Title: Misery Loves Company 3/4
Pairing: DeWitt/Dominic
Rating: PG (little bit of language)
Author: lalenapeike 
Summary: The pulse bomb goes off and starts resetting everyone. What if everyone didn't want to be reset? And where has Dominic been?
Spoilers: Season 1 and 2. Set after Epitaph 2.
Disclaimers: This is all Joss Whedon’s. Just the ideas are mine.
A/N: Okay, one more part after this one and this is done. This is the longest fic I've ever written and actually finished. Thanks for the feedback, this comm is great!

Part One



Part Two

 

 

Dominic stands frozen in the doorway, peering into Adelle’s room. He’d leapt out of bed and ran down the hallway without consciously thinking about what he was going to actually do. Now that he was here, he was stuck. She’s still asleep. He can tell that from the dim light flooding into the room. He can’t wake her up, he values his life too much to risk doing that. She’d kill him for seeing her like this. She’s tossing and turning in the bed and taking shuddering breaths. She sounds terrified. He shouldn’t care about that, but he’s already here. He can’t just go back to bed and ignore it. At any rate, she’s keeping him up. So that at least has to be fixed for his own well being. So he steps into the room, calling her name in a low tone, trying to make certain that she’s not awake.


“Adelle. Are you okay?” he whispers uncertainly. When she doesn’t respond, making only a low moan, he moves closer to the bed lowering himself down. While he’s still trying to think of something to calm her down without waking her, his hand grabs hers. Her skin is slightly cold and clammy, but he squeezes her hand gently. This all feels weirdly familiar. Dominic is not a man that believes in déjà vu, but absolutely nothing about his life is normal these days. She’s still moving about in the bed.

 

“Please. No. Stop it.” Adelle’s muscles stiffen as she groans. “Don’t. I can’t. Please. Please stop.” She’s getting more agitated, not less so. Dominic leans forward and slides his hand up her arm to her shoulder, rubbing it gently.

 

“Adelle, it’s okay. You’re alright. Shhhh.” He’s trying for a comforting tone and feeling ridiculous. Luckily there’s no one around to see this. “It’s okay. Everyone’s fine.” He keeps repeating these, almost like a mantra and strokes her arm. After awhile of this, her body finally relaxes and her breathing slows. Dominic lets go of her hand and backs away from the bed slowly, making sure not to wake her.

 

“Laurence” She murmurs his name and he freezes, sure he’s been caught. He stands frozen for several minutes, ensuring that she’s still fast asleep before returning to his own room. He’s tired the next morning, but he feels less angry. The rage that he’d felt yesterday had drained away a little bit, leaving only a dull anger. He doesn’t forgive her, he can’t. But night after night that week, he finds himself at her bedroom door. It’s not that he’s waiting up for her, he just happens to be awake. His room is right near hers, so he can hear her if she cries out in the middle of the night. It’s not something he plans to get in the habit of doing. He’s more tired on guard duty each day, but the circles under Adelle’s eyes are lessening. 


Alpha was right though. It's not just Topher she dreams about. He sees the sadness behind her eyes when she's awake that's for Topher. They were close and Adelle still mourns him. From what Alpha said she was like his mother in the end and he sees that.  Her gaze gets a little farther away sometimes or her hand rests for a moment on something he created. She must dream of him occasionally, seeing his death or trying to stop it, but it's not the reason she's having nightmares. It's not the main reason she's having nightmares anyway. Alpha was right. It was him. It was Adelle's guilt over him. She speaks to  him in her dreams; begs for forgiveness, pleads with him not to go. She tries to warn him, the way she hadn't before. It's eating her up inside, and it has to come out somewhere. With how tightly wound Adelle is these days, the obvious outlet is in her sleep. Some days he's glad of her guilt, it's well-deserved karma. Other days it's just sad.

 

He’s gotten pretty good at calming her during her nightmares, but one night she’s curled up way on the other side of the bed near the wall. She's well out of reach from the other side of the bed. He slowly eases himself into the bed, so he can get a little closer. It’s a comfortable bed, far more so than his. The last thing he remembers before drifting off is Adelle’s hand entwined with his. When he opens his eyes, he has a few blissful seconds of a warm body curled up next to his before he’s shoved roughly out of the bed. He hits the floor with a yelp.

 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Adelle is wide awake and shouting loud enough to wake the entire house. At least the door is shut. He’s never heard her this angry. Dominic is still half asleep and his brain hasn’t quite caught up to the situation at hand. His mouth is open. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t look too bright right now as he stares up at her in disbelief from the floor.

 

“I’m sorry. I just…” He’s never been at such a loss for words. He can’t believe he just fell asleep. “I was just…” He averts his eyes from her pajamas. Adelle, upon looking down and realizing for the first time that she’s dressed in a pair of very small shorts and a thin white tank top, fumbles for a sweater at the side of the bed. She pulls it on quickly and inelegantly and stands up. The room is still dim with first light and Dominic stifles a yawn. He studiously keeps his eyes on her face and jumps up from the floor as she starts toward him.

 
“What were you doing in my bed Mr. Dominic?” Adelle has her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes are glittering dangerously. “Well?”

 Dominic isn’t sure how she manages to be so imperious in a lumpy brown sweater, with several very unfortunately placed holes, but she does. “It was an accident. I just fell asleep,” he finally manages in a rush of words. “I heard a noise and I wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

 “And you just happened to fall into bed with me?” The corner of Adelle’s mouth lifts sardonically as she glares at him. “I find that difficult to believe.”

 “You were havinganightmare,”  he mumbles under his breath. “I was just trying to help. It was an accident.” He can tell instantly that this is the wrong thing to say. The temperature in the room shifts so fast he thinks he can feel his ears pop. He steps back involuntarily at her rapid change in expression.

 
“Trying to help? What possible reason would you want to do that?” Adelle’s face is contorted in a mix of anguish and fury. She’s almost unrecognizable from the cool, detached boss that he well remembers. “Why the hell are you still here? You are the one who left Laurence. You bloody well left me. Why couldn’t you just stay dead,  you bastard?” Her voice rising, she grabs the pillow off the bed and throws it at his head, hard. Dominic grabs her arm, echoing his earlier attempts to calm her. But that is clearly not the approach to take right now. She shoves him backward and slaps him hard across the cheek. He tries get out of her way. He really needs to stop touching her, it's not helping matters. She’s raining hits on his chest as she yells at him and she’s stronger than she looks. Dominic, remembering her affinity to fencing, is suddenly very grateful that there is nothing sharp and pointed in the room as she chucks a clock in his direction.

 
“Adelle, come on. Please calm down.” He raises his hands and backs away from her slowly, as if from a suddenly dangerous animal. He’s never seen her like this, though it’s probably his fault. The strain of everything has finally caught up with her. She’s completely lost whatever razor thin control she had as she screams at him.

 “Don’t tell me what to do. You lost that right when you left me with nothing but that bloody note! You just left and I didn’t know. You were gone. You were dead and I didn't know. I would’ve told you what could’ve happened. I would've made sure you were safe. And I’m sorry. I am so sorry. Please Laurence. But, I didn’t know. I didn’t. I didn't know.” She’s getting more and more incoherent. She’s started wringing her hands, which reminds him of Topher. He isn’t sure why it reminds him of Topher, but he doesn’t have time to consider it. He takes hold of her shoulders, pulling her closer to him.


"Hey. Hey. Okay. It's okay. I know you didn't. It's alright sweetheart." She stops speaking abruptly then, eyes glistening and chest heaving, staring at him in shock at the sudden endearment. Her face crumples and she dissolves into tears. He freezes in shock. He's completely at a loss. She's the toughest, coldest woman he knows, but she's falling apart in front of him. His first instinct is to run. He has no idea how to deal with this. He set this off though. She's this upset because of him and he can't just stand there staring while she's crying. Finally, thoughts still swirling,  Dominic tries to just stop thinking altogether and do what feels right. He awkwardly puts his arms around her and holds her, stroking her hair as she sobs.