In Your Head
If you had a bad dream
I would jump inside it
And I would fight for you with all the strength that I could find
I would lead you home
By your tiny hand
If you were mine
If you were mine
– If You Were Mine, Fernando Ortega
"Daddy?"
Small fingers were patting at his hair, and experience had taught him that they weren't shy about pulling in the middle of the night. Vincent opened his eyes and blinked at the blur of blue-and-white cotton trains hopping at the side of the bed, accompanied by the agitated talking-whispers of a seven year-old who, more than the benefits of an eight-hour sleep, needed the reassurance that the night world was truly as safe and real as the day one.
"Dad, I had a bad dream."
He half-expected to hear Tifa stir beside him, alerted into wakefulness by the fear in her flesh-and-blood's voice. But she continued sleeping, her body seemingly too aware of the approach of seven a.m. to be bothered out of dreamland for much above the house burning down.
Vincent dragged his legs to the side of the bed and sat up, buying a moment to pull his mind together. The old Turk tricks were wearing off. Some mornings, he could feel the years behind him like a long, littered highway.
"Quietly, Jordan." He stood in the darkness and tugged at the tiny sleeve until those small fingers were fidgeting in his own. "Back to bed."
They stepped silently into the hallway, the carpet a still-life of shadows and pale light as the moon peered through the kitchen window. Jordan trotted along obediently to his father's longer strides, now obviously dangling two floppy stuffed animals from the crook of his elbow.
The bed was still warm, and Jordan needed little urging to clamber back under the blankets. Vincent touched the small, hidden feet a moment before settling on the edge of the mattress. Jordan reached out an insistent hand again for his father to take.
"You staying 'til I fall asleep?"
"If you want." He stifled a yawn, recalling nights with not-quite envy when he had watched the sun set, and then watched it rise again without his head hitting a pillow.
"Yeah, stay here." The boy gave a sudden heavy sigh – young, budding consternation for a world he was still discovering boundaries to. "It was just the same dream as before. I wish I could stop dreaming it."
Unresolved fear Vincent knew about. Also unresolved grudges and guilts – but Jordan was too young yet to know about those. "You won't dream it forever."
"I guess." He was squirming, itchy and restless and tired. Sometimes his seven year-old brain wouldn't shut off for anyone. "Do you have bad dreams?"
Not so much anymore. "Everyone does."
"What do you dream about?"
"Things that will give you more bad dreams. Go to sleep."
But now that Jordan had him, he wasn't going to let him go that easily. "Like monsters? Like dead people walking around? Like gross pus, blood, puke … "
"Like leaving the room and going back to bed so that you'll go to sleep?"
Jordan only laughed, dark hair floating against the white of his pillow as he shook his head. Stocky build already, small and thick and brown with an impishly chubby face and mismatched eyes. "That's only a bad dream for me. Your bad dreams are about Mom yelling at you."
Vincent couldn't help a small chuckle. Clever little urchin.
"In my dream, Mom always dies. Sometimes I get scared that it's really going to happen."
"Your mother isn't going to die for a long time," Vincent reassured him, and only realized after a moment that he hadn't been looking Jordan in the eye. It was just the darkness, he told himself promptly. Just the darkness making evil things seem possible.
"But what if she has an accident, or someone kills her?"
"That isn't going to …" But it was a false comfort, and Jordan was really getting too old for parental patronization. "That isn't something we can control."
Or maybe it was because he had noticed, finally started noticing the tiny signs that Tifa …
"So it might happen?"
Tifa was getting older. So much faster than he ever would have wished.
"It might. But that's why … "
"That's why you're here," Jordan said with sudden confidence. "To protect us. Right?"
It wasn't what he had been about to say. But it was both too late, and too early for a conversation as bottomless as this one. "Right."
"You're a good protector, Daddy. Like … like you could chop bad people up with your metal arm."
"Good night, Jordan."
"Like ninjas."
"Good night, Jordan." He stood from the bed to make his point.
"No, no," Jordan protested hastily. "Don't go. I'm going to sleep."
"All right." He sat down again, trying not to indulge in too many fantasies about his side of the bed – warm, with Tifa huddled up against him like a drawing, inexorable shield against insomnia. "No more talking."
"Okay." Jordan twitched a little with a yawn and pulled his fingers out of the shelter of Vincent's hand so that he could roll over. Bad dream pushed into the background, and Vincent really did feel like a protector at that moment. With Jordan's trust, he had admitted long ago, there was very little he wouldn't try to be.
"Good night, Dad. Love you."
"Love you, too." He touched the blankets, as if they needed adjusting. It was an excuse to brush the hair from that warm, still baby-soft forehead.
Three minutes later, Vincent was climbing back under his own blankets and curling carefully up behind Tifa – thirty-two year-old Tifa – and letting the happy mystery of comfort wrapped in touch and smell and the weight of familiarity lull him back to sleep.
Some things needed thought. But not until daylight.