Page 187 of Should the Sky Fall

“Are you being serious?”

“Hear him out,” Ash says, his unusually solemn expression giving Dawson pause.

“There are things you can’t explain with logic,” Gabe starts. “With science, sometimes, but not always. That doesn’t mean they’re not real.”

“Like your superpowers?” Dawson quips. He doesn’t intend to be mean, but what Gabe is saying is ridiculous.

Gabe gives him a knowing smile. “Like that, yeah.”

“You can read people, Gabe. So can any good psychologist.” He nods towards Ash. “And you know how to make them feel better, because you’re a kind, empathetic person. It’s amazing, but it’s not magic.”

Gabe doesn’t look offended, just tired, like someone who had to explain something a hundred times over. With a deep sigh, he raises his hand and slowly, giving him a chance to move back, he puts it on top of Dawson’s.

A feeling of absolute weightlessness and peace envelops Dawson, making him feel like he’s floating. He almost expects to see himself levitating when he looks down. He’s not, of course he’s not, but the tranquility that fills his body could easily make him believe it.

It’s over in the next second—Gabe has stopped touching him

“Could a regular empathetic person do that?” Gabe asks. A golden hue passes over his eyes, like a flicker of candlelight.

“What was that?” Dawson demands, his heart hammering against his sternum. Gabe’s touched him before and it always felt good, but this was something utterly different.

“Magic,” Gabe says with a small grin. His eyelids begin to droop, and he looks exhausted all of a sudden. “I’m sorry. I try not to do this without consent, but you were being stubborn.

“I have…empathic abilities.” He gives Dawson space to react, but when nothing happens, he goes on. “There’s more to it. Remember the first time you brought Cal here? After he was released from the hospital?” Dawson nods, speechless. “I talked to him. There was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on. And for a moment there, we touched, and I…I didn’t understand what I felt. I’d never felt anything like it. But whatever it was, it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t malicious.” He holds Dawson’s gaze. “But it wasn’t human either.”

A buzzing sound fills Dawson’s ears. “I—I don’t…”

“I felt how much he cares for you,” Gabe prowls on. “You’re on his mind constantly, Dawson. Whoever this man is, he’s not the person you knew. He's worlds better, and he loves you so much that I can feel in my bones when you two are around.”

“He’s telling the truth,” Ash takes over. “I’ve never met Cal, but I know Gabe. He’s the real deal.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m not the only one with superpowers,” Gabe says ominously.

“Another time,” Ash says when Dawson looks at him for explanation. “I think you should talk to Cal.”

“Nowyou’re advocating for him?” Dawson bristles. After spending each session pointing out Cal’s flaws and throwing them in Dawson’s face for him to confront, he wants Dawson to believe him?

Ash shakes his head. “Do you remember the second time you came to see me?”

He remembers it very well because of how monumental it was. “Which part?”

Ash gives him a look like knows what Dawson’s thinking. “You said you were so happy you couldn’t bring yourself to care about what anyone else thought. You said that when you are with Cal, you can be yourself. You said he makes you feel safe. Is it really so unbelievable that he might not be the man you thought he was?”

The question strikes something inside Dawson. He spent the first couple of weeks after Cal woke up trying to explain away how someone can be a completely different person without their memories. How someone so intense and vicious can end up being the gentlest person on the planet. Hell, Dawson even joked about the old Cal being kidnapped by aliens because there was no plausible explanation to any of it.

Cal’s little ghost story isn’t plausible by any stretch of imagination, but what other explanation is there?

Some of the stuff Cal had said rushes back to him.

“Can people hear you when they’re comatose?” he asks Ash.

“What?”

“Cal said something about the hospital. About me and Kieran…going into his room.” Dawson was so upset and confused his brain didn’t even process it. “Could he have been aware of what was going on around him even when he was sedated?”

In the movies, people whose friends or family have been in an accident and aren’t conscious are always told to keep talking to them, that they can hear them on some level. Maybe that’s how Cal knows? Was he subconsciously aware of Dawson and Kieran’s presence?