"Your parole officer let me know he stopped by your place last Friday."

Flynn yawned. "He stops by every Friday. You should let him know he'll have more luck surprising me if he changes things up a bit."

Dr. Jones smiled, recrossing her legs. "He said it seemed like you really didn't want him to go up into your loft. He thinks you're hiding something up there."

"My porn, like I told him." Not a girl.

"Just that? He said you resorted to crass accusations to distract him from his search."

"When do I not resort to crass accusations with the captain? He wants there to be something secret in the loft or else his job spying on me has no meaning, and since his life revolves around spying on me, that's a hefty existential crisis, right there."

"Oh?" said Dr. Jones. "That's quite an analysis. Maybe you should be sitting in my chair."

"Maybe. Then I'd have written myself a prescription a long time ago and been done with this entire charade."

She sat up a little straighter. "You think you should be on medication?"

Flynn leaned back in his chair, perfectly aware that the angle at which he was sitting made him look particularly delectable. His shirt was kind of tight and reclining this way really showed off his torso. "I know you do. You think I'm delusional. You should just put me on anti-psychotics and call it a day."

She scribbled on her pad for a bit before looking at him very seriously, straight in the eye, her gaze not straying over his body even once. "If you know anything about anti-psychotics then you know they are prescribed for, among other purposes, people who are diagnosed with delusional disorder, and for that you must meet certain criteria, most of which you do not."

Flynn snorted. "Really? Every week you make a big deal about how you think I'm lying about everything, you think I'm not who I say I am, that I'm making up some identity for myself, that I made up my own parents and my history and my raison d'ĂȘtre. So just drug me, Doc, I'm sick of this."

She was silent for a moment, and Flynn had the distinct feeling that her pause was only for his benefit. "The difference,' she said, "is that people with delusional disorder actually believe the stories they make up about themselves and their situation. But you don't believe a word that comes out of your mouth, do you, Flynn?"

Flynn looked away first, his gaze dropping to his shoe laces, then back up to the bookshelf behind her head, because looking down would make him look cornered, or ashamed, and he wasn't either of those things.

She sighed, standing. "Why don't you think about that this week. Consider it your homework. Next week we can talk about what you find."

Damn, she called time first. He was being dumped again. It made his palms sweat. It made his fingers twitch a little. It made him linger by her desk while she walked to the door and swipe her fountain pen, stuffing it in his back pocket before she even turned back.

She gestured him out. "Have a nice week, Flynn Rider."


That night, Rapunzel had a pad of paper and a mechanical pencil, and she seemed to be making a list of some kind. Except every time she wrote down a couple of items, she scratched them out again, and every time Flynn got close enough to take a peek, she covered the paper with her hands, leaning forward to sip from the loopy straw in her Shirley Temple.

She sat at the bar mostly since her run in with the brownie, not trusting anything the thugs gave her, and too weak willed to resist sweets all the same. She looked lonely sitting at the bar by herself, but Flynn couldn't chat her up all night since he had a lot of customers to attend to.

At one point, she asked him for a pair of scissors, which he gave her from the back office, thinking she had some kind of origami in mind. But when the bar finally cleared out a little, he found her... trimming her hair.

"Uh... Rapunzel?" he asked slowly, not wanting to surprise her and make her slip with the blades so close to her neck. She was snipping erratically, cutting a quarter inch here and an eighth there. "What are you doing?"

"It keeps growing," she whined, taking a jagged chunk off the side. "No matter what I do, it just keeps growing."

Flynn narrowed his eyes. "Yeah... hair does that. Is that a problem?"

"I hate that it grows," she said vehemently. "I never want it to grow again."

He slowly reached out to still her hand, gently taking the scissors from her. She didn't fight him, letting her arms fall limp against her sides, slumping a little on her stool.

"I don't want you to get too carried away there and regret it. Why don't you go let someone cut it for you?"

She looked really upset at the very idea, shrinking away from him. "I don't like when other people touch my hair."

"Why? What do you think they'll do?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if she wanted to say something but couldn't manage to choke it out, and finally she just said "I just don't like it."

He raised an eyebrow, a sinking protectiveness steeling along his spine. "Does this have something to do with that lady you lived with?"

She looked down, picking at the ends of her sleeves. "Everything has to do with her."

Flynn didn't know what to say. Despite how he'd sassed Dr. Jones, he wasn't a therapist and he hadn't the slightest idea how to be. Flynn didn't know what Rapunzel's upbringing was like aside from the fact that it was warped and it left her obviously afflicted. But Flynn didn't have much of a high ground himself in that arena, so what was he supposed to say?

Her little notepad, now uncovered, caught his eye. He picked it up to her protests and scanned the list. 'My eyes,' it said, crossed out. And then 'my laugh' and then 'my drawings' and finally 'my hair,' all crossed out, the last most passionately.

"What's this about?" he asked, taking in Rapunzel's blush as she reached for the pad. When was sure there was no more, he gave it back.

"It's just this thing Dr. Jones asked me to do," she mumbled. "It's hard."

"She asked you to...?"

She tucked the pad into the front pocket of her sweatshirt, huddling down into the collar. "She told me to make a list of things I like about myself. She said I don't focus on that enough, and I should."

Flynn swallowed. How sad was that? And then all that crossing out? Maybe Dr. Jones was right, maybe she did need the practice thinking well of herself.

Rapunzel looked briefly at her shoulder. "Pascal gave me some ideas, but he's just being nice. I don't like any of those things."

"No?" Flynn asked, trying not to stare at the empty space on her shoulder. "Well we already established you don't like that your hair grows. What... uh... what does Pascal like about it?"

She frowned. "He just slipped up. He was thinking about how my hair used to be. It's not that way anymore."

"What was it like?"

"It was... unusual. I had really unusual hair. Now I have normal hair."

Kind of. If normal was dark locks that were constantly cut down before they could grow out properly.

"What about your drawings? Those are great. Pascal's definitely onto something with those."

She smiled a little, just barely, only at the corners, but he could see it creeping in. "Do you think so?"

"Of course I do," Flynn said, tapping the sketchbook that sat beside her. "I've had both of my eyes immortalized thanks to you. It's an honor I didn't think I'd ever have."

She giggled, and he couldn't help but smile a little himself. "And there's that laugh," he said. "Pascal's a wise..." a wise what? "What is Pascal, if you don't mind my asking?"

She perked up. "He's a chameleon," she said, proudly.

Ah-ha. "So that is why I can't see him then, eh? He can change colors? He can change invisible?"

She looked at her shoulder, then back at him concerned. "Pascal is bright yellow right now..."

Oh. Ah. Not that chameleons could turn invisible, but at least it would have been a good story. "So he is!" Flynn said quickly, not knowing what to do but play along. "Wow, look at that shade of yellow. Pascal, how do you do it?"

"He eats lemons."

"It was a rhetorical question."

"Oh."

"Anyway," Flynn said. "You have such a cute laugh, did you hear that? How can you not like that laugh?"

She smiled a little more now, starting to look a little hopeful. "You like my laugh?"

And suddenly, Flynn was struck by the reality of his situation. He was standing, fresh out of jail, in a crappy job at a crappy bar, flirting... yes, flirting with a girl who was far too young for him and far too crazy for him, pretending he could see her talking pet chameleon just so he wouldn't hurt her feelings, and he should say 'no.' He should say no, and walk away, and let her go on her merry crazy way, and get meds from Jones he could pawn off to some bums on the streets and get the fuck out of Corona. That's what he should do.

"Yeah," he said, really quietly, really softly. "Yeah, I do."

She looked so touched, like she'd melt right off her stool. "And my eyes?"

Looking at her eyes was like looking at the sun - you stare one second too long and you can't see anything else afterwards, the shape burned into your vision. Hell, it could blind you. Her eyes creeped him right the hell out.

"They're good eyes," he said.

She blushed again, biting her lip and looking down. After a moment, she took out her pad and turned to a fresh page. She rewrote "my eyes, my laugh, my drawings" and didn't cross them out, but she didn't write her hair.

"Hey," he said. "One of the regulars here works at a salon down the street. She's really nice. Why don't we go by tomorrow and see about getting you a haircut?"

She recoiled again, her brow furrowing. "I don't know... I really... I really don't like anyone touching my hair."

"Well I really don't like getting up before noon, but I'll meet you there at ten if you want."

"You'll go with me?"

"Sure." No no no! What is this? What kind of idiotic idea is that? That's not even a date. That's not even anything. Who takes a girl to a hair dresser? What message is that sending?

She bit her lip some more. "Will you be angry if I can't go through with it?"

He shook his head. "Nah. We can sit out on the curb and I'll watch you snip at it with some scissors until you're satisfied."

They were the creepiest friends on the planet.

But she seemed to think it was a fantastic idea. "Okay!" she beamed. "I'll see you tomorrow!"


The salon went way better than expected, at least at first. The owner had a teeny tiny (humongous) crush on Flynn and agreed to squeeze Rapunzel in for an appointment at Flynn's behest (and a kiss IOU).

Rapunzel seemed delighted by the process - and it became shockingly obvious to Flynn that she had never had her hair cut before. The picture of her childhood was slowly filling in for him and freaking him out a little more with each new thing he discovered.

She loved the big cover they wrapped around her and the gauze they tied around her neck to keep the hair off. She flinched at first when the stylist, Amy, touched her hair, but eased into it when it was clear that Amy only meant business, spritzing it with water and combing it out before getting right to work with the scissors.

Rapunzel liked that part. She looked positively euphoric, closing her eyes and visibly basking in the feeling of her hair getting shorter, listening to the snip of the scissors and the soft sound of the wet hair falling on the floor and on her cover.

When Amy had cut and shaped to her satisfaction, she declared that she had a fantastic idea, and slipped into the back room.

"Looking good!" Flynn said, smiling at Rapunzel in the mirror. Her hair looked pretty much the same, except much more evenly cut, with a nice clean line from the back of her neck to her chin. She looked more confident, too. She looked pleased with herself. It made Flynn's insides clench a little. He didn't want to like it.

Amy came back with a big bowl she was stirring, the smell of bleach strong on the air. "How about some highlights?"

Rapunzel turned the starkest shade of white Flynn had yet seen on her, and that was saying something as the amount of colors Rapunzel had turned in his presence might classify her as a chameleon. Her eyes got so big he thought they might roll right out of their sockets and she pressed back in the chair.

"No no no no," she said hurriedly, shaking her head.

"Aw, live a little!" Amy laughed. "Just some subtle blonde highlights, eh? To bring out your natural color? It'll be so cute!" She lifted the brush she was stirring with, the chemicals dripping back into the bowl.

Rapunzel's nostrils flared, and by now Flynn more than recognized impending illness on her face. "No, please."

Flynn couldn't listen to her say please like that, and he tried to intercept. "I think she looks great, let's leave it at that for today. Maybe next time -"

Amy pouted. "But-"

Rapunzel got another whiff of the bleach and immediately stood, tearing off the cover and the gauze and running straight out of the salon. Flynn didn't bother apologizing to Amy, he just chased after Rapunzel, who had stopped about a block away. She wasn't sick, but she was leaning against the wall of a shop, holding her stomach and breathing in slowly through her nose, her eyes squeezed closed.

Flynn just stood by her for several minutes, letting her catch her breath, unsure of what to say, as always. Finally, he said half-heartedly, "Bleach kind of wreaks, doesn't it?"

She slowly opened her eyes, her expression so mournful and ashamed he almost gave her a big hug, right there on the sidewalk. Almost. "I'm sorry," she croaked. "I'm sorry. It was so nice of you to take me there, and Amy was so nice. I just... I just can't..."

"Something about that unusual hair of yours?"

She nodded feebly.

Flynn said, "Isn't it weird how smells bring back memories so clearly?"

Her shame turned to guarded curiosity, and he found himself talking. Not because he wanted to share, but because the more he talked, the less she curled in on herself, the less far away from him she felt.

"There was this one kind of laundry detergent that they always used in the boys' dormitory when I was a kid. The sheets were all white, all the same on every bed, like a hospital. It didn't smell bad, it just... it just had a distinct smell. There were maybe thirty of us in the room I was in, and all night you could hear the other kids rolling over and snoring and crying, sometimes. I mean there were some young kids there, and most everybody there was there for a sad reason. It's not that it's such a horrible memory. I just... I don't really like to think about it. Whenever I pass someone who uses that laundry detergent, I can immediately smell it on their clothes. I hate it."

She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "Dormitory?"

The words rolled out of his mouth like marbles. "Uh huh. In the orphanage."

She sniffed again, looking him over. "You said you had parents."

"I say a lot of things."

She frowned, and it was obvious she was wondering what things he'd said that were true and what were not.

"But you know," he said, trying to sound encouraging. "I say a lot more things in general to you than I do to anyone else. Jones has been trying to get me to tell her about the orphanage for weeks. And then you just stand there and I tell you all of my forbidden back story."

She looked slightly appeased. She liked adventurous sounding things. "I doubt that's all of it."

"How about another trade? Wanna tell me what bleach makes you think of?"

She sighed, running a hand through her new haircut. "Um... I don't know. I guess it's like you said. Maybe it won't sound that horrible. Maybe it's not that horrible. It's just something that bothers me to think about."

"I get it."

"Well... you know that lady I lived with... she... she had this thing about my hair. This kind of... Dr. Jones said she was obsessed with my hair. It was an obsession. Dr. Jones said she was 'seriously ill.'"

"I'll say."

"Yeah, so... well, she never let me cut it."

"Never?"

Rapunzel shook her head slowly, clearly gauging Flynn's reaction. "Never. It was... really long. I never cut it, from when I was a baby to when I turned eighteen. She tried every single thing on me she could find that guaranteed faster hair growth - syrums and combs and pills and shampoos and goopy things and exercises, you name it. Some of them actually worked. It was... really long."

Flynn tried to picture how long it must be. And he tried to conceal any freaking out that he may have experienced at the thought.

"She also liked my hair to be blond. Really blond. She said that princesses have blond hair. So she dyed it constantly. It didn't matter that she'd just done it. She always said she could see the roots or that the color was fading when it wasn't, when that's not even how bleach works. She mixed the bleach herself and it was so strong it burned and itched, and it would take hours, and she'd make me sit still and sing the whole time she did it. Two or three times a week she'd do this. She'd start mixing it in the bathroom and I'd smell it and I'd try to distract her, or seem busy with something else, but she just got so focused about it... I don't know. Maybe it doesn't sound that bad? But I really hated it. I really..." she tugged on the ends of her short brown hair. "I just never want to have anything to do with it again."

It sounded bad enough. It sounded disgusting, really. Seriously ill was an understatement. How do you even respond to that? So she was raised by a crazy woman who was obsessed with her hair. So she was emotionally abused and, it seemed, constantly locked up. So she was so lonely she invented animal friends to keep her company. All he could do was focus on the way she was now. And the way he was now.

Flynn leaned against the wall beside her, tilting his face towards her conspiratorially, so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. "Well you know," he said slyly. "I've always had a thing for brunettes."

He expected her to blush and look away, or laugh and sigh, but she didn't. She met his eyes, a sly smile of her own curving up at one corner of her mouth. "What if I told you I have a thing for orphan ex-con bartenders? What then?"

Flynn couldn't contain his surprise, and then she smiled and giggled, twirling away from him running off down the street. "Gotta go to work!" She called over her shoulder. "I'll see you later! Thanks for the haircut."

Flynn was left staring dumbly after her.