I woke up and there was screaming.

It's a terrifying thing, being jolted out of sleep like that. Your mind plays ticks on you and the darkness becomes the setting for your own private Friday 13th. Every shadow is an axe-wielding, homicidal maniac.

There was another shrill scream, then a choked whimper. My hand flailed over the side of the bed for the baseball bat I knew was there. For a moment, I cursed Robin, wondering how on earth she was sleeping through that noise. Then I realized - of course - she was at work.

I was alone. And still a little drunk. Crap.

Unsteadily I got out of bed, gripping the bat for all I was worth. I almost dropped the damn thing when another scream ripped through the air, then a horrifying gurgle. Was someone being murdered in my living room?

As adrenalin pumped through my veins I found my memory returning, and as the fog receded I remembered that I wasn't alone at all. Barney had come back up with me and I'd said he could crash on my couch because it was late and we were both so drunk.

Jesus, Barney! My heart began to hammer painfully in my chest as I flung open the door to my bedroom and hit the light switch with my fist.

Instead of a menacing figure in a long black cloak with a raised knife, I found only an empty room. And Barney. Thrashing on the couch and moaning, his eyes tightly closed.

Bare-foot, and wearing nothing but a t-shirt and boxers, I hurried to his side, still looking frantically around the room for his hidden attacker. I shook his shoulder roughly to wake him up, but he just kept gasping, his lips moving. As I got closer I could hear what he was saying.

"Can't breathe! Can't breathe!"

I shook him again, and he went still.

For long moments, I knelt beside the couch, bat still raised, while I tried to figure out what to do. I couldn't just leave him there. Whatever nightmare he was having, it was horrible enough to make him scream our neighbours awake (not that they minded keeping ME awake with their bagpiping, but STILL). Eventually I just kept poking his bare shoulder until he woke up.

"Mumph?" He asked me, one eye glued shut.

"You had a nightmare, man," I said with gentle irritation. In the brightly lit room it seemed childish, almost funny. Yet I remembered the twisted expression on his face, how he seemed to be suffocating, drowning. "Sounded pretty bad. You woke me up," I explained. "You okay there?"

Barney hoisted himself up and looked around him, rubbing his eyes. "A nightmare?" He asked.

There was some shadow in him, it seemed to me. I wondered for a moment what Barney's nightmares would be like? Flashbacks to his bus accident perhaps - with pain and splinters of flesh and bone and glass, over and over. Or maybe the fear of losing his job, of losing everything, his apartment, his high-roller lifestyle? And what about that job of his, the danger only half-hinted at, never revealed.

I remembered his contorted face and his gasping "I can't breathe!"

"You wanna come in my room?" I blurted, because he looked kinda childlike and innocent and scared. Then I blushed, because it sounded so weird and he made a face, like a kid who'd been asked to eat up all his vegetables. "Dude, you keep screaming and I'm gonna get complaints from my neighbours." I said, gruffly. "This way I get to poke you awake before you cause any trouble."

He seemed to consider it and I nodded encouragingly, not smiling, that would have weird-ed him out, but holding his gaze. Then I got up and wandered back into my room trusting him to follow me.

Sure enough, after a few minutes in bed I felt the mattress dip and the comforter move.

"I don't have nightmares," I heard Barney whisper in the darkness.

"Sure you don't, dude." I said, and slowly I drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

In the morning, I woke up thirsty, my head pounding. Barney was snuggled up next to me, his cheek pressed into my chest, his arm encircling my waist. I tried to move without waking him, but I couldn't pull free of his grip so I just lay there until he began to stir and moved of his own accord.

I should have felt more freaked out than I did and maybe I should have told the others. But I kept quiet and I made sure that in future, whenever he stayed over at my apartment, he shared my bed. Because when he began to whimper and moan in his sleep, trapped in the hell of his subconscious, I'd sleepily reach out for him and he'd sigh and go still.

I just wish he'd find someone to give him the same peace every other night of the year.