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‘No…’
‘Please… no more…’
Lena felt tears run down her cheeks as she witnessed the scene before her.
In the battlefield of the Legion, she watched as Shin’s unit fought against a Dinosauria.
She watched as the unit fought with its equipped high-frequency blades until they broke.
She watched as the mangled Juggernaut stilled on the field motionless.
She watched as the Dinosauria breached the cockpit and pulled out a bloody, faceless corpse clad in the Republic issued desert-camouflage uniform.
She wanted to scream but no voice would come out. All she could do was watch the scene before her unfold. She held out her hand desperately to the scene before her, wishing that somehow, she’d be able to stop it.
‘Shin…!’
“…!”
Lena awoke with a start, breathing ragged, sweat drenching her body, and her hand outstretched before her. It was that nightmare again. The one that she’s seen countless nights. The one that she thought she’d never have to see again because he was alright and with her now.
…right?
Feeling uneasy and anxious from her nightmare, she quickly reached over to her nightstand for her RAID device and attempted to resonate with Shin.
… No response.
Just like all the other times she’d tried after this nightmare. The resonance always failed to connect.
With her mind racing and the knots in her stomach amplifying, Lena rushed out of her room and made her way to Shin’s quarters, not caring for anything else. She just needed to confirm that he was really there and that she hadn’t gone insane from all the grief she’d dealt with silently.
“Shin!”, Lena called out as she knocked—almost pounding—on his door in the dead of night. As her hand shakily moves to strike at the door again, it quickly opens.
A slightly disoriented Shinei stands before her, and before he can ask what’s wrong, Lena jumps into his arms, breathing hard and nuzzling her tear-soaked face into his chest.
“…!”
Shinei’s eyes widen slightly at the sudden embrace, but quickly picks up on the state of distress that Lena was in.
Softening up his posture, he quietly embraces Lena in his arms as she continues to quietly sob onto him.
“… Maj- Colonel? What’s wrong?”
“Shin… Shin? You’re really here, right?”
“… Yes, it’s me.”
“Please don’t leave me again.”
“…”
After a moment of silence, Shin gently takes her hand into his and slowly moves to make Lena look into his crimson eyes as he leads her hand to his heart.
“I’m here.”
As they stand there, Lena’s hand processing the reassuring rhythmic beating of Shin’s heart, she sniffles and nods to him as she is soothed by his heartbeat.
When Lena’s breathing has calmed, Shin leads her to his bed, and they sit beside each other.
“Do you always have nightmares?”
“… Up until recently. I thought they stopped but I guess my anxiety about the upcoming battle made it return.”
Without turning to face her, Shin quietly asks, “… What happens in the nightmare?”
“…”
Lena stiffens a bit at the question, and in sensing her slight hesitation, Shin, who is still holding her hand, gives it a light squeeze of reassurance.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
‘After all, we all have our own demons to face,' he thinks.
After a moment, Lena shakes her head.
“No… I can tell you,” she replies slowly, grimacing as she recounted the events of the nightmare.
Shinei listens silently until she finishes.
“… Shin?”
Wordlessly, he turns to her, wiping the tears from her cheeks and gently lays Lena down onto the bed. The moonlight shines through the window to softly illuminate her silvery eyes and hair as he peers down at her.
Lena felt her cheeks flush as she stared up into Shin’s eyes.
“Lena,” he called in a soft voice.
She reddens more upon hearing him call her name, remembering that she had asked him to call her by her name when they are alone.
“I’m here. I won’t leave you alone anymore.”
Upon hearing him utter those words, tears well up in her eyes.
She reaches her arms up to pull Shin down into an embrace.
“Mm…”
A hum of agreement as Lena nodded and wept silently in the nook of his neck.
They stay like that for awhile until Lena eventually falls asleep, from the comforting warmth of Shin’s body and the feeling of his heartbeat on hers.
Lena blinks open her eyes as the early rays of sunlight spilled from the window. Her body naturally awakens at this time due to her usual routine as military personnel.
“…?”
Examining her surroundings, Lena observes that she isn’t in her own room. And as she comes to that realization, her eyes land on Shin, who was currently adjusting his Federacy uniform.
“Good morning, Lena.”
“Shin? Good morning…” ‘Wait what?’
Slowly waking up, the events of last night flash into her mind.
Looking down to find that she’s dressed in her nightgown – and in combination of what events had transpired, her face reddens quite quickly, to Shin’s amusement.
“I-I uh… I should get going…!”, she manages to stutter out, quickly stumbling out of his bed.
Shin suppresses his urge to smile at the adorable scene of a flustered Lena, and just nods.
“…?”, and before she can process what’s happening, Lena finds herself sliding towards the floor as she realizes that she couldn’t muster up any strength to keep herself upright.
“…!”, and Shin is by her side in an instant, scooping her into his arms.
“Lena? Are you alright?”, his voice laced with concern underneath his usual stoic composure. He admits that watching her go from flustered and energetic to sickly and crumpling down to the floor had him caught off guard.
As Shin carries her back to the bed and tucks her under his covers again, Lena nods meekly in response.
Given the time to process, Lena recognizes the feeling of her body temperature being rather hot in comparison to what she had thought to be a freezing cold room. Of all times to be ill, now wasn’t a particularly good one – not that there could ever be a good time to be ill during wartimes.
“It’s probably nothing Shin! I probably just stood up too fast...!”, she attempts to lie, even though she knows it probably won’t work.
And her attempts to prevent Shin from checking her temperature via her forehead are futile and Shin shakes his head at the discovery of a high fever.
“Lena, you’re ill. You should stay in bed today.”
A small sigh of frustration escapes Lena’s lips as she protests and sits up in bed, “Shin, I can’t rest now. There’s a battle coming up and I need to make preparations. This isn’t the time to be sick.”
Yes, there was no time to be the sick damsel in distress whilst all her comrades of the Eighty-Sixth Strike Package were preparing to lay down their lives to stop the Legion.
“I understand your feelings, Colonel. But you won’t be able to do anything in your state. You can barely stand.”
“But…!”
Shin hushed Lena by continuing, “It’s better if you rest up and make your preparations then. I’ll ask Colonel Wenzel to help you out with whatever you need.”
Lena puffs out her cheeks, visibly pouting, but she can’t find it in her to argue with him when he’s looking into her eyes like that.
“I’ll go call a nurse over to check your condition”, Shin states as he gets up from beside her.
Before he can leave, he feels Lena’s hand reach out and tug on his sleeve.
“…?”
“Shin, y-you can’t.”
“… why?”
Lena’s face is downcast, suddenly finding interest in the fibers of his blanket and feeling her face heat up even more.
“T-this is your room. I should really get back to my own room first…”
Her face flushed from thinking about what others might infer if they caught wind of this situation.
“…”
After a brief moment of silence, Shin squats down beside the bed to meet Lena’s eyes. Reluctantly, she makes eye contact with him.
“Lena, you should stop teasing me.”
“…?!”
Her eyes widen at his sudden statement and Shin cracks a smile at her flustered and dumbfounded face.
“Well,” he begins – still peering into her eyes, “Our options are either you receive treatment here or I will carry you back to your room, in which everyone at base could potentially witness me carrying you through the halls.”
Lena freezes briefly after hearing her options.
“… how about option 3? I get to walk back to my room on my own…?”
“Rejected. I will not be allowing that, Colonel Milizé.”
“… you’re too much, Captain Nouzen,” she pouts.
Shin flashes a small smirk across his features, and he raises his hand to ruffle Lena’s hair.
“I’ll call for Raiden and Anju instead of a nurse. They’ll know how to help.”
And with that, he stands up and coaxes Lena back under his covers, brushing away a couple strands of her hair from her face.
“Rest up, I’ll be back soon.”
Burying half of her face into his covers, which she notes– smells like him, she nods obediently.
Shin walks to his door and takes one last peek at Lena as she lies there in his bed, waving to him as he slips out of the room.
He makes it a couple steps down the corridor before he plants his back against the wall and slides down into a squat. He notes the way that his heart is pounding abnormally in his chest. She really ought to stop teasing him like this.
Raiden and Anju arrive upon Shin’s call over resonance, snickering and giggling to themselves about Shin explaining the situation to them as they gathered what they needed to treat and nurse Lena back to health.
Once Raiden and Anju are finished prescribing their remedies to wellness, they leave— but not before patting Shin on the shoulder and egging him on. Shin ignores them and focuses on the sleeping Lena before him. Naturally, as he had his own duties to complete, he would need to leave periodically, but whenever he had a spare moment, he returned to check up on her.
Somehow, Kurena and Frederica also found out about the situation and were attempting to sneak peeks – luckily, Theo was there to stop them.
… But that didn’t mean that Theo didn’t sneak a peek on his own to sketch the scene of Shin watching over Lena at her bedside.