#capt abraham

His breath catches as he pulls out his phone, scrolling anxiously through his call history.

Harper. Jake. Kelly. Kevin. Lucy. Mom.

OK, he’ll look by last name.

Daniels. Dooley. Evans. Ferry. Ferry.

No Maya. No Dobbins. The knot in his stomach twists tighter as he backs out of the empty room and hurries to Trey’s office.

“Trey. Trey, have you –“ he takes a deep breath, trying to collect himself as Trey looks up at him. “Where’s Maya?”

“Abe, she’s … did no one tell you when you were rescued? Maya … it’s been a few months now, man. She’s gone.”

Dread washes over Abe and the world fades out from around him.

“Gone? Gone where? Gone how?” He can see Trey open his mouth to respond, but can’t hear the words from the other man’s mouth, can’t make out the reply as everything spins out.

Abe wakes with a start, his whole body shaking with the force of it. As always, he immediately jerks away from where Maya lays next to him.

Only this time he notices that he can’t feel her warmth radiating through the sheets, and there’s no dip in the mattress from her body.

With great trepidation, Abe rolls over to look at the place in the bed where Maya should be.

It’s empty.

Not only is it empty, but the sheets clearly haven’t been touched all night. Nothing’s mussed or out of place.

She’s gone. Maya is gone. She’s gone and Abe is here. Alone. She’s left him here alone and now she’s gone.

He knows she’s visiting Matt this week, knows that they talked on the phone before he went to bed. They’ll talk again today, and she’ll be back on Thursday.

He knows this, but it doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t change that she’s gone and he’s alone. Doesn’t change that he’s grown used to having her around to comfort him when he wakes up like this. She’ll be back, he knows that, but what if she’s not?

He needs to call her.

Abe’s hands are shaking as he unlocks his phone, but mercifully she’s in his call log this time, right at the top of the call log, just like she should be.

He taps her name and focuses on taking deep breaths while it rings once, twice, three times.

“You’ve reached the automated voicemail box of …” a tinny recording picks up, but Abe cuts it off as it starts reciting her phone number and tries to ignore the building worry in his chest.

It doesn’t work, though, and before his brain can catch up, he’s in the kitchen, watching coffee drip through the filter even though he knows he’s not going to drink it and scrolling through his contacts for another name.

Trey pulls his arm from around Nona’s waist and rolls over, reflexively reaching for the baby monitor before he realizes that the offending noise is actually coming from his cell phone.

Nona stirs and he leans over to brush a soft kiss across her temple.

“Shh, she’s down. You’re good. Abe’s calling. I’m gonna take this on the patio, but I’ll be right back.”

Trey trudges down the hall, answering his phone as he unlocks the door.

“’ullo? Abe?” He steps out into the warm air and leans against the door, trying to cling to the edges of his sleep.

“Trey, oh my God. I know how this sounds, but you’ve heard of Maya, right?”

“Huh? Maya who?” He’s groggy, still trying to process Abe’s frantic rambles as he hears he phone clatter to the ground.

Abe slumps against the refrigerator and lets the phone slide out of his grasp.

He knew it. He knew she was gone. Or she wasn’t ever really his to begin with. He’d known it was too good to last. She probably never even went out with him; it was probably just all some weird mirage-y daydream while he was POW. Or else she used her visit with Matt to move away and leave him. If she ever existed at all. God, how could he be so stupid, he’s a Marine for God’s sa—

“ABE. ABRAHAM!” Treys’ voice cuts through his monologue, and he finally reaches down for his phone.

“I made her up, didn’t I?”

“Dobbins? Maya Dobbins? Your Maya? No, she’s real, dude. She’s just out of town. She’s visiting her brother, remember? Did you call her?”

“She didn’t answer.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s dead. Sometimes Nona screens my calls, man. Or misses them because she’s asleep. Maya will call you back tomorrow, I’m sure.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” He sounds distant now, distracted.

“Abe. You gonna be OK tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna … try and get some more sleep.” He switches off the coffee pot and heads back for his bedroom. “You’re, uh, you’re sure? That she’s … I woke up and she … she wasn’t. You said she was …”

“I lied. Fun fact: Dream Trey is a lying asshat. But this is real Trey. She’s real, man. I promise. Now get some sleep. I’ll see you at 0930.”

As he hangs up, Abe lays down and knows he’s not going to sleep anymore tonight. But he believes Trey, and he knows Maya will call him in the morning.

He plugs his phone back in and it lights up almost instantly with a text from Trey. He flicks the screen to open it and taps the picture to make it bigger.

It’s a picture he’s never seen before, of a moment he remembers perfectly, clearly taken from Trey’s office across the hall into Maya’s. A neat profile view, Abe is standing behind her chair with his arms wrapped around her shoulders. She’s looking up at him and they’re both laughing.

He closes out of the picture, and as he reads the attached message, he believes more than just Trey. He believes every word Maya’s ever said to him, and he believes that he’s good enough to hear them.

As she toes off her shoes and lets her duffel drop unceremoniously onto the floor next to her, she fires off a quick text to Abe. He’ll want to know that she’s home safe, and also that she didn’t give into the urge to kill the chatty recruit she spent seven hours waiting on a plane with.

He replies with a smiley face and a promise to drop by with food after he’s off work. Because that’s where they’re at now: the occasional roll in the hay turned into drinks after work turned into … whatever they are now.

They’re not dating, Maya ponders, as she wipes her makeup off and brushes her teeth. They’ve been sleeping together in the physical sense off and on for a few months, and in the literal for the last month or so. After work they’ll have dinner together, watch some TV and, really, what’s the sense in one of them driving half an hour home just to go back to work the next morning?

But they haven’t put any labels on it yet. They haven’t had that conversation. Maya is changing into her pajamas when she realizes that maybe she wouldn’t mind a label if they were to have that conversation at some point in the future.

She pulls the curtains closed and wraps herself in her quilt, planning to sleep for at least four or five hours until Abe comes over with dinner.

Two hours later, she’s still lying there, tossing and turning, trying to will herself to fall asleep. The room is dark. She’s counted hundreds of sheep, then grouped them backwards by sevens. She’s taken deep breaths. She’s put on her favorite fuzzy socks.

She’s exhausted. But none of it is enough. She groans and rolls over again, hoping that this time lying on her stomach will do the trick.

It doesn’t, and 10 minutes later she rolls back over and checks her phone. No new notifications, just the same unopened text from Abe, telling her to get some rest and sleep off the homicidal tendencies if she wants him to bring dessert too.

As if she’s not trying.

She puts on classical music, and another hour passes as she wonders why nobody told Mozart that all his songs sound the same. Last week she passed out watching Parks and Rec, but today she listens carefully, trying to figure out what part of government work these people do that’s kept them from becoming jaded by the bureaucracy.

Eventually, she gives up and resigns herself to her inability to sleep in the middle of the day. It didn’t used to be this way; in college, she could stay up all night finishing a paper, turn it in at 9:30 and sleep for 15 hours uninterrupted. During boot camp, she’d be up until 3 a.m. for drills, back up at 7 for revile, then sleep as soon as they were released for recreation, whatever time that was.

But even that was seven years ago, college a full decade behind her. She’s 33 now, and supposes that an actual sleep schedule is her body settling into its age, however mentally and physically drained she may be.

She doesn’t get up though, choosing instead to cling to a last shred of hope that she’ll fall asleep in the two or three hours Abe is still at work.

Maya can’t tell how long it’s been, but she knows it hasn’t been two hours when she hears a key turn in the lock and the door shift gently open. There’s rustling, which she knows is Abe putting bags on the counter, then footsteps down the hall and a soft knock at her door.

“My?” Abe whispers as he pushes the door open a crack, just far enough to peer in at her. “You’re not asleep?”

She groans and shifts around on the mattress. “Nooooo,” she whines. “I’ve been laying here all damn day and I haven’t slept even a minute. Guess my all-nighter days are behind me.”

Abe pushes the door open the rest of the way and steps into the room. He hasn’t changed out of his uniform, but he’s stripped off the button-down, leaving him in a white T-shirt and his dress pants.

“Couldn’t nap on the flight? I know Marine transport puts you right in the lap of luxury.” He moves to stand next to her bed and gently pushes her hair out of her face.

“Ha. Not with that boot sitting next to me. Swear I could pick his grandma out of a criminal lineup, much as he talked about her.”

“Yeah? Didn’t bore you to sleep?”

“Ugh, I wish. I’m so tired.” She relaxes into his touch as his hand comes to rest against her face, thumb brushing softly along her cheek.

“Well there’s Greek food in the kitchen if you’re hungry.” Maya hides the grimace as her stomach rolls and groans.

“God, how bad is it that I’m too tired to even think about eating right now?”

“That’s because you’re supposed to sleep at night, My. Not sit on a military base and wait for a plane.” He’s teasing, but his tone is almost as gentle as the way he pulls his hand back and stands up. “But don’t think about eating now. I’ll go put the food up and change, you think about falling asleep.” He’s gone back down the hall, whistling some Top 40 tune Maya is too exhausted to place, before the domesticity of it all hits her.

Abe is in her kitchen. Putting away takeout he bought for both of them. From her favorite place, because he knows she’s had a long day. And he’s changing out of his work clothes in her bathroom, probably into the jeans and T-shirt he left behind last weekend. But they’re not dating. There’s no label attached.

She’s still thinking about it when he comes back – in the jeans and T-shirt, sure enough – and settles on top of the covers next to her, resting a book on his thighs. The movement of the bed is enough to jostle her from her train of thought, and she turns her head to stare at him curiously.

“Nothing good on TV this time of night. But Rami suggested this book, so I figured I’d check it out. Besides, this way you’re not in here all alone.” Abe crosses his ankles and cracks the book.

And she blames it on the exhaustion, but suddenly Maya’s eyes are misty. She’s had her share of exes, but the simple, seemingly thoughtless, care is new to her. He could have sat anywhere else in the apartment with his book, but he chose not to make Maya lay in an empty room. NO matter how tired she is, though, she’d never give voice to how nice it is to have someone care about her in all the little ways.

Especially if they’re not dating.

So, she shuffles closer to him instead, leaning her head against his bicep and yawning hard enough to pop her jaw.

“Take it easy, Dobbins, good God. Are youtryingto break your jaw?” But he’s smiling when he says it, still speaking gently.

Before she gets herself settled in, Abe pulls his arm out from underneath her, dropping her head to his chest and shifting his book to one side.

Maya pushes herself a little closer into his torso and yawns again, smiling when Abe’s free hand comes up to run tenderly through her hair.

“Sleep, Maya. You know your body wants to.”

“Yeah, it does.” Another yawn. “But my brain has spent the entire day proving that I can’t sleep when the sun is up.”

“Mmm, circumstantial evidence. Keep trying.” He’s quiet for a moment, then, in a voice hardly louder than a whisper, starts reading his book out loud. Maya has no idea who the characters are or what they’re doing, but she closes her eyes and listens, feeling Abe’s chest rise and fall beneath her.

When she opens her eyes again, the first thing Maya notices is that she’s the warmest she’s been all day. The second is that the book has dropped flat, Abe’s leg holding the pages open. The room is dark now, and silent, save for the sound of his quiet snoring.

Before the wakefulness can set in all the way, though, she closes her eyes again and brings a hand up to tangle with Abe’s, spread out on his stomach. She sighs when she feels the fingers in her hair tighten just a bit – a sleepy reflex to her movement, she’s sure – and is met with two thoughts as sleep pulls her back under:

Maybe you don’t need a conversation to have labels.

And

It’s always dark, so he really has no idea how long he’s been down here. He thinks back on what he does know: he needed to interview a shop owner in Al Hasakah, find out if he knew anything about a Marine CO who went AWOL. He accepted the invitation for tea, largely out of convention and manners, and sipped while the old man talked. The timeline is fuzzy, but he remembers the world going dark, fading out from in front of him. The last thing he remembers before this cell was three large men stepping toward him out of the shadows.

He’d told Harper and Maya that me might not be back to the base before morning, that the roads were too dangerous after dark, the risk of IEDs too high.

That might have been better, he thinks with his next thud, blowing up and getting it over with instead of rotting to death down here.

Surely it’s been more than a day now, and someone has noticed he’s gone. Twice, once of the infidels has thrown a bottle of water into his cell, and terrorists aren’t known for keeping their POWs well hydrated.

That’s the last thought he registers before strong hands wrap around his biceps and drag him upright, his toes barely brushing the ground. He’d been so far out of it that he didn’t even notice anyone coming into the dingy room.

“We asked you a question, Captain,” a deep voice sneers with a thick accent. “But I guess you don’t want to talk to us.”

A second, similar voice picks up from his other side. “I guess we’ll have to make you talk then.”

His eyes fly open and Abe rolls instinctively away from where he knows Maya is sleeping on the other side of the bed. The last thing he wants to do is hurt or disturb her with any flailing limbs. He sits up with a sigh.

That’s five nights in a row. He pads carefully down the hallway to the kitchen, any hope of a good night’s sleep pulled from his grasp. He fires up the coffee pot and leans against the counter, thinking while he waits for it to brew.

It’s been over a month since he was rescued. His life is back to normal now, the trial settled and his mandatory leave completed. Better than normal, even, because now he has Maya in bed with him every night, warm and soft and there. So why would the nightmares start now?

He pours his mug to the brim, not bothering to blow on it before he takes the first big sip.

The coffee burns, but at least he’s starting to wake up more. Another four or five cups and he’ll be good to head into the office and mainline his coffee there until he goes home. It’s worked so far, no one commenting on anything out of sorts.

He just needs it to keep working until he can figure this out on his own and set himself back on track without making anybody worry about him.

Maya wakes up before the sun rises and the first thing she notices is that she’s alone in Abe’s bed. The second thing she notices is that his clock is blinking 3:54 in red numbers.

She sighs at the empty room. It’s not the first time a guy has left in the middle of the night, but she didn’t have Abe pegged for the disappearing act. Especially not a month after they started seeing each other. Especially from his own apartment.

Rolling her eyes, Maya pulls one of Abe’s shirts over her head and heads for the door.

If he’s going to pull a stunt like this, then he doesn’t deserve to own nine soft gray t-shirts.

She’s looking for her shoes when she notices that the kitchen light is on. So she follows it down the hall to where Abe is leaning against the counter, sipping from the mug in his hands.

“Abe?” He startles, sloshing some coffee onto the floor. “You’re up?”

“Maya. You’re … you’re wearing my shirt?”

“Couldn’t find mine in the dark. Why are you out here?”

“Why are you?” He’s deflecting, and they both know it.

“I woke up and you weren’t there.” She moves to stand across from him, taking a towel off the counter and dropping it to the floor, toeing at it is soak up the small puddle. “Why not?”

Neither of them pick up the towel.

“I needed to make coffee.” He shrugs and looks down, a rare display of fragility.

“It’s not even 4 a.m.. Isn’t that early for coffee?”

“I’m getting an early start at the office. It’s fine, you can stay here and just lock up when you leave.”

Maya watches him for a moment, considering. He still won’t meet her eyes, and he’s missing the gentle relaxed demeanor he carries off-duty.

“Abraham. We work together. That excuse only works when the other person doesn’t know your hours.” She looks at him again, cataloguing the heavy bags under his eyes and the way his shoulders are curled in, hiding himself from the world, and her tone softens. “John, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m fine. It’s fine. I just couldn’t sleep, so why not go and get a head start on the day?” he smiles at her, but it’s clearly forced.

“It’s 4 a.m.. This is more than a head start. Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“Don’t worry about it. I woke up and I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I got up.”

“Abe. What’s going on?”

“I had a bad dream, OK? It’s not a big deal.” Abe drains his mug and reaches around Maya to refill it.

“John.”

“Maya.” He signs and lets the tension sag out of his shoulders. But he doesn’t look relaxed, just defeated. “Let’s go sit on the couch.”

She follows him into the living room, and almost as soon as they’re sat down, he wraps an arm around her shoulder and tucks her into his chest. He runs his hand through her hair and sighs, taking a long drink before he speaks.

“You really want to know what’s wrong with me? Once it’s out there, there’s not taking it back.”

“Abe. Yes, I want to know. I want to help you with whatever it is.”

“Fine. I had a nightmare, OK?” He’s fighting to keep his voice steady, but Maya can feel his hand shaking as he keeps fidgeting with her hair. “And I’m not going to get any more sleep tonight, so I figured I’d just get my day started instead of wallowing in it.”

Maya’s quiet for a long moment, letting silence hang between them.

“You could have woken me up, you know.”

“Yeah. That’s why I came out here.”

“No, I wouldn’t have minded. You could have woken me up.” She reaches across Abe’s torso and grabs his free hand.

“I didn’t want to do that.” Abe sighs. “You might have noticed, I’m not exactly used to needing people. I can handle myself.”

“I know you can. You’re a Marine. But that doesn’t mean you can’t ever need a little help getting through. You’ve seen the people we see in court. Don’t you think some of them could have used a little help?”

“I’m not going to kill anyone, My.”

“Maybe not, but you almost diedbarely a month ago. That doesn’t just go away. But you don’t have to shut everyone else out. No one would judge you for this, Abe.”

“I don’t want them to know.”

“I won’t tell them. Just … wake me up? If it happens again? Even if I’m not here, you can call me. I want to help you.”

And, wow. That’s something Abe hasn’t heard in a while. Especially from someone who’s not being paid to say it.

“I will … try. I’ll try.” He pulls her a little closer and kisses the top of her head, then rests his chin there. “This helps, you know? Holding you, I mean. Even if I’ve had four cups of coffee and won’t be sleeping, it’s nice. I’m … it’s a little better.”

“I’m glad. Even if you can’t sleep, you should try to rest some. Wanna stay out here or go back to bed?”

“Here. Here’s … good.” Abe pulls his hand out of Maya’s and tilts her chin up to kiss her. “You can go back to sleep, if you want. I’ll stay here, I promise.”

Maya doesn’t mean to fall back asleep, but two hours later she hears the alarm ringing from Abe’s room and feels him untangle their bodies. The noise stops and Abe comes back down the hall.

“Morning. Again, I guess. I’ll start a fresh pot of coffee. It’s no good when it’s been out like this.”

Maya nods blearily and sits up, getting her bearings straight for the day.

Abe trips over a coffee-soaked dishrag on his way through the kitchen and smiles.