Night Terrors

Posted on Mon Mar 4th, 2019 @ 9:07pm by Lieutenant Commander Charlotte Hudson & Lieutenant JG Ayden Kennett

2,850 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Mission 2 - Love ORION Mistaken
Location: Bec's Quarters
Timeline: 2261.198 2230

Ayden had decided to go and check on Bec. The Romulan mission was exhausting, and he felt like he wanted to just spend time with her, as it had him worried that they weren’t going to make it with all of the firing. Getting up to the door, he stopped, wondering if she was already asleep. He’d checked with the computer already and knew at least she was there.

After an extra long shift on the bridge, Bec had gone back to her quarters hoping to get some solid sleep. Unfortunately, the images of the man from K6 kept flashing through her mind every time she closed her eyes. Hoping the exhaustion would carry her into a dreamless sleep, she'd stripped and crawled under the covers of her bed and drifted off thinking about the night before with Ayden. Something about him stuck with her and she couldn't figure out why.

It wasn't long before the injured man on K6 morphed and recent images meshed with old. Bec thrashed about in her bed as she began to relive the torture from that fateful away mission. Her heart was racing, sweat was pouring off her, and she was having trouble breathing as the Bec in her dreams received punch after punch, stab after stab, taunt after taunt....

Eventually the dreams morphed. The torture, which had ended in real life, seemed to go on forever. She didn't know how much more she could take. Her throat tightened with fear as her torturers brought out device after device. Something began burbling up from her stomach as they brought a nasty looking knife over to her. Just as they were about the dig the twisted instrument into her gut, the scream that had been building finally broke forth and Bec sat up, still screaming, though not quite fully awake yet.

About ready to press the chime on the door, Ayden heard a scream from inside. Panic hit him, as he had no idea what was going on. Knowing he shouldn't, but doing so anyways, he overrode the code on her door using his emergency engineering codes and quickly ran inside. He turned towards where she was on the bed and saw her sitting up and screaming but could tell that she was still caught up in whatever dream she was having. "Bec..." he said quietly as he went over and sat carefully on the bed.

He didn't want to startle her, as he didn't know what was going on exactly. But this was for sure: something was scaring her to the point of her screaming. Gently, he moved to sit in front of her on the bed and put his arms around her. "Bec...shhh, it's okay."

Feeling the arms go around her, Bec thrashed and lashed out with her fists. When she could, she recoiled, pulling herself up to the head of the bed and sitting at the top, panting. Finally coming to, she looked around blearily. "Ay... Ayden?" her voice was coarse, her throat hurt. She coughed and wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them to her chest, trying to hide the tears.

Moving his arms away when she started to lash out, Ayden didn't move off the bed but carefully watched her. Once she realized he was there, he moved up towards her and shifted her pillow to the side before sitting near her. Frowning at the tears, he put a hand on her knee. "Shh, I'm here. You were screaming and I thought something bad had happened." He wanted to try to make her feel safer and wrap her in a hug, but stayed back for the time being.

"No...no....no," Bec moaned. The nightmares were back. Why? She'd seen images like the K6 video transmission before without triggering them. What was different this time? She looked toward Ayden and frowned. It couldn't be him. She wasn't that interested in him.... was she? Her heart skipped a beat as she turned back to hugging her knees. She rested her forehead on her knees and she sighed, trying to calm herself down.

Slowly, he moved himself closer, his hand gently ran through her hair. "Bec, it's okay." He stayed quiet and calm with his voice but this was eating him up inside. He barely knew her and yet he cared about her deeply. Swallowing hard, he moved up next to her and wrapped his arms around her, but made sure that she knew he would move away if she wanted him to.

Bec stiffened when he touched her. She didn't shy away, that was never like her, but she didn't relax into him either. Her heart was racing and she was having trouble slowing her breaths. Why had she not seen this coming? Having been completely blindsided by the reemergence of the nightmares, Bec found it hard to concentrate. She knew by his voice that it was Ayden and not Elijah, but her brain and body were not on speaking terms, it seemed, and she was still having a panic attack. "Sorry," she managed to say before breaking free of him and running for her bathroom.

She locked the door behind her and slid down to the floor of the shower. Turning on the cold water by accident as she slid down the wall, she gasped when frigid water hit the top of her head. Shock now swept through her and she coughed as her throat clenched along with the rest of her body. Barely able to move, she managed to switch the water from cold to warm. Now sitting in a relatively warm spray of water, Bec allowed the tears to flow freely.

Watching her run off to the bathroom, Ayden frowned, especially after hearing the door lock. He wasn't going to obviously force his way in there, but instead sat against the wall just next to the door. "Bec, I'm right here. I'm not going to let you be alone." He leaned his head back against the wall, "You don't have to tell me what's going on, but I'll listen if you want to." He wasn't even sure if she was able to hear him, but he had to try.

Barely able to hear that Ayden was talking over the running water, Bec was able to ignore him fairly easily. But it did tell her that he wasn't going away. After she managed to calm herself, she turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel. She took a deep breath before walking back out into her bedroom. She saw Ayden sitting against the wall out of the corner of her eye and frowned slightly. Why wasn't he leaving? They all left after she had her nightmares. Silently, she moved to her bed and sat down, looking at her feet to avoid looking at Ayden. This was the part she hated most, appearing weak, no being weak and allowing this to get to her.

Looking to Bec, Ayden noticed how she was moving and how she seemed surprised he was still there. But she also wasn’t looking at him. “Bec?” He didn’t move, in case she didn’t want him nearby. But with how she’d broken down, the screaming earlier, he wasn’t going to leave her by herself.

She didn't lift her head, though her mouth moved soundlessly. How did she tell him about the nightmares? About the...events... that gave them to her? She wanted to push him away, shove him out the door and lock it behind him. Yet, at the same time, she wanted to take comfort in his arms. "I'm sorry," she said finally, barely above a whisper. If he hadn't been waiting for her to respond, he probably would have missed that she'd said it.

Catching the whisper, barely, he slowly moved over to the bed and sat next to her, but didn’t try to do anything more than be a comfort if she needed it. “You don’t need to be sorry, Bec. I was worried about you. I’m sorry I used override codes to get in though...” He looked over at her, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

"I had a....nightmare... of sorts..." Bec admitted, ignoring his comment about the override codes. She scooted back and brought her knees up to her chest again. "More like bad memories that twisted into something much worse..."

Wanting desperately to again wrap Bec up to help her feel safer, Ayden instead gently smoothed her hair, hoping it might have a calming effect. “Explains the screaming,” he said softly, “I’ll listen if you want to talk about it. But I’m here either way, even if you just want to sit in silence.”

"Talking never helps," Bec said angrily. "But neither does staying silent. Do you know what it's like to have your memories haunt you?" She rubbed her face, feeling like the weight of a thousand worlds was pressing down on her. "I can't turn them off, make them go away... and the person that caused the horrid memories? Walked away without incident. Well... other than me breaking his jaw..."

"I've got some pretty damned bad ones but not ones that haunt me." He carefully reached for her hand to hold, though didn't do so tightly if she wanted to pull away. "Did it feel good to break whoever this guy is jaw?" He tried to lighten the mood best he could.

"My ex boyfriend, and no, not really. His actions led to a young scientist dying," Bec sighed and stretched out on the bed. "I guess it would make more sense if I told you the whole story...

A few years ago, on the USS Drake, I was part of an away team on a first contact mission. Ensign Joe Henry couldn't help himself, the scientist in him had to know what made this weird idol stone glow and he touched it. Turns out it was a sacred relic and touching it was punishable by death. Only they didn't explain this, they just turned their weapons on the team. We fled, but had to run to a safe place. Joe tripped and fell over the edge of a crevice. My then boyfriend, Lieutenant Elijah Bennett and I stopped to help him, but this led to our capture." She readjusted her towel and went silent for a few minutes.

"They tortured us, well Joe and I anyway. They wanted to know more about the ship so they could destroy it as punishment to our captain for not keeping his people in line," Bec said suddenly, breaking her silence. "Elijah turned coward and divulged everything he knew about Joe, the Captain, and me. Me being me, kept taunting them, hoping that if I was their focus they would leave Joe and Elijah alone. I didn't know they weren't even touching a hair on Elijah's head.

When we were finally released Elijah was barely bruised from the apprehension. I was... well... I spent two weeks in medical, and Joe... poor Joe... he could barely breathe... he," her voice broke as tears welled in her eyes. "He died in my arms an hour before our people could reach us.... he had so much internal bleeding from his beatings..."

Bec wiped the tears from her eyes and sighed. "As soon as I was released from medical I went to beat the shit out of Elijah. To do to him what those people did to me... did to Joe... but I was stopped after the second punch. Broke his jaw. Spent a week in the brig, but was released without further punishment. Elijah though... he was transferred out. As far as I know he's still an officer. Bastard should have been court marshaled."

Ayden didn't interrupt. Even when she went quiet, he just gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. Once she was done speaking, he reached over and wiped a stray tear away before placing his hand against her cheek gently. "It's a good thing I wasn't there...Elijah would pay for what he did." Inside he was angry at the situation she went through, wishing he could go back and change it. The care he felt for her grew more and more as he had listened to her. It didn't matter how long he'd known her, he didn't want her to go through that or anything even close to that again. "I won't let anyone get to you like that ever again, Bec. I won't let anyone do that to you." His eyes looked into her's and showed nothing but care but at the same time worry.

Bec shook her head, looked away from him and curled up again. "I... you mean well... but..." she couldn't bring herself to say she didn't trust him, didn't trust anyone. How could she explain what Elijah's actions had done? How broken she was inside? Could he not see the brokenness of her heart? It had been shattered into a million pieces. She barely patched it together and there were still pieces missing.

“Bec,” he said, concerned, but didn’t try to do anything to try to get her to turn back around. “I...” he closed his eyes, trying to think about how to word everything, because it hadn’t been that long since they’d really been ‘together’ and even then, they hadn’t said anything offical about it. “I...care about you too much. I...can’t see you hurting...I’m not going anywhere...”

Turning to look at him, Bec studied every feature of his face. Did he just say he cared about her? Promise that he wasn't going anywhere? She frowned at him, but yet, her heart skipped a beat. It fluttered and jumped within her chest as though it was throwing off the ice she'd encased it in. No. She couldn't be...

Turning away from him again, Bec let out a soft sigh before she began crying again. Why did her heart have to play such tricks on her? Didn't it know that letting someone in only lead to pain and suffering. Could she really afford to let him in? Her tears were hot on her cheeks, but she was cold and shivering. Goosebumps formed over her legs and arms as she lay there in only her towel.

Watching her eyes carefully, he had the desire to be there, to make sure that she knew she was cared for. But she was fighting against letting anyone in. When she turned away, he could hear her crying and lowered his head. What had he done wrong? He then let his mind refocus: it likely wasn't to do with him, but everything else. Spotting the goosebumps on her skin, he glanced around and found a spare blanket and carefully wrapped it around her, gently rubbing her arms to hope it would warm her up. He didn't know what else to say, but at the same time, wasn't going anywhere.

Though she was scared to let him in, she also didn't want to be alone, so she lay there and let him rub her arms. Her mind was still telling her to run, run and never look back, but she wasn't sure if that was the remnants of the nightmare or her reaction to having feelings for Ayden. She curled into the blanket and inadvertently moved back toward him.

Knowing that the moving back towards him wasn't likely on purpose, Ayden decided to still rub her arms and let her lean back against him if needed. "I'll stay here as long as you want, Bec. If you fall asleep I'll stay up and do my best to make sure you're safe." He really didn't know what else to say, just wanted to comfort her.

"You don't have to..." her voice was barely above a whisper. "Staying awake won't help anything..."

“But I want to, Bec,” he whispered back, “If it helps you feel safer and lets you sleep better, then I’ll do anything.”

"Nothing will make me feel safer," Bec groaned and rolled to face him. "I know I'm safe. But the dreams? They won't go away because you're sitting there staring at me while I try to sleep."

Ayden sighed, "I know..I just want to be able to help. If you want me to go, I will. But I don't want to." He took her hand and gave it a very gentle squeeze, not sure what it was that she would tell him to do.

"I don't care what you do," Bec said with a sigh. "Just don't sit there and stare at me while I sleep...." She rolled over again and mumbled something unintelligible under her breath as she did. "Well? Lay down or go away... your choice!"

Knowing not to push anything, he adjusted the blankets and laid down next to her but still gave her space. She could move closer if she wanted to. He was worried, but didn’t say anything.

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