As with many things, good came with bad. Jack's dreams, unfortunately, followed the same pattern, and sadly, though the Doctor might have been privy to a happier selection, with Jack's mind opened up to dream at all, it was almost inevitable that the bad would come in with the good.

Nightmares. Now they were something ever present in Jack's mind. His mistakes playing over in his head, people dying before his eyes, sometimes it would be indescript, sometimes replaying a scene from his past. It was the former this time, like a trailer for the dangers of his life. Seeing people die, watching as they did. Waking and having everyone around him dead while he has to go on.

As his mind swam with his own faults he absently held a little tighter to the Doctor.

And then his coping mechanism set in, flooding his own mind with any and all happy memories it could. Things to help him last through the night. And his dreams drifted until they faded and he could sleep through.

He never slept very long really, a few hours, if that, and so it was the same now, about four hours after closing his eyes, he opened them again, slowly letting the light creek in. He'd got used to the Doctor being not there in the morning even if he had been in the evening, and part of him expected that now, but no, there he was, that soft cool skin against his own.

It made him smile.

"Morning," he said, and he spoke with a voice that was laced with a sleep, that for him? Had been his best in a long time.