”Daddy.” mocked Sam as he bent over and kissed the forehead of his nine year old daughter who was sitting in front of a cake made of ice and snow. It wasn’t a real cake but the candles on top of it were real. The girl looked to her father and smiled and let out the most perfect laugh anyone could possibly laugh. ”You’re mom said to make a cake.” Sam looked over to the body of his wife whose face was obscured by a camera. Sam could tell she was rolling her eyes but that didn’t matter the real cake was in the fridge and should have been in the room in any moment brought in by his son.

Sam’s body moved in the bed and he let out a small whimper as if something was causing him pain. There was no evidence of stress other than that but Cammie knew what was about to happen. The cat jumped off the bed and went to lay down next to Bruno who was still sound asleep. Ice started to form around the bed, it was a small amount but if one were looking for it they would have started to see that two sets of feet starting to sprout from the carpet.

”Just blow out the candles princess, maybe you’ll get that pony you always wanted.” Sam said looking over to the woman behind the camera who looked slightly different from before, the skin was a little darker and the frame was different but there was something comforting about the change. The camera moved and Juliette’s face became clear, “Sam I swear if you got her a horse I’m going to make you sleep outside with it.” ”I would never.” Sam said pretending to be hurt as if the one outside made of ice and snow wasn’t there. They couldn’t see it but Sam knew it was. “Dad, should I bring it out now?” came a voice from behind the door to the kitchen. ”Not yet,” Sam returned, ”She has to blow out the candles.” Sam looked back to the candles then to his daughter.

”Now blow them out.” the room started to grow darker as the flames before him grew brighter.

The room started to get colder as sweat started to pour out from Sam’s body. He was clearly overheating and the fact that he was now tossing and turning more didn’t help. Kicking off the sheets Sam started to mumble. ”Ayrin… no… don’t blow on the candles…”

Sam’s little princess took a deep breath and blew on the candles but instead of them blowing out the flames trailed up his daughter’s breath and her face started to erupt in flames. Sam dropped his beer and the glass shattered as he ran over to try and stop the flames. His hands coated over in ice and he reached out to his screaming daughter who tried to bat the flames away. She screamed and the doors blew open as a dozen armed men covered from head to toe in black started to shoot at Juliette. Sam turned and yelled and then there was an explosion in the kitchen. They were dead and his daughter still screamed out for her father to save her.

”No…. Noooooo!!!!” Sam screamed still kicking at the air as if his body fidgeting could stop the nightmare he was having. The pairs of feet now had legs and a lower torso. Within seconds they were two children made of ice both of them had knives and they were both raised at the occupants in the bed. As soon as the ice golem’s were fully formed Bruno was up and barking at them trying to warn both Juliette and Sam what was about to happen.

The thing about dreams was that they didn’t always have to make complete sense. Juliette was floating somewhere. The background was obscured, and she wasn’t sure what exactly it was that she was floating on, but she knew that there was sunlight. That was all that was really necessary to make it a good dream.

There was something kicking her. She ignored it, content to just float obliviously in her that state, but it happened again. The second time accompanied by yelling of some sort.

Dreams didn’t have to make sense, but there came a point when her brain couldn’t keep her content and asleep.

Juliette’s eyes fluttered open, and she found herself next to a flailing Sam, who was yelling out something about Ayrin. From what Juliette had gathered through the things that he called out in his sleep, Ayrin was his daughter. She just hadn’t quite figured out how she played into the rest of the history that he’d shared with her.

She sat up groggily and went to shake Sam awake, when something stopped her. There were two figures standing on either side of the bed, illuminated by the nightlight she’d made Sam keep in the corner. They were too small to be adults, but they were clearly human. Kids, from the look of them. They weren’t entirely solid, though. The light passed through them, and through the knives that they were holding.

If Juliette had been awake and thinking straight, she would have realized that they were clearly ice golems; a result of Sam’s nightmare. She would have shaken him awake and done something sane to deal with the situation.

Juliette, unfortunately, was not fully awake.

Her brain groggily tried to comprehend what exactly was going on, but couldn’t quite grasp anything. What it did settle on was the fact that there was something next to her holding a knife and clearly getting closer. Danger.

She screamed and shot her arms forward, sending some of the light she had saved up toward the two intruders. She was confused, unsure of what was going on, and she wasn’t sure if she’d actually hit them or not, but she knew for some reason that she should move.

She followed what Sam’s cat, Cammie had done, and shot up from the bed, pressing herself against the wall. She was still screaming, for some reason, and shooting off blasts here and there.

What a thing to wake up to.

The screaming grew louder as Sam tried to save his daughter his hands burned at the touch and now it seemed that streams of fire were erupting around him the icemancer sat up and then quickly leaned back as a blast of light whizzed past him. Rolling out of bed and looking around his girlfriend Juliette was screaming in the corner of his room throwing beams of light at two unknown assailants. Sam’s lone eye fixed on them while his sixth sense was getting a feel for the room.

Cammie and Bruno were next to Juliette the cat stood behind a barking Bruno other than that there was nothing else with a body temperature in his room. Sam’s stomach dropped and he waved his hand causing what was left of the two figures of ice to shatter. His stomach lurched and he felt sick like a big secret was just revealed that would change everything. Sam didn’t know what Juliette heard about his not real family but she just met hollow ice of them.

Sweat streaking down his back and covering his brow Sam leaned up against the wall after his knees went. Pushing himself up from the wall Sam looked to the other three in his room and let out a small gasp as if his heart was just catching up to what happened. ”You alright?” Sam took a step towards them then caught himself on his dresser before he fell. ”There gone… I…” Sam looked away from Juliette and was tempted to make a break from the bathroom where he had hid a bottle of whiskey.

Out of the corner of her eye, Juliette could see Sam’s form make movements different from the flailing he’d been doing while asleep. Following that, the two ice formations shattered at the same moment, allowing Juliette to stop having to throw blasts at them.

The brunette brought her arms up to her chest, taking slow, deep breaths. She could feel her bottom lip trembling slightly, so she rolled it in to attempt to stop it. The ice golems were gone, but the mood that they had left in their wake was not.

She glanced Sam as he attempted to make his way over to her, but fell to his knees. The nightmare had obviously taken its toll on him. Still trembling slightly, she left the safety of having her back against the wall, and made her way over to him.

She swallowed and nodded slightly, “I’m alright.” She sat down against the dresser that Sam had caught himself on and put her hand on his arm. On some level, she wanted to comfort him more, but she wasn’t in a place to do that mentally.

“What… what was that?” She glanced down the shards of ice on the ground next to them with a wary eye. She had calmed down for the most part, but her heartbeat was still faster than it was normally, and the room seemed smaller. She really wanted to go somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The hand on his arm was a comfort and while he wanted her to do more like pull him into a hug he didn’t push anything. The fact that she was still near him and in the same room as Sam was surprising. He shifted uncomfortably and looked from the bed to his dog and cat who seemed that without the golems in the room sleep was a possibility.

Sam pushed himself up from the dresser and kept a little distance from Juliette, not because he wanted some distance to get away from her but rather he knew he wasn’t sure what could happen at the moment if he wasn’t careful. The golems were only supposed to attack the icemancer if his mind was becoming controlled again.

”Something that shouldn’t have happened.” Sam said as he stood up fully and walked over to the bed and sat in it his hands wiping the sweat from his forehead. ”That has never happened before…” Sam said trying to figure the best way to apologize for what happened. ”I think I should go and let you get some sleep.” Sam said already making mental stock of what was down in his liquor cabinet in the man cave or his office.

”You won’t have to worry about them again…” Sam said kicking himself mentally and looking up to Juliette to try an reassure his girlfriend that he would be fine. Even if it wasn’t true.

"No," Juliette shook her head quickly, already beginning to miss having some sort of physical touch via her hand on his arm. "I don't really want to be alone right now. Not in the dark in the middle of the night." Sure, there was a night light and everything, but she'd just nearly jumped out of her skin, and it wasn't really doing the trick anymore.

"Besides, I don't really think I could get back to sleep right now," she sighed and glanced over at the clock next to the bed. The red numbers were blurred slightly, but she could make out that it was nearly five am. It wasn't even worth getting back to sleep.

”You won’t have to worry about them again…”

"This clearly isn't something you can put off or drink your way out of, Sam." There was a hint of venom in her voice, which even she hadn't anticipated. Perhaps it was because of a lack of sleep, the fact that she'd just screamed for a good few minutes straight, or a mix of both, but she wasn't having him shrug this off. It was something that had to be dealt with, preferably in a mature way.

She sighed and ran her hands through her sleep-tousled hair, composing herself. "Talk to me," she urged softly and looked back up at him.

If it wasn’t for the situation they were in Sam would have made a joke about her being afraid of the dark but she was already scared and given the hour it wouldn’t help anybody at that point. ”You have those two.” Sam gestured to the two who were already snuggled up in the corner of the room safe from semi-sentient golems of ice that were on standby.

”Me either.” the icemancer agreed with his girlfriend sleep didn’t seem possible at the moment but finding himself at the bottom of a bottle in seclusion seemed like a far better choice than confronting what was wrong. He already knew that and if they talked she’d know what was wrong as well.

”I can try.” Sam said putting his hands in his head and leaning forward into his knees. It wasn’t a position he was in often but it was one of those rare moments of him not feeling like he had any power at the moment. Something that rarely happened to Sam, he had never been crippled like this before.

>>> “Talk to me”

Sam shifted his weight and leaned back slightly and looked to Juliette his eye wide with an apologetic expression. He was about to start talking when he felt a knock at the door. Sam jumped up took a breath and put on his everyday smile that he hid behind and opened the door. One of the security guards was on the other side of the door. ”Night terrors.” was all Sam had to say for the guard to take the hint. It was fairly common but in a school like this you hear screaming somebody should be checking it out.

Shutting the door and walking back to the bed he sat back down and let out a loud sigh while his smile faded. ”I don’t know what to do… I seem them all the time…” Sam said looking at his hands trying his best to not make eye contact with Juliette. In Sam’s mind it made things easier for him, he didn’t want to see her see him like this.

As if on cue, Bruno lifted his head as he was gestured to. He shifted his paws under himself and let out a little whine, glancing between the two humans on either side of the room. Juliette clicked her tongue at him and drew him over with her with the bend of her pointer finger. He obliged immediately, ramming his head into her knee and then covering her hands with his tongue.

She sighed at his evasive responses and rested her elbow on the knob to one of the dresser drawers. She rubbed her forehead with one hand and scratched the top of Bruno’s head with the other. He seemed to be content to just lay his head in her lap and curl up next to her.

Juliette glanced at the security guard that had come to the door and nodded along with Sam’s response. Night terrors. That was it. Plus, you know, ice golems and a lot of overreaction, but the baseline was night terrors. He took their answer at face value and left them alone again.

The brunette rested her head against the wood of the dresser, trying to think of what to say. She knew full well that he saw them all the time. He must have thought that he was hiding it, or something, but that was a difficult thing to do when he yelled out in the middle of the night. She never knew what to do, but she’d always figured that they’d settle down eventually. It was clear in that moment that she was very, very wrong.

“This isn’t healthy,” she started after a minute, standing up from her spot on the floor. She sat down on the other side of the bed. She knew that what she planned to say wasn’t going to be easy on Sam, so she wanted to close some of the distance between them. Bruno followed quickly behind her and took up a position at the base of the bed.

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep going like this. And other people too, from the looks of this,” she refrained from saying the word ‘me’ for some reason that even she wasn’t quite sure of. “You’re either going to drink yourself to death or accidentally do something in your sleep. You can’t just keep ignoring it. Obviously it’s getting worse.”

There was an urgency in her voice as she continued. She could feel her volume increasing slightly, but she didn’t stop it. He needed to hear this, and she was getting sick of how he chose to simply let things continue instead of dealing with them. “This can’t go on, Sam. It can’t. I can’t go to sleep every night worried about whether or not I’m going to be stabbed by something that you’ve made in your sleep. Talk to a counsellor. Talk to a doctor. Hell, talk to me. Just stop ignoring it, and stop trying to drink your way out.”

A tear started to well up in his lone eye and he took a breath silently telling it to go away. If it escaped he might have more of a breakdown than he was already having. Sam also knew it wasn’t healthy, the lack of sleep, the need to look for fights and the thirst. The thirst was probably the only indicator that he wasn’t doing well at least unless they shared his bed and was around them all the time like Juliette. Sam nodded his head slightly agreeing with her concern.

He knew she cared, but that didn’t make admitting that he was in the wrong and needed help any better. If anyone else was gonna have a serious talk with him like this there would have had to be a large amount of alcohol or it wouldn’t have happened at all. ”I’m sorry…” was all he could muster for the moment. He felt weak both physically and mentally and his voice reflected it.

The icemancer shifted his gaze up to her slightly making sure not to lock onto her eyes. His lone one darted away every time they came close to meeting it was clear now that they were talking about something Sam had no experience with. ”I can’t ignore it.” Sam finally said agreeing with her, ”I’ve tried before and it didn’t work. Not sure how talking will help.” the icemancer said looking down.

Juliette was right though. Sam knew this so he took a breath and looked up to her after a few seconds of mentally preparing himself for the look of pity he was going to see. ”I wish I knew you before… this…” Sam pointed to his head as if that was the cause of all his problems. ”I’m different now…” broken. He didn’t say it but he avoided her gaze again.

”I’ll… I’ll…talk to you.” Sam said looking up to her, ”Everything.” he paused slightly then added, ”They weren’t supposed appear… the kids… they were only supposed to appear if I was being controlled again.” he didn’t explain why they were going to appear but he didn’t feel like he needed to.

She'd never really seen Sam like that. Even after breaking several ribs and being thrown around by a pumpkin for an hour, he'd still insisted that he was fine, and had done his best not to show any emotion. Comparing that Sam to the one sitting in front of her, refusing to meet her eyes, Juliette knew that she was seeing an entirely different side of him for the first time. It was likely one that he didn't present to people often, if ever, judging from the way words seemed to get stuck on their way out.

Juliette reached a hand forward and placed it on his, her face contorted with worry. It was incredibly disconcerting to see him like that, especially after that display. A part of her was a little scared that he'd lash out again unexpectedly, but she did her best to ignore it.

He apologized, to which she nodded and replied, "I know." He wasn't a child. He didn't need her to smile and pretend that everything was alright; it was better to accept the apology than to try to pretend that there was nothing for him to apologize for.

"With any luck, talking will do a bit more than keeping everything in," she sighed heavily. She didn't know what to do anymore than he did. Sure, when presented with some sort of physical wound, she could recognize the exact process needed to fix it up. When presented with a personal strife, however, such as Sam's obvious PTSD, she was at a bit of a loss.

Her brow furrowed as she watched him point to his head. She opened her mouth to respond, but then decided against it. What could she say to that? She couldn't argue; she had no idea what he was like before, and how it was different from how he was then. She could say for certain that she didn't regret meeting him when she had.

"They weren't supposed to appear... the kids... they were only supposed to appear if I was being controlled again."

Juliette studied him for a second. Controlled again. She remembered him saying that he'd been controlled by someone from his old organization about a year ago, but he hadn't gone further than that. There had been no mention of any kids, other than the ones he'd kidnapped. Somehow, based on the ice creations and the way he screamed for them, she doubted that those were them.

"Controlled... how you were controlled last year? How did... how did kids play into that?" She prompted him gently, wanting him to continue, but not go further than he was able to at 5 am.

The hand was a comforting reminded that she was still there, not that he didn’t know if she was still there it was hard to ignore the bright glowing light that was Juliette. Sam looked over to her feet in hopes his brain could turn down the light that she gave off. It helped a bit, so his eye trailed up to her face for a second before he locked an eye with hers. The look of concern on her face was mistaken for pity like he feared and he looked away again but turned his hand up to hold hers.

”Amanda, one of the women I knew since I was a kid. She is a telepath, a great one. Terrible but great” Sam started to explain. Juliette was still here and not running for the hills and was almost scared to death of the ice golems. Sam doubted they would have killed her but, they weren’t supposed to show up unless he was being controlled. Either way she deserved to hear as much as Sam could tell her. It was still weird talking about all of it but he seemed to manage.

”She must had gotten a power boost or something the last few years, her power gave her more control than I thought she was capable.” Sam said, talking about who had controlled him. That was easy, Sam still had more rage for that woman than awkwardness during the current conversation. The way she controlled him though… Sam’s expression dropped slightly again and he started to avoid eye contact. His hand still clung to hers. ”She controls the body while the mind is away in some false reality.” Sam wished he had some alcohol as his loud sigh could be heard.

”She gave me kids. Ayrin and Sammy.” he thought about them for a second as another tear started to form. Sam inhaled and exhaled pushing the drop of water back down. ”She created a reality where I had everything I ever wanted.” Sam hesitated, ”perfect world until you fight it… then a nightmare.”

She nodded along with what he told her, trying her best to keep her face impassive. She'd let her emotions show before, and he clearly didn't like seeing her with anything resembling pity, which she understood. She managed to tap into the face she used while at work and keep her features still.

”She gave me kids. Ayrin and Sammy.”

So he did have kids. More than Alex, anyway. They just weren't technically real. Juliette nodded once more and kept her eyes on him, letting him continue. She wasn't about to interrupt his train of thought and prevent him from saying anything more.

”I had them before but that wasn’t real either…” he thought about the joint dream everyone had years ago that first sparked the idea of him having children. ”I had a wife too…” Sam said thinking on how to best discuss the topic of Alexandria. That was a little more complicated and a little more awkward. Even with what just happened Sam still didn’t like talking about Ex’s to current girlfriends if it was possible.

”I had a family…. Lived a few lifetimes in a period of a few days then she decided she could use me to gather some new recruits seeing as I was a teacher here.” this time Sam let go of Juliette’s hand and clasped his own. His hands started to shake a little when he thought about it. Sam felt his powers before they activated and silenced them before Juliette got another scare.

”I kidnapped three kids. Took them away from their home and dropped them off at a facility to start training.” he was more angry now than he was sad, at least in this moment. He really wanted a drink. ”Kids I’m supposed to protect and for doing that I had a family. Everything I apparently always wanted.” Sam scoffed at himself, ”I was a fool.” Sam sighed, as he continued not hearing Juliette stop him. He wished she would.

”A part of me knew what I was doing but when I started to figure out what was going on, like get any control over my body, Amanda just reset my little world.” the anger started to subside as he started to feel the guilt of knowing that everything after that was his fault. Even if they weren’t real, they were to him. Sam had laughed and cried with his children, even walked his daughter down the isle at some point.

”When Amanda realized I was starting to fight her she decided to stop giving me everything I wanted and started taking it away… over…. over… and over again.” Sam started to feel tired the more he thought about it. ”I held them… every time they died…” Sam finished finally before realizing his voice was cracking and the lone tear managed to escape.

A fake wife, too. Juliette’s jaw clenched a little as he mentioned that and then trailed off, as if there was more history behind that sentence that he’d neglected to share. She tried not to concern herself with the fact that he didn’t say anything more on the subject, but it stayed in the back of her mind anyway, a nagging presence as she tried to listen intently.

She took her newly free hand back and put it in her own. She could have sworn that she felt the slightest hint of a temperature drop in the room, but it disappeared almost instantly.

Then came the topic of the kidnapped kids. He’d told her about that before, but it still seemed to out of place to for him to say, especially after she’d seen him with Abby and Alex. It was no surprise that the fallout of the mind control had been so taxing on him. To find out that you did something so entirely despicable and out of character… Juliette had a tough time imagining it.

”I held them… every time they died…”

“Sam…” Juliette started to say something, but couldn’t find the words. What he’d just described… she found absolutely impossible to imagine. She shifted forward and pulled him into a hug, sighing deeply. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, unsure of what else to say.

Sam didn’t know what it was about the hug but it seemed to be everything he needed in that particular moment as if all the pain he was feeling went away. He felt safe and as strange as it was, for a moment he felt whole again. Sam sighed and returned the hug and tightened his arms around her. With his head next to hers he let a few tears silently roll down his face. ”…. Thank you.” he wanted to say more but didn’t.

Sure that he could hug her as long as he wanted to he released his embraces a few seconds later and sniffed while brushing the tear streak off of his face as if he didn’t cry a second ago. Looking at Juliette he wanted to say more to her but knew that it wasn’t the best time to say what he was thinking. To Sam it would seem desperate and the ice-mancer didn’t want to hear if she felt differently.

”I’m sorry too… for scaring you and dropping the cluster **** that is my past on you.” he shifted back slightly and brought his leg up onto the bed and turned towards his girlfriend half jokingly, ”You can still run away if you want.”