The soft clacking of keys echoed down the dark empty hall.

The space station was asleep; all except for one, who was in the main programming room. The normally organized and sterile room was dimly lit from the one monitor, illuminating the man's face as well as some disorganized papers on the console and floor around him. A few boxes and snack wrappers were scattered about as well, a man can't work on no food of course. He leaned forward, slouching worse than normal as he inspected lines upon lines of code. Something had been entered wrong and he needed to find it as fast as possible. His azure eyes flicked to a crumpled paper tossed to the side of his keyboard. If one tried, they could still make out the words "NOTICE" in bold red print, as well as "cancellation" and "reduced funding" in smaller black print further down on the page. There was no way in hell he was going to give up, to let all his- all their hard work go to waste; even if he had to work 23 hours a day every day until the deadline. He at least needed a nap once in a while, it would be foolish to think otherwise. The others on this project were hard workers too, he sometimes needed to remind himself, and he knew that with everyone's combined effort, this could be completed.

Everyone... A figure flashed in his mind, a woman with mid-back length hair wearing a lab coat with a red dress underneath. He hadn't seen her as much lately, though he had been distracted to be fair. He needed her help most of all; she was fast and clever and the only other supervisor on the project.

*CLANK*

He was stirred from his thoughts by a sound from down the hall. He shuffled the papers on the floor into a pile with his foot and made his way to the break area. A warm cup of coffee might do him some good anyway, his eyes were starting to cross from the lines upon lines of E.T.H.E.R., the special code that was written specifically for this project.

As he rounded the corner, he saw her. She was gingerly shutting a cabinet door in an attempt to keep noise to a minimum, and shushing the machine as it steamed and brewed half a pot full of delicious fresh coffee. He breathed in the aroma and sighed a, "Thank god," as he walked to the sink to grab a clean mug. The woman jumped aside, clearly startled. Not expecting anyone, least of all- "Klaus! What.. what are you doing?"

"Shouldn't I be asking the same?" he mumbled vaguely in her direction as he poured sugar and coffee into his mug simultaneously, topping it off with creamer and stirring it lightly with one of those inconveniently tiny straws.

"Well I..." She was stopped by his hand gesturing for her cup, which she uneasily handed over and he filled for her; thinking to herself, how uncharacteristically nice...

He stared at her as he held the half-full cup out. "Take it. Thank you... For making the coffee." He cupped his mug with both hands and took a drink of the warm life-giving liquid, pausing after to remind her, "You never answered the question."

She furrowed her brow and took the cup, muttering a thanks and reminding him that he didn't answer her first, as she took a sip.

He grimaced, 'how can anyone drink coffee plain...' he thought. He turned and began walking back to the large room where the code and his snacks were waiting for him. "Couldn't sleep. Decided to get some work done."

She walked after him.

She knew he was lying, he always looked away when he lied. She also knew how much it stressed him out; the news that the station was being shut down at the end of the month. They had all protested, but there was nothing to be done. "Me too... I mean, I was so tired this afternoon I went to bed early so I thought I should get up and finish what I can..." she explained as they entered the control room, the door wooshing shut behind them as they approached the wall of monitors.

He nodded, and began compiling his mess of papers into a single pile on the console, shuffling the empty wrappers to the trash can and settling back into his chair.

She powered up her usual console a few feet down from his, and grabbed a few papers from the pile and a pack of snacks; an action at which he slightly narrowed his eyes but said nothing. She shuffled through the papers and decided which bug to look for, grabbing her favorite red pen with the little gold crown on the clicker from her pocket to mark the papers as she went through them.

"You should keep better track..." she muttered as she marked the papers; some of these bugs had already been worked out! There was no time to waste looking for problems that were already solved.

"Well excuse me, your highness..." he mumbled as he continued where he left off, eyes darting back and forth quickly as he tabbed down line after line of code. "THERE," he very nearly shouted, maneuvering the curser with the arrow keys to the line and fixing the mistake. He had been so close before and hadn't seen it? He peered out his peripheral at the woman who was now straightening the papers and opening a few windows on her monitor. She hadn't even been phased, she was most definitely used to it by now. He extended his arm toward her and wiggled his fingers, demanding the pen she had finished using. She moved it away from him, "You'll lose it." She stated simply, not even looking away from her monitor.

"OH come on, I don't have any... I need to keep track, right?" He pouted a bit and turned to stare with his arm out, palm toward her. She sighed and placed it in his hand while stating her only stipulation, "Fine, but give it back immediately."

He smiled a smug little smile and marked the paper. He was glad she was here. She helped him in ways he couldn't explain, and in general he sort of... felt better around her. He returned the pen and began preparing his desktop for the next issue when his partner suddenly collapsed forward, knocking over her chair and scattering the papers she had.

"Meyneth? MEYNETH!" He was hyperventilating and starting to panic. Okay more than starting. Thoroughly panicking. What do I do?! Don't move her, call for help, check on her, tell someone, get some ice, what do I do? What do I do? He hit the intercom button and sent a page to the entire station,

"DOCTOR TO THE MAIN PROGRAMMING ROOM, I NEED A DOCTOR IN THE MAIN PROGRAMMING ROOM NOW!"
Everything was in slow motion but time was passing quicker than normal?

He put his coat under her head and looked her over worriedly; she wasn't convulsing and she didn't seem to be hurt... what happened? A doctor came into the room within the next few minutes, and a nurse followed shortly after to help get her to the infirmary.

Klaus couldn't follow since they would have to do tests, he was informed, he could only sit in the waiting room until they were done. Drowning out distractions and emotions had become his specialty over the years, so he decided he would try and do that with work. His time would be better spent working out more issues with their project. It had to be exhaustion or dehydration, something that wasn't too serious and Meyneth should be fine after some rest, he assured himself as he picked up the papers with trembling hands. Looking through the freshly marked papers, he realized there were considerably less issues than he had thought and that reassured him. They might even be able to begin testing by the end of the day! He should've been more excited about that, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He was just worried... uselessly worried! When I could be getting things done, he reminded himself. He gulped the rest of his coffee and got back to work.

[ Thank you for reading! This is my first story in a long while, I welcome any comments or suggestions. Please give me the strength to continue writing! ]