"Come on!"

"No."

"Pleeeease?"

"No!"

"With cream and sugah on-"

"NO," Niner yelled and fell back on the bed with a loud groan. He had been happy to come back on board the Justice. Nice hot shower, food with some echo of taste to it, a soft bed to sleep in for a few hours...paradise for a Commando on a four month long deployment.

And his mood was bumped up to estatic when Thyme came running into the hanger. Her eyes had been wild and bright with joy as she threw her arms around him,and kissed him soundly in front of the whole hanger. The looks on his squad's face were comical. Then they'd all laughed and Corr told him it was about time he got off the shelf.

The same woman came over and plunked herself down on top of him, tail wagging slowly and brushing the skin on his leg.

"Not on accident either," he grumbled to himself.

"It'll be...in-teres-ting," she said and Niner raised an eyebrow at her.

"I don't want you to make me act like a dog or a monkey when I don't know it," he said and rolled his eyes at her sudden innocent look.

"Niner! Why would I ever do something so cruel to you!"

"It's hypnosis," he emphasized,"THAT'S my first clue!"

Thyme crawled closer to him as he rubbed his face. He had been out on the field for quite a few months, true. And he almost never got any sleep then, it reflected in his face. Slightly red eyes where it should have been white, black bags under his eyes...his eyes kept shutting slowly wanting to go to sleep.

But he fought against it.

NINER fought against going to SLEEP.

Niner always wanted to sleep when he came back from deployment, whenever it was. It was the first thing he ever did.

It was his second night back...and he still wouldn't let himself fall easily.

"Are you still being bothered," she asked worriedly, laying her head on his shoulder,"with nightmares?"

She could never tell when he was. Either she was asleep or else when she was looking very hard to find any tell tale sign of him being disturbed by them, all he did was lay still. No twitch, murmur, not even a whimper came from him to tell her.

"Yes," he mumbled, shutting his sore eyes. Nightmare after nightmare...it was taking precious sleep time away from him. A dangerous thing. Commandos already had enough lack of sleep...

But Niner couldn't help it. He had finally gotten his hands on the report of River's last mission. Now it haunted him in his dreams and behind his eyes. He had seen people fall to their death, good and bad. He knew the looks on their faces as they fell. Wide eyed and fearful with their mouths wide open and screaming the most horrible sound imaginable before it was abruptly cut off by either water or rocks. In River's case...it was rocks. They had pictures in the file of her broken bleeding body. Skin had been scraped off and a sharp one pierced through her throat, one of her palms, and her lower back. He could barely recognize her face. But what scared him the most was the bruise on her face, almost her whole upper face. It meant she had lived for a little bit after the fall. Just enough time for the bruise to become swollen a little.

Niner shook his head violently. Well, tried to. He ended up banging Thyme's head with his hard, making her fall back with a groan and nursing where he'd hit. He squawked and turned to face her, grabbing her face. A small red mark had appeared on her forehead. He apologized, asking if there was anything she needed to help if her head was aching.

"Yes," she groaned," in the little drawer. There's a little chrono-"

"THYME!"

The Cathar hmphed at him and sat up with a grin,"So close..."

"Not even," Niner growled and crawled back into bed again. He should've known. She was made out of tougher stuff so she wouldn't be phased by a small Keldabe Kiss.

She pulled his face back to hers,"Pleeeease, my love? It'll be neat to try! I'll even teach you so you can try it on me if you let me!"

The male clone squinted at her for a long while before letting out an exasperated breath, plopping his cheek against her breast. Thyme leaned back instinctively into her favorite position. She loved it when he just lay against her, close to her heart. It felt so intimate to her, she smiled every time he did it.

He let out another, softer, sigh and barely opened his eyes to mumble,"Fine. Lets try your little trick."

Thyme almost squealed as she wiggled out from under him to rush to one of the drawers in her room. A small golden chrono was in her hand when she came back onto the bed. She bit her lip in excitement, glancing at him to make sure that he was actually looking, and gently tapped it so it started to swing in a slow steady pace.

Niner kept his eyes on it, diligently following each swing back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Soon, almost everything seemed to stop existing except for the chrono and its next swing. All noises melted away besides the quiet ticking from inside the little chrono

Tick

Tock

Tick

Tock

Tick

Unknowingly, Thyme had started to talk to him.

"You are getting...very...sleep-y," she crooned. He had to shut his eyes for a second to stop the sudden insistent burning in them.

"When I snap my fingers," she whispered,"You will go to sleep...and when I snap them again...you will be whatever I say you to be."

Niner bobbed his head distractedly, his hazy eyes completely focused on the small golden watch. Thyme raised her hand. And gently snapped her fingers. The sound echoed into his ears, the vibrations moved the air around him gently and darkness, almost immediate, came over him.

The commando fell like a stone into her lap.

The Cathar smiled happily. Her little trap worked like a charm.

"No nightmares for you tonight, my love," she breathed quietly, putting a pillow on her lap so that Niner's head could rest comfortably there.

He really was out like a light. He didn't even flinch when she touched and pulled him. Usually, he'd be up with the pistol he always carried with him aimed at her face. She never blamed him even if he sometimes did. He was trained to treat everything as a threat and neutralize it as fast as he could so that he could stay alive and come back to her.

She bit her lip. The thought of him under her power...to do whatever she wanted was...it felt...she didn't even know. She ran her hand through his dark curled hair.

"Niner," she said,"look at me."

She snapped and his dark eyes opened up and fastened onto her face. Wide, dark, and hazy. She smiled and ran her fingers through his hair again.

"Say you love me," she murmured timidly. He blinked up at her for a long while. For a moment, she thought that even under hypnosis she;d never hear those three big words pass his-

"I love you," he murmured, the breath like a forbidden sigh in the night that made Thyme's heart ache. She brushed his cheek.

"Say it again," she pleaded.

"I love you," he said again, this time with him brushing her cheek back. She took kisses, had him say whatever she wanted over and over as many times as she wanted. But it was wrong. The look in his eyes ate at her and practically screamed that what she was doing was wrong.

His eyes usually had a slight sparkle in the hidden depths if you knew just where to look. But now, under the spell, they were shadowed with grey like a midnight filled with clouds. She couldn't see any hint of the warm stars in his eyes.

It wasn't him. It was just his body speaking, just his lips moving with no real meaning behind his words. His lips kissing her with no real love in them. She brushed his cheek a little harder. He reacted slightly, with his eyes fluttering closed and opening up once again when she took her hand away. She smiled tightly and breathed to him:

"Go back to sleep, m'love."

He did. He bobbed his head in that distracted way and curled back up with his head in her lap, falling to sleep instantly.

"Peace be in your dreams, cyar'ika," she murmured to him, placing a kiss to his cheek. She curled her arms around him and simply held him as he slept.

Author's Note:

Little Niner loving there and a response to AL0LT0 challenge on hypnosis. And "sugah" is just the way Thyme talks...she also rolls her Rs slightly.

Everyone except Thyme and River belong to Karen Travis's Republic Commando

Cyar'ika - Sweetheart, beloved, etc. Used from lovers to children to pets.

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