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Nancy awoke with a gasp.
The glowing red numbers on her alarm clock read 2:14. Only an hour had passed since she'd woken up exactly the same way. With a groan, she rolled onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.
Bed check, her exhausted brain prompted. The thought came so automatically that she barely registered it. Nancy reached across the mattress, searching for the familiar shape of Robin beneath the blankets.
Her hand met cold sheets.
Nancy's eyes snapped open. Nothing. Just rumpled bedding.
For one terrible second, every nightmare she’d ever had came rushing back at once.The Mind Flayer and its massive, gaping maw. Jonathan and the melting room. Steve falling from the tower. Robin—
She sat bolt upright. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
"Robin?"
The room remained silent.
Nancy's gaze darted frantically around the bedroom. Then she saw her.
Robin sat curled up on the window seat across the room, knees tucked tightly against her chest. Her arms were wrapped around her legs, and her forehead rested on her knees as she stared out into the darkness beyond the glass.
Snow drifted lazily from the sky as Robin rocked back and forth. Nancy watched for a moment, trying to figure out whether something was wrong.
The problem was that Robin always moved. She bounced her knee, tapped her fingers, shifted from foot to foot. Constantly in motion. Nancy couldn't tell if this was ordinary Robin movement or something else entirely, but even from across the room, the atmosphere felt wrong. Heavy.
Like the air before a thunderstorm.
Nancy didn’t want to startle her, but there was no gentler way to do this.
“Robin,” she called softly.
Robin jolted like she’d been electrocuted. Every muscle locked at once. Her head shot up from her arms, hair sticking to her damp forehead, red-rimmed eyes snapping toward the sound of her name. For a second she just stared, blinking like she couldn’t quite place where she was.
Then, “Hey,” she said, surprised. Too bright. Too quick.
Nancy knew she had to approach this cautiously. She simply said, “What’s wrong?”
Robin’s lip quivered before her face crumpled. Tears filled her eyes. She lifted a hand to her face immediately, wiping at them in a frantic, clumsy motion like she could erase the evidence before it existed.
“Oh—uh,” she said, voice breaking halfway through the sound. She swallowed hard. “Nothing. I was just… um. Watching the s-snow.”
As if that explained anything.
She dropped her head back onto her folded arms and turned her face toward the window again, like the conversation was already over. Like that answer was enough.
Nancy just stared at her.
For a few seconds, she didn’t move at all. Robin didn’t actually think that would work, right?
Nancy exhaled through her nose, slow and controlled, then pushed herself up from the bed.
She crossed the room without rushing, like she was trying not to spook an injured animal. When she reached the window seat, she didn’t sit beside Robin. She lowered herself onto the floor in front of her instead, close enough that Robin couldn’t ignore her.
Robin shook. “It’s the first snow of the season,” she said. “I had to watch.”
Nancy stayed quiet. She let the silence stretch, hoping Robin would do what she always did—fill it, talk, spiral back into something safer. This time, she didn’t.
Minutes passed. Snow kept falling beyond the glass. Nancy began to think, uneasily, that something was different than all the times before.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Robin spoke first.
“I love the snow,” she said.
Her voice came out rough, scraped thin. She swallowed, clearing her throat. When she tried again, it was slightly steadier
“It gets so quiet,” she continued. “It’s like… how I imagine it would be if time just stopped.”
She lifted her head from her arms, but she didn’t look at Nancy. A wet, crooked smile pulled at her mouth. It was bright in the wrong way, fragile at the edges.
“You know, it’s actually kind of amazing,” she said quickly. “Snow is fluffy and solid, so it absorbs sound. Like the foam we use at The Squawk. And there’s also refraction, right?”
Her hands came up, fingers moving to convey what her voice couldn’t hold.
“The air just above the ground is slightly warmer than the surface,” she went on, faster now, words gathering momentum. “So sound waves bend upward. They just… shoot over your head. Cars, people, barking dogs, the wind—none of it reaches you. It’s just gone.”
Her breath hitched. A sharp tremor ran through her, and Nancy couldn’t stand it anymore.
She crossed the room in a hurry, grabbed the quilt from the end of her bed, and came back before she had time to second-guess herself.
For a moment, she just hovered there. Robin was still shaking. Still folded into herself like she was trying to take up less space. Nancy wasn’t sure what to do. She had never seen Robin like this. Hand her the blanket? Sit beside her?
Robin’s shirt clung to her back in a dark, sweat-stained line that caught in the moonlight. The sight made something in Nancy’s chest tighten so sharply she stopped thinking altogether.
She sat behind Robin, wrapped the quilt around Robin’s shoulders, and embraced her.
Robin went rigid at the contact and then shook harder. Nancy pulled her in without thinking. She worried that if she loosened her grip even a little, Robin might fall apart entirely.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got you. Breathe.”
Robin made a broken sound—half breath, half sob—like she finally had permission to let go.
Pain and tension radiated off Robin in waves. She shifted forward, threading her fingers into Robin’s. Robin’s hands were cold and damp, but Nancy didn’t hesitate. She guided them back toward Robin’s chest and pressed them there, steady and grounding, until Robin’s breathing hitched against it.
Nancy leaned her forehead against Robin’s shoulder and slowed her breathing to give Robin a rhythm to hold onto. Robin shook in her arms, but less violently now.
After a while, Robin sucked in a ragged breath.
“It was so quiet,” she said again, hoarse.
Nancy squeezed her hand once, a small prompt.
“I woke up,” Robin forced out, words catching on themselves, “and it was just… silent. And then I looked outside and it was snowing and I—I know it’s snow, I do, but I thought—”
Her breath broke.
“I thought I was in the Upside Down.” Fresh tears fell onto Nancy’s hands. “I thought we were back there,” Robin said, shaking harder again, “and I couldn’t—couldn’t stop it. I knew it was all over, and everything is fine now, I guess. I knew it, but my brain just… wouldn’t—”
“I know.” Nancy understood that feeling deeply. “It’s okay,” Nancy said softly. “You’re here. You’re safe.”
Robin’s trembling slowly eased as Nancy held her tight. As the panic drained out of her slowly, the tension left with it. Eventually, Robin sagged fully into her.Her head tipped back onto Nancy’s shoulder.
“You’re okay,” Nancy murmured.
They stayed like that for a while. Nancy didn’t dare loosen her grip. Finally, Robin’s voice came out rough and small.
“Will it always be like this?”
Nancy exhaled through her nose in relief. Robin was back.
“No,” she said. “Maybe not all the way gone. But it gets easier. You get better at catching it before it takes over.”
Robin let out a weak sound. “How?”
Nancy huffed a quiet laugh. She didn’t really have a good answer for that. She wasn’t exactly the best at dealing with this bullshit either.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Trial and error. Mostly this.” She squeezed Robin’s hand gently.
Robin shifted slightly, as if only now realizing the contact. “Oh god. I’m sorry!” she blurted, trying to pull away.
Nancy tightened her hold immediately.
“No,” she said, firm. “Don’t.”
Robin hesitated. Then, slowly, she settled again.
She ran her thumb once over Robin’s knuckles.
“This is what it looks like sometimes,” Nancy said quietly. “But you’ll start recognizing it. And it won’t always get this bad.”
Then, almost without meaning to, she added, “You helped me too, you know.”
Robin blinked, still unfocused. “What?”
Nancy swallowed. “You listened to me,” she said. The words came out rougher than she expected. “When nobody else did. You just…believed me. No questions asked. That helped more than I can tell you.”
Robin stared at her for a second, like she didn’t quite know what to do with that. Then she shrugged. “That’s… obvious, though. Why wouldn’t I listen to you? Why wouldn’t everyone?”
Nancy let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “You’d be surprised.” Her thumb kept moving over Robin’s hand. “Most people don’t. You do, though. Always.”
Robin didn’t respond, but Nancy saw her freckled ears turn a lovely shade of pink.
Nancy smiled, small and unguarded.
As the time ticked by and the snow fell, Robin sank further and further into Nancy’s embrace. Nancy reached up to Robin’s hair and ran her fingers gently through the damp strands at her temple. The sweat had finally begun to cool, leaving soft curls stuck to her skin. Robin sighed and melted further against her.
“We should go back to bed,” Nancy said softly.
“Mmhmm,” Robin mumbled, making no move whatsoever to get up. Robin had fully slumped back into her, and if she was still awake, she was losing the fight.
The heating system in the house kicked on with a low hum, warm air spilling from the vent above them. Robin’s breathing had settled into a slow, even rhythm.
Robin was right. It was very quiet. Not empty. Not frightening. The kind of quiet that felt safe.
Nancy looked down at Robin, nearly asleep in her arms. Moonlight spilled through the window, painting silver across her freckles and catching on the rings decorating her fingers. They couldn't stay on the window seat all night, even if this was the best Nancy felt in a long, long time.
Carefully, Nancy shifted her weight. Robin made a small noise of protest.
“Sorry,” Nancy whispered.
Robin immediately relaxed again, trusting her enough not to even open her eyes. Something warm twisted in Nancy’s chest. She slipped one arm beneath Robin’s knees and the other behind her back.
For a split second she worried she'd wake her, but she didn’t. Robin merely sighed and instinctively curled closer as Nancy lifted her.
She was surprisingly light. Or maybe Nancy had gotten used to hauling shotguns, ammunition, and children through alternate dimensions.
Either way, the short walk to the bed was effortless. Robin never stirred.
Nancy lowered her carefully onto the mattress as though she were handling something fragile. She tucked the quilt around her shoulders before pulling the sheets and comforter up over her.
For a moment, she simply stood there. Robin looked younger asleep. Younger and softer. Less like the girl who always had something clever to say. Less like the girl who never stopped moving. Just Robin.
Nancy made her way around the bed. The mattress dipped beneath her weight as she settled behind her and hesitated. The space between them wasn't large. It was barely a few inches. Still, she was supposed to be Robin’s friend. Friends didn't spend the night wrapped around each other. At least Nancy was pretty sure they didn't.
Fuck it, she thought.
Robin had spent the last year listening to her nightmares. Listening when nobody else would. Trusting her. Choosing her, over and over again.
Nancy slipped an arm around Robin’s waist. Robin shifted and Nancy froze.
Instead of pulling away, Robin unconsciously scooted closer. Then slowly, carefully, she found one of Robin’s ringed hands beneath the blankets and intertwined their fingers again.
Robin’s hand tightened around hers, and Nancy’s heart nearly stopped.
Robin liked snow because it made everything quieter.
Nancy thought maybe some people could do that too.
Outside, snow fell without sound. Inside, Robin slept, and Nancy finally let herself rest.