Thanks Nancy and Carol for doing such a stellar job!
PART FIFTEEN
*~Jay~*
I woke up panting for breath once again. Although my nightmares were a common occurrence, it didn’t make them any less terrifying. Tonight’s had been a familiar one, and I could still feel the presence of those dream demons clinging to the walls of my room. Would I ever be free of them?
My heart lurched when I caught movement in the dark corner by my dresser. I was out of bed, and halfway across the room when Ellie spoke.
“It’s me, Jay,” she called out quickly. “Don’t worry, it’s just me.”
“Ellie?” I squinted, but couldn’t make out enough of her to recognize. But that didn’t really matter because I had heard her voice and knew it was her. I walked backwards and sat back down on my bed, letting myself calm down a bit. “What are you doing here?”
She stepped out of the shadows, but refused to look at me. She was dressed as Nebula, but her body language betrayed guilt and apprehension that was out of character for the superhero. Her fingers played with the corner of her cape, pulling and twisting the fabric.
“Never mind. I guess you heard me, huh?” I guessed.
“Yeah.”
“Do you always listen to me when I’m sleeping?” I pulled the covers over my legs again. The room had gotten cold since I had gone to bed. .
“No, of course not! But sometimes I do tend to hone in on you,” she confessed. “Unintentionally. And tonight I was out flying and I heard you… I just couldn’t turn away, Jay. I’m sorry, but I had to come see you.”
“Well, thanks. But I’m fine Ellie,” I told her. “It was a nightmare, sure, but I’m okay.”
“You’re shutting me out, Jay,” she said sternly.
I sighed. “Yeah, I am.”
She blinked. “Well… Why?”
“Because you don’t need to know every gritty detail of my past.”
“It’s upsetting you, Jay! Of course I need to know about what’s bothering you. And remember? We made that pact to be completely open with each other.”
“Ah, yes. Things are starting to make sense.” I grinned wryly. “Convenient that we made that pact just hours before you showed up here demanding to know the secrets of my past that are haunting me.” I wasn’t really upset, just trying to stall.
“Wait, are you saying I came up with that whole thing just to get you to tell me the truth about your nightmares?”
“Well, admit it Ellie, the timing’s pretty convenient,” I pointed out. “So did you?”
“No! Well, not entirely. Maybe. Yes. I don’t know,” she sputtered. “No, that wasn’t my primary reason, but I guess I have to confess that it was sort of… lingering there as something you haven’t been completely upfront about with me yet.”
“Ellie, it’s okay. I can understand why you’d be curious.” I didn’t really mind that she had already planned on prying into this part of my life. Deep down inside, I knew that I wouldn’t be keeping it from her forever.
“I can see how this is tearing you apart,” she said softly, moving to sit on the edge of my bed. “And I don’t really know if I can do anything to help, but I want to at least try.”
The room was dark, but I could still see the shape of her face lit softly by the light coming from the moon outside. She looked so innocent, almost bordering on naïve. Her chin was stuck upwards in a determined angle, and her eyes flashed proudly.
“How can I tell you, Ellie?” I asked with defeat. “You’re so…”
“Innocent?” she asked sardonically.
How had she known?
“Jay, I am anything but innocent,” she told me furiously. “You want to know what I was doing before I came over here? I was pulling a knife from the hand of some poor drug addict teen just before he stabbed his best friend over a plastic baggy. And you want to know how I know they were best friends? The whole time I was taking the kid to the police station, he wouldn’t stop sobbing the whole story to me. I’ll say it again, Jay, I’m anything but innocent.”
Her outburst surprised me. She usually never went into graphic detail with the stuff she dealt with. Normally it was just a general summary, if anything.
“Ellie, that’s awful,” I told her. “Do you want to talk-”
“Not while you still have to talk to me.”
She had me there. I had no way to back out of this, and although it seemed as if every instinct within me screamed against telling her, I knew I had to.
“My back four molars are false,” I finally said.
“What?”
“They’re false. Here, take a look.” I opened my mouth and pointed.
She craned her neck to examine them. “I never noticed that before,” she told me.
“Well, they’re *good* false teeth. I don’t think any untrained observer would be able to tell the difference. Which is kind of the point.”
“Right.”
I could tell that she didn’t really understand why I was telling her this.
“I got them just before I turned twenty,” I told her.
“You had your original teeth pulled?” she asked in confusion.
“Well, they were pulled, but let’s just say it wasn’t exactly my choice,” I said shakily, hoping she would understand where I was heading with this.
“So…”
“God, Ellie, do I have to spell it out?” I asked exasperatedly. “I got caught being in a place I shouldn’t have been in. And the people who caught me weren’t exactly the type who were going to politely ask me questions.”
“Oh. So they…”
“Yeah.” I brought my hand up to feel along my jaw.
“And you were nineteen?” she asked sadly.
“It was our first field assignment,” I told Ellie. “Kaylie and I both did well in training, but all the training in the world can’t prepare you for the real thing. I spent two days in captivity before Kaylie managed to help bust me out.”
“She wasn’t with you?”
“That was one of the things they were questioning me about. Where my partner was.”
“And you didn’t tell them?”
“No, of course not,” I replied. I shook my head as I remembered the aftermath of our actions. “That whole mission was a disaster,” I told Ellie. “It’s a miracle we weren’t let go after it. We did nothing right and everything wrong.”
“Not everything,” Ellie said. “You did one thing right. You didn’t tell them where Kaylie was.”
“Well, of course I didn’t do that,” I told her. “But that’s not really anything to get a medal over. I was just doing what I had to.”
“Jay, admittedly I’m not exactly an expert on pain,” she began. “But I have been exposed to Kryptonite a few times.”
“You can say that again,” I muttered.
“Anyway,” she continued, shooting a warning glance in my direction, “I can’t really sympathize with how you must’ve felt, but I do know how being in pain clouds your judgment. You have a hard time thinking straight, and soon all you can think about is making the pain stop. And the fact that you stood firm through all of that isn’t something you should just brush aside. That was a good thing you did,” she said insistently. “And I’m sure that Kaylie remembers it to this day. And now I’ll remember it as well,” she decided firmly. “And I’ll be proud of you because of it.”
“Thank you,” I said, surprised by her reaction. I had expected sympathy. I had expected a good listening ear. But I hadn’t expected pride.
“Jay, I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Ellie said, bringing me back to the present.
“Well, that was what I was dreaming about tonight,” I told her. “But I have other nightmares, Ellie. And more physical evidence to go with them. But that’s all… I mean, I can’t just unload it all in one sitting.”
“Okay.” She reached out and took my hand. “I understand. Thank you sharing that with me. I don’t even know if I can really make you feel any better, but knowing about it makes me feel better.”
“What you’re doing, Ellie,” I told her, running my thumb along her knuckles, “makes me feel better.”
“Jay, can I ask you a question?” Ellie said after a brief silence.
“Sure.”
“What exactly did you do for the NIA? I know you went undercover and stuff, but what was the point of most of your missions?”
“To get information, mostly,” I shrugged. “Faces, names, places, dates, and whatever else the NIA wanted. Most of the time, I would set myself up in a place that would give me that kind of information without having to dig around too much to find it. But usually I would end up having to take more risks to get it.”
“And that’s when things went wrong.”
“Yeah. We were always told not to take any more risks than what was in our orders, but it was an unwritten rule that we were to do anything to complete our mission, regardless of the danger.”
“That’s unfair,” Ellie said after a pause. “How can they expect so much of you?”
“They just do,” I shrugged. “That’s the way it’s always been. Now can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“You said heard me tonight.”
“Unintentionally.”
“Does that happen very often?” It was kind of strange to think that she would just randomly tune into me.
“Not very,” she shrugged. “And if it does happen, I don’t usually listen any further. It’d be like spying.”
“When was the last time it happened?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Don’t you have an eidetic memory or something?” I probed. “And you’re telling me you don’t remember?”
“Unlike my dad and my brother, I’m not completely anal,” she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I can remember something easily if I put an effort into it, but it’s not like I have TiVo in my head.”
“Just take a stab then,” I urged. I was extremely curious to see what it was she might’ve heard.
“Well, one I do remember was a few months ago,” she told me. “You remember when you took me out to dinner at that fancy restaurant? The Ivory House?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I knew that you were taking me out somewhere nice,” she said. “But you wouldn’t tell me where, so earlier that day I was thinking about what you were planning, and trying to guess what you would do. And all of a sudden, I heard you yelling at someone to stop.”
“Really?” I didn’t remember the incident at all.
“Well, maybe yelling is a strong word,” she relented. “I was worried at first, but it only took me a second to realize that you were talking to a cab driver. He had missed your stop or something.”
“Oh.” It sounded kind of familiar, but I didn’t really have any direct memory of the incident. It obviously hadn’t been a big deal for me.
“I don’t intentionally listen in on you, Jay,” she rushed to explain. “It’s only when I’m thinking of you. Or something really loud would also get through to me, I think. And if I do tune in, I tune right back out as soon as I realize that it’s happened. And even then it’s only been a handful of times. Mostly when you’re asleep. I would never intentionally invade your privacy like that.”
“I know. I trust you, Ellie.”
“Thank you.”
Then a huge yawn cracked my jaw in half. Ellie stood up.
“You’re tired,” she said.
“Well, it is just after three a.m.,” I told her.
“Do you think you can get to sleep?” she asked. “I know if I’ve had a nightmare, sometimes I have a hard time sleeping after.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I know I’ve avoided talking about this, but it has helped. Thank you, Ellie.”
“Goodnight, Jay.”
* * *
*~Ellie~*
“And that’s pretty much what we do here at STAR Labs,” I concluded. “Any questions?” It had taken us a while, but we had finally been able to coordinate a time for Kaylie’s class to come visit the lab. Throughout the tour, the class had been great. They paid attention to my lecture, and seemed genuinely interested. A few of them had asked some really intelligent questioned during the tour, but I wanted to give a chance to open the floor as well.
Several hands flew into the air.
“Yes?” I selected a boy wearing ripped jeans belted so low that half his boxers were visible.
“Is it true that Superman and Supernova and Nebula come here sometimes?” he asked.
“Yep,” I replied, catching Kaylie’s eye in amusement. “Superman comes here the most often, but you will see the others occasionally as well.”
“God, can you imagine if Supernova came in here right now?” one girl asked the group. “I think I would *die*. He’s by far the hottest,” she swooned.
“Well, that would be interesting for sure,” I said, glancing at Kaylie again. She rolled her eyes with a mixture of exasperation and embarrassment.
“Hey, what about Nebula for us guys?” one of the students interjected.
“Now that would be really interesting,” Kaylie said wickedly.
“Well, I think a visit from anyone is unlikely,” I told the group, deciding to get back on topic. “They usually don’t stop by if we’re busy doing something. Such as this tour.”
This response got a groan from the whole class, and Kaylie moved forward to reestablish control.
“Does anyone have any more questions for Ellie about working at this lab?”
One shy girl in a baggy sweater raised her hand.
“Yes?” I asked.
“So, you said you don’t have your doctorate?”
“Not yet,” I replied. “But I’m well on my way. It just takes a bit of time.”
“Did you always want to be a scientist?” she asked timidly.
“Well, I always liked science,” I told her. “And my aunt and uncle also work here, so I was supported through them as well. Do you think you might be interested in something like this?”
“Maybe,” she replied, ducking a little.
“Why would you?” an obnoxious girl interrupted. She wore lipstick in a garish color and her top was pushing the bounds of a regular school’s dress code.
“Karen, don’t interrupt,” Kaylie reminded the student.
“Sorry, Miss S,” she apologized, flicking her hair back. “But everyone knows that guys don’t go for girls who are super smart or anything. Same as how they don’t go for any girl who’s as good at sports as them. They don’t want a girl to be better than them at anything.”
“Well, that’s just… That’s not…” I couldn’t even pull myself together enough to object. I was shocked by what she had just said.
“That’s definitely not true,” Kaylie stepped in. “Just this weekend I completely slaughtered my fiancé in one on one basketball. He didn’t have a problem with it at all. And if you look at where our individual knowledge and interests lie, you can definitely see some differences. I’m more knowledgeable than him in certain areas, just like he’s more knowledgeable than me in others. No one should feel that they have to be less than what they actually are in order to attract someone.” Kaylie glanced at me and saw that I was still upset. “It’s time we were leaving, everyone” she told the class. “Go and grab your things and we’ll head out to the bus together, okay?”
The students wandered off to the area where they had stowed all their stuff, but Kaylie hung back to talk to me.
“Ellie, I’m so sorry about that,” she spoke quietly.
“It’s no problem,” I tried to dismiss.
“Karen’s had a hard time,” she elaborated. “And despite a lot of improvements, she still has a difficult home environment. Her outlook on life is a little skewed as a result. Look, I have to get going, but you do realize that Jay’s not like the guys Karen’s experienced, right?”
“Yeah, of course,” I replied.
Kaylie left to go take care of her class, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what Karen had said. Yeah, it was ridiculous to take career advice from a high school student, but she did bring up issues that I had been struggling with for a long time.
Even if Jay and I didn’t have any issues, the physical differences between us would still impact our relationship. I had seen enough of traditional boy-girl relationships to know without a doubt that the male was always considered to be the physically dominant one in the partnership. But with us, that wasn’t even an option. I was faster, stronger, had better senses, and was on a completely different level than he was. There was no conceivable way that he could compete with what I could do.
Did that ever bother him? Did he wish it was the other way around?
These were questions I had avoided asking him. What if he said yes? What would we do? There was no way I could change who I was, yet the thought of losing him over that was too painful to even think about. And a small part of me really worried about what he would say. I had seen the look he got on his face a few times when I had to run off and be Nebula. What if that meant that he resented my ability to do that?
Up until this point, I had simply avoided the issue. True, I used my powers in his presence, but I had always been careful to never allow our physical capabilities to be compared directly. I would have no qualms about cooking with heat vision, for instance, but a small part of me was terrified that one day he might have a hard time opening a jar while in my presence. It was ridiculous, and I knew it, but somehow I couldn’t stop thinking that way.
But I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would have to ask him those difficult questions, and I would have to face up to the difficult answers. With our new honesty policy in effect, I couldn’t hide for long.
