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Colin had been admitted to the hospital and lay resting comfortably.  He was the only student that the hospital kept over night.  His mother and Chris were there, and friends of theirs came and went.  Colin's friends stopped in as well.  Donnie and Sylvia arrived, with Donnie's mom.  She bit back a sob when she saw Colin there in the hospital bed.  She left them alone and went to get coffee.

Sylvia, a little less numb from interacting with Donnie, goes to the bed and peers down at Colin's face.  She's not as distressed as she ought to be, simply because she knows what it means to take leave of one's body.  "Hi," she says.  "We brought you a cactus.  This way you don't have to come back and water it for a while.  Do you need help?  Should I come get you?  If I show up, can I meet your friends?

"Maybe later," she goes on in a tone of pseudo-confidentiality.  "Donnie's here, and I don't want him getting lonely."

Colin feels pretty disoriented. It was to be expected, all things considered. When the feeling of falling finally comes, he can't help but wonder if there could be a mistake, if he could come back to a different world, and, even worse, if he would be able to notice the difference.

Sylvia has just put the cactus on the bedside table, and turning back, she realizes there's something different. It takes her a moment to realize the tattoos are back were they belong, on Colin's arms. A few moments later, he opens his eyes. Maybe it's the light, but for an instant they look completely black. It was most likely just an impression.

He stirs, craning his neck to look around, and coughs. This pretty much alerts everyone that he's finally awake. When his eyes meet Sylvia, He breaks into one of those smiles bigger than his face, while his mother risks smothering him with a hug.
Thank God and the Great Spirit. It worked.

"I'm sorry" he says, when he's finally allowed to take a breath "How long has it been here?"

Alexandra doesn't manage any actual words.  It's more like a laugh choked by tears.  Chris fills Colin in on how long he's been out.

Alicia doesn't like hospitals. When she was little, she overheard her mom telling someone how she'd fought to get her daughter back from the hospital after she'd been born as they claimed they needed to do "some tests," and, for a while, young Alicia had suffered nightmares where white-coated strangers dragged her away from her Mommy and did vaguely-defined menacingly painful things to her.

But more immediate, hospitals feel... wrong to her. The overwhelming stench of antiseptic stings her sensitive nose and fails, at least to her, to cover the accumulated miasma of smells: pain, blood... death. Add to that the constant murmur and groans of people in discomfort, distress or despair, and the building comes close to her own mental image of hell.

Colin is here, though. Alicia is sure that, whatever stroke of luck, whatever congruence of events had placed John where he needed to be to save them (to save Rhys) from the explosion, Colin had been behind it. She's not sure where that assurance comes from, but it is set in her mind as fixed as her love for Rhys is branded in her heart.

So here she is, clinging to Rhys as they ride the elevator up to the floor where Colin's room is. She cocks her head and says, "He's awake! I can hear them talking!" She punches Rhys's arm jokingly in her excitement. The doctor riding with them in the elevator car gives the two an odd look and goes back to reading the chart he's holding.

Rhys smiles and rubs him arm and waits for the elevator doors to open.

As soon as the doors slide open, Alicia is off, tugging at Rhys, her nervousness abated by the excitement in seeing Colin awake.

She unerringly finds his door, but hesitates once they reach it. Her buoyant mood has cycled back to anxious unease. She bites her lip, looking at the door then steps close to Rhys. "Go ahead, knock," she urges him softly.

Colin sighs. "I thought more." He then squeezes his mom in his arms. "I'm sorry I make you worry so much. Please, stop crying now. I'm here. I'm all right."

Alex tries very hard to stop, but it takes a while before she manages to actually stop crying, and to let go of Colin.  Chris urges her to go with him for some coffee, and they take Donnie's mom with them, passing Alicia and Rhys at the door.

As the door opens to let the parents out, Rhys turns to Alicia.

"There. Problem solved."

He waits for the adults to move out of the way, then enters the room, hand-in-hand with Alicia.

Alicia follows Rhys in, oddly subdued. She gives a little wave to Donnie and Sylvia, then looks in on Colin, half-hiding behind her boyfriend.

Donnie gives Colin a manly hug: the shoulder touching, back thumping kind his father always gave his friends. "Glad to see you decided to rejoin us. Where did you go? Sylvia said she couldn't 'hear' you?"

He waves, smiling, when Alicia and Rhys come in.

"Away." Colin says, and from the sound of his voice it was actually very far away.

"I'm so glad to see you guys are all right. I'm sorry I gave everybody such a scare. I guess Laney had it worst. Is she ok?"

Alicia frowns. Laney? All she did was stand there and look stupid! she thinks crossly. Then a thought dawns on her.

"Wait," she interrupts. "Are you saying that Laney had something to do with John and Sammy showing up just in time to save everyone?"

"I was saying that she was right next to me and took out the flames when my shirt took fire, and she's got really good reason not to like explosions in the first place, so it was all probably very devastating for her, but yes, she had something to do with that too. Although she likely doesn't realize it."

He looks down at his bandages.

"Mental note: no more synthetic fabrics."

Alicia gives a dismissive shrug. She knows who to hold responsible for their near-miraculous rescue.

Impulsively, she jumps forward and gives Colin a tight hug, despite the awkward angle of the bed and interposing figures.

"Thank you," she whispers to him, before she let's go just as quickly and returns to her position half-behind Rhys. She studiously ignores the other people in the room.

Colin would have whispered something back, but Alicia was too quick, so he just nods.

He realizes something, and tentatively moves his shoulder. No pain. He shrugs a bit more. No pain either.

"Uhm. It looks like at least this problem was dealt with in the meanwhile. Good."

He looks up to Sylvia.

"Hey boss. How are you holding up?"

Did you get out in time?

Sylvia steps back from the bed to let Colin's mother and Alicia in to hug him and finds herself observing the tears and exclamations in utter passivity.  She's glad Colin's back, but it's too easy for her to objectify all the emotion in the room.  Still, she manages to crease her face into an origami smile for Colin.  "I'm fine," she says for the seventy-second time.

No, is what she projects to him.  And when that answer begins to feel too terse, she elaborates.  I stayed.  John came.  I'm fine.

Donnie knows Sylvia well enough to recognize the smile as brittle and hollow, and the response bland and regurgitated. He says nothing.

I didn't mean out of the school, and you know it. Maybe we could take a walk somewhere...

His concerned look lasts a little too long, and he doesn't want the others to know there's some conversation going on they're not privy to.

"Donnie, what about the girls? Are they still breaking everything?"

I wasn't with him, Sylvia says.  I just watched him go.  Her brain chains the thoughts together without much concern for sequence.  I could use a walk.  Can you get up?  A nurse said a person's strength deteriorates about twenty-five percent for every day he spends lying in bed, but they say you shouldn't trust round numbers in statistics.

"They had been sent home. The authorities and the scientific community are looking into antidotes, which the files we snatched seem to indicate can be applied rather easily. Scary really, if this formula can make and unmake paranormals as easy as that. I certainly hope there are no long term effects. We don't know right now."

He scratches at his shoulder with one hand and masochistically pokes a finger repeatedly on one of the cactus' spines, just shy of drawing blood.

Sylvia watches him scratch, and then, because she knows how impolite it would be otherwise, she makes an effort to speak.  "What's wrong with your arm?"

Donnie shrugs. "Nothing. Just some shrapnel. Mom took care of it. Just itches."

Of course I can. I didn't spend a day lying in bed anyway. he thinks, enigmatically. Sylvia hears the distinctive echo of someone trying to hide something.


"I'll take a look at them when we get back to school. And Donnie? Please, don't. To him, it's annoying."

He peeks behind the covers to make sure his gown is decent.

Thank God and the Great Spirit also for this not taking long enough for them to decide to catheterize me.

He gets off the bed, and slides to the bathroom, keeping his back to the wall.

Then, through the door, he says "Guys, can you hand me my pants, please?"

Alicia manages to swallow a very unladylike snort, then frowns.

"Hey, Col, should be getting up? I mean, I understand if you gotta pee, but... Wait, are you planning to split the joint?" There's an undercurrent of hopeful enthusiasm in her tone.

"I'm perfectly fine, Allie. There is no reason for me to stay here, or for them to keep me here. For all the doctors knew, I had a dislocated shoulder, some burns, and was very soundly asleep. My shoulder is fine, the burns have been medicated, and I'm awake. Problem solved. So yes, I'm getting out."

to Alicia from Sammy:   Me and El are going to visit Colin tomorrow.  Do you know his room number?

Alicia asks nonplussed, "And the doctors will just let you?" Her confusion is genuine.


Alicia says, "Hold on." She reaches back into her small backpack and extracts her phone. After reading the message, she fires of a quick reply.


hold on. hes cheking himself out

WTF?

"Of course they will." He says through the door. "I'm going to ask politely."

Donnie stops abusing the poor cactus, patting it lightly on the top as if apologizing to a favored pet. "Sorry boy."

As his determined friend escapes to the bathroom, Donnie gets Colin's clothes from the tiny closet and hands them through the crack of the door. "I think your mom gets the final decision there, pal."

"I appreciate the concern, and I surely don't want to make my mom any more worried, but what is my staying here any more going to accomplish?"

tell me about it. cud be fun. ttl

She puts away her phone and gets down to business. "OK, Col, are you just gonna slip out the back door kinda thing? Need help? We could cause a distraction or something." The excited anticipation is now more evident in her voice.

Colin chuckles and then he gets out of the bathroom wearing a sweater and a pair of jeans.

"I'm sorry, Allie. I want to get out, but I'm not really in a hurry, I can handle the necessary explanations. But I promise that next time I need to get out of a hospital, you'll be the first one I call."

He puts the rest of his stuff into a bag and grabs the cactus.

"Ok, let's go."

He leads his friends into the hall where he looks for his mom, Chris and a doctor.

As much as the doctor's are against the idea, Alexandra and Chris offer them assurances that Colin is well enough to be discharged.  The doctor's do a quick once over of Colin and then shrug in agreement, letting him go home.

Colin asks his mom for just one more minute and walks to his friends.

"Told ya. Piece of cake. Guys, thank you very much. I really appreciate your being here. Now I have to go spend some time with my mom, but I'll call you later."

So we can go take that walk and talk a bit, ok? he sends Sylvia's way.

Alicia is glad to leave the hospital behind but is reluctant to separate from the group.

"Hey, Syl?" she asks offhandedly, "Can I ask you something? Privately?" She nudges off to the side with her head.

Sylvia nods assent.  Colin wants to walk; she'll walk.


Sylvia blinks.  I'm a tele-- she begins, then thinks better of it.  "Sure.  Be right back," she tells Colin, Donnie, and the others.

Alicia leads Sylvia a bit away from the others. Her spirits seem higher now that she's outside the oppressive atmosphere of the hospital.

She rubs a hand to the back of her neck as she bashfully explains, "I guess I feel like I need to apologize.  I did some stupid things for a stupid reason, and things went to hell because of it. I got a hunch you're walking around blaming yourself, and I wanted you to know it wasn't all you, OK?" She's sincere in her clumsy apology.

"But the real reason I wanted to talk is to ask you," Alicia says, all animation bleached from her voice as she stops to face Sylvia, her face set, "who's Logan?"

Sylvia lets the apology pass.  Of course it's not only her fault.  She's not that much of a martyr.  But she'd rather address the question in front of her than plough through the angst of what happened, again.

"Logan Darklighter," she says.  "Senior, a source of information, a friend.  He used to be friends with Dave, but--"  She wonders how far she should go into the complexities of Logan's life.  "--he got pretty, and life changed for him.

"Does that answer your question?"

Alica's attention is focused entirely on Sylvia. "Not completely. When Hamilton saw the note I wrote, he went straight to Logan. I didn't catch every word they said, but it was obvious Hamilton thought he wrote it, and Logan was not surprised that Hamilton would think so. And whatever it was that Logan said back, it made Hamilton back down.

"That makes me think he's more than just a bystander. But if he's a player, what team is he on?"

"Neither," is the safe answer.  "He's not a bad guy."  Sylvia finds she can't comment further on Logan's politics or morality.

"But he's not a good guy either, is he?" Alicia presses on.

"Do you believe he knows or has information on who's behind the Love Goo?"

"That depends on what you mean by 'good guy.'  He tries to maintain a low profile, but he helps us.  Don't talk about him like he's one of us," Sylvia counsels, leaning in.  "He runs with a dangerous crowd."


"If he does, he hasn't said anything about it.  I take that to mean he doesn't know."

If the comment was meant to discourage Alicia's curiosity, it fails magnificently. "Not one of us? What do you mean? Not a freak? Not a girl? Not human? And what, you saying we're not dangerous enough for you?"


Alicia tilts her head, studying Sylvia. "Have you asked him? Or is it not that kind of relationship?"

"Not one of the Usual Suspects.  Not one of the good guys.  Hamilton thought Logan was behind the theft of his data because Logan has the guts to do it and the will to see it through.  Imagine how precarious Logan's position would be if Hamilton's--"  Sylvia uses the word after some consideration.  "--faction thought he was one of us.  They're dangerous in that they'll eliminate their obstacles."


"I trust him," Sylvia can say without hesitation.  "If he had information we needed, he'd give it to us."

"Not any more prey-care-ee-us," she answers, stumbling over the word, "than our own position. We don't even know who the bad guys are."

Alicia's lip curls. "So you're saying this Logan doesn't have the cojones to stand up against the bad guys."


Alicia's head tilts again as she asks the next question. "Us? or you? And why do you trust him? From what you say, he could as easily be feeding info about us to the bad guys."

"I'm saying he doesn't have claws.  He doesn't have telepathy.  He doesn't have dragons backing him up.  He doesn't even have friends.

"But he has his ear to the ground, and he's given us a lot of information about what's coming up, what we need to watch for."


"If he does, I've never seen evidence of it."  She blinks and looks away, scrutinizing the ground at some distance.  "Besides, I think I get him.  The bad guys want to round him up and count him as one of their own because he never expresses outrage.  They consider his lack of protest complicity.  And he's so poised and self-contained that they want his approval, so they tell him things.

"I think he knows he's more of an asset if he doesn't make it obvious where his allegiances lie."

Alicia ponders this for a moment, then nods slowly. "I get it. He's playing hard-to-get so the bad guys keep courting him. As long as he keeps them guessing, they'll keep trying to impress him by spilling their plans to him."

She tilts her head yet again, this time in genuine puzzlement. "What I don't get is how he gets away with telling you stuff. It's not like it's a secret you're with the white hats. Is that why there's the rumor going around that you and him...?" she makes a rude hand gesture to indicate what she's referring to.

Sylvia's faint, lopsided frown indicates only vague concern with the rumors.  "I don't know.  Maybe.  Maybe they think he's playing me or working me for information.  They're not as organized as we are.  Put a half dozen narcissists in the same room, and they'll work together only as long as it takes for one of them to figure out how to throw the others under a bus.  It wouldn't take much to play them, and Logan has a pocket ace, by comparison:  social intelligence."

Her eyes slide to Alicia's face.  "You're not planning to stick your nose in this, are you?"

Alicia makes a production of shrugging in disinterest. "I was curious about what his deal was, which is why we're having this talk. Now? I'll take your word that he's not a threat. It might be useful to find out who he's talking to, though."

"Don't compromise him, please.  I'm not saying you shouldn't look into it.  I'm saying:  be careful."

Alicia's face splits into a wicked grin. "Awww, you really are sweet on him!" she teases.

Sylvia darts a look at Donnie, who's standing out of earshot, she hopes.  Then she shakes her head.  "It's not like that.  He's just someone who's done us some favors in the past, and I'd like not to burn him."

Alicia smiles sweetly and nods sagely. "Sure. Don't worry, Syl. I'll be good. If it looks like I may blow his cover, maybe I can rough him up to make it look like he's holding out on us." She lowers her shades to throw Sylvia a mischievious wink.

Sylvia feels a pang of concern, which is more than she's felt since watching Hamilton annihilate himself.  But she only nods.  At some point it comes down to trust.  Sylvia trusts Logan.  She's learning to trust Alicia.  And she has no doubt that Logan will be able to handle the girl with the cat eyes as deftly as he handles Sylvia herself.

Alicia had noticed Sylvia's glance towards Donnie. She looks that way too for a moment, then says in a lower, more serious and sympathetic tone, "Donnie knows about Logan, doesn't he? And he's not entirely happy about it, is he?"

On another day Sylvia would have hemmed and hawed and dodged the question, but today she's laying it out without apology.  "Donnie's intimacy issues have more to do with his parents than with me.  I'm just the one who has to deal with them."

Alicia stands still for a second or two. It's obvious she's not quite sure how to take Sylvia's frankness.

Finally, she nods slowly, deciding to be frank in return. "Is he worth it?" she says softly.

Sylvia would like to answer that question with an instant and affirmative yes, but it doesn't quite come.  "We're only fourteen, and this isn't Kentucky.  I don't want to marry him."

For once, Alicia eschews her curious nature and leaves well enough alone.

She bites her lip, unsure what to say in support or comfort. Instead, she impulsively bounds forward to give Sylvia a quick hug then stands back.

Alicia looks away, clumsily trying to steer the conversation back to a safe zone. "Okay, thanks for letting me know about Logan. If, you know, you need someone to, like, talk to, I'm..." Feeling awkward is a whole new epxerience for her, and it shows. Her mind fairly glows with guilt and remorse.

"Thank you," Sylvia says, knowing she has to say it now or she'll regret not having said it later.  "What about you and Rhys?  Is it true love forever?"

Alicia sighs. Sylvia has been honest with her; she deserves honesty in return.

Looking back at Rhys waiting with Donnie, she says with a wistful tone, "He's wonderful and perfect. I love him and I'm sure he loves me too."

She looks down and her voice loses all animation. "I know it won't last, but I'm trying to enjoy it while it does." The tangled threads of that emotional skein are difficult to identify individually.