Movement against his chest brought Mark from the depths of slumber to full wakefulness. His body was painfully stiff, as if he hadn't moved in hours and there was a weight holding down the entire right side of his body. Sudden fear washed over him as he tried to recall where he was and how he had gotten there. The unbearable numbness in his extremities made him wonder if he'd been drugged or poisoned. Slowly opening one eye just the smallest of slivers, he glanced around the room trying to determine his location.
It looked familiar, yet somehow wrong. The colors weren't right and there wasn't supposed to be a slim arm across his stomach, but what he could see looked remarkably like his quarters on Center Neptune. Taking that as a sign that he wasn't in mortal danger, he opened both eyes fully so that he could take in his surroundings completely. Following the arm that was draped across him, he was surprised to see a blue sleeve trimmed in red. Princess! Suddenly it all came back to him. He had been looking for her, for reasons that escaped him at the moment, only to find her asleep in the lab. He'd only meant to bring her to her room, but he couldn't resist when she softly asked him to stay. Somehow he must have nodded off while waiting for her to settle into a deeper sleep.
Now he had to find a way out of here before she woke up and found him in her bed. Normally that would be difficult enough to accomplish, but with half his body suffering from lack of circulation, this was going to prove a real challenge. First, he pulled his hand out from behind his head and slowly dangled it off the edge of the bed, hoping that gravity would speed in its recovery. He flexed his fingers, wincing at the pain of restored blood flow as his digits came alive once more. Satisfied that he had one working limb, he repeated those actions with his left leg, until he felt in control of that portion of his body as well. He took a deep breath knowing that the real challenge now lay before him, or was that on top of him. Working very carefully, he managed to get enough control of his right hand and arm to gently touch Princess's shoulder in an effort to get her to roll onto her other side.
As if understanding his clumsy request, she sighed deeply and rolled away from the commander's body, curling up on her right side. Smiling gently, he slipped the rest of the way out of the bed, before being forced to bite back a hiss as blood began to flow painfully throughout the rest of his body. He grabbed his shoes from the floor and began tiptoeing to the door, hoping to make good his escape. Just as he reached for the control panel, he heard a sound issue from his wrist communicator. Before he could touch the bracelet's face plate and silence the incoming message, Princess sat up and looked at him. "Mark? What are you doing here?" she asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.