Chapter Text
Paul woke with a jerk of his fingers, they pulsed against the bed where they tangled in the sheets. He breathed in a gasp, and felt around himself with his senses, the air filling his lungs was too cold, the sheets around his waist a little too thick.
He kept his eyes closed for five deep breaths, and then he opened them.
The room was dark, too dark, the shades of dark grays accentuating the natural shadows of his room, his childhood room on Caladan. His eyes swept across the room, taking in the clothing that was laid over his desk chair, the books left out on the desk.
He propped himself up on his elbows, bringing his chest up off the bed, and he could see the ocean out of his window, the full moon making the water shine black, and the cold air was making the skin on his arms bump up, but he couldn’t blame the way they continued, traveled up over his shoulders and down his back on the cold air.
He let out a shaky breath, and pushed up, bringing his knees up under himself, sitting on them, looking down as he rested his hand open palm up on his knees.
“How,” he murmured to himself, and he clinched his right hand into a fist, his nails biting into his palm, grounding him in the moment.
There was no way that he had just dreamed the next seven years of his life.
He could still feel sand beneath his finger nails, and despite the fact that he had many dreams come true, none had felt so real, and to have dreams within his dreams was unheard of.
He flipped his hands over, resting his palms against his knees, his real skin and flesh knees, warm beneath his hands and he slid his eyes shut. He took a deep breath, kept taking them until they didn’t shake him to his core, let himself get lost in the rhythm.
When he opened his eyes again, he was still in his room, and nothing had changed. It was early, early enough that even the kitchen servants would just be waking up. And he knew he had lived seven years, and somehow he was back, on Caladan. He could tell when he moved he was young again, his limbs felt lanky, he felt he could breathe easier.
He was so much colder than he had been in years.
He got up and crossed the room, to where he remembered his closet, to the warm layers from his childhood.
He didn’t know the season, but he pulled on long sleeves, and pants, he didn’t think they were anything special, something he would have worn to lessons on a casual day with Duncan.
‘Duncan,’ his brain whispered. His eyes snapped to the door. Duncan or Gurney would be by in a few hours to get him, if he didn’t leave his rooms. His breath came a little bit faster,
‘His father.’
He pulled on the thickest socks he could find, but he didn’t bother with shoes. He knew it might get him some weird looks, but he also knew that some of the things he would ask of servants would also get him weird looks, and part of him would now always prioritize stealth above all else.
He walked out of his room, his steps silent, and the halls quiet. He knew he would come across someone soon, nowhere in the palace was truly empty, even if it seemed it. He rounded a few corners, and a small woman around his age was coming out a doorway,
‘No,’ he thought, ‘I don’t know how old I am right now. She is probably much older than me.’
She was shutting the door in a way so that her back was too him, and she was carrying a basket against her hip, filled with clothing. She wore a dark gray dress that hit just the middle of her shin and like him, she was only wearing thick socks on her feet. She probably worked the mornings and didn’t want to disturb anyone.
She turned, and almost dropped the basket of clothes she was holding when she saw him, but he just turned up on corner of his mouth, and she was placated,
“Good morning my Lord.” Her voice was meek, and he could tell she was trying to get away, but he replied,
“Good morning. I have an odd question for you.” His voice felt wrong, and he knew it was because he had grown used to the harsh gravel it had developed after years of being without enough water to make it go away.
She nervously shuffled her foot, the heel coming up and she nodded her head,
“What year is it?”
She blinked. The foot that had been shuffling, stopped and dropped down to the ground.
“It is the ten thousandth one hundred and eighty-nineth year, my Lord.”
He nodded once, and kept his shock off his face,
“Thank you.”
And then he started walking away.
When he rounded a corner, and was sure no one was around him, he brought a hand up to his mouth, and stopped walking. He leaned against the wall, the stones cold seeping through the layer of his shirt but he hardly felt it. He hardly saw the hall around him, the cool cast the sun was leaving on the wall. He stared, unseeing, out the window at the gray world outside.
‘A whole year,’ he thought, and he started walking again, ‘a whole year before the emperor will give Duke Leto Arrakis.’
He stopped. His hand was still over his mouth. His feet were feeling the cold despite the socks, the stones were harsh under him, but he didn’t move to the middle of the hall, where a carpet ran down the length.
‘He can not go back.’
Paul wandered the halls, thinking. He had thought of a plan, and he was trying to think of a different plan. But the one that had come to mind had been something he had thought of before, staring at the ceiling of a house only his by blood on his hands, and hearing a family that wasn’t rightly his in the rooms next door.
One that he knew would work thanks to a spice he no longer felt the full effects of.
He had never thought of it as a possibility, but as something that could have happened to prevent what did happen. But the idea was not one he had wanted to go through with, even at a time where he had been desperate to have his father back. He might not have a choice now. It wasn’t that the plan was awful, it wasn’t like if he went through with it he would be hurt, or someone he loved would die, but part of him felt a very human need to not touch it with a ten foot pole.
He came to a stop outside his parents' rooms, and he could hear shuffling from within, feet sliding against the floor, the voices of his parents low and soft. He felt the inside of his chest ache. He paused and then turned toward the door, knocking twice.
The shuffling stopped, and then Duke Leto opened the door just slightly, his eyes first above Paul's head, and then dropping down to meet his son's eyes.
Paul felt he had been prepared but when his fathers face appeared he felt like the seventeen year old his body was again, felt the need to try and find a way to be in his fathers arms, there he would be safe. But that had never been an option, even before Arrakis, his father would put his arm around him once in a while, but being held had been a thing of the past long ago.
Something in his face must have given him away, or perhaps it was because of the hour, but his father immediately pulled back, opening the door all the way, and beckoning him inside.
Paul walked in, his mother tying the last of the ties on her dress, she was turned slightly toward the door, and if Paul hadn’t been around her so long, the years that they would hopefully never share again, he would have missed the slight tick in her cheek, that let him know her concern.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. He slightly walked more into the room, it was the front room, the sitting room, where his mothers ‘lady things’ were, the knitting, which he had learned later that the needles were sharper then some of the swords kept in the building. It was kept in a small basket beside the couch, which was a warm green, and the room was cast in the warm yellow light of the fireplace on the opposite wall.
‘Must be winter,’ he thought, and knew he was underdressed. He should have put on two pairs of socks. His birthday would be soon.
There was movement in the corner of his eye, and his father was walking around him, and before he could even think, his hand was reaching out, rapidly and catching the sleeve of his fathers shirt.
He thought himself a fool, but he could not let go. He kept his eyes on his own fingers, knew if he looked up he would waste water, and how could he explain, how would he ever explain.
His father’s hand cupped his face, and he was dismayed to realize he was already crying. He looked up, and met his fathers eyes, and saw concern there, and anger.
Paul couldn’t help himself and leaned into the hand. His father shook free of the hold Paul had on his arm, and wrapped it around Paul’s shoulder, pulling him against his fathers chest. Paul’s hand came up and gripped his fathers arm again. His father started rubbing his back, and Paul let himself focus on it, tried to calm his breathing, tried to get the tears to stop.
He heard his mothers footsteps coming from behind him and he couldn’t help the flinch that went through him, the way he buried his face against his father. They whispered though they knew he could hear them.
“What happened?” His fathers voice was louder, and he felt the vibrations of it in his cheek.
“I don’t know.” His mothers voice was dismayed, and he knew the look in her eyes would be harsh.
“Someone must have got past the guards.”
Paul shook his head, but his father just tightened his arm against his back,
“Someone we know then, Paul you will tell me when you are able. We’ll have to send someone to his rooms to get rid of the body”
He didn’t know if he could lie his way out of this one, and he had a feeling he knew what his father was insinuating. But he felt himself swell with a little bit of pride that his father would have thought him capable of killing someone trying to harm him, and at such after being woken by said attack.
Paul just shook his head again.
His father pulled back too soon, the hand he had placed on Paul’s head dragging down through his hair, over him before gripping his wrist, and took them over the couch. When they sat, Paul took one of his hands away, and wiped at his face, his father gripping his single hand in both of his. His mother came over to them, and she sat on the low table in front of the seating. Paul lifted the corner of his mouth up at the sight, but it didn’t last long.
He was quiet. He didn’t know what to say. He moved a hand back through his hair, his fingers catching on curls far shorter then he was used to. He blinked, and he looked back on his memories. He had told his mother of some of his dreams. Maybe.
He looked up at her. She was watching his face. She always knew if he was lying, but maybe.
“I-” He voice was thick, and he cleared his throat, his hand twitching in his fathers grasp. He felt like a fool.
“I feel like a child.” he whispered aloud, and his mother smiled thin.
“You are my child.” His father said, and Paul looked to him.
Paul couldn’t stand to see the concern in his eyes, and he looked down, and then quickly back up to his mother.
He breathed once through his nose and then looked to his own lap, unable to look them in the eye on this first of what would probably be many lies,
“I had a nightmare.”
The words rang heavy, and then his father shifted, his hands moving so that his thumbs where rest on Paul’s wrist, his fingers slightly digging into the soft part of the back of his arm,
“Paul, nightmares-” He heard the admonishing tone to his voice and Paul cut him off, something he dared never do before that moment,
“I dreamed you died. I dreamed that the Baron Harkonnen killed you on Arrakis. I can still feel the sand in my hair. I can still taste the spice.”
What he said was true, except it hadn’t been a dream, and he felt he said too much, looking up at his mother, seeing she had stopped breathing, her shoulders still.
His father was quiet. He looked at him and saw that his eyes were also on the lady Jessica.
Paul cleared his throat.
“Like I said.” When Duke Leto’s eyes were back on him, “I feel like a child. I was just coming to see.” He trailed off. He sighed, and shook his head, getting his wild curls behind himself,
“I didn’t mean to react that way. I just meant to say good morning.”
His fathers eyes softened. He reached up and pressed his palm against Paul’s cheek again.
“Good morning.”
-
They walked together to their dining room. Duke Leto didn’t often eat there with them, as Paul did not normally wake with them.
‘That will probably change,’ Paul thought to himself, ‘I woke before the sun and slept before it went down for the last six years.’
They did not speak of the morning, but of topics Paul would have found tedious before. Which politicians were coming, where they were coming from, who was bringing what to them.
Paul had only dealt with the world of politics on a larger scale, as the Padishah Emperor, on a scale much too big to be jumping right in at the time looking back, with a war behind his back. It was fascinating the way he felt he wanted to jump in, to give advice, to say, ‘no, the Lady of the house does not like that one’, or ‘that Lord wants your head on a stick more than the Baron does’. He kept himself quiet, which was harder than he thought it would have been.
His father got up a few moments after he was done with his meal.
He walked first to his love, and he bent down to kiss her. It was chaste, but Paul felt he had to look away.
Next he walked around the table to Paul. He cupped Paul’s face and pressed his forehead to the top of Paul’s head. Paul’s breath caught in his throat.
“You will be fine today.” His father said, and then he walked away, out the door, to fill his duties as Duke.
And he was left alone with his mother.
He took a drink of his water, still feeling drained from the morning. It was still taking some work in his brain to think that he could have water whenever he wanted. He felt it would take longer than one morning.
He met his mothers eyes, and he could see the thought there,
“I’m sorry.” He said it for coming into their room, for disturbing a space that had always been sacred, but he was also saying it for all the things he was about to do. For every lie he would tell her, and for every backstab he might have to commit.
Her eyes softened, “you need us, and I won’t fault you that while you still have it. But you need to be stronger than your urges.”
He nodded once.
“Now, tell me more about your dream.”
He did. He didn’t tell her all of it, didn’t think he could, and for once he cursed the perfect memory that let him be a mentat. He described being on Arrakis, he told her of the stiltent, of finding the ring in the pouch. He told her the note was anonymous, leaving that for himself, maybe he could talk to Yueh, but if all went to plan, the plan, he would not have too.
When he was done she was silent. He wondered if he slipped up, but she just folded her hands in her lap.
“If you have any more, tell me about them.”
And that was that. He should not know that he can see the future, possibilities, and probabilities. But he did. And he also knew that this version of his mother was still in the pocket of the Bene Gesserit. He knew that he would not be telling her most of what he dreamed from now on.