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Let Lie

Summary:

At the darkest hours, comfort comes from strange sources.

Work Text:


Let Lie

Michael wakes up panicking and turns in the darkness to curl his hand around empty space. That his bed matches his feelings is both sad and reassuring. He knows Syd is out there, somewhere, and he craves her presence, but the dream that just woke him had someone else lying beside him. It's the same dream that's been waking him for a week.

He'd been crying a little, again, about her, when a shadowy someone's arms wrapped around his neck. The person -- Marshall, his dream self would realize without shock -- spooned behind him, comforting him, and Michael huddled into the embrace. He had welcomed Marshall's touch as though it were familiar and right.

Sweat chills him while he tries to relax. The dream itself is familiar now, so he knows exactly which half-truths to tell himself. He woke because of how wrong it really was. He belongs only to Sydney, not some weird, short guy whom he barely knows. No one else has been in the bed with him.

He has been talking to Marshall slightly more than usual since she's been gone. They discuss new intel -- and not so new intel, when they're desperate -- but what brings him back to Marshall in reality is more than the need for information. Marshall always talks about Sydney with such affection and such faith in her ability to survive. And that does comfort Michael, especially when most of the rest of his time is spent in the company of Jack and his bitterness.

So that's the easy explanation for the dream. It's the only explanation Michael will accept or even consider, just like he won't accept or even consider any alternative to continuing the search for Sydney. There are some things that he simply has to let lie.



- end -