Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to any of the characters from Moonlight. I just had to satisfy my inner muse and play in their world a bit.

Thoughts of Dreams

Still rattled by the dream, Beth rushed through her morning routine, quickly getting out of the apartment, into her car and away from Josh. She knew he cared, but he wouldn't stop looking at her with his 'you know I'm right' look since he suggested she should talk to someone about 'it'. What 'it' he was referring to could be either her attack the previous week, her kidnapping as a child or even the dreams she was now having. It didn't matter, she was tired of talking to people about 'it'.

As a child, she had been forced to 'see people' to talk about the kidnapping. She had talked, but whenever she had mentioned anything about the man who had saved her it was waved off as unimportant. No one seemed to realize that because of him she felt safe; she wasn't fearful of things as the adults around her seemed to think she should be. She grew up never fearing that the woman would come back. Adults seemed to think that this was some sort of protective mechanism to hide an even worse experience than they expected.

Granted, she didn't realize this at the time. Beth only realized why her parents had sent her to so many psychologists throughout her life much later. They never talked about it directly, but this feared trauma had to have been the reason.

When she was attacked by the suspect's teaching assistant last week, Mick had rescued her. She again felt safe. The danger was over and past, so there was nothing to fear. Josh, though, fell right into what her parents had done and tried insisting she see someone. Beth knew she didn't need to talk, knew that she was ok, even tried to explain it to Josh, but he continued giving her concerned glances with an occasional attempt to resurrect the idea that she should see a counselor or some such.

It was for exactly that reason that she hadn't spent the night with him in since then. She woke that first night practically able to smell the smoke from the fire when she was rescued as a child, the light sheen of sweat proof that she had reacted to the nightmare. If she had one while sleeping with Josh, who knew what he would try to convince her to do.

Beth understood the desire to protect those you loved, but what Josh did, while subtle, was unwarranted. Josh put up the pretense that he thought she could handle herself, but the worried glances, the comments, they were all little messages that told her it was just that - pretense. He thought her fragile which was something that she found to be almost infuriating.

Then there was his response this morning when he admitted that she had said Mick's name in her sleep. He hadn't wanted to tell her what she had said, that was obvious. When he finally did, though, the unease and jealousy were quite blatant. She barely knew Mick. As Josh himself said, it was understandable that if she were dreaming of her past she would put Mick's face to her rescuer since she hadn't ever been able to remember it. She would have hoped, though, that her boyfriend would be able to laugh or joke at some level about it. But no, Josh was serious - far too serious - with his silent rebuke. He felt threatened by the PI for no other reason than because the man was her friend.

Having long since arrived at her destination - the office, just where she had said she would go - Beth sighed in frustration as she softly hit her head against the steering wheel. She loved Josh, she really did on so many levels, but would she be able to handle this attitude? Would it get worse with time - they had been together for almost a year and it was just now coming to the surface - or would it get better?

Intuitively, Beth knew that their relationship had just come to a crossroads. Whether it was because of her new job, her penchant for getting into trouble or her new friends didn't matter. In the end, the name of the cause would be Mick St. John no matter the outcome.

And didn't that just answer the question.

5 Aug 2010

A/N: This is my first foray into the Moonlight universe, and it's before I've seen the entire series. Any thoughts or constructive criticism is greatly welcomed.