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After the trip back from Mentano Sylvia runs into Kel.

Kel was sitting on a random fence in their neighborhood waiting for Sylvia to get back.  He waasn't exactly sure what had happened, but if Sylvia had stormed off it was definitely something that made him worry.  When he spots her he gives a wave and says, "Evenin' Syl.  Penny for your thoughts?"

Trauma, and its subsequent depression, will change the way the world looks.  What seemed bright and interesting beforehand becomes dizzying and inconsequential afterward.  The grafitti on the El begins to look like hieroglyphics.  The lights of cars on the streets below begin to look like grouped but distinct astronomical entities zipping through a cosmos of inexplicable occlusions.  The quiet streets of Oak Park look surreal, like an architectural model rendered in cardboard and astroturf.

Sylvia walks down the sidewalk of this cold, windy place, numbed inside and out.  She passes Kel's house and decides to avoid her parents and sister by trying to haul herself up the oak tree to her room.  Her bag and coat make it cumbersome work, and she's bone-tired.  It's more like she's leaning against the tree than climbing it.  She might, in a minute, decide the effort's too much and sit down in the embrace of its roots.

Kel not one to be ignored hops off and follows after Sylvia, once she collapses down against the tree, he sighs and settles down next to her, wrapping an arm around her, "Hey Syl, I know what happened, I'm sorry.  Want to talk about it.."

She looks at him, down-in-the-mouth but drained of everything that was busting out of her earlier in the evening.  Kel was her first friend in this crazy place, and when he's around, she feels unaccountably safe, like everything is a simple and clear.  "Has anyone found Donnie?" is what she manages to say.

Kel nods, "I'm pretty sure Sammy did.  She went after him, and has probably found him by now."  Kel sighs and then says, "But don't worry about Donnie right now Syl, how are you?"

She draws a long, shuddery breath, but she's feeling a little empty right now.  Still, she puts her head on Kel's shoulder, and it's a comfort.  "Messed up."  That sums it up pretty well.  "Do you ever wish things weren't happening the way they're happening?  Do you ever wish we were just normal people in a normal world?"

Kel thinks about her question and says, "Yea I think it'd be nice.  All we wouldn't have to worry about poles falling on us, just nasty rurmors.  I mean, it'd get boring, and we'd probably wish we had superpowers, but I mean when you live it you do start thinking about it."  He shrugs, carefully so as not to jumble Sylvia's head too much, "Maybe it's just that the grass is greener on the other side."

"Yeah, probably.  I guess it would suck more to be just some schmuck when kids around you are lobbing muffins with the power of their minds."  She pulls her knees up to her chest.  "Kel?  Why are we friends?"

He leans back against the tree and then takes in a deep breath, "Well, in all honesty."  He coughs, "You'll laugh, but when I first saw you guys moving in, the first thing I saw was um, your mom, Mitzi.  Then I saw you and your sister."  He gulps slightly and says, "I just figured ya know, I couldn't let a bunch of good looking women carry in all those boxes in themselves.  And well, then I met your other mom."  He laughed again, "Then, well you're a cool person.  Different, like me ya know and I don't mean superpowers.  Just out there, so I guess we kind of just hit it off.  I guess there's not much explanation as to why we're friends Syl, I mean we're friends, I care about you as a friend does, do we really need explanations for that?"  He looks down at her.

"We kinda do," she says, looking grim.  She takes another shuddery breath.  "Do you remember that day in the alley behind the Tasty Dog?  The way that guy who was selling Superman fell down in front of you like you were God, ready to smite him?"

Kel nods, "Yea...I guess I never saw it like that, but yea I remember that."

She wanted to tell Donnie, but then he told her, in his holier-than-thou language, that she'd violated her wedding vows or something.  She tells Kel, and it feels right.  Kel's always there, always seems to know what to do.  "That was me," she says.  "I did it.  I made him afraid."  She goes on, afraid to be misunderstood.  "I can push people that way, make them feel things.  I thought I had it under control, but it's been getting away from me, and I don't always realize."

Kel says, "Oh..."  He lets it sink in for a moment and then says, "You can...uh...control emotions.."  It then dawns on him, "You think you've been...manipulating people..."  He lets the question hang there, unsure if it's even right.

She nods.  It seems like he understands, and she's not sure there's any more to say.  Still, the silence is awkward.  "That's the awful thing.  If Donnie had just pitched a fit and gone, he'd be an asshole, but it'd be all right, you know?  I could just be mad."  She pauses.  "But I can't just be mad.  I can't.  It gets out.  It messes with people."

He gently lets his hands run over her hair and the npats her shoulder softly, But you think you made him get that angry?  Because you were mad at him...wait, why were you so mad at him anyway?  I mean, I heard bits and pieces of it but it sounded well..."  He doesn't say it but it's obvious he's inferring that Sylvia isn't without blame to begin with.

She hadn't considered that.  She hadn't considered that Donnie's outrage was something she pushed on him.  She begins to feel that plummeting dismay again.  "I was mad at him because--"  She cringes, frowns, and hides her face against his shoulder.  "I expected him to understand.  I didn't do anything wrong.  And even if I did, I didn't mean to.  I was trying to be honest."

She gives Kel a brief explanation of what happened with that Fenwick guy, Dylan.

Kel nods in understanding, "He freaked out, and you got mad at him.  It's ok Sylvia, I understand what you did, it's not bad what you did with this Dylan guy.  You probably should've told him earlier but I mean, we all make mistakes, right?"  He rubs her shoulder and says, "He'll understand soon, it's just when that first hits you, you kind of just can't do anything but get mad.  When he cools down I figure he'd be ok with it."  He shrugs and says, "But I don't really know him that well...I mean that stuff he said about Megan that time.  Just I'm not sure."

"He was scary," she says.  "It wasn't Donnie, you know?"  Worry gives her stomach a hard twist.  "Should we call Colin?  Should we tell him to take a look at Donnie?  Could it be magic?"

Kel shakes his head, "He would've noticed by now.  He's worked his voodoo and stuff around DOnnie enough that he'd notice a change instantly I'd figure."  He then looks down at her and says, "Could it be you..."

"Pushing him?"  She shakes her head.  "No.  It was weird, the way he was talking.  Like Yoda weird.  Like demon-possession weird."

"Maybe it's the dragons?"  Kel suggests, "I mean it seems like every other day there's another one.  And they're not all cute like Pip, they're getting bigger and more well...more gonna go burn down a village."

"What do you mean?  Like they're taking over his mind?  Too many processes running?  Not enough RAM?"  Carolyn leaves too many Popular Mechanics magazines lying around.

Kel shrugs, "I don't know, it's the only thing about him that's actually changing.  And I mean really, they don't strike me as the friendliest of creatures if they don't want to be.  Besides when he stormed off, well he sounded all...high and mighty, like well a dragon does in the movies all "ra ra, puny human, I'm a dragon"."  Kel raises his hands with a claw like gesture and makes a nasty face trying to make himself look more like a dragon.

Sylvia's hang-dog expression twitches around the edges.  The corners of her mouth lift.  Then she laughs, and it's a little raw and loud, like she really needed it.  "This amazing dragon came down out of nowhere, this sort of clear blue one with a wingspan as big as the house."  She nods toward the Arts and Crafts two-story.  "And he took off into the air like. . . . "  She searches for the right comparison, but the dragon is outside of her frame of reference.  "God, I hope he's okay.  I hope he's still Donnie."

Kel smiles when she laughs and then he gives her a hug, "I'm sure he'll be fine, probably off lounging against a tree like we are or something."

"At least he's never alone," Sylvia says and takes comfort from the fact that, right now, neither is she.