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Nightmares did not come as often as they used to, a fact for which Din was grateful. It was years before he slept well and regularly as a boy, but even as a young man, there were times he would jolt awake, slick with a cold sweat, his heart racing and his mind a painful jumble. The dreams tended to sing the same song, but sometimes disguised; some nightmares played out the deaths of his parents with vivid details, others recreated the day with new characters or enemies. But the older he became the less he dreamed, until most mornings he woke up with only a misty sense that he had been asleep.
Until he stumbled upon the kid.
It took a while before he slept well with the kid on board. He got into things constantly. Made messes when Din wasn’t looking. Pushed buttons that absolutely were not meant to be pushed. For weeks, Din slept in a state of hyper-awareness, ready at the instant to leap into action and save the damn kid from himself.
But what was strange and new settled into a comfortable routine. The kid knew when the lights dimmed and Din brought them to the little rack that it was time for bed. Din told him so each night, and it got a little easier, a little more natural, every time he told the kid what their plans were tomorrow, or recapped what they’d done that day. The kid always listened attentively, big ears swiveling to hear what Din had to say, and after that, the kid knew it was bedtime. Whether he slept in his own hammock, or curled up on the rack beside Din, either way, it was part of the routine. And Din would drift off into a deep sleep, listening to the kid babble to himself up above, or the kid’s soft steady breathing mirroring his own.
The dreams were different, now. The nightmare had changed, narrowing to a bunker on a distant world, desert sounds and the beep of a tracking fob filtering in through his helmet, the smell of smoke and ozone. Din stood before a stack of crates, brushed his hand over their surface. His glove came away thick with dust, and dread settled deep upon him. He saw it, then, the pram, dented and abandoned in the corner.
“Kid,” he tried to say, and his mouth wouldn’t work.
He moved as if through double the gravity, trying to get to the kid as quickly as he could, and yet his arms were so, so slow. He grabbed the pram, touched the button. It hissed open.
He knew instantly it was wrong. Terribly wrong. His gorge rose. Inside was the child, forgotten — his small hand cold, and dry, and stiff —
“NO!”
Din sat bolt upright, shaking, his shoulders heaving. No. No. He’d found the kid, gotten to him before the mercs forgot about him — he’d saved him — hadn’t he?
He reached up and reflexively pulled the hammock down into his lap. The kid yawned and looked up at him, cooing softly as he blinked sleepy eyes. He focused on Din and then smiled, reaching up and gripping his thumb.
“You’re okay, buddy,” Din breathed, cupping the kid’s face in his hand. His vision blurred. “I’ll take care of you. As long as I can. You got that?”
The kid giggled, his cheek soft and warm against Din’s hand. The nightmare pulsed in the back of Din’s mind, a vicious memory, but the kid was real and bright and happy on his lap. He held the child and watched him smile, and it was enough to work through another night.