L'dael looked down at Crane's sleeping body.

It was now ten am, EST. Nine hours of sleep. The longest rest L'dael had in quite a while and yet Crane was was still sleeping soundly. He scratched the back of his head, frowning. He had no idea what he was supposed to do about the sleeping girl in his bed. With a sigh, he walked through his darkened room to the sofa and sat down once more. Stretching his arms along the length of the sofa he tilted his head back and stared up at the ceiling. It was almost as black as the void outside. His mind was slowly going through everything he felt toward Crane.

"Why did you put up those barriers if you were just going to let her in...idiot...but then again, you do need to move on." he sat forward and looked hard at the assembled digi-tags "You'll avenge them soon enough...you know they've been attacking more and more operatives every week...but in the mean time..." His thoughts drifted back to the sleeping girl in the next room, the peace on her face mirroring how he had felt as sleep claimed him in the night. Once more he felt his pulse quicken. Suddenly breathless, he shook himself. "No. Don't! You'll just get..." the voice trailed off. Imaginings of her naked body began to appear in his head and his pulse heightened further. His room suddenly felt very small, claustrophobically so, but he gritted his teeth against the flow of emotions. "No dammit! Don't let your desires control you!" His mind began to race, trying to find an excuse to leave the room, at least for a little while. He remembered the hard nanotics casing around his chest. Grinning wildly to himself, he stood up, hurdled the sofa and ran for the door.

L'dael walked through the quiet corridors of the dojo toward the medical center. Though it was so late in the morning, the air was still. There were only about thirty operatives resident to the Dojo, and most of them just like him, remnants of dead clans, though most of them were not the sole survivors. They still had friends alive, living here in the dojo, they could move on unburdened by their grief.

He walked through the door of the medical center. Almost none of the beds were occupied on account of everybody being permanently careful while on op. Sometimes, if you were so unlucky as to get injured enough to warrant a visit, Val would hit you with a sedi spray and tie you down to the bed, just so you could heal properly. In L'daels case, he never gave her the opportunity. While being the single most reckless fighter in the Dojo, it was rare for him to get injured, just less rare and less fatally than the others. He scanned the room, only one bed was occupied. It was Cloke, a loki, with a nanotics pack covering his entire head. He heard a loud clacking from the far end of the room, where Val's office was, and she soon came into view. She was a tall woman with striking red hair and unique golden eyes. She wore a shirt and skirt under her white lab coat with high heels adding to her already impressive height.

"Thats quite a retro look." He observed, his tone neutral and devoid of emotion. Val looked up from her PDA and raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Well now, the stalker is paying me a visit, it must be a special occasion." She mused with a smile. Ignoring her jibe, he began to walk toward her.

"What happened to Cloke?" he asked as he joined her.

"Oh, him? he pissed off Gale enough to warrant a punch in the face."

L'dael couldn't help but wince slightly. Gale was a Rhino operator, in other words, he was the one guy you don't piss off.

"Yeah, broke his nose and shattered parts of his bone structure." Val sounded like she was barely containing a laugh. "Anyways." she turned to face L'dael. " To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?" Instead of answering, L'dael simply removed his shirt, revealing once more the roadmap of scars on his torso and upper arms, along with the nanotics pack. With a sigh, she lifted her PDA and scanned the pack with it. "What did you do this time I wonder?" She said aloud, but not directed at L'dael, she knew better than to expect an answer from him. "Well. The tissue damage has healed, leave it a while longer and there won't be a scar" She lowered her PDA and took a step back. L'dael had already began to remove the nanotics pack, placing a hand on it and willing it to return to it's original form. The casing slithered across his skin and formed an orb in his hand, revealing the slightly ragged scar the wound had left. "Or, you could of course add to the gallery." she sighed resignedly. Handing the orb to Val, he pulled his t-shirt back on. Val stood silently as he fixed himself and turned to leave.

"Thanks doc" he said as he walked toward the door.

"Yeah yeah, just remember to come and see me before you flee to your cave after an op, okay? Even you need a post battle assessment." She called after him

"I will." It was what he always said, but he never meant it. If a wound was something he could still walk after, he was fine. He would just check with Val a while later to see if the nanotics had healed the damage.

He stalked through the corridors once more, but instead of heading straight back to his room, he decided to go via the mess. Might as well get some food, he thought as his stomach growled in agreement. Back hunched, hands in his pockets, he entered the mess. Walking toward the food prep area, he noticed a gathering of four of the other resident tenno sitting on the sofas facing a large screen that some of the younger tenno played ancient video games on equally ancient consoles they scavenged from multiple expeditions to old Earth. One of them - Riza, an Ember operator - noticed his presences and called over to him.

"Hey! Stalker!" He hated that name, it made the rage that glowed deep inside him flare up, but it was the name he earned, given that he slunk around the dojo trying not to be seen and his former clan was called the tireless stalkers. He forced the fires down again.

"What?" he called back as he dug through the refrigeration unit, searching for something that took his fancy.

"Come meet the new guy, he's a 'Cali, like you" came her answer.

Perhaps he operates an excalibur, but he's not "like me", his mind grumbled.

"Not interested." Grabbing a packet of dried meat from the fridge, he left the mess. The others watched him leave.

"What's his problem?" Fier asked Riza, he was the new guy that she had mentioned.

She shrugged. "Nobody knows. All we know is that he almost never leaves his room, what we just witnessed was a rarity: him being around when everyone else is up."

"Is that so..." He said thoughtfully, his eyes following L'dael as he left the room.

"Don't even bother kid." warned Gale. "Hell will freeze over long before you get any answers out of him."

"Yeah yeah." He turned back to the others. "Has he been here long?"

"Nobody knows, no one even knew he was here until Cloke saw him come and get some food while he was playing with the game box one time." Said Ligo, an Ash operator.

"Longer than all of us I think" Riza added. "He was exactly the same back when I arrived five years ago. Only ever left his room for an op, to see Val about some wound or another, or to get food."

The group went silent for a moment, thinking about the mysterious character that no one really knew anything about when suddenly Ligo clicked his fingers.

"I know who might be able to tell us about him!" He announced

"Who?" asked Gale.

"Crane!" Ligo said it triumphantly, though Gale just shook his head.

"Nah, she wouldn't tell us a thing. Sure she hangs around with us, but she still aint very talkative and I seriously doubt she would share his secrets with us, if he even has any..."

Riza had grown bored of the topic. "Enough about the Mysteries of the Dojo, lets play some games."

L'dael sighed as he opened the door to his room. He walked to the sofa and took his usual spot in front of the table, followed by the usual cursory scan of the digi-tags to make sure all his friends were there. There he sat, chewing slowly on the strips of meat. Suddenly, something occurred to him. He placed the packet on the table and walked through to the bedroom.

Crane was still there, though she wasn't curled up anymore.

At some point during his absence she must of stretched out because she was no longer under the covers or wrapped up in her blanket.

She lay there, arms folded behind her head, completely naked.

It was all L'dael could do to not do anything - standing there shocked, watching her breasts slowly rise and fall in time with her breaths. Blood thundered in his ears and suddenly his world began to tip, darkening into an impenetrable abyss.

Dael!?

The voice echoed in his head, he heard a faint slapping and suddenly felt himself being shaken. With a groan, his eyes fluttered open. He looked up into gleaming sapphires as Crane tried to shake him back to consciousness.

"Uhng.." was all he could manage, blood was still thundering in his ears and his head hurt.

"Are you okay?" There she went, being worried about me again, he thought.

"yeah i'm-." he didn't finish. She must of rushed straight from the bed, she had not thought to cover herself. "fine..." He finally got out. L'dael knew as a fact that his face must be a magnificent shade of red at that moment. He looked to the left, trying desperately not to look at her slim figure as she leaned over him. "Hey...u-uuuh...d'you think you could..y'know..." he stammered.

Oh blast it all. He thought miserably.

"Huh?" it took a moment for Crane to realise what he meant, she could feel the heat radiating from his body. Her face went red, she sat up and looked at the floor. L'dael could hear her making small squeaking sounds as if she was trying not to scream in embarrassment.

Instead she released her frustration a different way.

"Dael..." she said slowly, her voice quaking with rage

"...yes...?" came his meek reply, he had never felt so wretched.

"...you...you...IDIOT!" She punctuated her sentence by slamming her fist into L'daels gut. The air left L'daels lungs, making him gasp. Crane leapt to her feet, and sprinted back to the bed, pulling the covers over her head and curled up into a tight ball, trying to squash the embarrassment in her heart and heat from her blazing red cheeks.

L'dael recovered and hauled himself upright with a grimace. He managed to get up with several grunts of effort. Even if she was a girl, she was Tenno, getting punched by one was not something an average human could get back up from quickly. With a sigh, he walked over to the bed and sat down on the side. He let the silence claim the air as he sat there, staring at the floor.

Finally, Crane broke the silence.

"Dael...?" came her quiet voice.

"Yeah.." His eyes remained fixed on the floor.

"Did you see me...y'know..." her voice trailed off before she could finish.

"Yeah..." He said with a defeat laiden sigh. All he heard after that was a soft whimper of embarrassment.

"Crane..?"

"mhm..."

"...sorry..."