FRAGMENTS

DISCLAIMER: No Degrassi characters or storylines belong to me.

NOTES: Not too much to say about this. It was written after watching episode 10.35 The Way We Get By Part 1, so probably includes spoilers to that point. No special universe or alternate realities – just based in canon. Hope you enjoy it. :)

Adam knew he'd had this dream before – or some variation of it, anyway. He'd open the door to eerie quiet, step inside, drop the latch. Just when he thought himself alone in the house, he would stumble upon the couple kissing on the couch.

Horizontal, clothes askew, totally absorbed in one another.

Often, lately, the couple was him and Fiona – soft, achingly sweet dreams that left him breathless. Unsure whether to bury into the covers, chase after the moment, or wake and ponder the tumbling, bittersweet truth.

He had dreamed of kissing Clare with a passion that astounded his conscious self. She'd soothed away his worries – "Eli won't mind, Eli won't mind" – until Eli was some nebulous, unformed figure that didn't matter at all. How outside reality that was.

Even so, it had been slightly weird the next morning, seeing her in English – feeling his heart jump as he recalled the fervour of their dreamland kisses. He kept his distance, fearing she might see something in his face, but she didn't. It was with considerable relief that he realised his nerves were no more than an aftershock – the awkward chafing of illusion against reality. Clare was his friend and he wanted no more. Given all the off-limits girls he'd had crushes on, he really didn't need to add her to the list.

Other times, the faces were painfully, horribly wrong. They taunted him. Fiona and Drew. Fiona and Eli. Fiona and Fitz.

Once he dreamt of Fiona with a boy whose face he didn't recognise. Limbs tangled and mouths urgent. He had run forward, shouted at her to stop it, just stop it, and who the hell was this guy anyway? Only, the harder he tried to shout, the more his voice shrivelled within him.

Eventually she'd looked up and said witheringly, "This is Adam. Who are you?"

And he'd looked down to find himself draped in some hideous, nonsensical dress – all lace and rotting silk, with spiders scuttling over bows and ruffles. His hair grew wildly, uncontrollably before his eyes, cascading around his neck and shoulders in suffocating excess.

He'd woken with a start, then. Lay blinking in the dark, disoriented and rigid.

It was just a dream. You were dreaming. You're OK. Everything's OK.

He mentally repeated the mantra until the horror melted away. Untangled his sheet and prepared to sleep once more, throat still tight from the attempts to scream.

But now, standing in the doorway, backpack slung over one shoulder, he knew he wasn't dreaming. Wasn't even close. School was done for the day. Eli had given him a ride after a disastrous play rehearsal. He had that history paper to start and finish before tomorrow.

All he could think about – for what seemed like forever – was Fiona. He could feel the incredible softness of her lips, the press of her hands on his shoulders, his neck, pulling him close.

Thinking about it didn't help. Almost worse to get that far and have it end than to get shot down in the first place. People said you didn't miss what you never knew – and he was missing Fiona a hell of a lot.

Then he rounded the corner, and found the couple, and really, it was only the overwhelming sense of déjà vu that catapulted him towards the dream theory. The boy was Drew, but the girl, thank God, wasn't Fiona.

He recognised her, though, and his heart sank slightly.

"Um, OK."

It was more to signal his arrival than anything else, but Drew startled at once, pulling away from the kiss and looking up with eyes huge.

He relaxed when he saw Adam alone. A relieved grin spread across his face.

"Dude, I thought you were Mom."

Bianca made no effort to remove herself from Drew's person. She simply looked over her shoulder at Adam with total disinterest.

"Nope. I take it she's not home."

"Are you kidding?" Drew shifted slightly, keeping his arm around Bianca. "We're, uh, making the most of it."

"Yeah, I see that."

Bianca flicked her eyes over him. "Well, if you're done seeing, this is a private party."

He snorted. What did she think – he wanted to stay and watch his brother make out?

"Yeah, 'cause I so want in on that."

And then his face flamed hot, cheeks down to his neck.

Good one, Adam. Idiot! Way to push the elephant into the room.

Because all of them knew that – once upon a time, at least – he had wanted in on that with Bianca. Which, of course, had gone so well.

Bianca refrained from comment, but her face said plenty. He looked away.

"Whatever. Don't let Mom catch you or she'll ground us both."

Drew nodded, uncomfortable. "Yeah, don't worry."

Adam stepped back out of the room, headed for the stairs. Voices hummed briefly behind him, and then there was only the sound of the wood creaking beneath his feet.

Drew began scraping the dishes. Adam took up duty at the sink. It seemed as good a time as any for a chat.

"So, you and Bianca?"

The knife faltered against the plate, just for a second.

"Yeah. Why does everyone have such a problem with that?"

"Gee, I don't know. I remember something about a boiler room, but..."

"Shh, will you?"

Drew jerked his head towards the dining room, where their parents sat finishing coffee.

"Bianca's trouble."

No response. Adam supposed there was no real way around that one. He watched his brother stuff two long serving spoons into the dishwasher's cutlery basket, and reached automatically to pull them out again.

Drew glanced up. "What are you doing?"

"You can't put them in there."

"Why not? Let's get this done."

"They're too big. You have to put them up top."

"OK, fine. Whatever," and then, "Look, Bianca's hot. Smoking hot."

Adam rinsed a glass, placed it on the rack. "Granted."

"And she's actually pretty cool too. Like, really cool."

Hot, maybe, but cool? He couldn't keep the scorn from his voice. "Oh, yeah, she's really cool."

"What do you even know about her?"

Adam fitted another glass on the rack, moved a bowl that Drew had shoved in, made room for a coffee mug.

"Uh, how about the fact she told everybody I'm a freak?"

The look on Drew's face perfectly registered his 'oh, shit' moment, and Adam could've laughed if he wasn't already wishing back his words. Not a period of his life he liked to dwell on. Besides, it was in the past. Ancient history. Bianca was Drew's problem now, not his.

"Forget I said that. There are, like, a million other reasons why Bianca's trouble."

Drew wiped a saucepan very slowly. Wet smears from the damp tea towel appeared across the steel.

"Is it going to be weird if I go out with her?"

She exposed me, violated my body. She called me a freak. She told everybody about me. She told them, and they picked me up and tossed me away like a piece of garbage.

"It's not about me. I just don't want you to get burned again."

Drew shrugged, some of the worry easing out of his face.

"I won't." He flashed Adam a grin, clapped his shoulder. "We're just having fun, that's all."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "I hope it stays fun."

"It will. When it's not, I won't see her any more. Simple."

"Yeah, well, till then, don't watch too much Oprah with her."

Tiny creases appeared in Drew's perfect brow. "Huh?"

Just forget it.

Adam stifled a sigh and slammed the dishwasher shut. "Never mind."

He had another dream that night – muddled and fraught. In it, there was something he needed to do, but he couldn't quite remember what. He roamed the halls at Degrassi, never finding a familiar room or face. Someone told him that Simpson had died and his mother would be taking over as principal. He tried to get into the washroom, but the door wouldn't budge beneath his hand.

And then suddenly he was caught up in a group heading to recreation class – ballroom dancing. Fiona was there, and Bianca, and somehow, as if on autopilot, he approached Bianca, asked her to dance.

She gave him that look again. "I'm no lesbian."

"Neither am I."

Time to make an exit. He wanted to find another washroom, but Bianca was pushing him back towards Fiona, saying, "There's one. Have fun dancing, freaks."

"What?"

Fiona turned away from him, her face closed-off, completely unreadable. He tried to form words, but his mouth wouldn't work properly – and then he tripped. He fell through space, too far, too fast, and he knew the ground was going to hurt.

The jolt shook him awake. He lay blinking in the dark for a minute, then pushed the sheet back and padded down the hall towards the bathroom.

END

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