Series of Unfortunate Events One-shots, What-ifs, and Drabbles

Nightmares

"Faster." Violet wiped sweat off her brow and scowled up at Count Olaf, who smirked at her and gestured at her siblings and Beatrice, gagged and stuffed into birdcages, and hanging out of the window of the highest tower. She worked frantically, but it was never enough, as first Beatrice, then Sunny, then Klaus was dropped out of the window. Tears streamed from her eyes. The last thing she saw was the hook-handed man's hooks as they went for her throat.

She always woke up crying. Every night, no matter what calming tea or herbal blend she'd downed before she went to bed. She always had the same dream, where she couldn't save her siblings. Where she wasn't good enough to save them, wasn't fast enough.

Violet looked over at Beatrice's crib. Beatrice was sleeping soundly. Violet looked in on Klaus- he was tossing and turning, but he was asleep and unquestionably alive, so Violet gave him a kiss on the forehead and checked on her sister. Sunny was sleeping as well, lying stock still. Violet ruffled her sister's hair, then went into the Arboretum, careful not to wake her siblings. She made herself a cup of coffee in the well-stocked kitchen and then went into the corner of the Arboretum she'd claimed for her studio and continued work on a birthday present she was making for Sunny- a new mixer. Sunny always complained that her current one never got the stuff at the very bottom of the bowl.

She tried to remind herself that Olaf was dead, had been for a year. She tried to tell herself that she and her siblings were safe here, here on this island far away from the treachery of the world. She tried to instruct herself to breathe slower, to calm down, but it didn't work. Nothing worked. Olaf had been dead for a year, so why did he still control her life?

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Klaus was in a bright room. Someone was aiming a flashlight directly in his eyes. They asked him questions, all sorts of questions, but he didn't know any of the answers. They demanded he answer them. They brought his family into the room and told him if he didn't answer, they'd kill them. Sunny begged him to answer. He couldn't. Beatrice looked up at him hopefully, and he still couldn't answer. Violet looked away from him angrily. They demanded he answer the questions, and Violet, Beatrice, Sunny, and the questioner fused and became Count Olaf.

Klaus woke up gasping for breath. This was nothing new. He'd had this particular nightmare before many times. He wandered into the Arboretum to read, to clear his head. He saw Violet working in her studio and knocked on the makeshift door she'd built. "Violet?" He asked. She looked up, startled. Her eyes were bloodshot. Klaus went on, hesitant. "Can I... Can I sit in here, with you?"

She softened. "'Course, Klaus. I'm just working on a present for Sunny. Come to think of it, I probably have something for you in here too, so don't look too closely at anything." She smiled at him.

He felt better already somehow. Being with Violet, hearing the soft clanks and bangs of her tools, smelling the strong coffee she was drinking, it made him stop thinking about Count Olaf.

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Sunny was well and truly trapped. Count Olaf was leering at her through a small window in one of the walls of the tiny room she was in. There was all manner of terrifying monsters in there with her. They growled at her and bared their teeth and grew ever closer to her, and then they turned into spikes on the walls, which began to close in on her. She yelled for Klaus and Violet, but they did not appear. The spikes got closer and closer and closer until she screamed.

Sunny screamed, and she could not stop screaming, and she began to sob. She couldn't stop screaming and crying and she began to panic. This was the end of her, and Olaf has finally won. She heard another voice begin to scream and she couldn't figure out exactly who it was, just that it is her doom.

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Violet heard screams from the direction of the children's beds. She exchanged a panicked look with Klaus and they both got up and ran for the bedroom, where they found Sunny screaming and crying and Beatrice wailing. Violet rushed to calm Beatrice. She picked her up and bounced her until she stopped crying. Violet shifted the infant to her hip and then went to see what was wrong with Sunny. 

Klaus was holding Sunny's hands, but she was crying too hard to notice. Upon Violet's approach, Klaus dropped one of Sunny's hands and Violet took it. They guided their younger sister out to the Arboretum, into the library, and sat her in a large armchair.

Klaus rubbed Sunny's back as Violet ran her hands through Sunny's hair. Finally, she stopped crying.

"What happened, Sunny?" Violet asked.

"I had a b-bad dream... a nightmare... Olaf was there and he..." Sunny trailed off and looked as though she might start crying again.

"It's alright, Sunny," Klaus told his sister. "I had a nightmare about him too."

"You did?" Sunny asked in a small voice.

"Yes." Klaus squeezed Sunny's shoulder.

"I did too," Violet told her siblings.

Klaus embraced Violet, who hugged Sunny, who put a hand on the sleeping Beatrice's back. The four children sat like this for a long while. Finally, Sunny fell asleep again and Violet put her back to bed. Beatrice was sleeping comfortably in Violet's arms, and Violet placed her in the sling she'd designed. She took Klaus's hand and led him back to bed as well. He was almost asleep on his feet.

Then Violet, with Beatrice tucked into the sling on her front, walked onto the brae towards the two graves the three children dug: one for one of their closest allies and one for their most deadly foe.

She stood in front of Olaf's grave. It was bare- where Kit's grave was lovingly adorned with freshly picked wildflowers, his was simply a stack of stones on top of a barren stretch of sand. She took a deep breath. 

"Why were you doing what you did?" Violet wondered aloud. "Because you could? Because it was fun?" She sighed, and Beatrice began to gurgle. She had woken up. Violet shook her head. "Who could you have been?" She sat down on the ground and bounced Beatrice in her lap. She thought about the terrible man and everything he had put them through, from trying to marry her to hypnotizing Klaus to kidnapping the Quagmires and then Sunny, and above all destroying their lives and any hope of a safe place. Violet shook her head derisively. Well, Olaf hadn't destroyed this last safe place, and Olaf would not destroy her future.

"Violet?" 

She turned around to find Klaus, holding Sunny's hand.

"We were wondering where you'd gotten to." Klaus's voice held no accusation. It was clear from looking in his eyes: he understood, even felt her need for closure. 

She stood, placing Beatrice back into her sling. "He will not control my life anymore," she said to her siblings. She turned, meaning to walk away from the grave, but turned back. "Goodbye, Olaf."

"Goodbye," Klaus and Sunny echoed.

Maybe this didn't mean the end of the nightmares, Violet reflected. But, she thought, squeezing her siblings' hands and smiling down at Beatrice, they were only nightmares.