What might have been (open)

Amelia woke, and for a moment, she couldn't understand why. Her sleep had been fitful the past few days. She'd been bothered by dreams, reliving the first few terrible moments after the crash when she'd stumbled around, bleeding and bleary, bereft of Teddy and Sen. Her panic, her desperate need to find them, had overridden all her pain until she'd simply collapsed from blood loss. And when she woke in the Infirmary, the news that her siblings were safe had healed her far more than all of the Weyr's Healers.

She couldn't recall having such dreams tonight, but the knot of dread in her stomach told her that she wouldn't be getting to sleep anytime soon. She heaved a quiet sigh, turning over on her cot. That was when she heard the muffled sounds of crying. Her protective instincts took over. Moving swiftly, surely despite the darkness, she rose from her cot. She managed to navigate the barracks without banging her shin into anyone's cots or storage chests, following the tiny sounds.

She stood before Eternity's bunk before long, debating. She didn't know the younger girl very well. She couldn't even imagine facing the loss of her siblings. Even now, she felt a sharp stab of guilt in her gut. She came through the crash with her family intact. She wasn't stranded her alone; she got to see Teddy and Sen every day, to hug them, to confide her worries and fears about this strange world to them. It felt almost cruel, trying to console Eternity when she had everything the girl was lacking.

And yet...what if it was her own baby sister lying there, alone and sad? She couldn't ignore Eternity's pain, especially not now that she was standing over the crying lass, chewing on her lip. That would be deeply wrong, and she couldn't bring herself to do that. So she took a deep breath, onrunning one had through her tousled hair, before she spoke.

"Eternity?" she murmured, barely above a whisper. She didn't bother to ask if the girl was all right. That was a stupid, obvious question. She let the other girl's name hang in the air, an invitation.