In All Fairness
He was awakened by a sharp jab to the bottom of his foot. "Wha — huh?"
Magus kicked at his foot again. "Walman, can you ever stay awake on watch?"
Still muzzy, he mumbled, "I'm awake."
"Yeah, you are now."
"I'd've heard it if something was wrong," he protested. "I wasn't that far asleep."
"Uh-huh," she answered. "Just like you heard me walk up. Well, go ahead. My shift."
He handed her the mag-pro and stood up to leave.
"If things were fair," she continued, "you wouldn't sleep a wink the rest of the night."
Shrugging his shoulders, he said good night and went into the bio-dome to get a warm drink before he went to sleep. He opened and closed the door quietly, his lumalight turned down to minimum so he wouldn't disturb anyone with light or sound.
There was a light already on in the main dome. Sighing, he snapped off the lumalight and followed the light to find Devon sitting at one of the tables, dark head bent over the charts in front of her. "Dev?"
She looked up. "Oh. Hi."
"It's three o'clock. You're up late." Again.
"It's that late?" She leaned back in the chair, but made no move to get up. "I guess I just got caught up in what I was doing."
This time he said it. "Again."
She had the good grace to look embarrassed.
"Third time this week," he observed conversationally.
She turned her gaze back to the charts.
Shaking his head, Walman went to the kitchen and started to pour two mugs of Bess' latest coffee substitute. He stopped with his hand on the thermos lid. Coffee might not be the best idea. Putting the thermos back, he rooted around the supplies until he found some of those leaves they'd discovered back in autumn, the ones that made a halfway decent tea.
She took the mug when he brought it back to her. "Tea?"
"Yeah. You don't need coffee right now." He reached for the charts, intending to shut the readers off. "You need sleep."
Devon touched his hand gently, stopping him from turning off the readers. "I'll go to bed when I'm done with this."
"Dev, what are you doing with those maps that can't wait?" He gestured with his mug. "Look around! We're not going anywhere anytime soon. They'll still be here in the morning."
She wouldn't meet his eyes. "I, ah, I just..." She sighed. "I can't sleep."
"I didn't think so." He sat down in the chair across from her. "What's going on this time?"
She smiled a little. "Haven't you listened to me enough this week?"
Walman chuckled softly in response. "I've always got time to listen to you."
"What about you? Don't you need some sleep?"
"Don't worry about it," he said. "I'm fine." She didn't protest when he reached over to turn the readers off this time. "Come on, talk to me. You won't get to sleep until you do, you know that."
"All right." She took a deep breath. "You can't tell Danziger I told you about this."
"Do you really need to say that anymore?"
She nodded. "You're right. I don't." Then, looking down at her hands, she started to talk about their latest argument. It was another one of the pointless ones, the kind that was most likely to leave her frustrated and amused and incredulous and feeling a dozen other emotions all at once. Walman just listened, knowing that she needed to talk it out in order to calm herself down enough to sleep.
As he listened, a part of him remembered Magus' words. If things were fair, you wouldn't sleep a wink the rest of the night.
Little did she know, he thought. Little did she know.
