"Zoé" Gwizdo shook her softly on the shoulder where she laid on her bed.
He knew that she had nightmares, one of the first few things she had mentioned after she met him and Lian-Chu. Most nights he woke up to her screaming in her sleep and mumbling incoherent words.
"Zoé, wake up" Gwizdo shook her harder. Her body was sweaty and covered with goosebumps.
"Papa?" She questioned in the softest and most innocent of voices as her eyelids fluttered open revealing her watery teal coloured eyes.
"Hey-" he smiled softly, " it's okay now" he hugged her tightly as she began to cry.
"Papa!" She cried into his chest. He felt bad, but he smiled, he just loved it when she called him that. He thought of her as a daughter. He wanted to protect her and he loved her as his own, but he never thought she would think of him as a father figure. Him? Of all people? He always thought he would be a low-life that would never resort to anything in life, and now he was a father and he couldn't be any happier to call her his own.
"What did you dream about this time?" He asks as she pulls away from him, giving him the chance to wipe away her fallen tears with his thick calloused hands. From working on the farm all day, his hands permanently got callouses and always looked dirty no matter how many times he washed them.
She hiccups through her tears and gasps for air before speaking, "that night when you went all crazy and were talking with your hands-" she pauses and looks him in the eyes. For the first time in a long time, she looked scared of him. "When you threatened to strangle me" she traces her neck softly in a protective manner as if she was imagining him actually doing it. He didn't remember much about that night. He knew he had said something completely insane to her and had thought he had actually done something to her when he looked down at his hands, all the memories were just mixed up in his head he couldn't make up what was reality or fiction about what had happened that night. He sometimes had nightmares of his own about that night and the images were so vivid he often woke up thinking he had actually strangled Zoé. He knew that he wasn't himself that night and that he would never hurt Zoé.
"You know I'd never hurt you, right?" Her eyes showed her doubt, but she nodded anyhow.
"I'm sorry I did that. I never want to scare you or hurt you. I don't want you to be scared of me" he hugs her tightly, and rubs her bright blonde head of hair comfortingly. "I wasn't myself that night and I swear it will never happen again." She stops crying and nods her head against his chest. She always seemed like a braves girl and wasn't easily scared especially with all the violent books she loved to read, but that night must have really shooken her up.
"Alright, now get some sleep"
"Okay. Goodnight papa, I love you."
"I love you too, kid" he tucks her under a blanket that Lian-Chu knitted for her then kisses her on the forehead as she closes her eyes.
He closes the door of her bedroom, the biggest room in the house, behind him. He walks down the hallway past the only bathroom in the house then walks into his room. Next to his room was Hector's and then at the very end of the hallway, right next to the top of the stairs was Lian-Chu's room. Gwizdo could hear his snoring from his room with the door closed.