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The ward was clean and smelled like bleach, but was anything but bright and cheery: the window looked out onto more brick building, and the beds were that strange surgical white that was markedly unpleasant. The pukeish green seemed to be everywhere as a sweet pukeish counterpoint.

Charys was lying in her bed, propped up on hard hospital pillows, with a headband pushing her pale blue hair away from a face that had seen better days. Her bruises had bruises: her gashes had gashes. Her nose was unrecognisable, and one hand was casted over.

"Holy s**t, somebody sane," she said, slightly nasal through her broken nose. "Sagan, please say you brought Maltesers. Wanna write swear words on my cast?"

It wasn't the fact that she looked beat up. It was the fact that Charys' voice was low and gravelly and had no heart in it. She looked drained, dead.

"Snickers," said Charys, like the Beggin' Strips bacon dog. "Snickers. Snickers Snickers Snickers. Snickers."

She held out both arms, even the one with the cast, and flexed her fingers (except that hurt like hell). "C'mon, toss one of the Maltesers, I'll catch it in my mouth," and Pandora did so. Charys caught it like a trained seal, and crunched in deep and gladsome enjoyment.

"Write a Native American Haida curse," she said, amidst a Malteser, and opened her mouth for Pandora to throw another. "Holy s**t, that's probably racist. Sorry, I love me some First Nations."

She sighed, leaning back into the pillows, and the depression seemed to take her over again from the initial excitement at candy. She crunched. She still seemed depressed. "P-dawg," she said. "This place is a toilet. Don't say you brought me any homework, also, Charlie already tried to do that and I called him a douchelinger six times."

"Better be soon, the food in here is s**t somebody else has already chewed brought back up," said Charys. "Something about 'internal injuries', who'da thunk. Ah ah ah. Insert Snickers to continue."

Pandora inserted the Snickers, and Charys took a big, satisfied bite. She leant back into the pillows, eyes closed, and chewed on the peanut and caramel confection with little "mmf mmf mmf" noises. Then she swallowed, and cracked one eyelid at Pandora. "Throw the homework in the trash, I'm not going to do it anyway. If I write another essay on what Holden Caulfield's hat meant I'm going to ralph in the rye instead. Another Malteser, Pandagon."

The Malteser was thrown. She caught it deftly in her teeth, and chewed. She finally looked at the thing that Pandora had dropped into her hand; she stroked over the beautifully carved figurine with her thumb, feeling its coolness, its weight. She reached up and pressed it to her cheek, thoughtfully, rubbing it against her skin. And then she unexpectedly burst into tears.

"Oh my God, don't look," she said, amongst hiccuppy sobs, raising one forearm to her face. "I'm PMSing. My eyelids need cleansing. I'm overjoyed at the S-Snickers." She was trying to get a hold of herself so hard that it was embarrassing to watch. "Tears of happiness. I love you with mouth."

"I've always wanted to see a moose, it's like my life goal," said Charys, but she was just crying harder at the offer. She made a long, snotty, ugly sob, and then scrubbed her face with her hand: when she looked up at Pandora again she was putting on her don'tcarish Charys Murphy grin, transparent, fixed, though her face was red and even more swollen than before. She wasn't looking that attractive at the present time. "Your mom's a gem. Like I told her... last night."

She reached over to knuckle-dape the hand that was resting lightly on her arm, and opened her mouth. "Snickers." Pandora readily complied, and she took another bite. This was chewed and duly swallowed. "I dunno," she said a little incoherently. "You know -- what the ******** rested back on her pillows again. When she spoke, it was forcedly casual. "Hey, so, I hear like, another kid went missing from school," she said. "Somebody Winters. Sorry you're having to sit through another sixteen memorial assemblies. Why do they always play Coldplay's 'Yellow'? I mean, way to ruin the song, am I right, Pancakes?"

Charys opened her mouth for the last bite of Snickers. She chewed, much longer this time, possibly to savour it to the very last morsel. Then she turned her dark eyes to Pandora's, and there was a weird, twisted, serious cast to her expression. Charys was never serious. Seriousness took effort.

"Yeah, you and hiking are like, married," she said. "P-dawg, do me a favour. Don't end up the next memorial to look at the staaaaars, look how they shiiine for yooou. Dude, don't look into this. Don't keep me posted. Know what else you should do? You should go to college in like, Maine. Maine is ******** fantastic. Nothing happens in Maine."

She raised her good hand, the pinky crooked. "Pinky promise time. Come on, pinky promise."

When Pandora's pinky wrapped around her own, she said finally: "Wasn't hit by a car. Again. Trufax."

Their pinkies were still hooked. Charys was staring at them as though she was trying to remember something. Eventually, she said: "Got the s**t beaten out of me by a dude in a suit."

Dude in a suit. Pandora could put together dude in a suit. Senshi didn't wear, well, suits -- 'suit' was the Negaverse; 's**t beaten out of me' was also the Negaverse, at least how Lieutenant Nealite had taught her it rolled. The Negaverse had hurt Charys. And obviously not gotten her entirely -- otherwise she'd be in the coma ward with the others, wouldn't she? She'd escaped.

"Turned out he wanted my immortal soul," continued her classmate, still staring. "Too late, I actually swapped it in fifth grade for a Three Musketeers bar."

And then, like a bust-out nonsequitur --

"Also, I'm gay."

Charys had laughed at Pandora's offer to cut Obsidian's nards off. She had also laughed at the "gay part." It looked as though it put her in pain, but she laughed anyway. It trailed off.

"Nah," she said. And: "He got what he wanted."

Her line of sight floated up to the ceiling. Then she forced it back on Pandora. "I was expecting, you know, surprise," she said. "Or maybe 'Damn, I have known you since junior high, I didn't expect you to be the gay one.' I'm totally the gay one though. I'm mega gay."

Charys gave a wan, mega-gay smile. "We really could live in Maine and go hiking," she said, "only sorry, I cannot see you as a sexual being, P-dawg."