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Zach concluded that hospitals were boring.

There were only so many channels he could watch on the small television provided in the room, it was noisy at night when trying to sleep, the food was… mediocre at best. He’d just about gotten sick of his beloved Cheetos (and made the floor nurse upset with how many blankets he’d gotten orange dust on). Thankfully, he would be discharged tomorrow or the next day, depending on how well his ribs were holding up. His arm was in a sling and that would take a while to heal properly, but his black eye was fading nicely. The energy infusions his sister was giving to him certainly helped him feel better, but whether or not it sped up his body’s healing process was something else entirely.

Leaning against the giant bear his loving girlfriend Gale had provided for him, Zach flicked through the channels before landing on Judge Judy and calling it a day. The floor nurse shooed the boy back to his room despite his pleas of needing to stretch his legs and being bored out of his mind. They allowed him to have his phone, thank the gods. HIs father brought a charger and some books, but Zach didn’t have the concentration for reading right now.

He’d hoped Denebola made it out okay. The dragonfly senshi was something of a mentor to him, and he’d answered her distress call without a second thought… While his sister berated him for his brashness, she’d praised his loyalty and desire to help protect the people he cared about. Too bad it ended up getting him knocked around like a punching bag at a boxing tournament.

Unlocking his phone with one hand was difficult, and typing out a message more so, but Zach had managed to send a (mangled) message to Denebola.

ey pern hpe yore ok, i ddnt find u aftr the signal i got smaked aroun a lot and woke up in th hospitl did chikkn nugget get his a** kicked?? U ok???

"Well, okay then!" he chuckled, staring down at the phone with rapid-fire messages from Denebola (lovingly nicknamed "Pern" in his phone). Placing the phone on his thigh, he tapped out the information his mentor senshi had requested - hospital name and number, and yes, he was allowed visitors thank god. If he wasn't allowed to see anyone, Zach would have already clawed a hole through the nearest wall and screeched about freedom.

[[ rm 401, they said i could be dischrged tomorww probbly thnk god im goin nuts in here ]]

Leaning back, Zach admired Fiona's ability to decipher his butchering of the English language. Typing with only one hand (and his off-hand, to boot!) was way too difficult, and text-to-talk proved even worse with Zach's habit of shortening words or using terrible grammar in speech. With a sigh, he oozed back into the bear/pillow hybrid combo he'd set up for maximum comfort while watching Judge Judy tell people they were complete idiots and wasting her time.

Zach noticeably lit up when seeing Fiona. Sitting up and adjusting himself to be more comfortable in his position, he waved to her with his good arm. The boy's right arm, which was his dominant, was in a cast. His blacked eye was looking quite a bit better than it had before, and the slice through his hairline, ending just above his ear, was stitched up and less gruesome. Judge Judy was softly berating people in the background.

"Hey! It's Pern! So we did save you after all." Zach beamed a bright smile at his mentor. Even though he'd not even been able to find her in the commotion of the battle at the power plant, he was more than relieved to find out Fiona was okay in the end. "Didja give ol' Chicken McNugget a good roasting? Sorry I couldn't... uh..."

He looked down at himself, at his injuries, and sighed deeply. "....sorry I wasn't any good out there, Dene. I ran as soon as I got your call for help, I just..." The boy tried to shrug, but the strain on his shoulders wouldn't allow it. "...got busted up an' woke up here. I mean... I knew s**t was gonna go down but..."

Zach's brown eyes cased the hospital room for the umpteenth time. He was so relieved to be going home soon, now that his body was back in semi-functional order. "...didn't think it would end up like this, you know? But hey, don't give me that look. At least you made it out okay, right? That's what counts. We kicked a**!"

"Couldn't have done it without you, no matter what you think."

Zach winked at Fiona, a silly smile on his face. "Yeeeaaaahhh that's what I thought. I might'a gotten beaten around but at least I got pretty ladies takin' care of me." He made to locked his arms behind his head, but the shooting pain in his right arm jolted him out of it. "...aww dammit."

With a huff and one throbbing arm, Zach settled back into his semi-leaning position against the pillows and the giant bear Gale had brought him. His jovial nature seemed subdued for a moment, especially under Fiona's scrutiny. "...naw, I wasn't any help, Dene, and you know it. I just thought... I dunno... maybe I wasn't thinking at all." Brown eyes settled on his broken arm and the dull pain in his eye signified he was in no shape to patrol anytime soon. "I ain't a super, like you. I thought I could do somethin'. I mean... power's better than no power an' all that but..."

He wasn't a wizard with words. Zach struggled to describe how he felt about his utter failure and having to be saved yet again. It was a blow to his self-esteem at the very least. "I tried but it didn't do s**t. All I managed to do was rack up an impressive hospital bill."

Initially, just like any other beautiful woman, Fiona… and by extension, Denebola, was nothing more than that to Zach. He’d been attracted to her generous loveliness at first, intent on wooing her with his superficial, youthful charm. Denebola, with more time and wisdom than he possessed, had been very gentle with her rejection. Zach was depressed over this perceived loss at first. However…

He found now that his feelings for Denebola -- and Fiona -- was more mature than that. Instead of being a woman he sought to woo, Zach found himself wishing to make her proud. Fiona had the warmth that Christa lacked, and he found himself appreciating the redhead with the strange eyes for who she really was. What made Fiona Fiona was compassion and concern for those around her.

Zach seemed shocked by this, and shook his head quizzically, without saying anything to Fiona just yet.

“Uh… sorry, Pern.” he mumbled, a blush creeping across his cheeks. “I was gettin’ all… deep ‘n… whatever.” Cough. Intellectual pursuits and the like were uncharted territory to the boy, and he felt wholly unprepared to try and navigate that terrain while in a hospital bed recovering from injuries. “...uh… anyway, if you got any ideas on makin’ sure s**t like that--” Zach waved his uninjured arm in the general direction of the power plant. “---don’t happen again, I’m all ears. Cuz… greater youma? Like the max level Digimon bullshit? I ain’t about that. Nope. Nuh-uh.”

Penny for this thoughts? Zach chuckled, clearly amused that Fiona believed his thoughts were worth more than a penny.

Nope, probably less than that. Zach would probably have to pay Fiona, not the other way around.

“Nah, just…” The boy seemed to fumble for words, starting and stopping sentences, brow furrowing in concentration. With an exasperated sigh, Zach decided he wasn’t a linguistics wizard, poet or writer. Hell, he barely read books. Attempting to describe the complicated thoughts racing about his brain came at a total loss when he tried to construct more sophisticated sentences. No, Zach had to fall back on his familiar, colloquial, basic manner of speech Fiona was already accustomed to.

“...just… I dunno, like…” One uninjured hand was waved about as the boy metaphorically stumbled through the difficult task of ascribing word to thought. “I mean, bein’ a dude is hard. Not that… bein’ a chick is any easier with all that stupid anti-woman abortion legislation attempts and rampant sexism and underrepresentation in the workplace and in mainstream popular media and oh my god I sound like my sister--”

Zach had to stop himself for a few moments. Sighing, he collected his thoughts that were so unceremoniously derailed and started again. “...uh… anyway, you kinda… sorta… get used to bein’ one way, bein’ kinda… put in this box with this label on it that says student or dude or hell, even just Zach. You get, like… used to the walls bein’ there, and used to what you can and can’t do, what people think ‘a somebody in that box…”

A quiet pause hung in the air for a moment, the boy reminiscing over the event that started this whole journey two years ago. “An’ then, some crazy-a** talkin’ cat is like oh eyy yo, now you got super powers. By the way, try not to die. Now there’s this whole other box, and it says like pew-pew lasers on it, ‘cept I don’t got no pew-pew lasers. ...ya know, Pern, I thought I kinda… sorta… Nah, no I didn’t. I didn’t have a real good grip on my dude box, or my you’re graduated, do somethin’ with yo’self box either. I graduated from Meadowview and kinda shrugged and was like, well this is life, go be a loser cashier an’ now that I ain’t a student, I gotta figure s**t out for real this time. This ain’t no math test…”

He partially turned away from Fiona, not out of fear, but embarrassment. The redhead could probably tell easily that the boy’s breathing was just a tad heavier, as if trying to keep himself from crying in front of her. Zach’s voice cracked a little when speaking again. “...nah, I jus’.... I can’t talk to my sister about this s**t, Pern. I guess I… never really thought about it… ha. See, this is why she’s crazy. She thinks too much… hahaha.”

Zach seemed mightily focused on refusing to outright cry in front of a girl. Fiona, no less! The dragonfly of Pern! It was so embarrassing to admit such weakness in front of another person. Gender stereotypes were something Zach shamefully fell back on at times without even realizing it, holding himself to those same ridiculous standards. Real men don’t cry, never show weakness, just get mad about it instead.

The boy leaned into Fiona’s warmth, not with any romantic thoughts in mind, but with a more familial sense. It had been nearly a decade since Zach could lean into Christa with a warmth like Fiona so naturally possessed. She didn’t judge him, or tilt her head at him quizzically. Her eyes weren’t cold and analytical. In a way, Fiona was much more human. He sniffed, trying not to get any bodily fluids onto Fiona’s nice dress and muttered. “...somebody’s… all up in here cuttin’ onions, haha.”

While he didn’t outright weep, Zach still considered it a blow to his masculinity to have broken down like that, and he seemed to be struggling internally with that thought. “...uh… anyway… sorry about, you know… hittin’ on you when we first met.” The lump in his throat became uncomfortable, and swallowing was difficult. He cleared his throat. “...I guess it took gettin’ tossed around like a rag doll for me to… uh… really look at stuff instead’a just coastin’ along. You know, just… bein’ a dude and not thinkin’ too hard about anything. But… now we got the whole senshi thing on our plates too, an’ you said…”

His brow furrowed for a moment, recalling the very first trip onto Denebola (or Pern, as it was affectionately called), and Fiona’s explanation about souls and past lives. “...you said there was another one’a us, back in the past. You even saw stuff then, too. At first, you know, I thought… maybe it was just lasers n’ cool superpowers but it’s like… we’re livin’ two lives, simultaneously. Ah, dammit.”

Zach tossed one of his small blankets onto the empty chair at the opposite side of the bed, sticking his tongue out at it. “See, she’s been visitin’ me everyday an’ readin’ some crazy-a** book an’ now… just you watch, I’ll be tossin’ out s**t like malaise and verisimilitude. See? It’s friggin’ contagious.”

The seriousness in his demeanor seemed to pass naturally, rather than being swallowed and buried deep in the soul. Fiona had a way about her, a gentle and loving demeanor that carefully brought down the walls people built around themselves for protection. Zach scoffed at himself for a moment. “...ya know, Pern, if your dude don’t appreciate you… I got a geta with his a**’s name on it. Err--” He stopped suddenly, biting his lip. “---I shouldn’t cuss in front’a girls…”

Zach couldn't help but sigh in relief. Fiona hadn't made fun of him for sniffling (not crying, he would never admit to outright weeping in front of a lovely lady), for which he was quite grateful. His demeanor seemed to soften while Fiona stroked his hair. Hands in his lap, brown eyes rested upon them. "...nah, I haven't gone yet. Kinda... kinda afraid to, you know? Like, what if I see some trippy-a** vision and punch somebody that came with me? Or like... got trapped up there? s**t's scary, Fiona. Pern's all neat and Jungle Book up there but..."

He attempted to shrug but winced, forgetting again that he'd injured his arm. Fiona received half-a-shrug. "... I dunno what's up with Themisto. I just know it's a moon. I uh... Googled that s**t. s**t. Ah... crap." Zach shook his head in embarrassment. "...I'm tryin' not to cuss in front of girls. Sorry, Pern."

Zach decided he was having one of those days.

"It's a moon of Jupiter, and it's some blah-blah-science-number of bigness or whatever, but other than that... I got nothin'."

Fiona's reassurance that she wouldn't allow anyone to treat her poorly brought a smile to his face. He gave her a confident, decisive nod. "Good. You kick the crap outta anybody who don't treat you right, Pern. Dragonfly kick!" Zach lifted one of his legs beneath the blanket and gave a jovial laugh.