A/N: Yukie is GirlGoneGamer's character. Also, this chapter is graphic in nature.
The hotel hallway was swarmed with people as Amanda watched, confused as to why she was suddenly stood up… and then it hit her.
'That's Eddie's room that they're crowded by!' Amanda thought moments before seeing her 15 year old self make her way through the crowd and try to run into Eddie's room but was grabbed and pulled back by Chris.
"No… no, they have to help him, they have to!" The younger Amanda shouted as tears streamed down her face, the older one helpless to reach out and comfort her younger counterpart.
"He was already blue and grey when Chavo found him… I'm sorry, Little One." Chris responded, holding the sobbing girl in his arms.
'Why am I seeing this again?! It hurt too much the first time!' The 25 year old thought before everything suddenly changed.
Amanda was in the Benoit house, the weight room of it… and saw Chris, who was trying to hide how he was feeling from the world… the machine was all set.
All set to snap his neck.
"Chris, please don't…" Amanda pleaded with tears in her eyes although it was of no use.
Chris sat on the floor, putting the cord around his neck… and Amanda heard his last words.
"I love you, Little One. I'm so sorry, my little girl."
He put the cord around his neck and let the weights fall… and his eyes closed forever…
Amanda's eyes snapped open, the brunette shaking in pure terror even as Finn pulled her closer to him… his blue eyes looked right into her hazel ones, seeing that she was too terrified to talk, let alone scream.
"It's okay… it was just a bad dream, Mandy, you're okay." Finn whispered as he noticed how pale she looked.
Amanda looked around the room cautiously… but Yukie, having told her to shut up last time she screamed in terror, wasn't crashing with them tonight.
Finn helped Amanda sit up and handed her his pillow… and Amanda put it to her face and screamed into it for a full three minutes before she handed the pillow back to Finn, who helped her lie back down and rubbed his left hand up and down her back after she was curled up against him.
"That's better… it's healthy to scream after something terrifying happens." Finn responded quietly, lightly rubbing the right side of Amanda's head with his left hand as his right arm remained wrapped around her back.
He knew that she had lost most of her loved ones while she was sleeping… and that she subconsciously associated nighttime with death.
Right now, Finn was glad that Yukie wasn't in the room with them… the attempts at fixing Yukie's and Amanda's damaged friendship hadn't gone so well but they kept trying.
Until last week's nightmare… in the aftermath of it, Finn had told Yukie off and told her to, as he had put it "If you're not gonna show any human decency to your childhood friend and try to calm her down, then make other room arrangements from this point on!".
Yukie hadn't liked that, it was clear from the look in her eyes… but she had complied and left with her things.
"It got really bad this time, didn't it?" Finn asked in a gentle tone after getting Amanda to look at him.
"I was… I found myself back in that hallway. Watching it all unfold… then I found myself in that house…" Amanda responded, Finn knowing which house. "To this day, I still don't know why… I know one thing though, it took too much out of him, losing someone who was in every way that counted, his family. And being helpless to stop it." She replied as Finn lightly brushed Amanda's tears away.
"Helpless is how you and Chris felt when Eddie was taken from you two and everyone so suddenly… and then you all losing Chris and his wife and son. No one should ever have to go through that kind of hell, Mandy. But you don't ever had to hold it back anymore, not from me." Finn responded quietly, kissing Amanda on the top of her head as he absentmindedly trailed the index and middle fingers of his left hand on the palm of hers.
Right where the scar was… and he was the only one she didn't mind touching it.
Letting him touch the scars on her solidified the trust on her part… he was the only one she trusted with them.
