His strong arms coiled tight around my waist, pulling my back flush against his chest. Warmth flooded through me at the contact, encouraging me to lean deeper into him and seek out a comfort that could only be found in his touch.

"Do you see that cluster of stars there?" He asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. His breath fanned against my cheek sending a torrent of goose bumps up my arms.

My gaze followed his hand to a small bunch of stars, nearly too far away and too jumbled together to be distinguished by the human eye. They hardly stood out among the billions of other tiny silver gems that stretched far beyond eternity. Their light the only thing to break up the inky blackness of the night sky.

It was a breathtaking view from here.

"Just beyond those stars there," he continued, bringing his hand back to rest over my crossed arms, "lies a planet more beautiful than anything you could ever imagine."

I stared off into the midnight sky, trying to imagine what it must look like. It had to be incredible.

"Further beyond that is another, darker planet," his voice had grown considerably closer. He rested the side of his face against my temple. Heat flooded my cheeks with the intimate contact.

Somewhere in my subchoncious I wondered how well I actually knew this man.

My heart began to beat a little faster in my chest. Whether I really knew him or not, there was a chemistry between us stronger than anything I had ever felt in real life.

"Is that where you are from?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. I was struggling with wanting to turn around and find out if the rest of him was as attractive as his voice.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a strange emblem tattooed on his inner forearm, but I looked away too quickly distinguish what exactly it was.

"No, that is Klraya."

Klraya.

My eyes shot open and all at once I found myself back in bed, in my room. My faceless, nameless, nighttime-under-the-stars cuddler was nowhere to be seen. I fell back into my pillows and sighed.

It was all just a dream. Dammit!

"Anastasia?"

I jumped, nearly falling out of bed and turned to where my uncle stood, leaning in through my door. Couldn't he have at least knocked?!

"What do you want?" I asked sharply, hoping the look on my face would be enough for him to see that I did not want to be bothered, least of all by him.

What if I had been one of those people who slept naked... or had been getting dressed when he decided to just pop in unannounced?

But, of course, Tony was as clueless as ever. He smiled, leaning in further through my door. "Oh good! I see you are already awake."

"Well I am now." I bit out.

Tony paid no mind to my sharp tone, and instead smiled. "Can you be dressed and meet me outside your door in five minutes?"

I sat up with an annoyed sigh. How did he justify this after basically offering me up as his alien experiment yesterday? He had basically brought me before the thing on a silver platter.

"Can't you just ask whatever it is now and spare me the drama?"

He kept a cool, straight face. "No. Five minutes, Anna."

Before I could protest he stepped back out into the hall pulling my door closed behind him.

I figured I might as well see what he wanted, so I got to my feet fumbled to my closet and dug for something to wear.

I emerged from my room five minutes later, dressed in a white tank top, denim leggings, and sandals.

"Now, what is so important that you had to drag me outside my room?" Before I had even finished talking the sweet aroma of coffee filled my senses.

Instantly I began searching for the source of the heavenly smell and found it had come from two styrofoam cups Tony held.

He merely smirked, offering me one of the cups. I took it, not caring it was hot, and took a long drink of the smoldering black liquid. It was sharp and strong, just the way I liked it.

"Thank you." I muttered, staring down into my cup. At least he had good taste in coffee.

"Thought that might get me off the hook." I looked up and Tony smirked. "Anyway, I was stopping by on the off chance that you might want to come with me to wake Jayce again this morning."

I completely dead panned. "You are joking, right?"

Were they serving audacity around here by the pound, or was Tony really this dense?

"I am still very intrigued with how he will respond the more he is around someone of the," he coughed and looked away from me, "opposite sex. Aside from his obvious differences, we know very little about his social skills."

Rolling my eyes, I began to follow Tony down the hall. Maybe I was a little intrigued myself... Not that I would ever let him know that. "So, let me get this straight, you want me to be... what, exactly?"

I could see the smirk playing at his lips from out the corner of my eye. "How about my partner? Just this once, Anna, please. I give you my word if he tries anything I will throw out the entire experiment and never ask you to be involved again."

He never should have asked in the first place... Oh wait! He didn't ask.

I huffed. "I guess. I mean at least he didn't just kill me yesterday, so that's a start, right?"

I took another long drink from my coffee. I was going to need every last drop of this to survive the day.

Truth be told, as terrifying as he appeared to be, I was anxious to see Jayce again. Questions revolving around him had kept me up most of the night.

~~~ Jayce's POV~~~

I could hear their approach before the door to my room swung open. In walking Dr. Croft and Anastasia.

I stopped what I was doing, momentarily taken off guard. Her pale green eyes met mine before she ducked her head and looked away. It was only fleeting, but it was enough for me.

"Dr. Short, I did not know you were going to wake him." Dr. Croft stated, powering up the treadmill for me.

Dr. Short glanced between Dr. Croft and Anastasia with a scowl, "I arrived early."

"Encase you two have not already met, Anastasia, this is my partner Dr. Ian Short. Ian, this is my niece Anastasia."

I watched the introduction, the interaction between Dr. Short and Anastasia tense. It left me uneasy.

He nodded once in her direction before brushing past her and exiting the room.

"Well, alright then." Tony muttered, continuing his task.

Anastasia frowned, forming a crease between her brows, but she did not press the matter. Instead she turned back to me, her eyes landing on the glass I still held.

"What is that?"

I held up the glass, giving her a better view of the muddy brown sludge I had to look forward to every sinle morning. "Breakfast."

She made a look of disgust. If she only knew. "Is it like a smoothie?"

I glanced to Dr. Croft for help, I had no idea what she meant.

He was clearly pretending not to hear anything that was being passed between us, but I knew him better than that. Aside from Dr. Short he had some of the best hearing out of anyone in this facility.

"Come on over, Jayce." Dr. Croft instructed, stepping back away from my exercise equipment.

I decided on brushing her question aside for now and moved to start my exercises.

The rest of the morning was fairly uneventful. After the minor disturbance with Dr. Short things had settled down and gotten back into their normal routine.

Dr. Croft had not acted bothered, but I would not be taking my chances where Dr. Short was concerned. Something in the way he had looked at Anastasia had unnerved me to no end.

While I exercised my thoughts had begun to revolve around Anastasia. Occasionally my eyes would drift back to her, absorbing every little detail of her face, and the various expressions that passed over it throughout her time spent around me.

She was everything I had imagined she would be and so much more now that she was really here.

She was beautiful.

Inside and out. I knew who she was, I knew her heart, I knew she would be extraordinary... but no amount of time could have ever fully prepared me for her to really be here.

But I had to be. Her arrival was setting into motion a dangerous chain of events with an entire world at stake. It was going to be risky... no matter what, people were going to die.

All I had to do was ensure that what played out in the following weeks was exactly what was supposed to happen.

I could not fuck this up.

~~~ Anastasia's POV ~~~

I was crying.

Tony sat beside me, a pained look on his face. He said nothing.

"If I stay... they will die."

He simply nodded. My heart sank.

I swallowed back another bout of tears. "But if I go... I will never see earth again."

Tony met my eyes then, his gaze softening. He understood my conflict. "No."

"I will give everything to a people who, in all rights, I owe nothing." My voice had fallen to a mere whisper.

"You do not go out of duty, Anastasia. You go out of love. You go to save them."

My eyes flew open, my chest rising and falling rapidly. I glanced all around and found I was back in my room.

Thank the gods, it was nothing more than another really strange dream.

The intensity of it slowly began to ebb until I thought nothing else of it.

I suppressed a yawn and stretched out on my mattress. An entire two weeks had passed from the first time I had met Jayce with little change.

The first few days of visiting Jayce, after getting over my initial fear of him, were fascinating and I learned quite a lot about him from Tony, but I soon grew tired of the mind numbing science terms, and literally watching Jayce repeat the same exact routine every single day.

I had no access to a lap top, cell phone, tv... They did not even allow so much as a radio out here. There wasn't even anything stimulating to read, unless I wanted to study the philosophy of science... which I did not.

In all I had learned that there were two cooks, five personal trainers for Jayce and the rest of the staff, multiple guards who only seemed to appear about once a week, and the twenty some scientists who called this place home. And, aside from the cooks, nobody seemed to want to take the time to talk.

If I managed to get one of the scientists to speak to me about their day it revolved around Jayce and their studies. I had never been a big fan of science, therefore I had absolutely nothing in common with these people.

Did they really have no life outside of their work?

That likely explained why Tony had always seemed so off. One could not spend ten years hidden away in this place without so much as a television and not expect to suffer some form of side effects.

I was growing so desperate for human contact as I lay in bed I began to contemplate (just as I had for the last several nights) doing the unthinkable.

I tried again to argue all of the reasons why it was ludicrous. Why waking Jayce was one of the dumbest decisions I had ever considered making, but the growing number of reasons why I should were more persuasive each time I thought of it.

After all, it seemed we were both just two people in need of some companionship - ok, that may not be true for Jayce, but it was definitely the case for me.

Besides, Jayce was an alien. Surely any conversation with him would be far more interesting than the rest of the conversations I had had here.

He had spent the better half of his life trapped sleeping in that tank with no one to talk to. Surely he had things he wanted to say... I had been here a little less than two months and I was going crazy.

With my mind already made up I slipped from my room, certain everyone had already gone off to bed by now, and padded my way down the hall with bare feet. In nothing more than a tank top and pajama pants.

I punched the security code in at the door, sliping inside the dimlylit room as soon as I heard the lock click.

Once inside I hurried to the chamber, pulled open the hidden drawer and plucked out a syringe, just as I had watched my uncle do many times.

With syringe at the ready I typed in the code to the lid and smiled as the pressure released with a loud hiss. The lid drew back and there, laying in peaceful slumber, was the ailen I had feared not too long ago.

For a moment I could only stare down at him in complete wonder at how anyone could treat anothe living being the way Jayce had been treated. Sure, he was not human, but he had been raised here on earth as one.

I was no emotionally deprived scientist. I was going to wake him.

Without giving it another thought I plunged the needle into his arm, injecting the milky white contents of the syringe into Jayce's arm.

Stepping back I discarded the needle into a nearby garbage bin and waited as the seconds passed and he finally began to stir.

He let out a groan, then sat up before his eyes were even fully open.

I stood back a distance and did not move, waiting for him to discover on his own that I was the one to wake him.

This was the first time we were alone... completely alone. Perhaps I had not thought this through.

He moved to rub his eyes and froze when he spotted me. His intense golden eyes narrowed until he was scowling. "What have you done?"

I glanced down at the floor, swallowing back the fear that had began to bubble up.

This was a mistake.

"I- um... I couldn't sleep."

He did not look convinced. "I was sleeping."

"But you are always sleeping when you are not with them," I motioned to the door to indicate the scientists, "don't you ever just want to have someone to talk to, or do anything besides train?"

"I am not trained to talk." He said with a shrug. That he had no doubt picked up from my time here. I had not seen a single other person in this place shrug.

"Well then, consider this your first lesson on conversation."

He remained indifferent, "I know how to talk, Anastasia."

"Yes, I see that," I rolled my eyes.  He would have to be a smart ass, "I just think it would be benificial if you had someone to really talk to."

He shrugged again and remained silent. I took that as my opprotunity to assualt him ith my many questions.

"So, do you know where you came from?"

"No."

"Do you have family?"

He shook his head, his eyes shifting to the floor. "I do not know."

Was there anything he did know aside from what the doctors here told him?

"Tony is the only family I have left." I admitted, fighting back the surge of tears that were threatening to rise up and spill over.

"Why are you telling me this?" Jayce asked, his eyes suddenly moving back to me.

I looked away to hide the reddening of my cheeks, and shook my head, "I just thought maybe if i opened up and little to you you would be more willing to open up to me."

"I have no problems for which I need to talk about." Jayce replied simply.

It was only now I realized the entire time he had been awake he had only looked away from me once. Did he not know it was impolite to openly stare at someone?

Maybe he did not trust me. That seemed likely.

"Are you happy?"

"Happiness is just an expression of weakness, of vulnerability. I have neither." So... in other words no. No he was not happy.

What a sad life- not even a life. What a sad existance this was for him.

It was growing increasinggly hard for me to keep from snapping at the man. I really wanted to shake him and yell at him until he felt something other than nothing.

I vowed right then that, somehow, I would find a way for Jayce to experience happiness.

"Have you ever wondered what life is like outside of this place?" I asked. It was wrong of me to be sewing bad seeds into the mind of a presumptivly unstable forgin being, but I really could not help myself.

It was crazy to think he had lived out his entire life here and never once questioned the purpose of his existence. He was an onion and I wanted nothing more than to peel back his many layers until I finally reached the real person buried deep inside.

He kept staring at me while he calculated his answer. His eyes had been glued to my face so long I was certain he had spotted every flaw on it.

"No. I have been provided with everything I need here."

What an unfulfilling life.

"I have never, in my life, met someone so incredibly boring." I sighed, brushing my messy hair back out of my face. I should have tied it back.

All he offered in response was a casul roll of his shoulders and a clipped, "I am who I have to be."

"I can put you back to bed, if you'd like."

He shook his head, "No. That would do no good now that I am already awake."

Right... right.

I was no Cryogenics expert or anything, but I had learned enough throughout my time here to know you did not have to be tired to fall alseep inside a Cryo chamber. Once the lid was sealed the tank released a gas designed to keep you suspended in a state of hyper-like sleep where you would remain until the gas was either exhausted or removed.

I crossed my arms over my chest, "I think, if you really want to be awake, you are going to have to do better than that."

Something vaguely similar to amusement flitted across his face before vanishing just as fast as it had arrived.

It was enough to give me a sliver of hope that there was more to Jayce than he let on.

"Is there anything you would like to ask me?"

He opened his mouth, looking like he was about to speak before thinking better of it and quickly snapping it back shut.

"You can ask me, you know." I urged, my curiosity piqued. What could he possibly want to know?

"I have heard the doctors speak of stars before," Jayce looked unsure of himself, something I was unfamiliar with seeing on him, "I have never seen them. Could- could you tell me about them?"

My jaw nearly hit the floor. Had I heard him right?

I did not need to give it a second thought. This was it- the first layer to the onion was finally peeling back.

I knew what I had to do and reached for Jayce's hand without a second thought. He froze in place, watching with a look of genuine confusion as I laced my small fingers through his.

I offered an encouraging smile and motioned for him to follow me. "Well come on! You are not going to regret this."

"What are you doing?"

"Taking you to see the stars, duh." I replied, trying to pull him onto his feet.

It was useless, his arm weighed as much as I did and no matter how hard I tried he still would not move. I finally turned and followed his gaze down to our interlocked hands. That's when it dwaned on me.

"Oh... I am holding your hand, Jayce. Has anyone ever held your hand before?"

His eyes met mine, their strange color reminding me of molten gold with flecks of black mixed in. They were beautiful. "No."

Well that was shocking. Giving as emotionally unattached as these scientists were I don't know why I had expected anything different.

"Is this ok?" I asked, gesturing back to our joined hands, "I can let go if you want."

His grip tightened around my hand and he shook his head. "No. This is acceptable."

"Ok," I lead us to the door and pulled it open, "I need you to be silent Jayce. Don't make a sound."

I didn't look to see if he had heard me, I doubted there was any way he couldn't have, and tugged him out the door.

Once in the hall I made sure I kept a firm grip on his hand and started towards my destination. Jayce kept a steady pace, nearly on top of me as I pulled around corners and down a couple other halls.

We eventually came to a stop in front of an exit door i had found days earlier during one of my days spent wondering the halls.

I turned to Jayce, growing completely serious. "Now, if I let you outside you are not going to run off on me, are you?"

He shook his head, his eyes locked on mine, "I will not leave your side."

Good enough.

I turned back to the door, taking a deep breath. "Right. OK."

I was really going to do this.