Saving: Protecting: One Direction *UNDER MASSIVE EDITING*

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--JACK---

"Jack? Jack are you awake?" A low voice whispered, jerking me roughly in consciousness as my heart began to beat in a painful rhythm. I shot up with a force that nearly gave me whiplash, hand automatically grabbing for the pocket knife I kept in my pillow case. A shadowy stood silently in the doorframe of my unfamiliar room, brushing a hand back through a slop of dark curls. "Harry? What's wrong?" I asked, my exhausted mind and body automatically going into hyperawareness. "Is there someone in the house?" I asked, adrenaline beginning to course through my veins. My fingers finally found the knife under my pillow and I yanked it roughly open. In a fluid motion, my legs were over the side of the bed, free hand grabbing for my gun on the table.

"No, no, no one's here... it's nothing like that, it's just--" A huge clap of thunder cut Harry off, shaking the entire house with tremendous force. "Can I sleep with you? I'm...I'm afraid of storms," Harry asked, looking suddenly very small. I stared at him for a long moment. Was this some kind of crazy dream resulted from extreme sleep deprivation? I rubbed my eyes, then looked back at the doorway. Harry was still there, and I was very much awake. So was this a joke, then? Just him being a cheeky flirt and trying to find an excuse to sleep with me?

Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for him, I was too worn out to have to actually figure out his real motives. "Yeah...yeah okay," I mumbled, dog-tired and extremely confused. Harry ran into my room and catapulted into my bed. "Make yourself at home, I guess," I told him, stiffly walking around the bed to go check on Niall, who had passed out drunk on my bathroom floor. He was fine, snoring slightly, curled up on the rug in front of the toilet. I grabbed a towel off the rack beside him and gently threw it over his sleeping body before returning to bed.

Harry was cuddled up into my side before I had fully laid down. "No cuddling, keep on your half of the bed, and stay the hell away from my butt," I grumbled, pushing him away from me. "Aw you're no fun," Harry grumbled, but moved away from me all the same. There was no use in answering him, instead I moved as far away from him as the bed would allow. Putting my head down onto my arm, sleep claimed the moment my eyes had fluttered shut.

For a while, I dreamt of nameless faces and calming places, or nothing at all. It was peaceful and serene...until a bloody, mangled face exploded right in front of my face. I was screaming before I was even out of the dream. It took all of a millisecond for me to realize where I was, that I was safe in bed with no murderer anywhere near me, but the image of the dead body plagued my vision. Flailing around in the sheets, trying to get out of them so I could run, run far away from the bloody face so it couldn't hurt me. But the blankets tangled around my neck and throat, my panic increasing when I realized I was trapped.

"Jack! Jack! Calm down, it was just a dream! It was just a dream!" A deep voice said loudly enough to cut through my continuous shrieks. Strong hands pushed my shoulders against the mattress holding me steady until I'd stopped moving I realized that the face in front of me wasn't the mutilated face of a dead man, but one of a very concerned and tired Harry Styles. My pounding heart steadied out as I tried to get my breathing under control. Harry gently unraveled the sheets from my sweaty body, all the while watching me with a concerned look on his sleepy face. Only when the blankets were nowhere near my body did I sit up, trembling, to see Niall standing beside me, hungover and concerned. I swallowed hard, looking down at my shaking hands, expecting them to be covered in blood.

Just then, my bedroom door banged open, the light flashed on. Letting out a shout, I grabbed for my gun, but Harry's arms wrapped around me, pulling me back away from the weapon. "We heard screaming, what's going on?" Liam's concerned voice asked. I looked up, seeing Zayn, Louis, and Liam's confused and sleep-ruffled bodies standing at the edge of my bed. Terrible, burning shame hit me harder than a bus I was supposed to be protecting these guys, keeping them safe. How could I keep them calm, reassure them there was nothing wrong, when I couldn't even control my own nightmares?

"I'm sorry I woke you all up. It was just a nightmare. It'll never happen again," I told them, head buried in the palms of my hands out of sheer humiliation. It was silent for a few heartbeats. "I've never heard someone scream so loudly because of a dream," Zayn whispered. I looked up into his shocked eyes. "When you see the kinds of things I see...well, you'd understand why I have nightmares," I said with a bland smile. "I'm sorry I woke you all," I repeated, squirming out of Harry's grip. "You can all go back to your rooms. I'll be fine alone." It didn't take a profiler to notice the way my broke on the word alone, or the sudden tremble that wracked through my body at the thought of having to be by myself in a huge, dark room.

"No. We're going to stay," Liam answered, moving forward to sit stubbornly on the edge of my bed. Louis flipped the lights off, copying Liam's action. I shuddered at the sudden darkness, but quickly played it off by running a hand through my hair. My action didn't fool Harry, who suddenly pressed his shoulder into mine in a comforting sort of way. No. This was wrong. I was the one who was supposed to be protecting them, they weren't supposed to be protecting me from things that weren't even real.

"Look, guys," I sighed, quickly moving away from Harry's touch. "It's a nice gesture and all, but I'm a big girl. You don't need to worry about me, honestly. No one would get any sleep if we all tried to cram into my bed, and I'm pretty sure your girlfriends wouldn't be too happy. You can all just go back to your rooms, it's fine, really." The corners of my mouth twisted upwards in a convincing smile. The boys stared at me, then at each other, then responded in one voice, "No."

As if to reinforce their disagreement, Niall suddenly sprinted across the room, dove headfirst into my bed, and laid there spread-eagle. He stared up at me through those kind blue eyes, silently begging me to let them stay. I groaned, rubbing my hands down my face. One day. It's been barely a day and he already had me wrapped around his finger with those big blue kitten eyes.

"Fine. You can stay," I sighed, laying back down on the edge of the bed. Niall let out a small cheer, army crawling up to a pillow. "No, no, no Agent Warner, you get the middle," Harry said, grabbing me around my waist and pulling me to the center of the bed. The two boys laid down, cramming me between the two of them and pulling the sheets around our shoulders. Honestly, I was too sleep deprived to protest at this point. A sudden exhaustion crashed down around me, seeming to press me further into the warm sheets. Niall was laying on my left, close but not touching. Harry, on the other hand, was snuggled up against me, arm around my waist.

Only with the thought of my job on my mind did I muster the strength to do one last quick check to make sure everything was okay. Zayn was curled up on my rocking chair, Louis and Liam sleeping on the rug at his feet. A pang of pity hit me, knowing that the boys could be sleeping in their beds, but instead sleeping on the hard ground. But before I could press my argument any further, a hand was gently pressing my head back onto the pillows. "Sleep now, Jack," Niall murmured to me, beginning a calming sort of melody that had my eyelids drooping. Warm, feeling safer than I had in years, I was asleep in seconds.