After a bit of fitful sleep, during which she had been subconsciously preparing herself to fight off Darkons mental attacks as best she could, Shara had finally managed to get some real sleep. Waking up oddly refreshed for all that shed had to defend herself from the night before, she stretched and looked over at Slade. He was still sleeping as deeply as he had been the night before.
For a moment she wondered why Darkon hadnt tried to attack him, since he would have been far more vulnerable to those kinds of attacks considering that he had been subject to a much higher degree of the Radams mental reconditioning than she had; then, deciding that trying to understand the motivations of a Tekno-Warlord would only give her a headache.
Especially considering the fact that she didnt really want to understand them.
Leaning back against the far wall of the barn, Shara listened to her stomach growl and wondered when her brother was going to wake up. Cassie usually came about half an hour after Shara herself had woken up thanks, she thought, to the internal alarm shed developed from having to get into the bathroom before any of her brothers when they were getting ready for school so she knew that their breakfast wouldnt be here for a bit longer. Slade, conversely, seemed to want to sleep for as long as he possibly could. Which was yet another difference from the person hed once been; Ness would always be up and banging on the bathroom door while she was inside.
It had been sort of a running joke between them; no matter how early she got up to beat the morning rush, Ness would always be up and banging on the door not soon after she had gotten inside. It had gotten to the point where she was calling him a walking bladder, with at least some degree of annoyance.
Ness gentle good-humor over the whole thing had really helped to defuse her aggravation, though. There were times she missed that; times when she didnt know just what she would do now that the whole of her family was for all intents and purposes dead. She tried not to think about it so much, but it was hard not to when the person who had once been her brother was sleeping right beside her every night.
Finally, Cassie made her way into the barn, just as Slade stirred and began to wake up. That was the way it had always seemed to be; maybe Slade felt comfortable around Cassie, or maybe hed just adapted his sleeping schedule to suit hers. Either way, he always seemed to just be waking up when she came in.
"Good morning, you two," Cassie said, as she climbed up the last few rungs of the ladder into the hayloft.
"Good morning, Cassie," she said, as Slade mumbled something that might have been a greeting, or might have been a stifled yawn. "Im afraid my brothers not quite up to greeting you properly this morning, so well have to try again later."
Cassie laughed, even as the boy in question leaned his head on her shoulder and dozed a bit. Slade always seemed to be sleeping during the day, but since Cassie didnt seem to be too worried about it and she, as odd as it was to think about that sometimes, had known Slade for a lot longer than Shara herself had shed made up her mind not to worry too much about it, either. There were times that all she wanted was to lay down, curl up, and sleep, too.
It probably had something to do with what had happened to them, she figured; a lot of things seemed to be different after that.