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"I can't..." her voice was ragged, "The village. No no no..." She tried to sit up, and let out a loud, pained cry as a throb of hot pain pulsed in her head. It set her to a pitch and wobble, as if she were trying to step onto a dock, rather than off a bed- and each jolt caused a fresh pang of heat to course through her temples. She cried, struggling against herself to stand.

Reason was not foremost in the injured girl's mind- but at Lucas' physical insistance, she was pacified, and returned to her prone position on the bed. She had done herself more harm than good, though, in the process, and tears still pooled in her eyes for the ache of it all.

"I have to get back. There... the journals can't get wet. The stories. My jewelry box. Mizzie." Emelyn gasped, and tried to sit up again, her voice more slurred than before. "Mizzie! I have to get Mizzie."

"Mizzie. You can't leave Mizzie out there. You... mmmnnn..." it ended in a headache-induced, moaning purr.

"Mmn... okay.. okay." A fitful murmur was the only remnant of her consciousness. She slipped back into her pause- the last thing she realized was that a coolness suddenly spread out from her forehead. It calmed her, posessed her with a sense of quiet, almost dead life. She lay there, moving only as her breath allowed, a knot of bedsheet clutched in her hands.

"Don't leave me... alone." They were words spoken from somewhere else- another time, another place. It was only a dream. In such a place, anything could be said- no matter how raw it was... how vulnerable.

"Everyone always leaves me."

It was only a dream. You could say anything in a dream.

"I'm always alone." ...Especially the truth.

As a voice returned to her- the promise that she wasn't alone... the far-away girl realized... in a distant way- that her words had not been a silent echo to herself, coursing in the darkness of her mind. They had been spoken aloud- whispered, cried- shouted- she didn't know.

Were she aware, the hedgehog-girl would have tried to reconcile the situation, to say she were joking, or simply hide her face from the shame of the moment of weakness. Of course, if she were aware...the words wouldn't have been spoken in the first place. The gap in her armor had already been exposed- and there was little she could do about it in her state.

Except to drift off further, and cry. They were unbidden tears, but not gentle ones- they rolled out of her quivering eyes and onto the coverlet. The infant tears caught in her fur, waiting to bead together to join the others in their slow descent. And, in that moment, she descended herself- deeper into her mind.

And then... Em did perhaps the one favor she could do for her kind, if put-upon savior.

She drifted into sleep. Lucas would find some respite- if only for the time it took her to replenish herself.

The Next Day

For a few minutes, Emelyn didn't know where she was- whether the island had been a dream... The Dude, Ambrose... Greer, the attacks, the spines... all one long, furred dream, and she was really laying in her bed at home, looking down at the sheets and wondering when she would have to get up. Grandpa John must be making breakfast- something far off smelled like food, like warmth. He must be in the kitchen, and Mizzie would be with him, the two early-risers laughing at Em, who was still lost in La La Land.

...La la land. Wonderland. It's all a dream.

But such dreams pass, when the curtains of sleep are drawn back. Then, for the sake of her still foggy mind, Emelyn wondered, once again- where she was. On the island, for certain, but not in her cave...and not in her duplex. The issue of 'where not' was easier than 'where'- and it took several minutes for the cloud of sleep to drop away from the hedgehog-girl, and for her to recall the previous day's converastion. Lucas. She was in Lucas' duplex.

"Lucas?" She said, aloud, more wondering, than calling for the man.