Started a story that involved Elsie and Isobel getting drunk at a Bonfire Night celebration, but couldn't get to a happy ending, so this is what I ended up with. Not thrilled, but has a certain sad sweetness, I think. And Charles is in the bath- AGAIN.

Haze

It was the third time that week he had suffered the nightmare. Charles woke bathed in sweat, heart palpitating. He turned and grabbed Elsie's hip, reassuring himself that she was indeed next to him in the bed. His sudden movement startled her.

"What is it, Charles? Are you all right?"

"Fine. I just…it…I'm fine. Go back to sleep, love." Charles removed his hand from her hip and threw his legs over the side of the bed, wiping his brow with the sleeve of his pajamas.

Elsie reached over to rub his back, but immediately felt the sticky moisture that had seeped into his pajama top. "Charles, you are dripping wet. Are you ill?" Moving onto her knees behind him, she placed her hand on his forehead, "I don't think you have a fever."

Charles took her hand from his forehead and moved it to his lips, kissing her palm. "I am fine love. I think I will take a bath. You go back to bed."

"I'll sit with you."

"You need to sleep."

"No, I will sit with you. Something is wrong even if you won't tell me what it is."

Relieved she wanted to join him, Charles whispered, "As you wish."

Elsie moved swiftly to the bathroom, filling the tub with lukewarm water and pulled the stool from her vanity into the bathroom as Charles lowered himself into the tub.

She let him relax for a bit before pressing the matter. "Do you think it was something you ate? Do you hurt anywhere? I can call Dr. Clarkson."

Charles reached over the side of the tub and took her hand, "I am not sick Elsie. Nothing hurts, well, my head a little, but it is just a headache."

"I'll get you a Beecham's powder." She rose to leave, but Charles pulled on her hand. "In a minute. Just let me look at you for a moment."

Elsie looked at him in bewilderment as she sat back down on the stool. "Are you really all right, Charles?" she whispered.

He gave her a tender smile, "Yes. I just keep having a bad dream. A very bad dream."

Elsie stroked his hand as she looked at his pained countenance. "Would you like to tell me about it?"

"Not really, but perhaps talking about it will help." Charles leaned his head against the rim of the tub and closed his eyes. "When it starts, I am walking down our road and I can see you just ahead of me and I call for you to stop, but you don't and suddenly the street fills with haze and it gets so thick, I can't see you. I call out your name and start running, but the faster I run, the thicker the haze, and I become lost and I can't find you. I can't ever find you and I wake up in a panic." His voice was like that of a frightened child.

"But I am right next to you in bed, Charles."

Charles let his head roll to the side to look at her, tears filling his eyes, "I know, but lately, Elsie... I can't seem to stop thinking about how little time we have left…" He couldn't continue as a sob roses in his throat.

"Oh, darling, Oh, my darling," Elsie fell to her knees at the side of the tub, wrapping her arms around Charles. "Shhhh….Oh, darling, you can't think like that. Shhh…" Pulling back to look at his face, she reached over to the towel rack. He buried his face in the towel she has given him until his sobs subsided.

"I'm sorry, love. I don't know what has gotten into me."

Elsie gently rubbed his arm, "When I was a little girl, I used to have terrible dreams about a beast that would reach out from under my bed and grab me by my ankles and jerk me under the bed."

"That's terrible," Charles sniffed.

"It was. And then Becky was born. And suddenly the beast wasn't after me, but Becky. I would wake up more hysterical than before she was born. Finally, after another terror filled night, my mam pulled me into her lap and told me that the reason I was scared of the monster getting Becky was because I loved her so much and wanted to protect her and that in order to protect her, the next time I had the dream I needed to tell the beast that he might as well climb back under the bed and stay there because my love was stronger than his jaws or his claws." Elsie smiled, her eyes welling up at the memory of her mother and baby sister.

Charles tenderly smiled up at her, "And you conquered the beast?"

"I did. That night, before I went to sleep, I threw my head over the side of the bed and I told that beast not to even bother coming out because my sister was safe and would stay safe always because I loved her."

"And she has." Charles reached up with his towel and dabbed the tears that had begun to roll down her cheeks.

"She has." Elsie smiled through her tears.

Elsie took one end of the towel and wiped her face as Charles did the same with his end.

They didn't speak for a minute, their sniffling the only breaks in the silence.

After a moment, Elsie put her hand under his chin, "We are healthy, happy, fortunate people, Charles, and I am not going anywhere. Even if you wanted me to. I will be next to you, as I have been for so long. Know that. Know that in your heart." She leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips.

"I know it. In my heart, I know it."

"Do you want to go back to bed?"

"I do. With you."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

They curled up together, each in fresh, dry pajamas. Charles felt her relax in his arms as she relented to sleep. Closing his red, swollen eyes, Charles whispered, "She's here. She's right here. She's right here." The words played in a loop in his mind as he drifted back to sleep. He found himself on their street; she was in front of him. He sensed the haze starting to form as he reached out to her. He wanted to run, but he stood still. "Elsie." As he watched her begin to turn back to him, the haze disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Smiling sweetly, Elsie held out her arms, "I'm right here."