A/N This story is second in a series. You can read it on its own, but both it and "That Kiss" will be more fun if you read "That Kiss" first.
I blamed Grace's memory device.
Post-traumatic stress, my ass.
I'd love to know how hallucinations are supposed to cure nightmares. Not that my nightmares are post-traumatic stress. No, no, they're just dreams. Okay, bad dreams.
Yeah, I'd been having them ever since we came back from 1947. Always the same, but always different, too. I'm alone in the middle of an enemy base, no intell, no team, no idea what the op is or what I'm doing there. Different places, though. Sometimes it's Eureka, back in 1947, but mostly it's a much-too-familiar desert. Sometimes jungle, although those feel more like jungle from memories of old Vietnam movies, not like any jungle I've ever seen. One notable time it was the Arctic, but I think that was 'cause S.A.R.A.H. was playing with the temperature in the bedroom.
Oh, yeah, S.A.R.A.H. knows. Carter and Zoe don't, I don't think. Or if they do, we don't talk about it. One time Carter kind of casually asked, "You okay?" and I muttered, "Bad night," and he said, "If you ever want to talk about it…" I gave him the look that says "I'd rather be dead and watching my body get eaten by maggots, thanks," and he never brought it up again. It's a good look.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work on an AI. And it's tough to keep secrets from someone who's continually monitoring your vital signs. It takes a lot to make me scream, so it's not as if I was waking the whole house, uh, bunker, but I was waking up myself, heart racing, adrenaline surging. Sometimes it took me hours to fall back asleep.
I know, ridiculous, right? Some people have real nightmares – monsters, long hallways, math tests. In my dreams, I was just alone. Pathetic.
But S.A.R.A.H. doesn't like it much. She's a worrier, S.A.R.A.H. is. I'm not sure how much she cared about me before I moved in, but within days, she was lecturing me on the food I ate, how much coffee I drank, and how much sleep a healthy person needs. I try not to let it annoy me. I know she means well. Besides, she's keeping my secret, so I owe her. I don't know what the DoD would think about the head of security of their top-secret facility having constant nightmares, but I don't want to find out.
Still, swearing S.A.R.A.H. to secrecy didn't stop her from continually experimenting, trying to find the magic solution that would end the dream without waking me up. Dropping the temperature, not so effective. Loud noises, ditto. Changing the light usually just woke me, and flickering the light was terrible. The dream that time…yeah, I don't even want to go there.
Soft noises could be good. Not so much nature sounds – those I'd just incorporate into the dream. Ever tried to infiltrate an enemy base while birds are chirping? High anxiety in that one, while I waited for the birds to give me away. But running water makes for a good cover sound even though it never stopped the dreaming.
Music, though – well, there was this one song, sort of a slow jazz number, that S.A.R.A.H. found that seemed to work. She played it for me once in the daytime, but I didn't recognize it. But I guess when she saw the signs that I was starting to dream, she'd bring the song up softly until my breathing smoothed out. By the time I moved into my new place, S.A.R.A.H. had gotten pretty good at keeping me asleep.
So, yeah, the first night there? It wasn't pretty.
That's not an excuse, you understand. Just an explanation.
An explanation for how I'd found myself lying on my living room floor, having just had mind-blowing sex with a guy who was not, emphatically not, despite all appearance to the contrary, the same guy I'd been in love with for a couple of years.
