The room was dark as the night it shielded them from. It was mostly silent, you could hear the fan if you strained your ears hard enough. But otherwise, it was silent.

Until exactly 3:04 AM.

The room remained dark, but the dull sound of the fan going round and round was disrupted by the sound of pain filled screams into the night. The sheets on the bed flailed about beneath jolting hands and feet, searching for reality in the darkness.

Such nights like these were fairly common. Or, at least they used to be. Lately, night terrors were fairly rare. Not nearly down to a normal person's level of nightmares, but significantly less than the average Bat-kids. Jason's nightmares were particularly violent to awaken from. He didn't much care to discuss them, and he would never admit that he needed her after he had a particularly bad one. He'd rather sit in silence and suffer alone than ever admit he needed someone.

Of course, Barbara knew all this.

That's why at 3:04 AM when Jason Todd flailed about in her bedroom, thrashing her sheets all over the room, she let him scream and shout and wake up a little bit. She stood in the doorway, a few feet away from the bed so that she could observe from a safe distance. In a few moments, he was laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling with what she imagined was a blank expression on his face. She couldn't see him through the pitch black of the bedroom, but she knew his actions as if they were her own. He lay on the bed staring up, clutching the sheets at either corner of the bed, a single droplet of sweat dripping down his temple.

Once he grew still, Barbara approached the bed once more. She reached out a gentle hand, caressing his shoulder with just the tips of her fingers so that he'd know she was there. He'd know where she was and that she was merely here to help. He flinched slightly beneath her touch. Quickly, she withdrew her fingertips, if only for a moment to let him cope. Soon they were back, rubbing circles across his warm skin. She kneeled with one leg onto the bed, her palm now pressed up against the curve of his shoulder.

Jason's body trembled, slowly coming back to reality from whatever terror just scrambled his brains. She could see the moonlight gleaming off the sweat that plastered his chest as it heaved up and down in silent, deep breaths. He was still staring up into the darkness of the ceiling.

Slowly, she brought her second knee up onto the bed, putting her second hand beneath him and rolling his body so he lay on his side rather than flat on his back. He followed her gentle movements and adjusted his position. He lifted his head and Barbara moved her arm to act as his pillow. She crawled underneath the sheets and pulled him close.

In moments like these, Jason didn't like to be closed in. He liked to be held close but he didn't like to feel trapped or restrained in anyway. Barbara would rest her hand on the curve of his waist and rub little circles across the skin there. She would press herself against him so that he would know she was there and was not going anywhere. Jason would tremble every now and then, shaking as the horrors that were previously in his brain slowly left. But he would feel Barbara's skin pressing against his, and it was warm and real and he would know she touched him out of nothing but love and it was his anchor on the nights where he couldn't associate what was real and what was not. She was all that he knew was really there. Barbara was there. Joker wasn't there, Dent wasn't there, Penguin wasn't there, Ra's wasn't there. Barbara was there.

Eventually, Jason might fall back asleep. He knew that after an hour, or maybe two, Barbara would almost always fall back asleep. He could feel her breathing even out, her body slump slightly against his. It comforted him to know that she could be so close, and that she would sleep right next to him. Sometimes, in the comfort of her own slumber, her arm would wrap tighter around him and pull him closer to her. She'd wrap her forearm around his chest, underneath his head. Though it wasn't comfortable to him, and it sometimes made him anxious, he allowed it. He liked the nearness she offered. He liked the comfort that always awaited him in her arms.

Even though nights like these always began with a horrible nightmare, he loved nothing more than living through the night in Barbara's arms.