“Thanks for staying with me,” said Harper in a softer voice than Wash had yet heard the fast-talking young man use. “I’m sorry I freaked out like that.”

“I understand, kiddo,” said Wash. A flash of anger appeared in Harper’s eyes, and Wash said hurriedly, “Hey, I really do. You’re allowed to be human, here, you know. And that means I’m allowed to feel compassion, like, you know, a human?”

Harper stared back at him for a minute, some of the defiance fading from his expression. He turned and sat down heavily on the bed, kicking at the wall in casual frustration. Looking back at Wash sitting in the corner, he frowned. “There is a chair in here, you know,” he said.

Wash walked over to the chair and sat, surprised at how the room started to swim when he did so. He was looking at his nightmares squared, and just thinking about what Harper had been through was making him queasy. He forced himself to focus, pushing the image of the young man’s mangled back out of his head. Remember? Scared kid? You, supposed to make him feel better? He groaned. Wash as the steady, comforting one. Yeah, that’s gonna work just great. Especially if I pass out in the middle.

He looked at Harper, who was obviously still embarrassed about his display of fear. “I’ve never been through anything like what was done to you, wouldn’t have survived it if I had,” said Wash gently. “But, I was a POW during the war, and I do know what it’s like to not want to be locked up alone in a scary place. They weren’t cruel to us, but I can understand, a bit.”

Harper’s eyes darkened, and he looked away. “Yeah.” He was silent for a long time before he looked back at Wash. “Still feel freakin' stupid, panicking like that.”

Wash remembered all too clearly his own battles against irrational fears after his brief sojourn in Niska’s torture chamber; the way the slightest wrong sound or touch could make his blood run cold. Seeing the shape this kid was in was bringing back every nightmare he thought he’d chased off