2: Insomniac: One
Dodo can't sleep, and goes to Steven. He can't really tell her no. (Dodo/Steven)
This whole mess they've gone through today is like any other: plans to have a nice, relaxing trip for once, and then the three of them are all involved in some scandal, political concern, or world war, and then they're heroes by the end of the day.
After several attempts on their lives, and someone being held at gunpoint, of course.
Now that today's escapade is over, Steven has a new respect for those western movies that used to be so popular. They're not as easy as the shows make it look. His room is relatively small in the TARDIS, with a sort of top-of-the-bunk-bed high up against the wall, a little desk crammed underneath where a lower bunk should be. He climbs the ladder up to the rather large bed, and folds back the several thick blankets that he's layered together—the air conditioning has gone haywire and left the TARDIS in what seems like the middle of winter—to climb in. The bed is almost too large for him to have all to himself, and he stretches lazily across it, tapping the wall with one finger to turn the light off.
Comfortable, he closes his eyes and sleeps.
On the contrary, she doesn't.
In her own room, which could be in a variety of relations of space to his, depending on whether the TARDIS has been bored recently, or has decided to change hallways on her on an absolute whim, she wakes up in a tangle of unshed tears, a mess of blankets, and a vague whisper of dreams that have pushed her to absolute terror.
Dorothea sits up sharply, and blinks back the tears that didn't fall, sniffing and untangling herself from the thick blankets and shivering as she remembers the feel of the gun against her head. She shouldn't be afraid, but she could feel the tension in his grip as he held her there, and knew that he really would shoot if he'd wanted to.
She doesn't like the Wild West anymore, really. There's no clock in her room—most likely because the TARDIS is in the middle of a time vortex, and what is time to them when they're here in between dimensions?—but she feels like it's far too early in the morning, and that she hasn't slept for very long. She knows she won't sleep for awhile now.
So she gets up and goes exploring.
"Steven?"
It's a hushed whisper as she tugs on the blankets wrapped around him, having found his room some halls away after around an hour and a half of desperate searching (the TARDIS hadn't moved her room this time, but she had moved his).
She stands on her tiptoes, trying to reach up to the loft that his spacious, almost circular bed is on, and he snorts and stirs lazily, tugging the blankets back out of her grip.
"Whazzit?"
Dorothea sniffs and steps onto the top rung, peering over the edge of the bed in the darkness. She almost laughs, because his near-impeccable hair is mussed with sleep. He raises a hand to rub his eyes, and gazes at the ceiling. She bites her lip for a minute, and then scrambles up the ladder before he can protest, peeling back the sheets and sliding in beside him.
"What are you doing?" he asks, and she shuts her eyes tight, snuggling up next to him.
"I don't want to be alone."
Steven sighs, and readjusts the blankets, tucking them around her and folding his arm over her body underneath the warm layers. She's cold from her wanderings to get here, but she's shivering for a complete different reason. He holds her close.
"You'll never be alone, Dodo," he tells her. "Dorothea. I'll be right here if you need me."
She smiles, nodding against his chest.
"Okay."
(Note: This is one of my newer ships, and so I felt like I should write something about it. Another note that the whole forcing-herself-into-his-bed (the way I see it, at least), was less of an "I'm scared" and more of a "You can't stop me I do what I want" gesture. And maybe the nightmares were a new thing for her, and maybe they weren't. I just know that when I was freaked out as a kid, it was always better to go and find someone, I guess.)
