A/N: Holy reviews, batman! To: MorbidMandy, ReadingInTheDark, smilin'intherain, not-so-innocent011, Aqua279, dimitriandrosehathaway, Theeyeoftheteapot, moon-called-princess, EmoTacoFilling and Silverbird121, you guys absolutely SPOILED ME ROTTEN with reviews! I just ended a five year relationship, so all the love I'm getting here has really helped cheer me up and I have to say that I really appreciate every last one of my readers, over 450 now! Wow...

Alright, so I promised some fluffier stuff, and here are not one but TWO little sweeter bits. These are set at the safe house during The Awakening, and even though they each deal with a nightmare, I'm not tying them together in terms of time-line, it's just two snapshots of Chlerek stuff! And since I'm now single, I've got LOTS of time to post up the other 15 or so snapshots I've got kicking around, and I'm planning on starting to post chapters for a post-Reckoning multi-chapter fic within the next week or so. Will you review if I promise to post a shirtless Derek tomorrow??? :P Enjoy!

Disclaimer: You know the drill. I'm not Kelley, I don't make money off this and I only own the rights to Darkest Powers in my dreams...


I was woken up by a noise around 4:30. To say that I have become a pretty jumpy sleeper is a gross understatement, but this time the noise wasn't from any dead things I had raised, or my own gasps from a nightmare. The noise was muffled, but it sounded like someone struggling.

My first thought was that the Edison Group had found the safe house, or that the Pack had finally come for Derek. Grabbing the shoes that I had learned to always leave next to the bed, I slipped them on as I covered the carpeted floor to the door. The door creaked a little and I heard Tori mumble in her room, sounding put out. Her snores resumed instantly, which definitely didn't make my job easier.

As I opened the door, I hoped it wouldn't creak, and for once my luck held. I listened intently, straining to hear. Normally Derek would have been up at the slightest sound, but if he was the one in trouble, I might be the only one to hear. That did not make me feel better.

One heartbeat, two, three, four, five. At twenty, when there was still no sound of crashing or struggling, I started to exhale. Maybe just the remnants of a dream?

The struggling sounds picked up again, coming from down the hall, and with a final look back at Tori's room–wondering if I should wake her - I decided to check it out. I closed my door behind me, avoided the creaky floorboard and kept to the deeper shadows near the walls, trying to make sure my pyjamas didn't catch on any of the heavy-framed paintings that lined them.

I gave the stairs a cursory look as I skirted them; nothing unusual seemed to be going on down there, but the sounds increased the closer I got to Derek's room. I started to breath faster; anyone well versed in warfare knows that you take out the biggest threat first. Derek was most certainly threatening. Pressing my ear against the door, I breathed as shallowly as possible, listening.

It took me nearly a minute before my heart stopped racing so fast. If there was a struggle, it was one-sided. Did a really unexpected Change come on before he could get outside? His door, too, opened silently.

I had expected to see him kneeling on the floor, muscles spasming wildly in the midst of a Change, but I was wrong. As far as I could tell, Derek was having a nightmare. He had kicked the tangled covers to the floor and his head kept shifting in agitation. His breathing was ragged and every now and then he'd mumble something in a frantic tone. It looked and sounded like a doozy.

After I closed the door, eliminating the faint glow of the nightlights, the dark navy walls and heavy drapes kept out most of the ambient light, so I was really careful with my feet, poking the toe of my shoe around before taking a step so I didn't trip.

As he had done so many times, I reached for his shoulder and shook him.

"Derek." I shook him harder. "Derek, wake up. You're having a nightmare."

He bolted straight up in bed looking dazed as all get out. I saw him focus on me.

"Chloe?" His voice was thick from sleep. "What-"

"Nightmare."

He shuddered as he looked around slowly, searching maybe for whatever had been scaring him so badly.

"You ok?"

The nod was too automatic, his posture too stiff. I hate people that push when someone says they're ok, but he was really not ok. I bent down to pick up the sheets and the comforter. "Lie down."

It was a Christmas miracle in May; Derek listened. That must have been one heck of a nightmare if he was this out of it. With a grunt, I tossed the covers onto the foot of the bed and started straightening them, listening as he slid back down onto his pillow and rubbed his face briskly with his hands. I thought nothing of it until he made an odd gasping noise. What was up with him tonight?

"What were you dreaming about?"

He breathed heavily and slowly. Too slowly. Exactly the strategy I employed when trying to hold back tears. The covers lying flat once again, I sat down cautiously and touched the underside of his forearm that he had thrown across his face. What could upset Derek this much? I heard him struggling to compose himself, and I thought about my most prominent nightmare.

"Your dad?"

Two heavy swallows before he could speak. "Yeah."

What do you say to that? I could give him the pep talk everyone had been giving me about Aunt Lauren, but I knew that no matter what anybody told me, I was expecting the worst. I tightened my grip on his wrist and tugged until he let me move his arm.

"Do you want me to stay?"

"No."

"Ok, then." I kicked off my shoes and shoved him over. Hanging out in a guy's bed might not have been the best idea, but we both desperately needed our sleep and neither of us would sleep if we were alone. I was very proud of that piece of logic. "Make room for me."

The arm came off his face. "Chloe…" he said warningly, resisting the shove.

"It was the part after the "no" that convinced me," I said loftily, grabbing the spare pillow and squirming until I was comfortable, curled up on my side facing the mountain he made under the blankets.

A deep sigh, but he still hadn't tossed me out, so I considered the battle won. "And what did I say after the "no"?"

"You said, "No, because I'm afraid to ask for help, but if you don't mind staying, I really don't want to be alone right now." You said it so quietly that even you didn't hear it. And I'm glad you feel that way, because I don't really want to be alone, either."

He was silent, which I took to be his tacit acceptance of my offer of comfort. I struggled to stay awake in case he wanted to talk, but after a few minutes I realized he didn't want to talk; maybe just having another person around was enough for him.

After a few more minutes I felt my body jerk as I started falling back to sleep. It was one of those stupid falling-down-the-stairs demi-dreams, and usually an immediate precursor to sound sleep. But in the few seconds between the twitch that startled me back awake and the wave of dreamless sleep that flowed over me like a black curtain, I felt the heat from Derek's hand around one of my wrists. His sleep-roughened voice followed me into the abyss, so quiet I almost didn't hear him.

"Thank you."

When I woke up, it was almost nine and I was amazed that no one had figured out anything was wrong, but then I remembered that I had closed both my door and Derek's last night; Tori and Simon probably just thought we were both sleeping in.

When I realized that I wasn't about to have the cavalry burst in, I relaxed and stretched out my legs with a contented sigh. I peeked over my shoulder and saw that Derek was sound asleep, so much so that even the shifting of the mattress as I got up didn't wake him. He hadn't been kidding when he'd said he hadn't been sleeping well, and I realized that the past few nights had been spent either sitting up with me or Changing. No wonder the poor guy was so exhausted.

I tiptoed to the door and used my newly discovered spy skills to listen carefully, making sure everyone was downstairs before I attempted the long trek past the stairs, down the hall and past Tori's room. The front door opened and closed, but no footsteps came in, so I assumed that someone had just left, and I could hear Simon talking to Andrew. My heart racing the whole time, I just managed to get into my own room before I heard Simon's voice more clearly as he started up the stairs.

"Yeah, I'll get both of them," he was saying. A pause. "I know. Actually, it's funny, Derek usually doesn't sleep late."

I scrambled across the floor and just managed to yank the blankets up before he knocked on my door.

"Come in." I stretched my acting skills to their limits trying to sound a little dazed.

I dispatched him as quickly as possible and sighed deeply as I slid down into my pillows. I had comforted Derek and avoided a crisis. Not bad for one night.