TITLE: Normalcy

AUTHOR: Scorpio

EMAIL: Scorpiofic @ aol.com

ARCHIVE: Scorpio's Constellation, Leather Glove

FANDOM: The Dead Zone

PAIRING: None really, sort of a Johnny/Bruce pre-slash thing

RATING: PG-13

WARNING: mental angst, adult subject matter

DISCLAIMER: Stephen King is the genius that created the concept of The Dead Zone and USA owns the rights to the tv show. I intend no copyright infringement and I'm making no money from this.

SPOILERS: The majority of Season 1 up to and including Shaman and the Season Finale: Destiny. If you haven't seen those episodes, you might want to skip this one.

SUMMARY: Johnny's stream of consciousness while he waits for Bruce to pick him up and take him to visit Reverend Gene Purdy.

Normalcy
by Scorpio

The sunlight shines brightly today. The warm rays streaming through the glass illuminate so many things, some beautiful and others mundane. Standing back in the shadows by the couch, I wait. Wishing that by simply moving into the sunlight that it could somehow illuminate the dark corners of my heart.

//Am I doing the right thing?//

It's been several months since I was spit back out of oblivion, awakening from my coma. It's been several months since the world erupted around me in glaring colors, deafening sounds and crushing emotions. For all that time that since I've been...reborn, I've been stumbling from one nightmare to another, wondering if this life is real or if it's some horrible coma-induced hallucination. Is everything that I've experienced in these past few confusing months been merely a preview of the rest of my life or the deranged product of brain damage? I wish I knew.

//Is it even possible to take control of my life?//

If this is real, truly real, then I have to do something, *anything*, to make it bearable before I slip over the edge into insanity. I know that I can't survive this way much longer. To be honest, I don't think that I could even sit down and list the things that upset me the most in any kind of order, let alone from worst to least annoying. The differing elements of my personal hell just smear together into one huge spiral of fear and loathing.

//Maybe I should just insist on that trip after all?//

I miss my privacy and being anonymous. Every inch of this room is covered with a letter or package or plea from some stranger, some desperate person searching for some tiny scrap of hope. Help me, help me they beg; I can't even help myself. To them, I'm just a name and an unexplainable power to make everything better. They don't see a real person; they see a savior, a hero, a freak. I don't want to be put on display to be gawked at and I don't want to be a trained monkey that performs on command and yet that is what I'm slowly turning into.

//If I close my eyes and refuse to see, will it all just go away?//

Part of me wants to blame Dana for all of this, but that's not fair. I encouraged her because I didn't understand how far this mess would go. She wanted a hot story filled with action, mystery and romance and I fed it to her with both hands. Why? For some sense of being acceptable; for some chance to let others see me in a positive light when deep inside I was even more frightened than anyone else could ever be of my...gift. If Dana saw my visions as being a 'good thing' did that give me some unconscious permission to do the same?

//Am I not more than my visions?//

The funny thing is, I've got a lot to thank Dana for. She helped me overcome one of my greatest fears; that I could never be intimate with someone again. She proved that theory wrong by bowing it completely out of the water. No matter what else happens between us, I'll always be grateful for giving me back my sex life. Not that I believe that we have any sort of real romantic future together. Dana likes me *because* of my gift, not in spite of it the way Bruce does. I probably wouldn't have even met Dana without it, but if I somehow *did* meet her without the gift I seriously doubt that she'd even give me the time of day let alone a date.

//Should I let go of the past?//

If Dana makes me think of the future and where my life might be going, then Sarah makes me think of the past and all of the things that I have lost. Sarah and I had our entire lives planned out. Oh, nothing special or dramatic, just an average normal life: marriage, children, love and harmony. That never changed for me during my six year immersion in nothingness. I woke up from my coma with the same wants, needs and dreams that I had in my heart on the day of my accident. For me, nothing changed. For Sarah, everything was different. A new lover, a new family, a new life: she has it all. What right do I have to waltz in and make myself a part of her world?

It's taken me a while to truly understand, but today it's clear to me; as if a veil has been torn from my eyes allowing me to see the truth. Yes, Sarah still loves me. She'll always love me, but she's no longer *in* love with me. Sarah's in love with Walt. Love ties Sarah to Walt, but it's guilt that ties her to me. Guilt that she was able, and willing, to move on with her life. Guilt that she found love and happiness without me. Guilt that little Johnny doesn't know about me...and never will. Guilt that she didn't have faith that I would come back to her.

//How could I have slept with her?//

Guilt is a funny thing; it makes you see things from another's eyes even more clearly than any vision I've suffered through. Before last night, I could only see this mess from my own point of view and maybe a little bit from Sarah's. But in the unforgiving bright light of a new morning, I can now see things from Walt's side of the dividing line. Sarah is *his* wife and I'm an interloper in his territory. Yet he can't fight me for her because I'll win and he knows it. Now I know it too. Guilt; she'd come back to me out of a sense of guilt and his whole world would come crashing down. I'm a ghost from her past that neither of them can fight.

//Should I listen to my heart or my mind?//

I can't give Sarah and Johnny all of the things that they need. Stability, normalcy, rock solid strength; that's something Walt provides, not me. My mind tells me that Walt protects them, provides for them and comforts them in ways that I can't even begin to imagine let alone duplicate. My mind tells me that they are better off with this man that I like and respect. My heart tells me that I'm jealous of Walt, that he has that which is rightfully mine. My heart cries out in loneliness, wanting to love and be loved. Sarah filled
that role before the accident, but no longer.

//If Sarah is the past that I must sacrifice, does that make Gene the future that I should embrace?//

Uncharitable perhaps, but I have my doubts about Reverend Purdy. I can see that he cares about me and my happiness in his own way. I also believe that in a twisted fashion he has my best interests at heart. I think that he sincerely wants to help me. I also have the creepy feeling that he believes that my visions are a gift from God and that I have some divine higher purpose to serve. A higher purpose that *he* must guide me to achieving. That thought is frightening on so many different levels that if I think about it too long I get sick to my stomach. Maybe I wouldn't feel that apprehensive if I knew what this higher purpose or dream that Gene wants me to reach really is. Maybe I'd feel more secure in his desire to help me if he was less conscious of his own public image and his own political clout. The last time I was desperate for help and I reached out to him he didn't ride in to my rescue because it was bad publicity. I ended up half a heartbeat away from being burnt alive at the stake and I can't help but wonder how things would have turned out if he had put my safety ahead of his career.

//Can I find a way to live in peace; peace with my visions, peace with my past, peace with my future?//

Ironically enough, the only good thing that has come out of this whole mess is Bruce and I'm the worst thing that could've ever happened to him. If it wasn't for Bruce, I don't think that I would be sane right now. He's done more than just help me relearn how to walk, he's helped me to see things from a brighter and more optimistic perspective. Everytime that I felt overwhelmed and frightened he's been there to support me and help me, even those times when I pushed him away.

Unlike Sarah and everyone connected with her, Bruce doesn't look at me like I'm a ghost that's come back from the grave to haunt him. He doesn't see me through eyes filled with pain and anguish. Unlike Dana and Reverend Purdy, Bruce doesn't see me as 'The Psychic Man' or 'The Guy With The Visions'. Maybe it's cruel to accuse Dana and Gene of seeing me as a tool to further themselves; whether it be a front page story or a publicity campaign. It's hard not too, however, when I compare them to Bruce. He sees me as a friend; a friend who just happens to be psychic.

//Am I doing the right thing?//

Part of me wants to just grab Bruce and run away, far away. I could do it too. Reverend Purdy already agreed to empty my trust fund so that I could do that if I really wanted to and I do, I really do. When I close my eyes I can easily picture buying a yacht and sailing around the globe; just me and Bruce. I know that if I asked him that he would go with me. He's not afraid to touch me, nor does he touch me just to find out what my Dead Zone has to say about his future. He touches me as a friend and that means more to me than anything else in this world. He makes me feel...almost normal.

As much as I want to run away from the circus that my life has become I have the feeling that I'll end up regretting it in the worst way. Everytime I allow myself to daydream about taking a year long trip with Bruce at my side I also have a vision of that ancient and long dead Shaman. In my vision I am on the deck of a private yacht with Bruce and everything just stops. The wind stops blowing and the sails stop snapping and the ropes stop creaking. Bruce is frozen right along with everything else, the only things that can move are me and the Shaman. He looks over at Bruce and his face becomes so sad, so very sad and right then and there I know in my heart that this can never be. I can see in the Shaman's eyes that he regrets what is to come but he knows that a person with the gift to See has to do what they must, no matter how painful the sacrifice. Then he says, "You have something that you must do. I have Seen it. The darkness is coming." After that I wake from the vision and the day dream.

//Why me?//

Sometimes I want to scream to the uncaring sky that this whole stinking mess is unfair and cruel. The coma cost me a wife, a child and my career. The visions that I received in return are painful, frightening and uncontrollable. I have no privacy, no normalcy and no hope of living a quiet sedate life. All I have is some task set before me by a Shaman that died over 600 years ago and the vague sense that somehow Reverend Gene Purdy is going to be caught up in the center of it. Darkness is coming. I can only hope that Bruce...and our friendship...survive it.

//When Bruce arrives to drive me to see Gene, should I touch him?//