What Dreams May Come

Chapter 25: the other shoe

Levi woke up after I poked his chest repeatedly with one finger. When he opened his eyes, I grinned at him.

"You are a very heavy sleeper," I said. "How do you wake up at all?"

"With alarms and practice," he answered. "What time is it?"

"I don't know. I've been stuck in your arms trying to wake you up."

Levi realized that his hands were clasped around me, despite any efforts that I might have made to break free. Instead of letting me go, he pulled me closer. I was impressed that he had managed to trap me in bed without hurting me. His arms, thin as they were, were stronger than I was, not that I would have admitted it.

"Levi," I scolded. "I'm hungry. We can't stay in bed all day."

"Sure we can," Levi said. "What else have we to do? No one in this household works." He reached up to touch of my curls. They had dried as we slept, but now the curls were wound tight like springs. I would regret not combing them out.

Since Levi's grip on me had lessened, I peeled myself from his grasp and sat upright in bed. The motion hurt, but I tried not to cry out and worry Levi.

"What do you want for dinner?" he asked.

"I'm not sure what we have," I admitted. "And I doubt you know how to work the printer."

"I've use printers in the past," he sniffed. "Back when they were only printing computer parts. And printing food seems gross, but I'll take your word for it."

He stretched, hopping out of bed to help me to the floor. I wasn't nearly as invalid as Levi seemed to treat me, but his attention was...nice. I'd broke bones before, but on the base injuries were more of a nuisance than something to be cared for.

"How does one print noodles?" he inquired. "Or whatever you want, really. I'll not be eating."

"Are you still not hungry?" I asked, curious. I knew cryo took a while to come out of, but I found it so odd that he didn't want to eat at all.

"Not really?" Levi frowned. "It's odd. Food just doesn't sound good right now."

We moved towards the kitchen, though I paused, glancing toward the door.

"Will you check if the hallway is still orange?" I requested.

Levi bobbed his head and opened the door. I could see the orange light from where I stood.

"We're still running out of air," I said. "We have to help, otherwise we're sitting here, waiting to pass out."

"We are not going to be any help to anyone when neither of us can walk without leaning on someone," he scolded. "Panting up and down corridors is only wasting air."

He had a point. I leaned against the counter, hating how helpless I felt. Was this how Levi had been feeling for the past couple of days? I was now mortified by how I had treated him.

"I can't believe we have more people coming here," I sighed. "We don't even have air enough for ourselves. We still have nearly half our population in cryo."

Levi let the door slide shut and walked back towards me.

"Now, I have a suggestion," he said slowly. "And you're going to initially say no, but hear me out."

"Go on," I replied warily.

"I didn't watch the rest of my father's video logs, but the ones I did see didn't talk about the Canary. I know this doesn't help our air crisis, but it gives us something to do about the large air crisis coming up. They had to have left Earth just after we did to get here so soon. Maybe we could find out more about the ship."