AN: Holiday special- you're getting two chapters this week!
Chapter Sixteen
She settled in to bed that night and let the weight of the day wash over her. Tommy as awake. He was alive. She was not going to have to go through all of this on her own anymore. She looked over to see him watching her and felt fingers gently tracing shapes over her back. He knew that she was hiding something from him, but it seemed like he accepted that she was not ready to tell him. She was not ready to tell him what the last two months had truly been like for her. She was not sure that she really believed what today had brought.
She tried to fight sleep, but as Tommy pulled her in to his chest, she fell over the edge. The feeling of him holding her again brought her a level of comfort she had craved for the last two months.
"Tommy!" she screamed as he bolted awake. She barely felt his hands as he shook her to try to get her out of the dream. She thrashed against him and he loosened his grip to keep from accidentally harming her.
"Tom-my," his name came out as a strangled sob and the tears started streaming down her face. He was gone. He had promised he would never leave her and he was gone.
"Hey, I'm here- wake up. C'mon- wake up," Tommy urged and her eyes sprang open. She still felt the terror. She had watched him die. She had watched him die every night- for two months. She didn't try to stop the tears as she sat up and sobbed into his chest. "Shh. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
She gripped his shirt in her fists and inhaled his scent, forcing herself to remember the present. Forcing herself to remember that he actually was here now. He was back. It was all just a dream. It had only been a dream.
"The dreams started right after the Command Center left you. I haven't slept much," she explained as she avoided meeting his gaze. She was not sure that she was ready to talk about what was happening in the dreams. She was not sure that she could even describe it to him without more tears being shed. And she needed to be strong. He needed to her to be strong. Their baby needed for her to be strong.
"I take it you don't want to tell me what it's about," Tommy stated and she barely nodded. She could not bring herself to say the words. She felt that if she said the words that there was a better chance that it would come true. If she just kept this to herself- he had a chance to survive. She felt him stroking her hair away from her face and tucking it behind her ears- one of his nervous ticks when he was worried about her and didn't have any words to help her. "I don't intend to go anywhere, anytime soon."
The sob escaped her lips before she could stop it. And she knew then that he knew. He knew that he had hit the nail on the head with what she was dreaming all because of her reaction to those few words. She had lost him over and over and over again. Each night it was worse. Each night it felt more realistic. Each night she felt surer that it was going to happen.
She crawled further in to his lap- trying to somehow meld together with him. She barely registered that he started rocking her back and forth. He started settling her. Soothing her. From everything that had happened over the last two months. Everything that she had had to deal with on her own.
She had had to deal with the realization that they were pregnant. That they had succeeded in conceiving a child. She had dealt with the ever increasing morning sickness. She had dealt with the daily therapies to try to keep his muscle loss to a minimum. She had dealt with being isolated in this place, by herself, for two months. She had dealt with all of it and it all rushed through her as she sat in his lap and she let herself break. She let herself be weak, because she could trust that he would be strong. She had not been able to do that since the Command Center had overtaken him.
He listened as the sobs decreased and he continued to hold her to him and rock her back and forth. He felt like all of her pent up emotions were spilling out and that was alright. He was here now. She could let down here guard. He would take all of this from her if he could and he knew they would talk about it in the morning. He knew that she needed to cry tonight without being forced to give him an explanation. He knew that she needed to process what had truly happened over the last few months. And he knew his time to process it would come as well, but for now- he held her and he hoped that when he rocked her back to sleep that she would finally sleep soundly again.