intheheart

Title: broken wings
Rating: PG
Summary: Olivia is crying in her sleep.
Date: April 2009
Notes: Thanks to my beta KT for helping me fix this. Followed by learn to fly.

Olivia was crying in her sleep.

Jake sat up in bed. He hadn't been sure, before, but she was crying now, and that meant that she'd been crying every other time too. Oh, God.

She lay half on her side, her hair falling in her face and puffing out with every soft whimper she made, but her eyes were closed, and she didn't react when he moved except to curl in on herself just a little more, wrapping her arms around her chest. He leaned over her, shook her shoulder gently. "Livvy? Livvy, are you having a nightmare?"

"Daddy?" she whispered, and opened her eyes.

"Livvy," Jake said again, seriously concerned. Olivia had never voluntarily begun a conversation about her family in the entire time he'd known her, and she'd flatly refused to talk about her father at all. "Livvy, it's me. It's Jake."

"Jake?" she asked, and he realized she was still more than half-asleep. She sounded so much like a child. "When is Daddy coming?"

He had no idea where to even start with that. He didn't even know her father's name. "I..."

"He's not coming," Olivia said, utter hopelessness in her voice, and began to cry again. "He's not coming, is he?"

What could he say to that?

Jake edged over and took her boneless body in his arms, holding her against his chest like he would a child. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, automatically. "Shh, shh," he said, stroked her hair, kissed her forehead again. "Shh, shh. It'll be all right."

She fell back into full sleep, eventually, but the shoulder of the old t-shirt he wore to bed was soaked before she did, and she refused to let go of him-- every time he tried to move her off his shoulder, she whimpered, and he didn't have the heart. He couldn't sleep though. If he lay down, Olivia's weight made it difficult to breathe. Sitting up worked for a bit, but every time he started to nod off, he saw her face, felt the tears, heard her sobbing hopelessly.

What happened to you, Livvy?

He lay awake for the rest of the night, and when dawn sneaked the first few rays of sunlight past their blinds, he eased her off his chest and went downstairs to make breakfast, still thinking furiously.

Olivia padded downstairs about fifteen minutes later, rubbing her eyes-- they were a little red, he noted, from her crying spell. "Jake?" she asked, and yawned. "You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep," he said, passing her the cup of tea that she preferred to coffee. "Livvy..."

She cocked her head curiously, and when he didn't continue, prodded, "Yes?"

Jake took a deep breath. "Livvy, I think you need to tell me about your family. About what happened."

She froze mid-sip, going pale. "Jake, I can't... I don't want to talk about it, it's--"

"Because," he went on, overriding her, "you were crying in your sleep last night, for your daddy."

"Oh," she said, in a very small voice, and sat down, still clutching her teacup.

"Yeah," he said, his voice just as quiet. There was a long silence, then he cleared his throat. "For my sake, Livvy, if nothing else. It's making it kind of hard to sleep." Whether he meant her crying or the way it worried him, he left up to her. "Anyway, I told you about mine."

For some reason, that did it. "Okay," Olivia said, her voice still very small and quiet. "Okay. Okay."