Nightmares
by Pouncer
He woke up with a start, his breath drawing in sharply. He tried to shake the dream, the nightmare, from his mind, but long experience told him he would not sleep easy again this night. He pushed aside the covers, padding to the bedroom door and down to the kitchen. He filled the kettle and set it on the stove to heat, getting out a mug and a bag of chamomile tea.
"Connor?" His mother always knew when he wasn't sleeping. Some extra maternal sense that he'd long stopped trying to evade. He looked up and smiled ruefully at her.
"I couldn't sleep."
She walked over and pushed his hair away from his face to look into his eyes. "Another nightmare?"
He always told her the dreams, to try and make sense of them. "I was very young. A man, my father - I would have sworn he was my father - was tying me to a tree. He told me I had to find him, had to track him down. The landscape was . . . indescribable, really. All jagged rocks and strange plants and flashing lighting. He left me there, tied up, alone and scared. I couldn't . . ." His breath was quickening from the memory of the terror.
His mother enfolded him in her arms, "Shhhhh, baby, shhhhhhh. It's okay, it never happened. We would never leave you, could never leave you. Not from the moment we found you. You're ours. We'll never let you go." She kissed his forehead, and he looked up at her with the echo of fear in his eyes.
"Do you ever think what would have happened to me if you and Dad hadn't walked down that alley?"
"Connor, that's what gives me nightmares. I can't bear to think of you left there so young and vulnerable." Old ground, long talked over. "What would we do without our top tenth percentile son?" They grinned at each other reflexively.
"I still don't know what I'm going to decide about college."
"So long as it's not Russia, I won't care." Her hand rested on his back, rubbing soothing circles. He relaxed into the familiar sensation, then flinched as the kettle started to whistle. "Let me make your tea?"
"Okay."
"No matter how good your test scores, you need to get some sleep."
"Yeah." He looked out the kitchen window at the stars as she poured the hot water over the tea. "I wonder where these nightmares come from sometimes."
"You just have an active imagination, baby. No wonder it keeps working at night. The tea will calm you down."
She put an arm over his shoulders after she handed him the mug. They stood there together as he drank. "Feeling better now?"
He yawned suddenly. "Feeling sleepy again."
"Come on, I'll walk you back to bed. No nightmare can stand in the face of my power," she teased.
At his door, he turned and grabbed hold of her waist, burying his head in her shoulder. "Mom? I love you."
"I love you too, Connor." She tightened her arms around him fiercely. "Never doubt that. Now go back to sleep, baby."
She stood in the hallway as he went back into his room, standing brief guard against the dread of the night. He knew she'd always be there for him; always hold him when he needed to be comforted. The dreams weren't real. He had his family, and they loved him. No sleep-induced fantasy could stand in the face of that.
Not even the most vivid nightmare was real, after all.