The staircase seemed to stretch forever into the sky, and both Light and Hope were growing extremely tired from the long ascent.

Light had been until this moment, commander in chief... fearlessly pushing forward with little regard to her friend and companion whose lungs seemed to be at near collapse.

At last she couldn't help but stop, her body started to go weak at the excessive amount of strength the last few hours had seeped from her. Upon reaching a floor that had a nice flat she fell to her knees and stopped for a moment to catch her breath. Hope put his hands on his knees and looked at the crazy woman, and for a moment tried to say something between gasps.

"Lady Light, please..... shit...."

He spit onto the ground and stood up, lifting his head into the air as if the upward position would help him regain his breath.

"Shit woman, let's camp here for the night. You're crazy... so I say....no... I have decided that we shall stop... now...."

Lightning looked up at him and was too out of breath to resist so she allowed her body to limp against the ground. She fell on her stomach and had her face against the cold tile, which glowed and sharpened her beautiful features.

"Fine."

Hope fell to the floor and nodded in agreement. The two sat there for a moment until they were no longer out of breath. Hope sat and looked around the space trying to see if anything interesting existed, Light stayed face down on the tile, feeling her cheek go numb as she fell into silence.

"Here.... seems strange but let me make camp."

He got up and started to take the camping supplies out the bag which he unfairly got to carry the bulk of on their adventures. He had bulked up through it all, and in all honesty could handle it... but either way he sometimes wanted to make the fearless leader carry the 70 lb. pack.

Light turned over and propped her head up on her arm and watched him as he assembled their sleeping quarters, and even had the audacity to yawn as he struggle with the preparations.

"You want to help?"

He glanced back at her and she slowly rose to her feet... not because she wanted to, but because the lack of doing so would make her seem like an ass.

"Ok."

She looked at Hope and seemed to be drifting in and out herself. He looked at her and realized just how exhausted the poor girl was. He twitched and a frown formed on his face.

"Don't worry about it... just get our bed ready."

He looked at her and continued to finish the camp. When he was done he hadn't even noticed that she had again sat down, this time laying down completely... asleep...

"Oh...lazy."

He walked over to her and picked her up in his arms, carrying her to the tent that he had just put up. He put her down and covered her with the blanket that she had so heroically carried till this point. She was dead asleep and he couldn't help but look at her for a moment, brushing the hair from her face.

"I'm not a little boy anymore... I wish you could see that."

He had his hand on her face and looked at her... she squirmed in the bed and then opened her sleepy eyes and looked at him.

"I know that. Now will you just leave me alone and come to bed."

He looked at her and was in shock for a moment and made robotic motions to do as she said, quickly crawling into bed and wrapping his arms around her. She pushed his arm off and the two were in silence until Light started to squirm in discomfort, and then sighed in irritation.

"Hey Hope?"

The young man opened his eyes and moved closer to the woman to hear what she was about to say.

"Can you take your boyhood somewhere else."

He quickly jumped up from bed and looked down at the woman who didn't even seem to flinch from his departure. She wrapped herself up in the one blanket like it was her own personal cocoon.

He looked at her and realized after about ten minutes that she had fallen asleep without much to say after that... so he fell asleep in the corner... wishing his anatomy wouldn't have betrayed him quite so soon.