She's sitting slumped in her chair, a cup of coffee within easy reach.

They eye each other for a moment, without speaking.

"Anyone else around?" Scanlon wonders.

She shakes her head.

"I thought I heard something, a few minutes ago."

She turns back to face the console. A couple of icons flash on the main display.

"What are you doing?"

She makes a vague gesture to the console. "Running tender. Thought you'd like that, for a change."

"Oh, but I said—"

"Not to change the routine," Clarke cuts in. She seems tired. "Do you always expect everyone to do everything you say?"

"Is that what you think I meant?"

She snorts softly, still not looking back.

"Look," Scanlon says, "Are you sure you didn't hear something, like— like—" like a ghost, Clarke? A sound like poor dead Acton might make, watching his own remains rotting out there on the rift?

"Don't worry about it," she says.

Aha. "So you did hear something." She knows what it is, too. They all do.

"What I hear," she says, "is my own concern."

Take a hint, Scanlon. But there's nowhere else to go, except back to his cubby. And the prospect of being alone, right now— somehow, even the company of a vampire seems preferable.

She turns around to face him again. "Something else?"

"Not really. Just can't seem to sleep." Scanlon dons a disarming smile. "Just not used to the pressure, I guess." That's right. Put her at ease. Acknowledge her superiority.

She just stares at him

"I don't know how you take it, month after month," he adds.

"Yes you do. You're a psychiatrist. You chose us."

"Actually, I'm more of a mechanic."

"Of course," she says, expressionless. "It's your job to keep things broken."

Scanlon looks away.

She stands up and takes a step towards the hatchway, her tending duties apparently forgotten. Scanlon stands aside. She brushes past, somehow avoiding physical contact in the cramped space.

"Look," he blurts out, "how about a quick review of the tending procedure? I'm not all that familiar with this equipment."

It's too obvious. He knows she sees through it before the words are even out of his mouth. But it's also a perfectly reasonable request from someone in his role. Routine evaluation, after all.

She watches him for a moment, her head cocked a bit to one side. Her face, expressionless as usual, somehow conveys the impression of a slight smile. Finally she sits down again.

She taps on a menu. "This is the Throat." A cluster of luminous rectangles nested in a background of contour lines. "Thermal readout." The image erupts into psychedelic false color, red and yellow hot spots pulsing at irregular intervals along the main fissure. "You don't usually bother with thermal when you're tending," Clarke explains. "When you're out there you find that stuff out sooner first-hand anyway." The psychedelia fades back to green and gray.