Khan sat on the edge of his bed, posture impeccably straight, as always, and let out a long breath through his nose. It was an hour until dawn, and he had slept long enough. The windows in the wall in front of him were all still dark, barely illuminated by the lighting in the courtyard outside. He could go join the morning watch, but likely they would insist he wasn't needed anyways, likely with overeager grins or hunched shoulders. He had given up confronting those; they weren't worth the effort. He shifted as a knock came at his door, clearing his throat. "Come in."

The door opened and Lana slid inside, shutting the door behind her with a resolute click. She was shuffling her feet after a twenty-four hour stretch of patrol. Weak, Khan thought automatically, face passive. "I just finished my shift," Lana sighed, in a voice much stronger and louder than the hour called for, "You'll never believe who I just happened across in the last five minutes," she reached up behind her to tug her auburn hair out of its ponytail, letting it fall down around her shoulders. Khan smiled slightly, knowing that if he remained silent she would remain in permanent silence until given some signal that he was paying attention, and briefly played with the concept of seeing how long the two of them could remain silent, then decided on the kinder alternative.

"Who?" he replied concisely, watching as she bent to unlace her boots before kicking off the heavy things with a thump onto the wooden floor.

"Director Janice," she hummed, as calmly as if announcing the mailman. Khan stiffened, frowning down at Lana. She ignored him for a moment, peeling off her socks and stuffing them into her boots. He was used to her complete lack of concern over taking over a space, and had stopped complaining. What else were friends for, really?

"Are you going to continue with that or are you going to leave me in suspense?" Khan deadpanned, arching an eyebrow slightly. She chuckled, standing and rolling her shoulders, obviously stalling just to irritate him. He audibly sighed, letting her know it was working, and to get over the game.

"She asked about you," Lana shrugged, crossing to the old dresser in the corner and rooting through the top drawer, which she had claimed as hers months ago. He assumed she found it more convenient than walking all the way back to her room when she spent so much time in his room. "Wanted to know what you were up to. Who you had talked to recently. I didn't tell her anything, so you can stop look at me like that," she added, even though she was facing away from him. He snorted, but he did rearrange his features into something less stern. So the Director had finally come back to check up on her precious experiments, had she? It had been years since her last checkup; likely she'd been travelling around the world to share notes with colleagues. He knew what she'd do now, and he was not looking forward to her manipulation.

"Thank you, for warning me," Khan sighed, regretting his earlier evaluation of Lana's strength, as silent as it was. She was still incredibly useful at gathering information; better for her physical inferiority, in fact. "Lana, you've been in that drawer for two minutes, what on earth are you looking for?"

"Did you move my shirt? You know, the one I slept in a couple of days ago?" She asked immediately, twisting to look over her shoulder, eyebrows raised.

"You mean the old lady nightie?" he quipped with a smirk, tilting his head towards the shirt, folded up neatly on the floor at the foot of the bed. She rolled her eyes, huffing at his expression, and shut the drawer.

"I'm only three years older than you, Khan," Lana reminded lightheartedly, crossing the room to retrieve the shirt, pursing her lips as she shook out his careful folds and tossed it on the bed beside him.

"I know," he chuckled as she peeled off the heavy patrol jacket and breathed a sigh of relief to be free of the tough padding. The rest of her clothes were shimmied off and dropped in a heap at her feet as Khan continued, "You're practically ancient." Lana pulled the overlarge shirt on, her sigh muffled in the fabric momentarily.

"If I'm ancient, I shudder to imagine what you call anybody over five years older than you. Do you actually tell them the same things to their faces? There's a reason you haven't got any friends," she scoffed, throwing herself onto the mattress backwards hard enough to jostle Khan. After a moment he let his back hit the bed beside her, a faint smile still on his face. She yanked the covers out of the bedframe and shifted up to slide under the sheets, glancing towards Khan with a smirk that said she knew exactly what she was doing. It was a hobby of hers to leave her things strewn in an untidy path through his quarters. As she curled up under the covers and tried to sleep for the first time in a complete day, Khan rolled up out of bed and crossed the room to shut the blinds over the windows. Dawn was not far away, and interrupting Lana's sleep with something as mundane as natural light would put her in a bad mood. That done, he made for the door. The Director would likely come to find him if he remained here, and he didn't want Lana to be associated with him quite yet; it would put her at a high risk, and it would only be too easy to manipulate him through some threat to her. He paused with his hand on the doorknob to glance back at Lana, the covers piled on top of her already rising slowly and evenly. Smirking slightly, he walked out, shutting the door gently behind him.

The hall was empty; unsurprising, at this hour. The patrol was changing shifts, but it would be the left wing's responsibility at the moment, and they hardly ever crossed into the right wing. Still, any Augments who were awake were likely crowding the cafeteria. The Director always avoided being outnumbered by her own creations. Khan had never blamed her for that. Wasn't it only common sense for the scientist who had raised the lions to be cautious around them? He knew that in other Augment bases that the directors who had made wrong moves had commonly been found dead. In fact, it was still ambiguous as to what had happened to Director Janice's partner. Director Frank had died under suspicious circumstances five years earlier, supposedly of natural causes. Khan had always suspected foul play, especially after Janice began to drastically change the training regime soon after Frank's demise. Suddenly, it had become a lot more war-oriented.

Deciding that the Director would be holed up in her quarters, deciding on her next move, he turned right and walked quickly forwards, keeping his hands relaxed at his sides. She would know he was coming through the security cameras dispersed liberally throughout the complex, and keeping her in the dark about his intentions was his highest priority. The fact that he had not yet decided on a course of action himself would be an advantage. Anything to keep her guessing.

2 YEARS EARLIER

The explosion rocked through the building, the floor tilting to an extreme angle beneath them. Lana stumbled into his side slightly, hissing a curse under her breath. "I'm pretty sure they forgot to mess around with the strands that handled grace," she muttered, looking frustrated as she kept a hand clenched in the material of his shirt, and Khan chuckled.

"That's the price for having been born first, unfortunately," he smirked, only laughing as she elbowed him. Their creators had been rather inexperienced with the first batch, and had steadily improved the further along they went. Khan, being one of the youngest, was one of the best. It was the way of things.

"Focus, Khan," The Director's voice bit harshly through his earpiece. Khan squared his jaw, exchanging a glance with Lana. They were here because the Director had manipulated them here. She had lied; Martin's death had been for naught. Another Augment, dead. She would not be forgiven easily.