Author's Notes:

I absolutely adore these two characters. This is a short little blurb into their universe... Hope you enjoy it.

Pen2page

I've never seen her fall asleep willingly.

She slept best when she was physically exhausted. I watched her go for days until finally she crashed blissfully for a day and a half.

When I made her sleep I could tell quickly that it was just surface sleep. Just enough to rest her body so that she could be her best for the mission at hand. It was a bit impressive how well she operated on just an hour of sleep.

Yet having watched her not sleep, not really sleep, for two years was finally getting to me. I knew she had demons. Hell, I could tell that when I had an arrow pointed at her throat. That was one of the reasons I had decided not to let that arrow go…

She had a haunted look in her eyes that I've only seen when she was about to crash. Yet, it was a look I knew. A look I use to see in my own eyes after my father killed himself and my mother in that car accident. After my brother sold me out… after a tour of duty…

She had reasons to have that haunted look. Everything that shouldn't happen to a child happened to her and even though she was a cool, composed weapon… she was still human. I think she regretted that the most about herself… that she was human. That she couldn't control everything about herself no matter how much she tried.

I was openly staring at her as she shifted in the small cot. We were in some no name town in the middle of South Africa and extraction was a good fourteen hours away. The mission had been rough. White bandages poked out from under her thin sheet, one on her forehead, a few down her arms and a large one on her leg I had a hard time stopping the blood flow but I had gotten good at patching her up over the years just as she did me.

Sweat was starting to bead on her forehead and her fingers gripped at the cot, her knuckles starting to turn a bit white. I reached out without thinking, knowing full well she could wake from her dream and snap my neck. I just wanted her to sleep…

She deserved sleep. She was helping to save thousands around the world and she never would let herself believe it… all she saw was her dripping ledger.

My calloused fingers closed around her small ones and my other arm wrapped around her shoulders pulling her towards me as I kneeled before her cot. She was cold and I placed my chin on her thick head of red curls.

"Shh… Tash… sleep. Shh…" I breathed quietly in her ear and she started to shake a bit. I felt at any moment she might throw up or pull that knife from under her pillow and stab it in my neck. Both options weren't the best but as I said… I couldn't take it anymore. I had to save her. She was my partner. My best friend.

Without thinking I started to sing a Russian lullaby she had taught me a year ago. I sang it poorly and probably butchered it but I sang it anyway. Her shaking slowly stopped and her fingers clutched suddenly back at mine. I pulled away to look into heavy lidded green eyes and I had the decency to blush a bit… I was draped across her after all.

"Sing it again?" She suddenly asked quietly and I could only stare at her a bit stunned as she moved over, her hand pulling me onto the cot with her. It took a moment but she pulled her blanket over me, her legs intertwining with mine as her hand grabbed a fistful of my shirt, her head snuggling into the crook of my neck.

I sang it softly, slowly into her ear as my fingers ran up her spine. I could tell she was smiling into my neck but I didn't care. Her body was relaxed and her breathing was evening out.

"My Friend," she breathed into my neck in Russian and I instinctively pulled her closer.

"Forever Tash… now sleep," I whispered gently placing a kiss on her head and it wouldn't be until later that I realized I'd broken down our last wall. That I was the one person she wasn't afraid of… that she believed wouldn't abandon her and she was right. I never would. She owned me and I was ok with that.

I'd tell her much later that when she called me her friend it was the most meaningful thing anyone had ever told me… and she would tell me it was the first time she had ever had one… I was a lot of firsts for her…

Of all her firsts I had given her, I am still most proud to say I'd given her her first relaxed night of sleep.