Extra Notes: this was originally Navrina, but I changed it to Nine/Marina half way through because I thought it fit more. This was supposed to be up a lot earlier, but writer's block and home school are bitches when at best.

Nine is the one to crawl into her bed.

When he enters the room, Marina doesn't even notice. Her back is to the door, her brown hair pulled across her shoulder in a braid (it's grown quite a bit since they've met), and her legs, long and tan and almost completely bare, are tangled in her blankets. The apartment that they bought in Long Island isn't half as high class as their old HQ, so the beds are, well, little more than glorified futons, really.

He's sure she's asleep, so he tiptoes across the room and climbs onto the bed (he doesn't want anything from her, really. He just wants her by his side - it will make him feel safer). When she turns around, braid whipping the pillow and loose strands of hair falling across her face, Nine very nearly tumbles off the bed in his attempt to hide.

"Nine?" she whispers.

Nine peeks over the pillow he's grabbed (it was the first thing he could get his hands on to hide his face), and smiles sheepishly. "Hi, Marina," he says.

"What are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"No," he squeaks. "I, well...I'm..." He coughs, and mumbles something that she doesn't quite catch.

"Scuse me?" she asks.

"Well you see, I..." he breaks off and starts mumbling again.

"Nine, you seriously need to speak louder. What's up?"

"I'm scared of the dark, okay!" he snaps, maybe being a bit louder than she wanted him to be.

Marina blinks at him. "Repeat that again?"

"How did you not hear me the first time?" he asks. "I'm scared of the dark!"

"Oh, no. I heard you perfectly fine the first time," she replies. "I just wanted to make sure what I was hearing was real."

"I'm being serious!" he whisper shouts. "I can't sleep, because it's a new moon. The moon usually shines in through the window."

Marina raises a brow, and turns her body to face him completely. The room's temperature drops a few degrees. "So you snuck into my bed because it's a new moon today and you're scared of the dark?"

"Well it certainly sounds stupid when you say it like that," he drawls.

She purses her lips and rolls her eyes. "Isn't there another room you can go to?"

The whole roommate system was arranged so that Six and Ella, John and Sarah, Sam, Adam and Malcolme all share rooms together, while Marina sleeps alone in the last one (Nine sometimes finds himself thinking about how, if it weren't for him, she would have a roommate). Nine was left with the couch.

Another sheepish smile. "Well, I don't want to disturb John and Sarah - I seriously have no idea what goes on in that room - Sam, Malcolme and Adam already have as little space as it it, and I'm not very sure that there's much of a welcome mat for me in Six and Ella's room, because, well, Six hates me. So...umm...yeah."

The way she looks at him, for a moment, makes him absolutely positive that she's about to tell him to get the hell out. Marina isn't half as nice as she was before (Eight's death has hardened her, and not only physically), so he actually wouldn't be surprised.

"Just...don't take up the bed space, and don't kick," she replies. She turns away and scoots up to the edge of the bed, leaving the blanket behind with Nine.

Nine huddles up in the blanket (all of the windows are open in her room and it's seriously cold as fuck), and closes his eyes. It's silent for a few minutes, but for the howling of the wind and the soft sound of Marina's breathing, and Nine really does try to sleep.

"Nine," Marina says, voice as soft and cold as snow. "Are you still awake?"

"Yes," he replies, opening his eyes. What does she want? Has she changed her mind?

It's silent again, and Nine waits for her answer. Just when he is about to close his eyes and assume that she doesn't plan to give him one, the bed shifts as she turns her body to face him again.

"Throw me half of the blanket," she tells him, hugging herself. "I'm cold."

The fact that she's cold actually surprises Nine. He'd thought that, because of her legacy, she can't get cold.

He fists the edge of the blanket and tosses it in her direction, she grabs it, tugging it towards herself and turning back around. The blanket slides off Nine's body. Frowning, Nine takes the blanket and tugs it towards himself. He didn't bring his own blanket - he didn't think it would be so cold in her room - and he's too scared to go back out into the dark to get it. (As far as you're concerned, he did not just think that).

The blanket slides off of her.

Marina's head snaps around, and she purses her lips. "Nine."

Nine sighs. This is exactly what he was trying to avoid. "Just..." He coughs, and mutters something.

"Nine, you're doing it again."

"Just move a little towards me," he whispers. He remembers sleeping with someone else - a girl with warm skin and a warm room. He sets his jaw. "So we can share the blanket."

She rolls around to face him, and Nine can clearly see her face as she slides under the sheets. Maybe it's in that exact moment that he realizes how pretty he is, and the sudden epiphany jolts him in a way that it shouldn't. Sarah may be the prettiest in the house, but Marina has a more wild, exotic kind of beauty.

"Why didn't you bring your own blanket?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. She doesn't like being under the same blanket, or she's at least awkward about it.

"I didn't think it would be so cold in here," he replies. "And I didn't think you would need your blanket. I was under the impression that the cold doesn't affect you."

He hears her breath catch, and her eyes clench shut. "It doesn't. Not really."

The question is upon his lips before he thinks to stop it. "Then why do you need the blanket?"

He feels the sheets go taut as they catch between her fists. It almost makes him regret his question. "You're scared of the dark. I'm scared of the cold."

Nine is silent. What is there to say, really? She must be scared for her own reasons. Maybe it's the fact that she's always cold, as her ice legacy has now dictated her usual body temperature, and the cold reminds her of Eight. Just as the dark reminds him of his time with the mogs, a time which scared him even though he would never admit it to anyone but Marina.

He thinks that the cold that eats at her from the inside reminds her of that night at the marsh, with Eight's symbol against her leg, and maybe that's why she fears it. She fears it because she lost Eight to the cold, and she has lost herself to it too.

Nine has always been reckless, but this is the most well thought out thing that he has ever really tried. Because, she's helped him with his fear of the dark, letting him room with her for a night, he should help her with her own fear.

He grabs her around the waist and pulls her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her. It's a gesture that holds nothing but comfort, nothing but a want to help her, and his heart lurches when he feels her gasp against his chest. She doesn't pull away, though. Because he thinks she understands the meaning of it. She will keep him company in the dark, and he will keep her warm in the cold, as much as he can.

No words are said. No words are truly needed.

(Nor are they needed the next day, when Nine silently crawls into her bed)