Anyone Can Dream
Author's note; Apologies if anyone finds this chapter difficult to follow, it jumps around a lot, I know!
"Get some sleep," Doc said, for the twentieth time in two hours. Action looked up sleepily.
"I ain't tired," he said, stifling a yawn. "Besides, it's nearly morning. She needs me." Doc patted his shoulder.
"Action, she ain't going nowhere. I'll watch her. Just twenty minutes sleep and you'll feel fine." He spread his hands wide. "You can even sleep in that chair if you want!" Action sat up slowly and stiffly, then lay back in the chair, one arm still stretched onto the bed.
"Promise you'll wake me if-" he began, eyes closing fast. Doc chuckled.
"I promise. Say, there's a blanket in the.." Action was already asleep. Doc chuckled again, and brought a blanket from a nearby cupboard, identical to the one covering Anybodys, who lay on the rickety bed. Gently, he spread it over the exhausted boy, and settled down to keep an eye on the patient. Anybodys, clean and bandaged, lay asleep on the bed. She'd half woken several times, always delusional. Her cries brought Action running, but she hardly knew he was there. The bruises on her forehead and neck were horrific, but less grotesque when cleansed of the black grime clogging them.
She was dressed in a man's shirt now; Doc had ordered Action outside, and gently changed her overshirt and bloodied slip for a top of his own. It swamped her, but concealed the wounds to her neck. A cold compress rested on her eyes, easing the swelling and bleeding. She gave a gentle moan as Doc watched her. Still asleep, Action's outstretched hand instinctively reached for hers. Doc wiped his eyes, and blinked blearily as the first grey bars of light filtered through the blue curtains. Soon, he too was asleep.
~~~~~
I have to find her… where did she go? We looked out onto the escape, she wasn't there…. Have I caused another death…. Tony was my fault, does Maria know? Where is Maria… It's almost light, why isn't she home, Santa Maria, we have the funerals to get through soon…Riff, Nardo, Tony, maybe Kate, oh…. Nardo, where are you, why did you leave me? Let me sleep….
She was running, running through a black haze of fog and nightmare, an endless tunnel. She tried to turn, knew dimly Nardo was behind her, but couldn't turn, couldn't stop… even when she stood still, the clouds of black pulled her onwards… or was it pushed? In front of her was a dead end, a colossal wall of blackness, waiting for her. Closer, and closer, it stretched out towards her. She cried out, but still the ground moved, and still the blackness claimed her… suddenly she could turn! She whirled around, and saw, far far away, Nardo, standing in silhouette at the end of the tunnel. With one almighty leap, she threw herself towards him, but he didn't move towards her. The blackness reached up, the moving ground was no longer solid, and in a sickening moment, she knew she was falling….falling…..
Suddenly, she landed on her back, got up, turned around. A black wasteland stretched before her…then she knew. She was under the highway! Two figures lay apart on the ground, still and silent. Blood was everywhere. She raced to the one nearest. Nardo! She raised his head, but the face was Riff's… She cried out, and dropped him, but when she turned around, the other body was gone. She turned back, and where Riff lay, now Tony was. Whirling in terror, she tried to wake him, but he was gone, and when she looked up, Maria stood before her, dressed in white, her hands out, silently rebuking Anita, tears running down her face. An avenging angel. No! Maria I'm sorry, sorry, Maria, listen! Don't look at me, don't look..I won't look! Then, everything went black. There was a crack of gunshot, and then silence. As her sight returned, Anita saw Maria stood still, alone, her hands at her sides. Maria, speak! Suddenly, she dropped like a stone, falling backwards. Dead. And when Anita looked down her hands, she screamed. She was holding a gun.
She had shot the angel.
~~~~~
Anybodys knelt in the rain, weeping over Tony's body.
Alone, frightened, she knelt over his still corpse and howled, her cries mingling with the rain.
Someone was behind her.
Sensing a presence, she turned, heart frozen.
It was Chino, head bowed. He looked down at her, and the way his eyes met hers absolved him of all guilt. Although in her waking life she would have killed him sooner than touch him, she let him pull her up. She closed her eyes, and tears fell. Then softly, softer than the lightest brush of sunlight, or the ripple of air left by a birds gliding wing, she felt his kisses, small and gentle, cold with the rain and her tears, all over her face. They were exploratory, yet comforting, as if she'd lived her whole life afraid this moment would never come.
His head dipped to cover her cheeks, eyes, mouth and neck, and his caresses were like those of a puppy, sweet and gentle, mournful and sorry. Suddenly, his lips were on hers, and a tiny gasp escaped her lips… she had never been kissed like this before. Her heart ached, and as he kissed her gently, her head went to his shoulder.
"I love you," he whispered.
"I love you," she replied.
She had kissed the murderer.
~~~~~
Action rolled over in his sleep as Anybodys stirred, a happy smile on her peaceful face. His eyes opened, and he blinked blearily into the daylight. Doc had left his chair, and the birds were singing somewhere.
"I love you," Anybodys repeated, the last fragments of her dream clinging to her as her slumber moved on. Action looked at her, a flutter in his heart he scarcely dared to acknowledge.
"Are you-" he wondered half aloud, half in silent prayer, "dreaming-about ME?"