FicWad

"I can't make them stop?" Mikey repeated with a look of despair.
Willow signed, "I'm sorry it you thought I could somehow make it so that you couldn't see the dead."
"But there has to be." His hands shook. "I don't wanna fuckin’ see them."
"Mikey, calm down." Gerard said growing concerned by his brother’s words. He could see Mikey was beginning to twitch. That was never a good sign.
Ray glanced over at Willow, "If there was a way to make them stop so you wouldn't see them anymore, would you?"
Willow considered his words carefully, "There was a time when I would have said yes. Now, I'm not sure. There are times when I actually help someone living that I'm glad I have this ability."
"Like Mikey." Frank said.
Willow nodded, "But in this case not just Mikey but his grandma. She was so frantic trying to get him help that I feel like I helped her too."
Gerard took a sip of his coffee and studied Willow closely. He still found it incredible that she has seen his grandma. He would give anything to be able to see her.
Mikey's hands were shaking so much that Willow reached over and took the coffee cup from him and set it on the table. "I know how hard this is for you. But I want you to understand something. You can't make it stop but you can turn this into something good."
"I don't want to." He said angrily. "I just want it to fuckin' stop."
"Why, is it because you are afraid of them?" Willow asked.
Mikey didn't answer right away. He looked down and tried to gather his confused thoughts and feelings. Finally he said, "Yeah, I guess that makes me a fuckin' pussy but yeah, they scare me."
"But grandma didn't." Gerard said.
Mikey shot him a look, "No, she didn't scare me. But she' not the only one I've seen."
Willow went back to her original question. "When did you see the first one?"
"At the Paramour." He answered feeling a chill run down his spine just saying the name.
"Fuck." Gerard said, "I should have known. That place is cursed."
"No such thing as a cursed place." Willow answered.
He gave her a look of disbelief, "Are you serious? Shit, all of us could feel something evil when we were there. I fucking started walking around talking to myself. I couldn't sleep."
"I've heard the stories." Willow admitted, "And one night it felt like someone was choking you."
He shook is head, "Yeah, that really happened."
"I believe you." Willow said softly. "But that doesn’t make the place cursed."
"Well what would you fucking call it?"
Willow closed her eyes a moment. He was getting upset and his thoughts were getting louder.
"Calm down, Gee." Ray said catching Gerard's attention and tilting his head in Willow’s direction. He understood what was happening.
Gerard understood too, "Shit, sorry." He told her.
Willow opened her eyes and smiled slightly, "It’s okay." She turned her attention back to Mikey, "Describe what happened."
"It was a woman. At first I thought she worked there. There were maids who came in from time to time. I was in one of the rooms downstairs writing in my notebook when she walked in. I glanced up then looked away just for a minute. Suddenly the room felt really cold. I looked up and she was gone."
"Maybe she just walked out." Bob said.
Mikey sighed, "That's what I tired to tell myself. But she couldn't have walked out that quickly. It was like a blink of an eye. She was there and then she wasn't."
"Did you see her again?" Willow asked.
"Yeah, the next day. I was in the kitchen and she walked in and smiled. Shit, I just stared at her. Then I felt stupid and thought that I was being rude to her. I told myself I’d just made up that shit about her disappearing. She just looked like a normal person, ya know? So I said hello to her but she didn’t answer me.”
Willow could see how hard this was for him. She took his hand in hers and nodded, “So then what happened?”
Mikey looked down at their hands, “How come I feel calmer when I’m touching you?”
Willow shrugged, “Because you know I understand and believe you.”
He nodded, “Yeah, it feels good that someone doesn’t think I’m crazy.”
“You’re wife doesn’t think you’re crazy.” Gerard suddenly spoke.
Willow cringed. He was angry again.
Mikey looked away from Willow to his brother. “No, she doesn’t but that doesn’t mean she’ll understand any of this shit any better than I do.”
Trying to defuse the situation Willow gently pulled on Mikey’s hand to get his attention. “I can talk to her. Tell her the things I’m telling you.” She hoped this would ease Gerard’s mind more than Mikey’s because right now he was thinking that Willow had an alternative motive for helping Mikey. She hoped it would make Gerard realize she wasn’t “trying to put the moves” on his brother because that was what he was thinking at the moment.
Mikey nodded, “Yeah, I want you to tell her. Tomorrow in St Louis she’s gonna meet us there. I want you to tell her all this shit, you will won’t you?”
Willow smiled at him. “Of course I will. Actually I’ve met your wife once before.”
“You did? When?”
“It was a few years ago after a concert. She was standing back by the sound equipment and I said hello. She was very nice and we chatted for a few minutes.”
“She is nice.” Mikey said with pride in his voice. “She’s my world.”
“That’s good.” Willow said softly. “Then you have to know she will understand and help you.”
Mikey’s smile faded, “But I haven’t told her about what I’ve seen. I’ve been afraid.”
“That’s a normal reaction, Mikey. Even if you love someone with your whole heart it’s still hard. There is always that little voice in your head that tells you the other person won’t understand and you know deep down that you’ll be hurt if they don’t.”
“And then there is you with more than just one little voice in your head.” Gerard said staring at Willow.
Willow was very tired and her patience was wearing thin. While she understood why Gerard had such terrible trust issues his distrust of her was starting to become a very big problem. “Look Gerard, I understand that you still believe I have some ulterior motive. I get that you think I’m trying to help your brother to gain something for myself. I can tell you that’s not true but you’re not gonna believe me.”
He looked surprised, “I don’t have trust issues.”
She couldn’t help it. Willow laughed out loud, “Oh shit. Seriously let’s not play games. Ever since I drove up to the bus with Mikey you’ve been thinking that I’m some sort of scam artist. You’ve thought I was going to say I’d had sex with you brother to blackmail him. You’ve thought I was going to try to steal him away from his wife. You’ve thought that I’m going to try to become his personal therapist for money. Yeah, dude. You have trust issues where I’m concerned.” She added softly, “I just don’t know if it’s me or if it’s will all women.”
Everyone on the bus seemed to be holding their breath. Willow could hear their thoughts and none of them surprised her. The general thought consensus was Gerard was going to be pissed off.
He surprised them all when he said, “It’s not just you. I’m sorry.”
The way his thoughts suddenly changed caught Willow off guard. She’d never met anyone whose thoughts change so quickly. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry. That was wrong of me and I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking but I shouldn’t broadcast it out loud.”
Gerard smiled and once again Willow couldn’t believe how quickly his thoughts changed. “Yeah, you need to stop broadcasting to the world what I think. It could get a bit embarrassing.”
Willow stared at him and her face grew warm as she blushed. “Stop that.” She whispered. She searched her own mind trying to remember the last time a man had such sexual thoughts about her. She couldn’t imagine Thomas, the man she loved had ever thought about doing “that” to her.
“What Willow?” Gerard asked gazing deeply into her eyes.
It was then she realized being around him could be dangerous not physically but mentally. Because she could hear his thoughts so clearly he had the ability to really mess with her and he had realized this. “You know what. Don’t.” She said softly.
“Stop it Gerard. Whatever you’re thinking, stop. Willow is here for me.” Mikey said angrily.
Hearing his brother’s anger caught Gerard’s attention. “Sorry, bro.” He looked away from Willow to meet his brother’s eyes. “Alicia is waiting for you to call her, remember?”
“Yeah, I know.” Mikey nodded, “I just wanted to talk to Willow before I called her.” He turned to Willow who was still staring at Gerard. “Uh, I wanted to make sure you were really gonna go with us and help me before I told her.”
Willow tore her gaze from Gerard. She hated that her body still tingled from the thoughts he’d just placed in her head. She looked into Mikey’s eyes, “I will help you. I’ll help you to deal with this.”
Brian, who had joined them but had remained silent, now spoke, “Willow I want you to understand that you will be compensated for this. We know you’ll be missing work so you don’t need to worry about that.”
Willow looked over at him. He, like Gerard, believed she was doing this for reasons that weren’t strictly humanitarian, “I work at McDonalds. I called my manager and explained I needed some time off. The only thing I want to be paid is what my salary is from there. And I only want to be paid for the shifts I will actually miss. I want nothing more.”
Brian looked surprised, “We will pay you more than that.”
“Nothing else.” Willow said again, “I don’t expect or want anything else. I’m here to help Mikey. That is all.”
“But maybe you’ll be able to help me too.” Gerard said breaking into the conversation.
All eyes turned to him. “Help you?” Willow said slowly. She noticed immediately he’d calmed his thought so they were harder for her to hear.
He nodded, “Yeah, you know deal with all those ‘tracks’ in my head.”
“I can try.” She said
“I’m gonna call Alicia now.” Mikey said dropping Willow’s hand then standing. “We can talk more when I get done.”
Frank spoke up. “Dude, Willow looks pretty tired. Maybe you should let her get some sleep? You can talk to her in the morning.”
Willow smiled over at him. “I’m okay, if he wants to talk more tonight.”
“No, he’s right.” Mikey said looking down at Willow. “I’m sorry I can tell you’re tired it’s just I’m so excited, you know. For the first time in a very long time I feel like I’m gonna get my head straight.”
“You will. I promise to do whatever I can to help.”
Mikey nodded then walked down the hallway towards the back of the bus to make his call.
“Willow I’ll show you where you’re gonna sleep.” Frank said standing. “You can get a goodnights sleep and in the morning over coffee you can talk to Mikey again.”
“Sounds like a great plan.” Willow said standing. She avoided looking over at Gerard again.
Frank showed her the bathroom where she could change and then to a lower bunk that would be her bed. He made sure she was comfortable before telling her goodnight. Willow climbed in, pulled the curtain closed, and got comfortable. She was truly enjoying what she was feeling was an adventure. It had been so long since she’d had anytime off work and hopefully for the next day or so she would get to relax. She snuggled down and closed her eyes and tried to turn off her brain.
“Is your shoulder still hurting?”
Willow’s eyes popped open. She pulled open her curtain and there was Gerard squatting down with a glass of water in his hand. “I uh..brought you another aspirin. Might help you sleep.”
Truth was her shoulder was still throbbing slightly. “Thanks.” She sat up on her elbow and took the water from him.
“Here.” He opened his other hand to reveal the aspirin.
Willow transferred the glass of water from her right hand to the left and reached out. When her fingers brushed against the skin of his hand she felt the jolt. If he hadn’t quickly reached out to steady the glass of water it would have spilled.
Quickly she took the pill from his hand and tried to recover.
“What the fuck was that?’ Gerard asked. He didn’t try to pretend something hadn’t just happened. He’d felt it and he wanted to know the answer.
“What?” Willow was trying to give herself time to think. When they had just touched it had felt like an electrical current had passed between them. This had never happened before and she was just as confused as Gerard.
“You know what. What the hell just happened?” He was trying very hard not to be upset but damn it, he wanted to know.
Willow decided to be honest. “I don’t know.”
He moved back slightly and frowned as she downed the pill then handed him back the glass making sure not to touch him again.
“Look, you touched my hands when you helped me calm my nerves earlier tonight and that didn’t happen. What the fuck was that?”
She laid back against the pillow, “I honestly don’t know. Maybe it was just static electricity.”
Gerard snorted, “Yeah, right.”
The stress of the day was finally catching up with her. She covered her mouth while she yawned. “I know you don’t believe me but I really don’t know.”
He stared at her a few moments. “I’ve never met anyone like you.” He said softly.
Willow laughed softly, “Yeah, that’s pretty much the truth. I’m a very fucked up person.” She tried to make a joke out of it but the truth was at times like this when she was tired the fact that she was so different from everyone else was difficult for her to deal with.
“Not fucked up.” Gerard said looking deeply into her eyes. “Don’t say it and don’t think it.”
She knew he was trying to be nice but because of her past it was hard to take. “I can think it but you’ll never know.”
He tilted his head, “That really hurts doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“It hurts you that people don’t understand what it’s like for you.”
“Yeah, it hurts that people don’t understand that it’s hard being a freak.”
Gerard glanced down the hall then turned to look at her. “You are not a freak.” Before she realized what he was doing he reached out and stroked her cheek. Once again they both felt it. The feeling was truly indescribable. It was similar to an electrical current running between them but not at all unpleasant.
Their eyes locked. “I want to understand what this is.” He whispered.
Suddenly Willow was afraid. Getting too close to someone was something she had promised herself she would never do again. “It’s a fluke. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He dropped his hand then smiled, “You and I both know that’s a lie. Sleep well.” With that he stood and walked down the hall.
Willow pulled her curtain closed and tried to think but her own thoughts were a jumbled mess. Why was she able to touch him earlier and not feel this? Damn maybe this adventure wasn’t such a good idea.
An hour later she still hadn’t fallen asleep. The bus was completely quiet now. Over and over in her mind she tried to figure out what was going on between her and Gerard. The man was certainly puzzling. So damn many tracks in his head was part of it but the fact that he could change his feeling so quickly was something she hadn’t encountered before. Suddenly she felt something else. It was that familiar tingling feeling and she knew immediately what it meant. Slowly she opened her curtain and there she was again. Elena stood a short way down the hall with a beautiful smile on her face. Then she was gone but not before Willow understood from the images that filled her head what Elena had come to say.
Elena was letting Willow know she wasn’t there just for Mikey. She was there to help both of her grandsons.
Willow pulled the curtain closed again and waited for sleep.