Just a dream

Wyatt gasps for air, his face turning a shade of red as his coughing starts to mix with laughter - from feeling like an idiot and from listening to his dad. Angelica's own statement seems to make the whole thing much worse, not to mention the look on Aerith's face, and Wyatt's laughing just proves to make him cough even more.

Reese can't help but start to laugh too, pulling Angelica's hand up to give it a kiss. "I think someone needs rescued."

Getting up from his seat, he walks the couple feet to the next table and gives his son's back and hearty whack. "Cough it up, cough it up."

"Got it... yeah... I'm good..." Wyatt wheezes and gives a little wave, his eyes watering.

Reese laughs again and shakes his head. "Boy, you almost made headlines as the first person to ever drown in a glass of water."

"Careful." Wyatt threatens with what was left of his water.

Reese backs up a step, grinning from ear to ear. "Hey now... who crashed whose party, hmm?"

"Oh, alright." Wyatt sets the glass back down. "You win." He grins up at his father, not having lost any of the humor in this whole thing. "I guess we can leave you alone... now that you totally ruined our own joke."

Reese starts to laugh again. "Aw... did I spoil it, hmm?" He nods to the table. "We can make it a foursome if you really want to."

"No... we were just fooling." Wyatt rolls his eyes and starts to get up. "We'll leave you be."

"Sit down." Reese shoves him back in his chair. "You wanted to crash a party, you got it. I'm not letting you leave now."

"But-"

"Oh, no... you're gonna have to stay for the duration, smooching, playing footsie and all."

"Agh!" Wyatt stands up quickly, putting his hands over his ears. "Lalalala!"

All it does is serve to send Reese back to his laughter and he looks to Aerith. "You might want to get out of here before he really creates a scene."


Smiling a little as Dalton shifts around on the couch, Dani doesn't hesitate to burrow right in and get comfortable in a warm spot. One arm draped around Dalton's middle, and her head rested on his chest, moving gently up and down with his slow breaths. Up... down... up... down... a steady, soothing rhythm against the quiet beating of his heart. Dani's focus on the television gets a little blurry, and her eyelids begin to close. She snaps back to attention to watch the movie, but all too soon, her eyes are heavy again...

...The movie intensity grew as it approached the end. The music became louder and a woman screamed as the bad guy came after her. But it wasn't the movie that was playing in Dani's mind. Minutes before, she'd fallen into a deeper sleep than anticipated and as the dreams began to flow, her hand had tightened into a fist, putting Dalton's shirt in a death grip. The dream was abstract, but dark and evoking the feeling of fear. Dani was a little girl again, wandering through rooms and opening doors, looking, searching for something important, but she didn't even know what. Finally, the last room was her own bedroom as a child - the one with pink curtains and blew gently in the breeze. The door opened easily enough, but the overhead light produced an eerie glow instead of the bright beams it was supposed to. The room was suddenly not the haven she remembered, and she became her real age again, looking in on herself as a child, and a dark figure whose face was hidden in the shadows. She saw herself draw back into the corner where the bed met the wall, her blankets pulling clear up to her chin. But the figure came anyway.

The scream coming from the movie registered as Dani's own childhood scream as the hands reached for her.

"No!" Giving a cry, Dani sits bolt upright, ripping herself from Dalton. Getting tangled in his legs, she winds up turning herself around and falling off the edge of the couch, her arm whacking the corner of the coffee table and her knee twisting as her foot gets caught on a cushion.

Her heart racing, she gasps for breath as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Her entire body shook and tears began to stream from her eyes, though at first, she didn't even notice. Her senses told her where she was and who she was with, but her mind was stuck in that dream... that nightmare... the nightmare that had unlocked a door that had been closed for years.

Whimpering, she holds her hurt elbow and leans against the couch without trying to get up. It couldn't be true. It wasn't true. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.