The Nightmare Ends [Sara and Aaron]

[MP]

The soft turn of a key. The click of the latch. The front door eased open and shut again, incredibly softly even for that time of night. And for a long few minutes, Aaron only stood there in the dark. He breathed, feeling the press of the door against his back, the stability of it. It wasn't the shuddering panic of those first few minutes awake, unable to make it out of the office without ducking into a side room for composure. But now that he was home, the subtle signs of Sara's presence all around him, he just...needed a minute. Needed some quiet. He listened down the hallway, making sure.

You know how this goes. Same as last time. It was just a dream. 

He felt his air start to close off again. Choked back the lump in his throat. Ease back into routine. Just think about something else. 

Aaron pulled off his shoes and walked in quietly, listening as he went. It wasn't sneaking. Work ran so late these days, Sara had usually fallen asleep by the time he got back. She was just as busy. Just as tired and stressed, with all that was going on. He didn't want to wake her.

If you didn't wake her already.

He ignored the cold spike of dread. Aaron set down his laptop bag in the hallway. Shrugged off his coat, brushing the collar with an absent hand. He wasn't thinking about it. He wouldn't. But his fingers expected it to be damp with bile and...other things. The coat felt wrong because of it. Aaron hung it in the closet, and for once he was glad to have it off his shoulders. 

A few scattered lights were still on. He could already hear she'd left the heater running. Aaron usually made his way through the house when he got home, shutting things down as he found them. But tonight, he went for the living room first. Drifted to a stop just before the doorway. From here, he could just see the back of the couch. Sara often fell asleep there, reading a book or watching a movie waiting. She must be fine. He'd have heard something otherwise. Some sign that she was awake. That she'd remembered what he'd done.

Maybe that's why she hasn't come out to see you.

Stop it. Aaron hesitated only briefly in the doorway. Let her be asleep. Please, god, let her have forgotten - or better yet, have been a figment. Just another piece of the nightmare, like the false Koji. But the nagging worry was stronger than his fear. He came into the room on quiet footsteps, checking the couch just as he would on any other night. If not the couch, then maybe the window seat, or the pillows in the closet - somewhere she liked to sleep as a cat or a dog or what have you. He'd just check on her. Quietly. Make sure she was getting some sleep. 

[tsukikoko]

Feline ears had flickered at the sound of a key in the lock, no matter how quiet it had been. But the sound was so familiar now that, even with her earlier anxiety, the shifter hadn't been immediately dragged out of the depths of her slumber. She was exhausted, always was, of late. Her body craved the rest.

But she wasn't on the sofa when Aaron checked, though his closer movement, the pad of his feet and rustle of clothing, did stir her closure to a waking surface. By the time her partner came towards the window seat she was beginning to lift her head, one ear cocked in his direction. From her loafed position, small, furry face pressed slightly against the glass, it was quite apparent that Sara had been watching out of the window. After receiving Aaron's response text and concluding her electronic communication with Casmir, proving to herself that he was still alive despite the churning in her gut that had refused to fade, she had come to sit in the window. Waiting diligently for her agent's return until exhaustion claimed her.

She hadn't really wanted to fall off the sofa again tonight.

With the rapid, scrunched-eyes blinking of one rousing themselves from too little sleep, the ginger cat turned her head to look over her shoulder, recognising him easily regardless of available light. Instantaneous, happy relief flooded through her at the sight of him and she was soon swivelling to her feet with a trill of groggy greeting.

The heavy blanket of sleep took a few moments to shake loose, but by the time Sara's form rippled and she was approaching as a woman, the shifter was at least mostly alert.
"'Ello sweet'eart," she murmured softly, reaching for the agent as she so often did when he returned late. Seeking any moment of affectionate physical contact she could manage within the business of their current lives. "Our Koji alreet, like?"
Even now, as she leant up to grace his stubbled cheek with a kiss of greeting, as she ran her fingertips over his arm and contemplated leaning herself into his chest, Sara could shake a prickling feeling of dread as it skated down her spine. Curdled in her gut. It was from a source she couldn't quite pinpoint, a memory or imagining flitting just out of reach. A bad dream she'd just experienced and couldn't remember? Perhaps just a product of recent events and arguments, the stress that everyday life had become of late... or the fact she couldn't seem to pinpoint a way to help Aaron, had been watching him wind tighter and tighter, like a spring about to sheer and snap in twain.

She tried to shake the feeling, just for a moment, didn't want the negativity bleeding into every interaction she had with him. Especially not when they were at home, when she wanted to offer what small measure of comfort and normality she could.

[MP]

Aaron stopped at the soft cat's trill, as if he could still sneak by. As if Sara might go back to sleep if he was just quiet enough. The hesitation was evident in his stance. But he turned to greet her, brushing absent fingers over hers. The routine felt hollow, and he tried not to think about it. See, he told himself. She was fine, Koji was fine, everything was fine. He'd checked, he'd made sure. His throat clicked as he tried to answer.

"He's fine." He spoke in a murmur. Because of the late hour. Because he couldn't manage louder and still sound normal. "It just ran late. Didn't mean to wake you."

He gave Sara's hand a faint squeeze, searching her gaze. Was there hurt there? Blame? Sara tried so hard to ease the burden on people around her. She hid so much of her own feelings, her own problems, even from him. Would she even tell him if she remembered? Could she, after what he'd done? Looking at her, feeling her hand in his - he'd held the sword, he'd felt the give of flesh through those fingers - Aaron felt his air close off. He couldn't do this right now. He pulled away from the contact, going back to unpack his laptop for some kind of distraction.

"I've still -" His voice was slightly hoarse, and he hoped it would pass for fatigue. "I've got to finish a few things up. Go get some sleep, okay? I'll be there soon."

In the morning, he thought. In the morning, it would feel less real, and he could let it go. It was alright. Sara seemed alright, and that was what mattered. He just needed some time to himself.

[tsukikoko]

When Aaron pulled away from her, the shifter was left with a hand half-raised and her mouth slightly open, whatever words she'd been about to say evaporating into the air between them.

His explanations seemed valid on the surface. Yet, there was something, not just in his movements, or the manner of his response to her, something in the tone of his voice and the general demeanour of him, a tenseness in the air and a knotting feeling in her gut, that set off a warning siren in Sara's head. She thought of his recent stresses, their arguments... the date. A cold trail of dread trickled down her back. The wailing klaxon in her head only blared louder, so loud she briefly wondered how Aaron couldn't hear it.

She couldn't be sure what was wrong, or even be sure that anything was wrong past the usual tiredness and overworked stress.

God, when had that become their normal?

Therein lay part of the problem, while the other part was she often didn't know what might be bothering or upsetting her partner, because she hadn't been very successful in getting him to talk about it. She knew she couldn't force him, that Aaron was not prone to opening up about his problems at the best of times, but this couldn't be healthy - for him or for their relationship. Was it something about Koji, a recent case, or a facet of the particular night that was now drawing to a close? But, even if she asked, would he tell her? She'd tried before and felt as though she hadn't gotten very far, but... But she just couldn't let the moment slide. Not again. Not with the anxious feeling griping so strongly in her gut.

"Aaron?" She said gently, not quite a whisper, reaching out to brush her fingers against his back. The touch was tender, as non-intrusive as she could make it. "'As somethin' 'appened, luv?"

[MP]

Aaron stopped at the touch. He didn't look at her. Didn't turn. His silhouette cut a tense outline against the gloom, shoulders set, fingers curled at his sides. But he stopped.

A desperate part of him wanted to tell her. All he wanted was to pull her to him, beg her forgiveness, feel the security of her arms around him and know that she was alright - that the two of them would be alright. And he wanted just as badly to get away. Duck into a quiet room and bury himself in work until he found his composure. She shouldn't see him like this, couldn't acknowledge it, or that would make it real. The two warring impulses were suffocating, and Aaron stood between them, paralyzed.

Sara was waiting for an explanation. She wasn't blind. And he didn't know how to lie. Aaron lowered his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah."

And he hated, hated that he couldn't keep the break out of his voice. Aaron gestured faintly around at the dark, unable to look around. Terrified to see the recognition in her eyes.

"Tonight. It was...it was hard this year."

[tsukikoko]

Even that initial affirmation, the way his voice cracked, was enough to have Sara's expression crumpling into one of deepest, sincerest empathy. It didn't matter the details; for him to have been through it again and, it seemed, remember enough say that it was hard this time, when they were always horrific, was more than beared thinking about.

But, then... Why didn't she remember?

There'd been the pervasive sense of something amiss, her being so desperate to contact Aaron and Casmir both had been proof of that, but she certainly didn't remember anything concrete. Guilt twisted, a sudden knife in between the ribs - had she escaped it this year when he had not?

Did that even matter, though, with her agent distressed in front of her?

Sara moved for him only a few moments after his admission. One hand lay more completely on his back, a steady pressure that rubbed in a slow, soothing motion at the same motion as the shifter made a sound of comfort. Meanwhile her other hand came to settle on the front of his shoulder, as she moved round to Aaron's side; a slight pressure, guiding him towards an embrace she was all too happy to give, should he want it. Her tail curled lightly inwards, as though to encapsulate the pair.

"Christ luv..."
She wanted to hold him, soothe him till the tension drained from his shoulders, him gently till he fell into a restful sleep free from stress and whatever demons had befallen upon him that night. She wanted to make it stop, keep them all safe. But, instead, all she could do now was offer comfort and her closeness.
"I'm sorry."
The words weren't enough, none ever would be, but it was the tone in Sara's voice - a mix of tender, affectionate worry, of sympathy and pain at his suffering, at what he might have endured - that did the talking for her.

[MP]

Finally, at Sara's guiding touch, something gave. Aaron turned into Sara's embrace, mechanically, the movement lost as a child. She really didn't remember. Looked at him like nothing had happened. He was glad...wasn't he? He should have been. But instead, he felt...he wished... As her arms came around him, Aaron couldn't help it. The shaking started again, a full-body tremor that broke over him in waves. He would pull in a breath, have that moment of steadiness, and then the next wave would break over him. Aaron's arms had come around Sara, returning her embrace, but there was a desperation in it. It was  the way a drowning man might cling to driftwood, exhausted, kept afloat only by that stability. He shook his head, his voice hoarse.

"No, they're alright. We got them out."

He wasn't sure who he was trying to reassure. But he felt he had to give Sara something, as if that could explain away his behavior.

"We just - we thought we were alone. We didn't know about - about other teams until -"

His fingers tensed around Sara, remembering the pull of flesh. He couldn't keep his voice steady. Couldn't get that human, bestial wail out of his head. Aaron drew in a trembling breath, a sob threatening in the sound. He was rambling, he knew. And he kept trying to backtrack, to explain away the tremors, only to make it worse. He'd made a choice: to take the sword and - could he have found Sara sooner? Could he have passed her in the maze, or led her out, even at the end?

"It was this hunt. This competition. And it praised me for - like it was a game. Like I'd won this fucking - "

The words were incoherent, breaking as Aaron began to sob in earnest. Maybe that was a mercy, because the rest of his thoughts - the explanation, the apology - died in his throat before they made it to words.

[tsukikoko]

When she realised the desperation inherent within the agent's embrace, Sara moulded her embrace into something warm and all-encompassing, as though she could keep him aloft with her compassion alone. She'd known he'd been stressed, that something was eating away at him that evening, but she hadn't anticipated quite such a breakdown.

On the one hand, though, this could be a release he needed.

Though markedly incoherent, the shifter got enough of Aaron's words to appreciate the horror of what he'd experienced; to think his group were the only ones, only to come across others in... who knew what state? To be pitted against one another, if it was a competition... the very idea alone knotted Sara's stomach enough that, were she not so focused on running her palm along Aaron's back, gently humming sounds in his ear with no other meaning than to soothe, she may well have been nauseated herself.

He was too distraught to comprehend words in that moment, Sara was aware of that. Instead, she trailed her fingers up to carefully thread through his hair, exerted the gentlest of pressures against the back of his head to bring his face towards her shoulder, allow him to hide his face if he needed the darkness. She continued to make sounds without words, intended solely to soothe. Rocked their embraced bodies slowly, rhythmically.

She didn't rush Aaron, didn't try to say she understood or make him explain further (though he most certainly could if the words came to him), or say much of anything, while he was so incoherent.

[MP]

Aaron's sobs were muffled things, suppressed as he tried to stifle them, interspersed by the hitch of his shoulders whenever he failed to hold them back. But he couldn't stop the trembling. Couldn't let Sara go. Even then, he was self-conscious enough to be ashamed of himself. Even then, he was helpless to do anything but follow her lead. At the brush of fingers through his hair, he lowered his face into her shoulder. Breathed in the familiar trace of warmth and lavender and closeness.

He'd taken the sword. He'd cut just there. Felt the slick of muscle and bone.

His flinch was a full body thing. Aaron did let go of her then, extracting himself from the embrace as calmly as he could through the vice closing off his throat. But at least it had shocked the frantic grief out of him. Aaron wiped away the tear tracks, angry at the fresh ones that took their place. He took a minute to collect himself. Looked back at Sara, expression softening, crumpling, a nuanced mix through his muted mannerisms. He smoothed a hand down her arm in quiet thanks. But he couldn't get the words out.

If it hadn't been tonight, if he hadn't known death would be temporary, would end her nightmare sooner, he would never have done it. Could never have hurt her. Why had he asked to remember? Why couldn't he just play it normal? Why did his thoughts sound like an excuse? He liked to think he'd never have done it. But the truth...

The truth was, here or in the nightmare, he would have made the same choice. The circumstances couldn't happen again - the rational part of him knew this. It didn't change his dread. The fact that it was in him to do this, the fact that there was a part of him that agreed with his gut decision...he didn't know how to handle that.

"I -" He hesitated. But he couldn't voice the thing he really wanted to say. He didn't know how.

"I'm going to sit down for a bit."

The apology was audible in his voice, hoarse and faint though it was. There was another tone too. Permission, maybe. You should go up to bed, it said. It's okay. That's what he tried to show her. What he tried to tell himself. It's okay.

   It's okay.

          It's okay.

[tsukikoko]

It was a miracle - or perhaps the strength of her convictions not to stress him further - that Sara didn't react, as though she herself had been shot, to the agent's flinch.

Was there something else, something about the shifter herself, that Aaron wasn't telling her? His reactions seemed tied to her, specifically, but... Christ perhaps it was overtired paranoia talking. Wondering about what-ifs wouldn't help.

Yet they just wouldn't stop swirling in Sara's head.

She watched Aaron carefully in the dark, able to read the basics of his body language but not the nuances or expression in the gloom. The sensitivity of her animal senses would be useful right about now, but she couldn't dwell on that either. Couldn't leave him, even though the apologetic note in his voice seemed to have an undercurrent informing the shifter that she could go to bed.

"Okay." She whispered softly, fingertips reaching out to brush against the hand he'd run down her arm. A fleeting but nonetheless heartfelt touch. "Alreet luv, I'll git ya laptop for ya."
He'd been unpacking it before she interrupted and the sobbing had begun.

"I can make ya a drink," she followed up shortly after, attempting some normalcy to balance out the tumultuous emotions, give her agent chance to recover some. "-if ya reckon ya'll be up a while, like."

[MP]

"Maybe."

He didn't think he could sleep again tonight. Didn't know if he should try to stay awake. The last thing he could think about was a drink. But Sara was only trying to help. His grunt wasn't an acceptable answer, and he regretted it once it was out of his mouth.

"Sar -"

He turned after her, catching her hand. It was an unconscious movement - to stop her leaving or to search for comfort, it was hard to say.

"I'm sorry. I didn't - I don't mean to be..."

Again, he trailed off. His throat clicked as he swallowed. Aaron turned his eyes to the floor, his features stony. But the words when he spoke were almost plaintive.

"Will you come sit? With me?"

[tsukikoko]

The shifter paused even at the mention of her nickname, starting to turn back around just as Aaron caught her hand. She grasped his fingers a little tighter, strengthening the hold he'd initiated, while the stuttered apology was met with an understanding smile and an empathetic creasing of her eyes.

"Eee now luv, ya divvint need tah apologise nowt, like." Sara lifted his arm, placed a soft kiss to the agent's knuckles, then rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb, a repetitive, soothing motion. "'Course I'll sit with ya sweet'eart."

She considered taking the lead over to the sofa, but instead let Aaron move at his own pace whenever he was ready. The plaintive note in his voice wrenched her heartstrings and she could only hope he'd open up to her, or she might find a way to help him.

[MP]

When Aaron crossed the room, it was with with purposeful steps. When he settled across at Sara, it was the same quiet composure with which he might conduct an interview or take a statement. But he was riding on muscle memory and momentum, trapped by his own words. He'd asked her here without meaning to. The words had just slipped out. Maybe a part of him had planned to tell her all along. But now that she was here, staring at him, Aaron didn't know what to say. Part of him wanted to stay silent. He kept his eyes on the floor, breath halting with every aborted thought.

"I -"

He trailed off, almost surprised by his own voice. But now that he'd started, there was no backing out. He braced himself and tried again.

"I saw you there. You were - you'd already been-" His jaw clenched, and he shook his head. He couldn't say it. "Maybe it was another fake. Just - just another way to screw with us. But I couldn't just leave you there. I was armed, and you would've - would've stayed there."

Aaron only just avoided the slip. He had to stop to keep his composure. It would kill Sara to know what she'd done, even unwillingly. She didn't have to know. He focused on steady breaths, and on the warm familiarity of home. It hadn't really happened. They were both still here. Finally, he met her eyes.

"I didn't know what else to do. But Sar, I would - I want you to know that I would never hurt you."

Aaron's voice was earnest, but his eyes were almost pleading. He wanted to take her hand, to reassure. Or apologize. But he was afraid of how she might react. How was she supposed to take that information?

[tsukikoko]

Sara wasn't sure what she'd been expecting the agent to say. Wasn't sure be was going to say anything at all.

But his words, or rather, some of the unspoken implications of the things he couldn't bring himself to say, caused the shifter to fall very, very still. Her tongue felt dry, thick. She could barely swallow.

As she stared unblinkingly back at him, thoughts racing, her fears were perhaps not what Aaron thought them to be.

What had she been? What had she done?

She couldn't recall anything, yet he could. Perhaps she hadn't been there, perhaps it had simply been the machinations of that horrorscape - playing her Agent's fears and memories against him.

Those were the reasoned arguments. But they seemed so pitifully quiet against the hammering of her own heart. The concepts of what she might have been, might have done, to force Aaron's hand.

I would never hurt you.

A thought rose, unbidden, of how she'd seen him that day on the seafront. How his fist had fallen, again and again, into prone body of the vampire who'd assaulted her. That, even then, even with a frightening, deadened expression that had curdled her blood to witness, Aaron had never turned his aggression upon Sara when she'd bodily intervened.

No, she didn't think he'd hurt her.

That thought broke the petrification that had settled upon Sara's body; she blinked, refocused upon the man before her and felt the lines of her face crease into that of concern. She could see, could hear, how badly whatever her partner had experienced was affecting him. The shifter leant forward, unafraid, held her hands out towards him in a silent gesture of acceptance - that he could take them should he wish to.

She did have to take a moment to clear her throat before any words would form, still reeling from the things he'd said.
"That place is designed tah prey on ya," Sara managed to say after another moment or two, her voice slightly raspy. "Cannae even imagine... Christ, what ya must 'ave seen, what it put ya through but-" she swallowed again, inhaled and exhaled slowly to steady her voice.

When next the shifter spoke, she held a stronger, more earnest tone.
"But I don't think ya'd 'urt us luv," a ghost of a smile flickered onto her features, genuine thankfulness finding its way into her voice. "I'm glad an'.. bloody thankful ya'd put yaself through this, tah save us from- well..." Now her gaze flickered away, "-whatever it was, or I'd become, like."

[MP]

His heart squeezed to see the look in her eyes. He shouldn't have told her. Sara was always so quick to put the pieces together, to guess the things he hadn't said. He should never have planted that doubt in her head - about him, about herself. If she'd been spared this year, he should have been happy for her, not bring it out with him. And yet, part of him needed her reassurance, forgiveness, clinging to it as much as to any physical contact.

It was as much apology as acceptance when he took her hands in his. Aaron felt he should offer something more. Reassure her somehow. But the thoughts were too heavy to lift, when anything he said would be a lie. I can't do this, came the ragged thought. That thought didn't make it to words either. But maybe some part of it showed in his eyes. Tonight on top of everything else was just...too much. His fingers curled faintly in hers.

"It was just a dream," he said softly, and lapsed back into silence, still holding her hand.