"It's very late. Not even the late-night songbirds are out."

Robin could only murmur something in response. He wasn't blind. He could see how dark it was outside, his head lying on his desk as he stared out the window.

"Do you think we should stop for the night?" Sumia said behind him.

"No..." Robin said, his voice muffled by the wood. "Almost... done..."

"Okay," Sumia said. From her tone, he could tell she didn't believe him, but she didn't argue.

Chrom would have snatched his journal away from him and walked out the door, Lissa wouldn't stop pestering him until he bent to her will, but Sumia, she wouldn't go against his word. That, he decided, was what her best quality was.

With great effort, he tore his face from the table. He blinked, trying to keep his focus on the notes scrawled in front of him. It wasn't easy, given how blurry his vision was. He forced himself to look closer, though. Maybe if he put his face closer to the paper, he could see past the fog over his eyes.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder and pulled him back. Something jostled in his head, and a dull throb came from inside his skull. He scowled, angry that someone had dragged him away from his work, and when he turned around, he met Sumia's soft gaze with a glare.

"You look awful," she said.

He felt awful. He was already suffering enough without having her interrupting him.

"I'm fine," he said, and he batted her hand off his shoulder. "We don't have time to take a break."

"It's only for a moment. I just wanted to know how much sleep did you get last night?"

Robin closed his eyes. It hurt just to think, but he tried to remember that trivial fact.

"An hour? Maybe two?" he said. "Look, can't you get back to work?"

"An hour? What were you thinking, staying up so late?"

"I was thinking about reassigning guard patrols. Something that I'll do to you if you don't stop."

"You know, as our tactician, we need you to be able to think straight, and if you keep denying yourself sleep, you won't be able to do that."

Robin let out a dry chuckle. Or, at least he thought he did. "It doesn't matter. Chrom hasn't had me do anything for a year. All I do is sit around and manage inventory, so I think I'll be fine. It's not like I have anything important to do."

"Well, he has you doing something now, right?"

Robin stopped. That... that was true. She had him there.

"Well, it's too late to catch up on sleep now," he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. "This case isn't going to solve itself."

"Robin, I don't want to alarm you, but you've spent the last hour scribbling nonsense in your journal."

Robin rubbed his eyes and took another look at his journal. The letters were still a blurry mess. When he looked at Sumia, though, he could still see every detail of her worried frown in the candlelight, the dim orange glow tinting her cheeks.

"So, you're saying these aren't words?" he said, pointing to his writing.

"It's not any language I can understand."

"You don't even know any other languages."

"No. But you don't either!"

...

He must be even more tired than he thought. She'd pushed him into a corner twice now. He was disappointed in himself, more than anything.

Robin shook his head, and he hissed in anger, striking ink over all his notes. "I'll just go over it again."

"Robin. Please." A gentle hand fell on his own, like a feather landing on his fingers. Robin glanced up at Sumia, who frowned at him.

"I just want... It feels so weird seeing you like this. What happened to the brilliant tactician who pulled us through the war against Plegia?"

"I am that tactician."

"You don't look like it." Sumia brushed a hand over his head, and it was then he realized how disheveled his hair was.

When was the last time I washed my hair? he thought. Or cleaned myself at all, for that matter.

With a huff, he shook the thoughts out of his head.

"Well, there's still a lot of work to be done," Robin said. "If I go to sleep, nothing is going to get done until the morning."

Sumia tapped his head. "I can work on it. We're partners, remember?"

"I... well, I suppose a few more hours of sleep couldn't hurt."

The chair scraped against the floor as Robin got to his feet. He stumbled over to his bed, almost tripping over a loose floorboard, before his shaky legs finally gave out, and he collapsed face-first into the sheets.

With a groan, he rolled himself over and closed his eyes. The soft sheets beneath him sagged under his weight. Slowly, they started to pull him deeper under, threatening to completely engulf him in blissful warmth. The only problem was that, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't fall asleep.

After a few minutes of tossing and turning, Robin groaned. "Sumia, this is pointless!"

He tried to get out of bed, but a soft touch pressed him back down. He didn't need to open his eyes to know who it was.

"You need this. Don't try to fight it."

Robin sighed. "That's a lot easier said than done, you realize?"

"I know, but..."

Sumia trailed off. A few seconds later, her fingers left him. He heard her footsteps move away from him, and he frowned in confusion. The only things he had in his room were his bed, his desk, and his bookshelf, so there weren't that many places she could go. What could she be trying to do?

"You read fiction too?" she said finally.

"Huh? On occasion."

For a moment, Sumia went silent. Then her footsteps approach him again, and the mattress shifted beneath him.

"Do you think a story would help?" she said.

"Possibly." It couldn't hurt to try, anyway.

A paper rustling reached his ear as she turned the pages. When she stopped, she cleared her throat. His mattress shifted some more. Then she started to read.

"Once upon a time..."

Sumia awoke to the sunlight pouring in through the window, and to the sound of birdsong. As she slowly opened her eyes, she became aware of the soft cushioning beneath her. She didn't remember going to her bed, though. She opened her mouth in a yawn, but as she stretched her limbs awake, she felt something move beneath her.

Sumia shot up, eyes wide. She glanced down. Robin glanced back. Neither of them seemed to know what to say.

"Sumia... heavy..."

Or, at least she didn't. Now, her answer was a little more clear-cut.

With a yelp, Sumia tumbled off the bed, the graceful pegasus knight that she was. She face-planted into the wooden floorboards, only to jump to her feet a second later.

"You–me–sleeping together!" she sputtered out, her face getting redder by the second.

"Forget that!" Robin said. "Why do you have armor on you?"

Sumia glanced down. She was wearing normal-looking clothes, but beneath them, she also wore a select few pieces of armor.

"Well, you see..." Sumia tried to take a step back, but her foot pried a loose floorboard from the ground. The world spun around her, and in a metallic crash, she found herself staring up at the ceiling.

"Oh. That's why." Then he frowned. "Why were you sleeping on top of me, anyway? I thought you said you were going to work on the case."

"I was! I must have dozed off while reading that book to you."

Robin sighed, slumping back into his bed. "That's several hours wasted. Who knows how much we missed overnight."

"I'll leave," she said, picking herself off the floor. "The animals need their breakfast, after all."

"That would be nice," Robin said. "I need a moment to get ready for the day."

"You need to wash up, too. You look like a mess."

"Huh? Oh, that too."

She dusted herself off, then slipped through the door. It clicked shut with a click, and when she turned around, she saw Gaius leaning against the wall, a smug smile on his face.

"You and Bubbles, huh? That explains a lot."

"Huh? Explains what?"

"Why you two can keep stepping over each other's toes and still be able to stand in the same room. No one would want to do that without some sort of special connection."

"The only connection we have is because Chrom forced us to work together."

Gauis gave a pause. "That does sound like something Blue would do," he said after a moment of consideration. Then his grin took on a malicious edge. "But where's the fun in that?"

"It's the truth!"

"Come on, don't play dumb. Two of you went in there, and we don't see either of you until morning. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a baby someone in our near future."

Gaius's words put the image into her mind, and her face heated up just thinking about it. "What? No, nothing like that happened!"

"Relax, Stumbles. I won't tell a soul," Gaius said with a wink.

Sumia just wanted to curl up into a hole. She settled for turning around and running away as fast as she could before she could get any more embarrassed.

Me and Robin? she thought, clutching her head. That's never going to happen. I'm in love with Chrom!

Then again, was that even possible? Outside of whenever pies were involved, she had never held a conversation with Chrom.

"Hey, Princess! You'll never guess what's been going on between our favorite tactician and stable girl!"

Gaius's voice rang through the halls, stopping Sumia in her tracks. She spun around, and sure enough, there was Gaius down the hall, waving Lissa toward him.

She should have known better than to trust him. If she was more confident, maybe she could have stopped him there. But she didn't.

Instead, she turned back around and got out of there as fast as she could. Maybe if she didn't pay attention to it, maybe if she pretended that it wasn't there, it would be gone by lunch.

Of course, there was always the possibility that it would still be there. If it was, Robin could find a way to get rid of it. He always knew the best ways to solve problems.

"I thought I'd find you here," Robin said, pushing aside the stable door.

Sumia jumped, and she spun around, nearly hitting him with the handle of her broom. When she saw it was him, she relaxed.

"Expecting someone?"

"No. My mind's just a little jumbled from something I heard today."

"Really?" Robin quirked an eyebrow. "Anything important?"

"Just some rumors about the Shepherds. Nothing that's true. So, can we leave now?"

"Leave?"

"Yeah. We need to investigate the Red Herrings' hideout, right?"

Robin hummed. "Gaius said that it couldn't have been the Red Herrings since they can't use dark magic. It's the only lead we have, though, so I suppose we should check it out."

"Great!"

Sumia's broom hit the straw spread over the floor, and she grabbed his hand. Before he could react, she dragged him out the stable and across the castle's courtyard.

This took him by surprise. Sumia wasn't normally this hurried.

"What's with the rush?" he said, throwing out an arm to avoid stumbling over the cobblestone.

"Remember the rumors I mentioned? They're about me."

"I see." Robin laughed. Had this flustered side of her always been there? "Want me to dispel them for you?"

"If they don't die down by lunch. We're going to have to do a lot if we want to make up for the time we lost last night."

This chapter just felt weird to write, especially the latter part, but I can't figure out for the life of me why that is, and it's frustrating the heck out of me.

Plot is going to the bench for a bit so I can have Robin and Sumia interact and develop. Don't worry, more plot things will happen in the next chapter.