I forced my eyes open and tried to force myself to take deep breaths.

It was that dream again. That horrible one where Gem died then I had to watch Cas die too when he went out to save her. Every time I watched them die, something in me became weaker and weaker. Maybe it was my grip on sanity. Or how willing I was to put up with the Council. Soon it would be gone. Hell, it is gone now.

It didn’t happen like that. I tried to remind myself. We all survived.

I realised I was breathing too heavily, close to a panic attack. I looked around frantically, trying to remind myself that everyone survived and that it was just a dream. It couldn’t hurt me. My crew was alive. I turned to look at them to make sure, seeing Cas lying next to me first. I examined his face, my eyes roaming it in the low light. Even in his sleep, there was that crease in between his eyes that used to only be there when he was anxious or worried. Ever since we came out of the prison it had been there all the time. I rolled over to check on Peggy who, as usual, was curled up on the other side of me with the blanket pulled up tightly under her chin. At least she was asleep tonight, she’d been really struggling recently. I pushed myself up on my elbows to check on Gem and Cory who were lying together on the squares at the end of the bed. They seemed to be asleep but I couldn’t hear the gentle snore from Gem. She always snored when she slept but tonight, there was just silence. I listened closer, trying to quietly own breathing to hear her snores but I still couldn’t hear anything. The only thing I could hear was the sound of everyone else’s breathing was the only thing I could hear. It was like the world was mocking me for not being able to sleep.

I breathed shakily, tears building in my eyes as I lay back down. I squeezed them shut, trying unsuccessfully to stop the tears from falling because I knew if they did I wouldn’t be able to stop this panic attack. It was useless though, I was already too far gone. The tears were already dripping down the side of my face and into my ears. I sat up, wiping the tears off my face, annoyance warring with anxiety within me and climbed carefully out of bed, trying to avoid waking anyone and walked towards my bathroom before stopping.

Fuck. The light would wake everyone up. The hallway then. I tapped on the door gently with my fingertips to open it, tensing and glancing behind me to make sure it hadn’t woken anyone else but no one had stirred. Tears streamed down my face and my legs shook as I stepped out of my door into the dimly lit corridor and collapsed against the wall opposite. My breathing was just gasps now and I shoved my hand against my mouth to stifle it. I couldn’t let my crew hear me. I didn’t want them to know how much I was struggling or how badly I was struggling. There is no shame in struggling with mental health but I didn’t want to add to their worries. I couldn’t. I was the captain. This should be my responsibility.

I tried desperately to focus on the grounding techniques Doctor Suel had taught me. My eyes frantically roamed the corridor as I tried to list five things I could see. The floor. The wall opposite. My knees in front of me. The door. Tears streamed down my face as I looked around desperately for a final thing that I could see. The light on the ceiling.

Okay next, I prompted myself. Four things I was touching.

My face. I still had my hands pushed against my mouth to stop myself from waking up the others. I could feel the cold floor under me, and the wall against my back. That was three things. What else? The gentle breeze from the air circulator ruffled my hair slightly giving me my fourth thing. Okay. Hear is the next sense I needed to do. Three things I could hear. The buzz from the circulator… I strained my ears, trying to hear more. Someone rolling over in bed behind me. No, they were getting up. Their footsteps on the floor. Going towards the bathroom. Coming back into the room.

Aries? Cas’ voice asked softly.

I wiped the tears and snot from my face and took a deep breath to steady myself.

I’m in the corridor. I’m okay, you don’t need to come out. I half hoped he wouldn’t come out. Then he wouldn’t have to see me like that.

He did anyway. He always knew when I was lying. I unclenched my hands from around my knees, feeling the blood rush painfully back into my fingers as the door shut behind him.

“Hey. Nightmare?” He asked as he sat down next to me.

I nodded, fresh tears falling from my eyes. I didn’t want to talk, I knew my voice would betray how I was feeling.

“Can I help?”

I shook my head.

“Wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head again, firmer this time. We sat in silence for a minute as I tried to stop the tears from falling.

“Okay. I have an idea. Come with me?” He stood, holding his hand out to me.

I took it, clutching tightly for strength and followed him into his room. I hadn’t seen his room yet. It was neat, as I expected, almost the exact same as mine but his had something mine didn’t. A giant window reaching all the way down to the floor. Light from the departure area cast a gentle glow over the room. I walked over and sat next to it, like we used to in the dorm when we couldn’t sleep. Cas sat beside me, his shoulder gently touching mine.

“It was the same one as before,” I said finally once I’d finally stopped crying and my chest felt less tight.

Cas took my hand in his again without saying anything which I was grateful for. If he had, I knew I’d just start crying again and the panic attack would continue. I leant my head against the window and stared out at the still dark sky.

“You’re shaking. Do you want a blanket?” Cas asked after a while.

I hadn’t realised but after he pointed it out, I realised my whole body was trembling.

I nodded and moved to get up.

“I got it!” He said, standing quicker than I could manage and pulling the duvet off his bed before handing it to me.

I draped it around both of us and leant into him as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

“This reminds me of our dorm. I almost miss it, you know what I mean?” He asked gently.

I nodded, resting my head against his shoulder.

“Do you remember when none of us could sleep properly apart from Gem and we’d just sit by the window all night?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking about that.”

“Having all this space is nice but it feels weird. I’m not used to it. I don’t know how to fill it.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you want me to keep talking?”

“Yeah. It’s helping distract me.”

“Am I okay to touch you?”

I nodded in response.

His hand reached over and took mine again as he continued talking.

“I still think my favourite place to sleep is Frida though. Like, when we got missions that were far away or got two days off together. Do you remember when we went to the spot where Earth was and tried to find all our constellations?”

“That was fun,” I whispered, my voice still feeling shaky.

“And then we stopped off at that chocolate bar on the way back and they didn’t ID any of us apart from Cory. He was so annoyed.”

I snorted slightly. “That was good. I’m so glad we got those fake ID chips from Chal.”

“I know. You know… we could fly anywhere now. We’re a proper crew. We could just leave.”

“We could.” I sighed wistfully.

“We’ve technically already graduated. We don’t need the next two years.”

“Where would we go?”

“I don’t know. We could just live amongst the stars in Frida.”

“She’s only ours as long as we’re in the Corps. She belongs to the base.”

“What if we run with her? I could take out all the tracking and they would never be able to find us.” He sounded like he was yearning for that just as much as I was.

“They’d keep looking. We’re heroes now, we can’t just disappear. They wouldn’t let us. Too many people are still talking about us.”

Cas snorted but I knew he’d seen the posts on message boards. People hadn’t forgotten us as quickly as the Council had hoped.

“Some heroes we are. Most of my mail tells me we’re traitors and assholes anyway. We could just embrace that. Become bandits.”

“Bandits?” I laughed.

“Yeah. Pirates. Like in Captain Stilalia’s Exploits. We could rob from the rich and give to the poor. Or steal supplies and weapons from the Council. Maybe hunt down that rebellion the Council is so scared of and join them. Maybe Captain Aquila would be able to help?”

Looking back I should have agreed. We could have run that night and at least then we’d be together still. We’d all still be alive.

Instead, I shook my head and was about to respond when a knock interrupted me.

“Come in,” Cas called, not moving away from me.

Gem’s head peeked around the door.

“Sorry, am I interrupting?”

“No, no. Are you okay?” I asked.

She stepped into Cas’ room and in the dim light from the window I realised she wasn’t. Her eyes were red, bloodshot and shining with tears.

“I’m fine, just couldn’t sleep.” She lied.

“Shuffle up,” I asked Cas and moved so there was space for Gem between me and the window.

Gem dropped down and stared at her knees.

“How come you couldn’t sleep?” I asked.

“Just couldn’t.”

“That’s not like you,” I tried to tease lightly, nudging her with my shoulder.

She laughed unsteadily, running a shaking hand through her hair.

“I know… It’s just… Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I can’t move and it feels like I’m stuck back there, you know?”

I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close to me wanting to do anything to remind her she wasn’t. She was on Nova. She was safe.

Well… I thought she was. I thought we all were.

“It’s horrible. It feels like I’m there, the moment after the ship fired, just waiting for the pain to kick in again. And I can hear Cory crying and begging me to come back and I just want to tell him that I’m okay but I can’t move or breath and it feels like I’m dying all over again.” She swallowed down a sob.

“Oh, Gem.”

“But then I feel like shit because I got off lightly compared to all of you. Like sure, I lost a kidney and whatever but y’all were stuck in that prison with those asshole beating you and treating you like crap. At least they treated me okay at the hospital and I got a new one. You all suffered because of me. Cory lost two fingers because of me.”

This time she trailed off, trying to contain her tears. I saw her hands tighten around her knees and her nails dig in.

“It wasn’t your fault. He would have done that for any of us.” Cas argued softly.

“Yeah, but he didn’t. He did it for me. It’s my fault.”

“It’s not. You went out and fixed that ship which none of us would have been able to do half as well. They survived because of you. It isn’t anyone’s fault. Apart from maybe the other ship. They should have checked to make sure you were clear before firing.” I pushed down the anger I felt towards the other ship for being so careless.

She shrugged. “Or maybe I should have known better. Or moved quicker. I could have done something.”

“You can’t keep beating yourself up for something that’s already happened and that you can’t change,” Cas said gently.

A cross between a sob and a laugh came from Gem.

“If only it were that easy.”

I rested my head against Gem’s. I knew what she meant. It wasn’t easy to stop blaming yourself for what happened. I was still doing it so I couldn’t exactly tell her to stop. The thought crossed my head multiple times a day. If I had just been faster, smarter or better then no one would have been injured. I could have saved that other ship. I could have prevented Gem from getting hurt. I could have done something. I knew even then I wouldn’t stop blaming myself for what happened.

“Maybe we should talk to Doctor Suel? Or we could ask Taury for some extra sessions to work through this?” Cas suggested gently.

“That might help. I probably should speak to Doctor Suel about my meds anyway. My mood has been all over the place since everything happened but I don’t know if that’s just normal because I wasn’t on them when I was in hospital and jail or because of what happened.”

I nodded.

“Yeah… I’ll book an appointment in the morning I think.” She said, her voice sounding slightly stronger now.

“Okay, good.” I smiled, feeling relieved that she might start feeling better soon.

Letting go of my hand, Cas stood to grab another blanket and handed it to me. I tucked it over our legs and leant my head back against Cas’ shoulder, looking up into his eyes with a smile, grateful for how thoughtful he was.

“Wait! What were you doing in here before I came in?” Gem cried, sitting up straighter suddenly and shuffling to look at us both suspiciously.

“We were just talking,” I said with a laugh.

“Talking or… talking?” She said in a suggestive tone, raising her eyebrows.

“Just talking!” It came out more defensive than I had meant.

Cas’ shoulder moved as he chuckled silently.

“Why weren’t you sleeping?” She asked, her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she looked between us.

“Same reason as you. Nightmares.”

Gem sighed, looking sad and tucked herself back in against me.

“Things will get better.”