For nearly three weeks after her 'date' with Psymon, Zoe virtually lived in the hospital. Officially, it was because her treatments were being stepped up in frequency and potency, though Zoe just thought that the doctors would rather she have a few less freedoms after she had gotten thoroughly drunk one night and instigated a bar brawl by calling the biggest, meanest guy there a pussy. The only thing that had saved her from being smashed like a bug was the amount of alcohol in her bloodstream, and the fact that Psymon rescued her with the help of a folding chair and Moby's cricket bat.
The police report for the brawl stated that damages were over ten thousand dollars, not including the spilled beer. After that, Zoe's 'excursions' were cut short by the side effects of four days of chemotherapy followed by a day of radiation per week. As a side effect of her 'incarceration', though more likely due to the change in strength of the dosage, Zoe found that she could once again eat solid foot without requiring a quick visit to the porcelain goddess afterwards. Within a week, Zoe had gained two pounds, allowing her weight to stabilize at just under one hundred pounds.
According to the doctors, if she had lost just five pounds more, they would have been forced to pull her from the chemotherapy sessions due to the risk of her literally being starved by her body's reaction to the therapy. Privately, Zoe wished she had lost those five extra pounds, as the chemo was knocking hell out of her almost all the time. Instead of feeling miserable for four days of the week, which was the standard during her previous therapies, she just felt like someone had worked her over with a baseball bat for at least six hours every day, proving to her, at least, that there were worse things than death.
Even though Zoe was officially considered miserable almost ninety percent of the time, there was one thing that had made her completely insufferable for a week. Hiro had recovered more quickly from his Psymon-induced concussion than expected, and he had decided to visit Zoe. That had been his first mistake, as she was halfway through a chemo treatment, and, subsequently, she was not in a good mood. He took one look at her, and seeing that she was apparently helpless, he began to laugh uproariously.
It took three rather heavy-set interns to pull Zoe off of the newly-unconscious Hiro. She had re-broken his nose, put out three teeth with a left jab that would have made Ali proud, and ensured that when he woke up again, he would have the world's worst non-alcohol induced headache possible.
Hiro never bothered Zoe again in person, though he continued to be a thorn in her side, with his most memorable 'stunt' being an interview with a tabloid newspaper that basically printed all of his original allegations word for word, only without the subsequent beatings that had been graciously doled out by the rest of the SSXers.
That was the low point of October, followed closely by All Hallow's Eve. Apparently, children had a pathological fear of anyone who looked vaguely like a walking skeleton, especially with bloodshot eyes that looked like a single, extremely sore vein. Zoe managed to traumatize every child that decided to try and get some candy out of her floor, without having to say a thing, which did absolutely nothing for her disposition, attitude, or her outlook on the future.
Zoe's birthday was November 17th, and, despite every possible effort to tinker with the schedule, she had been slated for a long bout of radiation therapy that afternoon. That was a present she felt she could go without. Still, having failed to convince her doctor to bump the therapy by a day or two, Zoe had simply resigned herself to spending half of her birthday worshipping the porcelain goddess, though, remembering past celebrations, she figured that the only change was that there would be no alcohol required to get her that sick.
She fell asleep early on the sixteenth, hoping to conserve her energy for tomorrow, but was rudely awakened at around four in the morning from a succession of thumps rattling her room's lone window. Snarling under her breath, Zoe slowly removed herself from her bed, ignoring the series of thumps that rattled the window, and picked up the phone, ready to call the police to disperse the punks that were preventing her from sleeping.
Two noises prevented her from calling. The first noise was unmistakeably a laugh that could have only been produced by a psychopath, as it was most definitely the most warped laugh possible. The second thing that made Zoe put the phone down was a long, shouted commentary, entirely in Japanese, much of which was vilely derogatory. Zoe grinned to herself as she quickly slipped into her regular clothes, figuring that Psymon and Kaori were just about ready to kill each other at the drop of a hat.
Opening her room's window, she looked down at four SSXers standing in the street, a small pile of snowballs sitting in front of them. Sure enough, there was Psymon, laughing, as Kaori continued to berate him in her native language. Moby, having put Psymon in a headlock, paused long enough in preventing the older boarder from moving to wave at Zoe, gesturing for her to come out. Kaori also waved, while Psymon just squirmed. A few seconds later, he howled, snarling like an angry wolf. "Fraser! Get your skinny ass back here so I can wrap it around a light pole!"
Mac, having kicked Psymon in the butt, took off running, trying to outlast the bigger Canuck's stamina reserves. As Zoe watched, the young DJ was quickly overtaken, grabbed by his hoodie, and solidly kicked in the posterior a few times. Mac, subsequently, also howled in pain, though to a lesser degree than Psymon had.
Zoe giggled to herself as she quickly pulled her coat and boots on, then paused long enough to get her wig on correctly, followed up by jamming her favourite, and much-abused, baseball cap onto her head as she scooted out of her room. Five minutes later, Zoe was outside and shielding herself from a barrage of snowballs. Diving behind a snowbank afforded her enough cover to avoid the majority of lobbed objects, as well as letting her get a comment in edgewise. "Hey, cheapass! Gimme some ammo and I'll put you down for the count!"
Psymon shouted back gleefully, lobbing another three snowballs in Zoe's general direction. "I know! That's why you aren't getting any!"
Zoe's response was a scream of barely-repressed fury and frustration, which was Psymon's cue to get everyone to stop the barrage. Zoe quickly recovered from the ending of the barrage, picking up a large handful of slushy, trampled snow, and promptly stuffing the freezing glob down the front of Psymon's pants, much to the concern of part of his anatomy. Zoe simply smiled sweetly, brushing the snowy residue off of her gloves, and spoke just loudly enough for the entirety of the small group to hear. "Keep it on ice Psy. Helps to reduce swelling."
Two seconds later, Moby, Kaori and Mac were laughing so hard at the look on Psymon's face that they were rolling around in the snow, though Psy only cracked a smile when Zoe gave him a light hug. "C'mon you kids. We're going to be late, and, seeing as how we're escortin' the birthday brat herself, we shouldn't be late for her own party."
Zoe nodded at the big Canuck, looking up at him. "Well, so long as there's no public humiliation on my part, I'm game. Let's go."
The five people piled into Psymon's Jeep, Zoe squeezing into the back seat between Kaori and Mac. As Psymon gleefully lurched the Jeep through the heavy drifts, much to the bouncing discomfort of everyone else in the vehicle, Moby half-turned to look at Zoe, offering her a thumbs-up. She smiled in return, then was forced to grab the seats in front of her to avoid being jounced around too much.
After the latest bout of being rattled around like a pea in a can, Zoe reached over the headrest and gently tapped Psymon on the ear, reminding him that he was basically transporting 'fragile materials'. His driving, almost instantly, improved to a level found on most civilized streets, instead of what could best be described as Canadian 'outback driving'. The remainder of the short trip passed rather uneventfully, though Zoe was frustrated by the near-complete unwillingness of everyone else when it came to doing things like talking.
After about ten minutes, Psymon parked the jeep just outside a smallish restaurant, known for its good food, low-key decor, and spacious 'party room'. Everyone climbed out of the jeep in just under thirteen seconds, and as Zoe took a deep breath of the cold air, the small group walked over to the front door of the establishment.
Winking broadly, Psymon and Moby stood at each side of the double doors, looking like the world's most mental doormen, as they gleefully shoved the doors wide open for Zoe, letting Mac and Kaori fall in behind the youthful punk. Zoe walked into the dimly-lit building with her usual confidence, though that quickly faded when Psymon and Moby closed the doors, shutting out the majority of light entering the main room.
Just as Zoe was about to speak, the lights were flicked on, brightening the room so suddenly that her heart started to jackhammer wildly. As if that shock was not nearly enough, the entire active roster of the SSX league all shouted "Happy Birthday Zoe!"
She nearly fainted right then and there.