Jay wakes up in a cold sweat, heart beating rapidly in his chest, mind alive with panic. Thankful to find that tonight his body was his own.

He didn't… no. Not that… please not that.

He suppresses a sob as he thrashes at his blanket, fighting to get it off. He wanted the hands off, he wanted the weight off, he wanted everything off of him, and he wanted out of the bed.

Jay half falls out of the bottom bunk, foot still caught in the blanket, reminding him of the cuff, but he catches himself without making too much of a thud.

Why is it so hard to breathe?

He needs to get out. He needs to get out before he wakes everyone up. I need to get out before Nadakhan comes back…

Jay stumbles into the hallway leaning one arm on the wall for support, and clutching one arm to his chest, feeling his racing heart. He had been dreaming of Misfortune's Keep. Of what happened in Nadakhan's bedroom when he was blackout drunk. But the thing about being blackout drunk is he shouldn't be able to remember that. Maybe it was just a dream, maybe it didn't actually happen? Well, the whole thing didn't technically happen, not that that made him feel any better.

He takes some gasping breaths, feeling tears forming in his eyes. He needs to calm down, he needs to breathe, but he could still feel the faint touch of hands on his thigh, on his chest, squeezing his neck. He wanted them off. He wanted that feeling to go away.

The meds. The small part of his brain that wasn't trying to fight off the memory of a dream reminds him of the meds. After he had almost killed Kai, Nya had made him go see a doctor, get a refill on his anxiety meds. He had used them once in the first week, but wasn't a fan of how hazy it made him, so had been ignoring them since. Well, hazy seemed pretty good compared to how he was feeling right now.

Jay forces himself to start moving again, heading to the med bay. Once there he rummages through the drawer with shaking hands before finding the box labelled Jay Walker. He slides out the blister pack and then freezes in disbelief. The first tray was mostly gone. He checks the box again, and rummages in the drawer in case this was an old packet. But the date, his name, the type, it's all correct…

He sinks to the floor, dropping the meds, now openly sobbing. He had been sleeping through more of Cole's possessions lately. He thought it was just because he was getting used to it, or because he was so damned tired but… is Cole drugging me?

Back on the ship he had been suspicious that something else occasionally made its way into his drinks. But he wasn't familiar enough with alcohol to know what was normal and what wasn't. Not that anything about that experience was normal.

He curls up clutching his head in his hands, tugging at his hair, trying to ground himself, but still feeling like he is balanced on the edge of a cliff. There was no way he wanted to take the pills now.

"Jay?" a soft voice calls from the doorway.

Jay doesn't look up, not wanting whoever it was to see his face right now. He angles his body further away from the door as he continues to gasp, struggling to breathe.

Footsteps come closer. "Jay? What's wrong?" He registers that it's Nya barely a moment before a hand clutches at his shoulder.

He jerks away violently. "Get off!" He stammers, voice hoarse from crying, spinning around to look up at his attacker, and in turn allowing himself to be seen.

She's crouching down beside him, but lets him scurry away, and doesn't try to touch him again.

"Jay, take a deep breath, it's just me. You're safe." she soothes.

Jay blinks up at her. "Nya.." is all he manages to say. Fresh tears in his eyes.

Her eyes catch on the pills on the floor, she picks them up. "Have you taken one yet?"

Jay shakes his head.

She hands the pack over to him. "Do you need some water?"

He glares at the packet in her hand. "No. No meds."

Nya sighs, "Jay, this is exactly what they are for. You came in here looking for them right? So what changed? Why don't you want them?"

"They're gone." Jay mumbles, pulling his knees into his chest, burying his face, trying to hide.

"What? They're gone? What's gone?"

"I only took one." He lifts his head, trying to see Nya's reaction.

"Oh." Her voice is hollow, eyes suddenly gone distant.

"I think… someone's drugging me?" He can barely get the words out, his lungs don't have enough air.

"What? Jay, no! No one's drugging you!"

"But they're gone!"

"Jay, they're gone because I took them!"

Jay's brain lags. "What?" he whispers, heart still thumping, hands still shaking.

"Jay, I'm sorry, I'll explain, but right now I think you need to take one. Please?"

He pauses, staring at Nya, trying to process what she just said. "You're sure? They're all you?" His mind wasn't eager to release his latest theory, clinging on with panicked desperation.

Nya pulls back the blister pack, scrunching up her face as she folds out fingers, counting on her other hand. "Yup. All me. No one's drugging you ok?" She gently holds out the pack to him once more.

He takes it slowly, then nods, deciding to trust her. He pops out a pill, and Nya passes him some water to help wash it down. "Good, now take some deep breaths." She sits down on the floor next to him, and shuffles up a bit closer so their shoulders are touching. She demonstrates the breathing, and Jay does his best to follow along, waiting for the meds to kick in. Waiting for his brain to calm the fuck down.

After a few minutes he turns to Nya and looks at her, like really looks at her, he'd been too stuck in his own panic to really notice before. The way she was rubbing at her chest, the faint lines under her eyes, the beads of sweat on her forehead, sleep tussled hair.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" he asks gently. "You came for the meds?"

Nya drops her head slightly. "You caught me." she admits. "But I wish you did wake me, I… you can always wake me ok?"

Jay scoffs. "Says the person who downed half my pills without waking me once."

Nya winces at the words. Jay reaches out a hand, holding onto hers, trying to show he wasn't actually mad.

"I know, I know, I should have told you, I should have got my own prescription by now, but I just wanted to see if it would help, and you weren't exactly using them…"

"Nya," he interrupts, "I don't care about the pills, I care about you. So talk to me, I thought… well you seemed to be doing ok? I'm sorry, I've been so distracted, but I'm here for you… I want to be here for you."

Nya starts to sniffle, still clutching at her chest. "Now you know how I feel, when you shut me out, when you don't talk to me… I want to be here for you too."

Nya's sniffles turn into full blown sobs, and Jay wraps an arm around her, tears forming in his own eyes. "It's ok. You're ok. We're home. We survived." Jay for once isn't sure what to say, so he starts spouting the types of things he tries to use to comfort himself.

Nya shudders in his arms. "Jay, I… I died." she whispers, clutching at her chest, and it clicks into place in Jay's head, that's where the poison got her. He'd seen her clutching at it before. He gives her a comforting squeeze.

"It felt awful. I keep having these dreams, where the poison is spreading through my veins, that woman laughing in my head, and it burns, and then I can't breathe… and…"

"Take deep breaths." Jay soothes, and it's his turn to lead as they sit there breathing.

After a minute Nya continues. "And I didn't want to bother you, cause I know you had it worse…"

"Worse?" Jay says with alarm. "Nya, you literally died! Can't get much worse than that."

"But…"

"Also, it's not exactly a competition. My thing was shit, and your thing was shit. They can both be true. Doesn't mean you need to hide it."

She sighs in defeat, looking up at him. "Your turn. What got you so panicked tonight, that you came searching for meds after stubbornly ignoring them for weeks?"

"Oh, you know. The usual?" Jay tries feebly. Nya raises one eyebrow, making it clear he was going to need to do better than that.

Jay groans, leaning back on the wall. She had him cornered. Having just opened up about her horrible dreams, he was obligated to return the favour or risk ruining their newly formed mutual trust.

"Ok, so I had a nightmare, and it was a bit different to normal." He lets out a sigh, and starts jiggling his leg, trying to figure out how to explain it. "I don't remember everything they did to me."

Nya frowns. "Like the time reversal wiped some of it?"

"No, well, probably not? More like I blacked out a few times."

Nya looks at him with worry. "Why?"

"Um, well, a couple times I got beat up pretty bad and came to in my cell. But this dream wasn't about that… um, after a while they stopped giving me water, but after a day or so they let me have alcohol." He pauses to swallow, remembering the dryness in his throat. He keeps his eyes on the wall not looking at Nya, cause if he saw how she was likely looking at him right now, he would stop, and he couldn't stop. Not yet. "And they might have put something else in the drinks? I don't know, I don't know how it is supposed to taste, or how it is supposed to feel, but it felt awful. Dizzy, disorientating, hazy." He shoots a glance to the pills on the floor. There was a reason he had been avoiding them. "Twice I blacked out and woke up in Nadakhan's bedroom." He hears Nya's sharp intake of breath. "And, I don't know what happened, I don't want to know what happened, cause it didn't, none of it did. So if it didn't happen, and I can't remember it, then why am I dreaming about it? Why the fuck would I dream about that." His tears were back. The meds were helping, but not enough. The fuzziness setting him a little on edge.

He feels Nya's arms wrap around him, so delicate and gentle, nothing like the hands from his dream. "It's ok. You're ok. You're home. You survived." She mimics his earlier words of comfort, not knowing what else to say.

Nya knew there had been something involving alcohol. Jay had smelt awful when they made their escape. At first she thought it was just from being around the pirates, and not being allowed to clean up, that was until the lighthouse where she had watched him go through the worst hangover she had ever seen. He tried to play it off as if the symptoms were caused by his injuries, and well, some of it might have been, but she knew better.

But to think that Nadakhan had… she felt sick just thinking about it. She clings to him tightly, reminding herself that he's here, safe and sound, in her arms, not up on that ship. And if he's here, that means she's safe too. She can feel the small jolts of movement rippling through him as he continues to sob, but that's fine. This was something worth crying over. He needed to let it out.

"It's going to be ok." she says gently after a while. "We're gonna be ok." She wasn't sure which one of them she was trying to convince.

"Yeah." agrees Jay weakly, before planting a kiss on the top of her head. "We won." He lets out a small laugh, cause this wasn't what winning normally felt like. But if they won, they had to act like it. They had to enjoy the rest of their lives, if only to spite Nadakhan. Jay wasn't going to let memories of that creep take anything more from them. "We beat him. So we're gonna be ok."