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Nastya was in Jonny's room when it happened, waiting out the getaway together as per usual because you couldn't play cards in zero gravity and you also couldn't play cards in normal rooms when the walls kept shaking and knocking the discard pile all over you.
Nothing was wrong, of course. Jonny had just started a small barfight, and Ashes had gotten the cops on their tail breaking him out. Nothing out of the ordinary, but enough to get the attention of some police ships that were currently trying to get them back for the "destruction of property". Boring. Carmilla would probably tell him off later for it but for now she was occupied helping Brian pilot anyway, so Jonny just got to sit and wait until the ship stopped shuddering with tiny explosions. Aurora could take it just fine, anyway - she had far superior shields to any military.
So it was fine, really. It should have been.
Nastya was leaning against him, head on his shoulder (regrettably she was a good 12cm taller than him and could do this with ease). Jonny was building towers out of matchsticks to watch them get knocked down with each hit. She kept flinching, nails digging into his palm where they held hands, but she wasn't saying anything and Jonny assumed it was probably just the noise - Nastya never did love the sound of gunfire anyway (at least, not like he did). Normal, almost domestic, if not for Jonny's swears whenever the matches fell over (which was approximately once per 14.8 seconds by his count, though Ivy would probably have happily informed him that he was wildly off).
Until the ship took another hit, maybe a little harder than before, and Nastya slumped over with a soft, cut-off whine of pain.
Jonny turned, loosely concerned and mostly confused, to see her skin pale and eyes fluttering shut. No response when he called her name, though she didn't appear dead. He blinked, unsure, then gently eased her into his arms to go find Carmilla. As much as he wasn't in the mood for a lecture about the actions that had landed him there, she was still a doctor, and thus generally more knowledgeable on the causes of spontaneous fainting spells.
She was, as he expected, on the bridge, though by this point the larger hits had stopped as he made his way there and the police ships seemed to have given up on their chase, so the chaos had subsided. The Doc sighed when she saw him, but upon noticing Nastya's state, left Brian to pilot and wheeled over.
"Is she okay?" A pointed glance, which Jonny chose to ignore.
"If you're asking if I did this, no I did not. She was just sitting in my room and passed out on me. I'm not sure why."
"When?"
That was a confusing question. Jonny frowned at her. "Like, just then? A little before the hits stopped - I took her over here as soon as it happened, I'm not stupid."
Carmilla shook her head. "No, I mean- did this happen right after one of the hits?"
Nastya stirred a little in Jonny's arms, pressing into his shirt, but didn't wake. He tilted his head in confusion. "Yes? I- what are you on about, Doc? This is confusing."
Carmilla just sighed and reached out to run a hand through Nastya's hair. "Just a theory I have- one I've been considering for some time. We might as well go to the lab, I'll explain as we go." She didn't wait for an answer, and Jonny, with Nastya still in his arms, fell into pace beside her as he caught up.
"Doc, I'm-" Jonny cut himself off from saying scared, restarting. "I'm confused. Can you just tell me what's going on?" He hesitated, then added a softer "...Please?"
Clearly he didn't hide the fear very well, given that Carmilla slowed, expression softening some. "It's nothing serious. Nastya doesn't like to talk about her past, and I'll respect that. But you're aware she's Cyberian, as is the ship." Jonny was starting to piece the information together. "And Cyberia has, well... At her time growing up, had an interest in, shall we say, neural cybernetics. Say that they operate on a certain frequency, this might allow other Cyberian mechanical or electrical interfaces to interact with her mind. Sort of like a form of empathy."
Carmilla slipped into the lab-slash-medical bay, Jonny following. "So, what, she's feeling the ship's pain? Why? Since when? How come she didn't tell-"
"Jonny." The doctor cut him off with a sharp look. "First of all, it's not that simple. Without Cyberian technology and without Nastya allowing me to examine any of her own cybernetics - or, for that matter, Aurora's circuitry - almost all of this is guesswork. My best guess is she can connect to the Aurora through some sort of strong emotion - say, concern, or pain. But that's a theory. Nastya might not have even thought to try until today, might not have even realised."
Jonny quieted. He had a million questions, but Carmilla was focused, and he knew he wouldn't be getting any further answers, at least until Nastya woke up. He let himself passively observe as Carmilla took her from his arms, laying her down gently on one of the small, rarely-used cots in the room and carefully administered painkillers, checking various medical things that Jonny didn't particularly care for. When she seemed satisfied that Nastya's condition - whatever that actually meant - was steady, she turned back to him.
"Come here."
Jonny had always struggled to read her, especially when memories and concern were warring for influence in his mind. He complied anyway, even through confusion.
Carmilla drew him into a short, gentle hug. He couldn't help falling into it, letting comfort overrule the rest of his thoughts. When she drew back, the Doc looked him in the eyes, soft. Caring. "You should get some sleep, now that it's over. I'll wake you when she's up. She'll be fine, Jonny. I promise."
Jonny bit back a retort about what her promises meant, forcing himself to nod. "Fine. I'm staying here."
Carmilla just smiled at him. "I wouldn't expect any less."
--
Nastya woke up slowly, too dizzy to do much except blink back the weight of sleep. She could hear a familiar voice - Carmilla, of course it was Carmilla - singing softly beside her.
When the fog in her head subsided, bringing with it memories of the day before, she managed to speak. "Sorry- I'm sorry. I thought I could talk to her."
Carmilla, clearly having noticed Nastya's state but kept her focus away until now, shushed her softly. "It's okay, I'm not upset. Take it slow, hm?"
Nastya nodded, blinking back tears of- what? Frustration, residual pain? Irritation? "I thought I could do it. We were fine, just sitting there, I thought it was helping if I took the hits for her, just... Just keeping our connection open for a bit. It felt fine." She cursed.
Carmilla brushed hair back from her forehead where it was falling across her eyes, one hand on her wrist gently tracing circles over her pulse where blue-grey veins shimmered gently. "Not your fault. Your mind wasn't built for the empathy you've developed, if I had to guess. I could help, if you'd let me-"
"No." Nastya bit back the growl in her voice and tucked her hands up near her collar, a nervous habit. "No fucking experiments."
"Okay. It's okay." The Doc conceded, drawing back. Looking at her, assessing her. Nastya noticed Jonny, on the bed across from her, stirring from his sleep. He'd always been a light sleeper... at least so long as she'd known him. "You're okay, though?"
"Hm. It's not like we're taking hits now. Just hazy." Despite the aversion towards Carmilla's offer, Nastya couldn't help feeling grateful to be cared about.
"I'll leave you be, then. And don't try to get up, just yet; I don't want you to pass out all over again. Call it doctor's orders." Carmilla gave her a soft look, tentative. At Nastya's affirmative, she crossed the medical bay to her lab, leaving Nastya with only the soft humming of the ship.
That left Jonny, who at this point in the conversation had been noticeably awake and watching from across the room. His hair was all messed up, a sure sign he'd been sleeping in the medical bay for more than a few hours to keep an eye on her. For someone who claimed to be "immune to that found-family sibling bullshit" he was protective of her in a way that Nastya found endearing... Though on their worse days she tended to assume it was just an extension of his own trust issues about Carmilla. About the whole world, really.
He caught Nastya's gaze, standing up on some unknown cue and, without asking, curled up beside her on the bed. "Hey, shift over- why are your elbows so sharp?"
Nastya stifled a grin, shifting over for him. "No one's making you stay here." She meant the words to be bitter, but at Jonny's offended look she just ended up laughing.
He settled into the pillows, seeming satisfied for a moment. Then Nastya saw his expression flicker with emotion. "What- uh..." he paused, restarting. "What was that?"
Oh. "I don't really know if it will make any sense to you..." Nastya stalled, thinking over how to explain... this. Her weird psychic connection to the ship. Her.
"Nastya. You scared me... just tell me." The bite in the words didn't quite hit.
"Fine." She sighed, taking a breath. This was going to be spoken at some point, she guessed.
It took longer than she would have liked to explain the whole thing, mainly because half the words she would have liked to use were in Cyberian and, on top of that, categorically refused to be remembered (not that Jonny even knew Cyberian, not that Nastya had tried to teach him before she forgot, but still). But she managed to communicate the main idea. A cybernetic-based empathy link with Aurora, taken a step further to effectively siphon the impact of the explosions onto Nastya's own body. And no, Jonny, she didn't know why it fucked her up so much, please stop panicking, she would be more careful next time.
When she finished, Jonny shook his head, frowning in a way that felt uncharacteristically serious. "Why are you always so goddamn mysterious? You know, if you'd told me that was happening, I could have made sure-"
"What? You couldn't have done anything." Nastya spoke softly, intentionally. The closest she could get to outright comfort, since Jonny so strongly relied on truth.
"Maybe I could have. You don't know that." He insisted, curling closer up to her in something resembling a hug.
Nastya sighed. "If I promise to tell you next time, will you stop worrying so much?"
"Firstly, m'not worrying. I don't do that mortal shit-"
Nastya laughed. "Sure."
"-And secondly," Jonny continued, ignoring her. "If you're adamant on doing it again then fine, yes, that would be... good."
"Consider it done."
They lapsed into a soft silence, Jonny shifting to more easily card through Nastya's hair and, fuck, it reminded her of their early days on the ship. She'd forgotten how much she'd missed their casual affection, before everything became so complex. Before immortality, or whatever that actually meant for them now, sunk its teeth into them.
Eventually, after minutes or maybe hours, Jonny took his leave and, moving cautiously to not exhaust her energy after everything that had happened, Nastya joined him. If Carmilla, still across the room from them, had any concerns with her getting up, they weren't voiced.
They took the short route back to Jonny's room, falling onto the bed that was more or less shared by the two of them at this point. Nastya dug her face into the pillows with an exhale as Jonny rested a head against the wall. With a stable ship cruising through empty space and the warm presence of someone else beside her, Nastya fell asleep.