Scream Me a Dream

As the girls had promised, they’d found the guys at the bookstore an hour after they had parted, their hands showing off the purchases they made at Change in the form of bags. The rest of the morning flew by fast as Ville and Jyrki humored the girls, going into every store they wanted, parting at times to spend time alone with their significant other.

By two o’ clock, Soya and Ville had made three trips back to the car to drop off their purchases, including an air mattress for Aida along with new sheets and a pillow for the girl. They said their goodbyes when Jyrki decided that four hours was enough time for Rosalind to spend shopping and when Ville and Soya needed to go pick up Aida; Jyrki and Ville watching as the two girls hugged in the parking structure.

“I’ll call you.” Rosalind said hugging Soya tightly. “Before I leave on Friday.”

“Please do.” Soya said as they pulled away.

“And think about what I said, monada,” Rosalind said, winking at her and hugging Ville goodbye before taking Jyrki’s hand and allowing him to lead her towards their own car.

Ville frowned at Soya as they got into the car. “What does Rosalind want you to think about?”

Soya laughed. “A lot of things, but mostly us going to Berlin with her and Jyrki on Halloween; she says I need to get out of Helsinki for a while.”

Ville raised an eyebrow as they made their way out of the structure towards Aida’s school. “You waited thirteen years to come back here and she wants to get you out?”

Soya laughed. “That’s what I said!”

“Do you want to go to Berlin?” Ville asked.

Soya shrugged. “It sounds fun, but Aida has school and I can’t just pull her out so I can go to Germany.”

Ville nodded in understanding. “How long do you think we’d be gone? Just that weekend?”

Soya shrugged. “Impi has her last soccer game that next weekend; Rosalind invited us to Spain for the week. The Eyes play the 29th and Rosalind was saying after that, we could go with Jyrki and meet her in Berlin. We could go to Spain on the 1st and stay there until the 7th, then come home.”

Ville nodded. “Is Jyrki going to Spain as well?”

“He comes back home after Halloween, but is coming down the 7th in the morning right after his gig to see the game.”

Ville nodded, knowing that Impi’s last soccer game wasn’t something that Jyrki would want to miss, especially if the little girl asked him to come, which she probably had.

“Sounds fun to me.” Ville nodded, while a smirk graced his features. “Sounds like you and Rosalind have it all planned.”

Soya laughed. “You know Rosalind tends to gather all the information so she can convince a person that her way is the right way. She had an answer for every doubt…well except for the Aida one.”

“And that’s the big one.” Ville said. “We’d be gone for a week.”

Soya nodded. “I could leave her with Niina, but that just doesn’t feel right, especially since it’s the first time since Aida’s been born that Niina’s had time off.”

“We could ask my parents.” Ville suggested.

“Really?” Soya asked, parking in front of Aida’s school, unbuckling her seatbelt and turning to look at Ville. “I wouldn’t want to impose Aida like that Ville.”

“Impose?” Ville laughed. “You think leaving Aida, a girl that my mother and father adore, is an imposition? Mama works nearby, Soya, she can drop Aida off at school before she goes to work, and Daddy can pick her up. They’d love to have her.”

Soya bit her lip. “I just feel that leaving Aida right now, in a different home, is like…”

“Your mother dropping her off to you.” Ville finished.

Soya nodded. “Yes.”

“You know what the difference is?” Ville asked, raising an eyebrow.

“What?”

“You intended to pick her up.” Ville said with a small smile. “You feel bad about just thinking about leaving Aida with someone else Soya, that’s the difference. Your mother felt no remorse about this, you do. It’s a week, less than that if we leave right after Impi’s soccer game.”

“Talk to your parents first.” Soya sighed.

“They’re going to say ‘yes’” Ville laughed. “We should go.”

Soya laughed. “I have my doubts about Halloween; Rosalind wants to dress me up in leather.”

Ville raised an eyebrow, “Really?”

“Mmm, I told her the only way that would happen is if you did it too.”

Ville laughed. “I would definitely pull the leather pants out of retirement just to see you dressed up.”

Soya laughed. “I’ll think about it. Here comes Aida.”

Ville turned to see Aida walking down the sidewalk with two girls, saying goodbye before climbing into the car.

“Hi.” She greeted, buckling her seatbelt.

“Hand it over.” Soya said sticking out her hand causing Aida to freeze.

“What?”

“The candy you bought, hand it over.”

Aida stared at her sister for a minute, before deflating and unzipping her backpack, handing Soya a clear bag filled with mixed candies. Soya weighed the bag in her hand, before setting it in Ville’s lap and staring at her sister.

“There’s change, Aida; that bag did not cost twenty Euros, it cost seven, ten at the most.”

Aida sighed, unzipping another pocket in her backpack and handing Soya the change. “I was going to give it back.” She muttered.

“Hmm.” Soya hummed dropping the bills in Ville’s hand, before turning the car back on and heading towards Ville’s tower. Ville stuffed the change in his pocket, before picking up the bag of candies in his lap, looking at the colors that mixed in.

“You didn’t get any chocolates.” He said with a frown.

“I like the gummies best.” Aida muttered, looking out the window. “There are some chocolates in there.”

“I see them.” Ville said pushing the candy around and seeing the malt balls that were mixed in.

“How was school?” Soya asked, looking at Aida through the rearview mirror.

“Fine.”

“Ville and I went to the mall today; we got you a bed that you could sleep on for when we stay at Ville’s.”

“Are we staying there tonight?” Aida asked quietly.

“We are.” Soya nodded, chewing on her lip. “I talked to mamma today; she’s going out of town.”

Aida frowned at her. “Why?”

Soya shrugged. “I’m not sure why, but you get to stay with me for the next couple of months.”

“Okay.”

Soya parked in front of Ville’s tower, unbuckling her seatbelt and turning towards her sister, only to find her half way out of the car.

“Hey, hey, hey, wait a minute.” Ville said getting out of the car himself and grabbing Aida before she started trudging up the walkway to the door, he picked her up, settling her on his hip, causing her to drop her backpack. “What’s wrong?”

“If you’re angry, just yell at me already.” Aida muttered.

Ville frowned at her. “Why would I be angry? Why would I yell at you?”

“I lied.”

Soya sighed as she walked closer to them, picking up Aida’s backpack. “We’re not angry, Aida.”

“But you took away my candy.” Aida muttered.

“Technically, since I paid for it, it’s my candy.” Ville teased.

“I lied.” Aida repeated.

“Hey,” Soya said, grasping her sister’s chin lightly turning her so their eyes met. “You know what you did was wrong, taking money from Ville like you did, right?”

Aida nodded slowly. “I know.”

“Had you just told me what you wanted the money for, I would have given it to you.” Ville told her softly. “There was no need to lie. Why did you feel like you had to?”

Soya rubbed her thumb over her sister’s cheek, causing Aida to look at her. “We’re not mamma, Aida. We’re not going to deny you sweets, all right? Had you just asked, Ville probably would have taken you himself to get the candy.”

“I would have.” Ville nodded.

“Next time just ask; don’t go about it this way, all right?”

“All right.”

Ville kissed the top of Aida’s head, letting her down and digging his keys out of his pocket. “I think you have an outfit up in my room, go change while Soya and I unload the car.” He told her, showing her the correct key to unlock the door.

“Okay.” She said, accepting her backpack from Soya and the keys from Ville before turning towards the door.

“You mother denies you sweets?” Ville said with a raised eyebrow as Soya opened the trunk of her car.

“Why does that surprise you?” Soya asked, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she started gathering bags.

“You had such a sweet tooth whenever we hung out.” Ville admitted, “I didn’t think you really got denied anything.”

Soya laughed softly. “When I was alone with Niina or Nathan, they would indulge me every couple of weeks and when I was with you, I would indulge myself. Aida’s the same way; she just goes about it differently.”

“Obviously.” Ville laughed, helping Soya with the bags, trudging them up to his tower. Two trips later, the car was empty, leaving Ville amazed at the amount of things Soya had ended up buying. He eyed the bags that littered his floor as he closed the door.

“Believe it or not, I really didn’t buy that much.” Soya said, looking at the bags herself as she threw the sweater she’d taken from Rosalind over the couch.

“Really?”

“It’s usually worse when I go out with Rosalind.”

“That’s very hard to believe.” Ville laughed, picking up the box with the air mattress and heading up the stairs just as Aida was coming down, her backpack thumping on the steps as she dragged it behind her. Ville shook his head amused as he headed up the rest of the steps to his bedroom.

“Homework?” Soya asked as Aida walked over to the counter, climbing up onto the stool.

Aida nodded. “Yeah.”

“You turned everything else in?”

“I did but my teacher said I didn’t have to.” Aida said with a shrug as she pulled out her notebooks.

“It’s still good that you did.” Soya responded. “Are you hungry?”

“A little.” Aida admitted.

“I’ll fix you a sandwich while you start your homework. Do me a favor, though, go upstairs and see if Ville wants one.”

Aida nodded, hopping off the stool and walking up the stairs, her fingers trailing up the banister. She walked into Ville’s room where he was sitting on the floor with the deflated twin sized air mattress laying in front of him as he read the directions.

“Hi.” She said quietly, staying by the door.

“Hey.” Ville smiled.

Aida chewed on her lip. “What are you doing?”

“Setting up your bed.” Ville said with a shrug, leaning back on his hands as he watched her carefully. “What’s up?”

“Soya wants to know if you want a sandwich.”

Ville nodded. “Sure.”

“Ville?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

Ville chuckled, and motioned her to come closer. “Come here.”

Aida walked over to him, hugging his neck causing him to chuckle and wrap his arms around her, rubbing her back. “I accept your apology. Thank you.”

Aida nodded against him. “Are we okay now?”

Ville laughed. “Nothing was ever wrong, Aida. Go on, tell your sister I’m hungry and go start your homework; I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Will you help me with my homework?”

Ville nodded. “I will.”

“Okay.” Aida said, pulling away from him and rushing out of the room, yelling out to Soya that he did, in fact, want a sandwich. It really was amazing how much of Soya he saw in that little girl, he thought, as he turned back to the pamphlet by his knee that instructed him on how to inflate the bed.

“All right.” Ville said, twenty minutes later as he settled next to Aida and looked at the homework sheet in front of her. “What are you working on?”

“A prompt.” She said, as Soya set a sandwich in front of Ville along with a bottle of water.

“She’s been staring at that paper for the last ten minutes.” Soya teased.

“What’s the prompt?” Ville asked reading the instructions. “Where do you see yourself in ten years?”

“It’s stupid.” Aida muttered.

“No, that’s a good prompt.” Ville said, grabbing one of Aida’s pencils. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Aida blinked at him. “I’m eight.”

“So?”

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow!” Aida said with wide eyes. “Why do I have to think about what I’m going to do in ten years?”

“Oh, come on now, this is easy,”

“Really Ville?” Soya asked with a teasing smile, watching as he turned to face her with a smirk, his elbow coming to rest on the counter and his chin lying on his palm.

“Really.” Ville said with a slight nod.

“When you were eight, where did you see yourself in ten years?” Soya asked with a raised eyebrow.

“A rockstar, of course.” Ville smirked.

“Ville!” Soya laughed.

Ville laughed. “I don’t know, I can’t even remember when I was eight, let alone what I thought.” Ville sighed. “You’re right, it’s a stupid prompt.”

Aida giggled, as she turned to her sister. “What about you?”

Soya shrugged. “Not sure. I knew when I was younger I wanted to do something related to dancing, but I wasn’t sure about what. Just keep in mind that the prompt doesn’t ask you what you see yourself doing, just where you see yourself.”

Aida frowned, “What do you mean?”

“She means, that it’s not asking you what you want to be when you grow up, just what you would like to see yourself doing. Let’s see,” Ville took a piece of paper and started writing on it. “In ten years you’d be eighteen.”

“Watching Star Whores!” Aida giggled.

Soya sighed. “I don’t think you can write that on the paper sweetheart. Really, let’s just have you not say it out loud anymore.”

“I don’t know, I think if Aida sees herself watching Star Whores in ten years, then she should most definitely let her teacher know that.” Ville smirked.

“Then you can go talk to Aida’s teacher when I get called down there to explain why it’s written.”

“I can.” Ville chuckled. “But we won’t. It’s not going in the paper Aida.”

“Fine.” Aida sighed.

“You’d be done with school.” Soya pointed out.

Ville nodded. “And maybe living on your own.”

Aida frowned. “Really?”

Ville shrugged. “I moved out at eighteen, but that’s just me.”

“Aida, you just have to think about what you would want to be doing in ten years. That’s all.”

Aida frowned and slowly nodded, “I think I know what I want to write now.”

“Okay.” Soya nodded, watching as Aida took her pencil and paper and hopped off the counter. “Then, where are you going?”

“To the living room.” Aida said absently, walking away from the counter to sit in front of the coffee table and start scribbling on her paper.

“So,” Ville started later that night, after a dinner of spaghetti at Aida’s insistence that she wanted the noodles that looked like worms and blood. Currently the eight year old was sleeping at the end of the couch, having crashed from the sugar high they had induced when they had given Aida her bag of candy back after having finished her dinner.

“So” Soya teased looking up at him from her position resting on his chest.

“Where do you see yourself in ten years?” He asked, causing her to laugh lowly.

“Am I being graded on my response?” She teased, sitting up and resting her head on the couch cushion to watch him.

“No,” Ville laughed. “I’m just curious. It’s been something that I’ve been thinking about since we helped Aida.”

Soya shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

“Do you think you’d still be on stage dancing?”

Soya blinked. “What? I’ll be 38 in ten years. I’d like to have retired dancing by then; maybe be teaching full time and giving more attention to my dance studios than I’m giving them now.”

“Do you think you’d be living in New York?”

Soya shrugged. “I’d like to think by then I could balance my time between New York and here.” Soya knew he was tiptoeing around one question. ‘Do you see yourself with me?’ she could see the question swimming around the depths of his green eyes and couldn’t help but answer the best way she knew how. “I don’t know.” She whispered.

“Why not?” He asked quietly.

Soya frowned lightly at him. “Do you know?”

“I’d like to think I do.” Ville answered quietly. “But that may just be romanticism at its best.”

“It’s not,” Soya said. “Other than career-wise, Ville, everything in the future is blurry for me. I don’t know what I want relationship-wise other than being here with you right now. I don’t know Aida’s future with me. Everything is this fog and I can’t seem to lift it.”

Ville nodded slowly, raising his hand to caress her cheek softly. “I want you to know that I see myself with you, five, ten years from now; it’s with you.” He leaned down, kissing her softly, their lips moving together slowly. He felt Soya’s hand lay on his cheek, her fingers playing with the curls that lay behind his ears. A small groan came from next to them, causing them to pull apart and look at Aida, who was curled up tight holding her stomach.

“I’ll go put her to bed.” Ville said softly.

“I’ll be up in a minute; I’m going to clean up down here real quick.”

Ville nodded, moving off the couch and scooping Aida up in his arms, being careful not to wake her, and moving towards the stairs to his room. Soya sat on the edge of the couch, running her hand through her hair, before moving around the papers on the table that were a mixture of Aida’s homework, napkins from dinner, and Ville’s notebooks.

Chuckling to herself, she separated Ville’s notebooks, stacking them at the end of the table, gathered the napkins, moving to throw them away, before starting to gather Aida’s homework. She was about to tuck it into Aida’s folder, when a piece of lined paper caught her eye.

Pulling it out, she saw it was the paper Aida had had to write, her eyes skimmed the paper, only for her heart to freeze and stutter back to a start when she read the last line. “I don’t think I’d want to live in Sipoo. I think I’d like it better in Helsinki. I hope that when I’m eighteen I’m still living with Soya and Ville.

Soya took a deep breath, tucking the piece of paper into the folder before moving it to Aida’s backpack.

“Are you coming up?”

Soya turned and looked at Ville, who was waiting for her at the top of the steps. “Yeah.” She said, zipping up the backpack. Turning off the lights, she moved up the steps taking Ville’s hand and following him into the bedroom. She crawled into bed while Ville turned off the light and got in after her, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her tighter against him. Soya felt herself relax against him, the fog in her mind clearing just a bit.

XxxxxxX

Ville tightened his arm around Soya as he woke up, looking down to see her facing him, her cheek resting on his chest as she slept. Running his hand slowly down her hair, he carefully moved from under her, laying her on his pillow before getting out of bed.

Looking down at air mattress that was at the foot of his bed, he made sure Aida was still sleeping, before leaving his room and going down the stairs, his bare feet padding softly on the ground as he walked to his bookcase. Crouching down, he looked through his VHS tapes, not able to get the dream he’d had out of his head as he chose one tape, looking at the label and making sure it wasn’t important.

Sitting on the ground, he pushed open the flap, holding it with his thumb as he carefully started to pull the tape out, only for his thumb to slip and the flap to slam down, crinkling the tape he’d forced out.

“Shit.” He muttered, staring at the VHS, before getting up and going to his kitchen. Dropping to the floor, he opened the cabinet under his sink and pulled out a hammer from the toolbox. Looking between the hammer and the VHS tape, he thought about going about it delicately, but figured he’d gotten the hammer for a reason and started smashing into the tape.

“What the hell is going on?!”

Ville looked up briefly from his hammering, seeing Soya staring at him in confusion, while Aida looked at him sleepily.

“Hold on.” He muttered, setting the hammer down and forcing the wheel out of the VHS, pulling the clean tape out, laying it on his floor.

“Ville, what are you-”

He held up his hand, cutting Soya off as he frowned over the tape, moving his fingers carefully around the black tape until he had the form he was looking for. He sat back and stared at it, before looking up at Soya.

“It’s a Heartagram.” He grinned.

“I see that.” Soya nodded. “Why are you banging away at a VHS tape at six in the morning to make it?”

Ville blinked. “Is it that early?”

“Yes!” Aida said staring at him, before looking up at her sister. “Your boyfriend is weird.”

“Yes, sweetheart, I know.” Soya nodded, patting her head. “Go back upstairs and start getting ready; I’m sure Ville will take us to breakfast this morning since he woke us up.”

Aida sent a glare over to Ville before leaving the kitchen, “I want pancakes, big ones, lots of them too.”

“You’ll get them!” Ville called back, before looking up at Soya. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Soya said, looking at the Heartagram that lay on the floor, along with the millions of little pieces of the VHS tape that were scattered. “Couldn’t wait?” she teased as she made her way over to him and carefully sat down next to him.

“I didn’t want to forget.” Ville admitted. “I dreamt it and I just didn’t want it to leave. I should probably take a picture of it.”

“It can wait.” She said, leaning her head on his arm tiredly. “Ville?”

“Hm?”

“It’s with you.”

Ville frowned, looking down at her. “What’s with me?”

“Five, ten, twenty years from now… it’s with you.” Soya said tilting her head up to look at him. “I don’t think I know any better way to wake up than hearing you banging at a VHS tape with a hammer, because you didn’t want to forget a dream. I really don’t see any way to wake up if it doesn’t involve you in some way.”

Ville smiled at her, “Come here.” He whispered, as she leaned up to kiss him, her warm hand coming to cup his cheek.

“I still want pancakes!”

Soya pulled away and laughed. “I’m going to go help her get ready; you take a picture of this and start changing.”

Ville nodded, watching as she stood up, carefully not to move any of the mess he’d made on the floor as she left the kitchen. Chewing on his lip, he couldn’t help the smile that formed on his lips. While the details of them were unknown, it elated him to know that Soya’s fog had cleared enough to see a future with him.