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Hypersleep, despite being the most rested you can possibly be without actually dying, is exhausting. Add to that the emotional strain of… Well. The reason they were woken up in the first place? And the stress of losing colonists already?
She feels bad for yawning. Oram is saying something that should be important, since he’s the acting captain now, but she just can’t focus on it.
Leaning on Walter helps. He feels like a real person, as much as he needs to, and she’d had time to bond with him before they’d even left Earth. She considers him a friend, even if protocol only requires her to consider him an asset.
She’s got one hand tucked between their thighs -- the pressure of someone else helps. Knowing she’s not hallucinating, or dreaming. She’d apologized for worming her fingers in right after she’d apologized for leaning on him, but with both soft ‘sorry’s he’d kept the same tiny smile and told her it wasn’t an issue.
He sits with his hands clasped in his lap, just over his knees. It makes him slouch a bit, and Daniels has always found that sort of funny; the pinnacle of synthetic technology, and his posture is awful.
She’s half asleep when his hand slides over her forearm and squeezes. Meant to wake her up, she’s sure.
He tries to remove it when she’s alert again, but her other hand pins it.
She doesn’t ask him to keep it there, but he knows she’d like to.
He squeezes her arm again, an affirmation, and she cautiously threads her fingers through his.
He squeezes those, too.
She could cry again right now.
When they make it to Origae 6, if nothing else…
...She’ll have him.