His sleep has grown heavier after the shooting — apparently, his body needs more energy now to both function as close to normal as possible and repair itself — but there are still two things that never fail to wake him: Rose's cries and Belle's nightmares.
Rose is sleeping peacefully for once in her cradle beside their bed ( they moved it as close as possible, partly so that it would easier for him, fresh out of hospital, to tend to her during the night and partly because his near-death experience reminded both him and Belle just how easily they can lose each other or their baby and made something primal and protective rise in both of them — he surely felt that wave of protectiveness grow and spread inside himself, and judging by the look Belle sometimes has in her eyes when she's lost in thought, looking either at him or their daughter, by the little gestures, by the way she always tries to be close to either on of them or, ideally, both, he is willing to bet she feels that wave, too ).
But Belle's cheeks are wet with tears and she's got a haunted look in her eyes and she can’t stop shaking.
She's had a nightmare and he knows all too well what it was about, from the previous nights' experience.
In her dreams, he dies.
He's not sure whether he should feel touched or concerned.
“ Belle, ” he calls her, in a tone so gentle it feels wrong and right at the same time ( the curse — not his personal curse, used as it is to how human he's grown in the past couple of decades, but the one that brought them all into this neighborhood — fights with his nature, but now that he fully remembers who he is, it doesn’t stand a chance ), and pulls her in close, leaving her enough space to move so she wouldn’t feel trapped, slipping one of his arms around her shoulders and taking her hand with the other, bringing it to rest against his heart, its slightly accelerated beat palpable through the thin material of the t-shirt he wears to bed, so she can feel that he's alive and right beside her, and kisses her temple, murmuring reassurances into her hair:
“ It's alright, sweetheart. I’m alive. I’m here. It would take a lot more than one little bullet to force me to leave you and Rose. ”
That last one is both his attempt to lighten the mood and the truth Belle's not yet aware of.
@bluebellestorybrooke ( Belle ), look what I found in my drafts! Apparently, this was supposed to be a reply to one of the 'my muse is having a nightmare, how does yours comfort them?' type of memes which I, for some reason, never sent...
