A/N: Shout out to lareepqg for helping with some... flow issues in the dialogue.
"Bad dreams," he said at length, when she was more or less calm again… well, not so much calm, perhaps, as wholly and utterly spent.
It wasn't a question, just a statement of obvious fact.
She gave her head a single, jerky nod, face buried in his neck, deep shudders continuing to wrack her body.
Still holding her to him, he shifted position, leaning his back against the headboard, Jane snugged up against him. She felt him drop a kiss to the top of her head, which was resting on his shoulder. His breath stirred her hair.
"God, Jane." His voice was rough with emotion.
"Sorry," she whispered again, wretchedly. "Did I hurt you badly?"
"You are worried about me?" The incredulity in his voice was clear. "Holy hell, Jane, you were – I have never seen any– you were gone, there was nothing left of you, you –" his arms tightened around her spasmodically. "Where –" she heard, and felt, him swallow hard. "Where did you go?"
Still pressed against him, she shook her head; her flushed, clammy skin dragging across his in a silent but emphatic negative. She didn't want to even think about the dream, much less articulate it.
"I do not… I cannot…"
"Jane."
"Please Gunther, can we not right n–"
"Can you not just tell me what happened! For God's sake, Jane!"
She was trying to pull herself together but it was hard, so hard. And she was deeply confused about what he was actually asking her for.
"Tell you what… what do you – I had a nightmare."
"Yes, I know. That is not what I meant."
Jane's head still felt cottony, her thought process slow; grinding. She was still trying to work through exactly what he wanted from her when he spoke again, his voice a raw whisper.
"I mean, what happened?"
"It was...oh." The dream was finally, mercifully, starting to fade from the forefront of her mind. She grasped at the pieces of it, trying to relate it in a way that would make sense. "I was trapped and you were hu–"
"No, Jane. No." Gunther sounded like he was running low on patience. Patience for what?
How hard had she hit him?
He frowned, appearing to search for words. "What Sir Theodore asked you before. Did...he...that is – did –"
Jane shook her head again. Trying to clear it, but also trying to shut this line of inquiry down. "I would really rather discuss this in the morning, but truly, Gunther, I am all right."
"But-"
"Could you please just leave it until morning? I really just need you to hold me ton–"
"But Sir Theodore, he seemed to think..."
Frustration was starting to flare in her. She had just told him she did not want to be having this conversation at present. Could not be having this conversation at present. She was barely holding herself together. She needed quiet support right now, not this… this dogged inquisition! She took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to rally.
"You were awake for that conversation, Gunther; you heard my answer."
"Yes, but if there was something –"
"If there was something what!? Are you –" she felt her breath catch in her throat. "Are you implying that I lied to him?" She suddenly felt a whole lot more alert. Alert, and cold. And oddly, inexplicably… alone.
"No, Jane! But if there was anything that you… excluded, then –"
She pulled out of his embrace, swiping an arm angrily across her tear-streaked face. "You are implying that I lied to him."
Gunther sighed explosively; raked a hand through his hair. "Jane, that is not –"
"That is exactly what you are doing! And I do not understand how – how you – what you – you were right there with me when it was happening, Gunther! You were next to me, you were holding my hand! You KNOW what went on!"
"I was right there, yes. Restrained, helpless, useless, and facing the other way! I could do nothing to stop it, I could do nothing to protect you, and no, I could not see what was happening, not really! Just flashes at the edge of my vision."
"And you do not think I would have told you if –"
"I do not KNOW! I know when you screamed it ripped me to shreds, and I know that five minutes ago you were screaming again, and this time you just kept shouting "Stop, stop, Gunther make him STOP!" He was panting for breath, his eyes dry, but burning. "And I could not help you then and it killed me, Jane… and I cannot help now either unless you tell me what the hell w–"
It was too much. Too much by half. She yanked up her knees, wrapped her arms tightly around them, and dropped her face into them – creating a protected little space for herself behind the tumbled curtain of her hair. Sucked in several hitching breaths, fighting for mastery. This conversation was escalating out of control; she had to disengage. Had to, had to.
"I cannot talk about this right now," she said, her voice muffled, not looking up. "I cannot. You are free to think whatever you want, Gunth–"
"What I want."
His voice was quiet, but it was like the crack of a whip, so suddenly cutting, so viciously sharp, that it silenced her mid-word. She raised her head and met his eyes again, and had to make a conscious effort to stop herself from flinching backward. She didn't think she'd ever seen him look this blackly furious in her entire life.
"What… I want?" He was practically crackling with rage; incandescent with it. "What I WANTED was for you to stay here and be safe, because almost losing you once was enough for me. What I wanted was for you to just one time in your life LISTEN to me, do something I asked you to do, something that really mattered, that could have changed things. If you had done – what I goddamn well wanted – then none of this would have happened in the FIRST place!"
She quite suddenly couldn't breathe.
She became aware, as the air seemed to crystalize around her, that her mouth had actually fallen open a little bit – but still she couldn't breathe. There just didn't seem to be any air left in the room. Some of her deep shock must have shown on her face. Something else too, maybe, because Gunther's eyes were widening now, the anger dropping from his expression as abruptly as it had appeared. "Oh God damn it," he said tiredly, raising both his hands to rub fretfully at his temples. "Jane –"
"No." The word was little more than a croak. She swallowed convulsively; tasted bile. She was literally, physically ill with what he had just said to her. Had he really just laid all of it, everything that had happened, at her feet? She cast her mind desperately back, over the course of their disastrous conversation.
Yes. Yes, he really had.
She was lightheaded with the magnitude of his betrayal.
"Jane." His expression was suddenly beseeching. "That came out wrong, you know I did n–"
"Oh yes you did," she cut him off. "Yes you did Gunther Breech, you meant every word."
He pressed his eyes briefly shut; opened them again and reached for her. "Jane –"
"NO!" She scooched backward, nearly tumbling off the edge of the bed. "Do not touch me!"
She couldn't be in here anymore; could not spend one more second in his presence. Movements jerky, uncoordinated, she virtually flung herself off the bed; stumbled badly when her weight came down on her injured ankle; very nearly spilled to the floor. Only managed to save herself by grabbing frantically at the footboard.
"JANE!" He swung his own legs over the side of the bed. "Stop, you are going to h–"
"No," she said again, righting herself and backing away. "Stay away from me. Stay... away from me, Gunther." She wanted to spit the words at him, to make them slice and sting the way he could do – had done – to her, but she couldn't get any force behind them. She barely breathed them out. Then her back hit up against the solid wood of the door and her knees nearly buckled again – and Gunther looked so suddenly lost that her resolve almost buckled with them. But his words were still screaming through her mind; they were lodged like shrapnel in her brain, and they were ten times worse than anything Hugh had done to her because they'd come from the person she trusted most in the world –
Had trusted most in the world. Had.
He'd just laid waste to her defenses in a way Hugh never could have dreamed of.
So she groped behind herself for the doorknob, and then she was stumbling through into the corridor, and pulling it shut behind her, and...
She fled.
