Rating: PG for perfectly gen
Disclaimer: Concept drawn from DC's SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATRE.
Summary: Dian dreams, too.




Wesley isn't the only one who dreams.

She doesn't share his prophetic visions, of course, and Dian Belmont thanks God for that. She wouldn't wish his nightmares on any other living soul, much less herself. She's seen how he tosses and turns in his sleep, how he wakes trembling, how he gets up and puts on his trenchcoat and gas mask in an effort to exorcise the horrors from his dreams. Too often he finds even worse horrors in the waking world, and he does his best to exorcise those as well.

Dian can't help him with either mission, except in the small way that she makes herself a touchstone back to the world of *real* and *solid* when Wes sits bolt upright in their bed, wild-eyed and frantic. When she first came to understand what his dreams were, she'd thought--shameful to admit now--that Wesley wasn't strong enough to shoulder the burden. It didn't take long to realize that Wes' quiet, self-effacing manner hid not only a steel resolve, but an almost ingenuous resilience. That latter, she knows now, serves him in better stead than any amount of bravado or reckless courage. What he faces nightly would unman the bold and destroy the brave. It's only his compassion that lets him look the worst of humanity in the face and still *believe.*

When Dian dreams, it's most often in simpler themes: ordinary everyday worries played out in obscure imagery, lost like mist upon waking. But once in awhile she catches a glimpse of something immeasurable, something...endless. Wes sees the pieces. Sometimes, waking from a dead sleep into complete awareness, she thinks she can see the *pattern.*

It's the kind of invention her flighty and self-absorbed and hedonistic younger self might have fashioned in an attempt to appear more serious, more thoughtful, *significant.* But Dian, older now, knows the difference between fantasy and reality. She's seen too much to pretend otherwise.

This, though...it's too *much.* She's always kept a diary, but that's not deep enough to contain this. *She's* not deep enough to contain this. She's never doubted that there was a purpose and a guiding principal behind Wesley's dreams, whether it was God or fate or justice itself putting what was bent wrong to right. But that's his curse or gift, not hers. She's a bystander, for the most part; she's the one who bears witness.

Still. Those occasional flashes, those whispers in darkness, make Dian feel as if there's something she's not *doing.* If there truly is a pattern, there must be a way to find a shape and a name to it.

In the morning light, while Wesley still dreams, she begins to write it down.

(end)

Note:
In the STARMAN series, "Whispers in Darkness" is the name of Jack Knight's favorite Dian Belmont novel.