Naught But A Nightmare

Rating: PG-13
Summary: IC7 was only a bad dream. Or was it a prophecy?

He woke abruptly and came up swinging at an imagined enemy, moonlight through the window a startling vision to his eyes that brought his surroundings into sudden focus.

A cold sweat covered what felt like his entire body and he shivered with a sudden chill that raced along the length of his spine and covered his skin in goosebumps.

"Fuck," Tim muttered, when he began breathing again, taking in great gulps of air. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands. He sat still for a moment, arms and legs trembling, while he fought to get his bearings. Bedroom. Titans Tower. San Francisco…

A rustling of the covers behind him alerted him to the fact that he hadn't managed to keep from waking his bed companion. A tentative touch of nothingness on his shoulder, rubbing soothing circles on his chilled skin, told him that Kon knew what had caused his sudden rise to the waking world.

His surroundings settled into place in his mind with swift certainty. Kon was here. This was home.

"Hey, man," Kon whispered softly, finally laying a hand on the opposite shoulder from where his TTK was. He kneaded the tense muscles gently for a moment, before asking, "You feel like ice, you want me to get another blanket?"

Tim reflexively nodded, even as he was thankful for his partner's thoughtfulness; both in offering to get the blanket, and in starting the inevitable conversation with an innocuous question instead of just jumping straight into the interrogation.

Kon wasn't much like him – he was only ever his own indescribable self – and for that Tim could only be grateful. Especially in times of stress, which were many in their line of work

Kon used his TTK to snatch the knitted afghan from the foot of his bed. It had been handmade by Martha Kent this past Christmas and was already showing signs of loving wear. He wrapped himself around Tim, and the blanket around them both.

Even as upset as he was, Tim still made to make himself accept the comfort offered by his long-time friend, short-time lover. Once he nestled back into Kon's supernaturally warm embrace, however, he stopped quaking outside, and started shivering inside. He saw the clock out of the corner of his eye, and despite knowing that he'd barely gotten four hours of sleep, Tim knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep for a while, if at all.

Tim never had 'regular' nightmares: coming to school naked (as if that ever really happened), failing his driver's test (not with Batman as his teacher), falling and not being able to stop (Kon had always been there to catch him, when his jumpline wasn't). All of his nightmares involved something happening to the people he cared about. Something bad.

Now, a lot of Tim's nightmares were imagined memories. He'd never seen his mother die, or his father maimed. He'd never seen Steph killed, or his father murdered. But it was Tim's blessing and his curse that he had a very creative imagination, and often his nightmares incorporated that.

Lately, his nightmares had taken a more…personal turn.

"Who was it?" Kon asked, as the minutes ticked by.

Tim curled up farther into Kon's embraces even as he shuddered. "You…" he replied with a whimper. At the feel of Kon's arms tightening around, he elaborated, "You…you died. And I…I couldn't save you." It had been more than that; another 'Infinite Crisis' across the universes, like the one that had brought Jason back to half-life. There was a Superboy that was a younger Clark Kent, and insane, a Luthor from another dimension whose allegiance Tim wasn't sure of, though he also wasn't quite sane and didn't seem to have the best intentions for theirs or any other world.

And Kon…Kon had sacrificed himself to save everyone.

He'd died.

And Tim had missed him so much that he had…

Tim shook with an inner chill no amount of heart's warmth could dispel, grateful for the arms that held him tight. Grateful that those arms were able to hold him tight.

He'd move Heaven and Earth to keep Kon with him; was it any surprise his subconscious mind had thrown out the possibility, however impractical, of cloning him back to life? You couldn't clone a soul…

But in his grief over losing his last connection to truly living, he might have convinced himself that he could try.

"You did all you could," Kon said, and the fact that he was so sure of that made Tim squirm around until he could hug Kon, head resting above that still-beating heart.

Tim resolved, however, to put contingency plans into place for everything he'd dreamed about. He'd seen too much in his short life not to believe in the possibility of prophecies.

And if he failed, at least he'd know that he'd done all he could.

For now, it was only a bad dream. Not an omen.

THE END