Of Course Not

Damn him.

Why was he doing this to her? Why couldn't she stop thinking about him? Why didn't he tell Sam? Why did he say he'd protect her? Why couldn't he just be normal?

She paused her thumb's rubbing the gold rabbit charm around the egg-shaped emerald on her bracelet to ask herself the obvious,

"What about any of this situation was fucking normal?"

She sat up as the moonlight from the night sky drifted into the window and throughout out the house, almost bright enough to make the black night sky turn into a dark, dark shade of blue. The small alarm on the nightstand read the time at 2:42 AM. She had lain in bed wide-awake for the last 2 hours without a sound. Now she wanted more answers.

The cheer captain sighed and swiveled her legs over the side of the bed, gently touching her feet to the dark carpet on the floor. There was only one place she was going to get them and at this point her resolve outweighed her anxiety. Quietly she moved toward the door, and opened it slowly to the hallway where the moonlight carried over to the skylight above, showing the railing on the right and the hall corridors on the left. If it had been any other situation, she would have might've used the stairs to sneak out and make a run for it. In that situation though, that would mean possible police arrest, or worse the wrath of Sam and/or her Master.

If she had just left the box unopened, she might've fallen asleep even.

But Sam's words echoed in her head again,

"...he's never really stayed mad at you before."

She shuffled her feet quietly past the left corridor where Sam's room was located and headed directly across the hallway to the door across from hers and nearest to the stairwell. She felt her heart began to race again as she got to the door. It all seemed so easy a couple minutes ago, but now she was shrinking back into the shell that she was building around herself.

Instead of a whisper and a tap, it was a whimper and soft knock,

"M-Master?"

Simon couldn't sleep. Which for him was normal, his doctor usually gave out a prescription in this sort of situation, insomnia was a usual side effect of too much stress.

And this was definitely a stressful night.

He sighed as he looked up at his ceiling, the same glow-in-the-dark planets and stars that his parents made for him when he was a little kid expanding out into the array of color. He could hear the sound of the fan turning on and off in the house, the crackle of a summer breeze against the pane of the window, the creaks in the floorboards. Whoever said there was such a thing as silence clearly didn't understand what it meant.

Mostly though, he was just thinking about how everything happening had been his fault. He reached his left hand up and looked at the ring with a frown. If he hadn't run away, he probably could have stopped Jess and Kevin from fighting, he probably could've saved his sister a lot of stress, he probably wouldn't have ruined Jessica's birthday, kept Kevin out of the hospital.

"You have to give it back to her, Simon. It's important to her, just let me have it and I can go give it to her."

He stood quietly at the door to his room and faced his sister, "I'll do it, Sam. Can it just wait until morning? Things are bad enough as is for her."

She sighed, then pointed at him with her finger directly in front of his face, "Morning. Don't forget. I'll remind you."

"You're turning into Mom, again."

"Good. Night. Simon."

He'd have to fix this somehow, but he wasn't going to give up the ring to do that.

Normal people wouldn't be able to handle that kind of power, and he had run through scenario after scenario of possible What-Ifs. He even scribbled a few down as he considered what would've happened if he gave the ring up to either Jessica or Kevin, even if it belonged to someone else she knew or trusted.

He didn't really want to lie to his sister, so he didn't, but he also didn't tell her Jessica was his genie. Instead he just bought some time to think of a plan.

Why did things have to be so complicated?

Maybe he could wish for Jessica to forget about being a genie and live her life, but at the same time that would mean having her return to some sort of life where he didn't have a chance to tell her.

A chance he knew he was obviously blowing.

A knock at his door suddenly startled him as his head spun on a swivel and heard a voice outside, "M-Master?"

"Jess?"

He sat up and walked over to his door, slowly opening it to reveal her figure in the moonlight, her naked shoulder, the familiar looking nightshirt of his sister now pressing against her chest and her hands tugging at the bottom to make it seem longer. She quickly pushed the door open as he stared at her and let him close it behind her as he turned around to face her.

She was nervous. Really nervous.

Which meant he was also nervous. Really, really nervous.

She spun around as he looked at her again, this time his eyes widening as he saw the new addition on her wrist, and the way she clamped her other hand down on-top of the other. She took a deep breath and looked worriedly at him, "Are you angry with me?"

He tilted his head confused, "Why do you think I'm angry with you?"

Her green eyes looked at him, beginning to water as she held out the bracelet on her wrist, "Why? Why would you give me this?"

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged, it seemed the most obvious answer in the world to him, "You like rabbits."

"How do you even know that?" she asked even more on guard, and on edge, "Did Sam tell you? Did someone else tell you that so you'd send me prank gifts every year?"

He shook his head even more confused by the statement, even a little offended, "No they didn't. I told Sam, and they aren't pranks."

Her eyes widened even more as she stepped back and looked at the bracelet again and then shook her head, "What does that even mean? Why are you being so cryptic? What do you mean you told Sam? I don't understand you. I mess with you all the time in class, you should hate me like Kevin does. Why aren't you mad at me? Why did you stomp out of the room? Why won't you give me the ring back? Why do you want to protect me? Master, why can't you just tell me?"

She looked broken again...but she didn't look up at him to see the utter pain that was twisting around inside of him. He didn't lack empathy, if anything he could feel everything and didn't know what to do. He wanted to yell and blurt out so much, but he had to hold back.

"Jess... I-I... I-I..."

She then let out a pitiful laugh, wiping her eyes and standing slowly by the door, "H-He was right. I said you weren't human, and now I'm not either. This is what I get, but right now I just wish I could understand..."

As she reached for the knob his voice called out to her in a command, "Stop."

Her body froze immediately. She was unable to move and unable to know what he was about to say next.