It was late at night, I was asleep in my bunk, in a cabin adjacent to Jasmine's. The others were all down the hall, each in cabins exactly the same as ours. We had a hall to ourselves, Crimson hall they called it. We had 8 cabins, one of them empty. It was a fairly decent cabin compared to what the marines got. We had a nightstand, a table, small closet and of course a bed. It was extremely quiet on the Infinity after lights out. The humming of the forerunner's engine was all to be heard in the huge confines of this ship. But tonight was different. There was another noise above the engine. It was a human noise, coming from somewhere close. I opened my eyes and placed my feet on the ground, the cold metal of the ship freezing the soles of my bare feet. I stood, stretching my back in the white t-shirt I wore, shorts covering down to my knees. I slid the door to my cabin open, the engine's humming and the other noise becoming significantly louder. The hall was dimly lit with barely burning lightbulbs. I strained my ears to hear where the strange sound originated from. I looked dead ahead, at the door to Jasmine's cabin. It seemed to be coming from inside. I walked across the hall, looking down each side of the corridor as I did. I reached Jasmine's door and timidly grabbed the handle. I slowly cracked the door, the sound now evidently coming from inside. I cracked it enough for me to slip in and waited for my eyes to adjust back to the pick black of the quarters after shutting the door. What I saw surprised me to say the least.
Jasmine was sweating in her sleep, mumbling words I couldn't make out. Her face was scrunched up into a face of what I would say was fear. She jerked her head to one side and the other, making a squeal as she did so. These were the noises I'd heard. I moved closer to her bed, crouching a bit to get closer to her. She slowly began to breathe faster, raspy shallow breaths taken into her lungs. She began to thrash, throwing the sheets and flinging the sorry excuse for a pillow across the room. I sprung onto her bed, sitting against the headboard, Jasmine's torso in my arms. I had grabbed her from behind, one arm under her left arm, the other wrapped over her chest. She began to thrash more violently, clawing out at me.
I pulled her higher into my lap, grabbing both her arms in mine, wrapping her into a bear hug. She began to squeal and shriek, I shook her a bit, jostling her awake. She awoke and took a huge gulp of air, and began taking as much air as she could. I let go of her arms as she folded over and coughed for a few moments before noticing she was sitting in my lap. She turned in my lap, and remembering my first encounter with her and her mentioning not liking being touched, I expected to be slapped, or punched. Instead she turned her body in my lap, her legs hanging out to the side, and looked at me, tears brimming her eyes. I looked back down at her, not knowing what she was going to do to me for both awakening and touching her. Well it wasn't what I had anticipated. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face into my shoulder, letting out a sob. Her chest heaved with the sobs she took, letting out who knows how many days, weeks, years of held back emotion. Looking strong in front of squadmates, marines, superiors. She let it all out. I wrapped her up once more, though this time in an embrace, not a restraint. I rubbed a hand up and down her arm in an attempt to calm her, she in turn grabbed two handfuls of the back of my T-shirt, pulling me tighter to her, holding on to me were I to suddenly disappear.
I held her there for I don't know how long, rubbing up and down her arm, her body held tightly to mine. It could have been minutes, or hours. But when she finally stopped sobbing enough to be able to talk, she drew back off of my shoulder, releasing my shirt from her grasp, but kept her arms around my neck.
She spoke softer now, seemingly embarrassed, "Thank you." she whispered.
I rubbed her arm again in response.
She waited a solid minute before speaking again, "I-I know it's against protocol, but could you, maybe, stay with me? Just for tonight?"
I rested my chin on top of her head and responded, "Yeah, I can stay tonight. Come talk to me whenever you need to ok." the words spilled over my lips subconciously, my heart telling my mouth what to say, not my brain.
She buried her head deeper into my shoulder and nodded. I layed down, bringing her down wtih me, keeping her head in my shoulder. She swung her legs around and lay there, next to me, nuzzling into my shoulder stained with her own tears.
And we slept.