OUT OF MIND continued...

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As Brennan opened his eyes again, he found himself kneeling at the foot of the couch, his hands clutching his stomach. Looking at the small form in front of him, he realized Emma's eyes were opening too. She was breathing hard and jumped a little as she noticed him kneeling beside her.

"Brennan? What's going on," She looked as confused as he felt.

"You tell me, what the hell was that?"

"What?"

"I found you asleep on the couch and I touched your shoulder to wake you up and bam! I saw...I don't know, but it was horrible." Brennan didn't want to voice the images he had seen, he still felt shaky from the experience.

Emma's eyes grew wide. She sat bolt upright and put a hand to her head.

"God Brennan, I'm so sorry. I must have projected onto you by accident. I swear I didn't mean to."

"So you sucked me into your dream? How?" Shit, he thought, why the hell do I suddenly feel like a guilty intruder in someone else's mind.

"I don't know, I guess I still have problems controlling my powers at times of intense emotion. You must have startled me and my mind just reached out to the nearest person."

"Your dream Em, it seemed pretty...em... graphic." She looked down. Suddenly Brennan had the suspicion that it wasn't the first time Emma had experienced a dream like that. Was this the reason she had become so withdrawn lately, she was seeing horrifying visions in her sleep.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about, it was just a bad dream." It wasn't the truth, and they both knew it. Emma closed her eyes in frustration; her sleep had been so disturbed for the last few weeks she was hardly getting any rest. She had hoped that the nightmares might just subside, but the visions seemed to be getting worse. Still, Brennan didn't seem to have really understood the images he saw in her head, and for that she was relieved. He couldn't know...

"You should go back to bed and try and get some actual sleep." She opened her eyes again as Brennan spoke, his voice laced with concern. But she knew she couldn't go back to bed now. She shuddered involuntarily at the thought,

"No I think I'll just make a drink," The psionic moved to get up but Brennan grabbed her arm, his fingers warm against her cool skin,

"Em, sit down. You're afraid, aren't you, afraid to go back to sleep." She trembled slightly, 'from the cold,' her mind insisted.

"Just try to relax, okay."

"It's silly though, to get so worked up over a stupid dream."

"It's not silly Em. I saw it, seeing images like that in your sleep would be enough to upset anyone." Her jaw tensed as she wrestled internally with herself. It was no good, she had felt so completely drained recently, she just had to tell someone,

"That's just it though, I'm not seeing it Bren, it's actually happening to me." She didn't look at him as she spoke, she couldn't bear to see the look in his eyes.

Brennan was starting to feel sick again. 'Oh god, no!' he thought, his mind somersaulting, 'the screams, the person being tortured like that, it was her. Those horrifying things, they were all happening to her." Brennan shuddered now as he saw again the image of the pale blue eyes, and the face, contorted in pain.

The elemental took a deep breath and looked at his friend sitting next to him on the couch. She seemed so vulnerable. An intense need to protect her suddenly rushed through him.

"I can stay here if you like, sit with you for a while. If you start having nightmares again I can try to wake you up." Emma blinked at him. 'I must be tired,' she realized, 'if I'm actually considering this.' But then she shook her head,

"I might suck you in again."

"I'll risk it. Come on Em, you have to try and get some rest." She was so tired, so exhausted. What harm could it do if she let him sit here with her for a while? Everyone felt safe with Brennan, it was simply a quality he had about him. She sighed, and hardly realized as her eyes started to close, and her head lolled sideways, finding his shoulder as if by instinct.

Brennan listened as Emma's breathing started to slow; the poor girl must have been completely drained, but he hoped that somehow, his presence might help calm her. Wondering if it was because she was a psionic, that her dreams played out so vividly, he realised that he had never really considered the true implications of Emma's mutation. Sure, they all had altered physiologies, but her alteration was in her head; how differently did things affect a person with telempathic abilities? Perhaps she even felt pain in a different way from normal people.

He shifted slightly to allow her head to sit more comfortably against his shoulder and realised that she had fallen asleep. Not having the heart to wake her just yet, he lent back on the couch and allowed his arm to drape across her shoulder, in an effort to warm her cold body.

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It was late, or considerably early, depending on how one chose to look at it, as Shalimar glanced at the two sleeping figures on the couch. Having deposited a comatose Jesse in his room, the feral had noticed that neither of her other two friends were in their own rooms. She stared at them now, her feral eyes narrowing slightly as she observed them. For a moment, she felt a small surge of jealousy seeing them curled up together like that, but quickly dismissed it. Emma still looked pale and troubled. Shalimar hoped that maybe Brennan had gotten her to open up about the cause of her recent withdrawal. Her worry for her friend overcoming any less charitable and insecure thoughts she was having, the feral turned, and using her cat-like stealth, silently exited the room.

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This was written very late at night, so you'll have to excuse the poor grammar!

Thanks for the reviews everyone, you've kept me smiling : )