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Analyn barely remembered her time as a ghost, but sometimes, the memories came back in the tendrils of her mind.
Even the ones everyone thought were locked away.
This was the first time Analyn remembered anything from Pine Springs.
The bear gripped its jaws onto the man’s shoulder. Analyn wanted to reach out, to rip the bear monster off of him, but the shadows clung to her, preventing her from getting to him in time.
No, she was screaming at herself. Nonononono- she thought as she watched the man’s blood stain the street.
“No!” She screamed and forced herself awake.
She sat up, head in her hands as she dug her nails into her scalp, looking for some sort of grip.
She was back in the ruins now. The sight of the blood from the nightmare caused her to feel the remnants of blood dripping down her arm. A glint out of the corner of her eye reminded her far too much of Noah's knife. Her breath quickened even more.
She tried to recall Dan’s soothing words from the last time this happened, but she was so swallowed in her own grief that she couldn’t force herself to think of anything else. When she tried to calm her breathing, it only made her choke on air.
There was a shift in the mattress next to Analyn, and then it was dipping right in front of her. Gentle hands pulled her own from her scalp and gripped them tightly. Analyn still kept her head down, breath uneven, and tears streaming down her face. She hadn't had a nightmare this bad in a long, long time. After Rowan sealed the barrier and the Power was no longer a threat, Analyn thought they would be done.
Dan explained to her that trauma didn't work like that. She had just been too stubborn to listen.
“Ana?” Dan whispered, voice gentle. “Analyn, can you look at me?” His hands never left hers.
She willed herself to look at him, his face masked with a mix of concern and seriousness. “Can you tell me what I’m wearing?”
Analyn took in his appearance. It was hard to make out within the darkness of the room, and with the tears in her eyes, but she remembered from when they went to sleep. She always remembered when it came to Dan.
“A black shirt,” she choked out, barely even hearing herself say it. “And gray sweatpants.”
“What else do you see? Anything that stands out about my appearance? My clothes?”
Analyn looked at him again, trying to force her eyes to focus. His hair looked a mess, his shirt was wrinkled, and his hands were still holding onto hers like she would disappear if he let go. She knew she might’ve.
“Your-“ She swallowed, her breath starting to decrease back to its normal pace. “The strings of your sweatpants are tied.” Her thumb searched for the familiar metal band around Dan’s finger. “And you’re wearing your ring.”
"That's right." Dan traced circles into her hands. The familiarity of the gesture helped her calm down. She wasn't in Pine Springs, helping Harper despite being a ghost. She wasn't in the caves, trying to exercise a possessed Noah. She was with Dan. She was with Dan in their apartment outside of Westchester. They were getting married in the fall.
Soft fur grazed her leg as their cat, Selina, lay down next to her. Analyn's heart warmed. She loved her cat so much. She removed one hand from Dan's. The cool air hit it with force. She hadn't even realized how bad she was sweating. She started scratching behind Selina's ears, looking for another way to grip herself back to reality.
"Picard!" Dan called for their other cat and pat their bed. Picard jumped up onto the mattress, stealing Analyn's spot on the bed. She didn't really mind.
Her breathing finally slowed down to its normal pace. Her eyes cleared, but the tears still clung to her cheeks. Dan reached over and wiped them away with his free hand. "Can you recite our address?"
"I'm okay now," Analyn managed to say without panic. She finally felt calm enough to look at Dan. "I'm sorry for waking you."
"Never apologize for that, okay?" Dan caressed her cheek. "I'm not going to let you go through anything alone. It's you and me, always."
She nodded, but she still felt ashamed. Dan had had a long day, and she what? Woke him up, screaming over things that had already happened. Dan might not have seen it as a burden, but Analyn did.
Then again, she had warned him before they got together, and he still stayed. He would always stay.
Analyn let go of Dan and Selina, crossing her arms. Her shoulders were still shaking. She looked over at where Picard sat against her pillow, watching her. "I don't think I can go back to sleep." She tried to make it seem like a joke because of the cat, but it fell flat. Probably because it was the truth.
Dan's eyes were filled with concern still. "That's okay. What do you need?" Not if she needed anything. He knew her. He knew she did need something. Whether that was to talk about her nightmares or anything else was up to Analyn.
There was an emptiness in her stomach. A tiny prick of pain. "I'm kinda hungry."
Dan nodded. "Anything specific?"
"Hmm," Analyn wondered. "My sweet tooth is speaking to me right now."
Dan let out a small laugh. It was her favorite kind. His voice had an early-morning gruff mixed with his natural softness. “Sugar? At this hour?”
“Sugar calms the horrors,” Analyn said seriously.
"Noted. Let's go."
They got up, weaving through the hallway of their apartment until they reached the kitchen. The cats trailed behind them. Picard went straight for his water bowl while Selina lay on the floor. Analyn hopped up onto the counter. She dangled her legs as she watched Dan rummage through the freezer.
"What kind of flowers do we want for the wedding?" Analyn asked, just to fill the silence (and to also avoid talking about her nightmare). "I was thinking delphiniums or peonies."
Dan moved toward her, sliding between her legs. He shrugged a little and reached over her head. She ducked, avoiding getting hit by the cabinet door. "Whatever will make you happy will make me happy."
Analyn's heart fluttered, even as she grimaced. "You are so hard to plan with. You know that, right?"
Dan chuckled and grabbed two bowls. He walked back to the other side of the kitchen. "That's not true! I'm handling the food."
"Noah is handling the food."
"I… gave him the list?" He scooped some ice cream.
"That I wrote half of."
Dan didn't respond to that. Analyn mentally cheered. Victory was her's! He handed her a bowl of strawberry ice cream. "You should ask Stacy about the flowers. She'll give you an opinion."
Analyn looked down at her dessert. "Yeah… but it's our wedding."
Dan jumped up onto the counter next to her. "Are we wedding planning right now to avoid talking about your nightmare, or is the flower decision urgent?"
Ugh. Of course he knew that. Analyn ate a scoop of ice cream. She licked the remainder from her lips before finally answering. She didn't want to talk about it in that moment, but she also knew she wouldn't be able to keep it from Dan for long. "It wasn't a nightmare. It was a memory."
Dan frowned, a bit of vanilla hanging on the edge of his lip. "Of what?"
Analyn dug her spoon into one of the scoops. "The battle with Josephine, I think. I don't remember. The only reason I even know I was there is because Harper told me." She spoke with aggression that had pent up over the years. "Everyone has these memories of me that I don't remember."
"You know, I don't remember most of high school."
Analyn frowned. "That's not the same thing."
"It depends on how you look at it. I don't remember because of trauma. The things you witnessed as a ghost…" Dan trailed off. Analyn wished she knew what he was thinking about. "Even regular people's minds will hide things like that in their subconscious."
"They aren't hidden away in my subconscious." Analyn stabbed her ice cream. "I'm missing four years of my life." She rubbed her eyes, like it would help her recover her memories. “And the things I do remember are fuzzy.” She decided she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She paused. “Then, I was back in the ruins."
"I think about the ruins a lot, too. About Jane," Dan admitted, because at night, when the world was quiet, confessions were easier.
"I know. I can see it on your face when you go back there."
"I mostly think about you. Even when you're right in front of me, breathing and full of life, the image of your lifeless body will still flash in my mind."
Analyn sucked in a breath. Another memory came back to her. Thick through the shadows, she floated at an opening in the ruins, peering down at the scene below her. A familiar figure let out a guttural scream.
She ate her ice cream, hoping the sugar would eat away the memory. That was one she was happy to forget.
Dan tapped against his ice cream bowl. An anxious habit of his. "Without you, Ana, those four years were suffocating. I felt like I was drowning all the time, and I never came up for air until I saw you alive."
Analyn's breath caught in her throat. She knew her death had been hard on Dan. It had been hard on everyone who loved her, but she hadn't known that. For a moment, she felt grateful that even as a ghost, she had a blissful unawareness of most things. It seemed better than being aware of her death, living with the guilt. If it had been Noah instead of her, she would've been suffocating every day. She would've wished her oxygen had just been cut off.
"Maybe it was a blessing in disguise," she said. "But still. I just wish these nightmares would stop."
Dan set his bowl aside, putting his hand on her knee. "They might. They might not, but they'll become easier to live with. I promise."
"I'll be holding you to that."
"I expect nothing less."
Analyn smiled. She abandoned her ice cream and curled up against Dan. She put her head on his shoulder, fitting there perfectly like their bodies had been made for each other.
Dan kissed her head. In that moment, everything felt okay. When she was with Dan, the nightmares seemed less terrifying. She wasn't alone in losing herself to her memories.
"I think peonies would look nice," Dan said.
"I know, right?"