Disclaimer: Don't own them. Don't even remember them that much! But it was a good show. So, I'm just playing with them.
Chapter 1
Nick sat bolt upright in his bed. Sweat glistening in his forehead, eyes distant and unfocused. The scream that Nick could still hear in his mind, awoke Derek and Alex, too. He knew what was coming...They burst thru his bedroom door, not bothering with pleasantries as knocking before entering. Derek approached Nick from his right side. Slowly. Gently, so as not to startle him. Nick was still screaming in their minds. Dereck's touch, in his shoulder, awoke Nick from his stupor and Alex felt free to turn on the lights.
"Oh God Nick. This can't go on."
"You're telling me?" Nick said, sitting by the side of the bed. Away from Derek's touch. Hands massaging his temples, willing the old headache away, trying to get himself to the here and now. "I was the one that sent the rover, himself and Alex, might I remind you, down the river bank for a kid who wasn't even there."
"For some reason I'm not capable of touching your thoughts..." Derek said, walking around the bed and taking a seat in the bed, again by his right side, Alex took the cue and sat on the other side of Nick, rubbing his shoulder blades, trying to ease the stress away, at the same time that her eyes took on a shade of emptiness. "You're always very secluded. But in this case..." She stopped and forced him to look at her. "In this case you raised walls the size of castles"
"I'm sorry" Nick, still looking in her very, very dark eyes, took her right hand away from his face. "I'm sure it was not that traumatic. I mean... I just imagined something that wasn't there" Old Nick, always downplaying himself. At Derek's disbelieving look, and at Alex's gasp of surprise at his words, Nick knew he just couldn't drown them in his own misadventure. They had work to do, people to help, people to save, even. No time for a sleepless Nick. "Look, you know that. I must have fallen asleep at the wheel and this is my way of punishing myself for almost killing Alex."
"You know better. You know what we do, day in and day out. And you know you don't fall asleep at the wheel." Nick, that was looking at Derek, just shrugged his shoulders, dismissive of another sleepless night. And perhaps of their attention, too. It was his mess. It was his job to get around his nightmares.
"And you didn't «almost» kill me. I remind you that the river bank was not that steep, and the rover stopped short of taking us for a night swim, in our day clothes..."
"Funny, Alex. Really funny..." At this, his words and the tone he used, stroke some chord in her mind, and she knew that there was something she had to remember. She took her hand away and raised herself off the bed. "The thing is...I don't know..." She stood closer to the window, looking away, into the moonless night. "It looks different" She concluded, turning away from the chilly night outside and looking at Derek, willing him to go where she was going.
"Something about this dream was different, wasn't it?" Derek got his eyes away from Alex and looked at Nick.
"This time the kid looked at you" Alex blurted out. Almost a whisper, without thinking.
"Yes" Derek stood, too, and started walking up to the window, standing by Alex. "I think you're right Alex. The kid didn't do that yesterday, or the first night!" He stopped and turned to look at Nick, commanding his full attention. "What do you remember of your dream, today? Just give us all the details while they are still fresh in your mind."
"Come on... The way you are talking it's like you lived this dream with me!" Nick tried to go back to his old self resilient ex-special forces kind of guy but at Derek's stern look he just had to cave in. They were worried for him. He had to lay their worries to rest. Even if it meant facing his nightmares...again. The way he left his shoulders sag must have been some kind of signal because Derek continued "I want you to close your eyes and to be back in that dream and in that rover."