Dreams - Thirty-Sixth Chapter
Rory stumbled down the stairs after yet another night of bad sleep due to terrible nightmares.

Martha took one look at her face and said sympathetically, "Oh, Rory. Again?"

Rory stared at the table and answered dully, "Yeah."

Martha passed her a mug of coffee and asked, "Why won't you tell us what they're about?"

Rory looked up at her and said tiredly, "I don't want you to worry about me."

Martha smiled and said, "Sweetheart, I always worry about you, whether you need it or not."

Rory sighed and said quietly, "If I tell you, you can't tell Clark or Dad. They'll be far more upset than you."

"Of course I won't tell them if you don't want me to," Martha reassured them.

Rory stared into her mug. "Sam."

Martha was shocked. "As in Sam –"

"Yes Mom, Sam," Rory answered bleakly.

"Are they… real?" Martha asked hesitantly.

Rory shook her head. "Not like the one with Sara in it. They're just dreams."

"How do you know?" Martha pointed out.

"Because in the 'real' dream, Sam was nice," Rory said slowly, smiling a little. "He was nice and he was sweet. And in the dreams –" she shuddered.

Martha sat down next to her daughter and took her hand. "Tell me about them," she said gently.

Rory took a deep breath, and in a dead voice, told her about her nightmares. How each night, Sam got worse and worse – as if her imagination was mutating him into what he was not, what he could not be.

Some nights, Rory was evil just like him, on his side, destroying and conquering and laughing at the beauty of the destruction, until she woke, sick at heart.

And other nights, Rory was innocent, a heroine, fighting him but unable to fight him, because her entire being rebelled against his destruction.

In some of the dreams, when she was evil too, Clark was there, and it shattered her heart to watch them fighting and trying to actually hurt one another.

Only once had a dream been a dream, and not a nightmare, right up until the ending. Rory told Martha of this dream, the only one she described to her in full.

Rory lies in a beautiful meadow. The grass is silky, soft and perfectly green. Flowers decorate it with every colour of the rainbow. The sky is blue above her and she sighs, luxuriating.

"You're beautiful, you know."

She does not have to turn her head to face his; she knows this voice better than almost any other.

"I know," she replies softly. "You tell me all the time."

He laughs and rolls until he is looking down on her. "But if I did not tell you, you would forget, and worry, and doubt. So I tell you so that you will always know."

She smiles and brushes her hand across his face lazily, up and down, up and down.

"I'm so glad you're here," she whispers. "Being away from you, it was terrible."

He lowers his lips to her ear and whispers in return, "I will never leave you again, or allow you to leave me."

He places soft kisses over her skin, leading from her ear down to her lips, and she exhilarates in the feeling of simply being alive, and in love.

She drifts for a moment, and then everything snaps back into place.

She stands on top of a cliff. Lex stands before her as the wind whips his clothing around him. His smile is cruel and malicious as he stares at her.

"Lex…" she pleads, without knowing why she is pleading.

Then she sees him.

Sam is struggling against two faceless people. They hold him close to the cliff's horrible precipice, and she screams in fear.

"Watch, Aurora," Lex shouts over the wind. "Watch as the man you love dies, and know that it is ALL – YOUR – FAULT!"

Rory tries to control the wind, but it will not be tamed. She tries to use the earth, but it will not be ruled. She cannot use the fire – she cannot use the water – her powers are useless.

The faceless people push him, and as he teeters over the edge he screams her name, one last time, before he is gone, gone, gone, over the sheer drop and into oblivion.

Rory told Martha that she woke up sobbing and swore that Sam didn't exist, and if he did she would never love him, and if somehow she broke those promises, she would not let Lex become evil.

Rory didn't tell her mother that she couldn't decide which dream was most terrifying.

A/N I know that one's short, but it's sandwiched between two other chapters, so yeah!