Princess Adeline of Wales

Chapter Thirty-Six: Nightmares & Conversations

10th of October 2004 - Highgrove House

Jolting awake and slapping a hand over her mouth to catch the scream that threated to make its way out of her mouth; Adeline gasped for breath and looked around her bedroom trying to shake the nightmare from her mind. 

Sweat covered her body as she searched around the room trying to make sense of what had just happened, one minute she had been in the car with Nick racing towards a brick wall and the next moment she had been alone in her bedroom. 

The only sound that she could hear was the pattering of rain against the windows, rather than the screeching of tires and the blaring of a car horn. 

It had felt so real and Adeline gasped back against her pillows as she tried to calm her racing heart, it had been the same every time that she closed her eyes since the accident had happened. 

There was no escaping the nightmares that had been awaken from her childhood, Adeline hated that they seemed to come back to haunt her after seven years and there was no escape. 

Sometimes she was with her mother, pleading with her not to get into the car and being ignored, like no one could hear her until the accident happened. 

Other times her mother would tell it that it would all be okay, they would get in the car and suddenly be racing towards the tunnel where her mother had died. 

Adeline felt exhausted, she didn't know what to do anymore and the dreams just kept on getting worse; she hated that they had come back to her in full force. 

When she had been a little girl, her father had enrolled her in therapy sessions just as he had done with her brothers when the nightmares had started; it hadn't been easy talking to a stranger but Adeline had felt better when she had done so. 

Throwing back the covers, Adeline swung her feet out of bed and onto the carpeted floor of her bedroom; her broken arm aching a little and she sighed as she stared down at the cast on her arm. 

A frown forming on her face before she shook her head and got to her feet before heading to the door of her bedroom and out into the dark hallway.

It was silly notion, but Adeline wished she was still a little girl so that she could go and tell her father that she'd had a nightmare; he had often encouraged her to do so when she had been a child but now it felt silly to even consider. 

Quietly making her way down to the kitchens, Adeline couldn't help but be relieved that they had escaped to Highgrove for a few days while the media frenzy died down. 

The headlines had been as bad as she had feared. 

'Princess Diana's daughter nearly shares mother's fate' 

'Princess Adeline nearly killed in car accident,' 

'Royal family security blunder nearly sees young princess killed in fatal car accident, pictures on page 10,' 

It had been enough make Adeline avoid the morning papers for days especially in the cases where they had somehow managed to get pictures of the crashed car. 

Adeline guessed they had been taken after she had been rushed from the scene, she certainly didn't recall any paparazzi about when she had gotten out of the car. 

Entering the kitchen, Adeline nearly jumped out of her skin when she came across her father pouring himself a drink in the dark; he seemed almost surprised to see her as he looked up from what he was doing. 

"Can't sleep," Charles guessed moving to grab another mug so that he could pour Adeline some of the warm milk that he had been making; he had suspected that she was struggling but had yet to actually see her awake at night.