Normal Dreams
Title: Normal Dreams
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Angela/Arthur, Adam
Summary: As a young mother, Angela is having disturbing dreams that she does not want to think about as precognitions. They are just normal dreams. She asks Adam for advice, thinking that someone his age surely has an answer.
Word count: 768
Spoilers/Warnings: No.
Notes: For Oneshot Challenge # 26 at heroes_contest: Not about Love. Oh what do these prompts do! This is the first time I have written Adam!
Edit: Now that the masterlist have been posted at heroes_exchange, I can reveal that this is inspired by my own (!) fic for the exchange that I was writing at the time of this challenge. I would never have thought about an Adam/Angela friendship in this way without boombangbing's prompt which included both Adam and the Company founders! So, thanks boombangbing for helping me win a banner. :)
The woman Angela Petrelli was not the same person as the scared but idealistic girl Angela Shaw. At least she didn’t think so, most of the time, because she had lived and learned, and moved on. She knew her ability by now, she knew the power she had within her, and she trusted her ability to make the right choices.
And yet there were still times when she woke up crying, cursing her nightmares, wishing for them to stop.
When this happened, Arthur took her in his arms and comforted her, telling her that he was always going to be there for her, reminding her that she shouldn’t cry; she could wake up the baby. She needed to stay strong for Nathan, Arthur told her, and he was right of course, and she felt better when the warmth from his body gradually overpowered the images from the dream in her head.
But who was she going to turn to when it was Arthur she had seen in her dreams?
Angela trusted her husband. There is a difference, she told herself, between normal dreams - nightmares or not - and precognitions. Even I have normal dreams sometimes.
But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that even ‘normal dreams’, if that was the right word, could have some kind of meaning, of a more general nature. The subconscious and all that.
“Don’t go all philosophical on me now”, Arthur whined when she approached the subject, “Angie, I have enough heavy stuff to deal with at work, and now when Linderman’s getting his new project started…”
“Can’t we just talk”, Angela complained, “I just want to talk… and you like philosophy. What does Nietzsche say about dreams?”
“Let’s talk about it tonight”, Arthur said, “when I’ve got time to think. Okay?”
But when night came, he wasn’t that interested in talking after all, and he had a way of kissing her that made her forget about it, too.
But one day when he was away on a business trip with Daniel, she invited Adam over for lunch. She had always enjoyed talking to him, and she enjoyed his lightly flirty jargon which she never really took seriously.
By the time they had coffee, she asked him the question she had wanted to get an answer to.
“You have lived long, you must know a lot about life. How do people manage to live happily ever after?”
Adam snorted mockingly.
“My dear child, there is no such thing as ‘happily ever after’. Sorry to disappoint you, love.”
“You are wrong!”
Adam patted her head with its rich mass of dark, almost black hair. Why did he still have this soft spot for dark-haired women, after all these centuries?
“No, you’re wrong”, he insisted, and maybe his voice came out unnecessarily harsh, but why treat a strong capable woman like Angela with silk gloves? The sooner she learned, the better.
“Come on”, he smiled and boxed her shoulder playfully. “Tell old Adam, what did the bastard do? Do you want me to beat him up for you?”
“No, Arthur didn’t do anything.” Angela’s tear-filled eyes flooded over. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, and judging by the way he looks at me, I don’t think he ever will. He loves me. But I’ve dreamed… of nothing really, but I can’t help but feel that everything will end… differently. I was hoping that you could tell me…”
“That it doesn’t have to end badly?” Adam filled in, “That love doesn’t have to end? Well, maybe not. But as far as I know, even if your love never goes away, there’s still pain waiting somewhere. There are skeletons in every closet. There’s deception hidden in the dusty corner where your beloved hangs his coat, there’s betrayal in your best friend’s jeans pockets, and in the drawer where you keep your socks…”
“That’s enough”, Angela snapped.
“Fine. But you started it. Why don’t you tell me… I have seen the past, but you can see the future. Is there love in the future?”
“Yes”, Angela said, “love will save the world.”
“Well then”, Adam got up to leave, “there’s your answer, I guess - people will still try to find this ‘eternal happiness’, and I guess they’ll never learn.”
“Let’s drop the subject”, she said. “Not every dream I have is a message from the future.”
“If you say so.” Adam took her hand and kissed it - a gesture only he could make without making it look like a joke or something inappropriate - “Angela, let me give you a word of advice, learned during four hundred years of travelling around: it’s best not to talk about love.”
.
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Angela/Arthur, Adam
Summary: As a young mother, Angela is having disturbing dreams that she does not want to think about as precognitions. They are just normal dreams. She asks Adam for advice, thinking that someone his age surely has an answer.
Word count: 768
Spoilers/Warnings: No.
Notes: For Oneshot Challenge # 26 at heroes_contest: Not about Love. Oh what do these prompts do! This is the first time I have written Adam!
Edit: Now that the masterlist have been posted at heroes_exchange, I can reveal that this is inspired by my own (!) fic for the exchange that I was writing at the time of this challenge. I would never have thought about an Adam/Angela friendship in this way without boombangbing's prompt which included both Adam and the Company founders! So, thanks boombangbing for helping me win a banner. :)
The woman Angela Petrelli was not the same person as the scared but idealistic girl Angela Shaw. At least she didn’t think so, most of the time, because she had lived and learned, and moved on. She knew her ability by now, she knew the power she had within her, and she trusted her ability to make the right choices.
And yet there were still times when she woke up crying, cursing her nightmares, wishing for them to stop.
When this happened, Arthur took her in his arms and comforted her, telling her that he was always going to be there for her, reminding her that she shouldn’t cry; she could wake up the baby. She needed to stay strong for Nathan, Arthur told her, and he was right of course, and she felt better when the warmth from his body gradually overpowered the images from the dream in her head.
But who was she going to turn to when it was Arthur she had seen in her dreams?
Angela trusted her husband. There is a difference, she told herself, between normal dreams - nightmares or not - and precognitions. Even I have normal dreams sometimes.
But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that even ‘normal dreams’, if that was the right word, could have some kind of meaning, of a more general nature. The subconscious and all that.
“Don’t go all philosophical on me now”, Arthur whined when she approached the subject, “Angie, I have enough heavy stuff to deal with at work, and now when Linderman’s getting his new project started…”
“Can’t we just talk”, Angela complained, “I just want to talk… and you like philosophy. What does Nietzsche say about dreams?”
“Let’s talk about it tonight”, Arthur said, “when I’ve got time to think. Okay?”
But when night came, he wasn’t that interested in talking after all, and he had a way of kissing her that made her forget about it, too.
But one day when he was away on a business trip with Daniel, she invited Adam over for lunch. She had always enjoyed talking to him, and she enjoyed his lightly flirty jargon which she never really took seriously.
By the time they had coffee, she asked him the question she had wanted to get an answer to.
“You have lived long, you must know a lot about life. How do people manage to live happily ever after?”
Adam snorted mockingly.
“My dear child, there is no such thing as ‘happily ever after’. Sorry to disappoint you, love.”
“You are wrong!”
Adam patted her head with its rich mass of dark, almost black hair. Why did he still have this soft spot for dark-haired women, after all these centuries?
“No, you’re wrong”, he insisted, and maybe his voice came out unnecessarily harsh, but why treat a strong capable woman like Angela with silk gloves? The sooner she learned, the better.
“Come on”, he smiled and boxed her shoulder playfully. “Tell old Adam, what did the bastard do? Do you want me to beat him up for you?”
“No, Arthur didn’t do anything.” Angela’s tear-filled eyes flooded over. “He hasn’t done anything wrong, and judging by the way he looks at me, I don’t think he ever will. He loves me. But I’ve dreamed… of nothing really, but I can’t help but feel that everything will end… differently. I was hoping that you could tell me…”
“That it doesn’t have to end badly?” Adam filled in, “That love doesn’t have to end? Well, maybe not. But as far as I know, even if your love never goes away, there’s still pain waiting somewhere. There are skeletons in every closet. There’s deception hidden in the dusty corner where your beloved hangs his coat, there’s betrayal in your best friend’s jeans pockets, and in the drawer where you keep your socks…”
“That’s enough”, Angela snapped.
“Fine. But you started it. Why don’t you tell me… I have seen the past, but you can see the future. Is there love in the future?”
“Yes”, Angela said, “love will save the world.”
“Well then”, Adam got up to leave, “there’s your answer, I guess - people will still try to find this ‘eternal happiness’, and I guess they’ll never learn.”
“Let’s drop the subject”, she said. “Not every dream I have is a message from the future.”
“If you say so.” Adam took her hand and kissed it - a gesture only he could make without making it look like a joke or something inappropriate - “Angela, let me give you a word of advice, learned during four hundred years of travelling around: it’s best not to talk about love.”
.