A/N: Welcome to the fourth and final chapter of Eyes of the Dreamer. Thank you for reading I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Two weeks.
Two weeks.
Those two words kept replaying themselves over and over again in Sean's head. Cat has lain there in that hospital bed for two weeks. And Sean himself hasn't moved from her room in that time. Cat's mother arranged first for him to share her room during his convalescence and then later to stay with her, even during the long hours of the night, when no other visitors were allowed. The doctors either had no idea what was wrong or they weren't telling Sean what they knew. He suspected the former. Each day that passed drew more of his hope away, despite the encouragement of their friends.
He had tried everything, looking up comatose statistics online and trying to find anything that would help. He talked to Cat constantly, read to her from her favorite books, sang her song, told her that he loved her and said all the little things that his pride would never have let him say before. As the days wore on, his hope for Cat slowly ebbed away like the tide at dawn.
Cat slept on and Sean watched her, kept his vigil even when he despaired. She had to wake up. She was everything.
On the fourteenth day of Cat's slumber, Sean finally gave way to exhaustion and passed out, holding onto Cat's hand as if it were the only thing keeping him alive.
Fade….
Cat was sick of this darkness and sick of the film projector and its damn screen. She had tried everything she could think of to avoid it and every time it drew her into its heart. As she thought about the unfairness of it all, the screen lit up again.
"No. Please, I just wanna go home and see—"
The light drew her in once more, regardless of her protests.
A red haired woman sits in an ancient movie theatre. She has been sitting in this half empty cinema with tears in her eyes, watching these poignant movies about reunited lovers and thinking about life, how sad it is, when the man sitting next to her puts his hand over hers. He is handsome, beautiful even despite the slanting scar that runs across his eye; in fact this flaw seems to make the rest of him even more attractive to her. When he leads her out (the movie isn't over, but she knows what happens next), she somehow cannot resist, though he is not her husband.
He takes her to a room in a small hotel. She seems to recognize it, though she has never been here, nor indeed has she ever done anything like this before. The windows, under the slanted ceiling, look out onto the rooftops and chimney pots. Next to one of the windows a porcelain basin sits on a table draped in faded yellow cloth, a used bar of brown soap in a tin dish and a pitcher of water beside it. She knows without looking that there is a frayed green towel on the chrome bar screwed into the side of the basin, a white one on the floor to stand on, and a blue drinking glass beside the basin, catching the late afternoon light.
She has never been here, so how does she know all of this?
Perhaps she has seen too many movies. The priest's barren cell in that film she saw a week ago about the passionate but impossible romance between a priest and a nun, for example, had slanted ceilings and a washstand with a towel bar and a basin that looked much like this one, though everything was white. Earlier, in the garden, in the soft light of a tree's shade, the priest and the nun, utterly love-struck, had drawn together, gazing deeply into each others eyes—much like the flower girl and the war veteran in the movie she had just left—then had parted in anguish, suffering the shame of their iniquitous desire.
Alone afterward in his cell, the priest—though you couldn't actually see this—was committing the sin of onanism when the nun reappeared before him in all her resplendent beauty, dressed only in her wimple, with a golden crucifix between her exquisite breasts. Was she real or only his crazed and hapless fantasy? It was unclear, but she was played by a living actress—living at the time anyway—and so she seemed real, and what happened between them also seemed real. Did they use the washbasin afterward? Maybe they did since she remembers it so vividly.
Meanwhile, the man she is with now, while removing his tie, is telling her a strange story about his obsession with a woodland nymph, whom he met briefly one afternoon while out hiking and for whom, whether she exists or not, he has been ceaselessly searching ever since.
"I thought for a moment that you might be she," he says sorrowfully, as she kicks off her pumps and peels down her stockings
"How do you know that I'm not?"
"Because I cannot forget her, though I often wish I could. I see her features even when I look at myself in the mirror."
He unbuttons his shirt, setting the cufflinks thoughtfully beside the blue glass.
"It took me forever to find my way back to the trail, and you could say that I have not found it yet."
He lowers his pants.
"You are chasing phantoms," she says lifting her dress over her head, "though the past may once have existed, it does not now exist. Something has taken its place."
She feels certain she has said this before. Or heard it said. She wants to explain what that something is, but it's too late—even as she steps out of her underwear the film is breaking and rattling in the projector…
Fade…
Cat's eyes opened suddenly, the light blinding her, but she refused to close them again. Slowly her vision clears and she can see that she is in a hospital. The memories come rushing back: the restaurant, the necklace, the car, Sean, Sean, Sean, Sean! She starts to panic, but then feels a soft pressure on her hand. She looks down to see Sean, torso sprawled across her bed, lower half still in the chair he must have fallen asleep in. His scarred, yet handsome face was peaceful in sleep.
Raising her other hand, she gently traced the scar running down across his left eye. The slight touch woke him, his eyes snapping open and locking on hers. He looked like he hadn't been sleeping or eating well at all, and a new cut, still stitched up, ran up the right side of his face, from chin to cheek bone.
"Cat?" he whispered, as though her name would chase her away.
"I'm here Sean, you aren't asleep anymore."
"I was so—you were asleep for so long, Kitty-Cat… We were afraid you'd never wake up…"
Tears now coursed down his face, and she reached over and brushed them away with her thumbs.
"Shh, its okay, I'm awake now. I'm not dreaming anymore, baby."
He smiled, it was tiny but it was a smile.
"Were your dreams good?" he asked, his green-eyed gaze intent on her face.
"Of course they were, they were about you." She said laughing and pulling him down for a kiss.
A/N: and that all folks! Like it, hate it, love it, or think I should stop writing these awful stories? Let me know, just push that beautiful review button.