DISCLAIMER: The usual not mine, just playing with them spiel.
A/N: And as promised, here be angst. Enjoy!
She's woken by an elbow to the ribs and it takes her a moment to get her bearings. The first thing she notices is that she's no longer curled into Jane. She's alone on the far side of the bed without covers. Sitting up she lets her eyes adjust to the darkness.
It's then that she notices the bed is moving, the mattress dipping and creaking with every movement Jane makes. He's tangled in the sheets, fighting frantically against their confines. His face is contorted in pain, so very different from his usual smiling features. His breathing is fast and laboured and when she carefully reaches a hand over to touch his face, she notices that he's drenched in a cold sweat.
He's having a nightmare, she realizes. She's had enough of her own over the years to recognise the signs. She knows how terrifying they can be, your entire body and mind caught up, the dream becoming your reality, leaving you helpless to escape.
She carefully moves closer to him, trying to avoid his thrashing limbs. She needs to get close enough to talk to him, to wake him.
His knee catches her in the thigh this time but she refuses to hold him down, to try to restrain him, knowing it will only make things worse. He's already fighting the restraint of the blankets; he doesn't need anything else pinning him down.
She slowly settles her weight by his side, lightly touching. She brings her hand up to his hair and repeatedly runs her fingers though it as she moves her mouth to his ear and whispers to him.
"Jane, it's alright, I'm right here, it's just a dream, I'm right here, you can wake up now, I've got you, shhh, it's alright, you're fine, wake up for me, Jane."
She's not even aware of what she's saying; she just continues whispering a litany of soothing words hoping they'll penetrate the nightmare and that he'll wake up.
She knows it worked when he stops fighting the covers and takes a deep shuddering breath. She moves her mouth from his ear and watches as he opens his eyes slowly, blinking to focus on her face.
Before she knows what's happening, he's kicking the covers off and pulling her on top of him, crushing her against his chest and burying his face against her neck, sobbing silently.
The sweat on his skin and clothes dampen her pyjamas but she holds him tightly anyway, continuing to murmur softly, her nose buried in his hair as he shakes.
After a while he quiets and loosens his grip on her. He places an open mouthed kiss against her neck and whispers 'Thank you', his arms still wrapped around her back.
She slides down his body a bit so she can be face to face with him, trying to ignore the fact that she's now practically straddling him. He doesn't say anything so she ignores the tightening low in her belly.
She almost asks him if he wants to talk about it but stops herself knowing that if their positions were reversed, she would just want to forget about the nightmare, block it out and pretend it never happened.
They lay there for a while, not moving, not talking, just existing. She's half asleep again when she feels Jane shiver underneath her.
He's probably freezing she realizes, the sweat on his skin has dried but his clothes are still damp.
She rolls off of him and tells him she'll be right back.
She crosses into the spare bedroom and starts rummaging through drawers hoping one of her brothers left something else behind that Jane can wear. The drawers are all empty so she heads down to the laundry room thinking maybe she washed something of her bothers and left it down there.
On top of the dryer she finds a pair of boxers and another t-shirt. It'll have to do.
She heads back up the stairs and finds Jane sitting upright in her bed, looking lost. His eyes staring straight ahead, unfocused. She hands him the clothes and shrugs.
"They're clean, don't worry. Why don't you go hop in the shower to warm up, I'll put dry sheets on while you're in there."
He moves mechanically, taking the clothes and heading into the bathroom as she begins stripping the bed.
She remakes the bed and brings the other sheets down to throw in the washer, switching his clothes over to the dryer in the process.
As she heads back upstairs, she's surprised to hear the shower still running. She knocks on the bathroom door and calls his name a few times but doesn't receive any answer. Worried, she tries the doorknob and finds the door unlocked.
She pushes the door open and is greeted by a cloud of steam. The clean clothes sit on the toilet, his others on the floor. The shower curtain is drawn but steam billows out from around it.
"Jane?" She questions, but still receives no answer.
Great, just great. If someone had told her two days ago that she'd be opening her shower curtain on a naked Jane to make sure he was still alive she would have laughed at them. She's not laughing now though, she's actually rather concerned.
She calls his name one last time before sliding the shower curtain open.
She blinks past the steam down into the tub to see Jane hunched over, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them. He's still shivering despite the fact that the water is scalding, leaving his back a bright, angry red as it pounds down on him.
She reaches down to the other end of the shower and turns the water back to a reasonable temperature before pulling off her sweat pants and stepping into the shower.
She kneels down in front of him trying to figure out what to do. She doesn't know how to deal with Jane on a normal day. Now that he's naked and in her shower she's at even more of a loss.
She settles for placing her hand in his hair, figuring it's a fairly safe place to touch.
She says his name and this time he looks up, surprised to find her sitting in the shower with him.
She stands up and offers her hand. "Come here, Jane."
She keeps her eyes on his face as he stands, fighting the temptation to look elsewhere. She'd have to be blind to not notice that he's ridiculously good looking and though she would deny it to the grave, she's always wondered what he looked like under his suits. She opens her arms and he steps into them, wet and shivering against her.
She backs them up under the spray of the water, rubbing her hands up and down his back and over his shoulders trying to warm him up.
His arms are wrapped tightly around her waist, his head on her shoulder as he leans against her. He's naked, wet, and pressed against her in more places than she should be thinking about right now. Unfortunately once the thought crosses her mind she's incapable of thinking of anything else.
He seems to have gotten as close to her as possible, absorbing her body heat as he clings to her. His head is on her shoulder, nose and lips pressed unmoving against her neck, and his arms wrapped around her waist, crush her chest to his. His hips are pressed tightly against her stomach and she chastises herself for even thinking about what this might be like under different circumstances.
She sends a silent prayer to god when he finally stops shivering and steps awkwardly out of her embrace, seeming to realize for the first time that he's been standing naked and clinging to her for the last 10 minutes.
He mutters an apology but she just smiles. "It's alright Jane, get dried off and put those clothes on, I'm just going to go change."
She walks to her room, grabs her towel and hurriedly dries off, changing into dry pyjamas. She's just climbing into bed when the bathroom door opens and Jane walks out.
He enters the room again and hesitates until she pointedly looks from him to the spot next to her.
She slides closer to him as he gets into the bed and curls back into their position from the first night, his head on her chest and an arm across her waist.
"Sleep, Jane" She whispers.
And he does.
A/N: There. Hope all you angst lovers enjoyed that. :P
I actually love writing angst, it's a helluva lot easier than figuring out all the case stuff, which is what I'm attempting to do for the next chapter.
Reviews make the world go 'round! :D