AN: Hey guys, new story! I was originally planning to wait until after Christmas to post this, but I got excited, so here's the first chapter! This is technically a sequel to my story What Was Ours Still Will Be but you don't have to have read that to understand this. It takes place just after Jack's returned home from serving in World War 1.

It had been two days since Jack's return, and so far he'd spent most of that time resting, which was to be expected. Normally, he would've gone crazy staying still for so long, but at this point he was just grateful to have a real bed to sleep in. Katherine had hardly left his side, no matter where he went, but he didn't mind, he'd missed her like hell in the past year away from everything.

Katherine had asked her editor for a few days off, and was granted a week. Everyone was very sensitive about the subject of the war, and were especially sympathetic towards the wives of soldiers, which Katherine normally hated, but was now grateful for. Jack hadn't talked to her about anything that had happened to him yet, but she didn't blame him. He'd never been one to talk about things like that. She was just glad he was home.

The first night it happened, it was unexpected to the both of them. They were both in bed, Jack had fallen asleep quickly, so Katherine was just barely asleep when it began. When it first started, it was small. Jack began to mutter things in his sleep, quietly, but loud enough to wake Katherine. It wasn't uncommon for him to do that occasionally, she knew, but this seemed different. His mutterings seemed desperate, his eyebrows were tightly knit together, and he was clutching the bedspread as if it was his lifeline. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

Katherine watched him for a moment, not having any idea what she should do.

It didn't stay quiet however, and things escalated very quickly. The muttering turned into yelling, and he began to thrash around.

"No... no, y-you can't -" Jack cut himself off with a scream, a horrible, loud, desperate scream that made Katherine's heart stop. She'd never heard someone scream like that, and she was suddenly terrified of whatever caused Jack to make that noise. He was still dead asleep. "Stop, please - !"

"Jack..." Katherine whispered, horrified by... whatever it was she was watching.

He screamed again.

Katherine's mind raced, she wanted to do anything and everything she could to help him, but she had no idea what this was, she'd never heard about anything like this happening. She quickly decided to act on one of her thoughts, hoping that maybe if she touched him, it might help him out of it. She was wrong.

She reached out to touch him gently, and the second her hand landed on his shoulder, he bolted upright, his eyes flung open without seeing anything, and he shoved her off the bed. She let out a noise that was a mix between a gasp and a cry of pain. She knew he still wasn't conscious, because he'd never do anything to harm her if he was.

Jack flung the comforter off of him, as if it was hurting him all of a sudden, and curled up on top of it. He let out a sob just as Katherine stood up to see that he was trembling.

"Jack?" He was still sobbing, loud and hard. "Jack, are... are you awake?"

"Mhm." This strained, barely audible noise was all the confirmation she got. She climbed back onto the bed and crawled towards him. He was still curled up with his head between his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs.

"Can I touch you?"

"Mhm." He made the noise again, and this time,  when Katherine put her hand on his shoulder, he immediately shifted so that his head was resting in her lap, and wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. He sobbed into her nightgown, and she could feel a wet spot forming on the cloth already, but she didn't care. She gently rubbed his arm with one hand and ran her fingers through his hair with the other.

It felt like her heart was breaking a little bit with every sob that escaped his lips. He was the most beautiful boy in the world, and the last thing she wanted was to see him hurting.

It seemed like they sat there for an eternity, Jack holding onto Katherine's waist as she did everything she knew to do to try and calm him down. After a long while, his breathing evened out, but he was still trembling, and so was Katherine.

"Sorry." He finally whispered, barely loud enough for Katherine to hear. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Katherine was trying not to cry. "You have nothing to apologize for." She paused. "Jack... what was that?"

"Nightmare."

"I've seen you have nightmares before, that wasn't one."

Jack let out a pained sigh and rolled over onto his back so that he could look at her. "I dunno what it is. It happened almost every night when I was in the hospital, before I came back here, but they said it was just cause of shock. They- they said it'd stop once I came back here, once I was safe. I didn't... I didn't think... sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Katherine went back to running her fingers through his hair, as it seemed to relax him. "I just... I don't understand what it was. Since it wasn't a nightmare."

Jack closed his eyes. "It's like I'm reliving stuff that happened while I was... y'know, over there."

"What kind of things?"

He immediately shook his head. "I can't." He hesitated. "What'd I do? While it was happening?"

Katherine wasn't quite sure if she should answer that. "There was a lot of thrashing around, you were muttering..."

"And... screaming?"

"Yes... and screaming."

Jack sighed and turned back over onto his side, pressing his face into Katherine's stomach, and she let him. She decided to save him some dignity, and pretend she didn't notice his tears.