Warning: Occurs post-NEXT and contains spoilers.

They were rare, but that only ensured that they would pack a punch.

Lina hated them. All of her life, she had prided herself in being a happy, optimistic person. When things got hard, she punched her way through. When it looked like too much, she held out her plate and asked for more.

That was during the day. During the night, it was always another story.

The first was after the fight with Rezo. It was, compared to future ones, pretty tame, but she had still woken up with a start and found herself covered in sweat, her heart racing. She hadn't woken anyone, which was a relief, but the fear lingered under her skin for the rest of the day. She had been moody and irritable, and only when she was promised all the food she could it did she manage to shake the feeling off.

The worst ones were after fighting Phibrizzo.

It was understandable, really. No one could stand there and watch their friends die before their eyes and come out of such a thing unscathed. No one could also watch the one person that, until recently, they hadn't realised they loved with all of their heart almost die for real as well without feeling it.

But, somehow, along the way, as the nightmares changed and twisted according to what she experienced, getting worse and worse as she tried to suppress them, she realised that she wasn't as alone as she had first thought.

The first night was months after that horrible battle. It was the worst yet, horrifically graphic and a complete exaggeration of what had actually occurred, and she woke up to the sounds of her own screams. She had thrashed out, trying to punch away the images, trying to stop them from flooding into her mind. Her fingers met resistance, and her ears were deaf to anything but the sound of her friends' dying screams.

It was only when her hands were held immobile did she manage to get her mind to surface. Trembling from head-to-toe, she focused, her eyes blurred with tears, only to find Gourry's eyes staring back at her. It took another few minutes to realise that he was speaking to her.

"Lina, wake up!" he was saying, his voice high with panic. "It's just a dream, it's not real!"

Not real, his words echoed, not real, not real, not real…

It is real. They're dead, all because of me…

You couldn't save them….it's all your fault.

If they had never met you…

"Lina!" and here, his voice carried a horrible sound, one akin to an animal shrieking from its pain. She felt him shaking her. "Wake up!"

And she did. Her eyes slid over to his again, and they focused. He stared back, his face a mask of worry and fear. Without thinking, she reached out a hand and gently brushed her fingers over his cheeks. They shook.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Sorry."

Gourry pulled her close, hugging her tightly. "Don't scare me like that!" he pleaded into her shoulder. Mutely, she hugged him back, feeling both her own body as well as his trembling. She shut her eyes, feeling his warmth and love, and it was enough to chase away the residue the images had left.

It wasn't the last time he would have to, in a way, rescue her from her nightmares. If it had been anyone else, she would have been humiliated and angry, but with Gourry…it was something else entirely. During the daylight hours, it was never mentioned, but at night, when they were alone together, it was like another world, another plane of existence that consisted of only them, and it made facing it all easier.