FIC: Someone Else's Memories, Jenny Lewis, FRT
Title: Someone Else’s Memories
Author: Kez
Fandom: Primeval
Character(s): Jenny Lewis, Nick Cutter
Rating: FRT
Category: Gen
Summary: Jenny Lewis is a wonder PR agent, but an otherwise ordinary person. However, she is plagued by dreams of a woman called Claudia Brown. Then she starts a new government job, meets a man called Nick and he calls her Claudia…
Notes: For the primeval_denial team fest, from a prompt by jooles34. With thanks to fredbassett for the beta.
Warning: N/A
Word Count: 1017
Jenny couldn't remember exactly when it started.
Most of the time it felt like Claudia Brown had been with her forever; vague memories of childhood dreams that went back almost before any other memory she had.
Jenny used to write them down, like Claudia was a character in a story, because that was how she thought of her for a long time. She still had them, a couple of boxes of books hidden at the back of her wardrobe, filled with the details of this other life, straight from what she'd always believed was her imagination.
There was a story written in the still-childish scrawl of a eight-year-old Jenny, about the day Claudia Brown broke her ankle climbing up a tree to rescue her cat.
Jenny remembered waking up and checking her own ankle just to be absolutely sure, because in her dreams, she was Claudia Brown and for a moment, she'd really thought...
Jenny remembered the day Claudia's grandmother had died, the memory of how brave she’d tried to be so she didn't want to upset her little brother. Jenny's Nana had died only weeks after that dream and she'd almost wondered if it was prophetic, but nothing ever paralleled quite like that again.
One of the books from her first year of college, one she'd never showed to anyone, had the details of the night Claudia Brown lost her virginity to a boy in her sociology class. And a few pages later - although months had passed for both Jenny and Claudia, the first time she had sex with a girl.
Jenny hadn't read any of the books in several years, but she still remembered every detail like they were her own memories, not just dreams and those stories still brought a flush to her cheeks.
The last few months, she'd been thinking about Claudia Brown more. Her dreams were troubled, nightmarish visions of creatures that terrified both Claudia and Jenny. And a Scottish accent that seemed to ease both of their fears.
It had caused more than a few problems - tired at work after sleepless nights, arguments with her family and her fiancée, who wanted her to seek professional help.
Undeterred, she tried to argue that they were just dreams, dreams she'd been having almost her whole life. They didn't make her crazy. Sometimes, she wasn't sure they believed that. Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep for thinking about blood and torn flesh, she wasn't sure she did either.
And then Nick Cutter turned around and called her Claudia Brown to her face in that same Scottish accent that she'd come to find a comfort in her dreams.
She couldn't even imagine how he'd known. She had never told anyone outside her parents. Even in high school, when she'd shown some of the 'stories' to her English teacher in a bid to get extra attention from the attractive twenty-something-year-old who every girl in her glass had a crush on, she'd never really explained to him where the stories came from.
Nick Cutter couldn't possibly have known - and yet he did. He knew about Claudia Brown and he told her stories that were... unbelievable... the nightmares that had plagued her for months spilling from his lips like he was reading her mind.
Telling him he was crazy was a little cruel in retrospect, but if she told him he was, she didn't have to think about the fact she might be.
Claudia had been a strange, inexplicable part of her for so long, faced with someone else who not only knew, but claimed it was real, that Claudia Brown existed, Jenny just didn't know how else to handle it.
And with Cutter's continued presence in her life, it didn't get any easier.
In the end, it had been no surprise when her engagement ended. She'd been keeping too many secrets, telling too many lies, going in the opposite direction from everything they'd planned together. It might only have been a surprise that it held together as long as it did.
Especially when Claudia was more and more in the forefront of her mind and the feelings Jenny told herself she couldn't possibly feel for Cutter were getting harder to ignore.
It got worse after Stephen Hart's death.
She'd barely known the man, but she still felt guilty about his death, felt like she was responsible... that if she'd been... if she'd been Claudia Brown, maybe it wouldn't have happened.
And if it got worse after Stephen's death, it was ten times that after Cutter's.
It was impossible to escape the feelings, the pain she wasn't even sure any more belonged to her, or if it was a remnant of Claudia Brown. Of the person she was supposed to be.
The dreams were getting more intense, more real and she knew she was changing, no matter how much she fought it, she knew she was becoming more like Claudia until some mornings she nearly didn't recognise herself in the mirror.
Jenny knew that leaving was the only thing she could do. Knew that she was losing herself, maybe had already lost herself, in the memory of a woman that existed only in her dreams and Nick Cutters memory.
No, she had to find herself again. Or remake herself. Something, anything, before she really did go crazy. Because she thought if she did stay, that's what would happen. She'd either go crazy, or end up like Stephen and Cutter.
It was hard, leaving the ARC. Leaving those people. Even without Cutter, she still cared about the others. But they'd be in good hands with Danny and she knew it had to be a clean break. No half measures.
The picture in Cutter's belongings was... startling. Claudia Brown looking back at her. But if anything, it made her more certain that she was doing the right thing.
She had to put Claudia Brown behind her and hope that the dreams would finally leave her in peace.
It might take time, but she would have that now.
Time to work out who Jenny Lewis was without Claudia Brown.
Author: Kez
Fandom: Primeval
Character(s): Jenny Lewis, Nick Cutter
Rating: FRT
Category: Gen
Summary: Jenny Lewis is a wonder PR agent, but an otherwise ordinary person. However, she is plagued by dreams of a woman called Claudia Brown. Then she starts a new government job, meets a man called Nick and he calls her Claudia…
Notes: For the primeval_denial team fest, from a prompt by jooles34. With thanks to fredbassett for the beta.
Warning: N/A
Word Count: 1017
Jenny couldn't remember exactly when it started.
Most of the time it felt like Claudia Brown had been with her forever; vague memories of childhood dreams that went back almost before any other memory she had.
Jenny used to write them down, like Claudia was a character in a story, because that was how she thought of her for a long time. She still had them, a couple of boxes of books hidden at the back of her wardrobe, filled with the details of this other life, straight from what she'd always believed was her imagination.
There was a story written in the still-childish scrawl of a eight-year-old Jenny, about the day Claudia Brown broke her ankle climbing up a tree to rescue her cat.
Jenny remembered waking up and checking her own ankle just to be absolutely sure, because in her dreams, she was Claudia Brown and for a moment, she'd really thought...
Jenny remembered the day Claudia's grandmother had died, the memory of how brave she’d tried to be so she didn't want to upset her little brother. Jenny's Nana had died only weeks after that dream and she'd almost wondered if it was prophetic, but nothing ever paralleled quite like that again.
One of the books from her first year of college, one she'd never showed to anyone, had the details of the night Claudia Brown lost her virginity to a boy in her sociology class. And a few pages later - although months had passed for both Jenny and Claudia, the first time she had sex with a girl.
Jenny hadn't read any of the books in several years, but she still remembered every detail like they were her own memories, not just dreams and those stories still brought a flush to her cheeks.
The last few months, she'd been thinking about Claudia Brown more. Her dreams were troubled, nightmarish visions of creatures that terrified both Claudia and Jenny. And a Scottish accent that seemed to ease both of their fears.
It had caused more than a few problems - tired at work after sleepless nights, arguments with her family and her fiancée, who wanted her to seek professional help.
Undeterred, she tried to argue that they were just dreams, dreams she'd been having almost her whole life. They didn't make her crazy. Sometimes, she wasn't sure they believed that. Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep for thinking about blood and torn flesh, she wasn't sure she did either.
And then Nick Cutter turned around and called her Claudia Brown to her face in that same Scottish accent that she'd come to find a comfort in her dreams.
She couldn't even imagine how he'd known. She had never told anyone outside her parents. Even in high school, when she'd shown some of the 'stories' to her English teacher in a bid to get extra attention from the attractive twenty-something-year-old who every girl in her glass had a crush on, she'd never really explained to him where the stories came from.
Nick Cutter couldn't possibly have known - and yet he did. He knew about Claudia Brown and he told her stories that were... unbelievable... the nightmares that had plagued her for months spilling from his lips like he was reading her mind.
Telling him he was crazy was a little cruel in retrospect, but if she told him he was, she didn't have to think about the fact she might be.
Claudia had been a strange, inexplicable part of her for so long, faced with someone else who not only knew, but claimed it was real, that Claudia Brown existed, Jenny just didn't know how else to handle it.
And with Cutter's continued presence in her life, it didn't get any easier.
In the end, it had been no surprise when her engagement ended. She'd been keeping too many secrets, telling too many lies, going in the opposite direction from everything they'd planned together. It might only have been a surprise that it held together as long as it did.
Especially when Claudia was more and more in the forefront of her mind and the feelings Jenny told herself she couldn't possibly feel for Cutter were getting harder to ignore.
It got worse after Stephen Hart's death.
She'd barely known the man, but she still felt guilty about his death, felt like she was responsible... that if she'd been... if she'd been Claudia Brown, maybe it wouldn't have happened.
And if it got worse after Stephen's death, it was ten times that after Cutter's.
It was impossible to escape the feelings, the pain she wasn't even sure any more belonged to her, or if it was a remnant of Claudia Brown. Of the person she was supposed to be.
The dreams were getting more intense, more real and she knew she was changing, no matter how much she fought it, she knew she was becoming more like Claudia until some mornings she nearly didn't recognise herself in the mirror.
Jenny knew that leaving was the only thing she could do. Knew that she was losing herself, maybe had already lost herself, in the memory of a woman that existed only in her dreams and Nick Cutters memory.
No, she had to find herself again. Or remake herself. Something, anything, before she really did go crazy. Because she thought if she did stay, that's what would happen. She'd either go crazy, or end up like Stephen and Cutter.
It was hard, leaving the ARC. Leaving those people. Even without Cutter, she still cared about the others. But they'd be in good hands with Danny and she knew it had to be a clean break. No half measures.
The picture in Cutter's belongings was... startling. Claudia Brown looking back at her. But if anything, it made her more certain that she was doing the right thing.
She had to put Claudia Brown behind her and hope that the dreams would finally leave her in peace.
It might take time, but she would have that now.
Time to work out who Jenny Lewis was without Claudia Brown.