Dream a Little Dream of Me

The dream was vivid.

Voices echoed around Quinn as she walked back to the hotel room, Goodneighbor shrouded in the kind of fog that only existed in fantasy. And yet she knew exactly where she was going.

Tiredness dragged her down like a weighted noose, but Quinn trudged on, making faint goodbyes to faceless friends whose names she couldn't quite cling to. Finally, she reached the door, and tried to open it, the handle stiff and icy cold beneath her fingers. It rattled on its lock, but it would not budge.

Quinn kicked it, yelling Danse's name, her breath misting with the chill. The idiot was probably tinkering with his guns or asleep, or—

She blinked.

The door was now frosted glass, shadows lurking just out of sight. Quinn inhaled sharply, the cold raking against her throat, and her heart began to race. She knew what was coming, knew what was about to happen. She didn't want to see it, but something was preventing her from closing her eyes.

Quinn wiped at the glass, creating a clear window to Nate. He was arguing, holding onto Shaun for dear life, fighting with everything he had. Her fists were beating on the door as she screamed his name, unable to stop Kellogg, unable to stop it happening again.

The glass cracked.

She paused. The glass had never cracked before. Quinn glanced up to see Nate still struggling, Kellogg still considering him, the hand holding the gun at his side. Panicked determination flooded through her, and she began hitting the door with everything she had, not caring when her skin split and her knuckles bled, or when the jagged crack bit into her flesh. Even when a loud crunch sounded and pain shot through her hand, Quinn didn't pause, and soon there was a hole large enough for her to fit her arm through.

Kellogg sauntered over, leaning so close to her pod she could have throttled him.

Quinn blinked. Kellogg was no longer there. Instead, there was Shaun. He peered at her, wearing a blank smile as he said, "His death was...an unfortunate bit of collateral damage."

Shaun stepped back, pressing a button on the console next to her pod, and Quinn fell forward as the door swung open, hitting the floor with a thud.

Gone was the cold, replaced by the odd feel of worn carpet beneath her fingers. Quinn glanced up and saw she had finally gotten through the door of her hotel room in Goodneighbor. The fear drained away and she pulled herself to her feet, smiling. Why on earth had she ever been so worried? Of course Danse would have heard her. Of course he would answer the door.

Still, as she walked through the room, a sense of uneasiness swept over her. It was dark and uninhabited, as if no one had lived there for years. But she knew she had left Danse in here only half an hour ago.

Synth.

Quinn remembered seconds before she found him, slumped in the far corner of the room. The back of his head was gone, decorating the peeling wallpaper behind him.

Quinn barely remembered screaming, barely remembered grabbing him and shaking him. All she could see was the peaceful look on his face as she fought against the unseen hands trying to pull her back, pull her away from—

"Quinn!"

Quinn woke with a start to see Danse looming over her, his face wrought with concern. She tried to speak his name, but her throat was tight, and all she could do was wheeze until he sat her up, massaging her back as she fought against her panic attack.

When it subsided, Quinn buried herself in his arms, not caring what the consequences might be. The images of his cold, dead body were burned into her brain. She needed to touch him, to smell him and feel the warmth of his skin. To know he was still there.

Danse held Quinn until the shaking subsided, and then prised her away, still looking worried. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." The images of Nate and Shaun and Danse played like a macabre slideshow in her head, and suddenly Quinn wanted to be away from him. She wriggled free and stood up, looking at the bed she had dozed off on, the book she had been reading on the floor.

"Just a bad dream." She wiped the sweat off her face and picked the book up, tucking the loose pages back in. "I'm fine."

"You look exhausted," he said, getting to his feet.

"I'm fine," Quinn said again, sharper this time as she stalked past him. He needed to mind his own damn business.

Danse caught her arm and dragged her back towards him, frowning, his grip tightening as she tried to pull away. "Don't think I haven't noticed that you've not been sleeping."

Quinn twisted her arm out of his grasp, his accusatory tone aggravating her sour mood. Tiredness had deprived her of what little patience she had. "Why the hell do you care?"

"You know why."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I…" he looked helplessly at her and then sighed. "Never mind."

Quinn felt a twinge of guilt for snapping at him. The wounded expression he was wearing wasn't making anything easier. But she just felt so tired. Right now, Quinn wanted to curl up and cry, but what good would that do? She needed to get a hold of herself. She needed to stay awake.

"Anything happen while I was out?" she asked, playing with the torn corner of her book.

"Piper stopped by to see how you were, but you were asleep. She said to tell you they were all going to be in Hancock's office for the next few hours before they went their separate ways."

"What are you waiting for then?" Quinn tossed her book on the bed and forced a grin. "Let's go."

Danse did not return the smile. "You should get some more rest."

"I don't know when I'm going to see them again. Sleep can wait." She put her hands on her hips. "And you're coming with me."

"And if I don't want to?" His eyes narrowed as he folded his arms.

The question made her heart stop. Did he know? And if Danse refused to leave, she wouldn't be able to go without him. How long until he found out she had heard his tape?

"Well if you want to sit in this shitty room all by yourself for hours on end, be my guest," Quinn countered waspishly, glaring at him.

Danse scowled back. "Fine. If you won't tell me, I can't make you."

He stomped past her without another word.

"I'm sensing some tension between you and your synth buddy."

Quinn shot MacCready a withering look, and he shrugged, sipping on his beer before saying, "Just an observation."

Danse sat between Piper and Preston on the other side of the room. He averted his eyes from her, listening to Hancock tell a joke with such determination he seemed on the verge of exploding.

"Well observe something else," she said, taking a swig from her own beer.

"Touchy today, aren't we?"

"What do you want, MacCready?"

"Just to let you know the job from the Slog went off without a hitch. That friend of yours—Carson, was it? He was right: Rachel is a hell of a fighter."

The admiration in his voice was unmistakeable. Neither was the look that crossed his eyes. She had seen it countless times with Nate, when things had been getting...intimate. Quinn smirked.

"Sounds like someone has a schoolboy crush," she mumbled into her drink. As she hoped, MacCready turned scarlet.

"N-no!" he stammered, immediately looking annoyed with himself. "She's—well—I…" His excuses stopped as he leaned back in his seat and pulled his hat over his eyes.

Quinn's grin was wide now as she leaned over, a delightful notion crossing her mind. She rested her chin on his shoulder and said, "What did you two get up to?"

"Nothing."

"Robert Joseph MacCready, you're the same colour as a Nuka Cola truck. Stop fibbing."

A long pause. And then—

"Yeah, alright, fine. Stuff happened." He said it quickly, as if he didn't want to think about it any longer than he had to. "We holed up in the Gunner base after we dealt with them. Got rid of the bodies. Found some booze. Decided to celebrate. One thing led to another, and…"

MacCready sank deep into his chair, pulling his hat down even further.

The mental image of Rachel and MacCready tickled Quinn somewhat—Rachel was taller than him after all—but the look on his face made the laughter die in her throat.

"What's wrong?" she asked, sitting up straight again. "Everyone needs a bit of fun now and then."

"Because of Lucy," MacCready snapped, wrenching his hat back up and revealing eyes blazing with anger. But then slowly it turned into guilt, and he leaned forward, shaking his head as he said, "She's dead. She's dead and I...I shouldn't have..."

"Wanna step outside for a bit?"

"Yeah." MacCready leapt to his feet and swept from the room, leaving Quinn to hurry out after him. Thankfully, the others were too engrossed in Hancock's tale to notice, and with Danse surrounded by people, she felt safe leaving him alone.

When she joined him on the balcony, MacCready was draining the last of his beer. He set down the bottle and tried to light a cigarette, but his shaking hands kept missing. Quinn took the lighter from him and held it under his smoke, and he nodded gratefully before puffing on it.

The two of them said nothing, leaning on the railings and staring out into the town below, watching a fight between two drunken ghouls. Their yells and the whoops of encouragement from the spectators in the street filled the silence.

MacCready took a deep drag of his cigarette and let out a long stream of smoke. "God, I miss her."

"Lucy?"

"Yeah." He inhaled on the smoke again and coughed a little before saying, "But I still had a good time with Rachel. I don't know. The whole thing is fu—is messed up. And I think Rachel feels just as guilty as me. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone."

"She mentioned her husband to you?" Quinn asked carefully.

MacCready nodded. "We talked a bit about our kids and our families while we were on the road to deal with the Gunners. I remember the Enclave back when I was in the Capital Wasteland. Cruel sons of bi—nasty guys. Doesn't surprise me they'd kill her husband and daughter like that."

"I know you feel bad," Quinn said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "but you're allowed to feel for other people and act on it if you want to. God knows I've had to learn that since Nate died."

He didn't look entirely convinced, but he smiled all the same. "I figured out of everyone I knew, you'd get it." MacCready sighed. "Feels like shi—I mean—I don't feel too great now, but…" He shrugged. "I'll work through it and I'll be fine. Just needed to get it off my chest, I think."

MacCready's smile faltered as he flicked his cigarette away, and he motioned for her to follow. They walked back in, side by side, just in time to hear Hancock deliver his punch line. The others roared with laughed; Danse was the only exception, his eyes watching her through the gloom, before darting away again when he realised she had seen him.

Quinn and MacCready moved to join the rest of the group, but while MacCready sat down and picked up another drink, Quinn hesitated. Preston—who normally liked to be in the thick of things so long as the smoke wasn't too heavy—was absent. She glanced around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Danse was staring at her again, but Quinn ignored him. Her tiredness was so great she could no longer control her irritability. He didn't deserve her ire—a fact she knew, and which only served to rankle her further.

Quinn waited until the chatter started up again—Piper had launched into her latest evidence on the mayor of Diamond City being a synth, which earned her an uncomfortable look from Hancock—before slipping from the room to search for Preston.

She found him at the bottom of the spiral stairs, pouring over a set of ragged books, looking thoroughly worn out. Once glance at the Minuteman was enough to tell her she was about to get an earful of worries again. She didn't mind—it gave her a sense of purpose like no other, and she was in short supply of that at the moment.

"Hey," Quinn said, dropping down next to him.

"Hey," Preston replied, not looking up at her. He shifted slightly, moving his book out of the shadow she had thrown onto the pages.

"What you up to? Not in the mood for socialising?"

"No."

Quinn frowned. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes." He rubbed at his eyes, and even in the dim light, Quinn could see the shadows beneath them. Part of her wanted to ask if he had slept that night, but the word 'hypocrite' hissed through her head.

Instead, Quinn settled for, "Seems to me like something's up. Not like you to shut yourself away, giving one word answers. What's wrong?"

Preston paused and then sighed heavily. He straightened up, closing his book, and Quinn saw by the cover that it was a first aid manual. Then he looked at her, and the distress in his eyes was overwhelming.

"At 35 Court," he said, his fingers tightening on the book, "I tried to help MacCready, but I couldn't. If Danse hadn't been there, MacCready could have been in serious trouble."

Quinn waited, wondering what point Preston was trying to make.

"I should have known how to help him," Preston said, scowling. Quinn felt unnerved; anger didn't suit his gentle face. "I should have known what to do, but I had no idea. I was...I am ignorant." He held up the book. "Indirect pressure is one of the most basic parts of medical treatment. Basic, and I didn't know it."

"You're being too hard on yourself."

"No, I'm not." He tossed the book away with a look of disgust. "I've been with the Minutemen for years, and not once was I taught basic medical skills. 'Take a stimpak and patch them up. If they die, it's not your fault. You're not a doctor; nothing more you could have done.' That's what I knew. That's what I believed.

"I once overheard Danse say that the Minutemen were just civilians in uniform, masquerading as a militia. It annoyed me; I thought he was being unfair."

Preston's scowl crumpled into despair and he took off his hat, putting his head in his hands. "He was right. We're just civilians. I'm just a civilian pretending to be a soldier. Pretending to help people. I can't help anyone. How many people did I kill in Quincy because I didn't know how to treat their wounds properly?"

"None," a familiar voice said.

Both Quinn and Preston looked up to see Danse stood halfway down the spiral stairs, leaning on the banister as he frowned at them.

Preston went scarlet and jumped to his feet, mumbling excuses to leave.

"Stay where you are," Danse ordered.

To Quinn's greatest surprise, Preston obeyed, rooted to the spot as he stared up at Danse, who made his way down the stairs, shaking his head.

Danse picked up the book that Preston had thrown to the floor and said, "Their deaths are not your fault, because you didn't know any better. But now you do. This is your chance to learn from the past and do right for the people you serve, whether you're a soldier or a civilian."

Maybe he took Carson's words to heart, Quinn thought as she watched him thrust the book into Preston's hands. This was certainly a far cry away from his usual guilt over his old team members. But then again, whether Danse believed it or not was irrelevant: it was what Preston needed to hear.

Preston gave a small, muted nod. "But there's so much to learn, to take in. I don't know where to begin." He gave Danse a half hopeful look.

Danse frowned, considering the Minuteman for a moment, and then nodded. "If it's guidance you need, I can show you ropes." He gestured to the exit.

Preston looked at the door and then down at the book, before his expression shifted to hard determination as he nodded again. "Lead the way."

Danse gave a noise of approval and turned to Quinn. "You're coming back with us."

Anger flared up within her. "You don't decide what I—"

"This is not a debate," he interrupted. "You've not been yourself lately and you're not sleeping. We're going back to the hotel."

Preston glanced from one to the other, a sheepish expression on his face.

Fury pulsed through her, burning under her skin as she trembled on the spot. He didn't fucking order her around, not outside of work. He didn't—

But the rage disappeared almost at once as she met Danse's gaze. He was staring at her, not with stubbornness or annoyance, or even spite.

Fear. He was looking at her with fear.

She could see the desperation creeping into his face, urging her to back down. Whatever was bothering him, he wasn't going without her, no matter what she did or said.

The exhaustion hit Quinn in full force and the fight left her. She didn't have the energy to bicker with him, or the strength to push him away if he took her back to the hotel room by force.

"Fine," she sighed, her voice weighed with resignation. "Have it your way."

She shuffled past both men, not bothering to turn around as they followed. But as they walked through Goodneighbor, Quinn slowed, dragging her heavy feet, and they quickly overtook her. As they walked in front of her, Quinn noticed the worried glances Danse kept throwing, his eyes darting up and down, studying her. The truth finally dawned on Quinn.

He's afraid to leave me alone.

Begging was not something that Quinn did lightly, but she could see no other way out of her predicament.

Preston and Danse had spent hours going over the first aid guide, Danse showing Preston everything he knew, pointing out every little detail in the damaged, stained pages while Quinn paced around the room like a caged deathclaw. Both men had watched her with concern, but when they asked if she was alright, she had snapped so viciously at them they hadn't asked again.

The tiredness was ruining her. Her limbs were lead, dragging her body deep into the ground as she fought to stay afloat. The headache cut through her skull like a saw, and her dry, stinging eyes battled continuously with her to close. She felt sick, and dark, paranoid thoughts darted around her mind like flies on a festering corpse. Her lips trembled as the tears threatened to fall, the world swaying from side to side as she walked, until all she wanted to do was curl up on the floor and die.

Can't sleep. Danse...no. Can't do it.

Eventually, Preston had left, looking as if he had wanted to stay. Quinn heard a brief, quiet discussion at the door between civilian and soldier, though she only caught the words, "...I'm going to try to convince her…"

Like hell he would convince her. Not when there was so much at stake.

"Had a nice little chat behind my back with Preston?" she spat as Danse returned. He didn't rise to her barbs, but took her by the shoulders, clamping down as she briefly struggled against him, and frogmarched her across the room, forcing her to stand in front of a cracked mirror on the wall.

"Look at what you're doing to yourself," he said gently.

Quinn looked.

The woman in the mirror was a stranger. Haggard and pale, this gaunt imitation of herself could barely stand, let alone function. Quinn felt Danse's hands slide away as she reached over and touched the crack in the glass that streaked across the intruder's face. For a second, she was back in her dream, watching Nate as she tried to break her way out. Then the vision faded, and all that remained was Danse.

He met her eye in the reflection. "Tell me what's wrong."

Quinn said nothing. After a few seconds of silence, he tried again.

"I understand you might not trust me right now, what with the truth of my real identity—"

"What?" she said at once, her eyes widening. The stranger in the mirror mimicked her.

Danse grimaced. "My...my being a synth. I know this has likely damaged your trust in me, and I don't blame you for that, but I can't let you continue with this."

Quinn turned away from the mirror to look at him fully, her mouth open in alarm. "What the hell are you talking about? Of course I trust you! Why would you think like that?"

He frowned, clearly confused. "You...you won't sleep and you won't tell me why. You're hiding things from me. I can tell you're uncomfortable. The only thing that's changed recently is learning what I am. Or that's the only thing I can think of, at any rate."

"What? No!" Quinn gestured to herself, horrified. "This has nothing to do with you being a synth!"

"Then what?"

"I...I can't say."

Danse groaned with frustration. "This is your reckless behaviour all over again. You gave me a speech about how I need to talk to you and confide in you. I can't do that if you won't show confidence in me, Quinn."

"I have confidence in you," she replied, dismay threatening to swallow her. He thought this was because of him. "I do. I just...I can't talk about this with you."

She could feel his hurt as she watched him deflate, becoming small and uncertain again.

"Alright." He gave a long, slow sigh, closing his eyes as he pressed his thumb into his forehead. "I'm sorry for pushing you. I'll drop it if you just sleep. That's all I'm asking. Get some sleep."

"No."

"Goddamn it, Quinn!" The authority of his old rank returned with a vengeance, throwing off the shackles of his exile as he loomed over her. "You gave me the third degree when I did this, and rightly so, but at least I offered a reason for it. If you can't do me the courtesy of explaining what's wrong, then that's your business, but you need to sleep. And I won't drop this until you do."

The fire in his eyes told her he meant every word, and she felt panic consume her.

Quinn hated begging, but there was no other way.

"Please," she whispered hugging herself as she locked eyes with him. "Please, don't make me sleep. Please."

His annoyance crumbled into worry at once. "Let me help you."

"God, this is…this isn't about me!" Quinn shook her head and began pacing waving her arms as she ignored the world spinning around her. "I don't want it to be about me! I'm fine! Fucking fantastic! I don't want everything that's happened to you to be made about me! You're the one who's suffering, the one who's been treated like shit by the people you've given everything to! It's not right! It's not—"

Everything lurched forward as Quinn lost her footing, stumbling and crashing into the desk, sending tools and weapon parts scattering.

As she expected, he was at her side in an instant, helping her to her feet and guiding her to the bed. He sat down next to her, brow furrowed as he stared at the floor. When he spoke, his words were quiet and slow, articulated with the greatest of care.

"I would never think you're trying to overshadow my troubles with your own." He met her eye. "But I think we both know by now that what's yours is mine, and what's mine is yours. You came for me when no one else would. You risked your life so I could keep my own. This incident...you've helped me carry the burden when you didn't have to. And if you have to shoulder my troubles, then I will shoulder yours."

He waited patiently for her response, and Quinn realised the game was up. She had nowhere else to hide, nowhere left to run. If she continued to avoid his questions, he would really believe that it was because of him. Quinn bit her finger, feeling the tight panic welling up inside of her again, and opened the compartment on her Pip-Boy where Danse's tape lay. She handed it to him without comment.

He took it off her, confused for a moment. Then as his fingers ran over the remains of the peeled off label, his face paled. Danse jumped to his feet, his knuckles white as he clutched at the tape, and walked away for a few steps, staring at it, before turning back to her.

"Did you…?" he asked.

Quinn nodded, slowly standing up. "Your—"

Danse flung the tape aside, and it bounced off the wall with a clack as he snarled, "You had no right to listen to that!"

His expression was downright frightening, and Quinn hesitated, feeling a prickle of dread in her stomach. But then she remembered Nate, with his terrible mood swings and her meekness towards them. Her mettle returned with a surge of indignation.

Like hell she would let that happen again.

Looking Danse square in the eye, she gave him her best glare as she hissed, "Then you shouldn't have fucking left it lying around!"

He flinched, and the redness in his cheeks darkened. "I didn't—I wasn't—you shouldn't have…" His voice trailed off, his anger slowly shifting into a long, uncomfortable silence as gaze returned to the floor. Eventually, Danse's shoulders slumped and he dropped back down onto the bed. "I...I didn't think. Forgot about it. The last week…"

Danse leaned forward, clutching his head in his hands. "The last week has been a blur." He let go of his head and sat up straight, sighing, before quietly asking, "Is this why you won't sleep?"

Quinn hesitated and then nodded. "It's…" She twisted her fingers together, trying to find the words. "I'm scared that if I don't keep an eye on you, you'll go through with it. And I can't look out for you while I'm…"

"That is the stupidest, most irrational thing I've ever heard," he said, glancing up at her.

Despite herself, Quinn rolled her eyes. "Don't hold back, Danse. Tell me how you really feel."

Ignoring her sarcasm, he frowned and then said, "I mean it. How did you expect this to end, Quinn? Or did you not bother to consider that far ahead? This isn't something you can sustain."

"What, like you?"

"Yes, exactly like me," he snapped, and Quinn felt guilty for her low blow. Danse shook his head. "You had a damn panic attack today, but you won't tell me what it was. At first I thought it was to do with Nate and Shaun, but now I'm not so sure. What did you see?"

He wasn't going to let this drop until she told the truth. Preparing for the dismay that would likely follow, Quinn took a deep breath and relayed her dream back to him. Somehow she made it through without cracking, though she felt a lump in her throat and shivers in her spine.

Danse winced, his face paling. Then to her greatest surprise, he scowled. "You've spent months trying to make me see reason over my nightmares, but when you suffer the same thing you choose to hide it from me?"

"I didn't want to make you feel any worse. I didn't want to make this entire shitstorm about me." Quinn felt like a broken record, repeating the same meaningless insistences over and over again, but he needed to understand.

There was a long silence. Then Danse started to talk.

Quinn stood and listened as he detailed everything that he saw when he closed his eyes, a ruinous haze of the past, his very worst memories fused into one.

The bodies of those that had died under his command, and their accusing stares. The ruins of the Capital Wasteland, the contempt of Krieg, and the centrepiece: Cutler, spotlighted in an abandoned Rivet City.

"I'm back in D.C. on the scouting mission, with Marguerie and the others." Danse glared down at his hands as he dug his nails into his palms. "I'm looking for him. Hoping he's still alive. Praying for it. And then I see him on the floor, and I'm not sure if he's dead, and I—"

Danse broke off, his fingers digging into his forehead as he trembled.

Quinn didn't know what to say. She had never heard him talk so freely about his nightmares before, but it was like someone had just lit up a darkened room, revealing every lurking demon. He had always said his dreams were about Cutler, but never mentioned their vividness before.

"I go to help, and I see that he's alive, and I think everything will be alright...but when I reach him, I know I have to kill him, but I can't see why. Part of me doubts at just blindly following orders. Part of me wants to let him go. I hesitate...and then he's a mutant, pinning me to the floor. Strangling me."

"Danse…" Quinn moved over to the bed and sat down next to him.

"And yet I still can't kill him," Danse said bitterly, clenching his fists. "I know what he is, but I don't finish him off."

"Is that how it happened?"

"Almost," he replied, closing his eyes and wiping the sweat off his face. "When we reached the hive, I picked Cutler out—saw the scraps of his uniform and his dog tags cutting into his neck. I lost my head. He bolted and I ran after him, abandoning the people I was supposed to be leading. Thank God Marguerie knows how to keep her cool."

"And then?" Quinn prompted.

"And then...he outmanoeuvred me." Danse scowled. "A super mutant got the better of me because I was letting my emotions overrule my training. Took me by surprise and slammed me to the floor. Got his fingers under my helmet, where the undermesh meets the neck joint."

Quinn had sudden visions of the super mutant that had attacked her in the stairwell when they had been trying to rescue Kapraski. Danse's haunted expression as he'd pulled the mutant off her was as clear as day.

"How did you escape?" she said, pushing the visions away.

"Common sense kicked in at the last second, and I realised he was beyond help." Danse slowly opened his eyes again. "I had a sidearm to hand. I shot him."

The monotone quality of his voice said it all. He was weary of this memory.

Quinn regarded him for a moment, watching as he stared blankly ahead, and then jumped as his head snapped to look at her.

"I suppose you're wondering why I'm telling you this."

"No." She shrugged. "I figured you've been bottling this up for a long time and needed to talk about it."

"I'm telling you because you need to see what you are to me."

Quinn blinked. "I...I don't understand."

"I know." Danse sighed. "This is hard to work through—the whole thing is a mess. Just give me a moment to try and explain." He frowned. "Do you remember when you asked me what I saw in the church in the Glowing Sea?"

Quinn cast her mind back to the Prydwen, when they had been alone in Danse's room.

"What did you see?" she asked quietly.

"I...I don't know. I only remember parts of it. Just...what I normally dream about. Cutler. I go to help him, but he's not Cutler anymore, he's...and then…" He shook his head. "But this time it was different. It wasn't Cutler, it was…" Danse looked at Quinn for a moment and then dropped his gaze. "It doesn't matter."

"Yeah," Quinn said, still confused. "You said it was like your normal dreams, but then it changed into something else."

"I have seen Cutler in my sleep almost every night without fail since his death," Danse said, tapping his hands nervously on his knees, avoiding her eye. "You know how close we were—what he meant to me. The dreams always follow a similar pattern, and no one has ever taken his place. Until the episode in the Glowing Church."

The scene on the Prydwen flashed through her head again, and suddenly Quinn understood.

"It wasn't Cutler, it was…" Danse looked at Quinn for a moment and then dropped his gaze.

"I saw you. You were lying where his body should have been." Danse continued to look anywhere but at Quinn. "At the time I thought it was because of your stupid, risk-taking behaviour—you did cause that incident—and it never happened again. But after the confrontation with Maxson…" He chewed his lip. "I've seen you a few times since. Not every night, but enough to unsettle me."

Quinn felt uncomfortable at this confession, and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was knowing she was the source of his misery. "I don't see what this has to do with—"

"You mean...you mean a lot to me, Quinn. More than I could adequately describe." He gave her a weak smile. "When I was in the bunker, when I made that tape...I thought I'd lost everything: my integrity, my friends, my purpose...you." He paused, going pink. "But you not only proved that you'd stand by me, you showed me that I wasn't a traitor. I wouldn't throw away everything you've given me so carelessly. I wouldn't put you through that."

"But…" Quinn licked her lips, looking for a hole in his argument just so he could prove her wrong, "but you've been so distant…"

Danse nodded. "I have. I won't lie—this is the worst I've ever felt in my life. Some days are harder than others, and I suspect it will be like that for a long while. But you've taken the time to show me that I may have a future worth fighting for. And while I don't quite believe it yet, I'm getting there. The man in that tape isn't me, because he had no hope...and I have plenty."

Quinn's lip trembled as his smiled broadened into something warm and genuine, and she leaned forward, resting her forehead against his shoulder as her hands clung at his clothes. Danse hesitated for a moment before turning his body to face her as he placed a warm hand on her back.

"Will you sleep?" he asked her gently.

Quinn didn't answer immediately, the images of her last nightmare running through her mind. But then they were banished as a realisation dawned on her. For the first time since this fiasco had begun, Danse had referred to himself as a man.

Still, she needed her reassurances. "Will you still be here when I wake up?"

"Yes. I promise."

Another pause. Then she nodded. "Alright."

Danse sighed with relief.

A/N: Thanks to my amazing beta, waiting4morning, for her wonderful work!

Reminder: my beta will be on holiday between the 4th and 12th of August, so there will be no chapter on the weekend during those dates (6/7th) and potentially the weekend after (13/14th).

However, I may post some drabbles to fill the gap. We'll see!