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In the days since Barren Pines and her release from the hospital, Fallon had been doing her best to keep busy. Transitioning to Crystal Academy was a wonderful distraction. She had new classes and new people to meet. She had a new room to organize. All of her belongings were lost in the strange circumstances surrounding Barren Pines, and Fallon was still in the process of trying to replace them all. It sent her to a state of euphoria to have an opportunity to redesign her living space. All of the tiny mistakes of her old bedroom could be fine-tuned for her new one! The roommate part? Well... Fallon was trying to mentally prepare herself. No one had been assigned yet, but someone would be -- and soon. The thought made her cringe.

That day, Fallon was heading to the boutique district to pick up her new bedding. She ordered it from a place back in France and had them deliver it to the boutique so it could be steamed for her in advance. It was very pale purple with black and green accents in a symmetrical leaf pattern. She'd been looking forward to its arrival for weeks, and as she turned the corner, Fallon had an extra bounce in her step. In fact, every day she spent away from Barren Pines only made the girl happier, more pleasant. All of the negativity that hung in the air in that place washed away from her the moment she woke up in that hospital. It still pained her to think of her dead friends, but it was just something Fallon had to accept.

She was still living, that's all there was to it.

The boutique sat at the corner of two major streets. It had massive windows painted with gold stencils to create the image of an intricate photo frame displaying the wares kept within. The name was simple: From Paris. It sold mostly goods from France, or French-inspired wares, but in the back, it had a section of art books and home decorating manuals. There was a beautiful collection of jewelry and decorative lamps, and the owner let her two cats wander around the store to interact with customers. When Fallon first returned to Destiny City, From Paris was the only place that sold frozen hot chocolate too, a favorite of hers from her preteen years in France. Fallon was born in Destiny City and lacked a French accent, but in her bones, she thought of herself as just as French as a croissant. At every opportunity, she liked to assert that status, even if it meant paying extra.

For a moment, Fallon paused in front of the window, staring at a gilded couch sitting in the front window. She smiled, pushed open the door, and slipped into the store with a short gust of wind.

Fallon's fingertips had barely grazed the edge of a small crystal pot when a familiar voice spoke behind her. She turned abruptly, compulsively pulling her purse tight to her body as if he might make a move to steal it. Annoyance flared up on her face, but was quickly extinguished when she realized she knew the person she was looking at from a place she was trying very hard to forget.

"Azzo," she said, voice filled with more happiness than usual. They hadn't exactly been friends, but Fallon was relieved each time she saw a fellow Barren Pines survivor. "You... made it out too." "Made it out" seemed like a PC term for whatever had happened. The news said it was a botched organ ring, and Fallon had little evidence to prove otherwise. It made enough sense to her, though she couldn't shake the nagging feeling that all was not well. The place were she remembered Barren Pines being was now a deserted insane asylum. Was she simply not remembering well?

Any time Fallon tried to chase down her memories of Barren Pines, they seemed to run in the opposite direction, eluding her just as her fingers reached out to take a hold. Something had happened there, and made it was a black market organ-snatching ring. Either way, the thought of Barren Pines made her skin crawl. Unsure of what else to say, Fallon asked, "How have you been?" and turned her back to the little collection of housewares she had been perusing moments earlier.

Shifting her weight, Fallon glanced down the length of the aisle to see if anyone was listening. The store was pretty much deserted, which was a good thing considering the direction this conversation was likely going to go. "Others? Who?" she asked, clipping her question out just behind his words. Imogen had given her a brief summary of those she remembered, but Fallon still held out hope that Leonette might still be out there. Imogen could have forgotten a name, right?

Her eyes followed his to the salt and pepper shakers, but she didn't say anything. Fallon actually owned them. She used them on Bastille Day, or whenever she was feeling a bit homesick. "Post Traumatic Amnesia," she repeated. The term sounded familiar. Had the doctors told her she had that too? It was possible. "So you can't remember anything at all?" Fallon didn't care to get to the bottom of whether or not she had the same condition, not then. She also didn't want to share her own injuries, which were incredibly minor, in light of the damage done to Azzo. Hearing "yeah, I was only in the hospital a few days" probably would sound nice to someone who had gotten a little more beat up.

It rankled her that Azzo did not remember her name since she knew his. It was terribly impolite. The annoyance showed briefly on her face. "Fallon," she said. "I cooked every day in the second floor kitchen. I made you meals many times." Hmph. He didn't remember her? Unacceptable.

The names Azzo listed were vaguely familiar. She had seen the list from Imogen, but she liked to have physical confirmation that people were still alive. Not to mention the tiny flicker of hope she held out that Leonette might have somehow been missed. If she returned to that asylum, would she be able to find her body? As far as Fallon remembered, they had not found anyone dead, just the survivors. So where were all the bodies? The grim answer was that they had been cut up and sold. That was what the television said. Fallon tried to imagine Leonette packed into many little boxes. What if she ran into someone who had her eyes? Would she recognize them? The thought was creepy, and Fallon shoved it from her mind.

"Melody? I remember her, a little. Were you two close?" she asked. Fallon did pay much attention to other people's social lives. When Azzo tried to make nice with her, the stuffy teenager ignored it, but she softened the edge in her voice. It was his fault. He just wasn't as well-equipped to handle trauma as Fallon was. That was all.

A stray hand lifted a tiny silver napkin down from the table. Fallon turned it slowly in her hands while Azzo spoke. "I don't cook with cactus much," she said, setting the napkin holder back down. "If I cooked that for you, I'm afraid I don't remember." Had she done it? Wherever that memory lay, Fallon could not access it. Instead, she moved further down the table, dragging her fingers over a woven basket. "What school are you at now?" she asked, a mild interest flaring in her eyes.

When Azzo moved to the plate, Fallon followed him with her eyes. "Perhaps it is better to forget and move on," she said, picking up a gilded ash tray. Her father smoked, but she didn't particularly want to encourage that. She set the ash tray back down. "I feel uneasy sometimes, but we survived something terrible a short time ago, Azzo. There will be side effects, sure, but they will be temporary." Fallon hoped her words put him at ease, at least a little. She didn't like to see any of the other survivors feeling the same pain that she experienced from time to time.

Moving closer to where Azzo was perusing, Fallon glanced at a few hand-painted postcards, rubbing the paper between her fingertips. "If I try my hand at it, you would be welcome," she mused, but didn't ask for his phone number or pick a particular time. Fallon liked to make things that interested her. Cooking with cactus really wasn't on that list. Perhaps she might try it one day. Perhaps Azzo would be around for it. Fallon was perfectly fine leaving that in hypothetical terms.

Fallon knew the thugs and screw-ups went to Hillworth. Apparently Azzo wasn't among their number. Good for him. "Crystal Academy," she said, leaving the postcards behind and moving to the other trinkets.

Fallon couldn't really describe the feeling properly so she just nodded at Azzo's description. It didn't matter much anyway. Her hands froze on a tiny screen with earrings scattered against it. One by one, Fallon touched the earrings, turning them in the light so she could get a true appreciation for them. "Perhaps I will visit," she said, polite but insincere. Fallon had a different definition of "good cook" than most people, and she highly doubted she would be impressed by anyone's grandmother. The kind of chefs that impressed her did deconstructions and gastronomy and had the awards to prove how great they were. A really delicious meatloaf wasn't typically something Fallon cared to eat, not unless there was something special about it.

Still, Fallon was polite. She wouldn't tell Azzo any of that. He was just trying to be nice to her. The comment about organization she let slide. Was he poking fun at her OCD? The paranoid part of Fallon thought so.

One pair of earrings caught her eye -- tiny chandeliers made of crystal -- and Fallon carefully removed them from the screen. All of her things had been destroyed at Barren Pines, or maybe just stolen. Fallon's parents told her that she had one month to replace it, and after that, they were going to put her back on a budget. "I don't think I ever met Melody," she said, going back to look at another pair of earrings. When Azzo asked, Fallon looked at the plate. "It's nice. Simple, but nice. They have tiny sculptures along the back wall too, if you don't mind paying a little extra." She wasn't sure what to say to his last comment. It was a bit of an over-share, and Fallon didn't think she knew him well enough to talk about too personal things. Sure, they had shared the horror of Barren Pines, but Fallon didn't want to go to deep into his personal life in the middle of the store.

Instead, she glanced back to her earrings and asked, "How have you been since then?"

Without asking, Fallon slowly began to lead the way to the sculptures in the back. She needed to go that direction anyway to pick up her bedding. "They're back here," she said, turning around a protruding wall. Rows of marble and stone sculptures sat on identical shelves hanging from the walls. Some were replications of famous monuments or other statues. Others were intricate carvings. Fallon was drawn immediately to one with a labyrinth of divots carved into its surface.

She nodded along as Azzo described his injuries, with no intention of sharing her own. Fallon had a headache, and a cut on her lower abdomen. Others had been far less lucky. In that moment, she thought of poor Laney Sutton laying in a hospital bed. Perhaps she would go visit her, maybe bring some fresh flowers?

Her hands had just reached toward the statue when Azzo brought up senshi. More Barren Pines student had senshi run-ins? When Imogen first told her about her own, Fallon thought it was just a coincidence. But now Azzo? "I met one too. She helped me get away from something. Very polite girl." It sounded like Fallon was describing a casual classmate, not a super-powered savior. She tried not to make a big deal out of it, or to drawn attention of others in the store. "It seems there are a lot of them running around Destiny City at night. Imogen Farrago has met more than one." Fallon didn't think Imogen would mind her sharing and so she did, glancing back to Azzo.

Fallon followed Azzo's eyes to the vineyard sculpture. "That one is lovely," she said. Beside it, there was a recreation of Pieta. It looked tacky to Fallon and so she passed over it without much consideration.

The clerk who Fallon was meeting to pick up her bedding spotted the girl in near the sculptures. She waved, and Fallon waved back, holding up a finger to let her know that she would be right over there in just a few minutes. Then she turned back to Azzo. "There are a lot of problems in Destiny City," she said. "And it isn't just the things that hide in the shadows." Destiny City was overflowing with weird s**t. There was no better way to put it. After her run in with the youma and Sailor Virgo, Fallon felt more in tune with those events. News stories that she would have ignored before suddenly stood out. She began to read blogs and articles on the situation, spending more hours on the internet in that week than she had in the last month.

Night was a long way off, but Fallon nodded with Azzo. She didn't have much to compare it to, but her one monster run-in happened at night. Then he said something a bit more curious. "You sense them?" she said, meeting his gaze. "What did it feel like? Was it a tingling?" It was a stretch, but she wanted to know more.