**This scene contains descriptions of sexual assault and rape**

Three weeks crawled by, each much the same as the one before, the following promising to fulfil the perpetual routine. Monday, Wednesday and Friday followed an unwavering format; an 11am therapy appointment, lunch, consultant recommended physical therapy, a gridlocked drive down the freeway to the apartment, followed by an uncomfortable dance of avoidance inside the shared space. If one was showering, the other prepared food. Jase rarely commandeered the living area despite the TV he'd brought being there unless I had retreated to my room, which was mostly what I did. It was gradually becoming easier to be around him, but my hatred burned the same.

Tuesday afternoon was reserved for Jack. What was meant to be a quick meeting to "touch base" dragged on for a couple of hours. He seemed to love the sound of his voice, and created excuses to "double check" things and "confirm" others just so he could re-explain whatever he'd already gone over several times. I'd only seen Lorres directly once since our first meeting, she smiled very sweetly and asked if I was finding Jack ok as a liaison. She mentioned nothing about Jase, and after all this time I didn't see the point in bringing it up again. I'd realised it was hardly going to be a permanent feature, whatever threat they deemed possible would be reassessed at some point and they'd redistribute Jase elsewhere, safely away from me.

There was no word on Ant's promised return aside from Jase announcing over a week prior that he "wasn't going to be able to come back just yet". I was hardly surprised. Why would he come back, after all? Everybody had lives, families and friends. It felt like only I stood alone and isolated, but my strong-willed determination was slowly returning and I was resolved to combat my own negative thoughts.

I was starting to feel and look more like a regular human being. I'd put on a vital ten pounds, and needed to gain probably another four before I was nearly back to normal. The gentle physical therapy meant I finally felt able to exercise as long as I didn't over exert myself, so I'd started gentle jogs alongside Jase and careful weight training with light dumbbells in my room to rebuild strength. The most important thing to me was that I was cleared by the consultant to start work, so Jack had arranged a part time clerical position on base in Coronado. I was due to start in the descriptively named Building 91 in two days, and I even though nerves rattled in my stomach, I couldn't wait.

Life had crawled by, gloriously uneventful for so long that it was beginning to make me feel anxious. I'd stopped waiting for someone to jump around every corner and assassinate me, but the more my nervous system rested the louder my thoughts became. The supplements were doing a wonderful job of restoring energy and regular function to my body, but without the cloak of absolute exhaustion at the end of every day coaxing me to sleep, I tossed and turned and nightmares began to intrude.

Sometimes al-Raheem stood over me, my own muffled voice crying in the darkness. He did nothing, just stood there, his mere presence enough of a threat to ordain the dream a nightmare. Other times it was Jase, sitting at a dinner table across from me, the pair of us looking quite civilised. But my ankles were bound to a chair fixed in concrete, and I flailed around to get free as he smirked, refusing to help. The worst ones were of Jas in the concrete chamber. A sudden ignition of flames sprouted on her fingertips as she lay on her side, she shrieked and desperately tried to put it out. I searched frantically around the basement for a blanket or something to smother the embers, eventually taking off my clothes and shrouding her arm in the fabric. But it was no use, the fire burned more than ever and climbed higher, consuming her body bit by bit. Only her face remained unengulfed, and she stared at me in horror as the flames slowly ate her flesh. Then someone came in- that man, and extinguished the blaze. Jas's body was crimson raw and blistering, muscles exposed. The man pulled up his robe and shoved himself in her mouth, pumping back and forth into her throat and seizing me by the back of my hair to bring me to my knees next to Jas. I was next. 'Smile for camera'. My jaws were prized open and I let out a blood curdling shriek of-

"NO!" I jolted upright in the bed, so slick with sweat the covers clung to my skin as I batted them off. My heart drummed in my chest, lurching down into the pit of my stomach as the bedroom door rattled against the lock.

"Paige!" Jase hollered from the other side. I tried to compose myself quietly, steadying my raspy breathing as I fought down the urge to heave. I needed water. My hands were shaking and wet with clamminess as I unlocked the door, Jase forcing it open against my weight. I staggered back a few steps, away from the handgun he aimed through the opening.

"Dream, it was a dream," my cheeks burned with humiliation as sickening aftershocks of fear prickled the back of my neck.

"You okay?" He assessed around me anyway, only lowering the weapon when he was sure there was nobody else in the room.

"Just a dream," I repeated wearily, tugging at my shorts to make them longer. "I need water, I'm just going to-" he stepped back into the hallway to let me pass, and followed me through to the kitchen in the darkness of the apartment. He exhaled sharply and rested the gun on the counter, rubbing his eyes gently. I wondered if he had nightmares, or if he slept soundly at night.

"What was it?" Jase sat on a barstool and watched as I filled a glass with water. It surprised me, and in equal measure sickened me, that he would ask. Did he have no conscience at all? What if it had been the dream of the previous night that had woken me? The one where I dressed in my pyjamas to find a slit in the fabric across the inner thigh, Jase waiting patiently on the couch for me to come to him voluntarily to resume questioning, the sliced cotton readily prepared for everything could happen next.

"Jas," I mumbled honestly. "She was on fire, and then the man came in..." I trailed off and held the trembling glass to my lips, sipping carefully.

"Al-Raheem?" Jase looked down at the counter.

"No, a different one."

"You said he didn't seem to be working with anyone else," Jase looked up suddenly, alert to any new information.

"It wasn't like that, I only saw him once. He was a... I don't know what his purpose was. I know he wasn't meant to be allowed near us, but he snuck in once," I gazed to the window across the room, the night's sky only illuminated by distant lights of planes gliding across the clouds.

"He hurt you?" Jase left the description ambiguous, not wanting to ask the question on his mind.

"Jas, he raped her. She was dead by then... not in my dream- in my dream she was alive and burning, she was on fire except for h-" I stopped, the details were unnecessary and I had no desire to replay the image over and over again. I nearly went on to explain I had been next in line for the same fate, the sensation of his hard and moistened tip jutting against the crevice of my thigh, but I felt a confusing slew of emotions about that particular incident in the basement. Could I have yelled out for al-Raheem? Should I have insisted he took me instead? Could I have done anything else to protect the desecration of her lifeless body? Was I grateful he reached her before me?

"Would it help if I found out if he was one of the ones we killed?" Jase asked in a low voice after a pause.

"I-" Before I insisted it wouldn't make a difference, I considered it. Was there some sweet relief to knowing a person haunting your dreams was no longer in the realm of the living? "I don't know. Maybe," I replied.

"Can you describe him?" Jase yawned, standing to slide a mug under the coffee machine.

"I don't know... robes, they were beige and dark orange, facial hair." I strained my mind to picture him before me, but the only image I could conjure was of his weapon of choice protruding from underneath swathes of fabric. "The younger man was with him, the one with the limp." 'You look my eyes'. The desperate recall of memory suddenly engulfed me. The wire in my wrists bit at my broken skin, a blinding pain in my ribs causing me to choke and splutter as I squirmed across the floor to Jas's limp body. The man kicked me hard in the chest as I tugged at the ends of his robes, sending me flying back and entirely incapacitated. 'Stop!' I sobbed, blood slipping through my fingers as I watched him drive his body in to Jas rhythmically. But it stopped too soon, perhaps he'd realised that Jas was dead and there was little sport in his violation. He smiled and smacked me around the face, holding my chin and directing my glare up to him. 'You look my eyes'. My legs were forced apart. Eyes closed. A hard blow to the face. 'Look my eyes!' Wetness dripped down my cheeks. Rough hands brushed against my thigh, underwear torn down, a tip of skin against me until- 'Khalid!' Khalid. The man who raped Jas, and tried to rape me was Khalid.

"The one with the limp was shot. Cairo took him down, Perry took him out," Jase stated matter-of-factly, not doing much to disguise his obvious survey of me as I relived the memory.

"Khalid. That was his name," I said despondently to no one in particular, trying my hardest to ignore the gnaw of nausea in my belly. A tear betrayed me and slipped down my cheek, which I brushed away with furious humiliation. I could tell Jase felt uncomfortable, and though I was in no way concerned for his welfare, my staunchly British sensibility meant I was feverishly embarrassed by any outburst of emotion.

"Khalid? I'll check the files and see if any of them match up." I figured this was his way of offering a form of comfort, but it only made me recklessly bitter. "Sleeping pills might help prevent the dreams, I know you don't like taking them but..."

"I dream about you too," I said flatly. Jase stopped his breath for a moment, unsure what to do with my words. Finally, eventually, he nodded quickly.

"I'm sure you do," his voice was a low rumble, his expression flat and unreadable as ever. Now he knew, and simply didn't care.