While he waited for Iris to gather her thoughts to answer his question, Caspian finished off the rest of his breakfast and set the empty plate back down on the coffee table. It turned out to be a good thing that he’d eaten before she spoke again too, because the reply she gave was enough to make him lose his appetite completely.

He turned to face her on the sofa, listening patiently to all she had to say. He did know that she’d suffered from nightmares before, since he’d learned about it when they had been stuck outside the capital. What he hadn’t known was the frequency with which she was afflicted by the bad dreams. A frown creased his forehead when she admitted that she hadn’t been sleeping very well at the Kinders’ house because of the nightmares. At the time, there hadn’t been an alternative place for her to go, but he was still a little discouraged to find out that the one solution they’d found, hiding her with Miles, hadn’t worked out as well as he’d hoped it would.

A part of him wanted to assure her that his friend wouldn’t have cared if she had a nightmare around him, but it was in the past now, so there was no point in saying anything about it. Instead, he remained quiet and just nodded along as she kept talking.

She went on to tell him about her experience with Matthew, one of the interrogators that had been hired by the crown to question prisoners, and Cas clenched his jaw. It was frustrating enough to know that because of his father, she had been subjected to literal torture, but it sounded like Matthew had been crueler with her than he’d needed to be. Using Regis’s death to provoke her was low. The man was her [i]father[/i], and even though their relationship hadn’t been the healthiest, it was sick to use him against her like that. If he had been in the same position, he would have been horrified to find out that his father had died from the lips of a man who was trying to break his will and get him to confess to crimes he hadn’t committed.

Even worse, it seemed like Matthew had done more than just tell her the news that Regis had been executed. As Iris told him about the photograph she’d been shown of her own father’s mutilated corpse, the prince felt sick to his stomach. It was disgusting and sadistic and completely inhumane. It was no wonder that she couldn’t sleep at night after that. He couldn’t even imagine what it had been like to look at a picture of someone he cared about, bled out on the ground after they had been killed by the firing squad. And then on top of that, she’d been exposed to Aproveset. It was almost too much to take in.

For a moment, he didn’t say anything, stunned speechless by everything she had just opened up to him about. After a moment of silence, he leaned forward to wrap his arms around her in a tight embrace, pressing a hand to the back of her head as he pulled her into his shoulder. [color=#b97703]“I had no idea… I’m so sorry, Iris. You never should have had to go through any of that.”[/color] There had never been a time in his life that he’d wished he could turn back time more than he did in that instance. Unfortunately, that was impossible, but maybe there was still something that could be done in retribution. If he went back to his father, he could try his damnedest to get Matthew terminated immediately for abuse of power. The interrogator didn’t deserve his position if he was going to treat people that terribly.

For another moment, he fell quiet again and simply held her. As he gathered his own thoughts, he pressed a kiss to her cheek. [color=#b97703]“I know you try to handle everything on your own because you’ve had to take care of yourself for most of your life, but please don’t ever try to hide something like that from me again,”[/color] he whispered, pulling back just enough to meet her gaze sincerely. [color=#b97703]“Iris, you mean so much to me that I can’t even put it into words. If something happened to you, I don’t know what I would do… so please, even if you feel like it’s not a big deal or that you’ll be imposing on me somehow by asking for help… just do it. Talk to me. Tell someone else to talk to me if you can’t do it yourself. You don’t have to do anything alone anymore, because I [i]want[/i] to be there for you. But if you don’t let me in, I can’t do that.”[/color]

Idly, he brushed a loose strand of her long hair behind her ear. [color=#b97703]“If Jacob hadn’t told me anything about what happened to you, you would probably be dead right now… Please, if you ever need anything, big or small, can you promise me you won’t try to hide it from me next time?”[/color]