I'm just a man. At night, when I am alone and the demons come for me, that's what I tell them. I'm just a man. I make mistakes. I can't be responsible for the whole world, no matter how long or hard I try.

In daytime, when the sun is shining bright and the office around me is filled with the noise of work happening and collaboration; and the smell of old coffee and new papers; then it feels like I am a somebody. Some people call me a hero, for what I do. And lots of people look up to me - as a leader, a role-model, and whatever else they think of me as. I know they're watching, depending on me to be there and do what is right and make sure that evil never wins. They need me to always be strong, and always have hope, to never give up the fight or give in to the demons in my dreams.

And sometimes I think they forget that I'm just a man. But I always remember; because at night, when I am alone in the dark, that is when the nightmares come. Faces, dead bodies, gunshots and wrong choices - they all haunt me. I see them when I look in the mirror - shouting at me from my own eyes and pleading with me through the shaking of my own hands. And in those moments, what people think of me doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if every one of them sees me as a hero, or if there are thousands of people in this city depending on me to keep them safe, or if my team needs me to stay strong. None of that matters, not when it is dark and I am alone with all my regrets.

I try, on those nights, to leave the house. Sometimes I just drive on the empty roads and turn the music way up to drown out the voices in my head. Sometimes I go running in the cool darkness and focus only on my sneakers pounding the pavement, to block out their faces. And sometimes, it works. The times it doesn't, I usually find myself outside Charlie's house. He lets me in, every time. Sometimes he speaks, sometimes he doesn't; but always I can sleep there. The voices and faces and regrets are not allowed inside his doors, because when I am there I am not alone. He told me that once - squeezed my shoulder and told me he wanted to make sure I knew I wasn't alone. And I nodded, like I always knew it - because that is what heroes are supposed to do.

But at night, when I come to his house to escape the dreams; it is not as a hero. I'm just a man there, a man who doesn't want to be alone with the darkness. And there, I am allowed to set aside my great responsibility and simply sleep. (Until the phone rings, that is. Gotta go then: can't set it all aside, not ever.) But it is a priceless gift he gives me - I wonder if he knows that.

Disclaimer - none of it's mine, blah blah blah and so on.