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Hen couldn't sleep. She had tried, god had she tried, but she couldn't. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the lab, saw Karen unconscious on the sidewalk, remembered the drive. Saw the moments where she didn't know, where Denny and Karen weren't okay, weren't in her arms. She saw Karen bleeding out and bruised up, laying on the gurney. Saw her in the hospital, pale and unconscious. Felt Denny launching himself into her arms, the moment of relief before she realised Karen wasn’t with him, wasn’t there, wasn’t safe.
Hen couldn't sleep, so she was pacing. Walking in circles in the living room, she could see Karen's set-up on the couch and it. It maybe wasn't helping. Because she just kept remembering, kept feeling, kept reliving it. Reliving it and wondering, not really by choice, but wondering nonetheless what could've gone differently. What else could have gone wrong.
Her brain painted pictures of Karen, dead, closer to the explosion. Karen making it out just to die on the way to the hospital, just to die on the sidewalk, just to die in her arms. Denny, not making it out at all. Denny, who was soundly sleeping in his room next door, bloody and broken and dead. She would try to sleep and be woken from dreams so gruesome she felt sick, would check to make sure Karen was breathing, and peek in on Denny to make sure he was still safe in bed.
For fucks sake, Karen was supposed to have the safe job! It was supposed to be Hen in danger, Hen in trouble, Hen getting hurt and healing being okay and having Karen to take care of her. It wasn't supposed to be this way, Karen in an explosion, Denny in an explosion. Hurt, and healing. It was supposed to be her.
So yeah, Hen couldn't sleep. Hadn't slept. It was almost worse than when she was studying for her exam and interim captain at the station at the same time. Probably because of the emotional toll, but still. She felt like she was going crazy. She couldn't lay in that bed beside Karen for a second longer. Every night she tried and every night she inevitably ended up here, wearing a hole in the living room floor for a couple of hours and then returning to bed before Karen woke up. She had been lucky so far, in that her wife hadn't really noticed. That could probably be attributed to the painkillers and other pills she was taking, making her sleep heavy and restful.
It had, however, been weeks since the accident. Hen looked sleep deprived, and was starting to act a fair bit sleep-deprived too. Karen might not have noticed her midnight marathons yet, but her luck had to end at some point. It would seem as if today was the day it would all come crashing down.
Hen made her turn at the end of the room, went to start walking back the other way again, and in the doorway stood Karen. Beautiful, banged up, eyes full of sleep and pyjamas rumpled.
"Hen? What're you doing?"
“Just… Just couldn’t sleep, figured I’d stretch my legs.”
“Seems like you’ve been doing a lot of that lately,” said Karen, limping a bit further into the room. “This is the third night this week I’ve woken up to an empty bed.”
She hadn’t realised that Karen had noticed her leaving. By the time she dragged herself back to bed, her wife was always sound asleep.
“Well, it’s… Yeah. Yeah, a bit. Been having trouble sleeping and staying asleep, is all.” Hen stepped over to where Karen was making her way toward her and offered her arm for some stability. Karen grabbed on gently and turned to look her in the eye.
“I’m okay, Hen. I’m safe. Denny is safe. You and your team got us out of there.” She pulled Hen’s hand to her lips and gave it a gentle kiss. “Come to bed, baby. Get some rest. Please.”
Hen looked at her, looked at her beautiful, beautiful wife, begging her to come back to bed. Safe and alive. Hen looked at Karen, and her face was gaunt from lack of sleep, she had bags under her eyes, deep and dark, and she probably looked more like the injured one than Karen did. Hen looked at Karen and knew that despite all that, her expression was still dripping, absolutely coated with love.
Her lips curled up into a small smile, and she pressed a kiss to Karen’s forehead. “Okay. Okay,” she breathed, starting to head back to their room. “Let's go to bed.”
She woke up a couple of hours later, morning sun streaming through the curtains, fingers entwined with Karen’s, feeling more rested than she had in a long, long while.