"Danny?" a sleepy voice came from the dark beside him and Danny hurried to switch on the bedside lamp, suddenly unable to bear the dark. When the room was finally lit up he found Martin propped up on one elbow looking at him worriedly with still drowsy eyes. "Danny, what's wrong, baby?"

But he couldn't speak. The memory was still there, still Mrs Kinkley seemed to stare at him with her remaining eye, making him shiver.

Danny felt like crying. It was a mixture of what the memory of his dream and plain embarrassment of Martin seeing him like this, that caused it, and he couldn't do anything to avoid the tear that was running down his cheek. So he let it happen but turned his back on his lover so he didn't see it.

He heard Martin move and only seconds later felt a pair of strong arms that were wrapped around him, pulling him close – and so he gave in to the feeling of helplessness that taken over him and leant into the embrace.

Martin's hands were running up and down his body, soothingly, and finally Danny was able to stop shivering and finally calm his feelings.

None of them spoke for what seemed like eternity until finally Danny pulled away from Martin and turned around to look into his lover's eyes. They were full with worry, as to be expected, and Danny felt like a few reassuring words needed to be said. But as he tried to he found it hard to say anything at all.

Luckily Martin was good enough at guessing: "Had a bad dream?"

Danny forced a smile. "Really bad", he was finally able to get out, trying hard to sound as casual as usually but failed miserably.

"Wanna tell me 'bout it?" Martin asked, face soft with sympathy.

Danny didn't answer at first. Instead he rolled over to the far end of the bed, ready to get up, but somehow he couldn't gather the strength, and so he sat on the bed's edge, still breathing hard, head held up by his hands, elbows propped up on his thighs. He could hear every movement Martin made behind him and tried to concentrate on it rather than the returning pressure on his stomach.

But the pressure got too strong and, driven by the sudden urge to release it, Danny finally got to his feet to stumble to the bathroom and kneel in front of the toilet. Martin followed into the room only seconds later.

Danny would have thrown up, but his stomach was pretty much empty and all he was bringing up was a bit of bile causing his throat to hurt. If he hadn't felt so bad he would have wondered how so much nothingness could put up that much pressure, but in the current situation he was happy with letting Martin lead him back to the bedroom.

The sat, on the bed, in silence for a long while; Martin looking at him, patiently as much as questioningly. Finally, Danny felt like he was ready, ready to share the last secret of his past, that had been buried deep inside his memory for over two decades, that were now resurfacing, slowly, bit by bit.

An explanation for his sleeplessness.

Martin was just about to leave the room – to make them both some tea, as he said – when Danny spoke: "When I…" Already he hesitated, waiting for Martin to sit back down on the bed. He wanted to be sure he was listening. Then he continued: "…when I was nine, my mother found something strange underneath her right eye. It looked like… some kind of blister… she wanted to see a doctor. My father wouldn't let her. Costs too much money, he said. He also said it was probably nothing."

"It wasn't nothing, right?" Martin asked, listening carefully but was obviously surprised by what was happening. He obviously wasn't expecting a tale on his lover's childhood – as Danny had told him – not long ago – that there were no further facts about his past, he hadn't already told Martin about.

That hadn't been a lie. Although, strangely enough, it had felt like one – and now Danny finally knew why.

"It was cancer. A special kind of skin cancer."

"How did you find out?" The compassionate tone of Martin's voice made Danny want to stop that very moment and bury the memories again, deep in the back of his mind where they'd come from, but at the same time it gave him the courage to go on with it. The memories had resurfaced now for a certain reason, and now was the time to come to terms with it.

"It grew. Melting her face like a damn fire. I… I… I don't know how to explain it…"

"You don't have to…"

"…and the worse it got, the more my mother turned into a stranger. To us. My and… and my brother. Finally our father took her to the doctor. He said he'd have to operate. Cut it out auf her face. But that was too expensive."

Danny paused unsure how to go on. Martin was still looking at him, all calm on the outside – but the story had an affect on him as well, Danny could tell.

"You know how I told you once my parents died in a car accident?"

Martin nodded, slowly.

"The truth is… well, that was actually the truth but… well, the full truth is that it was like a release for my mother. She would have died in a few weeks time, anyway. The damn thing had destroyed the whole eye by that time and partly the nose was gone as well. Our father… he took her to the doctor, again, I had to come as well because I was only eleven by that time and there was nobody to look after me and also I wanted to go. I wanted my mother back. The accident happened on the way there. Maybe it was fate. But…But I felt so guilty afterwards…"

"… because you thought you'd caused the accident?"

Danny sighed. He'd told that story to Martin years ago, in a quiet moment. A case had made him think about it; he'd been vulnerable and Martin had been there for him. But now, as he sat there on the bed, finally making eye contact with his lover, he was beginning to ask himself it had been something else that had made him feel guilty. Something that made him so ashamed of himself, that he'd buried every thought of deep in his mind deeply enough that it should have never come up again.

Until the Kinkley case.

TBC