Felix Renton sighed and lay back in his hospital bed. It was just like that old song said: fifty-seven channels and nothing on. The fact that there were considerably more than fifty-seven channels (hard to believe that fifty-seven had once been considered a lot – it wasn't even that old a song) just made it worse. He turned it off and put the remote on his bedside table.

Maybe he could take another nap. He wasn't really tired – in fact, he was pretty restless – but he was so bored. The TV, the books his mother had brought…none of it seemed to distract him from the crawling time.

He was just closing his eyes and lowering the bed when a knock came at the door. With another sigh, he opened his eyes and returned the bed to its upright, locked position. "So what are we testing today?" He asked, trying hard to sound good-humored, or at least resigned, instead of irritated. It wasn't the nurses' fault that the doctors couldn't seem to get it through their skulls that the blunt trauma to his head and the paralysis of his legs had nothing to do with each other. Two extra days of testing and observation had strained even his patience, and now, just when he'd thought he was out, they pulled him back in.

"Your reflexes," A familiar voice said from the doorway. .

"Oh, hey! Monique!" For the first time, he turned to see his visitor. She leaned in the doorway, the mischievous smile on her face skewed by her still-healing lips. "It's you!"

"You were expecting…?" She asked.

"My mother and the nurse top the list."

"Nope. Sorry. Just me."

"Don't be sorry. I'm surprised, not disappointed. Come in!"

Monique grinned (then winced as the grin pulled at her lip), started forward – then hesitated. "I didn't wake you or anything, did I?" She asked.

"Nah. I was about to take a nap, but only because I was so bored. Have a seat."

Monique sat down in the chair by the bedside and immediately started to speak. She was much more nervous in Felix's presence than she would usually be, but she was determined not to show it. Yet.

"I'm kinda surprised that you're still here," She began. "Josh is already out, and I thought he was hurt worse than you were."

"He was," Felix replied. "But they're extra worried about me developing complications."

"And that's why all the tests."

"Yeah. There's been times these last few days I've felt like a pincushion, and other times I've felt like a UPC code."

"All the scanning?" Monique guessed.

"That's right," Felix said, pleased that someone had actually gotten the joke. "I thought they were done, which is why I was so very friendly when you came in. My mom was going to check me out this afternoon." He glanced at the clock. "Actually, I thought she'd be here by now. She took a half-day from work…"

"Traffic is PDN," She began.

"Pretty Damn Nasty?" He guessed, interrupting.

"That's right. News vans and people coming to see the school. It's a mess. And when your moms gets here, she may have trouble getting through the crowd outside."

"Great," he grunted. "The longer I'm here, the more likely it is that they'll remember one more test that they just have to do before I leave. I swear, if an actual nurse does show up in that doorway, I'm going over the wall."

"Now, would you want me to help you with that, or just hold her off for you?"

"If you could do both, that would be ideal. Block the door or something, and then throw me out the window."

She pretended to think about it for a moment. "I could do that," she said. But then her expression turned serious. "But that's a question I've been meaning to ask you: what's this about being bored? And your moms and the nurse? Don't tell me that they're the only visitors you're getting."

Felix shrugged. "A lot of the people who would usually come and visit have their own beds."

"Like Kim?"

"Exactly," Felix agreed. "Ron has stopped by a couple times and her parents said hi, but mostly they aren't leaving her side."

There was nothing more to say about that. Actually, there was plenty more to say about that, but Monique wanted to hold off on it a little longer. It would be discussed in great detail for weeks or even months to come, no doubt, and she was here for another reason. Time to get to it.

"So how are you planning to sneak out of here?" She asked casually.

"Sneak?"

"Damn straight, sneak! Didn't you hear me tell you about that crowd out front and the reporters?"

"Oh." He waved her concern away. "They aren't here for me."

Score. "They should be," She countered.

"Why?" He asked, looking honestly puzzled. "I'm going to be just another kid leaving the hospital in a wheelchair. Nothing newsworthy about that."

"You're one of the heroes of Middletown High, that's why!"

"Oh, now – "

"No." She put a finger to his lips. "You listen to me, baby boy. I'm not takin' anything away from Kim. If it weren't for her, that CGB would have ended the fight damn quick. But you're the one who saved us from those GGG's."

She paused, waiting for him to ask her to explain that CGB meant "Crazy Green Bitch" and GGG's were the "Green Goo Guys", but he seemed to understand perfectly.

"You were all in there fighting," he protested instead. "I just had a better weapon, that's all."

"Don't minimize, boy. You saved all our lives, and you took a bad hit for it. Two, if you count what happened to your chair. And now they've forgotten all about you."

"Monique, really – it was no big."

Monique smiled sadly. "Why do heroes always say that?" She asked.

"Monique, I'm not – "

At that moment, she leaned forward, grabbed him by the front of his hospital gown, and pulled him in for a kiss that effectively silenced all protest. After a breath-stealingly long moment, she released him to flop back onto the bed.

"Let me clarify for you, baby boy," she said firmly. "You're my hero."

"Oh," he said, dazed. "That's okay, then."

"I was reasonably sure there was no GF in the picture," She continued.

"Yeah, that's true," he said. "I've got – well, had – this great set of wheels, but somehow, it never helped me pick up any chicks."

"Well, now it has."

Felix grinned over at her mischievously. "Taking a bit for granted, aren't we?"

Oh, she liked that. The boy was quicker on the rebound than most she was used to dealing with – especially Ron.

"Are you saying no to this?" she said, standing up and striking a glamour pose.

"Uh, no," he said, taking a moment to look her up and down, licking his lips nervously. "No, I'm really, really not."

"Didn't think so," she said smugly, sitting back down. "Oh! I'm sorry, but I just gotta ask – "

He managed to keep himself from sighing. He'd heard all the questions before, and he had patience for the curious (as long as they didn't start to treat him like some kind of sideshow), or for people like Kim, with her klutzy, well-intentioned overprotectiveness (which he'd discovered wasn't limited to him, at least not in Kim's case). Still, it wasn't that great a start to a relationship. Nonetheless, he summoned his usual bravado and answered: "I can do anything but walk."

"Good," she said, her voice dropping into sultriness as she reached out and slowly stroked a hand down his flank (usually, it would have been up his leg, but she suspected that wouldn't have its intended effect with him). "Then the time will come when I can give you a proper hero's reward. I'd feel all selfish if our SL consisted entirely of you LATY."

SL meant Sex Life, of course, but he'd finally run into a Monique acronym that he couldn't decipher. "LATY?" He asked.

"Lunchin' At The Y," She explained.

His eyes widened. Hearing something like that was a wonderful shock, of course. But more importantly, he'd read the fine print in what she'd just said. She'd feel all selfish – but she'd still do it.

Very few people treated him like they did anybody else. Ron and Rufus. Kim was learning. Monique had always treated him like any another person – but as of that moment, she was maybe the first girl ever to treat him like any other guy.

Most girls – most people in general, really – seemed to be about as comfortable thinking of him as a sexual being as they were thinking about very old people, or their own parents. On the rare occasions where the idea even occurred to them, they found it extremely disturbing.

But here was a girl who was apparently not only comfortable with the idea, but liked it enough that she was willing to work around his disabilities to make it happen. Not that a relationship that consisted of him Lunching at her Y would be a great sacrifice on her part, but still…

It was a new and exciting frontier.

Monique, for her part, mistook his amazement for incomprehension.

"YITC?" She offered. "Yodeling In The Canyon?" His eyes only widened further, and she decided to just be blunt. Blunter.

"Going down on – "

Felix's eyes widened further yet, and they glanced over her shoulder instead of at her face.

" – Mom! Hi! When did you get here?"