For the first twenty-four hours that John had slipped back into their lives, he spent twenty-three of them sleeping. She wasn't complaining, exactly—with each passing year that had gone by, Kelly had grown more and more doubtful that a reunion of any sort would happen at all. But still. She'd been picturing something a little more… lively than this whenever hoping that he'd return home someday. He didn't even move as she watched him sleep, and she had to keep herself from poking him to reassure herself that he was still breathing.
And she couldn't deny that he needed the rest, either. They'd found him nodding off standing next to Hood and Lasky, chin tucked into the collar of his armour. The bunk she and Linda had helped him into was a lot more comfortable than joint-locked Mjolnir, and he'd been asleep before they'd gotten him fully horizontal.
"Seventy-two hours, Chief," Lasky had told them. "I think we can grant you that before we brief you on Blue Team's next assignment."
Meaning that they all only had about forty-nine hours to catch up on everything that has happened since John had left Blue Team, and that was if he woke this very moment. She wasn't sure a week would be enough time.
"He won't disappear," Fred said behind her, pulling her out her own thoughts and back into the present. Her vision had gone a little cross-eyed, and John's blurry face came back into focus. The sudden clarity of his features gave her a stark reminder of how old and broken he looked, even with his face smoothed out in sleep, and she was suddenly grateful Fred had given her an excuse to look away. She turned, slipping up from the lone chair in Blue Team's quarters, and mimicked Fred's tired smile.
"I know," she replied. The but at the end of her sentence was silent, but Fred seemed to hear it well enough.
"Maybe you should get some sleep yourself," he suggested, giving her a worried once-over. "Don't want to be asleep when he finally wakes up."
"Whenever that is." She dared to look back at John. Just as the lieutenant had assured her, he was indeed still there, immediate and unreachable all at once. "But it's hard to sleep when he's taking up all the space in my bunk. And…." She shrugged, letting her sentence trail off and idly swiping at her hair.
Fred nodded. "I know. It's a bit of a shock." He sat down on his own bed, situated opposite to hers. "But you can use this one if you like," he offered, patting the mattress. "I don't mind."
"Then where are you going to sleep?" They'd put in a request for an additional bed for Blue Team's quarters, but she doubted that would arrive any time soon.
He shrugged, a smile playing on his face. "I'll figure something out. There's more than enough beds in Spartan Town to go around."
A tempting offer. She was achingly tired herself, but it would seem wrong if all of Blue Team weren't in the same quarters when they'd just been reunited. "No, it's okay. I'll just… squeeze in beside him."
"Make sure you don't kick him in your sleep."
She made a face at him. "At least I don't snore."
Fred's long nose scrunched in indignation. "I don't—"
"Yes, you do," Linda said from the doorway, slipping silently into their quarters and shaking her head. "Really loudly. Every night."
Indignation turned to worry on his face, and Fred passed a look between Kelly and Linda. "It's not that bad, is it?"
"Horrible." Linda ducked past them both and made a beeline for her own bunk. "But we know how to work around sleep deprivation, Lieutenant."
Kelly saw Fred's frown deepen, and she gave Linda admonishing look, who shrugged in return. She bent over and tapped the bend in his nose, an echo of a harsh break that had cursed him—cursed them all—with his snoring. "I think it's cute," she said, and he ducked away from her fingers with a scoff. The teasing had eased the anxiety from his face, though, and she sat back down in the chair.
The room fell quiet after that, and their gazes all seemed to be pulled back to John. Despite their talking, he was still deeply asleep. The anxious frown she remember so often creasing his brow was gone for once, and she marvelled at how he could look so young and so old at the same time. She knew that he'd spent most of his time away in cryo, and yet he looked more ancient than all of them. Fred had gotten greyer, the lines around Linda's eyes cut deeper, and Kelly would wake up with an ache in knees some mornings, and still John looked like he'd aged ten years in the span of the few months that he'd actually been active.
"Maybe—" she started, breaking the silence. Eyes snapped to her. "Maybe we should put a request in for some time off."
Linda raised a brow. "Where would we go?"
Kelly shrugged. "I don't know. Reach is gone—"
She saw Fred flinch hard at that, and she gave him a sad smile. "But I think a bit of time off, even a week, would do us all some good. We could stay on Infinity and just… relax a while. Check up on Tom and Lucy, on the Ferrets and Lopis, on Naomi, on Halsey—wherever she is."
Neither Fred nor Linda responded, but she saw them mulling it over. With John back, she suddenly felt an urge to draw them all close and make sure the rest of their shrinking family was still alive and in relatively good condition.
"Besides," she said, forcing a smile to lighten the mood she'd brought on with her reminiscing. "I want to see the look on the Captain's face when he gets the first ever request for leave time from a Spartan-II."
Fred took her cue and let out a quiet laugh, and she saw Linda's mouth twitch. Grateful for the break in tension, Kelly let the subject drop. She knew they'd both consider their options carefully, so she'd wait till breakfast tomorrow to broach it again.
Fred opened his mouth to say something when he froze and looked back at Kelly's bunk. She turned in the chair and saw John's eyes open, a fierce blue against his pale skin. Long auburn lashes brushed his cheeks as he looked around the room, and Kelly saw the moment he fully registered his surroundings. A smile pulled at his lips as his eyes fell to her, and she happily returned the expression.
"Morning," he said, voice husky from sleep.
"Evening," she replied. Surprise passed over his face, and he sat up on an elbow.
"How long did I sleep?" He rubbed a hand across his chin, making the scruff he hadn't yet shaved off bristle from the contact. He still looked like a mess, which worried her more than she was currently willing to deal with, but at least he wasn't falling over exhausted any longer. The harsh dark bruising under his eyes had receded, too, making him look a little more like his old self.
"About twenty-three hours," she told him.
"And thirty-six minutes, twelve seconds," Fred teased, and she leaned over to flick his bicep.
"I wasn't counting," she argued. He shrugged in a whatever you say kind of way and kicked his feet up, lying down in his bunk.
"You needed it," Linda assured him, and John looked over his shoulder at her. "And we aren't going anywhere for a day or two yet."
He nodded, sitting up and then pressing a palm to his temple, wincing. "Head hurts," he muttered. "I don't like sleeping that long."
"Go get cleaned up." Kelly stood up and grabbed up the clean towel resting on her foot locker, handing it to him. "You're all scruffy, and the hot water will help."
"She just wants you to get up so she can have her bunk back," Fred said, not looking up from the datapad he'd opened in his hand.
She gave him a dirty look. "Don't you have paperwork to do, Lieutenant?"
He raised a brow and waved the datapad at her. Kelly sighed.
John scrunched the towel in his hands and frowned. "No, Fred's right. You should sleep. I've had more than enough," he added, smiling faintly.
She looked back to the bed. It would still be warm from John's body heat, and she was tired….
"Okay," she conceded. "Just… don't do anything fun without me."
That got a full smile out of John. "Promise," he said, then nodded to the bunk. "Now sleep."
"Already giving orders," she lamented with a shake of her head as she slipped under the toasty warm covers, her eyes already drooping. "It's like nothing has changed."
He blew out an amused breath as he headed to the shower, but she was asleep before he made it to the door.
AN: I'm absolutely shamelessly using the Fred-having-a-broken-nose-and-now-snores headcanon from greenleafCM's fic, Need Some Sleep.