Just Friends (Rory Campbell x Fem Reader)

Chapter 17: Wait

~Y/n~

I wanted so badly to fall asleep that night. I was exhausted and Rory was out a few minutes after we said goodnight, but I couldn't get rid of the sensation of blood on my fingers, even though they're clean and dry. Did Madame Pomfrey really think I could be a nurse? Nurses have to deal with people who did something daft and broke their bones, or they're cut open and bleeding out, or if they're just sick with some virus, and it's the nurse's job to see to it that they get better again. What a rotten nurse I'd be, now that I think of it. Unlike me, they don't get frightened when they get blood on their hands. They're brave and they're smart, they always put other people before themselves, they never flinch at anything, they hold peoples' lives in their hands every day, and most of all they'd never tell you if your condition was really bad because they don't want you to get scared.

Then again, maybe we're all scared. Maybe nurses just hide it a little better.

"Y/n," I hear Rory mutter.

"What?" I say back, but he doesn't respond. I look up at him and wait, but he remains silent and asleep. A few minutes later he says my name again, and I prop myself up on my elbow to look at him again.

"Y/n," he repeated, rolling his head to one side.

"Hey," I said, gently moving his hair out of his eyes. Now he's mumbling something I can't understand.

"Do it again," he laughs.

"You're dreaming, stupid," I whisper into the warm hair on one side of his head. He smells like sleep and his mint cologne, and I wish I could bottle up that smell so I could go back to it whenever I wanted to.

"That feels good," he sighs, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised. I didn't have much time to think about it, though, because a moment later he groans and turns under my arm to look up at me with tired eyes.

"You talk in your sleep," I said, and his face twists up.

"Do not," he mumbles groggily.

"Do too. You kept saying my name." Suddenly he looks much more awake, and I could swear I see a hint of embarrassment in his widened eyes.

"I say anything else?" he asks, and for a second I can't decide what I should tell him. Is it really any of my business what he dreams about anyway?

"No," I finally reply, "just my name and a bit of nonsense, honestly."

"Oh. Okay," he sighs as he leans his head into me, and I rest my arms around his shoulders. I like the way his hair feels against my chin and under my hands, and I like that we're still warm when the rest of the room is cold.

"Have you been awake all this time?" he mumbles, and a chill goes through me at the feeling of his voice against my neck.

"Maybe. Why?"

"Don't be. You need to sleep." It feels good to be wrapped up in each other, to feel safe and warm with him, but even after he falls asleep again I can't help worrying over what, or who, he'd been dreaming of. Scientists will tell you that what people say in their sleep doesn't have much meaning, that our brains are brilliant manufacturers of names and words and images, but it was my name that he said. Out of all the names that it could have been, it was mine. That has to mean something, doesn't it?

You know, I'd probably be a rotten scientist too.

~Rory~

I'm used to waking up to see Y/n acting strange, as if she wasn't feeling like herself, and I'm used to being the one to find out what's wrong and make her feel better. However, I'm not used to the way she's been lately. She's got this look in her eye when she sees me, like she knows something I don't and she's waiting for me to figure it out. I hope it's something good, at least.