Her Silence

Chapter Thirteen

"Of all the things you get to choose in life, you don't get to choose what your nightmares are. You don't pick them; they pick you." John Irving

James POV

I wake up mid dream to a rattled shriek. Thuds followed and I sit up and scramble out of my bed, fumbling around in the dark in attempt to find the light switch, tripping over something as I do so. With the light now on I see it was only a shoe. I hear a bout of gasping and I know where it's coming from. I shoot out of my room and down the landing, hammering on Rosie's door.

"Rosie!" I yell, but there is no sound of any movement coming towards the door. "Fuck," I curse under my breath, spontaneously making the decision that I feel somewhat guilty about. "Rosie I'm coming in." I burst through the door and I freeze as my eyes lay on the most disturbing thing. My sweet, precious Rosie is thrashing about in her twisted bed sheets, drenched in sweat. She honestly looks as though she's had a shower. I immediately go to her, shaking her and pleading her to wake up. I know it's because she saw her Mother only a handful of hours ago, but sleep was meant to be her place of peace and comfort. If I can wake her up from whatever is troubling her, it will help ever so slightly. Whatever she is dreaming about must be horrendous if it caused her to attempt to scream, and right in front of me it happens again, only this time her eyes are wide open. She looks absolutely terrified. Sitting up, staring at me with empty eyes, she begins to back up into the headboard of the bed, before turning around so she isn't facing me. She is in the limbo state of sleep right now and there is nothing I can do about it: if I touch her, or even speak, it will disorientate her completely, and I can't have her even more wound up than she already is. I have never come across a girl so wrecked and traumatised in all of my life, and I have come across quite the selection of people in my time. Being a police officer, I thought I'd met most of my matches, but Rosie is something different all together.

It had been around a quarter of an hour since Rosie had partially woken up, and I was sat on the end of her bed facing the door listening as hard as I could for steady breathing that may mean she is sleeping, rather than the short raspy ones that had been filling the room thus far. My eyes were slowly closing more and more, and then all of a sudden, I feel the bed shift and tilt, making me whip around to see Rosie crawling towards me. Her grey eyes were looking darker than usual and her bottom lip was jutting out, forming out slight pout. She looked miserable yet absolutely stunning. Her small frame clambers onto my lap, and I know that I won't be leaving this room tonight. It's impressive that Rosie has gone from resisting anyone's touch when she is deep within her own head to wanting it. I wrap my arms around her and place my lips on her forehead before moving back up the bed so that we are both laying down. She almost immediately falls back asleep, but the frown on her face remains where it is. I stroke my thumb across her brow, wondering how much of a headache she now has after her nightmare – I know after any heavy dream I wake up feeling atrocious. With my Rosie wrapped around me, I finally fall asleep once I know she isn't going to have any more night-time traumas.

Rosie POV

As I wake up, I suddenly become overwhelmingly hot. I go to roll over but am stopped but a solid lump. Putting my arm behind me I feel warm skin and I freeze. James is in my bed. This alone makes me even hotter than I already was. He groans in his sleep and wraps an arm around my waist to pull me closer to him, nestling his head in the crook of my neck. I put my hands up against my cheeks in attempt to cool myself down – I honestly think I might melt.

"Morning," James says in barely more than a low whisper. I sit up whilst peeling him off me, but he keeps his hand around my waist. I poke him so he opens his eyes.

"Why are you in my bed James?" He looks confused.

"You don't remember?" I shake my head. He runs his spare hand through his hair, the thumb of the other stroking my hip. "Well, we sort of um... one thing led to another and..." I jolt, now completely alert to everything around me, my nerves standing on end.

"What the fuck?" I sign, "we slept together?" James looks at me with absolute sincerity before roaring with laughter.

"I'm messing with you Rosie, of course we didn't!" I being to thump him whilst he continues to laugh very, very hard.

"Then why are you in here?" I ask once I've stopped attacking him for embarrassing me. He takes my hands in his, looking at me imploringly.

"You really don't remember do you," he states. "You were having quite the nightmare baby. I could hear you from my room so I came in, and my god you were a state, I've never seen anything like it. You..." He pauses, running his hand through his hair again. I free my hands and hug him.

"I'm sorry." I sign, feeling bad that I had woken him up and that he had to see me like that.

"Don't apologise, I've quite enjoyed spending the night with you. You're very cosy. Very much like a human radiator." I cover his mouth to stop him from teasing me. I'm annoyed that I can't remotely remember what the dream was about, and James seems to realise this. He puts one of his fingers underneath my chin and tilts my head up so I'm looking at him.

"Hey, at least if you can't remember it you won't be thinking about it and blurring it with reality. When I have dreams as vivid as they can come, I sometimes forget whether they were real or not." I smile. He has a point. I decide that I'm going to make a move.

"Well, I'm going to make myself a coffee. Do you need anything?" James shakes his head, but mumbles something under his breath that sounded something like, 'just a cold shower.' I turn towards the door and cover my mouth to hide the smirk that had taken over my face. And then I realise something: he had called me baby. I go to leave the room knowing I'm blushing incredibly hard, but not before I let him know I had heard him. "I'll shower after you then." I laugh to myself when I hear him curse aloud. He then surprises me completely by calling after me.

"Or we could just shower together?" I snort and run down the stairs before we say anything else to each other.

*****

It's quite a short chapter this time, but still full of important and flirty notions!

James is back! It's a lot sooner than I intended, but I feel as though his point of view is crucial in this story and he adds a lot more depth within his and Rosie's interactions.

How do you feel about having two points of view within a chapter? I thought I would try it as a bit of variation.

Have you noticed where the beginning of the chapter comes from?

Have you ever had a nightmare as bad as Rosie's? What's your worse?

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