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When Jay woke up in the middle of the night, she had the feeling something was off. She looked around, Chip was in his hammock, snoring loudly as usual. She got up and walked across the quarters to where Gillion’s barrel was. She carefully lifted the lid, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep. However, she found he wasn’t there at all.
She pulled on her boots and her jacket, and began heading up to the deck. It was the middle of the night, she could tell from how dark it still was outside. However, Gillion wasn’t hard to find. He was standing on the edge of the deck, precariously close to the railing. Jay knew he could swim well, and breath underwater just fine, but it still didn’t sit right with her.
“Gill?”
He somehow didn’t notice her. Jay knew Gillion wasn’t the most perceptive, but she figured something must be bothering him if he was this distracted.
“Gillion?” She said his name again, stepping closer.
He seemed startled when he turned around, but quickly tried to cover it up by flashing a toothy smile at her.
“What are you doing out here?”
Gillion’s expression faltered, and his response wasn’t confident, “Oh, uhm, I thought you would be asleep, Jay.”
He spoke more quietly than usual, she noticed. “Hey, what are you doing up here?”
Gillion hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I am sorry to have concerned you, I thought you would be asleep.”
Jay looked at him with a look that was concerned, but analyzing in that way that she always seemed to, and it made him nervous. After a minute, she broke the silence, “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you up here? It’s late, Gill.”
He hesitated to relent. To share such information felt like a weakness. It was a weakness, being disturbed by something as simple as a nightmare. But thinking about it made him shudder. Images of his sister, not just dead, but ripped apart. He should have been able to protect her. Of course it was only a nightmare, but he had failed to protect her. He didn’t want to fail again. If he didn’t sleep, he wouldn’t have the chance too.
“Gillion?”
He realized he had been quiet for a long moment, and Jay was still staring him down. “Apologies, Jay. It is nothing you should worry about.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
He could feel his heart beating fast, and his face getting warm. He didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t tell her, but he couldn’t lie to her. If he had told her not to worry about it, why was she still asking? He was sure she’d be upset that he was kept up by something so simple. Why did she want to know so badly? She looked upset.
“Okay, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. It’s up to you.”
Well, that only served to confuse him more. He wasn’t sure what the correct response was, so he avoided responding all together.
“I am sorry to have worried you, Jay. Can I assist you with anything?”
“No, I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”
Gillion felt guilty about attempting to avoid the truth, so he gave it, just a little bit of it.
“I was… Having some trouble sleeping. But you need not worry about it. I understand you probably would like to go back to sleep.”
Jay’s expression shifted again, it made him nervous that he couldn’t tell what that meant. She stepped a little closer, so there was less distance between them. She reached forward a bit, as if she had thought about trying to touch him, but decided not to.
“It’s okay, Gill. I’m not really worried about that right now. It doesn’t do me any harm to check on you.” She smiled softly, and it somehow made him feel a little better. “Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, but it’s up to you.”
He hesitated once again. He knew Jay would try to make him feel better if he told her, and of course he wanted that. But he couldn’t do that to her. Could he? She had offered, but Gillion wasn’t quite convinced that meant he was supposed to accept. Maybe, maybe he’d just tell her a little bit. It didn’t have to be everything, but maybe she could still help him, and he wouldn’t have to cause her much trouble.
When he finally did speak, which was probably after another long silence, it was more quiet than before. Which, had already been more soft spoken than his usual boisterousness.
“I simply had a nightmare. It was… quite disturbing. But, I will be alright. You really don’t need to worry about me, Jay.”
Jay’s expression was concerned again, and she stepped a bit closer once more. She reached out, gently taking his hand in hers this time. “Of course I do. Hell, maybe I just want to worry about you. I care about you, and so does Chip and everyone else on this crew. You’re not a burden, Gillion.”
The simple statement warmed Gillion’s heart. And, his face again.
“So… Would you like to actually talk about what happened?”
It brought the sinking dread back again. Although, he found himself wanting to talk about it more now. But that meant he had to come to terms with the fact that it really, truly had scared him. Dream or not, he had failed to protect his sister. What if he really did fail to protect her? Or Jay, or Chip? If he couldn’t be strong enough to protect them, he’d never live with himself.
“I worry, Jay. What if I am not enough? What if I cannot protect you?”
After Gillion spoke, Jay stepped forward, at first without a word, and wrapped her arms around him. He hesitated, unsure what she expected of him, but slowly wrapped his arms around her waist.
She spoke softly, with that careful tenderness that Jay always managed to have, “Gill, you’ll never not be enough. Not to me, and not to Chip. We love you regardless of your strength. And it’s our job to look out for you just as much as you look out for us.”
Jay looked up at Gillion with a little smile, and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Plus, we’re the Riptide Pirates. When does anything go wrong?”
He couldn’t help but laugh a little at this before she continued, “Now c’mon, I think you should try and get some rest. Even if you don’t go to sleep.”
Gillion sighed, knowing that whether or not he slept, it wasn’t going to be fun. But with Jay here he thought that maybe, just maybe, it’d be okay.