It happens less often than it used to, thank God, but still too frequently for her liking. The sweating, the thrashing, the muffled cries and murmured words born of nightmares and stubborn demons, they mock him all too often, pulling him from the needed peace of sleep and back into the world of the wounded.
She holds him through each one, always chilled by the panic in his eyes when they first blink open, always warmed by the relief that comes from his realization that he is held by her arms and not those of another, that the lips resting on his forehead are hers and hers alone.
"Regina."
He breathes it as a prayer, a benediction, the first word of a man let out of captivity and finally breathing the free air.
"Yes," she assures him, cupping his face, stroking his hair. "It's me. There's no need to be afraid."
It takes time for his pulse to slow down, for the sweat to cool his skin, for his need to hold her tightly to relax into a sleepy embrace, but its alright because they're together, and together they are whole.
It is she who sweats tonight, lost in a myriad of jagged memories, held down by arms she never wanted, forced apart by the king who stole what should have been hers to give. She bites her lip, her tongue, wonders if the blood she tastes is real or imagined, tries to conjure magic her fingers can't create.
Then warm hands war with the specters of memory, their soothing stokes drawing her back to the land of the living, the land where she is his because she wants to be, not because anyone forced her hand.
"Regina."
Her name is a summons, an invitation to open her eyes and remember who is holding her, who loves her, who strokes her hair and kisses her temple as he has through more than one nightmare. She buries her face into the safety of his body, unafraid to lie broken with his arms holding her fast.
"It's alright," he breathes, and she nods, still crying, still clinging to her lover in the recesses of the dark. "I promise, there's no reason to be afraid."
She opens her eyes then, turning her face to look at him in what light the waxing moon allows. His eyes are silver at this time of the morning, creased from hours of sleep, so pure its nearly painful to stare into them. But his touch is grounded, his lips dry yet tender as they graze her cheek and speak words that wash over like a balm.
"They can't hurt us anymore."