Chuck quickly looked over to the alarm clock on the night stand and saw it was 3:13am. Another one. He and Sarah had fallen asleep around eleven after another day of chasing bad guys and disrupting plans for world domination.
Chuck looked down towards his chest and saw the reason for his alertness at this late hour. Laying next to him was Sarah, who was on her left side and nuzzled against him. He looked down and saw that she was gripping his right forearm with all her might, digging her fingernails deep into his skin. She was having a nightmare and not just any nightmare, but one that was born from the many memories from her past that she sought to erase or from the paranoia of living with the fact that someone might be after her. Although he should have cried out in pain, Chuck just laid there silently and rode it out like he did the other nights before.
This was not the first time this had happened with Sarah; Chuck discovered this particular secret after they started sleeping together in their new home. He should've alerted her to this but decided against it since he knew Sarah would tear herself up over it and surround herself in a cocoon in order to prevent it from happening again. No, he decided that this would be something that he would keep to himself and endure quietly.
Chuck was able to hide all the cuts and bruises he sustained from Sarah's late night onslaught. The scratches on his back were because he was clumsy and fell into the cage, scraping it on the chain link fencing. Bruises on his chest were from helping Casey move some big boxes in the back. He figured it was a small price to pay for having someone as special as Sarah in his life.
One thing that helped him through the night was the fact that these events were becoming fewer and far less intense. Somehow Chuck knew that Sarah was slowly healing herself and that maybe sometime in the future they would go away all together. But for now he needed to be her strong foundation while she rebuilt her own.
Looking down at her anguished face, Chuck couldn't fathom the horrors she had seen and endured in order to cause this much torment within her. The faces of people she killed as well as the faces people that were trying to kill her. He felt anger that this much was asked from her but also sadness that she willingly accepted the responsibility.
Chuck gently caressed the side of her face with his free hand and slowly she calmed down. Her labored breathing became more regular, the redness started to dissipate from her face, and the neck muscles that were tensed slowly eased. It was then that he realized that he would need to be her protector. Despite his growing abilities as an agent, he needed to be her protector not from physical harm but from the mental ones, the demons that spring from her memories. As she let go of her grip on his arm Chuck pulled her in close and held tight to her, hoping that she could feel that she wasn't alone. Never alone, even in her nightmares.
Chuck looked down once more and saw Sarah's face turn more peaceful. A couple of hours later the alarm went off; he saw that she was slowly waking and asked "How did you sleep?"
Still groggy, Sarah slowly answered "Great. I thought I was having a nightmare at first but it went away and I slept fine after that. How was yours?"
Chuck knew he had but four hours of sleep but still answered "As I always do when you're next to me. Like the luckiest man alive."
Sarah looked up and smiled.
A/N: Slight change of pace. Am I making Chuck into a saint? Probably. Oh well. I'll make him do bad stuff in my next stories.
