A/N: Hello, dear reader, it's good to see you. I think many of us loved the dynamic between Rose and Dream, so I hope this will add to the short but growing collection of fics that further explore their story. There's some lore from the comics in this, with some creative liberties taken to fit the show. Hope you enjoy!

Things were better now. New Brunswick was nice. Lyta was happy. Jed was going to school, making friends, doing everything a kid his age should.

But Rose was sleepless.

She had not forgotten Gilbert's words about the human tendency to invent problems when life went well. After each restless night, once the sun drew her out of bed, she felt awful frustration at this ability to undermine her own joy. Money, security, a home, a family, a career… truly, Rose had everything. She ought to be grateful. She ought to cherish the wonders of her present, not suffer the hardships of her past.

Dream had nearly killed her. He had meant to.

So, no, Rose could not sleep.

It wasn't from fear of entering his realm again that she lay awake night after night. It was the reliving of it all. The way it felt. Her life torn away from her, the chaos of the vortex, the turmoil in Dream's desolate eyes. Rose's brush with death was not the serenity of Unity's passing, and every time her head hit the pillow, she endured it again and again and again.

It was somewhere around 2 a.m., maybe. Rose was finishing yet another cup of tea. Caffeine certainly was no help to her sleeplessness, as an ever-concerned Lyta liked to point out, but that was kind of the point. Less sleep, fewer nightmares.

She really was tired, though.

Rose, as of late, had become uncomfortably aware of the transition from waking to dreaming. She was still in her moonlit bedroom, hands cradling a half-empty mug, but something rippled the air. As she crossed into the Dreaming, Rose's heart lurched with dread. It never used to be like this.

"Do you think he's watching you so he can protect you?" the Corinthian questioned. He lounged in the chair by her desk as if he belonged there. As if he had never not been there.

Rose could see her reflection in his dark glasses. "No," she answered. "I don't think so."

Weeks ago, in a Florida hotel room, the Corinthian had revealed what Morpheus intended to do. Rose had given up wondering whether she'd ever have another dream that didn't begin with him. Another dream… Was she dreaming? Rose couldn't remember.

Cold rushed in from behind her bedroom door. The Corinthian nodded to it. "You'd better answer that, Rosebud. It's for you."

Tentatively, Rose set down her cup of tea and approached the door. Frost crawled along the edges, spreading onto the floor beneath her feet. Heat bled from her. The cold was alive, beckoning her closer. A dire silence suffocated the room, but within her, the world began to tremble.

Abruptly, the door was swept away, her bedroom collapsing and the silence broken by deafening noise. A destruction of reality, with Rose at the centre. Jed, Lyta, everyone she had ever cared about would be pulled atom from atom. It was an annihilation. It was a vortex. It was Rose.

The noise grew to a crescendo, until the storm lulled and silence befell the world once more. Rose could feel the instability of the vortex under her skin, monstrous and lethal.

"You've caused a great deal of damage."

There was no outrunning it. Rose pulled herself to her feet - when had she fallen down? - and faced him. Dream's black coat was stark against the cold white death of his realm. No semblance of life, of hope. She had never seen such desolation.

"Nothing I cannot repair," he continued, striding toward her. "At least, at this stage."

Rose had wanted none of this. It was unfair. Cruel. How could she have wrought so much destruction simply by the error of existing? She had no say in it, no control. "What happened to Jed? To my friends?"

"They're asleep in their beds, but they're not safe. No one is. Not until the vortex is dead."

He was afraid, she realized. They both were.

"Death is not always such a bad thing," said Dream, perhaps as much for his own sake as for hers. "You could stay here, if you like. My raven was once a mortal."

Distantly, she could recall Fiddler's Green stepping in to offer comfort. But Gilbert was not here. All she had was the vortex. All she had was Dream.

Rose was so, so cold.

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," she said, uselessly.

The conflict in his eyes was harrowing. "I know."

They stood in fragile silence for what felt like an age, both facing the inevitability of what was to come. She had only just gotten Jed back. Lyta was going to have a baby. The novel Rose had always hoped to write would never be read.

"I do not wish to take your life," Dream promised her, "but we all have responsibilities, and this is one of mine."

There was no way out. No deus ex machina to swoop in and save the day. Rose had everything to live for, and all of it to lose.

"I am sorry." His eyes locked onto hers, as if willing her to understand every feeling his words failed to convey.

"Just do it," Rose told him. "Whatever it takes to save my brother and my friends."

Darkness fell over Dream's face as his hand slowly reached toward her. Not once did his eyes leave hers. The vortex rose at the threat, clawing at her soul, begging her to fight back. Rose could not bare to look. Sand began to swirl around her. It was in her ears, in her hair. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished there were no tears rolling down her cheeks.

Then, a booming voice from behind her - she could have sworn it was Dream - called out, "Enough!"

And it all ended.

Rose blinked awake. The floor where she lay was pleasantly cool against her face. Where the vortex had been, all she could feel was peace.

It was done, then, she supposed. She was dead.

"Rose."

It was Dream's voice, soft and kind. She lifted her head to see him kneeling beside her.

All at once, the peace shattered. Everything crashed into her, the terror, the pain, the turmoil, the cruelty. She scrambled away from him. Her shuddering heart threatened to relive it again at the sight of him. He must have failed the first time. He was here to try again, to take her life again.

"Rose," he spoke again, carefully. "You're in my throne room. You are safe."

"No, you- you killed me, you're going to-"

"Unity Kinkaid took the vortex and gave her life for yours. Do you remember?"

"Unity…" Yes. Of course. Awareness broke through fear as the pieces drew themselves together in her mind. Rose pushed herself up onto her knees, steadying her breath as best she could. She was alive and well with Jed and Lyta and the baby and all their friends in New Jersey. She was okay. It was okay.

A warm hand on her shoulder pulled Rose back to the present. Dream had come to kneel by her again. "I did not realise you still dream about it. Nor that you sleep so little."

She met his eyes. The depth of remorse within them was hard to grapple with. The vortex had not left scars on Rose alone. She said, "I've been okay."

"Have you?"

"I mean… Jed is happy, Lyta's happy."

"And you are happy?"

"I'm still figuring that out."

Pensively, Dream's gaze fell away from hers. Several moments of silence passed between them before he admitted, "Perhaps we should talk." He stood and offered his arm. "Will you walk with me?"

The two left the solitude of his throne room. Rose had seen Fiddler's Green every night since losing the vortex, as Dream now understood, but only in haunting memory of its soulless form. Not for the first time, he felt enormous guilt at his failure to notice Rose's struggles sooner. Perhaps showing her the joyous landscape, with its flowers and trees and wildlife, would be good for them both.

She held gently onto his arm as they strolled through the grass, sun shining gloriously down upon them. Imprisoned in Burgess's home, powerless and alone, Fiddler's Green had been among what he longed for most.

"It's beautiful," Rose breathed.

Dream could not help the smile that brightened his face. "I'm glad I could bring you here," he said, "under different circumstances."

The second the words were out, he regretted speaking so carelessly. Rose's hand tensed on his arm. Unresolved disquiet lingered between them, Dream's shame suddenly overwhelming. There was no use in avoiding why they were here.

"Your dreams… I have caused you suffering. I am sorry."

Rose stopped. He looked down at her, trying to read the complicated expression in her brown eyes. She replied, "You were only doing what you had to."

Despite everything, she wished to reassure him. Dream saw so much of his older sister in her. Was it any wonder they were family? "Then I'm sorry I did not think to visit your dreams."

"Well," she said, "you didn't miss much. Same show every night." With that, she let go of his arm and wandered ahead into the shade of an ancient oak. Dream watched as she sat down, resting against its gnarled trunk and gazing up into the branches striving for the sun. Wordlessly, he sat next to her.

"Rose," he ventured. "I'm not asking you to spare my feelings. I saw what you were dreaming, I know-"

"I don't sleep," she replied so quietly that he almost continued talking over her. Her face was fixed forward, looking somewhere within herself. "I mean, I do, I just… Every time I dream, I have to go through it again. And I never know it isn't real."

A tear rolled down Rose's cheek, but she swiped it quickly away with the sleeve of her jacket. She cleared her throat and concluded, "So, I try to stay awake."

Dream suddenly found all his words lacking. So, hesitantly, he put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. He didn't know what else to do.

He willed himself to think what his sister, Death, might say to be of comfort. But Dream didn't deal in comfort; he dealt in ideas and stories, hopes and hopelessness. Stories, really, were the most powerful gift one could give. They were vessels of learning, of empathy, of feeling. Admittedly, he would never be the comfort his older sister was, but perhaps Dream could offer help in his own way.

"There was one vortex before you," he began. A bird chirped softly from amongst the leaves overhead. "I had never killed, not then."

Rose, her head resting on his shoulder, recalled, "You told me a whole universe was lost."

"Yes," he said darkly. "I wished to find out who this vortex was, how she could be such a danger to the world. We talked. She was a good person. Kind. Generous. I… I delayed."

He paused to collect himself. "Within days, the vortex had broken down the walls between every being. The fabric of reality could not hold the weight of their collective dream. Still, I did not intervene. I thought myself too noble, too benevolent to murder. Once the universe had collapsed - once she had watched herself destroy it - the vortex took her life," Dream spoke. "My inaction, my so-called benevolence, caused her suffering I could not begin to comprehend."

The chaos of emotion was still a raw wound in his heart. He would never allow himself to forget her face, grief-stricken and confused, as the vortex tore apart every last fibre of the world she knew.

"Nothing survived. I had to rebuild everything from a single dream in which my mistake had never been made. Such overuse of my power left me weak and vulnerable, and I believe it was this that allowed me to be imprisoned so easily," he explained. "For over a century, trapped by mortals who did not understand my place in their world, I lived in the memory of what I had done. I had no connection to the Dreaming, to myself. When my mind wandered, it infallibly returned to the vortex."

"Why are you telling me this?" Rose asked, lifting her head to look at him.

"Because I know what it is to go through something traumatic and find yourself unable to escape it," he answered. "I know how it consumes you."

She turned her attention to the ground and picked at the grass. Quietly, she confided, "I don't want to be afraid of you anymore. I don't want to be afraid of falling asleep."

The words cut through him. All Dream wanted was to promise that her fear would not last, but Rose deserved better than his dishonesty. He would not lie to her. He would not. In the end, he said, "The things we survive - both wonderful and terrible - become part of us, whether we want them to or not. All we can do is learn to coexist with them."

She half-smiled in a bittersweet sort of way, then jokingly commented, "Narratively unsatisfying."

"Quite. But such is the way of things."

The two sat in the shade of the oak for some time longer. No longer did tension mar the quiet between them. It was comfortable. It was safe.

Eventually, Rose asked, "Will I see you again?"

"Would you like to?"

"Yeah. I would," she said. "I mean, you must be busy, and-"

"You and I are family, Rose Walker," Dream told her before she could second-guess herself further. "I should like you to be in my life, just as I hope to be in yours."

Light seemed to come back into her kind eyes. She smiled, earnest and unclouded. How lovely, how truly lovely, to see hope returned to someone he cared for.

"Sleep well, Rose."

Once she had left the Dreaming, he spent much of his day resting alone in the glade. There was a warmth within him, and not only from the sun above Fiddler's Green.

A/N: I loved writing this, dear reader, and I really appreciate you taking the time to read it. If you want to make my week, please leave a comment to let me know what you thought.