Nightmares

A Maximum Ride oneshot
by ImDreamingTheDream

Character Tags: Angel, Iggy
Genre: Family, Fluff, Hurt-Comfort
Setting: Before TAE

The Flock all had nightmares sometimes, which was to be expected. All of them except Angel, who'd been too little to remember what had happened to them all at the School when they'd been there three years ago. That was what Max thought, anyway.

The truth was that Angel did have nightmares, did she ever, but not all of them were hers. It was more complicated in her head than other people gave her credit for, than the others, especially Max, knew. Being just five and having so many minds and thoughts and ideas of other people chattering away in her head was overpowering and exhausting work. She'd gotten a grip of homing in on just her thoughts by now, but the other minds and consciousnesses of other people were still there, pressing in on her in the background. So most of Angel's nightmares were memories she'd picked up from other people: namely the Flock's.

She had nightmares a lot, almost every night, but Max didn't know. At five, Angel was still young enough to want to be comforted when she had a nightmare, but much as she loved her mother figure, it was Iggy she went to. There were three reasons she chose to go to Iggy and not Max when she had bad dreams. Because a) Max always took such a I-know-you're-scared-but-where's-my-brave-little-soldier attitude with her, and made Angel feel silly for crying. And b) Iggy always knew what to do; he was so good when it came to comforting her. He didn't tell her to toughen up and dry those tears and smile, but he knew what to do to make her smile instead, and held her close and hugged her, and then got up to fix hot chocolate for them both, and c) even if Max did try to make hot chocolate she would burn the house down.

That was why Angel now woke up with her little girl heart beating hard in her ears, her breathing raggedy. She drew in a few deep breaths, then climbed from her bed, trying not to wake Nudge up on the other side of the room, and crept into the hall. She crossed the hall and entered Iggy's bedroom.

Her brother figure was lying on his stomach in bed with one arm dangling over the edge of the mattress, snoring softly. Angel hovered in the doorway, the hem of her too-big nightdress brushing against her little toes, still shaking badly from her nightmare, and held onto the doorframe for support. A small voice cut through the dark room. "Iggy?" When there was only more snoring as an answer, Angel said louder, "Iggy."

Now he shifted on the mattress, his wings rustled. The boy sat up and blinked open his eyes, lifting a hand to rake through his messy reddish-blond hair. Angel stayed shyly in the doorway, and said his name one last time to help him place her voice. "Iggy."

He turned in her general direction, his milky blue eyes unfocused and directionless; empty; and he cocked his head to one side. "Ang'?" It was a sleepy, confused mumble. "What're you doing in here so late, baby?" He lifted a hand out to her in invitation.

Angel padded closer until she was standing right next to him, and with that funny way of his, he reached out and took her hand. She saw his brow knit as he saw how bad she was shaking, saw the question about to form on his lips, and felt it come together in his mind. "Bad dream," she explained before he asked.

"Ah," he whispered, understanding, and padded the space of bed next to him. Angel, relieved, clambered up onto the bed and joined her "brother" under the covers. Her tiny fingers held onto the front of his pyjama top and his arms wrapped themselves around her little body, holding her tight. "Okay. It's okay, Ang'. We're past that now, you know. Unless you had a bad dream about a monster under your bed, which is different. And if there is a monster under your bed, then me and Gazzy will make a bomb and get rid of him, yeah?" He tweaked her nose.

Angel was still breathing hard, but between her shallow breaths she managed to giggle and nod into him. He would recognise the feel of it, and he did, because one of his hand reached up to her face. He wiped away the trains of tears down her cheeks, and with another hand he stroked her hair and kissed the crown of her head. "It's okay, baby," he whispered again. "We're past that now."

"I know," Angel said quietly. She still had a death grip on the front of his pyjamas, and now she loosened it.

"Wanna talk about it?" Iggy asked gently. He was giving off a gentle, soothing feeling: with his words, with the stroking of her hair, with holding her close, and with the emotions he gave off in his head. Angel had stopped trembling, and pressed herself closer still to her brother figure. Still, she didn't want to talk about what she'd seen, so she just said quietly, "No," and Iggy understood. This was why he was good at things like when Angel had bad dreams. He prompted but never pushed her, he held her and knew what to say. A pause, and then he asked, "Do you want me to make you some hot chocolate?"

He was already sitting up, knowing what Angel's answer would be yes, which it was. Iggy dragged himself out of bed, then gathered Angel up and carried her into the kitchen, her skinny arms wrapped securely around his neck. When they got to the kitchen, he deposited her at the island counter, and got ready two mugs, milk, sugar, cocoa powder, marshmallows, and set some water to boil.

Once the kettle began to whistle, Iggy poured the water into two mugs and handed the larger to Angel. Small five-year-old fingers wrapped around the mug. She lifted it to her mouth and drank gratefully. The hot chocolate burned her tongue, giving off just enough pain to clear her head a bit better. No words were spoken, but Angel spoke up after she'd nearly drained her cup. "I think I was looking at Max's memories. I think it was them that got in my head. It was terrible, so terrible, Iggy … "

He was sitting beside her at the island counter, and now his arm came around her again as he stroked her hair. "I know, baby. They did so many terrible things to Max and to all of us back there. To you, too. But shh, that's all gone now. And hey, you know what? Maybe tomorrow morning I'll help you make pancakes."

Angel nodded, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Okay. Thanks, Iggy."

It was later, when she'd finished her hot chocolate and he'd carried her back to his bed because she hadn't wanted to go to her own just yet, that she whispered to him that she never had dreams about what they'd done to her. The evidence of it was still there, as plain as it was on the rest of the Flock: faint scars, encircling her tiny ankle from the cuffs they'd been forced to wear; faint burns marks down her legs; pale scars on her back from being hit and whipped with all manner of things, all of them fading but would never truly be gone. All Angel remembered was the memories she found in Max's head, and in Nudge's, and Fang's, and Gazzy's, and Iggy's. The memories would be floating around in their heads, and her mind would pick up on them and wrap around them.

What Angel didn't tell him was one specific memory of his she'd had bad dreams about, more than once, and she hadn't gone to Iggy then, because the bad dream that she had concerning Iggy was his memory of the day they'd taken away his eyesight.

Iggy whispered she was lucky, at least, that she didn't remember what they'd done to her. He said he remembered a little, and how awful it was, especially since she'd only been a baby. His hands stroked her hair, and then he whispered to her that it was okay to fall asleep now, and he'd chase the nightmares away. If they showed up, he said, he'd make an explosion to blast them from here to next week.

And with those words, and with her brother holding her close, Angel fell asleep.