she didn't freeze her ass off as she walked across the hall and into the nursery, where the twins and their father resided.
Slowly opening the newly-painted door so it wouldn't reek and wake the three of them, she pushed it on its hinges and it slowly revealed the room, the white room that could be compared to a hospital room, if only it had the materials. Patricia had wanted to paint the room brighter colors, just for the kid, even though Patricia herself didn't particularly enjoy bright colors; but as soon as they were going to go out and buy blue paint for the walls, Patricia's water broke and Eddie rushed her to the hospital.
The room remained white, and they couple had been too lazy to paint it for the past four months; the quarter-of-a-year old babies slept soundly in their cribs, the mobile hanging above their heads.
Eddie Miller, a man of 27, was sleeping with his head tilted back, snoring like always, drool sliding down the side of his mouth.
Patricia chuckled softly, moving the hair out of her face so she could see better in the almost-pitch-black December night. Her eyes began to close as she carefully walked over the children's toys, careful not to make a sound, as she made her way over to her husband; her wonderful husband, who she wanted to see more than anyone in the world right now.
Being even more careful not to wake up, Patricia moved her robe to her side as she sat down on his lap, curled into his stomach, and closed her eyes.
She didn't know when he began to feel or smell like home, but she never felt more comfortable in any other person's arms but his. He smelled of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with melting fudge; his favorite snack that his mother used to make for him when he was little.
"Hey," was the voice, evidently confused, that woke her as she was just falling asleep. Patricia opened her eyes to see Eddie, his hands outstretched so the twins could hold their daddy's fingers. "Uh...Patricia, what are you doing here? I thought you were asleep."
"I was," she told him, remembering why she had come in the room in the first place. "I just got lonely, so I figured I'd come in and snuggle with you. I'm sorry if I woke you."
"No, it's okay," he whispered, contorting his face in pain; Patricia, forever the mind reader, scratched the itch on top of his forehead for him; Eddie purred gratefully. "I can't move my arms, obviously, so why don't you just cuddle up on my knee and rest your heart on my shoulder."
"Are you gonna watch me sleep?" she joked, ever so quietly as to not wake the children. She cuddled into him again, the smell of chocolate chip cookies overwhelming her, making her want to purr in delight as well. Patricia had grown so familiar with his scent over the years that her house didn't seem full without it.
"I might," he retorted playfully. She wanted to tell him why she came in here in the first place, to just spill that she'd had another nightmare — Eddie had all those visions in his twelfth year, he could probably understand — but she didn't feel the need too. It was just a silly nightmare. Something was bothering her, obviously, if it was enough to give her a reoccurring dream, but it wasn't anything totally important. Rufus was long dead by now. There was no need fretting over something that wasn't going to hurt her.
Eddie leaned his head over, keeping his arms still, and kissed the top of Patricia's head. Her hair over the years had gone from auburn to chestnut and now it was more of a dark brown. She smiled when she felt his lips on her head, but when he whispered, "Sweet dreams" into her ear, she couldn't guarantee that one.
She closed her eyes again and began to drift off, thinking of anything other than the nightmares she'd been receiving; like ponies, rainbows, smiles, and unicorn stickers. She supposed it was a few minutes later when a nasty smell replaced the nice, comfortable scent of Eddie himself; he had farted, disturbing the night.
"Ugh!" Patricia complained, moving away from him. "Eddie!
Eddie laughed, his quiet chuckle filling the emptiness of the nursery in the middle of the night.
/o~~~o/
One would think that it would get better after she finally went to someone for comfort, but it did not.
There were some nights that would be calm, of course, but Patricia would wake up on those mornings, thinking that it was actually surreal that she didn't have a bad dream. She wouldn't ask Eddie for comfort, and instead tell him that the twins needed him inside the nursery; she made sure he was already asleep when she tried, as to make sure he wouldn't hear her when she woke up, out of breath, feeling the need to let her anger, fear, and anxiety out with a scream.
She didn't scream at first, but by the time the twins were six months old, the nightmares were happening every night, and eventually the screams died out once again. Eddie heard her once, when the screams were still potent, because he couldn't fall asleep that one night, and ran into the main bedroom, holding a baseball bat.
After that, he let the twins fall out of the habit of holding someone's hand as they fell asleep, concerned for his wife. Not wanting to bother her loving husband with such a minor problem, Patricia fell into the habit of holding in a scream when the dreams got worse; but worse was an understatement if Eddie could actually see what was happening in her subconscious at night.
Rufus' ice-cold blue eyes would haunt her the most; inside, they carried secrets. She'd wake up, her mouth closed, screaming on the inside, and the only thing she'd remember is the haunting color of her kidnapper's eyes; she'd suck in a deep breath and look around, but the color was everywhere, even in the middle of the night, when everything was pitch black.
There was a night when the nightmare felt so real, that she could have sworn she had been taken by Rufus once again. She could almost feel his cold, deathly old hand on her shoulder, telling her to get in the van. She could almost hear his chilling voice as he told her to eat the sandwich or else she wouldn't get anything at all. She could feel how trapped she was as he covered her mouth to stop her from screaming out to Nina and Amber when they finally came to rescue her, could remember the protesting when he dragged her out of the warehouse, and remember how she felt like she was going to die in the trunk of Rufus's van because Fabian just couldn't seem to get the crowbar through the door hole.
Then, suddenly, the dreams changed.
They weren't just of her time in the warehouse anymore. For weeks, all she could see was Fabian pouring the elixir into the finished Cup of Ankh, watching Amber stumble as Rufus tossed her away, into Alfie's arms, and see him drink every last drop of the elixir. She could feel the scream of "FINALLY, ETERNITY IS MINE!" and feel the absolute panic as she saw Alfie fall to the floor, thinking that one of her best friends might actually die.
They were worse than the warehouse dreams because every time she had a new 'cellar' dream, the person dying always changed. At first, it was Alfie. Patricia could only watch, with Rufus holding her mouth shut, therefore not allowing Patricia to help her dying friends. As Amber told Alfie she'd do anything to let him live, she woke up, and the next day, the dream would repeat.
Except, the next time, Alfie didn't die. Instead, Jerome was the one to claim he was dizzy.
Jerome may have been a scheming, betraying weasel, but he'd been there for Patricia from the very start. He might have joked about Joy's disappearance at first, back when he lost his 'innocence' per say, and wasn't involved in Rufus's evil schemes, but he tried to comfort Patricia, at least. Every time he joked that she changed her number instead of telling her that she died, he was supporting her in his own way.
"No," Rufus would whisper in Patricia's ear as she thrashed, wanting to run and save him so the House wouldn't have to wake up and see one seat empty and hear the breakfast table extra quiet because the legendary prankster was dead. She'd thrash and protest because he was one of her best friends and she couldn't imagine her life without Jerome Clarke being in it.
She'd thrash and protest because every time someone from the House wasn't there, it was like a piece of them was missing, too. She couldn't explain how she felt in the spring of 2012, when Sibuna had finally made it to the Senet board in the tunnels and Fabian had made a wrong move, sending Nina down a pitfall. She couldn't fall asleep that night, not because she was all that close with Nina, but because of how angry Fabian was at the world. He was the brains of Sibuna, he always knew what to do and where to go. Nina had even told Fabian she trusted him before he'd advised her to make the wrong move. Patricia didn't even have to think twice to know that Fabian would happily trade Nina's safety for his own, that, if he had the chance to send himself down that pitfall, he'd say yes in an instant.
She had no doubt in her mind that Eddie loved her very much (After all, he did propose to her), but she kind of wished Eddie could be that in love with Patricia that he'd, without a doubt, trade his safety for Patricia's. She kind of wished that he'd be that in love with her, that he was so nervous about her declining his prom invitation that he accidentally asked another girl to the prom while he stuttered around the subject. Patricia had never been one to tell someone how 'nice' something was...but she always liked the story between Nina and Fabian.
Even in her dreams, Fabian was still head over heels in love with Nina. After days of Rufus holding Patricia back from saving Jerome's life, as Alfie tried desperately to revive his best friend, and Patricia waking up while holding back a scream, the person feeling dizzy changed to Nina, the first leader of Sibuna. When she fell to the floor, Patricia had no idea what to do, nor did she have any idea how to feel back in late 2012, when Mr. Sweet charged into Anubis with the information that Nina wouldn't be returning.
Fabian was yelling, screaming for someone to call an ambulance or help him. He couldn't imagine his life without the person who had shown him that life wasn't as boring as he thought it was. Patricia stood behind with her mouth closed by the cold grip of Rufus's hand.
Fabian and the others watched as Nina's life was drained out of her. Rufus spun Patricia around, and she wanted to call out and interrupt the silence as they stared at their dead friend, say that Rufus had Patricia now, instead of Amber, but her voice failed her as her former kidnapper's ice-cold blue eyes stared into Patricia's blue-green ones.
"See what you've done?" he snarled; the scenery around them faded, and Patricia found herself in a white room. Anyone would think, from that sentence, that Patricia had collapsed from shock and was in the hospital, but no; instead, the room they were in was completely white. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were white.
Am I dead?
She actually had to ask herself that question.
Am I dead?
She knew the myth that if you died in a dream, you actually died in your sleep in real life.
So am I dead?
"What have I done?" Patricia retorted. She may have been pushing her luck, but she wasn't kidding back in 2011 when she told Rufus she wasn't scared of him, and she wasn't kidding now. "I haven't done anything."
"Are you so sure about that?" Rufus's voice curled, as he circled around Patricia in the white room. She followed him as he walked around her, tracing his trail with her eyes, which were still attempting to adjust to the strange lighting of wherever they were. "Nina Martin is dead because of you. Do you call that nothing?"
"She's not dead because of me," Patricia said, this time legitimately thinking that her heart might actually pound out of her chest; she was that terrified of him. She had never been before, so why now? "She brought it onto herself."
"I don't think so," Rufus sang again, stopping his trail in front of Patricia once again, his warty, scarred face smirking at her. "You were the one to make her go into that attic. If you hadn't been so convinced that she was the reason Joy was gone, Nina never would have seen the portrait of Sarah Frobisher-Smythe. If she hadn't seen that portrait, she never would have seen the clue that was on the back of it. It all traces back down to you, my dear Patricia."
"I was just trying to find my friend!" Patricia defended, her heart pounding a mile a minute. She could've collapsed right then and there because of the fear that was eating her alive. "I never did anything wrong! If anything, it lead to something good!"
"Good?" Rufus laughed, his head tilting back in disbelieving laughter. "Oh, Patricia, it was anything but good. Look, all of your precious friends are dying, and there's nothing you can do to stop it!"
The room changed. Patricia was back in the cellar with her Sibuna club members; in that short moment, she felt a pang of relief, being back with people she trusted and relied on, people she actually liked to be around. Fabian had slowly lifted himself off the ground, where Nina's body was. His blue eyes that were usually alight with knowledge were clouded with tears and grief. Him and Patricia used to be such good friends, along with Joy, until Nina first came around and all Fabian did was hang around the new girl. Patricia had joined in on what they were doing soon enough, but Fabian's 'witch' comment came back to haunt her as soon as she saw the hatred in his eyes.
Before he could say anything hurtful, Patricia woke up once again. A gasp of breath escaped, along with a very troubled, painful sound. She felt her forehead with the back of her hand, even though that would do nothing to soothe the migraine that was approaching.
As she breathed, thinking about how different Sibuna would be if someone had actually died in that cellar in 2011, she realized that a figure was, once again, sitting upright next to her.
"Patricia?" Eddie whispered. She didn't jump, as she was very familiar with his voice, even when no lights were on in their house. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she lied easily, blinking hard. "I'm fine."
"Spare me your bullshit, Patricia," he commanded, but he didn't sound mad at all. He was more...intrigued, perhaps, curious as to why his wife had been waking up screaming in the middle of the night for months now. "You know me. You're married to me. If something's wrong...tell me."
"Of course I'd tell you if something's wrong," she removed her hand from her forehead, as her eyes attempted to outline Eddie's features: his hazel eyes, his large nose, his wide lips. "But there's nothing to tell."
Eddie looked like he wanted to protest, to call out on Patricia's bullshit. Of course something was wrong with Patricia — she knew that — but she didn't want to bother Eddie with something so minor as nightmares. If Eddie had dealt with his visions in their last year of high school, while dealing with the mystery at hand, than Patricia could handle some bad dreams involving her kidnapper from years and years ago. They didn't even matter that much.
"Well..." he murmured, quietly, careful to not wake the twins, who had finally been broken out of their hand-holding habit. If Eddie and Patricia dared to step out of line, than one of the twins would be set out, and Patricia didn't need to add baby cries to the list of things that were giving her migraines
/o~~~o/
This time, Joy was the one to die.
Patricia barely had time to react. Fabian, Patricia had thought, should learn to stop caring about people, because he was just as distressed watching Joy die as he was watching his first kiss in her dream.
And that's all it was: a dream. Yet, it still felt so real as Rufus couldn't hold Patricia back this time, and could only watch her thrash and scream and protest and writhe and scream out THIS ISN'T FAIR, JOY DIDN'T DESERVE IT, SHE'S MY BEST FRIEND, STOP, PLEASE, STOP, STOP, STOP STOP STOP. Her dream was so loud with protests about Joy dying that she could practically hear her sleeping form screaming out of the actual dream.
As the incident in the cellar was taking place in 2011, all of these people were ignorant to the future. Jerome didn't know that his future wife was writhing on the floor, Fabian didn't know that both of his 'main' girls would leave him, leaving Fabian to Mara, who treated him poorly (Fabian ended up getting a divorce with Mara after he married her), and Alfie didn't know that the woman he came to Prom with would sacrifice herself for Sibuna in about two years' time. Knowing all this information hurt Patricia even more, because as Fabian sobbed and wept because he had watched both Nina and Joy die now. Both of them were his best friends at one point or another, so watching them both die...Patricia couldn't imagine. She was just lucky that Eddie wasn't the one on the cellar floor.
Fabian hadn't died yet. She wasn't sure why; Patricia had been as close to him as she was close to Jerome, if not closer, yet Jerome had died in her dream at one point. Would Fabian just not die, would Rufus refuse to let Patricia see such a role model dying in such a minuscule, weak way?
Watching Joy, her best friend above everyone else, just die on the cellar floor with Patricia, powerless to stop it, ensued a scream one millisecond after Patricia opened her eyes to the bedroom. It was louder and more powerful than any other one, as Patricia had never been as scared, or as angry, as she was right now. Rufus had crossed the line; killing everyone in Sibuna was enough to set any of them off. Back in the late months of 2011, when the Anubis residents began their third term, Nina almost didn't tell Patricia and Alfie about what was going on under the House because of how desperate she was to protect them. What if she had been kidnapped by Rufus, what if she was getting these dreams?
Patricia wouldn't want to see the outcome.
Her worst scream escaped her lips. It took so much energy out of her that after she screamed, she started to fall involuntarily down, back onto the pillows, but before she could do so a different, larger, warmer hand had pushed her back upright. Eddie.
She didn't even have to see him to collapse into his chest and start weeping, her words muffled as she started to explain everything that had been happening for over a year now, but they started to get bad only weeks before now. Her head in his tank top, his hand on her hair, stroking it and whispering in her ear that everything was going to be okay, she was safe. No one was going to hurt her, whoever had been invading her nightmares.
Eventually, when she realized that Eddie couldn't hear a word of what she was saying, she stopped talking and just continued crying. It was the only way she thought of getting her emotions out; and Patricia had a ton of emotions she wanted to share. Eddie respected her wishes of silence by not saying anything as she calmed herself.
Usually, Patricia wouldn't let anyone touch her hair. She hated that feeling, that tug like someone was dragging you somewhere you didn't want to go, but now, it was calming, almost. She let Eddie touch her head, stoke her hair, rub her arms and let her cry, instead of asking her to calm down and explain what was bothering her. She had a feeling that Eddie knew what was going on, somehow, but he let her sob her emotions out anyway.
She had no idea of the time, but Eddie never once grew impatient with her as she cried. She cried for Alfie, for Jerome, for Nina, and for Joy. All people who didn't deserve to die, who could've been saved at the hand of Patricia, but Rufus had held her back from doing so. She cried for the time she was kidnapped, for the time when she was cruel to Nina because she thought she kidnapped Joy, for how cruel she was to KT, too, just because Patricia was jealous 95% of the time in her last year in Anubis. She cried for herself, for being so weak.
She loved Eddie for being so patient with her. He didn't look the last bit annoyed with her when she finally removed her head from his white tank top, stained with tears, her face a complete mess. Eddie grinned sadly when Patricia spared him a glance, moving her red hair out of her face. "What's wrong?" he asked quietly; most likely a joke, but Patricia could never be sure with him. "Why didn't you come to me?"
She let another few tears fall before she spoke; and as soon as she did, she regretted ever speaking up. She never knew crying that much could do so much damage to your voice. "Because," she answered, no intention of lying, "I didn't want to worry you."
"Worry me with what?" His very distinguishable voice spoke, not loud at all, but Patricia could hear him in the silence of midnight. "Patricia, what's wrong?"
If his voice wasn't as concerned as it was, she probably wouldn't have told him, despite them being husband and wife. But, with tears still on her cheeks, she whispered (and that's all she could manage with her voice being so hoarse and cracked), "I, um...for a while, I've been having...bad dreams."
"Bad dreams?" Eddie questioned, holding Patricia close to him as nodded. He was silent for a moment, his eyes blank as if lost in thought. Patricia's hand caressed Eddie's hand, thinking back on the times when they were in Anubis, waiting for him to say, "Like...what kind of bad dreams?"
"It's nothing, really—"
"Patricia, come on," Eddie pleaded, his voice desperate for answers. "I don't want you to...I don't want anything to happen to you. You can trust me, I promise!"
"Yeah, well, Nina also said she trusted him before he sent her down the pitfall," she joked lightly without a smile, but Eddie was as confused as ever. Waving her comment aside, she said, "Okay, okay. I'll tell you. Back in 2011, Rufus Zeno took me, kidnapped me, and I was locked in this warehouse for like three days. It wasn't that long, but it was traumatizing. I was so scared. And it's never...it's never come back to haunt me until a few months ago, but I couldn't do anything to ward them off.
"And then, a few weeks ago, the dreams in the warehouse changed. Because...the year before you came, if you didn't know, Sibuna was searching for the Cup of Ankh. We...we put it together down in the cellar. Because Ru—Rufus Zeno thought he drank the real elixir, Alfie had to pretend to die, and then now in the dreams Alfie really did die, and then Jerome died, then Nina, and Joy, oh god Eddie it was horrible!" she sobbed, sitting, her head in her hands. She knew she could be stronger than this — she didn't even cry once when she was locked in Rufus's warehouse — but now all of the fear came back to bit her in the bum.
"It's okay," Eddie assured her, with possibly the weakest sentence ever. Nothing was ever okay in Patricia's life, or any of the Anubis residents lives, for that matter. "You're safe. He didn't hurt you, did he?"
Patricia wanted to smack Eddie's hand away when he started brushing away her tears, but she was too lazy and too tired to do so. "No," she whispered, gathering her breath once again as to speak in clear sentences. She'd want Eddie to understand her while she talked, anyway. "He didn't hurt me. He — he barely laid a hand on me in the warehouse, but...he did hold me back from saving Joy and the others in my dream, I..."
"Patricia," Eddie commanded his wife to look at him, "It's fine. He's not here. Rufus is in the Underworld with the Mask of Anubis. He didn't hurt anyone in that cellar, and he never will. I promise. You're safe with me."
"Are you sure?" she asked, smiling at his confidence.
"Yeah," he smiled back, "I'm a big tough man, and I'll protect you from whatever happens. If you have another nightmare, I'll snuggle up with you in bed. If Rufus comes back from the Underworld and attempts to kidnap you, I'll punch him out. And if I somehow sleep through your kidnapping, I'll go to the warehouse and then I'll punch him out."
Patricia laughed weakly, happy that she finally had someone she could turn to with no complaints or without feeling guilty. "Oh, come on," she replied, the two of them still sitting up straight, "You couldn't punch someone out if you tried."
"I could totally do that! I could even punch someone out in my dream, and it'd be so strong they wouldn't wake up for another twelve hours!" he defended, holding Patricia's arms before she snuggled up into his chest and closed her eyes. Eddie began to rub her arm in comfort and talk to her about how strong he was, how he knew that he needed to go and save the others in the library because he was that awesome. She fell asleep, listening to his voice, his very weird voice, but his comforting voice all the same. His voice faded out until she was left with nothing but darkness and a full feeling in her chest. Her night wasn't eventful.
It was dreamless.