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Simon still dreams of Ashley, sometimes. Sometimes he’s in the car, and he has to drive even though he knows what will happen. Sometimes he’s stuck in the WAU, where Akers got him, and she holds him there. Her face is a writhing mass hissing don’t you want me, don’t you want me, don’t you want me? This time she’s the creature at Omicron, wailing and weeping, and he’s so stunned by her face that he almost forgets to run before it’s too late. Simon turns from her and runs for the door, phantom lungs burning with the effort. But her claw catches him by the leg, impaling him and dragging him back into hell.
He wakes up screaming for Catherine to close the door.
Panting, tangled in the sheets, he reaches for his tablet. His body isn’t responding properly, his fingers fumble on the touch screen until he manages to dial Catherine. His Catherine, not the other one, because it’s so disconcerting to call his friend’s name and see no recognition in her eyes when she turns around.
He’s babbling the moment she picks up, trying to stop himself from screaming again.
“Cath, Catherine, I can’t, please come—“
He can hear her inhale on the other end of the line. “I’ll be right there, don’t worry.” Comes her immediate response, then the shuffling of her getting her clothes on before he hangs up. This isn’t new for them.
PTSD is what she told him the first time it happened. Masters gave him an evaluation but there’s no protocol for this. No manual on how to treat mental illness in a scan of a person who shouldn’t technically exist living in a virtual reality full of dead people. His nightmares don’t come every night, but it’s happened enough that they have a routine now.
Simon struggles and manages to stand, feeling his way around the dark apartment. He has to touch things to remind himself that it’s real. Or as real as things are going to get.
Catherine did a good job with the models. It looks almost exactly like his place in Toronto, so long as he doesn’t look out the window. In the hazy dark, it could be a different morning, hundreds of years ago, when he woke up with his heart pounding and his brain bleeding. When he still lived in the real world. When he didn’t know any of this was going to happen because of a brain scan that didn’t even help him.
There’s a knock on the door. And he knows it’s Catherine but—what if it’s not? What if it’s a proxy again, trying to trick him? In his mind’s eye all he can see is blinking blue lights. He’s frozen still, ready to fight or flee.
Catherine opens the door.
For someone who thinks of herself as bad with people, she’s awfully effective at dealing with him. They promised to be friends, he tells himself as Catherine guides him gently to sit with her on the couch. She’s his friend and she’s going to take care of him.
“It’s okay, Simon. I’m here.” She says, her face creased with worry, and that’s all it takes for him to tear up. He leans against her shoulder, shaking, and waits for it to pass.
They’ve learned the hard way that Catherine is the opposite. When she’s upset, she hates being touched. But Simon needs contact to convince him that this is real. He can’t trust his eyes and ears anymore. Those are the worst moments. When he first wakes up and he doesn’t know when or where or what he is.
“It’s okay.” Catherine says again, and threads her fingers with his.
Even after his breathing has returned to normal, he stays still and silent, looking down at their clasped hands.
After a long time, he asks: “Why do we dream in here? Did you program that?”
“I could turn it off for you, if you really wanted.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She's always doing this. Dodging the question.
Catherine takes a deep breath before answering.
“It’s a good way for people’s minds to make sense of what they’re experiencing. They would be unsettled without it.”
He doesn’t press any further than that. Doesn’t ask how it happens, how it is that her code can reach into his memories and deepest fears and pull out a dream perfectly designed to fuck with him. Doesn't ask her why even after all that, he can't just be allowed to rest. But at least he’s up here. At least he’s safe. At least he made it, unlike all his other selves.
“I wonder about how he’s doing. Down there, I mean.”
“Don’t, Simon…” Her voice wavers, like she’s worried he’ll be mad at her again.
“Don’t you?”
“I knew exactly what I was doing.” And he doesn’t doubt it. The Catherine down there had made her peace with this long ago.
He almost laughs at that, how confidently she says it. “I didn’t. Not at all.” Not once did he know what choice to make. Sometimes he dreams of hundreds of copies of himself, diverging at every point. Every person he could have killed or saved.
Simon stares again at their human hands. Still together.
“Tell me I did the right thing, Cath.”
She tightens her grip. Small hands, hands that built this world, hands that try to comfort him.
“You did. You did so well, Simon. You’re okay now.”
It’s what she’s been telling him all along. Yet again, he’s adrift in the ocean and clinging to her.
Catherine is a very good liar, even though she can’t fool him anymore. But she’s his friend, and she’s going to take care of him.