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She was.

"Taym." She saw his reflection in the metal of one of the machines on her other side, and turned her head enough to actually look at him. Her expression lit up, beaming with an unsettling look of happiness. "I was wondering when you'd come."

She'd lost track of the days. She was asleep more often than not, but every time she woke up, things hurt a little more. She knew that was a good thing, not a bad one. They were lowering the pain dosage, which meant she was healing - and it also meant she could feel parts of her body again. Like her hand, which very weakly tried to reach out to him. He looked the same, all tight and wound up. Like he was going to strike any minute. Even that did not deter her from wanting him closer.

"Are you okay? How'd you get out of there? Did anybody hurt you?" Literally, phrases that would have never come out of Maebe, before that moment. "Here, help me up, I want to sit up." She tried to move, but her hands and some of her arm were as much as she could do. She pointed to the part of her bed that moved her position forward. Then she tried to move again, and felt the sharp stab of pain in her abdomen, where some stretch of skin rasped against the bandages badly. She hissed in a breath, and stilled, until the pain all but ceased.

Her hands dropped uselessly when he started to move his bed up, and she gripped the edges for support as she tensed from the pain of moving. It wasn't that terrible, but it was bad enough to keep her stiff and focused. When she was sitting up, however, she took several deep breaths to relax, and let the pain turn to aches, and the aches ebb away. It was only then that she opened her eyes and thought about his question.

"Uhm. I don't know what I started with, but I think I got demoted at some point. It's hard to remember, every time they give me some I pass out before I can hear too much. I'm pretty sure I'm on Percocet right now." Her lips stretched in a lazy, smug smile. "Things hurt but I can take it. I'm a Hunter."

She bent her head, trying to catch his eyes, but he kept looking at anything but her. A tiny thread of anxiety wormed its way into her heart.

"Taym?" She perked, holding her hand out again. This time, her fingers wiggled desperately. She needed him to take it. "Taym, look at me. I need to tell you something. It's important."

Her little white fingers wrapped around his, and she could feel his bones through the skin. She couldn't hold on tight, but even in her weakness, there was a ferocity to her touch. It was important that he knew exactly how she felt, because she'd never felt like it before this moment.

"Thank you." She breathed out, her expression almost filled to burst with relief. "I know I'm hard to be around, and I know you took a chance on me. But you saved me. Nobody's ever done that before, and I don't know why you came back, but you did." She blinked slow, heavy eyelids, and rested her cheek on her pillow. "I'm never going to forget that. And even if we go back to hating each other, if you want me, I'll always have your back."

They were the hardest words she'd ever said. Before Taym, she hadn't known what the emotion of gratitude really meant. No matter what, she was going to make sure she never forgot it.

His revelation was a slap in the face, but it wasn't necessarily a surprising one. She took a minute to collect herself from the sting of feeling him pull away, and then nodded. It wasn't as if she wanted him to care - that was the opposite intent. She should have been happy to hear this. He'd gone back because he wanted to to get the mission done right. And that was exactly why she'd offered to watch his back, wasn't it?

She continued to try and convince herself that the swelling, aching feel in the middle of her chest was just the Percocet wearing off. That was all. This was what she'd wanted, all along.

"I'm glad you did. I'm glad you take this s**t more seriously than me, because it saved my life." She let out a breathy chuckle, and turned her head back up to the ceiling. "But the offer stands, because that's exactly the kind of person I'd want to be on a mission on, if I ever have to do this s**t again."

She still didn't get it.

"So thank you. For being.. just the way you are."

With each word, it was almost visible how that fragile little glass room of happiness she'd acquired the moment he walked in was being torn down. She cringed at several intervals, and her smile was long gone, replaced by something far more her style - an angry pout. She looked most insulted at the comment about how funny she wasn't. That was the lowest blow she could take.

Except, somewhere deep down, it was the constant reminder that she knew nothing about her life now, that truly broke her.

Maebe wanted to move, so bad. She wanted to get in his face and shove him away. She wanted to tell him off, and slam the door in his face. But she couldn't. She couldn't even control her breathing, which had spiked in unnatural ways. The monitors that beeped out her life's rhythm were going wild in the background.

"So what. So what if I grew up in a bubble? Is that my fault? Did I ******** choose where I was born? Who I popped out of? Why are you getting on my case about the fact that I wasn't raised by wolves?" Her tone raised - and it was this magic that only Taym managed. Could always manage. She'd never met anyone who made her angrier than him.

"I'm sorry I made some mistakes. You know what could have helped me to not make these mistakes? IF YOU'D TOLD ME WHAT THE ******** WE WERE DOING THERE!" The beeping turned wild and erratic. "You're yelling at me for being oblivious, when it's YOU and the rest of this god-forsaken place that's keeping me in the dark all the time! HUH? TELL ME WHAT BEING A HUNTER MEANS. Somebody." Her screaming died, turning into something too pathetic for her tastes. "Anybody."

She brooded for a single moment, before huffing out a quick, battered-

"And I am too as funny as I think."

"TAYM!"

It was the loudest sound that had ever come out of the little girl inside of her.

She sounded panicked. He was getting up and leaving, and she was no better off than she had been before. He couldn't just leave it like that. Not after what they'd just gone through. Not after admitting what she needed.

But she wouldn't admit she needed him. Just what she thought he had to offer.

"I don't need you," She seethed out. "But I want you to help me figure this s**t out. Otherwise, what was the point of saving me, just to see me die on some other mission. AND I KNOW. It's not about me. I ******** get it. But don't you think being a Hunter is a mission?" Now she was just stalling for time. "And that means, if I die because you ******** refuse to help me figure this out, you're still failing your job. If you care so much about that, you better come back into this room right now, sit down on that chair, and tell me what happened back there. Tell me, so I don't stroll up to another fake Hunter and ask him to ******** me in the chest with his dagger, again. ******** tell me, Taym."

She'd pushed herself up so far, that her shoulders were no longer touching the bed. But when she finally finished, she flopped back down, and started breathing hard. Pain came flooding back, reminding her that getting angry was very troublesome for all of the healing parts of her body, that required strictly no movement on the inside.