I walk downstairs as I normally do, only to freeze when I hear the voices. It's Mum, and she's talking to someone about me. I try and keep quiet as I creep closer. "I just can't handle her anymore! She's the biggest mistake I ever made." I could feel tears well up in my eyes as her words registered. I always knew that she resented me, she hates that I look more like Dad's side of the family more than hers, but I didn't know she actually hated me. I then froze when I heard the other voices. "I don't blame you, Aio. She's a bit of a nightmare." Sarah Jane? "She's so dramatic! Like, first she has 'panic attacks', now she wants us to use different pronouns for her? Like, grow up." Clyde? Really? I fought back a sob as the other people all seemed to agree. "It's just sad. She's sixteen, this kind of attention seeking is just pathetic." I couldn't bear to listen anymore, so I turned to run back upstairs, only to stop when I heard Mum continue speaking. "I don't want her anywhere near my baby." My brain screeched to a halt. Her what?! I turned back around and sat down on the stairs. "I mean, we have another few months to find a way to get rid of her." William spoke up. I can't listen to this. I storm back to my room and slam the door shut. I curl up under my desk and just start crying.

I was still sobbing when I heard Luke's voice calling my name. "ASHA!" "Leave me alone!" I yelled back. "Asha, listen to me, whatever's happening, it's not real. We're all trapped in a nightmare. Clyde and Rani are also trapped. Listen to me. I'm in a corridor, and there's loads of doors. I need you to concentrate. Imagine there's a door. And I'm on the other side of it." I get off my bed and stare at my bedroom door. "Where are you?" I hear Rani yell. "Rani?" "Clyde?" I finally decided to go along with it. "Luke, what colour's the door?" "Asha?" I hear them yell back. "Yeah, I'm here too. I'm guessing that our dreams are all connected, somehow. Luke, describe the doors." I asked him again. "Think of a classroom door! Like the ones at school. You've got to imagine it!" He shouts to us, his voice trembling. "Do you understand? A red door, imagine a red door, come on!" He tells us encouragingly. I focus intently on my bedroom door, imagining it turning red. "You can do it. I know you can. Focus, keep focusing on the door." I grin as the door turns red. I open the door and step out of my room.

I emerge into a grey corridor. I hug Luke, still trembling from what was in the nightmare. Luke hugged me back for a minute before realising that Clyde and Rani haven't joined us yet. "Clyde? Rani?" He yells. "Please! I need you!" He yells to them. Rani burst out of her door a few seconds later. She grinned at us, looking so relieved to be out of the nightmare. "Clyde? Come one!" Luke pleaded. Clyde burst through his door after that.

"We did it!" Luke's voice shook as he said this. Clyde, Rani and I all slammed our door shut, the sound echoing through the corridor. "Are...are we all having the same dream?" Clyde asked, disbelief thick in his voice. "Honestly, probably." I shrugged, trying to shrug off the anxiety I'm getting just looking at my friends. I can't just forget what nightmare them had said about me. I also ignored the looks of concern when they noticed the tear tracks. "This is impossible." Rani says. "It's amazing." Luke objects. "I guess we're just that good." Clyde gives Luke a high-five/handshake. He then seems to take in our surroundings. "But...where are we?" He asks. "Mr. smith told K-9 about this different dimension. I think it's where our minds go when we dream." Luke explained. "Reminder, we must defeat the Nightmare Man." K-9 pipes up. "The who? Luke?"

"K-9!" Rani exclaims. I looked down at where the dog had been a second ago, but he was gone! Clyde started calling for him, but I noticed Luke was panicking. "Something must have happened to the real K-9." he says quietly. "Mum!" He freezes. I grabbed his hand, "Hey. Look at me." I tilted his face to look at me. "Luke, she's Sarah Jane. She's far more capable of handling herself than anyone else in the universe." I squeezed his hand, hoping it would help ground him a bit. "You haven't seen him, Asha! You don't know what he's like." He snaps at me, close to tears. "Hey, don't snap at me. Not now. You are correct, I don't know anything about the Nightmare Man. But what I do know, is that we've lessened that impact of this nightmare, so hopefully that will affect him in some way. Please, I know you're scared, but you made me promise not to shut you out. Don't shut me out. Don't shut any of us out." This seemed to calm him down. His hand has stopped trembling in mine, and he seemed to breathe easier. "Sorry." He whispered. I just smiled at him.

I was ripped away by a man with his face painted white. "Who the hell are you?" Clyde demanded. "I am the Nightmare Man. And you three are going to suffer!" He shouts at us, planting his hands on his hips like a stroppy toddler. "You're just an alien. We can stop you." I'm not sure who Rani is trying to convince, but it isn't working...on anyone. "You're nothing. you're pathetic children, scared of the dark. scared of me." His voice was really creepy, almost like a ghostly nail on a chalkboard. He started really high pitched but went low at the end. I tried to summon my usual sass, but I wasn't able to fight back against the fear. I took a step back as he came closer. "Luke...do something!" Rani begged. I looked back at him, and I felt my stomach drop. He can't even look at us. I don't think I've ever seen him this helpless. He couldn't move, not even when the Nightmare Man cackled at him. He then flipped again and went deadly serious. "You're going back into your nightmares." He told us, waggling his finger at us like he was scolding us. Clyde shouted back at him, but to no avail. The Nightmare man simply pointed at the doors, each one opening one by one. "And you're going to be locked in them...forever." his hands lit up with purple electricity, and I could feel my mind go blank. I could feel myself being pulled back. I could hear them. "Oh, Asha. Why would anyone want you? You always were just a waste of space."

"NO!" I heard. That broke me out of my trance. I looked up and saw Luke. He was glaring at the Nightmare Man, defiance clear as day. "Oh, your nightmares haven't even begun!" The Nightmare Man tells him. "Just listen to me." he pleads. "Why?" The Nightmare Man asks, the patronisation clear in the way he speaks. "Because you keep telling me about you and what you want. But you've never asked about me." The Nightmare Man bursts out laughing. "What are you talking about?" He questions, sounding very confused. "But you're just an alien. Well, I'm called Luke Smith. I was made by aliens to destroy the world. But this brilliant woman, Sarha Jane Smith, she found me. And she made me good. And she found other. A boy called Clyde, a girl called Rani, and this amazing person called Asha. This world has faced so many nightmares, but there's always been someone there to stop them. Us! You know, I was so scared because I thought my mates wouldn't be there for me. Never mind Oxford, they followed me into my nightmares! Four kids, breaking down the walls of dreams to be together. Something no one's ever done before. Because together, we're unbeatable!" Luke says so passionately. I tried moving a bit, hoping that he was able to distract the Nightmare Man enough. "Oh." He mocks, clapping his hands like you would when a child does something they're proud of, but actually kinda sucks. "Very good! But do you really think words can stop a creature like me?" "I wasn't talking to you." Luke spits out, with such venom in his voice, I have to grin. "Good luck." I say, pulling away from the doorway and standing next to Luke. "He's right." Rani says, standing on his other side. Clyde stands next to me, so we form a line. "Because together, we can stop then monster." Clyde grabs my hand. "We stop the nightmares!" Rani grabs Luke's hand. "Because when we're together." I say, grabbing Luke's hand. "We're not scared. You have no hold over us now." The Nightmare Man clasps his head in his hands like he's in pain. One of the doors, Clyde's, I think, lights up, pulling him closer. We've started walking towards him, forcing him back further. "Cos we're brilliant when we're together." Clyde tells him. "Get away from me." He tries to order us, but we ignore it. "You see, it's easy to pick on our worst fears when we don't have our people around us to catch us. But you can't isolate us for long." I tell him. "So, there we go. The boy that was made by aliens to destroy the world saves the world, yet again." Luke yells over the sounds of his cries as he gets sucked into a nightmare. The door slams shut with a final bang.

We stood in stunned silence for a few seconds before Rani broke it. "You did it." She told Luke. "No." He grinned. "We did it." he said, looking at all of us. I giggled a bit, leaning my head on his shoulder as I breathed. "Now, let's get out of here." He said, squeezing my hand gently. "Yeah." Clyde agrees readily. "Time to wake up." "How?" Rani asked. I just grinned innocently as I pinched her arm.

I woke up back in Luke's room. I sat up and wiped my face. I guess I had also been crying in real life. "Rani? Clyde?" I whispered, grabbing their attention. "Asha!" I quickly moved to be hugged by my friends, as apparently, my brain was only now letting me process everything, and I started crying again. I sobbed into Rani's shoulder as I heard Clyde get up. Rani ran her hand through my hair and whispered reassurance into my ear as I cried harder. I heard Clyde, Luke, and Sarah Jane enter the room, and we all just sat in a pile and hugged and cried together.

We were all afraid to go back to sleep, but we couldn't help it. We were all emotionally drained, so fell asleep quite quickly. When we woke up, we all got ready to properly say goodbye to Luke. I insisted on making him a coffee for the road, just for traditions sake. I took over the kitchen, making drinks and a packed lunch for him to take with him. I watched as he and Rani crossed the road so he could say goodbye to Gita and Haresh before he left. "Still insisting he doesn't like you?" Clyde speaks up behind me. I jumped, having not heard him enter the kitchen. "Shut up." I tell him, turning back to the kettle. "Asha, you heard his speech. He called you amazing. Rani and I didn't get called anything other than a boy and a girl." I sighed. "Clyde, it's because I'm neither. I'm not always a girl, or a boy. He couldn't just lump me in with either one of you because that's not what I am. He called me an amazing person because it sounds nicer than calling me just a person. It doesn't mean anything. I wish it did, but it doesn't. Please, drop it." I beg him, leaving the room to bring everything outside.

Once K-9 was packed away safely, I went inside to give Clyde and Luke some space. I went back outside with Rani and Sarah Jane. We all gathered around him. "So, this is it then. Start of a brand-new life. Lots of new adventures, new friends. New everything. Oh, I love you." Sarah Jane was almost in tears as she pulled him in for a hug. "Bye, Mum." He said as they separated. I was trying to swallow back my tears as he was given a kiss on the cheek by Rani. He then turned to me and did something I wasn't expecting. He kissed me. Like, full on, hand on my cheek, pulling me closer, pulling me in, and just... kisses me. And here's the really unexpected part...actually, it's pretty expected. I freeze. I can feel his lips pressed against mine, but nothing beyond that. It's like my mind is filled with static. I'm not sure how much of that is down to shock that he's kissing me or the fact that it's not a bad kiss. I register him pulling away, so I snap out of my shock and do the only reasonable thing I can think of. I grab his shirt and pull him back. This time, I initiate the kiss. I have no idea how much time has passed, but I eventually remember what's supposed to be happening. I pull back and just stare at him, dumbfounded. "You kissed me?" I asked him, shocked. "You kissed me back." He replied, a small smile beginning to form on his face. I could hear the others laughing, but I couldn't be bothered to acknowledge them. "We should probably talk about that...later...once you're at uni." I manage to get out before reality set back in. "Yeah. But we will talk, right?" He asked. I nodded, giving him a hug before he got in the car and prepared to drive off. We all waved goodbye as he and K-9 pulled out of the driveway.

I endured hours of teasing before I finally was able to get rid of my friends and went home. I collapsed in my bed and played that kiss over and over again in my head. I couldn't believe it. Apparently, I'm not as observant as I thought I was, seeing as I managed to miss that. I realised that we should definitely talk, probably now, because I have so many questions about that. So, I grabbed my phone and called him. I nervously bit my lip as I waited for him to pick up. The phone rang three times before he answered. "Hey, Asha." I smiled nervously to myself. "Hey." I responded. I didn't really know how to initiate the conversation, so we kind of sat in silence for a few seconds before I spoke. "So...you kissed me earlier." I said. "Yes, I did. Then you kissed me." I swallowed before I said what I have been thinking for all day. "Why? Why did you kiss me?" He sighed. "The truth is, Asha, I've had a huge crush on you for a while. Like, since Tybo came to earth, at least." I was shocked. "Luke, that's over a year. You've liked me for over a year, and you didn't say anything!" "Well, I didn't think you liked me back! What was I supposed to do?" He laughed as he asked me. "I don't know, be braver than me?! I mean, I think my crush on you started around then? Maybe a bit after? I don't know." I huffed, flopping back dramatically. We were quiet for a few moments before I started laughing. He joined me, and we just laughed together for a bit. "Man, what a pair of idiots we make." I joke. "Yeah. I don't know how we both managed to miss it." I rolled my eyes. "Rani and Clyde have been on my back for ages about telling you." I confessed. "No way, they've been saying them same things to me!" He exclaimed. "We really are a pair of morons." I laugh. "Hey, Asha, I was wondering...would you...maybe...like to go on a date with me? Like, maybe next weekend, you come to Oxford, and we go to the museums around here, get lunch, you know, spend the day together, one on one, with romantic intention?" I grinned so hard I thought my face would break. "I'd like that...a lot." I could hear his sigh of relief through the phone. "Brilliant. Talk to you tomorrow?" he asked hopefully. "Definitely. Goodnight." I hung up and had to muffle my shriek in my pillow. Clyde and Rani are going to be insufferable tomorrow, but I don't care. He likes me back!

An: Yeah, I don't know. I've never really written anything romantic before, nor have I ever been kissed, but I have read enough that it's hopefully somewhat decent? Idk, I'm open to tips. Just a forewarning, I'll be writing their first date to replace the next episode, I really don't like that one.

Also, I still don't own the SJA