Disclaimer: I don't own Days…not at all. :-( makes me kind of sad.
A/N: Thank you for the reviews; they really help, and they do make me want to continue with the story:-)
Chapter Four
"Jeannie, wake up!" Caroline's soft voice rang high through the cracks in the wooden door and the potent aroma of eggs wafted its way into her room. Jeannie groaned, throwing the sheets off of her. Why did today have to be Monday? Why couldn't Sunday simply repeat itself?
"I have school today," Jeannie sighed in exasperation. She wasn't ready to go back; not in the slightest. It was hard enough living with people she didn't know, but at least they were family and they understood. Now she had to face an entire student body of onlookers, peers, people who would claim to know her, claim to be her friend, and for what? She didn't have any recollection of them, so why would it matter? And yet, they'd still approach her, they'd still stop her in the halls, talk to her, ask her questions of an accident she didn't even remember being in. And what would she say to her so-called friends? 'Sorry, Jeannie Donovan doesn't exist, but I'm here now; unfortunately, I don't know who I am.'
"Jeannie!" Caroline hurried her; even with amnesia her alter-ego hated mornings.
Jeannie rolled her eyes, curling her legs back beneath her. Nope, no school today; she wouldn't go today and she wouldn't go tomorrow. There would be no school until Jeannie Donovan reentered the building, she decided.
"Jeannie, if you don't get up in 10 minutes I'm going to send your aunt in," Caroline threatened; Kayla was always a little more tricky when it came to waking up the adolescent female; after all, up until recently, she had had one at home.
"I'm not going!" Jeannie's muffled voice made its way through the tightly closed door.
Caroline sighed; "Jeannie, you can't live your life afraid. You can't let one accident change who you are"
"Uh, it kind of did," Jeannie droned in reference to her amnesia.
"Fine; you can stay here at the pub with me and your grandfather today, but tomorrow you have got to go back to school" Caroline softened; she didn't want to let Jeannie out of her sight anymore than Jeannie wanted to go to school.
"Fine, whatever" Jeannie shoved her face back into the comfort of her pillow and hid her body once again with the deep brown sheets on her bed. Caroline listened for a minute, and when she heard no more sounds she made her way back downstairs to the pub.
"Is she almost ready?" Kayla briefly looked up from her coffee, making eye contact with her mother.
Caroline shook her head, "No," she replied, "she isn't going to go in today"
"Mom, you can't baby her. It's important that she get back out there." Kayla gently laid a hand on her mother's shoulder. She understood how hard this must've been for her; she herself spent a while crying in bed the night before. Losing Jeannie, but not really losing her, made them feel as though they'd lost Kimberly all over again. Her body was still there but her soul…just wasn't; Jeannie Donovan….just wasn't.
"I know it is," Caroline patted her daughter's hand in reassurance; she was strong, she'd make it through this. "She just needs one more day; I promise, she's going back tomorrow whether she likes it or not."
Kayla nodded and lifted her purse from the old table upon which it sat. "Alright; well I'm going to get to work a little early. I'll go to the office and excuse her before going to the nurse's station."
"Thank you, Kayla" Caroline wrapped her arms gratefully around her daughter. "For everything," she said, looking Kayla in the eyes. "Thank you for helping me all these years with Jeannie and with Andrew, for taking the job at the school for Jeannie, and just for being there."
Kayla nodded. "Wouldn't have it any other way, mom." With her slender, well-manicured hands, she squeezed her mother's shoulder and then turned to leave.
"Love you," Caroline called after her; since the accident she'd made sure to tell everyone she loved that she loved them each time they came in and each time they left. She could never be sure she'd see them again, and Jeannie's accident put that into perspective for her.
"I love you too," Kayla replied, heading out into the cold weather for a long day at work.
---
Jeannie closed her eyes, and it felt like only a minute before she was back to sleep, dreaming; thinking. Suddenly she was back in her hospital room; it was dark out; she knew this because the cricket outside her window chirped loudly, it's loudest at night time. There was no one else in the room with her; she looked around, even the T.V. had been turned off, probably by the night nurse.
The shadows of tree branches waving danced along the walls, and she watched, tiredly. The medicine she'd been given was slowly wearing off, and its effects slowly dissipating from her tiny body. Outside, the halls were quiet; an occasional beeping sound here and there, sure, but generally quiet. It even seemed as though her heart monitor, usually loud and annoying, had hushed itself for the night.
And suddenly to her left she heard whispering; she turned, her eyes wide and alert, to see a woman and a man, clad only in black, entering through her window. She thought for a minute, deciding whether or not to press the 'Call Nurse' button, and when they advanced toward her, she quickly decided against it.
Even through her sleep her mind urged her to listen to the words the shadowy figures spoke. Her mind slipped further into the dream, and she recalled opening one eye ever so slightly to take a look at the figures hovering over her.
"Oh my baby," a woman's voice spoke, and it seemed close. A slender hand reached out and stroked Jeannie's hair, twisting the strands between her fingers and red-painted nails. It was about the only source of color the woman had on her, and Jeannie couldn't help but think how pathetic that must've looked during the daytime.
"She seems to be alright," a man spoke, but the way he spoke the words…his accent, it was different. It was different than any other voice she'd heard since being found in the hospital. And the tender way he spoke of her…why did they care so much?
"Yes, she does," the woman spoke soft, careful not to wake the sleeping young woman in the bed.
"Well then, we should probably get back." The male spoke again, this time also placing a strong hand on the Jeannie's silky straight hair. She should have been scared; she should have been flailing out of bed, running away, calling for help; but she didn't, and she wasn't. The voices, although unfamiliar, were comforting, generally soothing, and she didn't want them to leave.
"Can't we stay just a few more minutes?" The woman pleaded, grasping Jeannie's hand tightly, to which Jeannie squinted a bit under the pressure.
"We can't; the nurse will be coming back in, in a few more minutes to check on her. We can't be here when she walks in."
The woman sighed, defeated, and released her grasp on Jeannie's hand. "Alright; can we come back tomorrow night?"
"Of course we can, darling, of course." The male voice assured her over and over for what seemed like forever.
---
Jeannie sat up, wiping her eyes free of the residue that built up in the crevices, which collected there during sleep. She inhaled fresh oxygen, and released the old, used oxygen from her nap. She looked at her hands, collecting her thoughts and replaying the dream in her head. It hadn't seemed like a dream at all; it was too real. And those voices- they were not voices she'd heard before; so how did they come to her in a dream? Weren't dreams supposed to be subconscious thoughts? If she had no subconscious, how was she able to recall the voices as if they had just been sitting right there, next to her. And why did they seem so comforting, so unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time? And she also wondered if they, the shadowy figures, had gone back the next night? She wouldn't have known; she'd been released the next morning.
"Jeannie?" Caroline knocked lightly on the door, listening to see if she could hear her granddaughter's voice, or any form of movement indicating that Jeannie was awake and out of bed.
"I'm up," Jeannie replied softly. She couldn't stop thinking about the dream, and doubted any decent amount of time would change that.
"Lunch is ready if you're hungry," Caroline said.
"I'll be down in a couple minutes," Jeannie smoothed the wrinkles from her clothing and stood up, pausing for a minute in front of the cool breeze her fan gave off.
"Alright honey. I'll be down there waiting if you need anything."
Jeannie nodded to herself. "Alright," she called out. She used her left hand to throw her hair into a pony-tail, fastening the hair tie securely around the large sum of hair. With her other hand she fumbled through her dresser drawers; they were still a mystery to her, even after being home for 3 days. Finally, she settled on some sweat pants and what looked to be a cheerleading shirt from her school.
Twisting the door handle to the left, she let herself out of the tiny room and entered the hallway; it was decorated with pictures of the family. Jeannie stopped in front of one in particular; a woman and a man, holding a young boy and a baby girl in their arms. The family seemed happy enough, but why hadn't the man and woman shown up to introduces themselves to her all over again; it was odd, the entire town had already made their way to her.
"I love that picture; it's one of my favorites" Caroline smiled, coming around the corner, folding a clean towel and placing it in the linen closet.
"Who are they?" Jeannie furrowed her brows; although she'd never seen the woman and the man before, they looked familiar.
"That's your father, Shane, and your mother, Kimberly. They're holding you and your brother Andrew" Caroline smiled and nodded.
"That's my father and mother?" Jeannie asked, eyeing the picture with wide eyes.
Caroline nodded and smiled, stroking the picture with her long nails. "Yes; it is. They died when you were 4. Andrew was 8. He's away at college now"
"Dead?" Jeannie asked, shaking her head. They couldn't be dead; they were the shadowy figures she'd seen that night by her bedside.