SLEEP DID NOT come easy to Seven that night, no matter how she tossed or turned, and when it finally did find her she'd come to wish it hadn't.

  In her dreams she was falling, tumbling through clouds with her arms out stretched, flailing and trying desperately to find some purchase amidst the sky.

  The air was bitterly cold, slamming against her, biting her skin and tearing at her hair.

  Down.
  Down.
  Down.

  She plummeted like a lead weight, or a stone thrown into the deepest depths of the ocean, thick black waves crashing over her. They filled her throat, forcing their icy tendrils down her airways, suffocating her from the inside out. Her lungs burned, scorched, set alight with the hellfire that raged through her veins, her breath stolen by the wicked hand of wind.

  — And then, right before she hit the ground, she sat up with a violent jolt; suddenly awake and thrashing against the silk sheets that coiled around her limbs, — her throat. She couldn't breathe.

He was besides her in an instant, holding her close. "You're okay — I'm here," And as if by instinct she began to relax into his warmth, stopping her struggle as the silk slipped away, "You're okay..." He whispered, running his hand over her hair.

Beneath his touch she came undone. Whatever thread-bare lace had been holding her together fell apart, and for a moment, however brief, she remembered.

In her memories she saw flashes of gold and ivory red, — of filth and pain and unimaginable agony. Of lives torn apart and cities burned to the ground. But there was also a beauty in the blasphemy, a slip of bright light — star light flickering against the blackness. A moment of white-blonde hair; cast cruel, sinless.

And then her memories came crashing down around her, catching fire and sending cinders to the wind. White hair turned to milky skin, thinly stretched so that the spidery veins beneath were visible, and with snake-like slits for eyes.

" — Seven!" Suddenly she was torn from her clutches of her memories, ripped from the light and thrown back into the darkness; back into the unknown. "Seven — look at me!"

She snapped awake, facing him afeared. His face dimly lit and shockingly handsome, taking her by surprise. She would never get used to the way he looked.
" — You're okay." His hands were on her, warm and certain and causing a pit in her stomach to hollow out with an emotion she could not decipher.

" — Draco." She gasped for breath between the tears. And in that moment she didn't hold back, she was not ashamed of her weakness, and so it became her strength. "I almost — ," She couldn't say it, but then again she didn't need to.

"I know, baby." He held her closer to his chest and she could feel the strong, rhythmic beats of his heart. "I know."

After that they didn't speak, for if they did what would they say? Instead they simply let it be. They let their sadness settle in the cracks between them. Each for an entirely different reason, and each unaware of the others ache.

  Draco didn't dare let her go, and Seven didn't want him to. So they stayed that way for hours, until the light began to seep between the curtains and they had long fallen asleep in each others arms.

***
Sorry for the short chapter, more coming soon!