Warning: OC death. Violence. Blood. Angst.

He wakes up panting, not screaming, but close to it. The tension flying through him is a physical thing, pulsing just under his skin, racing through his bloodstream and pounding in his chest, his ears, his hands.

Evan jerks himself out of bed and walks slowly, steadily, to the bathroom. He won't give in to this. He won't give the demons in his head the dignity of running away from the darkness. The door slides open for him with a thought, the lights coming on dimly as he makes his way through the room, until he falls to his knees in front of the toilet and empties his stomach.

The calm in him breaks and he shudders violently, gripping the sides of the bowl with both hands as he heaves again. There's nothing left in his stomach but the muscles still clench, and he still leans over, spitting and feeling the tears run down his face. He gasps for air as he leans back.

Cool hands press to his forehead and he turns away, towards the wall. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You should have," David says. He's wearing a pair of loose sweatpants but no shirt, and as he pulls Evan's head to his chest, Evan stills, listening to his heartbeat. They sit like that as time stretches out, neither speaking. David's hand is running in smooth lines up and down his arm, and Evan slowly relaxes into him, curling slightly on the floor.

David is the one to break the silence. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Evan tenses up again and closes his eyes. It doesn't help; it probably makes things worse. He can see the images flashing across the back of his eyelids blood screaming so much blood and he feels his stomach roll. He pulls away, leaning forward, but he forces his stomach to settle after a moment.

"No," he says. "Yes."

David knows better than to ask, to push. He simply pulls Evan back and he falls, limp.

"I killed a kid," he says finally, and David's hands don't stop moving in their slow lines, don't change at all. "He was young. Eight, nine years old."

"What happened?" David's voice is concerned, but he doesn't sound horrified, doesn't sound like he wants to throw Evan to the floor and back away from him.

"He was playing near the town we visited today." Evan has to take a break, has to steel himself for the onslaught of images that fly through his head. David waits.

"The Wraith came," he continues after a moment. "Culled almost the whole village. Set it on fire." He swallows. "We only found seven people alive, after."

"The boy was one of them?" David asks a minute later. Evan knows David is just giving him a line, something to hold on to. If the boy had already been dead…

"Yeah," he says roughly. "His whole family was gone. Not culled – killed. He…" Evan's voice trailed off. "He was okay because he heard the darts coming, hid near the stream where he was playing. His family was in their house, and the Wraith…"

Evan shifts away and empties his stomach again, coming down after a few moments. He's seen terrible things, awful things before; he's spent his entire adult life in the military. Today had been a different kind of horrifying.

"I think the father tried to fight," he says softly. "He was – his head was on the table. The mother had been sucked dry. There was a little girl." His voice is quiet, full of dread as the scene replays for him, his own private theatre of horror. One of the curses of his artistic mind, he thinks abstractly, is his ability to recall scenes in vivid color, excruciating detail. "Four, five years old. She…"

"Evan, if you can't, don't force yourself," David says gently. Evan shakes his head. He has to get it out now, has to let it free, or it will eat him from the inside out.

"She was pinned to the floor," he says roughly. "Spike through her chest. And a baby, floating in the wash basin."

"Jesus," David swears. His hands are still running their gentle track up and down Evan's arms.

Evan snorts. "Jesus was nowhere near that planet today."

There's another pause now, as Evan thinks back to the boy. "He came back to the village," Evan recounts. "He walked into this house, he saw it all, everything. His parents, his sisters."

He doesn't realize the tears have welled up in his eyes until they start to fall. He doesn't stop them. "He came out screaming, blood everywhere. Janes went into the house, saw what the kid saw, lost his lunch." Evan swipes at his face now. "The kid… he just lost it."

"What happened?" David gently encourages.

Evan trembles a little. "He had a knife," he recalls, staring at the wall and seeing it again in slow motion. "I don't know where he got it, but suddenly he was holding this knife, and he was screaming and running at Janes. And Janes just – froze, I guess, I don't know, but he didn't try to stop the kid. The kid got close, stabbed him here." Evan reaches a hand to his abdomen. "Got him in the kidney. Pulled the knife out, pulled back to stab him again. I shot him."

David still doesn't comment, just sits behind and around him, a strong, presence for Evan to fall apart on.

"I shot him," Evan repeats, and his shiver is more pronounced. "Right through the head. Killed him. He stopped screaming and he fell, and it was like I could hear him die."

"He stabbed your teammate," David points out.

"I killed a child," Evan says harshly, and the words make the bile rise again. He twists away from David, heaving and crying and David's still there, pressing a cool washcloth to the back of his neck, drawing him back down, making soothing noises into his hair.

"I killed a kid," he says again, and this time he's terrified. "What kind of monster does that make me?"

"You saved Janes," David says. "You had to do it. That boy would've killed Janes, and probably Martins and Volsky and you, too. He would've killed himself, eventually."

"He didn't have to," Evan says, but the fight is gone now, replaced by exhaustion that has less to do with the time and more with the bone-searing weariness of knowing that David is right. "We would have – he could have…"

"You're always talking about choice," David says after a moment's thought. "How we all choose our own way, chose to be here, make decisions every day that affect us and everyone around us." He waits until Evan nods against his chest. "That boy made a choice today, and his actions forced you to make a choice. You chose right, Evan."

Evan isn't so sure. "I killed a kid."

"You have to live with your choice," David says softly, and his voice is full of pain and regret and Evan realizes with a jolt that those feeling are for him. "It's going to hurt, and it's going to haunt you for a while, but it's going to get easier."

Evan closes his eyes. "I'm not sure I want it to get easier."

"But it will."

They sit for a while longer on the floor, until Evan finally rises to brush his teeth. David stands behind him, silently supportive, and they walk back to bed together. Evan crawls into David's side and David turns, wrapping his arms tightly around Evan, and they lay together, neither falling back to sleep. Evan thinks that maybe, if he stays still enough and keeps David's arms there, the monster that's inside him will stay locked away, and in the light of the morning, he'll be able to rise and move on with his life.

Maybe.