David & Tabitha: Day 4 - Nightmares and insomnia

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Unable to sleep, Tabitha wanders the mansion but did not expect to find anyone in the medlab.

Warning: Brief mention of a child's death



"Really, sleep is kind of overrated anyway, lots of people do without all the time."

Tabitha was half-way to convincing herself, voice a low mumble, as she wandered into the med lab. It was the only place left in the mansion she hadn't hit in her nightly walks, so she thought she'd round herself out.

She didn't actually think anyone would be there.

He was twisted up in the bedsheets, cold perspiration dripping of his forehead as he thrashed around on the med lab bed. Lips were bitten raw – a conditioned measure that prevented the screams from escaping whenever he was trapped in a nightmare. The IV connected to his arm was either going to get tangled with his limb or get ripped out if he did not wake up soon.

She paused in the doorway. She only vaguely recognized North from file photos. She did remember the contents of that file and deemed that shaking his shoulder might not be the best way to wake him from a nightmare.

"Hey, North. David North," she called from the doorway. "Wake up, dude."

Shooting upright, the man reached for a gun that was not there, eyes dilated and chest heaving as he stared unblinkingly at Tabitha, muscles tensed in preparation to leap. As recent memories caught up with him, the tension seemed to leave him all at once and he slumped back against the pillow with a groan. His tube-free arm reached down to drag the blanket up to his chest before the shivering resumed, but his too-bright gaze never left Tabitha.

Under any other circumstances, David would have greeted her and asked her what she was doing in the infirmary past the witching hour. But now he simply curled up on himself in a futile effort to stop the tremors that wrecked his thin frame, unwilling to exercise sore throat muscles.

She hadn't spent nearly as much time in the Med Lab as some of her teammates, but she knew how to get hot water out of the coffee machine. She also knew where to find the tea. Herbal, because North didn't look like he needed any caffeine. Ever.

She faced him as the tea steeped. "You all here? Not going to strangle me with your IV line?"

“No,” David croaked, licking his lips and clearing his throat before he continued. “I doubt that would go down very well with the staff.”

The still-trembling man pulled himself up into a sitting position, more carefully this time as he ran a sweaty palm over his shaved head. He leaned against the metal rail that was his headboard. “What time is it?”

Tabs leaned over to read the wall clock. "Two in the morning." She removed the tea bag from the mug, threw it in the waste basket. She took the mug over to him and held it out. "You want sugar or something?"

“No, thanks.” Sugar was not the best idea right then. He took the mug from the girl, and tried to minimise the quaking – tea-stained sheets were not the best to sleep in, after all. He drank a mouthful to ease his parched throat and returned the mug to her. “Why are you still awake then, Miss… Smith? I did not think you were on the medical team.”

She shuddered and pulled a metal cart to his bedside for his cup. "Oh, hell no. Just a local insomniac. I go wandering when it gets too bad." She started to make her own cup of tea, though she felt if she had any more, she might float away. The warmth was comforting, at least.

David could certainly commiserate with that, but he lapsed back into a brief silence as she kept her hands busy. “What keeps you up?” It was spoken in an even tone, one suggesting that she was free to disregard the question, or even lie.

She stared into her steeping tea for a drawn-out moment. "In my dreams, they're all dead." And that wasn't even the entirety. In her dreams they died and left her alone, but not even she could be that selfish, right?

That could mean everything from dead acquaintances haunting her dreams to friends being killed or Tabitha killing friends. David frowned, clasping his hands together in an effort to control their shaking. It had been a day and the quaking had not stopped. He only hoped it was not permanent.

“Tell me,” he said, finally. He was not a therapist or a friend, but he understood, at least. And he was not fond of the idea of sleeping at the moment either.

She couldn't, not at first. Too many words crowded her throat. She stood at the counter and drank her tea, hoping the heat might melt away the useless ones. Finally she sighed and pulled a chair to North's bedside. "Shorthand? I'm a stupid, selfish bitch. But I'm pretty sure I knew that already, so I don't think anything's changed."

“Why are you a stupid selfish bitch?” David had to ask, voice still clear of inflection. In his opinion, the world was filled with stupid and selfish people. Everyone, in fact, had a little stupid and selfish in them. The amount of self-incrimination Tabitha was displaying, however, could not have been healthy. “Give me the long version if necessary.” It was not like they were going to be sleeping any time soon.

She clutched her mug like a shield, mostly ignoring the contents. "After we... well, in the prison I was in solitary for a while. I dreamed, every time I closed my eyes, about everyone else-" She choked on the words, put her mug down. Her hands, they needed something to do and all she could think was that she wanted to hit someone. "I dreamed that they all dissolved, just like Rachel. And my biggest fear wasn't losing them." She jumped to her feet, turned away, hands clenched into fists. "I was terrified of being all alone, again. All my nightmares, they were all about me. Classy, right?"

Silence fell over the room, the rhetorical question hanging in the air. It could not have been clearer to him that David was not the best of confidants to have in matters that involved personal emotions. Finally, he unclasped his hands and ran a damp palm over his shaved head.

“There’s no wrong in that,” he stated. “Nightmares are not rational things. Neither are most fears. They are not wholly indicative of the kind of person you are. And the fear of being alone is not something to be ashamed of. Miss Smith, there is no wrong in it. You fear abandonment, but would you not grieve for their deaths too?”

"I would, I do." She didn't recognize her voice in its smallness. She still couldn't face him, but deliberately relaxed her hands. "But aren't we supposed to be all self-sufficient, independent, put-together and not a complete mess? I can't bring myself to stop hiding, even though I want nothing more than to spend time with my friends, just to make sure they're still there."

“Who told you that?” David scoffed, stopping shy of incredulity as he stared at the blonde, ignoring the way his increasingly blurred vision demanded that he unfocus his gaze. “Why? Because you’re an adult in a school? Does that mean that you should be less susceptible to human emotion?” The irony of his words was not lost on him, neither was the fact that Tabitha seemed to have forgotten that she was talking to a man who could safely be called ‘a complete mess’ at that moment.

“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” he said seriously, leaning forward. “There is selfishness in every one. It can be ugly, but it’s part of what makes someone human. So unless you are going for sainthood, I would hesitate to lose sleep over it. People do a lot of things for themselves. To survive, some may even kill in cold blood. Abandon their families and murder their best friends.

“What are you, in comparison to such monsters? Human, Miss Smith. You are human. Capable of compassion, and humane in the most important ways. A selfish person would not call themselves selfish. They would think themselves entitled to behave the way they do and they would justify their behaviour until they find themselves blameless.” There was no incrimination in his voice, and although it sounded hoarse at certain points, he spoke without halting. But there was a strange depth of emotion underneath his calm insistence, and his gaze was fierce. “You have done nothing but fear personal consequences arising out of the brutal actions of others.

“That’s not something you need to hide.” There, he paused, and it was as if suddenly remembered who and where he was. Something imperceptible shifted in pale blue eyes and his gaze became guarded once more. “Go spend time with your friends and reassure yourself that they live. Perhaps they, too, need the assurance that you are still there for them.”

Despite herself, she found his voice and words comforting. She turned enough to look at him. "Two in the morning might not be the best time for that. Though I am tempted to hike out to the quarry and blow things to- Hey, are you all right?" She turned all the way around and moved closer.

David arched a brow at her. “Do I not look all right?” It was a facetious question, given that he seemed ready to fall over and die at any moment. He was still shaking, with perspiration beading his forehead, but was otherwise no worse for wear than he had been when she had chanced upon him in the middle of a nightmare. The spy quirked a half-smile. “I’ll be fine. The doctor says it will be a couple of days before I look human again.”

She eyed him doubtfully. "Anything I can help with?" she asked with genuine concern. "Would you mind if I just sat here a while?"

“Be my guest.” He took another mouthful of tea and then carefully laid back down. “Just be warned that I’m not the best of hosts.”

"That's okay," she reassured him. She took her tea back and settled into the chair again. "Just keep breathing."