Author's Notes: Writing this chapter made me realize how difficult I find it to flesh out story through means of wordless communication. I felt summarization was best, but hopefully it doesn't sound too condensed. Oh well. I tried. Enjoy!

EDIT: I rewrote the last paragraph because it sounded so fake and abrupt to me, I think it sounds a bit more natural now. Also corrected what I thought was a horrible flaw in the continuity from the last chapter to this one, so I fixed that too... but nothing major.

All characters and places in this work are owned by Nintendo.

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Saving You, Saving Myself
Chapter Six: Dreams, Reality, Realizations

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Lucas was standing on a paved road in a town he didn't recognize. A sleepy suburb, with picturesque houses sitting on perfectly manicured lawns. His eyes scanned the area for someone... anyone... perhaps he could ask about where he was. But no one was around. Sighing, he scratched the back of his head, puzzled as to how he got there. His gaze eventually came to rest on the one building that stood out from the others on the quiet street. It didn't look terribly different from the other houses that lined up on either side of it, but it was bigger. More rectangular than square like the rest. There was a large sign attached to the roof, indicating a business resided within its walls.

"Polestar Preschool..." Lucas read it in a quiet voice, which sounded deafening as it broke the silence.

"Are you lost, Lucas?"

The voice came suddenly from behind him, and he whirled around in surprise to face its owner. No one was there. Blue eyes narrowed, wondering if someone was playing some cruel trick on him while he was disoriented.

"Who's there?" He demanded, eyes flitting to and fro nervously.

The voice didn't reply... instead, he heard a giggle.

"A friend you haven't met," the voice answered, this time from the other side.

Turning again, he finally saw her. His jaw involuntarily dropped as he recognized the girl he'd seen in Ness' memories. She was devastatingly beautiful, moreso than he'd had time to notice during the brief glimpse into his mind. An angelic face framed by long locks of pale gold, she was draped in immaculate pink satin and white lace. From her, he felt the distinct aura of another PSI user. Her eyes were like looking into a mirror, they were the same pale shade of blue as his own, and she looked at him with interest. Lucas could feel warmth rushing to his face as she smiled gently.

Lowering his eyes shyly in the presence of such a pretty girl, he now saw what she was carrying. In her arms, she was holding a gently worn brown teddy bear. A girl her age holding such a juvenile toy might look silly, but it somehow suited her. She seemed to notice what he was looking at, and her smile widened.

"Oh, this? Ness bought it for me..." She seemed to hold it a little closer.

"You're Paula..." He dared to look at her face again.

"Yes, that's right. Welcome to Twoson." Her voice was cheerful, seemingly nonchalant about this paradoxical meeting.

"Twoson?"

"Yes, Twoson. You know, between Onett and Threed." Her brows raised as though it was obvious.

He really didn't know that at all, but the mention of Onett snared his attention. Now that she mentioned it, the layout of the street was not very different from some of the places Ness had described to him.

"How did I get here?" Lucas wondered, brow furrowing in confusion.

"I guess you're dreaming."

"Huh?"

Paula giggled again, a soft, bubbly laugh that was pleasing to the ear. Looking into her eyes, Lucas could tell she was being completely serious. He could believe it. A nervous quivering disturbed his stomach then, now afraid she would be able to to know things about him in regards to Ness. He did not want to face a woman's wrath for more or less stealing her boyfriend.

"I want to thank you... for taking care of Ness. He's very far from home right now. I'm glad he found a friend."

She looked at him meaningfully, and her tone was sincere. Lucas relaxed a little. He supposed she didn't have the ability to read his thoughts the way Ness could. Perhaps because they were so unfamiliar to one another, since he couldn't read Paula either.

"He needed one, I found him nearly dead," he admitted honestly.

Her smile faded then. She shook her head, bouncing the cornsilk waves of her hair slightly.

"I told him it was risky..."

"What was risky?"

"The new PSI," she sighed.

"New PSI?" he echoed, perplexed.

"PK Teleport Ω...He volunteered to be the first to try, and we all thought it was dangerous. No one was quite sure how it worked... or where it sent you. I tried to convince him not to do it, but he just smiled that completely confident smile of his, and told me that he would be fine." She looked down at the stuffed toy in her arms and hugged it even tighter. "I never could say no him when he looked so sure of himself... maybe that's my fault."

Lucas looked on in awe, he'd never heard of a psionic ability like that. His chest felt somehow tighter as she spoke, he was clearly not the only one to be drawn in by that smile. Everything about Paula now spoke volumes about how much she was in love with the dark-haired boy. The longing in her eyes, the worry in her voice, the way she clutched the bear to her chest as though it was a surrogate for the one she really wanted to hold. Had Lucas looked that way as he hugged his pillow on those sleepless nights of pining? Yet, in spite of his apparent competition with her, he couldn't bring himself to dislike Paula. In some ways, she reminded him a lot of himself.

"...But he's okay now... Ness is fine," Lucas found himself trying to console her in spite of himself, he didn't want to see a girl begin to cry.

Looking up at him now, she seemed relieved once he tied the words 'Ness' and 'fine' together for her.

"I'm glad. I care a lot about him and I don't want him to be hurt..." Her cheeks flushed beautifully.

"I care about him, too. I won't let anything bad happen to him," he assured her with surprising confidence.

She brightened considerably then, her smile returning.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Thank you, Lucas. It's too bad I don't exist anymore in your world... it would have been nice to meet you for real. But that's the way it's meant to be."

Don't exist anymore in your world...

"What?!" He exclaimed, his confusion evident. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh Lucas, I'm so sorry... I can't explain now. It's time for you to go..."

"What?! No!! You have to tell me!" Lucas cried out desperately, reaching out towards her.

"Tell you what?" A voice spoke softly from near his ear.

His eyes snapped open. He was not in Twoson, but in his own bed. It was still dark outside. The voice that addressed him was not Paula's, but belonged to Ness, whose arms were still wrapped around his waist. Lucas' arm was extended awkwardly over the other boy's shoulder as though trying to touch something that wasn't really there, and he let it drop with a heavy sigh.

"S-Sorry... I had a really weird dream."

"About Paula?"

Lucas froze. Of course Ness would know that.

"Yes..."

"I did too."

"Oh, really?" Lucas offered lamely, unable to think of something else to say.

"She told me I'd made a mistake by using the forbidden PSI, but she forgave me. She also said she was hoping I'd come home soon..."

"She told me about the PSI..."

"Yeah. I was overconfident..." Ness trailed off.

"S-She also told me... that she didn't exist anymore in this world..." Lucas stammered, unable to get the words out easily.

Ness didn't answer for a long time. He sighed softly resting his face against Lucas' hair. A feeling of uncertainty emanated from him that matched Lucas'.

"I guess that means... I don't either."

Lucas cringed as Ness voiced the underlying association he didn't want to address. He swallowed hard. His dream, and this whole conversation was becoming totally surreal.

"So you're... from the past?" He whispered, his voice childlike, fragile.

"...I suppose that must be the case," Ness admitted hesitantly.

Ness was very much alive and in the flesh here, and the very idea of him being long dead in his own niche of reality was more than Lucas wanted to think about. The blonde boy's arms wrapped around him, almost possessively, and held him close, almost like he was that brown bear from his dream. It was there, while Ness lay in Lucas' arms, that more of his memories began to connect. The two of them wordlessly observed visions of a great battle, and someone... who was once a friend to the dark-haired boy, betraying him and disappearing into time and space, an impossibility under normal circumstances.

Lucas knew that face... younger, but still the same person. He was sure of it, as they revisited his tyranny in the Nowhere Islands. Ness now knew what had become of the chubby, boisterous boy that once used to be his next-door neighbor and playmate, and Lucas could see the sadness flicker in his eyes. He caressed the black-haired boy's cheek sympathetically. Lucas understood what it felt like when someone you cared about turned on you. Ness' thoughts took a turn towards more recent events... the image of Paula's pleading to resist the temptation of trying the teleportation, and the wavering of reality around him as he did it anyway. The boys now watched, almost as though it were a movie shot in first-person view, a glimpse of blue, cloudless sky and a plunge into the ocean. What seemed like endless treading of the water gave way to weariness... and then, blackness.

PK Teleport Ω... the forbidden ability was only able to be performed by those with the strongest psionic potential. Although extremely gifted, Ness had been unable to control its power. It created the ability to bend reality into another location and era, something that was usually impossible for a living being. Something only Porky's alien machine was able to mimic, and survive. Until the discovery of that PSI, which was first believed to have existed by Dr. Andonuts, another figure the boys were amazed to discover they both knew. He had vanished before his theories had been able to be tested, but now it had all become clear.

The pair of them by now had spent hours exchanging thoughts and knowledge. The communication by means of telepathy was an exhausting process, and eventually both boys became too tired to continue. Lucas pressed his lips to Ness' forehead, his eyes heavy. Ness sighed, in equal parts contentment and relief. He was glad Lucas was here with him, to sort through it all. They both soon fell into deep slumber in spite of the telling discoveries, one after the other. One thing was certain. There would be much to talk about in the morning.