AN: This fic will be the last re-upload from AO3. From now on, every new fic on here will be an actual new fic that will be uploaded alongside it's AO3 version. And the first of the fics that will be uploaded to both sites at the same time will come out fairly soon.
Sasha sat alone in the dark kitchen of the Boonchuy house, her only source of light being that of the moon, shining through the window. She looked down at the cup of hot cocoa on the kitchen counter. It was the drink she always made for herself on nights like tonight when she needed some sort of comfort, a habit that began when she was 7 and her parent's arguments started to get worse and worse.
It's been 1 year since her parents started to get over their own issues with each other and finally started caring for her like proper parents again.
It's been 1 year since she and Anne became girlfriends, and even though things were better with her parents, Sasha would much rather sleep over at the Boonchuy's than sleep at either of her parent's homes.
It's been 1 year since they left Amphibia for good, but in her dreams, Sasha never really left. Sometimes that was a good thing. On nights like tonight, however, it wasn't.
For all the joys and friends and family that Amphibia gave the girls, the land also left them with traumas that they were all still struggling to get over. While Sasha, Anne and Marcy all left Amphibia as better people than when they had arrived, they also left more damaged.
Since they had gotten back, Sasha had had many nights like tonight, where her experiences in Amphibia left her awake after a bad dream, trying to find some sort of comfort for herself. Sometimes the dreams would be about watching Marcy being stabbed in that throne room again. Sometimes they would be about Darcy doing much worse to Grime than cutting off his arm. Sometimes they would be about one of the rebellion's missions failing, and her leading those frogs to their doom. And sometimes, they would be about the girl she loved more than anything dying, and never being brought back.
These dreams were perhaps the biggest reason that she slept over at the Boonchuy's so often; cuddling up with Anne at night seemed to help keep these types of dreams from happening as often.
For a second, Sasha thought she heard footsteps coming from above and turned to look at the stairs. She kept her gaze trained on them just long enough to confirm that she couldn't hear any more footsteps and that no one was coming down the stairs, and then let her gaze fall back to her drink.
Sasha knows that she shouldn't be down here dealing with this dream alone. She knows that Anne would have wanted Sasha to wake her up so that she could provide some comfort to her girlfriend and talk through whatever was bothering her. But even after a year, Sasha still has trouble accepting the idea that can just unload her problems onto Anne like that. Besides that, Sasha wasn't sure how good an idea it was to share with Anne what happened in tonight's dream. Out of all of the dreams that she'd had of Amphibia, this was one that left her feeling afraid for different reasons than normal. It was one that left her feeling-
"Sash?"
Sasha turned her face to the stairs where she saw Anne, awake and quietly coming down to the house's ground floor.
"What are you doing up?" Sasha asked, concerned that the two were soon going to be having a conversation that the blond would rather a void.
"I got thirsty and wanted to grab some water." Anne answered as she finished descending the stairs and started walking towards the kitchen. "Then I saw that you weren't in bed, and decided that I should probably find you and ask you that question. Did something happen?"
"Oh uh…no." Sasha answered rather awkwardly. "I just, uh, suddenly had a craving for some hot cocoa."
Sasha put on as much of a smile as she could muster, hoping that it would assure Anne that all was well.
"So you got up in the middle of the night and came down here to drink hot cocoa, the thing you always do when you have a bad dream, but this time it's totally just because you had a craving and not because something's wrong?" Anne asked, very clearly unconvinced by Sasha's assurances.
"Yes?" Sasha said, nervously hoping her girlfriend would just accept that answer and drop the issue.
Unfortunately for Sasha, the look on Anne's face not only indicated that she wasn't accepting Sasha's answer, but that she seemed almost insulted that Sasha thought that would actually work.
Sasha let out a sigh. If there was one very unexpected consequence of her finally changing her ways, it was that she had become a much worse liar as a result. Normally that was fine since she didn't want to lie anymore, but there were moments when she wished she was a more convincing liar again, and this was definitely one of them.
Anne let out a sigh and sat down next to Sasha.
"Sash, we've talked about this. I want to help you when you're feeling down. Even if you don't want to talk to me about what's bothering you, I want you to come find me so that I can offer you some sort of comfort, even if it means waking me up at 3 in the morning."
"I know…" Sasha said, her head hanging low.
"…was it another bad dream?" Anne asked.
Sasha nodded.
"…was it about the tower?"
Sasha nodded again. Of all the nightmares that she had because of Amphibia, the one's involving Toad Tower and her fall were the most common. The Tower dreams would play out in various ways, but they always ended the same way. She'd fall from the Tower. Grime wouldn't be able to save her. Darkness would overtake her vision before she hit the ground. And then, she'd wake up. Sometimes she'd be screaming her head off in fear, sometimes she'd simply be breathing heavily. No matter how her Tower dreams varied, they always ended the same way.
At least, they did before tonight.
"It…it wasn't the usual kind of dream." Sasha said, her head still down, refusing to look at Anne.
Normally, these dreams left her feeling fearful or sorrowful. Tonight, however, she felt ashamed.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Anne asked.
Sasha remained silent.
"Sash?"
Once again, Sasha responded with silence. She knew that she should probably talk to someone about this, and that Anne was always there for her and would be willing to listen but…she hated the idea of talking about this dream, much more than any of the others.
Sasha felt as Anne's arm came to rest on her shoulders.
"Hey, I know this stuff can be hard to talk about, so if you aren't ready to talk about it, then you don't have to." Anne said, a sense of care flowing through her voice. "We can just stay here in silence, or we can talk about something else, or we can do whatever you want, OK?"
Sasha almost felt tears starting to well up in her eyes.
I don't deserve her.
She looked up at Anne, who was giving her a small but comforting smile.
Sasha didn't want to talk about this dream…but she knew that she should. As much as she'd like to, she couldn't avoid this forever.
"Can we…can we talk on the couch?" the blond asked.
"Of course." Anne replied.
The pair moved over to the couch and sat down. They sat in silence for a few moments as Sasha tried to find the words to explain the dream, all the while Anne sat patiently waiting for her girlfriend to be ready to open up.
"It…it wasn't the normal Toad Tower dream." Sasha finally said.
"OK, what happened in this one?" Anne asked, her voice steady and calm in an attempt to help keep Sasha calm. An attempt that was working to a certain extent.
"It…it went like how it did back then, us fighting, the tower falling, me letting go of your hand…" Sasha took a brief moment to steady herself, as she felt a wave of emotion begin to come over her. A wave made up of both fear and shame. "And then…while I was falling, I saw a blue light at the top of the tower."
Anne raised an eyebrow in curiosity at hearing this.
"Suddenly…" Sasha continued. "You were flying down towards me, all covered in that blue aura from your calamity powers. And you caught me. And we just…floated in the air, staring at each other…and then I woke up."
Sasha lowered her head, looking down at the floor. She felt too ashamed to look at Anne's face at the moment. However, after a moment of silence, with seemingly no reaction from the Thai girl, Sasha did turn her head just enough to catch a glimpse of her face. From what Sasha could see, Anne looked…utterly confused.
"Ummm, OK…" Anne said, her voice very unsure, "That's, um…OK Sash, I think I've usually got a pretty good understanding of why stuff bothers you but you're going to have to help me out on this one. Why was that dream so bad?"
Anne was met with silence. Sasha may have decided to talk to Anne about her dream, but now that she was actually at the point of telling Anne why it all bothered her so much…she was finding that whatever strength and will she had to start this conversation had now faltered.
"I…" After what felt like hours of silence, that was the only word that Sasha was able to get out.
Of course I can't actually finish this. Of course I can't actually bring myself to tell her. I was supposed to have gotten better, I was supposed to be someone who knew when they screwed up and when they were being a selfish jerk-
Sasha's bout of self-loathing was cut off as Anne's hand rested on her knee. Slowly, Sasha brought her head back up and turned to look at Anne, who's face was filled with nothing but concern.
"Sasha, if this is too hard for you, you don't have to talk about it now. We can talk about it when-if you're ready to talk about it."
Anne may not have understood why the dream upset Sasha so much, but she didn't need to understand why it upset her to understand that it did. Somehow, in that show of concern, Sasha found what she needed inside of herself to continue on.
She found it inside herself to ask the one question she was ashamed to ask.
"Why did your powers activate when Sprig was dropped out that window, but not when I fell from the tower?"
Anne blinked a few times at hearing this, a look of understanding finally coming across her face.
"Wait, are you…jealous that my powers activated when Sprig was dropped by Andrias and not when you let yourself fall off the Tower?" Anne asked, sounding almost incredulous at what she was saying.
"…yes. It…It's been bothering me off and on since that whole thing in the throne room happened." Sasha said. "It…I just don't understand why watching Andrias almost kill Sprigg was emotional enough to awaken your powers but…but watching me nearly die wasn't."
"Sash," Anne said, taking her girlfriends hand in hers, "It's not that I was more emotional over watching Sprigg nearly die. I was devastated watching you let go of my hand, and I was devastated when Andrias dropped him. With both of you I felt…I'm not even sure how to describe everything I felt."
"…But then why?" Sasha asked.
"Because Sash, there was one difference in you falling vs Sprig falling. You let yourself fall to try and save me and the Plantars. Sprigg fell because Andrias tried to kill him. With you, all I could feel was devastated watching one of the most important people in my life fall to what I thought was her death. With Sprigg, I still felt that, but I was also angry beyond belief at the guy who made him fall in the first place."
"But…you were angry back at the tower too." Sasha said, confused.
"Yeah, before you almost fell off of it." Anne answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Sash, even with everything you had done at the tower, and before it, when I saw the floor collapse out from under you and heard you scream out my name, all the anger I felt pretty much went away. You were almost dying and being angry with you was the last thing that would ever be on my mind in a situation like that."
"So…if someone had thrown me from the tower then-"
"Then I would have gone ballistic and my powers would have definitely activated there." Anne said, interrupting the Blonde's question.
"…You're sure that it was the anger that caused it?"
"Definitely. My first time with the powers was way different from yours and Marcy's, It was like I couldn't feel anything but anger. It was all-consuming. I…" Anne turned away from Sasha, almost looking a little ashamed herself. "I was so angry I couldn't even think to use my powers to try and save Sprigg."
Sasha gave Anne's hand a comforting squeeze, causing the Thai girl to turn her head back to face her.
"Don't beat yourself up about that. The…rush from your powers and the confusion from getting them at all, the confusion from everything that happened that day…of course, you couldn't think straight at the time."
"…wasn't I supposed to be the one comforting you?" Anne asked with a small grin.
"We both have enough issues that we can easily take turns comforting each other." Sasha said, a wry smile on her face.
At that, Anne let out a light giggle. Sasha felt her heart skip a beat, something that always happened whenever she heard Anne laugh. But then, Anne looked back at Sasha with a concerned expression.
"So…did that help? Are you… feeling any better?"
"Y-yeah, defiantly." The blond answered, sounding a little nervous. "Why do you ask?"
"Because…it wasn't just some old jealousy that made you this upset right?"
Sasha didn't respond.
"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Anne said, "but I do know you Sasha, and I know that some bout of jealousy isn't going to upset you this much."
Sasha let out a sigh.
Why does she have to know me so well?
"Sasha," Anne asked, giving her own reassuring squeeze to Sasha's hand. "Do you want to just go back up and get some sleep?"
The blonde didn't respond. Not right away anyways. She thought in silence for nearly a minute, going back and forth in her mind on if she really wanted to get to the real reason the dream so upset her. Finally, she opened her mouth and let out her response.
"…I…I thought I was better than this."
"Huh?" Anne responded, clearly confused.
"I mean I…I was supposed to…I ." Sasha stuttered out as she struggled to find how to put into words what she meant. "I…I'm not supposed to think like that anymore."
Sasha let her head fall into her hands as she continued speaking.
"I'm…How stupid is it that I felt jealous over something like that? Sprig is your best friend and you care about him a lot, of course you'd react like that and awaken your powers. And I don't-I don't have any right to be jealous about how you did or didn't react. Especially with not how I was back then, or heck, how I had acted on both of those days."
Sasha pulled her legs up so that they were on the couch, her arms hugging her knees close to herself and her head lowered so that her forehead was resting on her knees.
"It's just me trying to be controlling over how you feel and what you do. It's just…me being the old Sasha again. And I hate that. I thought I had gotten better. I'd…I'd thought I changed."
"…Sash." Anne said, her voice quiet, and soft and soothing. "Can you please look at me?"
The blonde refused to look up.
"Sasha?" The Thai girl again pleaded.
Once again, Sasha would not respond. She couldn't respond. She wasn't supposed to be the type of person who thought like this anymore. She had sworn that she would be better, that she would become the kind of person that deserved Anne…
…And even after a year, I'm still not that person.
Suddenly, Sasha felt Anne's hands cupping her cheeks, and the Thai girls forehead resting against her own.
"Please Sash?"
Perhaps it was because of the physical contact. Perhaps it was because of how desperate Anne's voice sounded. Perhaps it was because she just couldn't resist the girl she loved for long. Whichever of those reasons it was, Sasha wasn't sure, but she did finally look up. When she did, she saw a soft but sad smile on her girlfriends face, a smile that contrasted with the worry and concern that she could see in Anne's eyes.
"Sash, it's going to be OK." The Thai girl said, her voice soothing and comforting.
"But it's not." Sasha replied, pulling away from Anne. "If I can't be better then-
"Being better doesn't mean being perfect Sash." Anne said, cutting the blonde off from another self-criticizing rant.
Sasha looked at Anne dumbfounded. What she had just said was…it made sense logically, the words fit together and made sense together, and yet it still felt like she could not grasp the meaning of what she just said.
Anne let out a small sigh at Sasha's dumbfounded expression.
"Sasha, nobody's perfect. Everyone has thoughts they're not proud of." As Anne spoke, she used her hand to away the tears on Sasha's cheeks. "Sometimes they end up acting on those thoughts and do things that they aren't proud of too. People make the wrong choices sometimes or have jealous and selfish thoughts. And that's OK."
"…Is it?" Sasha asked, as she felt Anne's hand move from wiping away her tears, to cupping her cheek.
Anne's smile grew a little less sad as she felt Sasha lean her face into the hand cupping her cheek.
"Yes, it is OK. Having stupid and selfish thoughts is perfectly normal, and sometimes people make mistakes and act on those thoughts. Heck, I've gotten jealous seeing you around some of the guys and girls at schools, does that make me a selfish control freak?"
"Of course not!" Sasha replied, very firmly.
"Exactly." Anne said, "And the same goes with you. So you were a little jealous, who cares? It's not like you're acting on that jealousy, and you clearly aren't proud of it. I'm not going to blame you or get mad at you for having feelings you can't control, and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it either."
"…But what if one day I do act on these stupid thoughts?"
"We'll work through that if it happens. You're going to make mistakes and do stupid things sometimes. Because everyone does. But when it happens, we'll deal with it, and given how much you have changed, I'm pretty sure I'll forgive you for a slip-up now and then."
"…Really?" Sasha asked as she sniffled.
"Yes." Anne said, as she pulled the blonde in for a hug.
"I'm sorry I've been so much to handle tonight." Sasha said, her voice sounding far more relaxed then had been just a few moments ago.
"It's alright." Anne said a smile on her face at hearing her girlfriend sounding far less distressed. "We can just look at it as a sign of how much you've changed and how much you don't want to go back to being the person you used to be."
A frown then crossed Anne's face.
"It's also probably a sign that we should see if Mr. X's offer for government-funded therapy is still open because being this upset over a bit of jealousy can not be healthy."
"I'll look into it." Sasha said with a chuckle. "…Thank you Anne."
"No problem Sash." Anne said before letting out a content sigh as she felt Sasha rest her head on her shoulder. "Do you want to go back to bed?"
"…I think I'd like to stay like this for a little longer." Sasha replied.
"OK." Anne said, as she tightened their embrace.
In the morning, Oum Boonchuy would come downstairs to begin making breakfast, and find her daughter and her girlfriend asleep and cuddling with each other. A smile would come across the older woman's face, as she began to tip-toe to the kitchen, wanting to make sure that the two girls wouldn't be woken, and could continue to lay there in each other's arms.
AN: So, I hope you all enjoyed that one, and that Sasha didn't come across as too angsty over this.
This fic has a bit of an interesting back story actually. I've mentioned in a previous end note, but I had originally had an idea for a story that was Marcy and Anne going into Sasha's mind, and in that story the two of them would have seen the dream that Sasha recounts in this story. In fact, that framing device was pretty much created just so that I could do something with this idea of Sasha dreaming about Anne's powers activating at Toad Tower and saving her from the fall. I scrapped that idea cause I couldn't come up with much else to go along with it (besides another dream that got repurposed for Time Brings All to Pass) and I was more interested in other ideas.
Except, I still wanted to do something with this dream idea. So, I came up with a different story where instead of being a dream, we actually have Anne's powers activate and save Sasha as a sort of "what if?", going through various vignettes showing the changes this would have on the show...except something seems a bit off with it all. At the end, Sasha and Anne would talk and Sasha would reveal that she's actually aware that this is a dream of hers after all, with her falling asleep in the war room while planning a mission for the rebellion. This would still be in season 3A, so the real Anne wouldn't be around and Sasha would end up having a talk with dream Anne about all the feelings that came from this.
But then I realised that the structure was too similar to Our Mark's and that, frankly, I just didn't want to write all the little vignettes of how things ended up different in Sasha's dream, and wanted to focus on the tower dream and Sasha's feelings regarding it. As such, I ended up with the version we have here. I had actually debated whether to show the dream or not, but felt it would be better to let the audience find out as Anne does (putting you in Sasha's head through the narration, but also in Anne's head through discovering what's bothering Sasha at the same time she does).
Also, for anyone hoping for the sequel to Time Brings All to Pass to come out soon...I'm hoping that I can get it out in late September. There is still a lot of planning to go into the thing, and if doesn't start slowing down I really have no idea when I'm going to get a chance to work on it. I also have one more one-shot that I want to publish before I start on that sequel, and I don't know how long that will take me, though it should hopefully be ready for posting in the next couple of weeks.
And as always, I appreciate any feedback you guys have, and I'll see you next time.