What?

Chapter Ten

"Master Wilson, Master Wilson."

"Hm," I groaned. My eye was shut tight.

"Master Wilson, I must insist that you get up," Wintergreen told me along with turning on the lights so they dimly lit the room up.

I groaned again, "Five more minutes, Wintergreen."

I rolled over in the silk-like sheets. I was too tired to want any of this to register. I buried my head into my pillow, a gesture to Wintergreen to let me rest. It didn't help that the room was an ice box and I had ignorantly not slept with a shirt on.

"You want to sleep in, Master Wilson?" Wintergreen inquired quizzically.

"Yes," I growled out, not nastily, but more so in a way that said 'I really, really don't want to deal with this right now'.

"What have you done with Slade?" he asked in a joking tone. That got me up. I looked up from my pillow and propped myself up on my elbows.

"What are you talking about?" I asked still groggy from waking up.

"You who barely sleeps is asking me what that was all about?" the British gentleman asked.

"Oh, give me a break Wintergreen," I rolled back onto my back and rubbed a fist against my eye for a moment, "I have to catch up on sleep sometimes," I retorted.

"If your true intentions were to catch up on sleep, then you wouldn't have checked up on your new young apprentice last night," Wintergreen calmly conveyed to me.

My eye widened slightly as I raised an eyebrow, "And how did you know about that?"

"You weren't in the main room. There weren't any new marks on the walls of your gym this morning. The code to your room wasn't activated any earlier then normal. And you just got Robin, the Boy Wonder to be your apprentice. Where else would you have been?" Wintergreen laid out for me.

I chuckled, "I can't get everything past you, huh Will?

"True, Slade, true," my friend said with the roll of his eyes. He brought a tray of breakfast over to my bedside table.

I leaned into my mattress. It was true. I don't sleep all that often. And when I do, I normally keep it to a minimum. I barely have time for it anyway. This time, though, was one of the rare times that I did want to sleep. Last night's dream wouldn't leave and a feeling of guilt was slightly attached to it. Not just guilt though, failure accompanied the dream as well. I knew why those feelings were attached to the dream. It was attached to the beginning content.

The ending of the dream was what was confusing to me, partially confusing anyway. I wanted it to make sense. I replayed the events, what had happened, over and over again just trying to get something out of it. Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck.

"What exactly was the cause of your extended check in with the boy?" he asked in his crisp British accent, bringing me out of my train of thought. I let out a low sigh as I closed my eye, just to relax a bit.

"He was having nightmares," I stated bluntly.

"I suppose that might be expected," Wintergreen said almost without emotion. However, there was a slight hint of concern.

"Time will diminish the vividness of his nightmares," I told him. Even as I said it, I knew that that time expanse would be a very long time. I might be able to help change his attitude fairly soon. Just remember that I'm a very patient person, so 'soon' could be anywhere from two weeks to a month to two months to half a year.

The problem with dreams is that they can be triggered unconsciously by past memories, just as my dream was last night. Yes, I have memories that initiated parts of last night's dream. But I am not about to start thinking about that right now. I have much more pressing matters and issues to occupy my time with, such as planning out how the day will unfold for me and my young apprentice.