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Elke had gone shopping with her mother. They had looked at everything, marveled over how skinny Elke was now, and then Aysel had noticed the way her ribs were clearly visible. She decided it was not a good thing, and they'd gone to have lunch, where they broke the doctor's orders and ate food.

Then they had shopped more. Once Elke was ensconced in a cable-knit turtleneck and slacks, with a new coat and gloves and heavy boots that weren't her Barren Pines boots, she was allowed to venture back into the hospital. Aysel had handed her a cell phone, said to call when she was done visiting her friends ("we bonded by trauma, maman," Elke had explained fervently) and left. An enormous man in a black suit shadowed the bluenette up to the ward where she and her friends had been.

She had looked into the other and seen no one she was particularly interested in who wasn't busy. Now she had found one of the other Zodiacs. "Mackie," Elke said, making an attempt to stay quiet as she tripped over to the redhead's bedside. (The suit stayed by the door.) Quelling her worry over Avery (and Giselle and Sebastien and Andeon and all the other Zodiacs), she sat down in the nearby chair with a smile. "Hi, Mackie, I missed you--can I give you a hug--does the bow on my dress really look like wings on my butt? Really? Do you want a hug? I can give you a hug."

It was nice to be back.

"Papa is so paranoid," she whispered of the suit. Her expression was embarrassed, but happy embarrassed. The suit meant she was alive and her family was off tending to re-registering her for the spring semester at Crystal Academy for Girls. She leaned in to better wrap both arms around her teammate. Hugs! She had missed hugs. Everyone should get a lot of hugs. "This is your official Welcome Back hug, by the way."

She pressed her face into Mackenzie's shoulder for a moment. "I'm sorry," she said contritely, brushing her blue hair out of her eyes. "Hey! Are you allowed to eat solid food yet? Because I have pretzels. I have lots of pretzels but I'm gonna go see at least Sue later so you can't have all of them." With a conspiratorial smile, she said, "He's gonna have to deal with me, since I bet the nurses won't let him leave."

Elke let go of her old neighbor, but stayed leaning half on the bed, feet swinging beneath her chair. "His name is Bastien," said the bluenette. Her smile, usually omnipresent, faltered. "H-hey... have you..." Then she shook her head.

"I wasn't teasing, I was serious! Hey, yours looks like a kilt, it is so cute. Did you see how shiny Grayson was?"

Elke: Also no comprehension of secret-keeping.

She nodded, settling back on the bed, head resting on her palms. Sue, at least, was still there. And Mackie, of course, or else she wouldn't be sitting there next to Mackie, swinging her feet aimlessly. Her boots scratched against the floor (skritch skritch skritch) and Elke was humming. It sounded like 'Frere Jacques'.

Doubtless it was the French version.

"I've seen Sue with his hair down, he just looks like Sue," said Elke, who probably would have said the same about any of her friends. Oh, Giselle took out her bun? She just looks like Giselle. She'd only remembered ever even noticing Avery with his hair out of the braid. Grayson, of course. (She'd noticed that because suddenly it was a lot harder to pull his hair.)

She pursed her lips, the distressed look returning as she mumbled, "Mackie, you're not all well yet, I don't wanna worry you. I'm okay, promise."

No pinky swear was offered. Her face was turning bright red. Anyone knew what that meant: Elke was lying.

Elke tipped her head forward so their foreheads touched. "I will pinky swear that I can keep a secret," said Elke, but Mackenzie was already talking. She shut up and listened.

Poor Mackie. Her mom was all the way back in some place called Iron. That had to suck. (Mackie's accent was Irish, though, maybe Mackie was talking about Ireland. Elke was smart, really.) And she was really fine? But with no one to sign off for her. Poor, poor Mackie. Elke slung one arm over her friend's shoulder, tipped her head over so she could scoot the chair closer. "But you have a kidney and a liver," said the bluenette, who had so far managed to hear next to nothing about she had supposedly gone through. (The nurses had said poor dear, so traumatized she can't remember. Her maman had said don't go looking for memories you don't need, and Papa had looked murderous.)

She wiggled her fingers around one of Mackie's hands, clearly waffling. Tell the Truth and be made fun of, she was thinking, or lie and get scolded for lying. "I want to find Avery," she said in a tiny voice. "I'm too scared to find Avery. I'm a rotten chicken with an extra side of too scared to look, Mackie."

Pause, and then she whispered, "He told me I didn't love him, that he'd never meant anything to me, and that's not true. It's not, Mackie." It was hard to explain. She didn't want to have to see Avery and acknowledge that there had been something bigger than both of them that had brought her back from undeath. She didn't want to not see Avery and let everything end on... on... Kill me.

Wiping hurriedly at her eyes--Mackie was the one in the hospital bed, why was Elke crying-- she looked up and asked, "What am I supposed to do, Mackie?"

"But I had to do that." Elke tried to interrupt, but fell silent when Mackenzie continued to talk. With a little sigh, she hopped up onto the bed so she could hug her friend properly. Mackie was a good friend, an excellent friend; she was happy to do what she could for this most excellent friend. Another friend she'd forgotten at Barren Pines--she'd forgotten Grayson, too, and Serenade, and Hero and Aurelia... many people.

Barren Pines had sucked.

"I'm really sorry about Elle, Mackie." She squeezed Mackenzie as if to reaffirm that she was still there. What was right for her to be doing? "I guess I'll... go see if I can find Sue," she said after a minute, "He's somewhere in this ward, I think..."

Pause. "I didn't see Avery in here," she explained. "Or... Sebby, or anybody." No one she wanted to talk to, really, except Mackie and Sue, she couldn't find Andeon or anything. "If you're not out tomorrow, I'll bring you a cake with a saw in it," she said.

She giggled, then said seriously, "Sue hit me with a golf club. But~ Since he's still in the hospital, I guess I can be nice and give him hugs. He can't have a golf club in the hospital, I know." It seemed like she'd forgotten it the moment, though, because the next thing out of her mouth was "Hey, my hair! You can't mess with my hair!"

With a pout, she started trying to straighten her hair. Evidently Elke had a lot of practice with settling the locks of hair back where they belonged, because she didn't seem to be really thinking about it at all.

"If you need someplace to stay, you can totally come hide in me 'n Serenade's dorm room if you promise to be quiet," offered the bluenette. She hugged Mackenzie again, then got up off the bed. After a moment of shuffling her feet back into her boots, she leaned back in to press a sisterly kiss on Mackenzie's cheek. "You take care, okay?... Oh!" She pulled a sharpie out of her bag. "Do you still have a cell phone number? I can give you mine, or you can give me yours?"

"Yeah, but I was human!" Elke giggled, though; apparently she understood why he'd done it, but just... didn't like it. Wasn't hard to understand why she didn't like it, because, well, hey. She'd been a zombie and he'd known it, and then she turned up human. Go figure. No wonder he'd been surprised.

She was still a little irritated, though.

With a nod, Elke settled down on the bed for another minute. Her cell phone came out, she peeked at her number, and she wrote her number, area code and all, down on Mackenzie's hand. "Well, if you need me, I am only one phone call away. Need me for anything," she emphasized. "I missed you lots. Now, be careful, okay?"