Fic: The Sleep of Innocents (Fringe, Olivia/Rachel)

[fembuck]

Title: The Sleep of Innocents
Author: Janine
Fandom: Fringe
Pairing: Olivia/Rachel
Rating: PG, pre-femslash
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: Olivia comes home and watches Rachel sleep.  

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Olivia ran her fingers lightly over the soft, thick material of the blanket covering Ella. A soft smile touched her lips, and she let the tips of her fingers ghost over the girl’s silky chestnut hair before forcing herself to pull her hand away. The girl was fast asleep and she didn’t want to wake her. If Ella knew she was there, the girl would proceed to ask her all about her day before telling Olivia about hers, and they’d be up for an hour while Rachel glared at them from across the room.

Moving away from the couch, Olivia quietly made her way towards the guest bedroom. The lights were out inside, but the door was open, so Olivia paused in the doorway and peered inside. She could make out slight lump in the middle of the bed, and blonde hair peaking out from above the top of the covers. Rachel looked snug as a bug in a rug, and Olivia smiled affectionately.

Olivia liked to watch Rachel sleep. The world seemed a calm sweet place then, which was to say, so different than it was beyond the walls of her house. Standing in the quiet of her house, watching Rachel and Ella sleep the sleep of the innocent, Olivia could almost feel that way again herself. At the very least, when her muscles ached, and her head hurt and her eyes burned with unshed tears from the horrors she had seen during her day, when she came home and saw her girls, she knew why she did what she did. It was for them, and all the other innocents out there like them. She fought the monsters so that they didn’t have to.

“Liv?”

Olivia blinked at the sound of Rachel’s sleepy voice husking its way through the still quiet of the house.

“Sorry,” Olivia murmured. She wasn’t sure how she had woken her sister, but she was sad that she had. Rachel had looked peacefully, and her sisters day were full of enough worry since Greg filed divorce papers, that she didn’t want to interrupt what reprieve from her thoughts Rachel was able to get.

“No,” Rachel muttered sleepily. “Come in,” she said, grasping the edge of the blanket with her fingers. She lifted up the corner invitingly and turned her head to blink expectantly at Olivia.

“I’ll keep you up,” Olivia said, hovering awkwardly by the door, though she wanted nothing more than to slip into bed beside Rachel and lose herself in the comfort of her arms.

“Maybe,” Rachel said, smiling as she gazed over at her older sister. “Or maybe I’ll settle you down.”

Olivia smiled and moved towards the bed, shucking her socks, pants, and shirt as she moved until she was only in a pair of boy-cut panties and her bra. Normally she slept in more, but her tank tops and pajama pants were in her room and she didn’t want to leave to get them. She was in desperate need of some comfort and if she left, Rachel would fall asleep again, and she wouldn’t have the heart to wake her sister up again if that happened.

Rachel still held the covers up as Olivia reached the side of the bed, and the older blonde slipped in beside her.

“I’m supposed to be the one holding you until you fall asleep,” Olivia murmured as Rachel’s arms settled around her. She could feel the soft wet fall of her sister’s breath against her neck and a deep feeling of contentment swelled within her. Her eyes fluttered closed and she released a soft sigh as she relaxed into the bedding.

“You did,” Rachel murmured, remembering crawling into Olivia’s arms when they were little after a bad dream had left her afraid of her own room and all of the shifting shadows in it. Olivia’s room was full of shadows too, but Rachel had always known that her sister would protect her from them, and so she had never been afraid with Olivia around. She still wasn’t. “Now it’s my turn.”

Olivia turned so that she and Rachel were face to face, and then snuggled closer, burying her face in Rachel’s neck and losing herself in the gentle floral scent surrounding the youngest Dunham. She felt Rachel’s lips brush against her forehead, and she breathed in out deeply before she let her own lips brush tenderly against the soft, warm flesh of Rachel’s neck.

Rachel breathed in audibly at the contact, and for a few minutes Olivia was able to feel the quickening pulse of her sister’s heart beat through the veins pulsating just under the skin Olivia’s lips hovered over.

“Sleep now,” Rachel whispered finally, her pulse returning to normal. Her arms tightened around Olivia and her lips pressed against her forehead once more, and Olivia knew that, for the moment, everything was alright.

She closed her eyes, and felt Rachel settle in beside her. She could sleep now.

The End