Title/theme: FEAR
Genre: angst
Approx time line: During GS, AU after SEED, or after GSDestiny
Summary: She looked up at him, eyes still full of terror, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.

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A whimpered escaped the woman as she stirred in her sleep. He paused in his work and turned to look at her with a worried expression as she tossed and turned on the mattress.

"No! Don't go!" she cried out suddenly, the sound so full of sorrow and anguish that it broke his heart.

He quickly abandoned what he had been doing and raced to her side, his heart pounding. He sat on the bed and lifted her so that she was in his arms. Her body felt like ice to him. He could feel the rapid beating of a heart, whether it was hers or his own, he couldn't tell. Shaking her gently, he tried to wake her up.

Amber eyes opened and looked at him with a vacant stare. For a moment, she didn't seem to recognize him, as she seemed to look past him.

"Murrue!" he gently shook her shoulders again, trying to get her to snap out of it.

It seemed to work, as life returned to those eyes. Tears began to gather as she shifted, sitting up in his embrace. Wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, she wept into his chest. Her small frame was trembling with fear and her sobs.

"Shh… It's over now, it's just a dream," he told her as he tried to calm her down as well as slow down his own racing heart.

After getting over her initial shock, her sobs subsided. She looked up at him, eyes still full of terror, tears streaming down her pale cheeks.

"Mwu…I…" she choked out through her hiccups, "I, I love you…"

"I know," he gently kissed away her tears.

"I…love…you…so much…" her grip on him tightened. "Please…please don't…don't leave me!"

The eyes that stared up at him held such panic and despair. He could only stare back, not knowing what to do, what to say.

More than anything, he wanted to tell her, tell her that everything was going to be all right, that he would never leave her.

He wanted to, but looking into her frightened, tearstained face, he couldn't. He couldn't lie to her, because he knew that in this world that they lived in, either one of them could die so easily.

So he did the only thing he could. He held her tightly, soothing her—and himself—by running his hands up and down her back, and prayed that he wouldn't have to leave her.

AN: more Murrue angst, inspired by a quote from "Never I do, Never die" by Alone in a New Place.