Hypnagogic state.
Noun.
Defined as "the drowsy period between wakefulness and sleep, during which fantasies and hallucinations occur."
Her worst habit was waking up in the middle of the night, for what seemed like no reason. Only, it wasn't waking up. Not really. She would never be completely conscious. It was like looking through a haze, what she imagined being high felt like. Olivia would see things. She knew, even in the moments that it would that what she saw wasn't real, like an awakened form of lucid dreaming. The cruelest form. Her mind would trick her into seeing what she wanted most in the world.
Always him.
It was so hard to see him, but she never doubted who she was being made to see. It wasn't like the dream of him took on some different light. He lay, backlit, illuminated by the city lights that shone through her window. In that brand of darkness, he was only ever all shadow and hard angle.
The mass of him would be defined by a broad shoulder that remained uncovered, arm draped over the comforter that fell over his waist. The dark ink of his tattoo blending in with his shaded skin.
He was never facing her, but rather, the window. That seemed fitting somehow. Like it was how he would make his great escape back to wherever he really was in the morning when real lucidity took her over. She wanted so much to reach out, to brush her hand against his back to prove to herself that she had to let him go, that he wasn't really a tangible being. Not to her, anyway.
Instead, Olivia would roll over onto her other side and reach for her alarm clock, calculating the hours she had left before she would need to be up to face another day, another case, and the same, untouchable man across the desk.
3:00
She'd would have time. Not to be rested, never, but to at least fall back into a complete sleep and wipe the image of him in her bed out of her thoughts. She'd pull the blanket that her mind had them sharing up over her shoulders, and just soon as she'd been woken, she would drift off again.
And just as with most nights, Elliot would patiently wait for her to fall back in that sleep.
He would wake up when he felt her stir and lay, unmoving, with his eyes towards the window, counting her breaths, listening for their telltale slowing. He would always know that this was coming when she'd push away from him in her sleep. He'd just turn over and watch the lights. This was something her mind would have to wrestle without him.
She wasn't used to this yet. He wasn't either, but he trusted it more than she did. Olivia wasn't used to stability and as much as she would deny it, seemed to always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. That would go away, he figured, when she was certain that he wouldn't. Taking these hazy awakenings along with it.
She would wake tomorrow to an empty bed. And her heart would drop without meaning to, confirming that he was just a dream she had. That is, until he'd bring her coffee in. He'd never dare admit it, but he would get up before the alarm just so he could do that. Just to surprise her. Just to make her smile.
Just to watch her face light up with the morning when she remembered that the man across the desk was hers.