Nightmare's Comfort

By: Riley

Summary - -Deleted Scene from It's The Rush That You Get.- Mrs. Knight is woken up when Sydney has a nightmare. She wonders if something is going on with him. (This is between chapters 16 and 17 of ITRTYG).

Mrs. Knight's eyes shot open when she heard a loud scream.

She sat in her bed for a moment, wonder if she actually had heard the scream or not. Was it part of her imagination? Or was something trying to warn her? In the bed across the room, Katie stirred and sat up, rubbing at her eyes. She looked over at the clock before looking over at her mothers' bed.

"Mom?" she asked quietly.

"I'm sure it was nothing," Mrs. Knight replied. But just the same, she couldn't help but be worried. That scream sounded too real…too filled with fear to be something that she had just imagined. She hadn't heard a scream like that since the boys were young and Carlos had a nightmare about being eaten alive by sharks. No, there was no way that it was fake. Mrs. Knight swung her legs to the floor, pulling off the covers. "I'll just go check to see if the boys are ok."

"I'm coming too," Katie said as she sprang out of her bed. "There's no way that I can go back to sleep after that."

Mrs. Knight and Katie pulled on their robes before they left their room. They walked down the short hallway towards the sitting area of the apartment. As they approached, Mrs. Knight could hear some whimpering, sniffling, and harsh whispers. Her eyebrows lowered in confusion, it didn't sound like the TV was on. She was sure that everything was off and that everyone was asleep before she had locked the door to the apartment and had gone to bed.

"Mom!"

Katie let out a quiet yelp as she jumped and turned to see Kendall, Logan, Carlos, and James had come up behind them. She glared as she placed her hands on her hips, obviously having been scared by them as they had been so quiet coming out of their rooms.

Mrs. Knight placed a hand to her heart as it started to thud even faster in her chest. It had already been beating hard because of the scream, but now her nerves were shot. She didn't know what was going on and that unsettled her more than the worst case scenario could have been.

"What's going on?" Kendall asked his voice thick with tiredness.

"I'm going to figure that out," Mrs. Knight replied. She turned on her heel and hurried into the sitting area of the apartment.

She looked around for a moment and then noticed three figures in the middle of the room. She felt fear jump into her throat for a second, and then relaxed when she remembered that Patrick, Noah, and Sydney were sleeping over at the apartment that night. Things had been good throughout the day, although there was something a little worrying about it. The boys and Katie had done everything they could to make Patrick, Noah, and Sydney feel comfortable, but they still didn't say much if anything at all the whole night. They didn't seem to want to do much to upset anyone else either. Patrick continuously offered to help her with the dishes or to clean up the mess they had made, Noah was as polite as ever, making sure to say 'please and thank you' and 'yes ma'am' and 'no, ma'am' whenever she asked a question. Sydney just watched everyone, making sure they didn't go out of his sight, as if expecting to be hit by something. Then when it was time to sleep Patrick, Noah, and Sydney had decided that they would sleep on the pull-out couch, not to put out anyone from their beds.

Mrs. Knight's worrying had ended there, but it obviously wasn't the last of the problems.

She scanned the room and sighed when she spotted Sydney sitting on the floor of the apartment; wrapped up in a blanket. His lower lip was trembling, tears were rolling down his cheeks, and his eyes were wide as they darted around the room. Not knowing that the others were watching them, Patrick and Noah were standing over Sydney, doing everything they could think of to comfort their little brother, trying to keep him quiet.

"What happened?" Mrs. Knight asked, walking over to the three young boys. "What's wrong?"

Patrick looked up and as his face was illuminated in the light for the digital clock that was on the oven door, she could see that his face was white. She then looked over at Noah and watched as he ran his hands through his hair, looking as worried as his brothers were.

"Uh," Patrick looked over at Noah and then down at Sydney before looking at Mrs. Knight, Katie, and the boys. "It's nothing," he said quickly. He forced a shaky smile. "Syd just had a nightmare." He gave a nervous laugh. "You know that happens a lot at his age." He waved his hands. "Everything's fine, go back to sleep. Sorry we woke you up."

It was the most convincing thing he had said in a while. In fact, Noah had already wiped Sydney's tears from his cheeks and picked him up, putting him back on the pull-out couch. Sydney's whimpers had subsided and now he was looking at Mrs. Knight, Katie, and the boys as if he had never seen them before in his entire life.

"If you're sure, sweetie," Mrs. Knight said slowly.

"We are," Patrick said and behind him, Noah nodded. "Again, sorry for waking you up. Sorry for making you worry."

"It's alright," Mrs. Knight held up a hand. She walked over to Sydney and gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead, noticing that he was trembling. "Sweet dream, Sydney. Feel better in the morning, honey." Sydney lowered his gaze as he nodded.

She then turned to look at the boys and Katie, she could tell that no matter what Patrick told them, they were still going to be up for a while, worrying about their friend. She ushered them back t their rooms before following them. Mrs. Knight tried to convince herself that it was just that, a nightmare that all ten year old's had. But it didn't make much sense. He was ten years old and should be able to sleep perfectly fine, but he wasn't a normal ten year old. He was what people would call a child star and then he had a father that pushed him as hard as he possibly could to keep up with his brothers and sisters, who were five year and seven years older than him. It would explain why he acted more like an adult most of the time.

Mrs. Knight, deep down, knew that there was something else wrong. You didn't scream like that from a nightmare, it was a scream as if he was being hurt, being completely terrified. But she pushed the thought away as she went back to sleep. Her maternal instincs were telling her that something was off; but she pushed the thought away as she drifted off to sleep.

It didn't come back again until the next morning when Riley and Rhuben had arrived to pick them up, Sydney latched himself to their side and wouldn't let go.

THE END

A/N: So this is the first of the few deleted scenes that I've had from It's The Rush That You Get. I hope you liked it.

Cheers,

-Riles