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It was funny how sometimes you could take a tumble or blow, or any number of things though should hurt, but in the heat of the moment, with your heart pounding and adrenaline rushing it was nothing. Until the excitement was over and the pulse calms, and there was nothing left to distract from the way your body felt.

Back at the academy, her arm link with Lovi and the pair of them making their slow way down the hall of the dormitories, Izzy could feel that she'd nailed her knee on something when the floor had caved in beneath them. It wasn't broken, but she was pretty sure there'd be one hell of a bruise there when she stripped off the uniform tights, and she was starting to walk with a slight limp. In week she knew she'd be fine, but gym class was gunna suck a bit in the mean time.

As they reached Lovi's door Izzy's thoughts collected from wherever they'd wandered, and she straightened up as her friend unlocked the door, hands drawing away from her arm so as not to be restrictive. As she was nudged she walked inside, half limping over to Lovi's bed to take a seat on the edge.

Someone Izzy had managed not to dwell on all the people that'd died. That she and Lovi had escaped that fate somehow, however narrowly. It had her looking up, purple eyes widening a touch as the reality of it came back to her all at once. "It doesn't feel real," she agreed, voice soft and a little hollow.

It could have been us... They could have died out there, and then what?

Izzy's fingers were knotted together as she walked slowly towards the bed, mind circling around the fact that they'd very narrowly escaped the same horrible fate as those that'd died today. Because to her that was what stuck. Not the overall loss of life--though she'd concede that was awful--but how close they'd come. What if something had happened to Lovi? What if Izzy had had to walk down that hall back to the dorms alone? What if...

She blinked at Lovi's question and was instantly grateful for the distraction. "My knee got pretty banged up when we fell, but I don't think I got hurt otherwise." Even still she'd cross to the bed so she could take a seat beside her friend, eager for any sort of attention Lovi might have wanted to extend to her.

"How about you?" She pulled her purple beret off, turning it in her hands before setting it aside so she could shrug out of the military jacket and set it aside. "Do you still feel sick?"

We could have died.

Were these the sort of crazy things that took place in the shadows? How many times now had they brushed death without even knowing it?

Violet eyes flicked up from the gloves she was drawing off her fingers, lingering on Lovi's face.

Ixzy was trying to just not think too much about what they'd been through or the loss of lifd, or any of it really. She'd survived, Lovi had survived, and their general hadn't been there or at risk. Those were the facts the teen held onto. For her, in all honesty, that was the only thing that really mattered. Short sighted, maybe, but still true. It sucked that other agents had gotten hurt or died, but...she hadn't known them.

But not thinking too hard was pretty easy with the warmth of Lovi's hands on her leg and the crook of her elbow urging her closer. Just that soft touch was enough to send a tingling rush acrossed tanned skin and there were goosebumps along her thighs ad Lovi adjusted her skirt to see her knee a little better.

Wh?y. She didn't know what it meant. Except...

Except maybe she did, because wasn't that exactly how folks in her shows repomdes when someone they liked touched them? Didn't their fingers tingle and their hands shake? Didn't their temperature rise, skin flush, head feel light and dizzy?

And she was certainly flushed as Lovi looked up to watch her face. She blinked, realizing her friend had asked her a question, and had to take a moment to try to recall what that'd been. "Um." Oh, right. Her leg. She looked down at were Lovi's hands hovered and gave the leg an experimental bend. "Yeah, I can been it, it just doesn't feel great. But it hurt more walking on it."

Purple eyes had slid back down to her knee, where Lovi's hands hovered close enough for Izzy to feel the chill from them but not close enough to touch. So temptingly close it'd take the smallest twitch of her leg to feel the brush of those slebder fingers, but she was frozen.

She'd always known she liked Loving. From the first day they'd met they'd hit it off instantly and had remained close ever since. When their differing schedules had drawn them apart it'd sucked, to the point that Izzy had tried to transfer classes. The the point where she'd eagerly stepped into a place within the Negaverse without really comprehending what exactly that would mean. Lovi was her best friend.

But maybe that wasn't all of it. Maybe it wasn't just friendship that Izzy felt for the other teen.

And what the ******** did she do about it?

She'd been thinking too hard about it when Lovi's offer snapped her right back to the present and any cooling her cheeks might have done in the meantime blazed right back to life. "A-a massage? You want to massage my leg?" What the ever loving ******** was happening right now? "I uh, o-okay. Sure."

Did mind reading come with corruption? It couldn't possibly. Could it?

Izzy couldn't be further from an angry cat. A happy one, maybe, because she had the distinct urge to curl up close to the other girl and...

The soft pressure on her knee made her wince, but it was just the initial ache of the injury being messed with, and as Lovi worked her fingers down the side of her knee she relaxed into it, leaning back against the wall with her hands folded loosely in her lap. She was still blushing, she knew she was but there really wasn't a whole lot she could do about that. Lovi didn't seem to notice, or at least hadn't commented.

She blinked as her friend looked up at her. "It's great, thank you." And it was. On top of just, feeling great she trusted Lovi when she said it'd help it heal faster. She wasn't looking forward to hobbling around, so anything that sped her recovery would be great.

It was easy to fall back into her own head, her thoughts circling around just asking Lovi how she felt, but she wasn't sure of the answer and that made it kind of terrifying. Not like the s**t they'd faced in the rift, but a whole different kind of fear.

"Lovi, do you..." Her eyes were on her hands but she flicked purple eyes up. "Have you ever had a..crush on anyone?"

She did know, yes. Which was the entire reason she had broached this very emotionally treacherous topic. Lovi was amazing, she gave Izzy that wow feeling the other girl was talking about. The writing was on the wall, bright and bold, and now it was just a matter of what the ******** Izzy was going to do about it.

A nod followed the question but the Izzy didn't say anything as Lovi started in on her story about a a boy from the past. It sounded like a movie plot, in the best way, and it made perfect sense that Lovi would have had some wonderfully romantic relationship in the past. She was pretty, and energetic, and super smart, who wouldn't wouldn't to run away with her to Paris or San Francisco?

Drawing her other leg up, Izzy folded her arms around it and lay hr cheek against the uninjured knee, watching Lovi talk through a thin fringe of her own hair as it spilled over her shoulder. Tanned fingers were still working over her knee and now and then something she'd do would stir up the butterflies in her stomach and whip them into a fluttering flurry that keep her cheeks on the pinker side and had her holding her own wrists very tightly.

She blinked, as the story came to a bittersweet but ultimately promising end, for Izzy, and she bit her lip as the questions were now directed back at her. "Y-yeah." It was now or never, right? "You already know them." The pinch to her elbow had her lifting a hand t brush purple hair back behind her ear.