Being married to Jenny wasn't the easiest thing, he had to admit. Waking her from her nightmares had been the hardest thing he had to deal with, Michael still couldn't understand why Jenny was still having these nightmares. She'd wake up at two o'clock on the dot screaming to no one directly 'Why did you kill him?! Why?!' Michael could have only guessed she was screaming about Nick Cutter's death. Sometimes she would sleep talk about Abby and Connor and how she wished she could see them again and a couple of times she would sleep walk out onto their balcony and stand there. Sometimes she would cry, sometimes she would just stare into the lake next to their home.
Michael had considered taking her to a therapist, but Jenny would always insist she was fine and she didn't need any help. Quite frankly, Michael's temper was becoming shorter and shorter and it was pushing a huge strain down onto their marriage. This had been going on for three years now and it needed to stop. He decided that he would give her some space, some time to really heal from her bad memories and experiences, every night he would sleep on the sofa and shower separately instead of with Jenny like he used to. He would make her breakfast every morning and leave for work, without so much as a kiss and it had been going on like that for sixth months. Truth be told, Michael had no idea what to do.
They would argue over the stupidest things and hold grudges against each other for two straight days, neither of the two saying a word to each other. Michael knew it had to stop.
Looking at his watch, he sighed heavily and realised the time. He was five minutes late for work and he still hadn't finished Jenny's breakfast. He would always cook her eggs on toast and cut the crusts off the way she liked it. Since Jenny's nightmares had started, she was always too tired to go into work so Michael had to give up being a musician so he could pay to stay in their home. Working as an estate agent was the worst possible job Michael could have imagined but it covered everything. Taking a deep breath, he slowly cut the crust from Jenny's sandwich and realised that he used to smile when he cut the crusts from Jenny's sandwiches now he had a straight face and not one single happy thought.
He set down the knife and grabbed the bottle of orange juice beside him, if he wasn't here in the mornings he would have no doubt that Jenny would reach for the bottle of Vodka rather than the carton of orange juice. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Michael watched as the orange juice poured and dripped into the cup. All of a sudden, he heard a clicking sound. Like metal against marble, he threw the empty carton into the bin and glanced upwards at the pans clashing together in one certain direction. What the hell?
At first, he thought it was a poltergeist ready to murder him and drag him to hell but when the knife he was using disappeared in the direction behind him, he knew that wasn't the case.
Michael's eyebrow raised so far up into his forehead he thought it might disappear into his hair. Turning, he saw the parts of light floating in the air. Oh great, just what he needed to start off his day!
"Michael?" Jenny's voice was quiet and timid. He could hear the floorboards creak as his wife stepped through out into the area of the kitchen. Her expression he could no longer read.
He watched as her facial expression broke into something he couldn't quite recognise anymore. Each mouth twitch was her way of reliving every memory of these anomalies, Michael had never seen somebody in so much pain and he could almost feel it himself. Her face was breaking into tiny little nothings of pain and emotion. It was as if somebody had blown a bomb up in her face and she was very slowly reacting to it.
Jenny had no idea what to do with herself. How was she supposed to react? Scream? Cry? Fall back into her bed like she had been doing for weeks? Or was it months? Her breathing became uneven as she stared hopelessly down at her fingers and faint stains of blood surrounding them. She had to be dreaming, she had to be! Swallowing down all her fears and emotions, her eyes closed shut and when she opened them, the blood was gone. Where had that come from? Her mind wondered for a little while before she realised it was a memory of all the blood that was shed in the work line of the ARC. First Stephen, then Cutter, then Sarah and maybe even Danny because the last she heard he was stuck in the past with no way home.
Echoes of Michael's voice surrounded her and she couldn't work out why on earth he was moving around so fast. Before she could react to anything that was going on, her heartbeat increased and slowly she slipped into darkness and the last thing she heard was the voice of Danny.
"Jen!"