Arknights | Welcome Home

[veryroundbird]

Rating: Mild
Words: 1264
Characters: Doctor (F), Kal'tsit, Amiya
Relationships: Gen
Summary: Amiya, having woken up in the middle of the night, finds herself having company in insomnia.

In the dark, it's always there; in the long night, her constant companion.

How long will your luck hold?

You cannot be savior to the Infected. All saviors fall, among mortals, and you—

Does she want to be a savior? Of course—she wants to save people, she wants to help people, but—

The woman you have shackled below—do you not understand her rage? You must.

She does. Of course she does. Talulah's heart—the love that turned to bitter hatred... but hatred that might yet burn out and heal.

This world will only cease to be cold when you allow your rage to burn as it was meant to.

"No," Amiya says. "Not yet." And she sits up in bed.

---

It's three o' clock in the morning, according to her chrono, but Amiya's suddenly wide-awake. She's never found much success in just trying to bore herself back to sleep, so she does what she's always done: swing her legs over the side of the bed, stand, stretch, and get ready to face the day.

Dressed, she pads out in slippers from her room. The administrative team members of Rhodes Island have separate rooms off a small but comfortable common area; it's there Amiya usually finds herself in the wee, restless hours of the morning, where she can curl up at the low kotatsu table and get a little work done.

This time, though—it's already partially occupied.

Dr. Kal'tsit raises her eyebrows as she appears in the doorway, looking up from her mug of tea. She puts a brief finger to her lips—

—because across the table, Dr. Zhanchi seems to have passed out on a medical textbook, one cheek plastered against the start of the vascular system section of Blood's Anatomy, glasses falling off her face.

Amiya covers her mouth to keep from laughing too much, and Dr. Kal'tsit smiles, taking another sip of her tea. "Couldn't sleep?" she asks, keeping her voice low, as Amiya tiptoes over to the table to take a seat between them.

"Not tonight, apparently..." Amiya fusses with her ponytail a little bit, and then lets it be. "But the company's good, at least."

"Is it now," says Dr. Kal'tsit, mildly, with a slightly exasperated glance toward the Doctor, but it has much less of an edge to it than it held a few weeks ago. The feeling there is a just a little warm, now, in a way that's not just the futon or the heater. "Are you're sure you wouldn't rather share a suite with some of your friends?"

"Hm," says Amiya, humming lightly; Dr. Kal'tsit's offered that to her a few times, but she's never taken her up on it. Before, she was a little sure that Dr. Kal'tsit would get lonely. Now, maybe even if Amiya declared that she didn't need them to hold her up—she still wants to be alongside them, after all. "Well, I wouldn't mind having more of my friends nearby, but I have plenty here already," she says. "I've stood shoulder-to-shoulder with you, after all."

Dr. Kal'tsit sighs, and sets her mug down on the table. "You know Dr. Lau worries about you. I worry about you."

"I know, I know!" Amiya laughs, and then claps a hand over her mouth, glancing in Dr. Zhanchi's direction to make sure she hasn't woken her up—but she only stirs slightly, snorting a little in her sleep. "And I know, Dr. Kal'tsit... I know I'm still young, but—even if there weren't things only I can do, there's a lot of things I want to do."

Because—it's true. There's a lot of things she wants to see change in the world, a lot of things Rhodes Island can do. Maybe a few things she wants to do just for herself, too, and the people closest to her. A few little happinesses. Moments like this.

Dr. Kal'tsit puts a hand on top of hers, and looks down. One of her rare smiles. "If only Theresa could see you now," she says, and it's tinged with bittersweetness, which means that she really means it. "I wonder..." She shakes her head, slowly. "No. I know she would be happy to see Rhodes Island, today."

"Mmf—ah, Kal... it's got... too many bones—" the Doctor murmurs fuzzily in her sleep, and then slides gently sideways off the textbook and onto the table. Dr. Kal'tsit just snorts.

Amiya gets up to make herself a cup of cocoa, briefly, while flipping idly through briefings on her tablet; not too much new work, considering it's the middle of the night, but she's still working on the packet on the political situation in Victoria.

They settle into a comfortable quiet, the two of them reading while Dr. Lau sleeps. After a while, tiredness starts to creep in around the edges of Amiya's thoughts again, and she leans against Dr. Kal'tsit's shoulder; she doesn't think she'll drift off like this, but it's comfortable.

...it reminds her a little bit of times she couldn't sleep, actually—when Theresa would tell her stories, usually. That kind of atmosphere. She's never sure if she can really fill Theresa's shoes, but...

...thinking about Rhodes Island, does she have to? Theresa brought so much warmth to a room, but there are so many kind, warm people here now. And maybe, that's more than enough.

"Nnh—"

Dr. Lau starts, blinks, and raises her head, slightly, rubbing her face, and blinks at seeing Amiya at the table, too. "Is it morning already...?"

"It's still night, Dr. Zhanchi," Amiya says. "You can go back to sleep—I just woke up early."

"Please set a good example, Zhanchi," says Dr. Kal'tsit. "Just tuck yourself into bed."

"Ah—I'm not that impressionable," Amiya protests, chin jerking upward, at the same time the Doctor exclaims, "No, no, I'm awake!" and then trips trying to get up from the kotatsu in trying to prove it.

Amiya scrambles up, following, while Dr. Kal'tsit just sits there and sighs. "Doctor—are you all right?"

"Fine, fine—well, now I'm definitely awake—" Dr. Zhanchi wobbles to her feet properly, rubbing her head. "And, ah—" She looks down at her hands, slightly abashed, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together in what Amiya can tell is a grounding kind of motion. "Well, if you're all here I'd feel a little silly going off on my own. It's... comfortable, isn't it?"

It really is. Really—even if the Doctor is someone very different from who she remembers, in a lot of ways...

...she's so much happier. Even Dr. Kal'tsit seems like she's picked up a kind of energy she hasn't had in a while. And—

And, even if the last month and change has been fraught, and seen so much bloodshed and sorrow and injustice—even if some days it doesn't seem quite right to look at the world so brightly—Amiya finds herself thinking, well... she herself might be happier, too.

Every day, it all feels a little more like... home.

"I'll make you a cup of tea, Dr. Zhanchi," she says, steering the Doctor back to the table.

Of course by the time she's done boiling water in the little kitchenette, the Doctor's put her head back down on her textbook, and is snoozing again; Dr. Kal'tsit is pulling the blanket off the back of the sofa to drape over her shoulders.

Amiya helps tuck it around her, and then—gives the Doctor a pat on the head, for good measure.

"Goodnight, Doctor," she says, quietly, before settling back in. "And welcome home."