John woke up with a start, sweat soaked and muscles tense after fighting off the vivid swirl of images that plagued his nights. Always the same dream, and he didn't understand it at all. It made no sense. With a sound of disgust, he threw his blanket off his legs and reached blindly for his cane.

"Nightmare again?" the injured soldier in the next cot asked.

John shuffled guiltily, adjusting his weight against the cane. He didn't want to meet the other man's eyes. His name was Alec, and, although he knew it was medically impossible, John had never seen him sleep. Alec had horrific nightmares that scared him so much he absolutely refused to sleep. He fought it off for as long as he could and when he felt he was losing the battle, he hid in a closet or bathroom somewhere in the vast military hospital complex so no one would witness his night terrors. But you could always hear him, his screams echoing through the corridors until the nurses found and sedated him.

John on the other hand didn't have nightmares. Night after night, he only ever dreamed of a man he didn't know, and it made no fucking sense.

"Yeah, nightmare," John said shortly and limped off.

Some fresh air would do him some good and he wanted to look at the sun rising over the mountains of Afghanistan one last time before he was shipped back home. He was no longer deemed useful here, no longer needed, nor wanted.

The Man was running fast, his long dark coat flapping around his ankles and his curls bouncing every which way every time he craned his neck to look into the alleyways on either side of the road. He was looking for something, or someone. There was a sense of urgency about him up until the point he suddenly whirled around and froze completely. His eyes widened, letting John see for the first time just how pale and blue they really were. The Man was surprised, or scared, but John couldn't tell by what. He couldn't turn around, entranced by the sight of him. John vaguely realized this was just a dream, a familiar dream. He would wake up soon and everything would be fine.

And John did wake up, his heart beating fast as if he had been the one running around the streets looking for God knows what. The Dream, because it was always the same dream, had gotten clearer since his return to London. It was more coherent and sometimes longer, like it had been tonight. John had seen his face this time and he doubted he would ever forget it. His features were quite unusual, in a good way: his sharp clear eyes, high cheekbones and cupid's bow lips now completed the faceless image he had of him before: tall, dark curly hair and a long dark coat.

John thought he could probably recognize The Man if he crossed paths with him but he shook his head, snorting at the very idea. What was he thinking? The Man wasn't real, just a figment of his imagination which plagued his every night. A persistent figment of his imagination.

But… it looked so real. It felt real, too. If John closed his eyes, he could still feel the light drizzle falling around him, hear The Man's rapid footsteps and the angry yells of people in his wake, the honk of a bus when a bike cut in front of his lane, the smell of a bakery nearby that made his mouth water just at the thought of it…

John cursed and got up. He had nothing so palatable in his small bedsit and he'd be damned if he contented himself with a dry piece of toast and milkless tea now.

It was The Dream again. John knew it as soon as it started and wondered how he could know he was in a dream and yet not wake up immediately upon realizing it. Was he awake in his dream? Or dreaming that he was awake in a dream?

Since his return to England, John had scoured the bottomless pit of knowledge that was the internet in search of people who had experienced the same kind of repetitive dreams, especially amongst soldiers suffering from PTSD, but all he had come across so far was a load of bullshit from a bunch of deluded people who claimed to be mediums, prophets or reincarnations, at the best. No need to say John was desperate for some kind of logical, scientific, explanation to what was happening to him so he'd planned to do some research at the nearby library instead, hoping the contents of books would be more trustworthy.

But, for now, The Man was running, as usual. Same street, same people, everything was the same in fact, but John took the time to really look at his surroundings this time instead of just gawking at The Man. He had an idea. It was silly, ridiculous… but he couldn't help giving into his curiosity: John wondered if this street really existed. It was so detailed, so realistic that he has some difficulties believing his own mind has managed to conjure the whole thing up, like the old gum stuck to the pavement, the bin overflowing with fast food wrappers, the tag of a rat holding a flamethrower… So many details, things he'd never notice, much less imagine. So tonight, John had decided to search for clues as to the street's location. If the stranger had been considerate enough, he would have worn a nametag so John could just look him up, proved that he didn't really exist and be done with the questions plaguing his mind. Unless his existence was proven… which would be a lot more disturbing and might bring more questions than answers.

John couldn't see any street name around... Of course not, that would have been far too easy, but he was definitely in London: the cab and honking bus left no doubt about it. John committed the bus' line number to memory. If only he could find where the bakery was

It would be so easy to find where he was with a shop's name, but the dream was drawing to a close: the man was twirling around by now, his face frozen in that shocked expression. However, the dream didn't stop this time. Not yet. John almost missed the smaller man stepping out of the shadows behind The Man, his arm slashing wildly through the air. John could just make out the glint of a large, thick blade held aloft before The Man crumpled in a heap on the pavement, blood pooling around his body. So much blood, everywhere, it was draining out of The Man at an alarming rate and his doctor's instinct told him his carotid artery must have been touched. John wanted to go to his side and help him, stop the flow of blood somehow, put him back together.

But he woke up. John wasn't sure whether to be relieved to be out of The Dream which had turned too bloody for his liking, or desperate not to be able to help The Man he had gotten strangely attached too. 'Seeing' someone almost every night would do that to you.

"Fuck," John said to the emptiness of his bedsit, still trying to blink away the crimson red obscuring his vision.

Despite what he'd first planned, John was hoping to prove that street did not exist. He simply refused to dream about The Man's death every night without being able to either prevent it or help him. The Man might be imaginary but it would drive him mad, he was sure of it. John ruffled through his bedside table and picked out the notepad and pen his therapist had told him to keep there to write down the 'nightmares' he supposedly had because of his PTSD. He'd humoured her, if only so she wouldn't bring up that nonsense about keeping a blog again, but so far, he always had the same dream and he could hardly explain that to her. His whole diagnosis was probably skewed because of it too.

John wrote a list of all the landmarks he could remember from The Dream and opened his laptop to check the route of bus 11, cursing when he saw exactly how much ground that covered. Maybe he could just ride it and look around for something familiar. It seemed like the easiest solution and John left his bedsit with a new sense of purpose that day.

It turned out line 11 was very popular with tourists since it went by so many famous sights, puttering along the north bank of the Thames. It was right near the Western most end of the line when John hopped off the bus. He had done so a couple of times before, but this time he was gripped with an almost tangible certainty that this was it. This was the place.

John stood on King's Road, trying to orient himself. He had to step back onto Dovehouse street to get the angle right for the bus to honk at the bike shooting onto King's Road and then everything fell into place. The red brick buildings, one of which turned out to be a fire station, facing a public park with benches and the alleyways shooting either side of the street, the smell of a bakery nearby… everything was there, it was perfect. Except for the weather, there was no drizzle and judging by the light, it was too early in the day. The people walking about weren't familiar either; there were no cabs, buses or bikes in sight, and, most noticeable, was the absence of The Man.

But the street existed, and that in itself was quite extraordinary. Scary, but extraordinary. John just stood there for a while, taking it all in and not quite believing it. He was almost certain he had never been in this part of London before, and even if he had a long time ago, when he was a kid maybe, how could he remember it in so much detail? And wouldn't it have changed since then?

No, there was something afoot here. Definitely. Something outside the bounds of normalcy which made the hairs all over his body stand on end while a shiver ran down his spine. It was already strange enough to have the exact same dream, over and over again for weeks, but to find the place of your dreams in real life… John glanced around the crowded street, half expecting to see the White Rabbit jump by, muttering about being late, or hear the Tardis taking off with its time-travellers.

There was something in that, though. Maybe John was seeing a vision of the future. He grimaced at the thought. He hadn't liked that idea before and he certainly didn't like it any better now. So maybe he was seeing a memory of the past. Or maybe The Man was haunting him, wanting to be avenged. John shook his head, he watched way too much telly. This was ridiculous. These things didn't happen in real life, and he felt silly just considering them.

Real life. That John could deal with, so he followed his nose to the elusive bakery. It stood on King's Road itself: "Gail's Bakery" according to the sign, and it was packed, which was always a good sign, so he ordered a sandwich for lunch.

Still, he couldn't keep his curiosity in check, so he asked the pretty girl behind the counter if the neighborhood was nice, but really meaning if it was safe, which she understood perfectly.

"Sure," she said with a cheery smile, handing him his wrapped sandwich and change. "Well, the pub up the street did get robbed a couple of weeks back, I suppose, and one of our clients told me her flat was broken into over the weekend, but this is London after all."

John nodded in understanding and thanked her. If there had been a recent bloody murder on her doorstep recently, she would probably have mentioned it, so John returned home, conflicted about what it could mean while berating himself for having even asked, because it meant he was giving credence to some of his more ludicrous theories about The Man and his Dream.

The Dream came to visit him again that night. Not that he was surprised, but this time, John had a mission. He needed to understand why he was having this dream and for that, he needed information, clues to either the man's identity, or the date this happened. His investigation started splendidly when he caught the time on a passerby's watch: half past five. In the afternoon, obviously. It was much too light to be the morning. John then noticed a newspaper abandoned on a bench in the nearby park, but when he approached it, he felt a resistance that kept him from going any further, and the park that had appeared perfectly clear from a distance was becoming blurry.

So apparently, there were limits to what he could do in his dream. He'd already noticed he was not really there since he had no visible body to speak of. He was there, but not physically there. He could see, hear, feel, smell, probably taste too, if he figured how to do that when he didn't have a tongue and didn't particularly feel like licking anything in the vicinity, but he wasn't really there. He could only compare it to being a ghost, and he seemed to be tethered to The Man, which would explain his limited movements.

To think he had theorized The Man was haunting him when it turned out to be the other way around made him chuckle.

John floated closer to the man, testing his limits. He checked another watch, hoping it would show a date, then looked over shoulders at phones and books, but for the life of him, he couldn't find a single date displayed anywhere. John would have liked nothing more at that moment than to kick one of the dustbins lying near the alleyway, but for one, he couldn't, having no visible legs, and then, it was The Man's time to die.

Once more, The Man spun around and the smaller stranger slashed wildly through the air. John thought the move very amateurish and clumsy, and guessed the arterial carotid had been severed by chance more than skill. To think The Man had been killed this way infuriated John for some reason. He watched The Man fall to his knees, his hands reaching for his neck, before crumpling to the sidewalk. People screamed and the murderer used the panic to escape unnoticed. He was small and nondescript. Even now, John could barely describe him so it was no wonder The Man had missed him.

John could feel the dream fading into wakefulness when a glint caught his attention. The knife? John hurried closer. No, it was too small and seemed to have fallen out of The Man's pocket into the spreading pool of blood. His heart thumping madly, John peered closer, fighting against wakefulness: a police badge with a warrant card by the name of Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade.

John's eyes snapped open and he reached for his notepad, writing down the time and the name. A police inspector! That made sense. It explained why he was running in the middle of the street, knocking people over, in search of a murderer carrying a large blade. And he had a name now, too. He would know if this man existed… Christ! What if The Man did exist? What did that mean? What should he do? Well, no,it was pretty obvious what he would do. If The Man actually existed and if he was still alive, John would obviously do all he could to keep him that way, or all of this nonsense with The Dream would have been for nothing.

A quick Google search didn't turn out what he'd expected. While there was a Detective Inspector Lestrade presently working at New Scotland Yard according to several news articles, the pictures of him looked nothing like The Man. Could there be two of them?

John snorted. Yeah, right. How likely would that be?

So did The Man steal the badge? Was he a pickpocket? A crook? Something worse? Or was he just holding onto it for some reason? So… a friend or a colleague?

Well, there was no help for it. No matter what, John would be in Dovehouse Street at half past five, everyday if he had to, but until then, he would spy on this Lestrade fellow in the hope he came across The Man.

One week later and still nothing. John had limped after the Inspector as much as he could but it was a difficult task when the busy man just sped off at random all over the city, and John was afraid he would get noticed anytime now. Lestrade was a Scotland yard detective inspector after all, he was bound to notice he had a stalker. Maybe he already had and was biding his time to have him arrested, but strangely enough, that didn't scare John. After the first initial shock of finding there was some truth to The Dream, that it was actually anchored to the real world, John was finding some purpose in trying to solve it. There was a thrill to searching and finding the mysterious street, then following this police inspector around, which made him feel more alive than he'd been since… since Afghanistan. He didn't feel as crippled and useless as before, and he knew that was why he was running around London after the pieces of his impossible dream. He couldn't tell anyone though, least of all his therapist, who would have him locked up in a mental facility if she caught wind of it. But John had made his peace with the situation. Weird, crazy, occult, supernatural… he would take it all and run with it. Run until he found The Man.

John watched from a distance when Lestrade finally stumbled out of a pub, looking miserable after he stashed his phone in his pocket. Maybe the Scotland Yard inspector wasn't all that observant after all, not now anyway, not given how pissed he was.

Feeling bold after a week of utter failure in making any sort of progress in the investigation of his Dream, John hurried forward and accidentally 'bumped' into the silver-haired detective who staggered to the left a couple of steps before John caught him by the arm and steadied him. He was a lot more tipsy than John had counted on.

"Hey, thanks mate," Lestrade slurred with a chuckle, then proceeded to lean against him like the tower of Pisa. "Guess I'd better take a cab. Not sure where I left the car anyway."

John smiled back. The inspector looked like a nice guy and just drunk enough to be talkative, yet not enough to be mopey and spout nothing but nonsense.

"I was just leaving too, mind if we share?" John asked as he hailed a passing cab.

"Sure, M'not going far anyway. I'll sleep at the office," he said, his speech only slightly impaired when he gave the address to the cabbie. "Don't really fancy catching my wife screwing the PE teacher again."

John winced in sympathy. Poor guy.

"Why not go to a friend's place? Surely a sofa would be more comfortable than your office?"

Lestrade frowned and John could just see him rattling off a very short list of people he'd consider friends.

"Nope," he answered. "I'll just pull two chairs together. Won't be the first time."

John really pitied the guy. He seemed nice enough but had to deal with a demanding job, a cheating wife and a serious lack of friends. Not that John's life was better by any stretch of the imagination with his lack of employment and friends, his phantom limp and occasional tremor, as well as the strange Dream that visited him every night.

"Here's my stop," Lestrade announced jovially, patting down his pockets in search of his wallet.

"Leave it, it's on me," John said amicably, waving him off as the inspector stumbled out of the cab. He'd gotten some information out of the poor man after all. The least he could do was offer him the short cab ride. John sighed when the cab rolled away. It appeared The Man was not a friend, or at least not a close friend of the inspector, so he really had no reason to be in possession of his police badge.

John woke up in a bad mood. He was no closer to discovering who The Man was and he just kept dying messily at his feet every night as if to spite him. When no other clues were forthcoming, John had tried touching The Man, yelling at him, demanding his name over and over again… but it was useless.

The Dream was starting to take a toll on John, too. It hadn't been so bad at first. Just a swirl of colours and vague images. Then, they turned into the man running through the street, which was weird but okay, why not. Now, though, watching him die, over and over again every night… it was depressing.

But would he rather have nightmares of Afghanistan, of the soldiers blown up into pieces when they stepped in just the wrong spot, of his friends dying in his arms while he tried patching them up under heavy fire, of the searing pain he felt when he was shot himself and thought he was going to die under the hot sun…

John couldn't make up his mind: which was worse? Watching your friends die knowing there was nothing you could do to help them? Or watch a stranger die, knowing you might be able to stop it? It felt like Sophie's choice, except the people on the one hand were already long dead, and the person on the other hand might not even exist...

Then, John remembered Alec, in the hospital bed next to his: the hollow-eyed soldier who was too afraid of his own nightmares to sleep. No, The Dream was still a much better alternative.

John had become a regular at Gail's Bakery. He would go there at five o'clock for a snack, then walk around the corner just before five thirty rolled around, hoping and fearing at the same time to see his Dream come true. Because what would happen if his dream did come true and he couldn't save The Man? John knew he'd feel guilty for the rest of his life if that ever came to pass. And then what? Would he start having "regular" nightmares? And he had no doubt what those nightmares would be about: the war and failing to save The Man... He'd be no better off than Alec.

But what if he did save The Man?

John finished his blueberry muffin, licked his fingers clean of sugar, then absent-mindedly raised his coat's collar against the light drizzle that had began to fall.

Probably nothing. He would save The Man and then life would go on, and the nightmares would begin. He'd just have to live with them and the satisfaction of having saved at least one person.

John was suddenly startled out of his thoughts by an angry shout down the street. He scanned the crowd, his heartbeat accelerating like crazy, a rush of adrenalin pumping through his veins when he saw a bike cut in front of bus 11 which honked in reprimand. John hurried forward, hearing more dismayed shouts from the crowd further ahead. Close, he was close, so close.

And there he was, The Man. Standing tall as he scanned the people around him. John's whole body felt electrified at the sight of him, but he knew that any second now, The Man would spin around and… John leapt into action. He could just make out the outline of the small stranger with the knife sneaking out of the shadows, but John was running right at him at full speed. As a result, The Man did not turn around like he did in his Dream, too surprised to see a stranger barreling towards him for no apparent reason. Or so he must have thought. But John dived to his left and collided into the smaller body of the cutthroat who had raised his arm, apparently content with stabbing his foe in the back. A coward on top of a murderer.

But not anymore. John pinned him down with ease, punching him in the nose hard enough to make him drop his blade on the pavement where it clattered ominously. It looked just as wickedly sharp and lethal in reality as it did in the Dream.

Satisfied the cutthroat was subdued for now, having maybe hit him a bit harder than necessary, John picked himself up and kicked the knife aside before dusting off his trousers, when he belatedly noticed he hadn't entirely managed to miss the blade. There was a long gash across his left forearm that had sliced right through both his coat and his favourite oatmeal coloured jumper, grazing the skin underneath just enough for beads of blood to appear. Annoyed, John kicked the unconscious man in the stomach for good measure and was somewhat mollified when he groaned in pain, curling in on himself.

A blueish handkerchief appeared in his line of sight and he looked up to see The Man staring at him with an amused expression.

John froze. He'd never thought he'd actually meet The Man, let alone have to talk to him. What was he supposed to say, anyway? Nothing, he decided, and grabbed the proffered handkerchief, dabbing at the blood before deciding to just tie it tightly around his forearm and making a knot. Luckily, it wouldn't even need a band aid by the looks of it and would be scab over by the time he got home.

The Man said nothing, not even a thank you, not that John wanted one, but it struck him as strange. Most anyone would think to thank the person who'd just saved them from a knife-wielding maniac, but maybe it was shock. Instead, the strange man turned to look at the cutthroat and John felt this was as good a time as any to slip off before someone started asking too many questions. John wasn't all that good a liar, and the police were closing in by the sound of the approaching sirens.

It was only when John was on the bus, halfway home, that he realized he'd lost his cane along the way. He couldn't even remember when he'd let go of it, but guessed it must have been when he'd started running. Running! John smiled like a kid on christmas morning. What did it matter now, anyway? He didn't need his bloody cane. His leg didn't hurt anymore.