another alone on an everyday night; I think in the morning, I think I'll be alright

When he opens his eyes, he realizes Dick has been shaking him and saying his name for some time now.

"—what?" Tim struggles to surge upright, into battle mode, into readiness, but Dick just gives him a weird look and straightens up from beside the bed. "Wait. What's...?"

"You asked me to wake you up in about 45 minutes. You said you'd been having weird dreams."

Tim blinks. "I. Yeah." He glances around cautiously. The room is dark, but that can't be the only reason things seem so gray. Like a movie screen gone blank in the middle of a fight scene. "I have. But I can't remember now. Thanks, though."

"No prob." Dick doesn't leave. He wants Tim to talk about it. But there's nothing left to talk about, literally.

"Was I difficult to wake?"

"Sleeping like the dead."

Something in him flinches, though his body doesn't; still, he can see that Dick sees it, and he's not surprised when he's pulled abruptly into a hug.

"I'm okay," Tim says into his shoulder, shaky for no reason he can come up with. It's not the people he's lost that he was thinking about. Or was it?

"No, you're not," Dick answers, "but you will be."