She wakes up silently screaming. A feeling of coldness all over her body, Ryan's name on the tip of her tongue yet a word she can't say, paralyzed in the gripping fear of her newest night terror. Her husband – as of today – sleeps soundly beside her, unaware of her rapidly beating heart and gasping breaths. She feels trapped in the remains of the nightmare, the memory tightening around her throat and making her feel suffocated, her skin clammy and cold in the warm breeze coming through the window.

Extricating herself from his arms, she quietly paces around the dark room until she finds her nightrobe, pulling her arms through the sleeves as she opens the french doors of the balcony. The warm air against her skin is soothing, and as she takes deep breaths, the smell of the sea fills her senses and helps her recover from the aftermath of yet another night of a disturbed (mind) sleep.

She's seen and done too much; she's resigned herself to the fact that she won't always sleep peacefully, that even when you face your demons and fight back it doesn't mean they'll stop haunting you.

Your son, he died a hero, she remembers saying those words to his mother a long time ago, after seeing him die (for the first time – she also remembers the joy of hearing his voice once more and seeing him alive again, so much joy she had to fight back tears). She meant it then, he was a hero. And once again he's gone, and a hero twice over to boot. Only now the entire world knows it; knows everything they did – the good and the bad, and the nation still considers them all heroes. But he was the true hero. And although he's not here to enjoy the newfound (freedom) life with them all, she's sure he's watching over them, and she knows he's happy that it's finally over. Their fight for justice and for the truth, that his death wasn't in vain.

In war people die for what they believe in, and he believed in the truth, in justice and in her.

She's still haunted by the memory, but can now let go of the feeling of once again having failed him (I'm so sorry I wasn't there, she once told him with tears running down her face as he laid pale and wounded on that hospital bed), of the regret and start healing; she finished this fight, they all did. She can finally let herself be happy. She can be free.

"Fletch lives", she whispers softly into the night and feels a sense of peace as yet another warm breeze washes over her face. Closing her eyes, she smiles and thinks she can almost see him in her mind's eye, grinning broadly as he did on the day she said those same words to him.

As she turns to close the doors after going back in, she chances one last look at the moonlit sand and sees him. He's looking up at the night sky, seeming as lost in thought as she was. She smiles at that; he was always looking pensive, always analyzing patterns and looking for the connecting thread, the missing piece of the puzzle. And as she rests her head on her husband's shoulder, she closes her eyes and thinks no more secrets.

I had a nightmare about Nikita having a nightmare about Ryan, so this happened. They always had a special connection, and this is a little bit of what I saw. Any and all errors are mine, written on my phone after just waking up so there'll be a few mistakes.

Review if you feel like it, and thanks for reading. xx