i apologize for my haphazard updates! i've relocated a good deal of what had been this chapter to my other story, BUT i made this much, much longer with lots more on the way which will hopefully help atone for my lack of organization /
i'd also like to acknowledge the wonderful people who reviewed this story :D if it hadn't been for them this would not have been posted until Monday, when it would've been all done.

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Gaaaaaah. She hadn't drawn the drapes last night.

Pure morning sunshine streamed through the open window, giving the room a warm, golden glow. An errant breeze slipped through and ruffled the bed linens, tickling DG's cheek. Telling herself it was just to test the water, DG cracked one wary eye open—and abruptly grimaced.

The light burned, damnit. She wanted no part, none at all whatsoever of this horribly sunshiny day.

With a groan, the youngest princess dove back under the covers, burrowing deeper into the down quilt. The pounding in her head was awful, a throbbing ache that felt as though it would shatter her skull to pieces. Sandwiching her head between pillow and mattress, DG languished in her bed and tried to glean comfort from the soothing darkness.

Nothing and no one was going to drag her out of this bed today.

Migraines sucked.

DG sighed in relief when the clatter of footsteps in the hall ceased, relishing the respite. Gratitude turned to apprehension when knuckles rapped lightly on her bedroom door, however. DG was loathe to leave her nest of blankets, and wistfully imagined sleeping all day, daydream unhampered by the knowledge that no one would ever allow it. whoever stood on the other side of her door knocked once, twice, three times more.

To be honest with herself, DG knew there was nothing for it but to face down her demons. You can run but you can't hide. Still, demons would have to wait until tomorrow, when she didn't have a migraine, because this princess was not getting up today.

"DG?" the tentative voice interrupted her reverie, "it's me."

Glitch. There was an unintelligible mumble from the heap of blankets, sounding remarkably like a 'so what?' followed by a 'go away.' there was a scuffle as Glitch shifted uncomfortable from one foot to the other, and after a pause the heap of blankets muttered 'please?' as an afterthought.

"Do you intent to barricade yourself in there all day?" he mused, perplexed.

"Maybe I do." DG replied from the safety of her fortress, in a very un-DG-like manner.

"I believe the heir apparent is sulking," Glitch informed the door, and was rewarded by an indignant string of colorful adjectives from DG.

After a great deal of deliberation, DG crawled out of bed with a wince and padded over to the door, eyeing it with blatant distrust.

"if I open this door it'll only be to inform you that I have plans for the day, and none include exiting this room or admitting anyone to it. And when I tell you to leave and you don't listen, I'm not going to feel guilty," she said, mumbling the last line under her breath as an aside.

"Come out of hiding, doll."

The door handle turned, agonizingly slow, and suddenly Glitch was facing a frazzled DG, the most beleaguered he'd ever seen her. Her face looked drawn, dark smudges below puffy eyes emphasizing the pallor of her skin.

His shock must have been apparent, because a corner of her mouth pulled up into a crooked smile; putting aside her misgivings, DG stepped back with a sigh and held the door open, gesturing for Glitch to walk in.

The initial burst of elation seeing DG always brought to Glitch was dampened by her apparent distress. Glitch froze for a moment, unsure whether she really did want him to go away—he would, of course—but the thought hurt. Then again, maybe she hadn't meant it...Glitch didn't need Raw to feel the stress permeating the Palace, so heavy it was almost physically tangible. Maybe DG was just having a bad day. In which case he resolved to cheer her up, because of all people DG certainly deserved to have a good day.

Seeing his hesitation, DG grabbed the fumbling advisor by his tattered lapels and swung the door shut with a strained laugh. Something seemed off, Glitch noticed. The tone of her voice and the set of her jaw, the way she seemed to wilt under his puzzled stare—

"Hey, glitch…everything okay?" The query pulled Glitch from his reverie, and being Glitch he blurted what he'd been thinking rather than what he thought he should have spoken.

"I...I don't know. You don't look so okay." The words tumbled recklessly from his mouth of their own accord; it took a moment for the both of them to realize what he'd just said. Raising a hand to cover his face in mortification, Glitch peered through his fingers at a somewhat surprised DG. "Not that you look bad..."

"I'd, er, actually been referring to whatever brought you here," she said quietly, glancing at the clock on her nightstand, "considering the early hour and all."

Glitch brought his other hand up as well, the better to hide his face with. He hadn't even stopped to consider that she could've still been sleeping…it was too late now, he supposed. Everything seemed to have gone terribly awry, and what he'd been about to ask her seemed so frivolous now, especially considering the state she was in—

"But that's alright," DG continued, watching her friend visibly droop and being unable to stand any more gloom. Another head-splitting jolt of pain nearly sent her staggering, but DG forced herself to endure it silently…she felt as though it had been eons since she'd gotten to chat or joke with anyone, and no migraine was going to dictate her life.

"It's been awhile anyway, and if I have time to stand for dress fittings nobody can say I can't afford to talk with my friends."

The ire in her voice made glitch smile, if only for a moment. The redness in her eyes was fading, but her pained expression made Glitch wish with more ferocity than he ever had before that he wasn't so awfully awkward. Already her company was putting him at ease, and all he could seem to do was put his foot in his mouth. Constantly. Slowly, glitch removed his hands from their protective position, clasping them awkwardly and twiddling his thumbs.

"It's absolutely terrible, isn't it? Here we are, with more reasons than ever before to be grateful, and you don't come across a single person who isn't down-and-out disheartened." Nobody seemed to realize it, either, he added silently; and if they did realize they pretended they hadn't.

"Maybe the reasons to be grateful don't seem enough to carry us through the unpleasant at the moment," DG whispered. Glitch stopped his thumb-twiddling, taken aback.

"But that's ridiculous! Why—what were they expecting, instant gratification? It isn't even as though we're building an empire from scratch, which would certainly be easier. The effects of ten years of tyranny can't be erased, and there are people who aren't capable of understanding how anger can't bring their lost time back. We're being assaulted by obstacles that'll easily derail us if we let them, and things won't be any easier the farther we go for a long time yet."

"You realize that to the vast majority of people those aren't 'more reasons than ever to be grateful,' right?" DG smiled, "because I'm not encountering too much success following this brand of logic."

"Oh, I didn't mean to imply that anyone could get excited about the odds which seem to have forgotten to favor us. Only that with an outlook like this, we've got to realize how much we've been able to do and be proud of it—not huff about how it's still not enough! We knew it wasn't going to be."

In exasperation, Glitch shook his head as if to rid himself of the blatant idiocy of these people. DG looked at him rather queerly, but said nothing, digesting his words. Glitch himself was rather unfazed by the plethora of stumbling blocks in their path, buoyed by unsinkable and equally inexplicable optimism. She wondered where it came from, and envied him for it.

"Whichever way you look at it, you still end up in front of the same brick walls. And no matter how many times you ask 'Where do I go from here?' nobody's going to have an answer. It feels more than a little hopeless, but if we're hoping to get the OZ to work with us we're not going to win any votes like this." DG gave a groan and unceremoniously dropped into the chair near the window, tucking her legs under her and resting her chin in her hand. "How can we convince anyone we know what we're doing if we don't believe it ourselves?"

Glitch looked down at her and affected a comically flattered air. "I'm thrilled to know you believe I have an answer for you," he grinned modestly, looking for all the world like someone had asked him for an autograph. "The truth is, doll, that I haven't a clue. Nobody does; the ones who act like they have the solutions are doing just that: acting. We believe them because we're desperate enough for something to believe in. The sooner that's admitted, the sooner everyone works together and we have a chance of finding some real answers."

Seeming embarrassed at having issued such a lengthy reprisal—when he was supposed to be comforting her—Glitch fell into the nearest seat, opposite DG, and found himself unable to pull his gaze away from the floor. "But that's just the way people are, you know," he chuckled softly, "and sometimes even knowing you should be happy isn't enough to make you any less sad."

DG was silent, and Glitch worried that he'd inadvertently made things worse, which certainly he wouldn't put past himself. Upon looking up he found her watching him, those brilliant eyes riveted on his face. It sent all sorts of shivers up and down is spine, and Glitch became aware of an increasingly intense sensation in the pit of his stomach. There was something in her features which held him immobile, some unspoken question he knew he had the answer to, and although he didn't know what that answer was he knew he knew it. The air between them was nearly fizzing, the twisting in Glitch's stomach an exquisite type of torture, unbearably sharp even as he craved more of it.

"It's not simply the state of affairs here, Glitch. It's—there's no…I just don't understand, can't explain," DG suddenly burst out, faltering. Glitch knew the feeling of grasping at words that couldn't begin to depict the way you felt, was itching to tell her he understood, but his throat seemed to be paralyzed.

"I don't belong anywhere," DG lamented, eyes never once leaving his face. Glitch swallowed. "Naïve as it was, I'd expected this to feel right, being reunited with my family and back on native soil, the whole nine yards. But being born here doesn't change the fact that I'm not from here—I grew up on the Other Side." Her voice broke, and Glitch grabbed her hand, gave it the slightest of squeezes.

"If you're from the Other Side, then, why not call it home?"

Glitch hadn't meant it as a rhetorical question, but wasn't surprised when DG didn't answer.

She shut her eyes for a moment, bit her lip. When she looked at Glitch again it was with pain, laced with a note of hysteria as she pulled her hand away, leaving his palm devoid of that wonderful warmth. DG rose, walked to the window, pressed her cheek against the cool glass. Unsure of what solace he could offer, Glitch watched in bewilderment, disconsolate.

"I don't even know who I am anymore."

The plaintive comment was so out of character for DG that Glitch wasn't even sure he'd heard it. Leaving his seat to stand by her side, Glitch put a tentative hand on each of her shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Neither do I, DG. Nor does anyone else, I suspect."

Glitch's words were truer than he knew. DG looked up at him, realized their proximity, wasn't even aware that she'd been relishing the closeness until Glitch stepped back and left her bereaved of his body heat. She stepped forward without realizing it, closing the gap between them as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Glitch returned the hug, albeit awkwardly, chalking it up to the blatant stress his friend was under even as his schizoid heart nearly catapulted itself through his chest in the instant she touched him.

"Glitch," DG mumbled into his chest, "this is one crazy world."

"mhmm," he agreed vehemently, violently torn between wanting to pick her up, there and then, and spin her around until she laughed in delight like she had as a child—Glitch recalled fondly a certain infectious grin that would light up any room—and fear that if he moved she'd leave, when he needed her so much closer.

Hello? Where had that thought come from? No, he had definitely not just thought about DG that way. Nope. Rewind, Glitch, back up. It's not as though she kissed you…although it wasn't an unpleasant—stop. Nope. Entirely, firmly grounded in reality Glitch carefully extracted his person from the friendly hug. For the life of him, Glitch realized he hadn't the vaguest notion what had brought him to DG's room in the first place.

She returned his confused gaze, wondering if she'd done something which had caused him to break the embrace. It had felt oddly comforting, being held like that. DG blinked, wondering where that unsolicited thought had originated from. This was Glitch, of all people—

"If you ever need someone to talk to, Deej, you know I'm here, right?" he told her softly, looking as self conscious as she felt. DG mustered a smile somehow, as her head distinctly felt as though it were being pulverized one anguishing blow at a time. Glitch saw the grimace and hastily made to remove himself, attributing the discomfort to his presence.

"I'm terribly, dreadfully sorry," he apologized, wringing his hands and looking so dejected that it was all DG could do to restrain herself from kissing him on the cheek.

"For what?"

"I'm always putting my foot in my mouth, aren't I?" Glitch chuckled humorlessly. "I came here meaning to cheer you up and all I've managed to do is make you miserable."

This time DG did give in, standing on tiptoe to brush her lips lightly against his cheek. "That's a lie; you couldn't make anyone miserable if you tried. And you'd never be able to put up a decent effort, anyway. You couldn't do it," she teased knowingly.

"What, then, is it that's gotten you so down?"

"Ever had a migraine?"