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Run. Run. Just run. Just keep running.
His legs felt like lead, like they were trying to turn to stone beneath him. He heard them running after him, chasing, calling. A slap of metal against metal- he hit the shelves with the side of his knife. He still had the goddamn knife and he was not afraid to fucking use it. He just needed to hide- where was he? Wherever the goddamn auction was happening, there were so many things around him… maybe the Quagmires were here, or there, or…
“Baudelaire! This is getting tiresome!”
He made it to the edge of the wall, starting to shake. Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared you’re going to get out of here, like we always do…
He grabbed a shelf, feeling sharp underneath his palm, hoisting himself up and up, tears at the edge of his eyes as he raced to the top. He managed to get to the top shelf and knocked a cardboard box to the side, letting some doilies spill slightly. He slid into the box, trembling and gathering up the doilies to slide onto his lap, so nobody noticed they’d fallen. It was dark and small but it was okay, he was okay…
“Baudelaire! Baudelaire!”
He hugged his knees and tried to breathe quietly. If he hid long enough, maybe they’d go away… Maybe they’d leave him alone…
Had the footsteps stopped? Or disappeared? Was he gone or… did a ladder hit the shelf? Or- no, no, just stay calm, it’s just your imagination, you’re…
“Nice try, Nicholas.”
Something grabbed the edge of the box and yanked. he screamed as he felt himself pulled out, and he fell through the air. For a moment, time stopped, and he felt suspended in the air- and then very cold.
And then he crashed.
He hit the side of something hard- a statue of some kind- and then hit the floor. He screamed, sharp pains spreading across his chest and arm. And after only a split second of process, his arms were grabbed, fingernails digging into his skin.
No, no, no, no, no…
“You’re too spoiled, Nicholas.”
No, no, please, please, no…
“I think it’s time you be punished for your behavior. Where should we start?”
No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO…
“Uncle Nick? Uncle Nick!”
Nick shot up, terror coursing through him. For a moment, he felt like there were still nails in his skin, and pains shooting through his back from the landing, and in a moment there would be…
“Uncle Nick!”
A bit of cold air hit him, and he realized that he had a blanket over him, and it was darker, and… and…
Natalie looked up at him, dark eyes blinking with worry. The little girl was sitting on the edge of his bed, her hands on his arm, having just been shaking him to attempt to wake him up. She looked him over, and then he realized she was starting to cry.
“Hey.” he tried to stop shaking. He sat up, smiling. “Hey, is something wrong?”
Natalie looked over at him again. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail- messy, meaning she’d just woken up. She had the exact same hair color as her mother, and sometimes when it was pulled back like that it reminded Nick of when her mother was just a little toddler, running around to see all the reptiles in Monty’s…
“Hey, don’t cry, it’s okay.” he said. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, smiling. “Did something happen?”
She shook her head a little, and then said, “I… I had a nightmare, and-”
His heart sunk a little. “Are your parents here?”
“Went to pick up the screeching iguana from the hospital.”
So she came to him. Of course she did- he was practically their other guardian, he was there to watch the kids while their parents were busy with the reptiles or on a trip, make sure everything was okay, that nobody ran off or got hurt and no houses set on fire and…
“Uncle Nick?”
He blinked, trying to stop shaking again. “Sorry, kid, I was just-”
“Were you having a nightmare, too?”
Shit. Shit, shit… “Um… yeah. Yeah, but don’t-”
“Grown-ups get nightmares, too?”
Nick sighed and spread out his arms. His niece crawled over and hugged him, leaning against him, and he held her very close. “Yeah.” he finally admitted. “That’s one thing that doesn’t go away as you get older.” He waited a moment, and when Natalie pulled away, he said, “Do you want some hot chocolate? I know it’s late, but, if we’re already awake- I’m not as good as your Aunt Sunny, but I can try.”
Natalie giggled, and then nodded. She grabbed his hands, sliding off the bed; Nick realized she had the fuzzy slippers Lilac had made her, ones shaped like alligators. She loved those, could spout out facts about them almost as fast as her mother. She kept saying something about training alligators to do tricks as an adult. Nick thought that was an excellent plan, though she should probably think through safety precautions first.
In the kitchen, she babbled about some book Uncle Klaus had been reading her and her siblings recently, and Nick mixed the cocoa with cinnamon, just like Sunny had shown him. He glanced back and called, “Marshmallows?”
“Of course!” she paused her rant for a moment. “Eight, like always!”
Nick smiled and grabbed the marshmallow bag, pulling out eight each and dropping them into her cup, then doing the same to his. He carried the mugs over, sitting beside her. She smiled and pulled the cup closer, running her hand over the design that’d been painted by her cousin a few years back.
“Now,” he said, staring down at his cup, “What was your nightmare?”
She bit her lip, then paused to take a sip of cocoa before speaking. “It’s silly.”
“No, it’s okay. Talking about it makes it better- you know, they say if you tell a nightmare, it won’t come back.”
“Really?”
“Really.” he assured her.
She paused, and then said, “It was like that movie we saw with Uncle Quigley. With the bear and his friends?”
“Yeah.” How was that scaring her?
“Well it was like… when it was flooding, but there was an angry storm cloud. And he was chasing me and trying to drown me.”
Nick hmmed, and then said, “Do you think the movie scared you?”
“No.” she smiled a little. “It was funny.”
He thought a moment. There had been a period where Isadora had become obsessed with dream interpretation and he, Lilac and Fiona had listened to her infodump over a family dinner while Violet distracted everyone else with a new invention. What had she said about drowning? Or storms?
“Well, maybe you’re feeling lots of anger.” he said.
She shook her head. “Last time I got really mad was when Kit stole my headphones, and she gave em back.”
“Are you overwhelmed by anything?”
She paused. “I don’t think so.”
“Maybe it was just bad luck.” he said cautiously. “Sometimes nightmares just happen. But the best thing to remember is that they never last, and you’re gonna wake up and your whole family’s right here.”
She smiled over at him, taking another sip of her cocoa. Then she put it down and said, “What about your nightmare?”
Nick stiffened. “I, uh… how do you like your cocoa?”
Natalie made the same grumpy face as her mother. “Uncle Nick.”
“Do you want more marshmallows or cinnamon or-”
“Don’t be a hippocratic, Uncle Nick.”
“Hypocrite.”
“Yeah, don’t be that.” she blinked over at him. “You said talking ‘bout it makes it better.”
He took a deep breath. “It might be too scary for you.”
“Nuh-uh. I’m the big kid.”
“You’ve got an older brother.”
“He doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
“Cause I don’t wanna. Come on.” she scooted her chair closer, and then pulled her ponytail tighter, like her aunts had taught her. She put her hands on her legs and straightened up, trying to look very professional. “Talk about it and make it go away.”
He really didn’t want to have to explain to her that this might not be the kind of nightmare that goes away. He’d just told her that they did, and he hoped to God that she wouldn’t ever have repeating nightmares in her life. Besides, he remembered… when they first got Bea, and then later when his sister told them all she was pregnant and they were freaking out cause none of them had kids before… both times, they’d promised. They wouldn’t be like their parents. No secrets.
“Did your Mother tell you about when we were kids, and a bad man was chasing us?”
Natalie narrowed her eyes. “A little. She said she’ll tell me the whole story when the little ones are old enough to understand, and you all can do it together. But I know a bit.”
Nick took a breath. He knew Solitude didn’t remember as much as the rest of them, she’d want help explaining… “What do you know?”
“When Grandmother and Grandfather died, he chased you around to get your money, and because he hated Grandmother and Grandfather and wanted to hurt you because of it.” Natalie recalled, playing with a strand of her hair. “He put Mother and Aunt Sunny in a birdcage and that’s why she doesn’t like those. And he died and you kicked his grave. And he smelled bad.”
Nick laughed a little. Of course that last bit was important information. “Yes, he did smell bad. Anything else?”
“Olaf, right?”
Nick stiffened a second, and then recovered, nodding quickly. “Yeah.”
“Was your nightmare about him?”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah.”
“Wha happened?”
God, he could not tell her that. No. She did not need those images in her head. Never. He hoped she would never have to have those thoughts.
“Well…” he said. “Okay, this is a bit hard to talk about.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a memory, it actually happened to me. And it really hurt me, and I haven’t talked about it to anyone but my siblings.”
“So Mother knows?”
“Y-yeah.”
“So why can’t I?”
“I- I’m just trying to explain that it’s hard to talk about, especially to someone who wasn’t there. Okay?”
“Okee.” she nodded. “So you dreamed a memory?”
“Yeah. You see…” just breathe, Nick. They can’t hurt you anymore. “When Olaf was chasing us, there was a bit where he kidnapped me. It was…” how long had Klaus said again? He could never remember, even after all this time. “Maybe about a week. Or two? He had me separated from the others, with Uncle Duncan and Aunt Isadora, except sometimes he’d separate us, too. And when I was alone…” he shut his eyes and tried to think of a way to tell her.
“Uncle Nick?”
“I’m okay, I… you see, my nightmare from tonight was from when he first got me. I tried to escape, but he caught me and I got hurt.”
Her eyes widened. “He hurt you?”
Nick took a deep breath. “Yes.”
“That’s bad.”
He nodded. “Yes. He… he hurt me while I was kidnapped. And it gave me… some problems. Does Monty sometimes read you his psychology books?”
“A little, but I get bored and throw things at him.”
“I used to do the same with Klaus.” Nick grinned. “When we were your age.” She giggled, and he slowly continued, “Well, I have this thing called PTSD- it stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It means that what I went through was so scary that I still have problems now. Like… I’ll sometimes feel lost, like I’m still there. Or something really small, like a smell or a word, will remind me of that week and I’ll get really scared. And, yeah, I get nightmares sometimes.”
“That’s scary.” Natalie said.
Nick nodded. “It is. But I have my family with me, to remind me that it’s over and I’m okay now. We can remind each other.”
Natalie considered. “Does everyone have that?”
“No.” he said. “Some of us do, though, and I’m sure they’ll tell you when they’re ready. You just have to know that while it can be scary for us, it won’t make us dangerous, and we’re recovering. Slowly, but… we’re recovering. You know, when we just got out of our life on the run, Klaus couldn’t go to the eye doctor. But now he’s fine, so long as he knows he can get out.”
“Why doesn’t he like the eye doctor?”
“He got hypnotized.”
“Really?”
Nick laughed. “That’s a long story. Why don’t you finish your cocoa, and I’ll read you a story until you fall asleep?”
“You could tell me the hypnotism story.”
“Hmm, I think we’ll wait for a bit on that one.” he laughed. “How about Snow White?”
“Yeah!” Natalie giggled. She paused, and then said, “Uncle Nick?”
“Yeah?”
She reached out and grabbed his hand. “I’ll protect you from the nightmares. And you can protect me from mine if you want. That way we’ll both be safe.”
Nick smiled down at his niece, and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Sounds good, Snow Nat. After all, we’re Baudelaires.”
Natalie grinned, and leaned back to beam up at him. “And Baudelaires take care of their own.”