DISCLAIMER: Los Hombres De Paco and its characters are the property of Antena 3. No infringement intended.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Set after ep 104 (8x12) "Todos los planes de Lucas Fernández"/"The Finale"/"The Wedding, Part 2". Thank you to my beta reader lindselita.

WARNING: Angst... lots and lots of it, right from the start. It is, after all, set after the Wedding. CW: Blood.

ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.

Dreams

By AJ3

Chapter 1

As she knelt on the cold floor, tightly cradling her wife… her life… the bright red blood pooled around her knees, soaking unheeded into the white material of her dress. She pulled her wife closer as if, in some miraculous way, her presence, her will, could somehow shield her lover from death's embrace.

Don Lorenzo suddenly appeared, dropping to his knees beside them, he took over supporting her wife's rapidly weakening body. She glanced at him over the top of her wife's head seeking his reassurance that everything would be OK, but he couldn't hide the anguish in his eyes which betrayed his own fears. She momentarily ducked her head, biting her bottom lip to keep from crying out in denial at the cruel hand fate had played them. Then gritting her teeth and blinking rapidly to clear her tears, she wrapped her wife's hand more firmly in hers, trying with the strength of her grasp to anchor her to the here and now, to keep her from slipping further away from them.

Her other hand was still pressed tightly against her wife's body, but nothing was able to stem the awful flow that continued to seep between her fingers. It oozed across the floor, slowly spreading, a red wave of destruction that was drowning their hopes and destroying their dreams.

Looking down at her wife's anguished face, she concentrated her gaze solely on her terrified eyes, consciously blocking out the devastation around them, "Mi amor, look at me, stay with me," she begged repeatedly.

However with every second that ticked by it became more and more obvious that even the most stubborn of wills, one that desperately wanted to hold fast to life, could not overcome her own body's frailty. Tears brimmed in her wife's eyes as she looked up at her, tears that quickly spilt over to run unchecked down her cheeks. Her wife was struggling so hard to catch her breath, panting rapidly to try to get enough air to speak as she used her remaining energy to whisper, "Lo siento… lo siento. Te quiero con todo mi corazón."

She watched helpless, as another wave of agony washed over her wife, making her writhe on the ground. Her wife's fingers clenched roughly as the almost unbearable pain racked her body, inadvertently crushing her hand, the one that had been holding on to hers so tightly. At the same time her other arm flailed spasmodically, which drew her shocked attention away from her wife's face, looking on in horror as she dragged her fingers across the blood-covered ground. It almost looked as if she were unconsciously trying to find a purchase on the slick floor, a handhold or anything that would allow her to get up and escape from the torment, but she was only unwittingly, horrifically, painting the floor with her blood.

One last horrendous shudder drew her shocked eyes back to her wife's face, just as her wife's eyes rolled back in her head...

"No, no, no…! Querido Dios, no!" She awoke gasping, drenched in sweat, wrenched from the nightmare by her muffled screams. Her eyes darted around the darkened bedroom looking for, always seeking, a person who wasn't there.

She flopped back onto the bed, tears swiftly gathering in her eyes and running unhindered down her face. 'Another disturbed night,' she thought as she made a guttural noise, disgusted at herself, 'ssst, when will I be free of these nightmares?' she asked herself.

The sheets were once again tangled around her legs like a shroud and she wearily tried to push the sweaty, constricting fabric away from her, finally frantically kicking her legs to free them of the unwanted encumbrance.

Groaning under her breath she sat up, swinging her legs out of bed to place her feet onto the wooden floor trying to ground herself. She paused for a moment to scrub the heels of her hands over her eyes, roughly wiping away another night's salty tears. She knew from bitter experience there would be no more sleep for her tonight, not with the nightmare lurking in the dark corners of her mind, waiting to trap her, to drag her back to that place again.

She needed to get up, get moving, but the residual memories clung to her like the shades of old enemies. She could still smell the blood; almost taste the metallic tang of it in the air. 'Oh Dios,' she moaned, hugging herself and unconsciously rocking back and forth. There had been so much blood, more than she had thought it possible for a body to hold. It had congealed on her clothes, coated her hands and been trapped under her fingernails. Hours later she had even found dried blood in her hair, even though she had absolutely no recollection of how that had happened. Perhaps, it had been transferred when she had rested her forehead on her lover's chest, hopelessly seeking solace, or maybe at some point she had accidentally run her bloody fingers through her hair in an effort to calm her raging emotions. She gave a wry, strangled laugh, ah, did it really matter now exactly how her wife's blood had managed to get absolutely everywhere; to any onlooker to their tragedy she knew she must have been quite the terrifyingly gory sight.

Her head still bowed, she struggled to gain back some control of herself, whilst trying to slow her panicked breathing. She pressed her knuckles into her eye sockets, pushing until she could see sparks of light playing behind her eyelids, searching eagerly for a brighter, happier memory of her wife to allow her to distract herself from her troubled thoughts, but her mind, unwilling to comply, presented her with the recollections of the moments that had led them to that fateful day.