“So, you want me to make you breakfast?” Adan was asking Aura as he was leading her from the bedroom.

“Make me breakfast?” she raised a brow as she let him lead her into the hall. “I guess you actually did enjoy last night, even if we didn’t do... everything.”

Adan couldn’t help smirking, “and you thought you didn’t have any talent.”

“Oh fuck you” she let out a tiny laugh.

“Maybe after you’ve had breakfast” he told her with another playful grin as they reached the glass doors. There they noted Ilian sitting at the computer now, intently scrolling through site after site. “Well, he’s discovered the internet. He’ll never bother us again” Adan stated wryly as he gave her a quick kiss before relinquishing her wrist and turning in the direction of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” she asked him worriedly.

“To make you breakfast, like I just said” he smiled back at her.

“But...” she said as she gave Ilian a worried look before turning back to Adan with a pleading expression.

“Hey, if you get too nervous, offer to show him how to work the shower again. That should be a good ice breaker” Adan teased as he gave her another grin before heading for the kitchen.

She whined her disapproval of the plan and forced herself to move into the living room grudgingly. “Morning” she mumbled as she took a seat on the couch, trying to avoid any eye contact with Ilian now as well.

“Hello?” he looked away from the screen to return her greeting, a bit surprised that she had come into the room with him at all, let alone spoken to him.

“Found the internet, huh?” she managed, trying her best to make an awkward attempt at conversation.

“There’s so much information. Everything there is to know about your---about anything” he corrected his original statement once more.

“Yeah, well eighty percent of it is bullshit; just so you know” she mumbled as she flipped on the TV and called up the video library.

“Pardon?” he asked.

She just shook her head as she navigated through the collection of movies and TV shows for yet another day there in the bunker. “So, you and Adan have been talking a lot I guess, huh?”

“Not that much” he countered softly.

“Well, more than you and I have talked” she mumbled.

“He has an easier time trusting than you do” he replied in the same soft spoken manner.

“Yeah, understatement” she scoffed. “Plus he’s got some weird idea in his head that you seem familiar to him or some shit. I don’t get it.”

Ilian looked down a moment before continuing, “maybe I remind him of someone.”

“Yeah, maybe” she said sarcastically before turning her attention back to the TV screen.

After a few more moments of Ilian pouring through websites and Aura clicking through viewing selections, Ilian looked back at her and decided to make another attempt at the two of them being able to actually speak to each other.

“So, did he give you the Ibuprofen?” he asked innocently.

She whirled around in her place on the sofa and gave him a cold look. “Excuse me?”

“To try and keep any offspring from being born” he added, his volume lowering as he saw her expression.

“Excuse me?” she said more loudly as she stood, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. She looked angrily toward the glass doors before bringing her attention back to Ilian. “First of all, who the hell says ‘offspring?’ Second of all, we don’t even know if there is any fucking offspring! Third of all, he told you that?” she asked, appalled.

Ilian stood, getting the impression he had said or done something wrong yet again, though not quite sure what it had been, as usual. He took a step closer to where she still stood glaring at him, waiting on his explanation.

“I saw the search he was doing on there” he gestured to the computer. “Drugs that may cause miscarriage” he clarified. “He was looking for ones that weren’t here, so I told him to just use that instead. That’s what the two of you wanted, right?”

“You’re un-fucking-believable!” she exclaimed. “Do you literally have no fucking concept of privacy, or boundaries, or keeping your goddamn mouth shut about shit that you don’t understand, and is frankly none of your fucking business?” she was shouting at him at this point, all of her emotions cranked up to ten right then, as they so often and easily were.

Seeming at a loss for determining what exactly he had done to anger her so much, Ilian decided to try the only thing he thought might have some chance of calming her emotions. He stepped forward then, and placed his mouth over hers, the way Adan had done to calm her so many times.

Having heard the shouting from the kitchen, Adan had hurried back toward the living room to make an attempt at diffusing the situation. Of course, he got there just in time to see Ilian placing his mouth over Aura’s, and immediately froze in shock as he reached the door.

Once Aura was over her own initial shock at the situation she now found herself in, she quickly pushed him away, “what the fuck?”

“Yeah, what she said” Adan interjected as he quickly stepped into the room, placing himself between Ilian and Aura.

Ilian looked between the two angry sets of eyes glaring back at him accusingly. “She was upset, so...”

“No shit!” Aura exclaimed, clenching her fists so tightly that she nearly drew blood.

“Kissing a girl without her permission is really not a good fucking way to calm her down” Adan stated, his own anger obvious.

“But, it’s how you calm her down” Ilian defended with confusion.

“I fucking have permission!” Adan returned. “Fuck, man!”

“How can you not even understand normal basic fucking human concepts?” Aura growled back at him. “I seriously doubt your little reservation or what the fuck ever was that fucking different!”

Ilian seemed at a loss still as he looked between them. “I truly don’t understand what I did that was so upsetting, to either of you. I was only trying to help.”

“Yeah, well you fucking failed” she returned, letting out some combination of a scream and a growl as she stormed out of the room once more.

Adan and Ilian then looked at each other awkwardly, the former’s anger still simmering just under the surface. Ilian warily spoke again. “I honestly don’t understand.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you man” Adan just shook his head. “I almost had her OK with you being here, or at least tolerant of the situation. What the fuck did you say that pissed her off so bad? You know, before making a try at sexual assault?”

Ilian looked down, trying to find an acceptable response. “It’s so hard to understand most of the things either of you say. So I say the wrong things back, or do the wrong things” was his only defense right then.

“Oh, so this is all because of the language barrier then? That’s your excuse?” Adan scoffed. “I’m sure she’ll be perfectly fine once we explain that” he added sarcastically.

“I’m trying” Ilian stated as he turned away again.

“Yeah, whatever you say, man” Adan shook his head again before leaving the room once more.

When Adan found her in the bedroom, he offered a sympathetic sigh before stepping into the room with her again.

“What started all that anyway?” he attempted, closing the door behind them.

“It doesn’t fucking matter” she mumbled. She was now seated against the headboard, holding a pillow protectively against herself.

“Well, it must have mattered enough to get you to start shouting at him before... the rest” Adan stated as he moved to take a seat on the bed next to her.

“So this is my fault?” she shot back, her emotions still through the roof.

“I did not and will not say that. Come on, Aura. We both know he’s like a fucking child or something. No concept of what he should say or do. Figures, he can’t be that hot without a severe flaw, like brain damage perhaps?” he shrugged.

She scoffed, “you’re still calling him hot?”

“You were the one kissing him” Adan made a weak attempt at humor.

“Fuck off!” she bit back.

“Teasing!” he assured her. “Believe me, I know how fucked up that kiss was. Not how I envisioned it when and if either of us started making out with him at all.”

“I still wanna hit something, Adan” she warned.

“Teasing, still,” he promised as he leaned over to place a tiny kiss over her cheek. “You know how I like hiding behind humor when things are...”

“Really really fucked up?” she offered.

“Yeah, that,” he agreed. He sighed as he leaned back against the headboard with her. “I probably shouldn’t have actually called it sexual assault. I don’t even think he gets the concept of what a kiss even is, and why it’s something you only do with certain people, who you have a certain... level of intimacy with. He is like a fucking a---”

They both stopped and looked at each other then, each swallowing hard. “Like a what now?” she pressed, though there was fear in her voice.

“No, let’s not go back down that road again right now,” Adan tried to sound dismissive, but the comment couldn’t help causing them both to take a long, concerned breath as they turned their worried gazes to the door in deep contemplation.