Apple startled awake to the heavy thud of her own heart. Trying to place the reason for her anxiety, she peered around the room when the stark, white flash of lightning washed over her possessions.
She clamored and pulled her knees to her chest, then worried over a lock of her hair, twisting it between her fingers. She sat this way for a while, until the safety of her bed felt lonely and the space around her, cold.
Hesitantly, Apple placed her feet on the carpet, deterred twice by the booms of thunder that beat against her stained glass window, but she eventually got herself to walk across the room to the foot of her girlfriend's bed.
Raven, with her dark hair spilling over her pillow and her face sweetly resting, roused awake almost immediately. She looked up past heavy-lidded eyes and wiped the back of her hand across her face. "Apple?" Noticing the rain pattering against her window, a look of understanding came over her face. "Ah, come here," she told her, throwing back a corner of her sheets.
Apple crawled into the bed and settled against Raven, warm. "I'm sorry for waking you," she mumbled into Raven's nightdress.
Raven made soft hushing sounds before stroking the hair away from Apple's face with mindless fingers. Then she began to hum a melody, something so eerie that Apple wondered if it was a song Raven's mother used to sing to her as a child. Regardless, whenever Raven hummed it to herself around the dorm, Apple could see the tranquility that it brought her. It really was a beautiful, little melody, especially coming from Raven, she thought with a smile, and drifted to sleep in her girlfriend's arms.
