A Light in the Dark

A/N: A big shoutout to my beta Alex Skywalker! We are almost there. Just this chapter and one more to go! So excited! This is by far the longest fic I have ever written.

IMPORTANT INFO: First of all this is only brotherly fluff NO SLASH. Second of all I need to tell you the difference between a nightmare and a night terror because it is important in this chapter and there is a difference. A nightmare is something we've probably all had and then we wake up from the nightmare and sometimes we remember them and sometimes we don't. A night terror is different. A night terror is when someone appears to be awake from the nightmare but isn't. Their eyes are open they are moving around but are trapped in the nightmare and are usually panicking. It's kind of like sleepwalking but sleepwalking in a nightmare. It is very difficult to wake a person up from a night terror (because they seem awake already) and because of the amount of a panic they are in. They usually have no memory of the night terror but sometimes, very rarely, they do. My eight year old autistic son has night terrors and they are frightening to watch because they scream and freak out because they are still living in their nightmare and they can't wake up and you are just there helpless not knowing what is wrong or how to help. The first time it happened I thought my son was schizophrenic or something BUT when he first screamed from the night terror, my God, I had never heard anything like it. My husband and I thought someone broke in the house we had never heard him scream like that. It was enough for us to both grab a weapon and run into his room. Please research night terrors if you need to, like I said it is important for this chapter.

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Chapter 19

The cold wind whipped through Jason's hair as he stood atop a rooftop. He and Tim were still looking for the new smugglers in town but lately their leads had all grown cold. Jason wondered if they'd folded up shop and left town. He turned, facing his younger brother to voice his hypothesis and saw Tim staring off across the rooftop instead of peering through his binoculars like he should have been. Tim's face looked expectant, wistful, like he was waiting for something, someone, like he was waiting for him. The last two weeks had been like this for the duo: Jason trying to find the new smugglers and Tim's head not in the game - not anywhere close to being in the game.

"Tim."

No response.

"Tim!" Tim remained in his reverie, not even glancing at Jason.

"Yah, what's up?" Tim's voice sounded distant; he clearly wasn't listening to Jason.

"I said: did you see how many people the hippopotamus ate?"

"Yeah, sure, we can do that."

Jason sighed. He was getting tired of Tim not being in the game, though he knew why; he knew what the reason was, or rather, who the reason was. Ever since that meeting with Dick, Tim had changed. His head wasn't in the game for patrols, making him a liability. Jason had had to cover his ass in a fight on more than one occasion and he bore the bruises for it. Tim's nightmares had also returned. Sometimes Jason could tell they were about Dick, with Tim begging to prove to the older man he wasn't crazy and to cease talk of Arkham, and sometimes Jason couldn't tell what they were about at all. Yet it seemed that Tim was close to forgiving Dick, as he had mentioned the manor on a few occasions and what it would be like to go back. He wasn't sure if that brought Tim two steps forward, or two steps backwards.

Jason slowly approached Tim, reached out and grabbed his chin turning it towards him. Even in the low moonlight and with the mask on, Jason could see the bags under Tim's eyes.

"Time to go home?" Jason asked.

"Why?" Tim seemed genuinely puzzled.

"Because you are exhausted and mentally not here."

Tim sighed in frustration. "I'm here Jason; just come on let's do this."

"What would this be Tim? Finding the smugglers or the hippo that just pranced on 3rd avenue?"

"Huh?" Tim asked.

Jason started to pull Tim towards the fire escape ladder. "Home. Now."

On the way home what started as a calm conversation was soon turning into an argument as they snuck through the window.

"Look, Tim , all I'm saying in that if you want to go back to the manor, it's okay."

"Who said I want to go back?"

"Maybe the way you keep looking for Dick to come back. You have to make the next move."

"What about you? What about you coming to the manor you left too!"

"I left for different reasons. And, this isn't my fight."

"You don't care about Bruce being alive?! Who's to say if I go back there that just because Dick is sorry means that he believes me about Bruce. If you believed me like you said you did, wouldn't you want to be there to see it through?"

"Tim, that's not what I meant-"

"Forget it, I'm taking a shower." Tim stomped into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. "And I want my laptop back!" Tim shouted through the closed door.

Tim hadn't asked for his laptop back since Jason took it all that time ago. He didn't know if Tim wanting to search for Bruce again meant that Tim was back to the old Tim or not, or if that was a good thing or not.

When Tim came out of the bathroom, Jason was getting into bed and Tim went to the living room neither one exchanging pleasantries. Jason wished he could help Tim with going back to the manor, but Bruce being alive was Tim's fight and he was going to need to fight it on his own, as he once said himself. But Jason knew that what Dick had told him all those months ago was also true. Tim needed family, his whole family, and that was something Jason couldn't provide to him. Maybe Tim would never be healed from this until he had his whole family at home once again. Yet, there were still demons for Tim that remained at the manor, much like Jason had demons there too, and that made the return to the manor difficult, for both of them.

Sometime around 2am, what had become the usual the last two weeks started again, as Jason heard Tim whimper loudly. Jason really wanted to sleep tonight, but knew that once Tim's nightmares started for the night they wouldn't let up. Once one would stop another one would just take its place. Jason would be up and down all night. Jason got out of the bed and went to the living room and shook Tim awake. Whether he shook Tim awake fully he wasn't sure as the boy simply turned over and stopped whimpering. Jason went back to his bed, only to be woken half an hour later. Jason contemplated a way get some sleep - or at least how not to have to get up and down every thirty minutes. Jason rolled over and looked to his left, to the other empty side of his bed and thought.

"NOOOOOO!"

Jason heard Tim's cry and was on his feet running to the living room. Flicking the light on didn't wake Tim. The boy was on his back sweating, half rolling back and forth, clutching the blankets to his chest like he was trapped or something.

"Tim!" Jason tried calling to him with no luck. Jason knelt down next to Tim and gently shook his shoulder. "Tim!" Jason called again. With no response, Jason put his hands over Tim's fists and tried to gently uncurl their death grip on the blankets. Suddenly Tim's hands gripped his and Tim half sat up, eyes shooting open with a gasp. "Tim?"

Tim looked around, realizing he woke Jason up yet again with another nightmare. "Sorry," Tim mumbled. Beads of sweat rolled down Tim's face and Jason quickly wiped them off.

"Look, we both need to get some sleep, so I can't be coming out here every thirty minutes to wake you up. You might get some sleep in a normal bed, or at least I might be able to stop your nightmares before they get too bad. Come on and sleep in the other side of the bed," Jason offered. "Just don't get any ideas."

Tim merely nodded and got up and followed Jason into the bedroom.

When Tim got into the room, Jason threw Tim a clean wife beater and Tim caught it, looking at Jason with a puzzled expression.

"Yours is soaked with sweat," Jason pointed out.

Tim changed; the wife beater was a little too large, yet with Tim still gaining his weight back so were the boxers he wore. Jason wore something similar, a wife beater with sweat shorts to bed. Both crawled into the bed, Jason on the right closest to the bathroom and bedroom door and Tim on the other side. Both men turned their backs to the center, facing away from each other and fell back asleep.

Sure enough, thirty minutes later Tim's nightmares were back, yet something was different this time; Tim seemed to be talking in his nightmare. Jason nudged Tim with his foot.

"Tim, wake up, nightmare, you're talking, go back to sleep," Jason's speech was slurred with sleep.

The light talking didn't stop and Jason thought he heard Tim mention his father. He tried again to wake the boy with the nudge of his foot, back still to Tim. "Tim! Come on man, wake up."

Tim then suddenly sat up in bed, Jason hearing the unmistakable sound of someone sitting up and feeling the bed shift slightly with Tim's light weight. Then the boy screamed. It was a scream unlike Jason had ever heard. The scream was laced with pure agony, fear, terror. Jason wasn't even sure he'd made a sound like when the Joker was beating him.

Jason immediately shot up and twisted, facing Tim, to find the younger boys eyes open, his breath coming in quick pants, yet the talking didn't cease; it was like Tim was still asleep in his nightmare, but also awake. Terror immediately flooded though Jason as he wasn't sure what was going on, nor was he sure what to do.

"Tim?" Jason tried gently. Jason watched as Tim's panic grew as he stared at the bed in front of him, screaming about his father. Jason recollected what Dick had told him about Tim's father's death.

Tim and Batman were racing to get to Tim's father while Tim remained on the phone with the man, his father saying his goodbyes to the boy as he knew Captain Boomerang was there and was going to kill him. Tim was helpless on the phone and once Batman and the boy got there it was too late. Tim ran in to find his father's dead body on the bathroom floor with a boomerang sticking out of the chest. Dick had shown the forensic photos to Jason once. He couldn't imagine the young boy running in to see the one remaining family member he had dead in that fashion.

Jason's mind went back to the screaming boy still looking in fear and panic at the bed in front of him.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God!" Tim screamed.

Jason started shaking Tim's shoulders, trying in vain to get Tim to face him. "Tim! Tim! What's wrong? What's the matter!" But Tim wasn't registering that Jason was even there. Tim clearly wasn't here with it and Jason wasn't sure what to do about it.

"Dad! Dad! I'm sorry, Dad! I'll help you, I'm so sorry Dad!" Tim continued to scream.

Jason tuned Tim's cries to the background as he reached for his phone on the nightstand and tried to call Roy for help, only to get his voicemail. Before Jason could leave a message, Tim screamed that scream again and started pulling at the bed sheets. Jason hung up his phone, only imagining what Roy would eventually hear on his voicemail.

"I'm sorry, Dad! This is all my fault. I'm sorry I left! I'll help you!"

"Tim! Come on Tim, snap out of it!" Jason tried pulling Tim's face to him but Tim just pulled back out of his grasp. Jason tried slapping Tim lightly on the face to wake him up and when that didn't work, started to slap him harder, still getting nothing.

Suddenly Tim turned towards Jason gripping his wife beater in front of him. Tears streaked in a never ending cascade down Tim's pale face.

"Help me! Please help me!" Tim begged. Jason realized Tim wasn't seeing Jason there in reality, only in his nightmare that he seemed to be trapped in.

"Help with what, Tim? I don't understand!" Jason screamed back and saw Tim pulling on the bed sheets again.

"I can't get it out! I have to get it out!" Tim screamed and Jason realized with horror what Tim was seeing. Tim was seeing his father's corpse with the boomerang sticking out of his chest. The boy was trying to save his father - he was trying to pull the boomerang out of his dead father's chest.

"Tim! Stop! Tim, he isn't there, please snap out of it!" Jason's voice nearly broke as it tortured him to see his brother that broken, right in front of him, and he could do nothing about it. Jason continued to try to slap and shake Tim to snap him out of it, to no avail. Jason remembered hearing or reading something about night terrors and suspected that that might be what Tim was having.

"Come on, Kid please!" Jason tried to yell over Tim's loud cries for his father to forgive him and his cries for Jason to help him.

With nothing else working and Tim dangerously hyperventilating, Jason ran into the bathroom and starting running a cold bath, not even touching the hot water knob. When Jason arrived back at the bed, Tim was starting to pull his hair out of his head, trying in some way in his nightmare induced haze to punish himself for his father's demise.

"Please! Please! Help me!" Tim cried as he went back to pulling feverishly at the bed sheets. Jason noticed Tim's fingers straining and straightening from hyperventilating; too much oxygen was getting into the boy's blood causing his muscles and joints to spasm. Jason sprinted into the kitchen and found a paper bag, running back to Tim in the bedroom. He did the only thing he knew and tried to affix the paper bag over Tim's mouth, but Tim wasn't having it and shook his head, slapping Jason's hands away, once again begging for his help.

"Don't! I need your help, please! Dad! Dad! Wake up! I'm sorry! Dad, please!" Tim continued to scream.

"Ok, that's it let's go," Jason said as he picked up Tim bridal style and started carrying him away from the bed. Tim tried holding on to the bed sheet and scrambling out of Jason's grasp, calling for his father. Jason shifted Tim over his shoulder, the only way he could still hold on to the screaming boy, and pulled harder causing Tim to lose his grip on the sheets..

Once in the bathroom Jason immediately deposited Tim in the freezing cold water of the bathtub now filled to the brim. Jason turned off the water as Tim sputtered and wiggled in the tub, losing traction as he tried to get out of the tub.

"DAD!" he cried. As Tim gasped and struggled, Jason keeping his hands on Tim's shoulders, try to hold him in the tub.

"Dad?" Tim said with more of a question in his voice.

"I'm sorry for this, Kid," Jason said as he dunked Tim's head under the water. Tim came up he gasping and shivering. Jason dunked Tim once more and when he came up the second time he grabbed Tim's chin with his hand, forcing Tim to look at him. "Tim?" Jason yelled at him.

"Jason? Dad?" Tim whispered as he shivered, continueing to hyperventilate.

"Wrong answer," Jason said as he dunked Tim once more.

"What the hell?" Tim asked as he came up for air once more. "Jason what the hell is going on!?" Tim yelled with fright in his voice. Tim couldn't remember getting in the freezing cold water in the bathtub, let alone Jason dunking him, and it frightened the young boy.

"Okay, that's better, now you're back, Kid. Let's get you out of that freezing cold water." Jason got Tim up and out of the water and sat him on the toilet lid, wrapping a few towels around him and drying him off. Tim was hyperventilating and shivering; whether it was from the cold, fear, or confusion was anyone's guess. "Sorry for the hypothermia, but I didn't know any other way to snap you out of it."

"Snap…. me out…. out of what?" Tim asked, gasping between words. He had no memory of the night terror. Jason filled Tim in on what had happened, not enjoying telling Tim the details of how the boy was trying to save his father, knowing how it hurt Tim all over again to hear it. Once Jason finished, Tim looked out into the bedroom to see in hopes if maybe his dad was there.

"Slow your breathing down and take a deep breath," Jason instructed. In between breaths, Jason could see that the younger boy was trying to piece together everything and when he found he couldn't, it made him panic more, the hyperventilating getting worse.

"My….dad was….I…I…can't breathe," Tim gasped a panic attack fully forming. Tim tried to grab the bathroom counter to steady himself as he shivered, the room starting to spin. His hands weren't working right,however, cramping as a result of both the coldness and the hyperventilating.

"Tim! Tim, look at me. Just breathe, Tim. I gotta get you warm, so deep breaths," Jason commanded, but Tim was having trouble processing anything. Jason leaned Tim against the counter so he wouldn't fall over and ran into his room to grab the paper bag and returned to the bathroom. Jason put the bag to Tim's mouth and held it against him with one hand, the other hand going to the back of his head to hold him up and ease tense muscles back there to try to get him to relax. "Breathe into the bag, Tim, just relax," Jason said as he noticed Tim's eyes were searching around wildly periodically rolling back then coming back to center as if Tim was trying to stay with it.

After a while, they stayed in center position. "I gotta get you some warm clothes, get you out of the cold ones; can you hold the bag now?" Jason asked and Tim complied, but Jason could tell he was still having difficulty and so promised he'd be back quickly.

Jason ran into his room rifling through Tim's clothes as fast as he could to get dry clothes and some more towels. Jason couldn't find what he was looking for so he just grabbed some of his own sweatpants and a t-shirt.

"Hold on, Tim, I'm getting you some dry clothes that will be way too big for you and some more warm towels," Jason yelled from the room, hoping to reassure the younger boy that he was coming back soon. Soon Jason was running back into the bathroom and immediately put the bag that had fallen from Tim's grasp back to his face. "Ok, I'm going to need you to help me as best you can here," Jason said. Tim's breathing was finally resembling something normal, though he continued to shiver.

Jason rubbed the new warm, dry towels against Tim, trying to warm him up. Though Tim's breathing had slowed down, it had become more vocal, as if he was trying to cry, but just didn't have enough breath to do it. With the bag now gone from his face, Jason periodically reminded Tim to take a deep breath and try to calm down.

"Okay, can you get changed?" Jason asked. Tim feebly attempted to move his hands; they were tingly from the feeling starting to come back. "Okay here just let me. Just don't get any ideas," Jason said playfully as he removed the wet wife beater and boxers, dried him off and put on the t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, both way too big for the younger boy.

Tim kept his hands on Jason's broad shoulders to steady himself and when the room spun too much he grunted and rested his head on Jason's shoulder. Jason heard a brief weak sob next to his ear as Tim realized once again that his father was gone. Jason took a moment to put his hand on the back of Tim's head to reassure him that he was there for him.

"It's alright, Tim. It's ok, I'm here." As Jason tied the waistband thread of the sweatpants he joked with Tim that he was always going to be skinny and that it wasn't fair. "Breathe, Tim," Jason reminded him as the smaller boy was shaking and flexing his hands, the feeling making him start to quicken his breathing. Jason finished towel drying Tim's hair, somewhat straightening it out with his hands. "Better?" Jason asked and Tim silently mumbled his affirmative reply, though Jason doubted that Tim felt much better from the looks of him. Tim was still shaking and Jason figured it was half from being cold and half from the night terror.

"Let's not have another night terror, okay?" Jason smiled. Tim looked down.

"I don't remember everything, but what I do remember, seemed so real. It must have been bad, for you to throw me in a freezing cold bathtub?" Tim asked.

"Pretty bad?" Jason nodded as he helped Tim up and helped the boy walk back to the bed on shaky legs. Tim looked at the disturbed bed sheets where he had been trying to pull the boomerang from his imaginary father's chest. Tim gently rubbed his sore cheek, a red defined handprint forming there.

"Sorry there," Jason muttered. "I was just trying to get you out of it. You scared me Tim."

"I'm…..I'm sorry, Jason." Was all Tim could say. Jason continued to tell him not to worry about it as he helped the boy into bed.

After getting Tim in bed, Jason crawled into bed on his side and pulled Tim close, rubbing his arms.

"Come here, you're still freezing and shaken up, alright? Try to get some sleep, okay?" Jason said.

"Gee, I didn't think you cared," Tim tried to joke.

"I don't. So don't say anything because if you do, I'll deny it," Jason joked back.

"Okay," Tim replied with a half smile as he realized that that was Jason's way of saying he did care, he just didn't want to talk about it nor have it thrown in his face. Jason reminded him to take a deep breath again and he did and snuggled closer to Jason who was warm.

Jason could feel the coldness coming off of Tim as well as the younger boy's shivering. He continued to rub the boy's arms, but more slowly. Tim then suddenly started to sob and apologize again to Jason, hiding his face in Jason's arm. Jason turned to face Tim and held him.

"I just miss him. I miss them. I know I'm not wrong about Bruce. I know he is still out there. I'm not crazy," Tim cried.

"Shhhhhh. Hush, it's alright," Jason comforted, running one hand through Tim's hair and rubbing circles on Tim's back with the other, trying desperately to calm the kid so he didn't start to panic again. "In the morning, we'll go back to the manor," Jason said.

Tim flinched in his arms and started to breath quickly again.

"Tim, calm down. I'll talk to Demon Child and Golden Boy and help you and we'll stay and figure it out okay?" Jason said.

"We?" Tim asked. Jason took a deep long sigh.

"Yes…we," he replied.

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