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Nat leaned up against the bed frame as she flipped the page of her book. While she read the next page, she reached over to run a hand through Lukas’s hair as he slept beside her. A soft smile filled her features as she glanced down at him. They were slowly developing a routine around their different sleeping schedules. Usually, she would get ready for bed with him and just stay up reading for a bit. Then she would curl up beside him until he woke up, and they would get ready together.
Nat’s smile turned to a frown when she heard Lukas’s heart rate increase. She gently found her bookmark, so she could set the book nicely on the bedside table. The arm around her waist started twitching, and when she ran her hand across his forehead, she found it covered in sweat. She tried to gently shake his shoulder, but instead of waking up, he turned away, and his legs started thrashing.
“Lukas,” she called, leaning back over. He was obviously having a nightmare, and given everything he had been through in the past several months, it wasn’t out of place. It did surprise her though as he hadn’t had one since they moved in together. In fact she hadn’t known about him having one since that night in the warehouse, and she was pretty sure she would have noticed that.
“Stop!” He called out so forcefully that she pulled her hand away before realizing he wasn’t talking to her. “Don’t!”
“Lukas,” she tried again, this time shaking him as well.
She had the opposite effect than she had wanted, however, as the man smacked her hand away, and jerked upright, his other hand moving towards her face. If she hadn’t had vampire reflexes she likely wouldn’t have been able to catch his wrist before he made contact. With him now upright, Nat sought to make eye contact. When she caught his gaze, she noticed there was something off. She started to wonder if he was really present.
Lukas blinked twice, and both times, Nat noticed more color filling his grey eyes as he looked from his position to her hold on his wrist. She watched several emotions pass over his face as he became more present. The sequence was fascinating, she had never seen him move through so many emotions so fast: fear to anger to confusion to realization to horror. He muttered a curse word, pulling his hand from her grasp.
He pushed himself back out of the bed faster than she’d ever seen him do before. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, swiftly moving out of the room.
Nat sat there for a moment, processing what had just happened before getting up to pick up the phone he had knocked on the floor at some point during that ordeal. The last thing he needed right now was to spend all morning looking for his phone. She set it back in its place on his nightstand, and walked out after him.
When she got in the living room, she found him sitting straight and rigid on the couch, staring at a wall, eyes vacant. Unexpectedly his heart rate had not decreased in the slightest. If anything, it had increased. Nat started to wonder if his nightmare was less of a dream and more of a memory.
She walked into the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot for him,a dn the tea kettle for herself. Nat waited for the drinks to finish while she thought about the best way to approach him. Lukas was rarely open with his feelings, and even though he was more open with her, most of her knowledge of his emotional state was based on observation. She decided on just asking him. She couldn’t force him to talk.
She grabbed both mugs and walked over to the couch before sitting beside him. He barely registered her presence, only taking the mug after she gently nudged his arm. As he took the drink, Nat tried to get a read on his emotional state, and was surprised to find shame in his eyes. He turned away from her almost immediately after accepting the offering.
“You should go back to bed. You need sleep too,” he commented, still not looking at her.
“This is more important,” Nat insisted, grabbing his hand with her free one. He turned to look at their clasped hands. “You know I’m here for you right?” She set her tea down, and cupped his cheek with her hand.
He leaned into her hand, and she heard his heart rate finally begin to slow. “I’ll be fine. This happens every year.”
So she was right, it was a memory of some kind, but she was surprised he labeled it annual. That would make it something that happened before they had met. “What happened?”
“Nothing you want to know about.”
She frowned at his avoidance. He was pushing her away again. Before they were together, she hadn’t noticed just how little he shared about his inner thoughts and feelings. He’d always been a bit stoic, but she hadn’t realized how bad it was until they had gotten together.
“You shouldn’t just assume that. If it's important to you, its important to me, and don’t try to tell me its not important. You were thrashing around and yelling in your sleep, that’s important.” He looked away again, sipping his coffee to pretend it wasn’t intentional, even though they both knew it was. “It’s even more important if it happens every year, like you just said it did.”
He stayed silent for a moment, and Nat wondered how long she should stay, knowing she wouldn’t get him to tell her anything he didn’t want her to know. As much as she wanted him to open up to her, she wasn’t going to force him. When she finished her tea, she started to rise, deciding to try again tomorrow when he wasn’t so affected. She was surprised to feel his grip around her hand tighten and see his head turn back towards her.
“Do you remember my friend Mitch?” Nat nodded slightly confused. Mitch was the friend of Lukas’s that used a wheelchair. He was amiable enough though Nat wished he wouldn’t encourage Lukas to take up such dangerous hobbies as MMA. Lukas took a breath before continuing, “Tomorrow, err today I guess, is the anniversary of the event that put him in that wheelchair.”
Realization settled across Nat as Lukas took another drink of the coffee she had made him. Mitch had lost the use of his legs during his time in the military, but that was all Lukas had told her. She didn’t know what exactly happened, or even that Lukas was there at all.
“What happened?” She asked, softly, a part of her afraid any question would make him calm up and cost her this rare moment of vulnerability.
“ I.E.D,” was all he said.
When Nat looked at him, she realized the hand that wasn’t clasping her was shaking. She rested her other hand across his cheek, and he leaned into her shoulder and pulled the shaking hand up over her own hand.
“You’re the one that saw it?” She asked, putting together the pieces from his dream. “That’s what you were shouting? You didn’t want them to step on it.”
“I tried…” He sounded so lost, it broke her heart. She’d never seen this part of him before, but she was glad he trusted her enough to see this. She pressed her forehead against his, keeping her hand on his cheek. “30 seconds…”
After a moment, he just collapsed against Nat, and she wrapped her arms around him. He didn’t tell her anything else, but for now, he’d told her enough, most of it without words. She held him against her for a while, until all of the tension had drained out of him.
She pulled away a bit, so she could look into his eyes. “Shall we go back to bed? We do have to work tomorrow.”
“Yes,” he agreed, letting out a yawn. “Sleep does sound good right now.”
Nat stood up, and offered Lukas her hands. When he took them, she pulled him up, and tugged him towards their bedroom. When he didn’t immediately follow, she glanced at him, perplexed. Hadn’t he just said, he wanted to go back to bed. Catching his eye, she found him watching her eyes full of affection. He pulled her hand up to his lips, giving her a quick kiss.
“Thank you.”