BANG! The door swung nearly 180 degrees and hit the wall. The latch spun off somewhere amongst the scientific equipment. "ON THE FLOOR! ON THE FLOOR NOW!" Cafas rushed into the room, covering the left half. Scientists dove for the ground. A pair of guards opened up. Controlled bursts from their assault rifles, all centre mass. Good training. Sadly it did them very little good.

Liquidised bullets dripped down his chest, his shirt was quite worse for wear. Cafas returned fire. CLACKCLACKLCLACK, CLACKCLACKCLACK. One guard dropped, dead.

~~~

Cafas was sitting bolt upright, cold sweat sticking his shirt to his body. His hands were clenched so hard that his nails, short as they were, had dug into his skin. His breathing came in ragged gasps. He could hear and feel his heart beating out of his chest. The dark room faded into focus as his eyes jumped around it, searching for a threat... Searching for a body. They found nothing but were not convinced. A dull red glow read 02:18 am.

He could have thrown up. The shocked, scared face of the dying soldier was still so clear in his memory. The numbness he'd felt at the time replaced by driving fear and guilt. Cafas' eyes burned. His cheeks were wet. The metal manipulator broke down, sobbing as the adrenaline subsided. It was an all too familiar position. An all too familiar feeling.

Except something was different.

Something's there!

Something was touching his leg. He flinched away and his gaze fell on... Blankets. Cafas' mind searched for a moment, desperately clinging to the mental exercise to escape the flashback. Finally it arrived on a recent memory. A comforting memory. That leg was Maya's. That's right, they'd been in bed. He'd been the big spoon. She had wanted to sleep fully clothed for some reason.

Now he was sitting up. Covered in sweat. Breathing loud and uneven. Surely she could hear his pounding heart from there?

He turned to check if she'd woken up, though his eyes still searched for the danger his body kept expecting.

Nothing there? Nothing in the room. No-one but you and Maya.

He whispered into the dark, on the off chance he hadn't woken her.

"Sorry..."

Hardly the perfect first night.

Oh god. You're fine. You're fine... He's still dead, but you're fine...

He struggled to get his breathing under control. Fought to stem the flow of tears. Battled to calm his heart rate.

It didn't help.

It never helped.

As a single parent, Maya had by necessity become a light sleeper. There was no one else to count on to wake up and take care of the baby. No one else was there to give her a break when there had been diapers to change. Growth spurts that demanded feedings at all hours were less common now than they had been in years past. Now it was things like a growing mind dealing with night terrors and other developmental joys.

A sound he made woke her, and it only took her a brief moment to piece the situation together. Cafas might be asleep, but he wasn't having a good time.

She rolled until she could watch him. It didn't look restful, the way he tensed and writhed in the covers. Hesitantly her hand started to close the distance between them. She wanted to comfort him. He'd let go of her at some point to lay on his back and thrash around alone. She wanted to touch him.

Instead, he sat bolt upright and dumped his share of the covers on her.

It was a king size bed.

That was a lot of covers.

"You're safe!" The words squeaked out a small comfort while she tried to find an out. "You're safe here. It's your apartment. Look around." Her foot brushed against a hairy man leg. She'd found him! Maya abandoned trying to find the way up and instead went down, finding the covers less dense down by their feet and inevitably finding her exit much quicker down there.

Freedom! Maya threw back the covers much as Cafas had so that they were exiled in a wad on the far side of the bed.

"Can I touch you?" Her hand hovered just above Cafas' leg. She wasn't sure what would help, but she ached with the need to help somehow. "Or tea. I can make tea." And she was conveniently still dressed too.

"You're safe! You're safe here. It's your apartment. Look around."

Of course he was. Safe. In his own damned apartment. He always was. Night after night, the same old story. Nausea inducing fear, panic, guilt. Always in his apartment. It just felt so real at the time. Over and over again. Not always the same memory, but always the same result. Unable to change his actions, no force of will strong enough to change the past. He'd killed that soldier countless times. Seen his face. Seen the life leave his eyes.

"Can I touch you? Or tea. I can make tea."

Cafas' eyes snapped to Maya. Black irises faded down to a near black green. His expression softened and his jaw lost a little of the tension. Even overwhelmed by the panic, his instincts recognised Maya as safety. Beautiful, white haired, honey eyed, semi-translucent safety. "No. No tea. Please stay. You can touch me. I'm kinda sweaty though."

Rational thought was starting to seep through. Green eyes faded to dark brown and Cafas broke down once more. Safe he may be, but that did nothing to assuage the guilt. He sobbed into his hands, covering his ugly crying from Maya. He was a mess enough as it was, bed hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

God damn it. Why'd he have to shoot at me?

Shutting his eyes only made it worse. The look on the dying... No, the dead soldier's face. It was all he could see. The only image he could conjure, against all his efforts to fight it.

"Fuck me. Why don't they go away?" He spoke between gasped sobs, tears dripping off his jaw. "Why won't they let me sleep? I didn't want it." It had been necessary. Hadn't it? A requirement to keep more people safe. A few lives for may. "I didn't enjoy it. I'd change it if I could." Give his life for theirs perhaps. "Life doesn't work that way though. You can't just..."

... Un-kill some one. Give them their life back.

Cafas was suddenly aware of being both too hot and too cold. The fear and guilt were setting in more heavily again. His hands ran up his face into his hair, grasping it so tight it hurt. His eyes searched out Maya once more. His eyes managed a brief flash of red as they found hers. Then they were back to deep brown and green.

Maybe it was too dark to see the colours.

She put her hand down on his leg as he spoke. It wasn't good enough, though. He was more hurt than that. There was anguish in his voice. Anguish and tears.

Maya scooted up next to Cafas while he pawed at his face. She cringed at his questions which all sounded pretty damn rhetorical, and wrapped him up in a hug that had her up on her knees so that his head could rest at her shoulder. She felt the stale kind of sweaty damp of his shirt and the wetness of tears on her neck and that made her hold him tighter.

She could hear the tears threatening to strangle him out, but she just didn't have words to make this better. She could only hold him while both their minds worked on it from different angles.

Except he'd said that this was a recurring thing, right? So maybe thinking it through wasn't what he wanted? Maya laid her cheek against his pink hair and took a deep breath.

In the context of his eyes, she had to wonder how Cafas came to dye his hair pink. She'd seen pink in his eyes during a fight. She was pretty sure it was a bad thing. That was why the red at first had confused her so much. Red an pink weren't all that different in her mind.

"I don't want to make things worse. I don't know what to do." She squeezed him again. "That doesn't mean I want..." What? For him to stop? "I don't want you to hurt, but I don't know what you usually do here? Distraction? Talk it through?" Because he could tell her what he usually did and they could try something different, right?

Arms wrapped around him. A shoulder was offered as a safe place to cry. It was exactly what he'd needed from Maya. No judgment, just the security of being held by someone he trusted completely. The way she smelled, the way she rested her cheek on his head, the way she squeezed him when she didn't know what to say.

I'd never have done those thing with her there...

Cafas' hands disentangled from his hair and slid around the woman he was so grateful to have there. Night after night he was haunted by the memories of what he'd done and seen. He would spend hours alone, in the fetal position, clutching his knees, and trying to calm down. Trying to convince himself it hadn't been as real as it had felt. Trying to make his heart stop pounding long enough to fall back asleep. More often than not the dawn would arrive first.

The way his sobbing slowed, his heart rate began to drop, the deep feeling of fear and self loathing seemed to start fading back towards their background levels... He didn't know if Maya could appreciate the impact she was having in that moment.

"I don't want to make things worse. I don't know what to do..."

"This. Do this. I... I feel safe right here. Normally I just lay there for hours, trying to recover. Trying to calm down, and be rational, and accept that it wasn't really happening just then." His breathing was slowing. Steadying. No longer desperate gasps of a drowning man. "Some nights I just drink until I pass out again. Some nights I try to find a way to distract myself..." Others he contemplated throwing himself off the roof.

Cafas squeezed Maya and nuzzled a bit deeper into her shoulder. He wasn't calm, not by any reckoning, and he wasn't alright, but he was a thousand times better than he had ever been right after waking from a nightmare.

So, make him feel safe?

That's what she would have done for Rowan or Jude or anyone else if they'd woken up from a regular nightmare. And it was the first thing that had come to mind when she'd woken up. Safe. She should have thought of that. She gave his head another squeeze when he talked about the drinking. She didn't want him to drink. The opposite was coffee, but he'd said not to leave for tea so coffee was out. Not to mention that it was the middle of the night.

The shadows stretched long through the window, unnatural light from the street lamps. The only echo of light was from Cafas' clock, an angry red that splashed along the walls and ceiling.

She heaved a sigh, acutely aware of how her chest rose and fell under Cafas' head and stretched as far as she could to barely touch the clock with the tips of her fingers. It tipped onto its face so that the room was only painted in color leeching florescence and timeless darkness. There. "It always irks me less when there's no clock to taunt me about how long I've been awake." She did, after all, have some experience with getting up in the night.

Distraction, he said. Calming and distracting. Okay. She had an idea. Something she definitely did all the time for Rowan, but... well, it was different here.

She hummed.

She would have sung him a lullaby if that wouldn't be incredibly embarrassing for the both of them. She just hummed the first thing that came to mind, instead. It was a song she'd heard playing over the speakers in her coffee shop a hundred million times, so it was old enough to be popularly accepted and inoffensive enough to have a high play count. Slow enough to be soothing, but still managed to sound at least a little cheery.

The sound vibrated through her chest as Maya put her fingers in his hair to smooth down the tufts he'd been tugging on.

All Cafas noticed was the heaved sigh and the stretching. The clatter made him assume the clock had been involved. Both the lamp and the photo would have smashed. It changed nothing from him, his eyes were buried in the crook of Maya's neck, his lips pressed against her collarbone.

"It always irks me less when there's no clock to taunt me about how long I've been awake."

Maya's voice vibrated through her chest. Cafas nodded. He knew the feeling. Soon Maya's voice was followed by her humming. He felt silly for how well it worked. Like a child almost. It helped though. It was soothing and familiar and all vibrate-y in his ear. Combined with the hug it was dragging him back to reality in the kindest way possible. He knew he was being dragged, but he didn't mind.

Why is she going to so much effort?

"I'm sorry.. I thought... I thought maybe it would be different with you here." His words grew heavy in his mouth even as his mind and body retreated into a childish state, soothed by the affectionate care being given. Somewhere he had regained a level of lucidity, and was clinging to it and Maya with equal desperation.

Surely I'm not worth this.

It was honestly the first time he had truly loved her, deeply. She cared, even when he was sweaty, crying, and gross she cared, and that was something beyond words. Not that he uttered the phrase to either himself or her. It was far too soon for that.

God am I ever not worth this.

His right hand crept up Maya's back and stroked her hair. It felt real in away the dream hadn't. It grounded him, tied him to the reality that she was there, and the dead man was not. That he was safe, and that the only danger present was himself.

But she treats me like I am.

His heart, mind, and breathing slowed further with Maya's continued humming.

Maybe...

"Maya... Sweetheart... Thank you. I'm sorry I put you through this, I really am. I can't... I just can't properly express my gratitude. That you stayed. That you cared."

He was so sappy he could vomit. Or maybe that was the guilt again.

He meant it though.

Because he'd stopped crying.

How Maya wished she could be his cure all. She had to hum to the end of a line in the song and stop to take a breath before she could answer his assumptions. "I wish it worked that way." But he seemed a bit less desperate even if he was holding on tighter.

"Hey. Seriously, though. You let me ugly cry on you on what was maybe our first time seeing each other in 2 or 3 years. Support goes both ways." Cafas had the grace to at least wait a while to share his troubles. Maya had simply let hers ambush her again and again.

It was too early to get up, wasn't it? Even though they'd headed to bed early, it seemed weird to be up in the middle of the night. Maya tugged Cafas so that she could pull them down onto the pillows without changing too much. They went from vertical to horizontal. That was better on her knees. It would probably be worse on the arm under his head, but she was stubbornly not letting go. She liked his head. She liked the things that came out of his head.

> "I just can't properly express my gratitude. That you stayed. That you cared."

"I wish..." Oh no. She could tell it was lame before she'd started, but there was no going back now. She'd already interrupted her humming to start talking so it wasn't like she could stop now. "I wish I had the mutant power to keep only good things in your head because you bring so many good things to me and everybody else outside of it." It only seemed fair to her. She cringed. It was lame. She was so lame!

"Why would I leave?" She was almost offended that he'd thought she might. Not only was it somewhere in the zone of 2am, but you don't leave someone when they're hurting. You especially don't leave someone when they're hurting.

"Hey. Seriously, though. You let me ugly cry on you on what was maybe our first time seeing each other in 2 or 3 years. Support goes both ways."

"It was totally worth it. Still is." Maya's support was among a very limited number of things keeping Cafas from spiraling out of control. Certainly it was the biggest factor in him not drinking. Well, not as much. He hadn't been perfect with it.

He let Maya pull him back down onto the pillows. He had to roll slightly to maintain the position, but it was so much more comfortable. They both ended up with arms trapped under each other, so circulation was about to get fun, but it was so nice to hold her and be held by her that Cafas would happily deal with the pins and needles after.

The humming paused once more, an uncertain air coming over Maya, though Cafas wasn't entirely sure why until she spoke.

"I wish... I wish I had the mutant power to keep only good things in your head because you bring so many good things to me and everybody else outside of it."

It was adorable, and sweet, and he could totally see why she had been a bit uncertain about saying it. "Thanks. Your powers are way cooler though. When they're not taking you away." The way her collarbone brushed his lips as he spoke was distracting. Distraction was good, at least in the short term. Maya was quickly ousting most other thoughts from Cafas' head.

"Why would I leave?"

The metal manipulator nuzzled the crook of Maya's neck lightly before pulling his head back to make eye contact. Compared to the darkness of having his face buried against Maya's shoulder, the diffuse street light from so many stories down was as clear to see by as day.

"You wouldn't, because you're Maya. X-man, and all around beautiful and amazingly kind person. Surely that was scary for you though? And I'm hardly at my prettiest or most fun to be around even after I wake up." Between the crying, and the emotional overload, and the paranoia, he had been a veritable wreck. He was still puffy eyed and tear stained, the sheen of sweat,while fading, still there.. He wasn't exactly the calmest either. Even with Maya there, he didn't know if he'd get any more sleep.

Puffy eyed and wreck-esque as he was, Cafas kissed Maya a thank you. Because he couldn't think of a way to express it with words. A thank you for being Maya, and for treating him like Cafas even when he was barely recognisable as himself.

>"Your powers are way cooler though. When they're not taking you away."

That earned him a squeeze. His lips were distracting at her collar bone.

> "You wouldn't, because you're Maya. X-man, and all around beautiful and amazingly kind person."

"Darn right." That was easy enough to admit to. That was who she was and she was glad he saw it. She always wanted to be that person through and through.

>"Surely that was scary for you though? And I'm hardly at my prettiest or most fun to be around even after I wake up."

"Scary? Yeah." She had to be honest. This kind of thing didn't work without honesty. "If I had my way, I would never hear those sounds from you again. But I also don't want you to hide this from me." She reached up to him and touched his face with butterfly soft hesitancy. She traced the line of moisture down his cheek all the way down to where it had pooled and dropped from his chin.

"You didn't scare me, but you being scared. That scared me." He put on a good show of staying together. She supposed that they all did, in their own ways. "I can't fix this, Cafas. But if you're scared, I'd rather be scared with you instead of just scared for you. Please? Nobody's fun when they first wake up."

She was guessing the kiss was his seal of approval. Sweet and gentle and appreciative.

Maya pushed back with her lips. She felt sort of desperate to impress the importance of what she'd said. Did he understand? What could she do to drive it home to him that she wanted his fight to be her fight? That he'd been fighting alone for too long?

He'd planned to answer, truly he had. Planned to tell her that as far as he was concerned she could spend every night right there with him. That he wouldn't hide his problems, that if she meant it, he was much happier that she not lose sleep worrying if he was okay that night. All he managed was an affirmative sound that came out a bit more like a moan.

But she'd kissed him back. He didn't know how she did it. She never left him room to think of anything else when they kissed. Maybe in time he'd grow used to it, learn to think past it, but he hoped not. He never wanted to take Maya for granted.

Memories of the last time they had been in a similar situation flooded him. His top hand found its way to Maya's hip. The other, trapped in the loosest sense of the word, beneath Maya pulled her closer, his hand between her shoulder blades. If it wouldn't have meant separating their lips he might have sighed as the tension of the nightmare released him.

He allowed perhaps a bit more passion to meld with the appreciation he had been trying to convey. His eyes, though closed, were thoroughly red.

It was working. Definitely working. Maya was having a hard time forming a coherent thought so surely Cafas was too.

What had started as hair smoothing turned into tangling and tugging. Their legs tangled. She just couldn't hold him close enough.

Eventually, even the air elemental had to come up for air. She tipped her chin up so that she could have a guaranteed moment to catch her breath since he wouldn't be able to reach her lips any more. "Better?" He seemed better. This was better, right?

Cafas spent a moment dazed when Maya's lips finally left his. He missed the soft pressure from the second it was taken away. Perhaps the fact he had been running out of breath had something to do with it. A deep intake of ozoney air preceded his still kiss-drunk brain deciding his lips belonged on Maya's neck. She had, after all, taken her lips out of reach.

"Better?"

"So much better." His voice was muffled, even to him. He could still feel her hands in his hair, the slight ache from how hard she was holding it. He wasn't entirely certain who's leg was where. his chest heaved slightly against Maya's. Somewhere, a portion of his brain wondered how close they had just come to fusing themselves again.

"Maya," He kissed slightly lower, closer to her collarbone than neck. "If uh... If you want to be scared with me, I'd appreciate it as often as you feel you can. You uh... You brought me back from hell just now." He continued to kiss her. He wasn't meaning to get ever so incrementally lower. If he'd noticed, he might have stopped. His hand crept up her waist, touching as lightly as he could.

Cafas was avoiding eye contact. He didn't want her to see the tears that had gathered in his eyes at the thought of never having to spend another night curled in a ball, convincing himself he still wanted to live. He didn't want to let her see the slight hope that, despite being far too soon, she might like to make sharing a bed a nightly thing. He knew there was no way he could suggest that. They'd barely started dating really.

In laying down, she'd been hoping to hold him and comfort him back to sleep. That was very much not happening.

"This-" She had to breathe again and again. Breathing was very important. More important than trying to explain.

Maya tugged on Cafas' hair and tried only halfheartedly to reclaim the arm that was trapped underneath him.

Unless his bed was magically soft, the arm was probably ghosted under his weight. The difference between this passing through and fusion was a matter of Maya directing her power. Normally she forced the incorporeality into a distinct area. That gave the rest of her body more ability to resist things passing through her, but left the edges of the ghosting to be a constant vulnerable in-flux state. Cafas passing through her was only dangerous if she tired to form up again. Physically, slowly falling to pieces would hurt no one besides herself.

"No one's going to sleep any more tonight if we carry on like this." She squeaked it out all at once because anything else was going to get lost in a rain shower of kisses.

She wrapped his head up and pinned him to her chest with her one arm so he couldn't keep distracting them both. If he needed a distraction, that could only go so far. "I don't think I can sleep right now. Do you want to sleep?" Of course he wanted to sleep, it was dark outside o'clock. "Or waffles?" She wasn't really hungry either. She knew she had to throw on the brakes, though. "Or is it my turn to be the big spoon?"

"No one's going to sleep any more tonight if we carry on like this."

He'd resigned himself to that fate when he'd woken up in the first place. Not that he thought Maya should have to share that fate if she didn't want to. He could hope though, right?

Selfish sort of thing to think mate...

Cafas' face found itself smooshed against Maya's chest. When had he gotten so low? He hadn't noticed the downward creep of his kisses. Those kisses and the downward trend were both arrested as Maya squeezed him against her. There were worse things though, than being pressed into his girlfriend's chest.

Cafas hadn't meant to make her uncomfortable. Again. He felt a little bad about it momentarily, until he remembered the sound of her breathing at the time. After that he was content that it was simply continuing that she'd not been ready for.

Are either of us ready for that?

"I don't think I can sleep right now. Do you want to sleep? Or waffles? Or is it my turn to be the big spoon?"

"I think I've had more than enough sleep for one night. Not real hungry either, though I guess I could eat if you want?" His jaw was having a hard time moving properly crushed against Maya. His face was having a hard time trying to shift expression too. He did smile though. Waffles. Really it was impressive Maya had remembered that given how much she'd had to drink.

Silly girl didn't need to drink that much...

Cafas gently pushed against Maya and slipped his head out of her grip. He sat up and stretched, trying to identify how to get his legs out of Maya's. "I've got an Xbox. We could play something. Or watch a movie? I mean, if we're going to fall back asleep anywhere, it's cuddling on the couch." They could grab some popcorn and a blanket! It'd be cute. Or if they played something, well, if there's one surefire way to find out who someone really is, it's when they're getting thoroughly trounced in a game.

His eyes flicked to Maya suspiciously. He hadn't seen her playing at the mansion, but he was not ruling out that she was a secret master. Cafas was alright. He could beat Calley reliably.

"Whatever we do, I think I'm gonna go shower first." He'd want to strip the sheets too. Sweaty sheets were only good in one context, and that was not it.

"No peeking when I do. I know it's hard, believe me."