Emerald smiled when she woke up.
It disappeared once she opened her eyes however. Peridot wasn't next to her anymore, and their bedroom door closing only confirmed it. It would be for a short while before she came back, but it never failed to take the smile away. She only slept next to Peri because of a nightmare she had, but it meant so much more than what anyone else outside of them would know.
Even if that wasn't the case, Emerald always knew when Peridot wasn't in the room. It was what woke her up in the middle of the night actually. She gripped the blanket and held it close to her chest like it was a teddy bear. The space next to her just felt so empty. Emerald didn't understand how minutes could feel like an eternity in moments like this.
She closed her eyes again. All she could do while she waited was to cling onto the space that was temporarily empty. It was like a boat without its sea, or a plane without its sky, the moon without its sun even, it just didn't feel right. That was just for a little while too, so to think of it as something permanent was too painful to consider. Dramatic, she knew, but it was a feeling nobody but Peridot understood.
Emotions simply swirled in her, both rational and irrational.
Only in the middle of her sea of thoughts did the door whoosh wide open again. Em slightly opened one eye and saw Peridot walk to the bed. She went into the bed, under the comforter, and held Emerald in her arms. Emerald held her firmly; she buried her face into her chest. She wrapped her tail around Peri's tail.
"Sorry, Em," Peridot whispered, "I wanted to get a drink. I didn't mean to be gone for as long as I was."
"It's fine, you're here now." Emerald responded softly.
They fell back to sleep within minutes.
