Cress was not a big fan of storms, but everything was going fine until the lights went.

Thorne had been reluctant to leave her at Scarlet's farm, especially when they were predicting a thunderstorm, but Cress was sick and Thorne still had to deliver the letumosis antidote, and they both had agreed it was for the best that she just spend a couple of days with Scarlet and Wolf while he made the deliveries. Scarlet and Wolf had promised to care for Cress, and anyway, Cress had told Thorne, she had been away from her satellite for over a year now, and she'd seen storms. She would be okay with this one, too.

And she had been, until the power went out.

Cress was in bed in Scarlet's guest room, reading a romance novel on her portscreen, when there was a loud crack of thunder and the lights flickered and went out.

"Scarlet?" she whispered. She still wasn't a big fan of the dark. "Wolf?"

There was no answer - not that Cress expected one. She could still see the room dimly with the light of her portscreen, covered with a blue glow that sort of freaked her out. She turned off her portscreen, sat up in bed, and pulled the blanket up to her chin, unsure of what to do.

She sat like that for a minute, her heart pounding in her head, before the door slammed open. Cress froze and grabbed her blanket in her fists.

"You in here, Cress?"

Cress slowly unfroze. "Scarlet?"

"Yeah." There was quiet for a few seconds, and then a light filled the room. "I can never find the flashlight feature on my portscreen."

"Oh," was all Cress could muster.

Scarlet shined the light at Cress. "You okay, Cress?"

Cress nodded. Scarlet laughed. "Oh! You're scared of the storm, aren't you?"

Cress nodded again. Scarlet grinned. "Of course you are. You spent half your life on a satellite." She shined the light away from Cress for a minute. Cress's eyes saw only bright spots for a few seconds, and she didn't know where Scarlet was going until she felt the bed shift and realized Scarlet was sitting next to her. "You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. The light helps."

"Good."

They sat in silence for a minute more, Scarlet's light filling the space around them, before Scarlet shifted so she was looking at Cress. "Cress?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you. . . did you get claustrophobic?"

"Claustrophobic?" She hesitated. "In the satellite?"

"Yeah."

Cress nodded. "At first, yeah. I used to. . . the first weeks, I clawed at the walls, as if. . . as if being out in space would be any better." She laughed shakily at the memory, but it was the first time she was sharing it with anyone. Even Thorne didn't know that detail.

"Yeah," said Scarlet, her face thoughtful. "Me, too."

It took Cress a minute to realize what Scarlet meant. "On. . . Luna?"

"In my prison," Scarlet said darkly.

Cress tensed up. Scarlet didn't normally talk about her time spent as a prisoner on Luna. She felt her eyes wander towards Scarlet's missing finger.

"After a while," Scarlet said slowly, "I started to get used to being trapped. I got used to being a prisoner, and I got used to the thought that I might never leave. But I never got used to the claustrophobia. Even. . . even now. I can't be in small spaces. Not anymore."

"It's not like that for me," said Cress. "I guess I was on the satellite for so long that I grew to like tight spaces. Now it's the dark that scares me."

They fell into comfortable silence for another few minutes before there was a loud click and the power went back on. Scarlet shut off her portscreen light. "Well, that was quick, wasn't it? I guess whatever caused the power outage was fixed."

She stood up and gave Cress a quick wave before leaving, closing the door of the guest bedroom soundly behind her.