She looked up at him with fear and he felt his heart break. Arik slowly reached his hand out towards her face, noting her flinch with an agonising pang in his gut. He cradled her head in his palm. So small... her face was so small. Softly, gently, he ran a thumb over her lips and a shudder crept through his spine. He let out a low moan and bent down to take her mouth.

His lips parted enough to graze the entirety of her top lip as he closed his mouth over hers. Simultaneously, his hand moved down her jaw bone slightly so his thumb could press against her chin, pulling her mouth open as he parted his lips again and slid his tongue inside. In one sudden, fierce movement, he had shifted his hand to the back of her head and ground his mouth heavily against hers, his tongue violating every inch within her.

A whimper escaped her as his other hand reached under her arm and behind her back, pulling her to her feet and crushing her against him. She found her body betraying her, an excitement rushing through her as she slowly mimicked his arm positions with her own, trailing them over his arms and torso before they reached their destination.

Arik stilled, making an almost indiscernable sound in his throat before he slowly pulled his mouth off hers and pressed the side of his face to her cheek. It was impossible to pull away. She stood there, feeling his breath dance across her skin, hardly daring to breathe herself. After several seconds, she could feel moisture against her cheek and realised that he was crying.

"I don't know what's wrong with my life," he whispered hoarsely.

She let out a soft breath. Not knowing what to say, she simply stroked the back of his head. And for a long time, they stayed that way.

Raven stretched in her seat and looked up at the clock on the wall. Nearly twenty minutes had gone by with her reading and re-reading the ending of her book. There was something missing, she knew it, she just didn't know what.

Knowing that tonight would bring no answers, she left the confines of her room and took a walk down the corridor of her prison. Well, not her prison in the sense that she was a prisoner there, but it was the prison in which she worked.

She often did the night watch. It wasn't a very hard job, the prison was very secure and there were guards everywhere to stop the prisoners from getting out, or anyone else coming in. Her job was simply to keep an eye out for any trouble within the prison cells and to serve the dinner when she first started her shift.

Several cells down from her office, she paused. It was this particular cell that had inspired her story when she first started this job, two years ago. The walls were covered in papers containing diagrams and facts. They were very advanced 'scribbles' of genetic manipulation and engineering.

Her eyes scanned the pages, every week they changed, because the other watchers took them down and the cell's inhabitant had to write new ones to take their place. It was when she reached the end of the wall directly opposite and glanced at the bed that she realised Arik Soong was staring back at her.