8. Sleep

Kimiko lurches upright. Her head throbs, and her mouth feels like sandpaper. Trembling and trying not to think, even though that's what she's supposed to be good at – the thinker, the genius, the child prodigy – she stares into the gloom and waits for her heartbeat to slow. She wishes her brain, and in particular her photographic memory, would shut down like a crashing computer. Instead it keeps repeating the dream over and over in her head, like a CD with a track on repeat, until she wishes she really did have a CD drive in her brain so it would have a chance of breaking.

"You okay?" The voice comes from the bedroll next to her and is full of concern.

"Yeah. Sure. I'm fine," she replies, obviously anything but. Her words have a rough edge, and her breath comes in quick little gasps.

"Did you have a bad dream?"

She swallows hard. It doesn't help. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"Hang on." The other girl scrambles for a match. A few moments later the candle flares. Kimiko likes how it chases back the shadows and stares with her knees pulled to her chest until the backs of her eyes start to ache.

"Is that better?" asks the other Kimiko, pushing her feet back into her warm nest of messy blankets. She sleeps like cooked spaghetti, muscles relaxed and limbs thrown every which way – very unlike Kimiko's own compact foetal ball. "Man, you look awful."

"I could use a glass of water."

"I'll go with you to the kitchen, and you can tell me all about it. It helps to share dreams. Makes them less scary. Trust me on this one – we had an incident a while back where fear and dreams tried to chew us up into dogmeat. Talking? So much a good thing."

She could argue, of course. She could refuse. She'd be perfectly within her rights to clam up. After all, what business is it of anyone else what she dreams about? Yet she pads along the darkened corridors in her borrowed Hello Kitty slippers, sits at the replacement kitchen table with a tumbler of water, and listens with some surprise, as the story of the graveyard dream tumbles from her lips like dry rice pouring into a bubbling saucepan.

Until tonight, the dream has left her alone since she got here. She supposes exhaustion just robbed her of dreams altogether, but she did rather hope it meant she was finally free of it. No such luck, obviously.

The other Kimiko's eyes widen as she listens to how the dream started, grew, and plagued her throughout months of torture from the Shade. She winces when she hears about Raimundo's name appearing on a headstone, and reaches out to touch Kimiko's hand when she relates tonight's version, with the newly installed markers of Omi, Master Fung, Jack and Dojo.

"It's dumb, I know – just my subconscious giving me a chance to grieve because I'm unhealthy and don't let it out as much as I should during the day. I know all that. But … the dream's very realistic. I can feel the ground under my feet, and when I'm yelling at them for dying I wake up with a sore throat. Sometimes … sometimes I even think I can smell stuff. Soil. Mulch. Wood-smoke."

"I don't think it's dumb."

Kimiko knocks back what's left of her glass. "Thanks. For listening. I only ever told Clay about it before, and he has enough nightmares of his own to worry about." And she's shocked to discover she's sincere. She is grateful for the company, even with something so private.

Especially with something so private.

I can't go back, she thinks for the millionth time since they got here. Whatever happens, I can't go back. Not now. Not after all this. I can't.

More to the point, I won't.

They return to bed and sink into sleep – one deep, the other restless. Not wanting to risk the dream again. Kimiko tosses and turns until sunup, then rises blearily and goes through the morning like a zombie.

The boys are concerned, and question her about it – her Clay with a shrewd look in his eye – but she waves them away with feeble excuses about headaches and girl problems.

In the cold light of day she feels stupid for being so distressed. Omi, Raimundo and this universe's Clay have accepted them into their clan, and pester her until she seeks refuge in the place she saw the other Kimiko when she wanted peace and quiet to make a phone call – the eaves of the Shen Gong Wu Vault.

However, she finds no respite there.

"Hey!" calls the other Kimiko. She's been missing all morning, sweeping out the dusty records room and replacing any discarded scrolls in their rightful places. She brandishes a small drawstring pouch, as if it will tempt her tired doppelganger down to ground level. "I've got something for you."

Kimiko sighs, but descends. There's no peace in the rafters anyway. Wood pigeons have made a nest there, and their constant cooing is less relaxing than expected. "What is it?"

The other Kimiko tosses the pouch into the air for her to catch. "Sleeping draught. I asked the Infirmary monks to rustle up a batch for you. Guarantees a good night's sleep – only one drawback."

"And that is?"

She winks. "No dreams after you take it."

Kimiko stares at her, and then down at the little pouch. The Infirmary monks … how can she not have thought of this before?

Probably because she couldn't afford to be unconscious in case the Shade showed up at their door. At least the bad dreams made her a light sleeper. Yet in this world she has no need of wakefulness to ensure her survival. In this world she is – dare she even think it? – safe.

"Thank you," she says; and once again she's unexpectedly sincere.

What happened to the barely concealed loathing she first felt when confronted with her double? Where did her boiling resentment go? This girl's still had all the chances she never did, but … Kimiko's bitterness has dimmed. This is not a perfect world, and her doppelganger is not a happy fluffy bunnie with sparkles for brains.

Not completely, anyway.

"No biggie." The other Kimiko scuffs the floor with one neon green Doc Martin. It seems she has yet more to say. "Listen, you know as well as I do that my relationship with Mommy isn't the best in the world, but I've been speaking to her a lot lately. We're not, like, best friends or anything, but things are … better than they have been in a while. Since I was a little girl, actually – but then you probably know that part already, right? Anyway, I was kind of thinking about, y'know, maybe taking a trip home? Since it doesn't seem like she'll kidnap me and lock me in m room so I can't come back here. And … I kinda, sorta wondered … um … hey, you want to come back to Japan with me for a while? I haven't told Mommy or Papa about you yet, but since you're me, and Papa has this humungous ability to cope with weird stuff that cancels out Mommy's lack of ability – and actually, she's been working on that since we started talking again, so that I could, y'know, tell her about my day apart from 'yeah, I did chores again, they were awful and my hands are covered in only slightly more calluses than my butt after I kept falling on it during training for that thing we're not supposed to talk about'." She pauses, apparently to collect her scattered thoughts. "Er, yeah. So, Japan. Meet the folks. Could be fun. You in?"

All at once the feelings return. An image flashes across Kimiko's brain, trailing a searing aftertaste of acrimony and suppressed regret: her mother and father the last time she saw them, staring up the gangway, unhappy at her decision to go back to China but stoic. Even her father wore an uncharacteristic despondent expression. It hurts to think how she never saw them again after that last, sour note – and how she couldn't allow herself to regret her decision, because at least she was given the chance to make it. Raimundo was already gone by then, Omi an orphan, and Clay … he never said anything, but she knows not seeing his family is a wrench. Even Jessie is sorely missed.

Her eyes flash, and her doppelganger cowers. Words course through Kimiko's brain: Cruel bitch. Stupid girl. Unfair! All wrong. Insensitive little –

She stops, takes a deep breath, and gathers herself.

"Just try and keep me away."