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John woke slowly, his mind replaying the last few moments of his dream. Pictures of blurry faces flashed behind his eyes as he grasped at the drifting memories of dialogue and actions that made dread creep up his spine and settle in his chest. Whatever he had dreamed about left him unsettled and gasping softly in the dark. There was the faintest memory swimming in his brain, but he could quite pick out any specific details. All the remained was the uneasy feeling of something being terribly wrong.
Turning over, John peered at his alarm clock. Only three in the morning. His shift didn't start for four more hours, and he didn't need to be up for a couple, so he settled back into bed with a sigh. Pushing his dream out of his head, John closed his eyes and swiftly fell back to sleep.
-
Two hours later, John startled awake just minutes before his alarm was supposed to go off. He sat up uncoordinated and shaky. He fumbled around in his blankets until he finally untangled them from his legs and tossed them to the side. He closed his eyes tightly and racked his brain for the fading images of his dream. There was a car crash, maybe, and he was somehow involved. He thought he could picture the distant image of his sister being in the car and hear the accusatory yell of someone, but it was all so hazy. All John could remember was the fear and the sadness. It was clear and prominent as it pressed hard against his lungs until he was panting. He sat there, confused and alarmed, mind jumping through obstacles to try and remember what was so unsettling about his dream that it caused such a strong reaction in him.
Moments later, his alarm went off, cutting through the silence and causing John to jump.
-
Throughout his shift, John took every spare moment he had to think about his dream. It occasionally drifted into thought when he was with a patient, the shaky feeling from the morning returning with it. He still couldn't remember anything that happened. In fact, his memories only seemed to get more and more distant as the day continued, but the uneasiness was insistent. It caught him off guard and left him stumbling through his emotions, eyes widening momentarily at the sudden surge of dread and confusion.
He brushed off concerned questions when people would catch him thinking back to his muddled memories, smiling and laughing awkwardly. "Bad dream," he said in explanation when Mark asked for the third time.
-
That night, John went to bed as normal. After his shift, he clumsily made his way through dinner and a shower before falling into his bed with a groan. All he wanted to do was sleep.
But not even two hours later, John was blinking himself awake as a cloud of confusion enveloped his brain. He glanced around the room with blurry eyes still brimming with sleep, blinking away the last elements of his dream that left him with the same feeling of dread he had the previous night. It simmered beneath his skin just enough to be present and noticeable, but not enough for him to actually remember why he was feeling it. He thought he remembered seeing his parents and, perhaps, a patient from earlier in the day running around his dream. He couldn't figure out why or what, but the who sat blurred behind his eyes.
Shaking off the feeling in his half-awake daze, John just rolled over and fell asleep almost instantly.
-
He woke up two more times in the night, mind unfocused and confused. It left him stumbling through his morning routine and just moments way from missing the train.
While at work, he felt like the haze of his dreams were still hanging over him, but he managed. He worked hard, efficiently, and kindly. He spoke to patients, intubated, directed traumas, and stitched up minor wounds all while his mind drifted in and out of reality just to think back on the dreams that plagued him in the night. Despite not remembering a thing, he focused on them heavily and his body reacted with a tight chest every single time.
-
Every night for the next week, John woke up periodically confused, anxious, and unsettled. Sometimes he managed to get a few hours of sleep in between each dreadful dream, but other times he only got a mere thirty minutes. He never woke up screaming or sweating with intense bouts of fear but just woke up with panic gripping his lungs and heart causing a moment of gasping breaths and hurt. Then, as if it was never really there, it slowly trickled away until all John felt was the lingering sensation of dread.
He never really remembered what happened, but the feeling stayed with him. There were a few times when he frantically grabbed the pen and paper that he placed next to his bed to scribble down what he could remember. The next morning, however, it made little sense and he wasn't able to force a memory together with disconnected actions and random people who had no business being together in his dream.
After waking up four times in one night, John slept through his alarm. The tiredness caught up with him until he couldn't even force his eyes to stay open after he turned off the ringing of his clock. One moment he was half-awake and silencing his alarm and the next he was asleep.
John woke up beyond confused only ten minutes past his alarm. He scrambled through his morning routine and decided to ditch the train all together once he realized there was no way he would make it on time. Forcing a bit of toast down his throat, John raced out the door and to his car. God, Peter was going to kill him.
-
John tumbled into the ER with his coat half on and his bag barely clasped. He waved a frantic hello to Haleh as she passed by as he half-jogged, half-tripped his way to the lounge. He burst through the door and immediately ran into someone. His bag unclasped and just about every single thing inside of it fell to ground and scattered.
"Oh, Carter." Carol steadied him and watched as a pencil rolled under the couch before turning back to him with an amused smile. "Running late?"
"Yes, sorry, Carol." He dropped to his knees and started shoveling everything back into his bag. "I overslept and, ugh, Doctor Benton's going to be so mad."
She nodded in sympathy. "He was looking for you a few minutes ago." She grabbed a few papers and handed them to John. "You said you overslept?"
"Yeah." He crawled over to the couch, picking up stray items of the way, and reached under it to get his pencil.
"It looks like you haven't been getting any sleep, not that you're getting too much." Carol gently nudged him up before crouching in front of him. Her warm hands cupped his face. "You look exhausted, Carter."
And he did. He noticed it in the mirror when he was brushing his teeth. There were deep, dark bags hanging under his eyes. They pulled his face down in a way that made him look older than he was, the youthful glow of his skin overtaken by the signs of exhaustion taking over his face.
"It's nothing," he said, brushing away Carol's hands. "I've just been having some bad dreams, is all."
"For how long?"
"About a week." Carol gave him a sympathetic look before grabbing at him. She maneuvered him until he was settled on the couch, slowly pushing him down until he was flat on his back.
"Stay here. I'll be right back."
"Carol, I—"
"I'm serious, Carter. Don't move."
So John stayed and, between the warmth of the lounge, the softness of the couch, and the muted sounds of the ER, he found himself drifting off into a half-sleep. He eyes closed, but he made an effort every few seconds to crack them open before letting them fall again. His breathing slowed, but just before he was able to fully fall asleep, the door opened.
John forced himself up on his elbows and peered through tired eyes at Peter and Carol.
"Doctor Benton," he said, sitting up fully and moving to stand up. How could he almost fall asleep right at the beginning of his shift when he was already late?
"Lay back down, Carter. Carol said you've been having nightmares?"
"Not nightmares." He laid back down, feeling awkward as he did so. "Just bad dream." John didn't think they were quite scary enough to be called nightmares. They were just so deeply unsettling that it made it hard for him to get any good sleep or move past them quickly.
"Whatever you want to call them is fine, but you need to sleep."
"What? I'm fine, Doctor Benton. I can work."
"I can't have you falling asleep while giving sutures, Carter. Go to sleep."
John sunk against the couch in defeat, arms crossed. Carol moved closer to drape a blanket over him before leaving. Peter sighed softly and made his way over to the couch before sitting on the edge of it. He pulled the blanket over John's feet and gently tucked it under them.
"I'll wake you in an hour. Just get some rest, Carter. You look like you need it."
John nodded, closed his eyes, and in moments, was asleep.
-
John woke up an hour later to Peter calling his name. He looked annoyed, but John glanced at the pile of charts balanced on his lap and smiled a toothy grin.
"Did you stay with me?"
"Just get up, Carter."