Bad nights
A guest asked for a oneshot of Henry lying in bed listening to Emma cry herself to sleep for the fourth night in a row. No one knows why and she won't talk about it to anyone. He wants to comfort her so he grabs her baby blanket out of her drawer, climbs into bed behind her and holds her until she falls asleep.
I tried to shut the noise out by clasping my hands tightly over my ears. The sound of my mom's frightened little sniffles drilled right into my very soul. I didn't know what to do, nobody did. This was the fourth night she'd spent just crying. The first night I'd tried to get her to tell me what was wrong, but she just shrugged me off and told me to go to sleep. I of course told my grandparents in the morning, but Emma refused to tell them as well. But at least they couldn't hear her crying long into the night. I had to lie here right beside her as her body shook with the force of the sobs she was trying so desperately to hold in. But a person can only hold so much pain before it leaks out, just like it was doing right now with mom.
Then an idea struck me. Whenever mom was frightened or upset, she'd sit with her baby blanket on her lap and fiddle with the slightly frayed edge of the lilac ribbon spelling out her name. I knew where she kept it hidden away, even though she thought nobody knew. It was in her middle drawer, hidden under her old AC/DC tour t-shirt. I fumbled through the drawer in the relative darkness until I felt the slightly rough, fuzzy fabric of the blanket. I pulled it out and gently and draped it over Emma's hands before crawling back in behind her and just cuddling her, desperately hoping this would make her happy again.
For a moment, the sobbing did stop. I felt her arms move as she clutched the blanket tight to her chest. After that she continued crying, but the sobs were definitely gentler now. She eventually fell asleep, the blanket still clutched tightly to her chest. I knew I hadn't solved her problem, whatever it was. But I seemed to have made tonight easier for her.