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Drawing pod duty was part of the whole 'hunter' thing, and it seemed to happen even more to trainees. When Hanna had found out about the late night assignment, she was only mildly perturbed. Her life had been spent as a night owl, staying up to enjoy the simple quiet that only the early morning hours brought on.

It was midnight now. The moon was a fat slice through a faint sliver of window at the top of the walls. Hanna was deep in the pods, trailing her fingers along them, updating any charts as needed, but mostly she was reclined in a chair, flipping through the pages of her latest book. It was a simple young adult novel called Eleanor & Park, one of her indulgent selections on the one and only day of leave she had successfully taken in her time at Deus.

The book was engrossing and a quick read. A cup of coffee licked steam into the air, her feet kicked up on top of the nearest pod, her mind deep in a book. So far... this night was kind of awesome.

The sound of approaching footsteps did not immediately startle Hanna. She was at this really good part where the main character was hiding in her room and -- oh, s**t. It was Chel. Of all the hunters in all the Deuses... Hanna glanced up, face neutral, but not warm. Jack had been very up front about what had happened, but there was a small part of Hanna that was annoyed he had done anything, even if their pseudo-relationship was in the just began stage at the time. Jack knew it wasn't real; Chel did not.

Which made her the kind of girl who would do that.

Normally, Hanna didn't jump on her judgmental high horse, but she was having a hard time not changing her view of Chel. Before this, she hadn't minded the girl. A little hyper, it seemed to her, but pretty decent. Hanna still thought she was decent, just... less so.

"If one of them wakes up to do something about it, I will definitely change my ways. And also probably high five them," she said, lowering her book but leaving it open in her lap. "Hey, Chel."

The last time they met was on the last mission. Things had gotten dicey, and Hanna had ended up separated from the rest of them from some time. But Chel had pulled her weight and helped the group. Despite the Jack thing, Hanna wasn't about to overlook that. She was a Hunter first, a whatever-the-hell-she-had-with-Jack second.

"I made some coffee if you want some," she added, pointing toward a stained and busted pot on a table across the room. "How did you end up stuck here? Call sheet said I had a Mist hunter named Darren."

No coffee? That was a special sort of hell. Hanna lived and died by the stuff. Even in the infirmary when she was suffering from face-peeling burns, she found herself longing for even the tiniest sip each morning. She had no idea what had gone on with Chel lately, aside from the Jack stuff, and was completely in the dark that it was just the tip of the iceberg. Plus, judging from Chel's vibe, it was not a welcome subject. Was Chel annoyed at Hanna... and that was why she was being cold? The idea rankled her. If anything, Hanna should be annoyed at Chel. At least in her brain.

"I started at 10, on until 3." Which meant they had several hours of time to spend together while most other Hunters were sleeping. During the day, you may get the occasional passerby visiting, but odds were good that it would just be the two of them, uninterrupted, for the next three hours.

"I may be hallucinating -- but your hair was pink last time I saw. Is this the natural shade?"

Two girls talking about hair. Totally normal, right? Totally not awkward.

It could have been a dig, but Hanna decided to assume the best. She angled her body slightly to face Chel as the other girl took a seat on the ground. "Naturally it is a super dark reddish-brown, but I highlight it with a more vibrant red. Which is a huge improvement from the really hideous blond highlights I thought were a good idea early in high school," she said, smirking to herself.

"It had all but grown out on me. Good thing Deus seems to have an endless supply of hair dye if you are willing to trade or pay."

To fill what she thought might be oncoming silence, Hanna sat up, grabbed her coffee mug, and took a sip.

A hair stash? Damn, Hanna missed everything. Now that she had been back for a decent chunk of time, the two and a half years she had spent back in the pod had begun to fade. It was no longer one of the first things that came up in conversation with people. Her face was vaguely familiar. She knew people that other people knew. And yet, every now and then, she got little reminders of how out of touch she continued to be, like with this hair dye bounty. "Next time," she mused, uncrossing and recrossing her legs.

The mention of her book was a much easier topic for Hanna so she missed out on the awkwardness. "Eleanor & Park," she said, flipping up the cover so Chel could see. It was a cartoon of a redheaded girl and a black-haired boy from behind, both wearing a pair of headphones that connected into the shape of a heart. "I picked it up on leave." With about 30 other books. "It's about a girl who is new to high school and comes from a very poor family, abusive stepfather, lots of siblings. She is picked on at school, but then this Korean boy, Park, lets her sit next to him on the bus. And over the course of bus rides, they start to share things: music, comic books -- never really talking at first. Then... well, I don't want to spoil it." Hanna was rambling, though it wasn't because she was awkward. She just really, really liked books.

"I picked it up as some easy reading, but so far, it is my favorite thing I picked up on the trip. I started it when my shift began, and I'm already halfway through. I'll probably have it finished before this is over," she explained, her smile widening. "I just love that the book has... like..." Hanna searched for the word. "No pretension about it. It is just a story about these two high school kids experiencing strong romantic feelings for the first time, facing things that are too big for kids but that kids have to confront all the time -- and it's all told through this beautiful lens of youth and..."

Her voice trailed off. "Sorry, rambling. In short -- this book rules."

Annoyance flickered through Hanna's eyes. In a strange way, Chel hating books mattered more to her than Chel sleeping with Jack. How could you hate books and also have a soul? Golden eyes strayed back to the page. The Death trainee was trying to be civil, but Chel was being more and more abrupt. If she was the reactionary type, Hanna might have confronted her then and there, but instead, she said, "It's nuanced." And left it at that.

A few rows over, a pod let out a slow beep. Hanna got up. "I'll check it," she said and then disappeared out of sight, book in hand.

Hanna had only meant to escape from an awkward moment herself, but Chel seemed to be the one truly suffering. The girl bolted from the room before Hanna even managed to exit. She thought about it the entire time she dealt with the pod. That couldn't be about the book, right? Or Jack? Jack acted like it was a random, stupid, sexual encounter between two friends, hardly cause for Chel to freak out... especially when Hanna was in the process of giving her some space.

The freshly awakened Hunter was calm, which Hanna was grateful for. She did the typical song and dance and then sent him on his way, stumbling and barefoot. He'd figure it out on his own, eventually. Or die. That was sort of how it went.

Grabbing his clipboard off the side of the pod, Hanna was halfway through the paperwork when Chel reentered, exposing an odd bracelet that may have seemed strange to some but was fairly common knowledge to someone in her division. It meant bad things, punishment, that the formerly-pink-haired girl in front of her was into some deep s**t.

"Chel," she said, more of a breath than anything else. It was an involuntary reaction, one she shouldn't have had. Her deep desire to know EVERYTHING wanted to ask about it, but Hanna had enough sense to not be that invasive... even if Chel and Jack had gotten all kinds of invasive without her knowledge.

Mercifully, Hanna breezed past it. She lifted her clipboard back up. "No trouble. Weirdly calm, if anything. He was out of it. Young too, picked out of high school. I hate when they do that." Golden eyes fell to the bracelet, now hidden, and then moved back to Chel's face. "Hopefully he can hack it."

"All this bullshit," Hanna said, rolling her eyes to the universe. "I was thrown back in a pod for two and a half years for reasons that are blacked out from my record. That kind of s**t."

Casually, she gestured to Chel's arm that wore the bracelet. "Or that kind of s**t."