Disclaimer: Of course I don't own The Sixth Sense or its characters.
Story: He was surprised to see her. She'd grown up, but she was still that skittish little girl, with too big eyes and quivering lips. Sometimes ghosts just don't let go.
Set after as a genderbent future fic.
Spoilers: Probably
Warnings: Age disparity, maybe future situations if this is continued.
Pairings: Cole Sear/Stanley Cunningham

Don't Be Afraid, Lovely

It had been a long day. Kids were loud and rowdy as usual, but they were a good bunch and this group was especially promising and well rounded. They'll do well when they grow up, he mused to himself.

Thankfully no bullies this time around and he hadn't had to deal with any troublemakers. Most of the kids got along well and did their work and paid attention in class.

It would be a good year, he thought. A very good —

There was a young woman in his class, someone slightly familiar. Wavy brown hair and pale skin, she was looking around his classroom curiously with dark, big eyes and a solemn face.

Then it clicked who it was to him.

Even older and a definite ten years later, Stanley recognized Colette Sear and her tiny, fragile figure. Still as grave a person as ever, her face was all too serious as usual.

"Colette Sear, is that you?" he asked anyway and she turned to face him.

A small smile crossed her lips and she gave a little wave. "Hello, Mr. Cunningham," she greeted quietly, just like he remembered from her.

Her eyes dart around and she was still skittish, but even with quivering lips she laughed and shyly walked closer to him.

It might've been a surprise, but it was a good surprise to see her again; grown up but still the same girl he'd remembered.

"How have you been?" he asked her, smiling warmly.

"Great!" her smile was bright, brighter than he ever recalled her having, which relieved and made him happy. He knew she'd been having a horrible time back then and was glad things seemed better. It made him happier to know his own meltdown around her back then hadn't affected her development at all. "Things have been well; I'm finishing up my second year in UPenn and thought I'd drop by here."

He beamed happily, proud of her and how far she'd gone.

"Well done, Colette. It's nice to see you —Were you here long?"

"I just got here," she admitted. "I…was reminiscing."

She certainly seemed like she was and probably had been…but something in him thought that maybe there was more to it. Just like in the old days, where he was still her teacher and there had always been this far away look to her, like she was seeing things beyond him, beyond the class…

She took a deep breath and refocused on him, giving him a sad smile then. A smile that had been on her face too much when she was younger and he hadn't liked it then and still didn't like seeing it on her now.

He preferred the bright smile he'd just seen on her.

"Do you remember when I…when I all of a sudden started…bringing up the whole 'Stuttering Stanley' thing a long time ago?" she asked softly, a grimace briefly appearing on her face.

He stiffened up, but he made himself not react outwardly. Instead, he made himself laugh and awkwardly grin about it.

"Yes, but it's all old news. Like you mentioned, it was a long time ago," he said but she was solemnly looking at him again.

"I owe you an apology and an explanation for that time," she said quietly instead. She glanced to the side uncomfortably, before he watched her and saw her eyes zero in on a spot and frown. She shook her head and looked back to him. "Would you mind coming to lunch with me? I could explain there."

Stanley suddenly felt uneasy, but agreed nonetheless.

At a café near the school, Colette continued to be quiet and skittish, but there was this sad air about her that made him want to tell her it'll be alright. He didn't know what was wrong, but he didn't want her to be sad.

Then she sighed and put aside her drink to look straight at him and her familiar too big eyes made him freeze in place.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

And then she talked about the things in the past, of seeing dead people who haunted her, who scared her and attacked her at first, that the whole thing had stressed her out and had partly alienated her from everyone in the first place…

That it was the dead that told her about Stanley and his time at that school, and the way he'd been bullied for his stuttering.

And when she talked about those that had actually died on the grounds the school had been built on, he couldn't help but wonder about all the times he'd worked late in the school or any time he was walking through the halls —were the dead there, watching him, following him?

"Do you see any dead people now?" he couldn't help asking.

Colette's eyes drifted to the window they sat next to, frowning before sighing. "A head-on collision happened several blocks ahead. At least one person died…I think she had a really bad head injury," she murmured and Stanley shivered.

He looked out the window as well and saw nothing, but wondered what exactly did she see.

Sirens sounded loudly and he saw the ambulance race past the window, and any remaining doubt he'd had was gone.

She looked at him again and there that sad smile was.

"What I did was wrong then and I wanted to apologize and explain myself. I don't know if you believe me, but I'm really sorry, Mr. Cunningham."

He was sorry too, because he thought this was such a heavy burden and she'd had to shoulder it ever since she was so young.

Stanley made sure to exchange numbers with her. He didn't think she had much of a social life and was found right when they next met again in a park, feeding ducks and sitting by the lake on a park bench together. He'd asked and she'd shrugged.

"Friends are hard to come by when the dead take up all the space and attention," she gave him a half smile. "They're particularly demanding. People don't usually understand why I'm so…spacey or withdrawn. I like to think I have an active life though, even if it's by myself," she ended thoughtfully.

"You could tell them about…what you can see, like you'd told me," he said and she laughed. It was a nice laugh, though it was sad that it was at the expense of herself.

"Most people don't talk about paranormal things, Mr. Cunningham. They'll either think I'm crazy or be too freaked out," she looked amused but he frowned.

"I believed you and you decided to tell me in the first place," he pointed out.

"I don't know exactly why you believed me," she said, giving him a considering look. "As for telling you…I just…decided to take a risk. I'd owed it to you after all."

He hmmed and decided to change the subject, given the uncomfortable look on her face. "You were having a hard time at school back then, which I understand was because of this…but then you seemed to get better, become happier? What happened?"

It was a return of a happier smile and he straightened up, pleased.

"Ah, well, I learned that the dead just…wanted to be heard," she told him honestly. "Whatever happened, what unfinished business they had left…they wanted someone to hear them and help them move on. When I, instead of being afraid, decided to talk to the little girl that had been terrifying me and haunting me at my home, she told me what happened to her. I went to her home soon after and her funeral was happening, and I found the things she wanted me to find and made sure that everyone knew what happened —that her mother had been poisoning her and making her sick, and that I was also able to keep her sister from suffering the same thing. After that…I realized that's what I was meant to do and that all I had to do was listen to them." She gained a brief mysterious smile then. "I also had help from a very good doctor."

Shock didn't even begin to cover his reaction and yet he also felt for this tiny girl who had gone through so much and was yet to lift that heavy burden. It'll probably always be on her.

"That is a huge responsibility you have to shoulder," he murmured.

The solemn look was back and he wished he could help her feel lighter and be more carefree.

"And something I've come to peace with a long time ago."

They meet again at the school, an invitation from him to her to see the kids' science fair. They walk around the projects together and he's pleased to see the slight smile on her face as she observed the kids' hard work.

"I remember making a model of the prehistoric era for mine," she said fondly. "I made an exploding volcano."

He remembered it too and laughed. "It made a mess all over your table."

She giggled, a rare sound from her. "It did. Still worth it though."

"Mr. Cunningham! Is that your girlfriend?" one of his kids, Haley Osment, asked teasingly, giggling with his friends.

"No, I'm his — "

"Friend," he cut her off. He didn't really want to let anyone in on her being an old student of his, but he did like to think they'd become good friends by now.

Though she glanced at him curiously, she didn't refute it or add to what she'd been about to say.

"Any ghosts hanging around?" he asked joking, half-seriously curious himself.

"Just the usual," she said blithely and he made himself not shiver or look around.

Instead, he pointed out this generation's prehistoric science fair project and she laughed delightedly.

He clung to that sound.

Stanley contacted her soon after and asked her out to dinner. He met her at a family diner, where they sat at a booth together and he waited until their orders had been taken to bring anything up.

"Aren't you lonely?" he asked.

She looked at him in surprise. "No, of course not. I have you."

He paused. It was a bit sad that she stopped being lonely because of her former teacher and someone she just reconnected to after all these years. But…

"After dinner, would you like to come back to my house and watch a movie?"

Her already wide eyes went wider and she was obviously taken aback, but then she gave him the shyest smile he'd seen from her yet and which made his heart race in his chest.

"I'd like that."

And when the movie was over that night and he leaned in to kiss her, he watched the wondrous look in her eyes and was surprised by this girl again.

She'd always been full of surprises and he'd always been caught off guard by her again and again.

The age difference hadn't bothered her at all and when she wasn't on campus at her university, she puttered about his home like she'd lived there for years.

"13 years is normal," she told him. "People don't realize that because people usually don't ask couples —they're old enough and probably even look the same age by then, or it's always never looked obvious."

She shrugged and handed him his coffee, leaning against a corner. "I see dead people," she said bluntly. "So why would such a silly thing like that bother me?"

As was normal with her, her solemn face gazed at him and seemed to ask — 'Does that bother you?'

Neither the dead nor the age difference bothered him in the end.

The chair beside him rattled and then is yanked back an inch or two, and he blinked as he stared at it. He looked to Colette, who made a face and sighed.

She shrugged again and gave him a tired smile. "That happens."

"Someone you can help?"

"Hm, I probably won't be around for a few days," she murmured, watching off to the side. He avoided where she looked to.

"Okay," he answered her. "I'll be here when you come back home."

Her answering grin and happiness on her face made him just as happy.

She was staying over the night when there was another incident —he'd caught her hunched over herself, shaking like a leaf as she wrapped her arms around herself protectively, gasping for air.

"Colette?" he called out tentatively and she blinked several times, growing aware.

She gave him a strained smile, even as she looked out of it. She tried to wave it off, but the look in her eyes was familiar.

She was afraid and unsteady, and he wished he'd recognized it a long time ago, back when she was a child who had no one to talk to about these things and had been so, so scared then. But he also knew they would've had a much different relationship now if he had, and now they had something different, something calming, and something they could have with each other now.

He finally took a glance at the spot that her eyes had fixated on before and saw nothing. But that was okay —it only meant that he could be someone she could cling to and have the courage she could borrow and use for herself, when her own was shaken, because he wasn't as affected by this like she was.

And Stanley could do that for her.

"I'm sorry," she said remorsefully.

"Whatever for?" he asked, coming to her and holding her to him.

"For not being normal," she mumbled against him.

"You don't need to be," he told her and kissed her quickly before leading her back to the living room.

She glanced back behind them, probably at that spot, but he just held her hand and squeezed it.

"Sometimes," he started as they sat on the couch, "I think about how you wouldn't have had this…power and think that you would've never come back to that school, come back to see me, and then I'm glad that you can see and do what you can because you wouldn't have had a reason to see me and we wouldn't be where we are."

He gave her a chagrined look. "It's selfish but I'm happy you aren't normal, Colette."

Surprised but quickly growing elated, she hugged him tightly. "I always think it'd grow too much on you and you'd leave me."

Stanley thought about it then and shook his head.

"You don't have to be so afraid, Colette. You're not alone anymore. I promise."

Outcasts had a way of coming together after all and he wouldn't leave her to face things on her own.

Not again.

Started 3/27/21 — Completed 3/29/21

A/n: This comes from out of nowhere? I mean, I know, oddly enough, every time I watch this movie I get the idea of the pairing, until I finally wrote down a title and idea for it –and then I still didn't get to work it until I decided to binge write my 'one-shot' ideas recently. In any case, I hope whoever decides to read this strange thing enjoys it! Let me know how y'all are feeling :)

Quick Point:

1. This is 10 years later from the movie, so Colette is 19 and Stanley's 32, with Colette currently attending the University of Pennsylvania in her second year. Still same state as where the movie takes place, so she didn't move away or anything and can easily go back forth from uni to Stan's place. Also, I headcanon Stanley was a band spanking new teacher during the movie, at the age of 22.

2. Haha, Haley Osment the kid is a nod to Cole's actor ;)