Who: Fred, Sue and Melissa What: Waking up When: Saturday Where: Their house Warnings: Probably not Status: Closed/in progress
Their bedroom door opened, which was the first indication that something was wrong. Sue assumed it was Archie and sat up as she pushed herself closer to wakefulness. It was at that same moment that a little girl climbed into bed, unceremoniously over Sue and into the middle to claim the bit of space between her and Fred.
"Mommy I had a bad dream," the little girl complained as she snuggled into Fred's side.
"Shh, it's okay. There's nothing to be scared of," Sue comforted as she settled back down on the other side of the little girl. This wasn't the first time that future children had appeared and this time she was a little more wary of it. Last time, she and Adam had a child and now it appeared that she and Fred did. It was almost bittersweet because what if this child wouldn't come back next year when it happened again? Sue knew she looked a little conflicted, but there wasn't much that could be done about it. Right now, their daughter needed comforting.
***
Fred grunted a little when the small body landed between them but it took a minute for his brain to process that Archie was basically an adult and definitely not a little girl before he finally kicked over to awake enough to open his eyes.
“What’s going on?” He lifted a hand to rub it over his face trying to make things make sense even though he knew chances were they didn’t make sense and it would wear off in a week or two.
***
"It looks like we've got a visitor," Sue answered softly. "It's happened before." She glanced down at the little girl.
"Sweetheart, you know how sometimes the Dome does silly things?"
Melissa nodded tentatively.
"Well, I think maybe this is one of those things, because you haven't been born yet." Sue was trying to be delicate with it, while also obvious enough for Fred to pick up on at least the basics of what was happening.
"Oh." The little girl looked from her Mom to her Dad and her lip started to quiver.
"Oh it's okay," Sue promised, trying to stave off the tears that appeared to be imminent. "It's okay. We're still here for you sweetheart, and we love you very much," she assured her. "We just don't know you yet, that's all. Can you tell us your name?"
She took a deep, shuddering breath before replying, "Mel-Melissa." The Dome did things sometimes but nothing ever like this before.
***
They had a little girl named Melissa show up from the future was what he was taking away from the conversation. And the little girl was on the verge of crying because her parents didn't know who she was and that helped wake Fred up a lot more. Having a dream about a possible kid probably wouldn't involve her crying so this all had to be real right?
"It's okay Melissa, maybe the dome just knew we'd be even happier to get to know you before we had you. It does that sometimes." He smiled at her then looked at Sue. He knew how much she wanted a child and how hard it had been after they'd thought Max had been theirs. "I'd say this sort of thing maybe calls for hot chocolate?"