Widow Sisters and Friends (Restoring Our Broken Hearts)

Sleep, Moya Sestra

Summary: Natasha has been waiting for five days for Yelena to finish the mission. And she has gotten almost no sleep every one of those days. Needless to say, when Yelena finally gets home, she is very worried about her big sister.

   Five days. A whole five days. A whole, entire five days without seeing her baby sister and holding her in her arms.

And Natasha had even agreed to let her go.

Natasha was starting to strongly regret that decision now, however.

She was stumbling through the kitchen, just going through the motions as she idly heated up the last of the mac and cheese left over in the fridge. It was about a week old and definitely not the tastiest dish in the world by far, but she was far too exhausted to worry with much else.

Natasha then headed over to the couch in the living room. Fanny was by her side the entire time, and Natasha had been much too lonely and far too tired to even begin trying to tell the dog to go to her cage and stay.

Liho was lounging on the couch already, and Natasha sat down heavily, starting into the heated-up container of mac and cheese as she turned her head to look over at the door blearily.

Naturally, not a soul was in sight and there were no signs of life whatsoever. Natasha let out a deep sigh as she ate her dinner, absently turning on the television and not really registering what was on. Fanny was sitting near her feet, and Liho was lounged in the corner of the couch, sleeping happily in a curled-up ball.

Natasha had not slept for the entire five days that Yelena had been gone.

The blonde had left on a mission five days ago, and although Natasha had agreed to it very hesitantly, she was still worried sick. Especially since she knew that the mission was supposed to take four or five days to complete at most.

Natasha had been religiously watching the door, and whenever she was not staring at the door at her house where Yelena always insisted on being dropped off when she came home from missions, Natasha was at the compound, trying her best to coherently instruct Kate and Peter and to intelligently contribute around the place.

However, it was obvious around the third or fourth day that she was of no real use to anyone at this point. Everyone had been trying to convince her to go to sleep, but she stubbornly remained awake, only drifting to sleep very lightly for about ten minutes at a time. She had only done that about seven times during the five days.

Before Yelena came back into her life, Natasha used to be able to sleep without anyone anywhere in the same room or even in the same building with her. She actually even preferred no one to be around when she slept since it was such a vulnerable position to be in.

However, when Yelena came in her boundless, tumbleweed, reckless love and she started sneaking into Natasha's bed every night to be cuddled, loved, held, and showered with affection, Natasha had come to be quite dependent on her little cuddle bug hotbox to allow her to sleep soundly.

The first night she spent that week without Yelena was long and miserable and it showed her that she was not going to be able to sleep at all without the blonde. Yelena's nose buried in her neck and her warm, affectionate arm draped across Natasha as she nestled against the redhead's body was part of what lulled Natasha to sleep. And those nights when Yelena would haul at least half of herself on top of Natasha were therapeutic in their reassurance with the compression that her weight offered.

Natasha finally finished her macaroni and cheese, and she looked at the door hopefully once again. However, she was soon disappointed at the lack of a bouncing baby sister, and she got up from the couch in a haze, ambling into the kitchen to deposit her container and her fork. The dishes had started to pile up since Natasha had not washed them in five days. She could even see the dish deep down at the bottom of the pile that Yelena had used when she ate breakfast the morning before she left.