And There Was Another✔️

Chapter 18: A Quantum of Solace

He and Nova made love twice.

Once in the shower, and once again in the bed she'd laid claim to. And she was every bit as amazing a lover as he'd hoped she would be. It was a great way to go to sleep: exhausted, awash in the bliss that came from very good sex, curled up against a beautiful, naked woman. Despite that, his sleep was once more haunted by nightmares.

If anything, they were worse.

He was on Taris. He walked through holocaust streets of ash and bone. Everywhere he looked, silver spires were aflame, crumbling into dust. There was smoke everywhere. And the bodies. There were so many bodies. Some of them had been pulverized into nothing but charred remains. Others were somehow almost flash-frozen where they had fallen, nothing but blackened bone and meat. He saw people cowering, trying to shield themselves from the unstoppable death that had rained down from above. He stumbled and staggered through the streets.

Then he came across the ashen remains of a woman trying to shield her child, both of them in the middle of the street, a last desperate act.

They were nothing but ash and char now.

Seth felt...despair.

It seemed to wash over him, drowning out all other feelings. Nothing but bleak, hopeless despair. And then he looked up and gasped in mindless terror at what he saw. The sky was black and starless, dominated by two staring eyes of the deepest red. Eyes the color of blood. Eyes the color of exposed, raw muscle. Eyes of death.

And he screamed.

* * *

"Seth! Seth!"

He gasped awake, his whole body covered in a cold sweat, muscles so rigid and tense that it hurt. He couldn't move, which was a damned good thing because if he could have been able to he might have thrown Nova from the bed. She was sitting up, hand on his bicep.

"Seth...are you okay?" she whispered. She looked afraid.

"I...had a nightmare," he managed, fighting for control, to get his heart rate and breathing back down to something approaching normal. He shifted, coughed, blinked a few times. "Um...I'm sorry I woke you."

"It's okay," she replied, then reached up and laid her hand gently against his cheek. "It's okay, Seth. I was worried about you. And I was having nightmares too. You were calling out in your sleep. I just...I was worried."

"I'm fine," he managed, although he knew it was a lie.

He was sick to his stomach. He was trembling. He was angry and terrified and despairing. He checked the chronometer mounted on the wall beside the bed. "Is that, uh...is that local time?" he asked, nodding to it.

"Yeah," Nova replied.

It was seven in the morning. They'd gone to sleep at around nine o'clock last night. A long sleep, but he needed it.

"Uh...we've probably landed by now. We should get up, get a shower," he murmured, sitting up and pulling the blanket back. He planted his feet on the deckplates and their chill help ground him back to reality a bit. Sitting there, he held his head in his hands, hunching over, just trying to calm down. He felt Nova's hands on his bare back. She ran them up his skin and rested them on his shoulders. He reached back and laid one hand atop hers.

"Thank you," he murmured.

"For what?" she replied.

"For...being nice to me, I guess. And understanding, about the nightmares."

She laughed softly, then kissed the back of his head and shifted again, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him. He could feel her bare breasts against his back. "You're welcome," she said, "and of course I understand about the nightmares. I get the feeling we're all going to be having them for some time."