A/N: If you're enjoying this story, please take a moment to let me know what you think. Most of the reviews I have gotten have been extremely encouraging, but I am occasionally put off by how little people seem to be interested in this. I need to get going on my SPBB fic, so a lack of interest in Black Mirror from my readers might mean I put it aside until SPBB is done. Which will be, like... 4 months from now. Thanks and stuff.

The first two days I was at Christophe's apartment, I did nothing but sleep. I felt like a lazy slob, but really, when was the last time I'd been able to rest? Not in the ghetto, and certainly not in Treblinka or during my escape. I was exhausted.

Ike came and went, and they both checked on me several times, but there was no use in trying to get me out of bed.

I awoke frequently in a panic, because I'd been on alert for danger for so long, but once I realized where I was I'd go right back to sleep. I had terrible dreams though, mostly about Treblinka. The worst, at the time, had me running the gas chambers. I'd lead my parents and Ike into them, telling them everything would be ok, and then I'd sit outside while they were being killed. Afterward I'd haul their bodies out into the graves, but they'd speak to me despite being dead, asking how I could let such a thing happen to them. I'd always want to tell Ike about this dream when he'd come see me, but I thought it might be too much for him.

After a few days of rest, I set about organizing the room in which I was staying. It was so tiny and cramped that Christophe's mess of "incriminating evidence" made it nearly unnavigable.

He didn't ask me to clean it, and frankly I think he was irritated by my meddling, but I had no idea how the hell he managed to find anything in that mess. And laying around in bed doing nothing was starting to get to me. I had to do something. It took me several days, but when I was finished with it everything was arranged in an orderly fashion, making the room look better and the information easier to access.

And then I was bored again.

Christophe's apartment was above a bar which he owned and ran, so the danger of me being discovered was pretty low, but I still had to keep quiet during the day. As such, I spent most days sleeping. At night he'd come visit me, and I was allowed to make myself comfortable in the rest of the apartment, but it wasn't quite enough. With only him and Ike for company, I became restless and lonely, and I guess psychologically it was bad for me. It seemed pointless for me to have survived what I did, and then spend the rest of my days living in a closet, losing my mind.

It was odd that being relatively safe could make me feel so depressed, but it did. As the weeks went on I felt worse and worse. It was like all the horror and sadness that I'd pushed back while I was actually going through these things had finally caught up with me, and since I wasn't able to do much, it was all I could think about. There were days when I couldn't even get out of bed, despite not really being tired, because I felt crippled by the weight of what had happened to me.

I was very glad when Christophe asked me to help with his resistance work.

"How good are you at reading German?" he asked me one night, settling himself on the sofa next to me.

"I'm not fluent, but I know enough to be able to understand the gist of it."

"Well mine's shit. I usually get Ike to help me, but someone just sent me this document, and I'd rather not go traipsing across town with it just to have someone else read it. So, here," he said, shoving a few papers into my hands.

I laughed at his brusqueness as he got up to go do something else, but I was glad to have something to keep me occupied. I knew the real reason he was making me translate things for him was because he knew how bad it was getting for me, but I let him hold onto his facade of not caring. That was just how he was.

Time went on, as it always does, and we eventually had a routine. I slept while he worked, and then he'd stay up with me for a good part of the night. Sometimes we'd analyze data and maps together, but more often than not we'd just sit together, keeping each other company. This was how I ended up having a rather humiliating encounter with him.

Since I'd left the ghetto, I'd had absolutely no sex drive. I think this was pretty common for prisoners in Treblinka, since there were a few Jewish women there who did housework for the Nazis, but very few of the men there ever tried to pursue them.

Since I was living under better circumstances, suddenly I was very interested in sex again.

One evening Christophe and I were sitting upon the sofa, talking, and out of nowhere I leaned over and kissed him. I didn't even think about doing it... it was a stupid impulse. Ike had told me that Christophe was also gay, and so I suppose that had planted the thought in my subconscious. He kissed me back for a moment, and then pulled away, regarding me with a look of distaste. I felt my face heating up as he stared at me, and after a moment he leaned in to kiss me again. Something about it felt off. I pulled away first, this time.

"Hmmm."

"Yeah," I said, "That was... kind of awful, I'm sorry."

"Like kissing a sibling," he agreed, "Not that I would know."

"I just thought – I mean... nevermind," I stammered, feeling humiliated.

"Nah, don't worry about it," he said, "I've been wondering about it myself, but... yeah, no good."

He got up and walked away, and I was left wondering exactly what the "it" he'd been wondering about was. I wasn't about to ask.

I hid out in my room for a few days after that, too embarrassed to face him, though I suppose I had little reason to feel that way. He'd gone on like it was no big deal, but I couldn't help but think that I'd ruined the delicate balance we'd achieved. I was beginning to worry that we'd never break out of this awkwardness, when one evening he came and knocked on my door. He was calling me to dinner, and whatever he'd made smelled delicious.

I joined him in the dining room, and sat at the table, where I waited until he emerged from the kitchen, carrying a perfectly cooked turkey on a platter.

"I know you are Jewish," he said, setting the turkey upon the table, "but I'm treating you to Christmas dinner anyway. This turkey was all I could get, but ah. Yeah."

I was kind of surprised. I had lost track of the date, so I had no idea that it was Christmas, not that it meant much to me. I was happy to have a good meal, anyway, and the bottles of wine he'd brought up from his cellar looked inviting as well. But something seemed wrong with the scenario.

"Don't people usually spend Christmas with their family?" I asked.

"I suppose they do."

"Well. But you're here, with just me, so. Um."

He paused in the middle of slicing a piece of turkey, and just stared blankly at his hands for a moment.

"Well," he said, looking angry, "I don't have a family, and I don't want to talk about this, so just... leave it. Eat your turkey."

I was irritated by his dismissal, but respected his wishes. After all, I knew what it was like to not want to discuss something. I couldn't quite let it go, though.

"Excuse me for caring," I said, picking up my fork.

Christophe sighed and gave me a condescending look.

"This passive-aggressive shit won't work on me, you know. Maybe I'll tell you about it some day, but not now."

I felt worried that I'd made things awkward between us once more, but by the end of dinner we had finished two bottles of wine, and I was pretty damn drunk. Christophe seemed fairly unphased, but he was opening up to me a little anyway, telling me stories of what Rouen was like before the German occupation. It was clear that he did the resistance work out of love for his city more than anything, and it was nice to finally have a better understanding of his motivations. It wasn't often that he really opened up to me.

By the end of the evening our awkward Christmas dinner had somehow cleared the air between us, and by the next day things seemed like they were back to normal.

We had another "feast" on New Years Eve. Or New Years Day, I suppose, since Christophe was running his bar until well after midnight. It hardly mattered to me, since my sleep cycle was such a mess. Usually a new year meant very little to me... after all, it's just a date. A Christian date at that... for Jews the new year had begun back in September, if you wanted to get really technical.

But I remember telling Christophe, after I was well into my cups, that I sincerely hoped that 1944 would be a better year. I mean, not that it could have been much worse than 1943... or 1942, and so on had been, but I had really high hopes for what might come our way.

I've never believed in prayer. I've always believed that you have to make things happen for yourself. And furthermore, at the time I wasn't even sure I believed in God anymore, after what I'd seen and done. But that morning when I went to bed, I found myself praying that things would turn around, and I'd be able to find some kind of happiness in my life. I'd certainly had more than my share of misery.

As the months wore on, I felt rather stupid about this wish, since my life consisted of very little beside hiding out during the day, and chatting with Christophe or Ike in the evenings. I'd had a few guests in my little room in that time; first a British soldier who'd escaped from a labor camp, and then later an American soldier who'd become separated from his unit. I was sympathetic enough to their plight, but my room was cramped enough without other people staying there, and I was glad to see both of them gone.

In March Christophe came to me and told me we'd have some more permanent visitors. Two SOE agents were to come and stay with him to help with the resistance. He was very hesitant about this. Despite his gruff exterior, I knew he was extremely protective of me. None of his men knew I was there, and when they had meetings in his apartment I'd have to hide away, laying silently in my room until his accomplices were gone. So two foreign men staying with him was a big deal.

"What if they discover you?" he asked, looking anxious for the first time since I'd known him.

"Would that be so bad?" I asked. Though I knew it was dangerous, I was excited at the prospect of two other people being in the flat. Interacting with just Christophe and Ike day in and day out was wearing on me.

"Yes, Kyle, that would be bad! How do we know we can trust them? And even if they don't intend to harm you, there's the possibility that they might accidentally let something slip."

"Relax," I said, as if that settled anything.

Christophe just walked away from me, shaking his head. A few weeks later, they were there.

I didn't meet them the first week we were hosting them. I heard them going about their daily business around the apartment, and I could hear bits and pieces of their conversations through the walls, but all I really knew about them was what Christophe told me after they'd gone to bed. They were both blonde, and were pretending they were brothers, though they were not related. One was named Kenny, who was entertaining enough, and the other was Gregory. Christophe had always been a fairly quiet guy, and hardly ever discussed other people with me unless it was to tell me what Ike was up to, but apparently he now had a subject he found interesting, even though he tried to deny it when I'd tease him about it.

Apparently Gregory had very pretty hair. Apparently Gregory was excessively polite until he got upset about something. Apparently Gregory was very intelligent and liked to use his wits to his advantage during arguments. Apparently Gregory was gay and, "do you think he's seeing Kenny since they cuddle at night?"

"I don't know, Christophe."

Ad fucking nauseum.

It was clear he had it bad, and I don't even think he knew how bad he had it.

I met them by accident one night, while Christophe and I were hanging out in the kitchen. Christophe went in for the kill when Gregory came out of the bedroom, but I was relieved, to be honest. Hiding from people outside of the apartment was difficult enough, but this whole sneaking around at night business was too stressful for me to handle.

I got along well with Kenny, but Gregory and I really hit it off, much to Christophe's consternation, I think. I don't know what he was so worried about, since it was obvious to me that Gregory and I were not sexually compatible, if you catch my drift. Maybe Christophe was concerned about hurting my feelings since we hadn't been interested in each other, and suddenly there was someone around with whom he was infatuated? Who knows with Christophe. But we were all walking on eggshells with each other for a while, and it was irritating to me because I seemed to be the only person who saw what was going on. Maybe Kenny did as well, but he never said anything about it, at least not to me.

With two new people around to keep me company, I was very rarely lonely anymore, but I still felt as though something was missing. I was still pretty bored, and moreover I was still trying to wrap my head around what had happened to me. It was odd that six months prior I'd literally been in a life or death situation, and had had everything in the world stripped from me. And now here I was living fairly comfortably, with very few worries other than finding ways to occupy my time. It wasn't until many years later that "survivor's guilt" was recognized as a psychological condition, but in retrospect I'm sure that's what I was dealing with. There were times where everyone else was enjoying themselves, and I had to go spend time alone in my room because I felt uncomfortable. And any time Ike did anything, I had panic attacks over it. At one point I completely flipped out on Christophe because Ike was sick, and he wouldn't let me go to his house and take care of him. Looking back it seems like such an overreaction, because he was right. Going out into the city to take care of my brother's little cold would have been stupid. But at the time it didn't feel that way.

After a few weeks of our new roommates, we'd settled into a routine once again. And once again, that routine was broken. And dear god was I glad it was.

When Christophe told me that they'd very likely be in need of my medical "expertise", I was glad. The resistance had learned of an American airman who'd survived a plane crash a few days prior, and they were going to try and get him to Christophe's apartment so I could look after him until they could get him safely back to England, which the Americans were using as a staging area. Medicine was my calling, and it was important to me to feel needed., so I felt pretty excited that I'd have something to do. But I hadn't anticipated what an impact my new patient might have on my life.

He didn't look like anything special when Gregory and Kenny helped him into my room. In fact, he just looked like a mess. Half-conscious, badly bandaged, and filthy. Well, filth was something I could relate to, at least.

They laid him on the bed as gently as they could, but he was clearly in a great deal of pain.

"Could someone boil some water for me? And get me a towel?" I asked, peeling his singed clothing off him. I had never really considered what it might look like to survive a plane crash, but it didn't look very pleasant.

Apparently some farmer had been taking care of him for a week or so, and she'd tried to bandage him herself, but it was clear that she was no doctor. Removing his bandages revealed that not only had he been burnt in his ordeal, but some of his wounds had become infected. There was also the matter of his leg, which was in terrible shape: broken and healing poorly. I wasn't sure how much I could help him, and I told Gregory as much. He didn't seem too concerned though, and wandered out of the room, leaving just me and the man, and Ike gawking in the corner. Someone brought me the supplies I needed, and I set about washing the man's wounds.

He'd passed out, which was good considering how hard I was scrubbing at the infected areas. I was struggling not to notice how handsome he was, despite the burns.

I must have been blushing, because Ike seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

"He's pretty good looking, don't you think?"

"What?" I replied angrily.

"You did always like guys with dark hair."

"What are you even talking about? Shut up!"

"I mean, Christophe told me you made a pass at him."

I turned to yell at him, but upon seeing the smirk on his face I decided not to fan the flames. I'm sure my face was bright red, which was enough of a confirmation for him.

"This man is my patient, Ike. Thinking about how attractive he is isn't professional."

He just hummed at me and walked out of the room, leaving me and my very attractive patient alone. I'd have to have a word with Christophe later about discussing my private life with my brother.

Despite the fact that there was already too little space in the room, I set the spare cot up on the opposite wall. There was barely enough room to walk between the two beds, but I hadn't slept in a while, and obviously my bed was occupied at the moment. I sat on the spare bed with hopes of taking a nap, but I was too distracted by my new roommate to relax.

I may or may not have been staring at the man while he slept, wondering who he was and where he came from. I spaced out after a while, and was startled when I realized he was looking back at me. I stammered out an awkward hello in Polish, and then cursed myself when he looked at me like I was insane.

"I must be more out of it than I thought," he said, though he was smiling a bit.

"No. Um. Hi," I said in English, shifting on my bed, "I'm Kyle."

"Kyle hmmm," he replied sleepily, "I'm Stan."

"Oh. Um, nice to meet you?"

He laughed at my awkwardness, and then winced.

"I don't suppose you have any morphine, do you?" he asked, "Or anything like that."

"I asked Christophe... uh, who I guess you haven't met yet, to see if he could get anything, but those kinds of medical supplies are pretty hard to come by. But ah, he's going to try and get a proper doctor in to see you, if he can."

"Proper?"

"I'm a doctor, but I worked mostly in pediatrics before the war. I don't have a lot of experience with... this sort of thing," I said, gesturing to him.

He closed his eyes, and I thought he had fallen asleep when he spoke again.

"Do you think I'll have scars?" he asked, looking genuinely concerned.

"Would that bother you?"

"Well yeah. No one likes scars."

I huffed angrily and settled in on my bed, determined to ignore this attractive stranger who would apparently find the scars on my back and arms repulsive. Not my most logical moment in retrospect, because he had no way of knowing about that, but it hurt nonetheless.

He quietly asked me if he'd said something wrong, but I ignored him, determined to push away whatever I was feeling and finally get some sleep.

I laid awake for a while, overcome with guilt because I'd been so awful to someone who was hurt and afraid. But who had been there to comfort me when I was hurt and afraid? No one. So what if I was being callous to someone who needed what I had never gotten? It was one of those situations in which I was perfectly aware of how much of an asshole I was being, but I felt powerless to change my behavior. Stan quieted down, and I eventually drifted off to sleep.

I awoke some time later to the sound of whimpering nearby. I was momentarily confused, because my bed was in the wrong place, and there shouldn't be anyone else in my little room. But I was wide awake after I turned over and saw Stan in the other bed, thrashing in his sleep. All my childish resentment flew out the window, and I quickly climbed across to his bed and checked him for a fever. He was warm, but not excessively so, and I shook him until he finally woke up, gasping for air and shouting. He looked terrified.

"It's ok," I said, pushing him back down when he tried to sit up, "It was only a dream."

He looked as though he might cry, and I couldn't help but stroke his hair in an awkward attempt to calm him down. He didn't seem to mind.

"I keep – I keep having dreams about the plane crash," he confessed, "So they are just dreams, but Jesus, that really happened."

"Oh. Yes that's... I understand what that's like," I said. He looked up at me curiously, but I looked away, not wanting to delve deeper into it.

After a while his breathing evened out, and I went to move back to my own bed, assured that he would be ok on his own. He caught the bottom of my shirt as I shifted away, and looked up at me shyly.

"Could you, um... Could you stay here with me? In case the nightmares come back?"

I didn't know exactly what he meant... surely he didn't expect me to cuddle up in bed with him, did he? I sat at the edge of his bed and he watched me in confusion. Finally it dawned on him that that was the best he was going to get from me, and the look on his face was sad enough to make me want to beg for his forgiveness. But then he rolled to his side and fell back asleep, and I felt the veil of apathy come over me once more.

It was as though my indifference was a wall around me, and this stupid boy was chipping away at it with his vulnerability. I didn't like it.

I had been watching him sleep for a while when Christophe came and knocked on my door, asking me to have a look at Gregory, who'd been caught in an aerial bombing on his mission that night.

There was a weird tension in the air when I went out to the living room, and I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. Gregory was upset, and Christophe looked guilty, and I decided right then and there not to get caught up in their bullshit. I had enough problems of my own.

Gregory was in pretty bad shape when I got to him. His head and arms were cut and bloody, and his ribs were one massive hematoma. He pushed me away when I tried to treat him, and I was five seconds away from yelling at him as he stalked away when Christophe put a hand on my shoulder.

"Clyde was killed on their mission tonight," he said, "So he's pretty upset right now."

"Oh. Um. Is there anything I can do?"

"I'll take care of it," he said, and walked off toward the bathroom, into which Gregory had disappeared, leaving me alone in the living room with a pile of medical supplies at my feet.

Well thanks, guys.

I gathered up my stuff, and decided to make myself something to eat. I peeked in to see if maybe Stan wanted something as well, but he was still completely passed out, and I felt too awkward about my earlier behavior to wake him up.

I was halfway through preparing a sandwich when I heard Gregory moaning loudly from the bathroom. And he most definitely was not moaning in pain. I finished my sandwich as quickly as I could, and high-tailed it back to my room.

Stan was, predictably, still sleeping. I sat down on the spare bed with a sigh, thoroughly irritated with everyone. Ike was off doing whatever he did, Christophe no longer had any use for me now that his boy-toy was around, Kenny was God knows where, and Stan was sleeping in my bed, taking up precious space in my tiny room. I wanted to sit there and pout, but it wasn't as though there was anyone around to see me pouting, so I just ate my sandwich instead.

Disgruntled and bored, I decided to settle in early for the evening, since it was likely that Stan had a more normal sleep cycle and might need me to care for him during the day. It didn't take me long to fall asleep, since so much had happened that day, and I was mentally and emotionally exhausted. Unfortunately with sleep came the worst dream I've ever had.

I was back in Treblinka, where the majority of my nightmares took place. I was pulling decomposing bodies out of their mass graves to take to the pyres, when suddenly they all came back to life, but not, like properly. They didn't look alive, but they were all moving and speaking anyway. My brother and parents were among the dead, as usual, and before I realized what was happening the whole mass of bodies encircled me, and they pulled at my clothes and limbs. Suddenly I was being pulled down into the pile of the dead, and it was then that I realized that I was dead, too. My skin was greyish, and so rotted that it tore whenever one of the other corpses touched me, and suddenly I couldn't see, because there were maggots where my eyes ought to be. There was a hand on my shoulder, and a soft voice in my ear telling me I'd be ok, and I awoke with a scream, shoving the hand away violently. I was startled when I realized I was in my own room, and someone was laying on the floor by my bed, swearing violently.

I looked to the floor and there was Stan, who I'd apparently shoved into the tiny space between our beds. He was clutching his injured leg and rocking back and forth, with tears pouring down his face.

"Oh, fuck," I said, reaching for him in a panic, "Jesus, shit I'm so sorry!"

He shrugged my hand off when I reached for him, but I was persistent. I don't know if it was from the dream, or from hurting someone who was already in so much pain, but suddenly I found myself crying, too. It was because of that, I suppose, that he allowed me to help him off the floor, and I pulled him onto my bed instead of his.

I kept apologizing over and over, horrified that I'd injured my own patient... especially since he'd been so nice to me, and I'd been so horribly mean to him.

"It's ok," he said, finally, grasping my wrists to stop me from maniacally stroking his hair, "I was just worried about you. You were shouting in your sleep."

He laid down next to me, and wiped the tears off his face.

"Did I say anything... uh... bad?" I asked, because I still didn't want to discuss what had happened to me, and I was afraid this would open up that conversation.
"I don't know," he said smiling, "I don't speak any Polish."

"Oh. Right."

He sniffed, but didn't seem to mind when I laid down next to him, squishing myself in between him and the wall.

"What were you dreaming about?" he asked, turning his head on the pillow to look at me. I was distracted by how close his face was to mine.

"Nothing," I said, "Don't worry about it."

He sighed loudly and turned to stare at the ceiling, but he didn't pursue the subject. Nor did he move away from me. I found this both promising and terrifying.

"I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you," I blurted out.

He turned to me, looking surprised. "Hm?"

"Well, I mean... it's just – uh."

He smiled at my stammering, and I felt my face go red.

"Look, ok, I'm having nightmares about the plane crash. You're having nightmares about whatever, which you don't feel comfortable discussing, and that's ok. In the meantime, it's just the two of us together. So, you know, we can take care of each other."

I looked at him curiously, wondering what the hell that meant, but he just smiled back at me as if everything had already been decided. I suppose, in a way, that it had.