It was the pressure on her abdomen that pulled Meryl out of a sound sleep. Not the jostling or groaning her partner was doing next to her. His fist was locked in a clutch to her t-shirt. From the way his arm felt when she touched it, she knew the rest of him was drenched in sweat as well.
"Dave," she half-consciously reached behind her and pushed back on his hip, "You're having another nightmare, hon. Wake up."
That was usually all it took. A firm push somewhere on his body and it usually snapped him right out of them. The nightmares had become so often in the past few months, though, that she had learned to deliver the usual wake up procedure even while she was still sleeping.
His grip around her midsection pulled a notch tighter and his movements became more violent. Worried, she maneuvered her frame out of his grasp.
"Meryl..." he called for her on cue but it was a coincidence. He wasn't calling for her in the real world. She slapped him lightly on his cheeks but his head just rolled back and forth between her hands.
"Dave, you have to wake up for me, okay?"
"I'm sorry, Meryl..."
She hadn't heard him use that combination of words and tone in almost two years. She knew exactly where he was.
"It's okay. I'm right here, but you've gotta wake up, now..."
"I let him hurt you...I'm sorry."
"No one's hurting me."
She shook his shoulders hard until he finally jolted upright as if he had been unwillingly submerged under water. His deep, gasping breaths calmed down when he saw Meryl's face, twisted between worried and relieved, and he let his body fall back into his elbows.
"They're getting worse", she said, "more violent."
"Did I hurt you?"
"No." She caressed his face and kissed his lips lightly. Her hands rushed a sudden chill to his face and his body slightly tensed from the contact. "That doesn't make it any less serious. You were back at Shadow Moses, weren't you?"
He didn't want to talk and that was something he had expressed to her before. He was tired of talking about not wanting to talk, actually. Meryl's words were now, more or less, demands wrapped in the guise of a harmless question.
"I'm going downstairs." He declared. It wasn't an invite, but he knew she'd follow him.
Shadow Moses Island. The name alone brought back memories. Different ones for both Dave and Meryl, but about the same ratio of good to bad. It was there that they had found each other. And even under the circumstances, neither one of them ever regretted that part of it. He had saved her life and she gave him a reason to start living his.
The bad was overwhelming for him. Meryl sometimes thought about it, but she never allowed herself to relieve it the way he did. She had witnessed his lows, fueled by whatever dark things had come from that and past events he wouldn't talk about.
She watched him from her side of the sofa. To her, his handsomeness was only rivaled by his sometimes brooding nature. The cushion and pillow between them felt like a dark mile that neither one of them wanted to walk.
"I just don't understand why you won't talk to me."
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Are you afraid you'll say something that'll make me look at you differently? I was at Shadow Moses, remember? I know what went on. I saw what happened. There isn't a whole lot you can say to scare me away."
Dave poured the contents from a bottle into a clear glass sitting in front of him on the table. He half-heartedly offered Meryl the bottle and she shook her head in disgust.
"At this hour? Is that your solution to everything?"
"It is today."
"That stuff smells like it could peel paint."
"I'm sure that's one of its many uses."
"You're a sad man," she scoffed, "I'm going back to bed."
Dave caught her arm she stomped past him and pulled her into his lap. Before she could react, she felt his arms lock around her waist like a safety bar on a fair ride.
"You're right," he admitted to her, "and I'm a jerk."
"Yeah."
"I'm an ass."
"Yeah."
"And I know you hate me right now."
She sighed heavily at her defeat and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Unfortunately, I don't. I could never hate you. Sometimes, I think I care too much, actually. But, you're still a jerk."
He smiled and waited for the kiss in her eyes to reach his lips.
"I'll take that."