The bed is a little too small to be anything other than uncomfortable in the morning. Somehow I'm able to slip out undetected, which seems vaguely insulting. I even bang around a little bit in my closet while getting dressed, but Teddy refuses to learn some manners and wake up. I venture downstairs, prepared for anything. Des and Eli's grumpy yet typical breakfast chatter ceases when they hear my footfalls on the last few steps. I'm hoping that awkward silences have lethal side effects when I catch their eyes. I get myself some cereal. The milk is at the table, but as soon as I make a move to go get it, Des has stood up and is returning it to the fridge.

"It's okay, you can leave the milk out—"

He closes the fridge and returns to the table.

Eli looks about as frantic as I feel. "Des," she says cautiously, "I guess you didn't hear Bri…"

"Who?" he grunts. Eli answers him with a pointed look, but he only leaves the kitchen and pounds up the stairs. There's the not-so-distant sound of a door being shut forcefully.

"Yikes," Eli says, trying to keep things light, but her smile doesn't reach her blue eyes. "What'd you do to him to get him giving you the silent treatment, six-year-old style?"

In answer to her question, two doors upstairs open almost simultaneously. I flinch, picturing Teddy in some scandalous stage of undress and Des staring for a moment before—

Footsteps clatter down the stairs and Des yells out, "Have to go in early," with the front door already swinging shut behind him.

Then Teddy lumbers down the steps, pulling a shirt on over his head, before his hands take turns scratching at practically every part of his anatomy, as if taking inventory.

Eli's eyes are round and her lips sucked into her mouth like she's trying very hard not to say something. If we weren't on the ground floor I'd be seriously tempted to hurl myself from a window. She quickly gets up and brushes past Teddy on her way to the stairs; he watches her retreating figure a little too long, and asks me what's for breakfast before he's fully turned back to face me.

"Uh, just help yourself, I guess," I tell him, rubbing one of my elbows and then my ear, and then forcing my hands to my side, desperate to not look as awkward and self-conscious as I felt.

I'm torn between relief that he doesn't bring up last night, and hurt that he doesn't see it necessary to mention it. He doesn't have to compliment me or anything, but I'm taking his silence as a personal offense.

Barely twenty minutes later I use the same excuse Des had used and escape the house, not sure what I'll do at the hospital for nearly forty minutes before my shift.

In the cafeteria at lunchtime, Des is nowhere to be seen (not remotely surprising), but Eli is also missing in action. Luckily, Gabe and Rafa make for pleasant company, since I haven't given either of them a reason to hate me yet today.

"Do you know where Eli is?" Rafa asks me. "And Des?" he adds.

I shake my head, hoping he isn't analyzing my reasons for not knowing where my best friends are.

Gabe butts into the conversation then, saying, "I saw Des stalking around the halls earlier. He seems a little too angry for small-talk over cafeteria food at the moment. I have no idea why."

I involuntarily shake my head again, even though a question had not been asked of me.

Gabe continues, "And Eli was sent home just about an hour ago."

"Sent home?" Gabe and I repeat in unison, but only he giggles at this; I'm too concerned.

"Yeah, it was the weirdest thing. She was doing a splinch job, and we all know she can do those with her eyes closed… and one hand tied behind her back, and hopping on one foot and probably while sleeping or at least drunk—"

"Cut to the chase."

"Well, she totally screwed it up. I have no idea what happened, but the poor bloke now has to be here for a day or two because he's got these awful boils. Eli kept apologizing—which, I don't know about you, but I've never seen her apologize, sincerely anyway, so that was different—but Wright just told her that she should go home and relax."

"Hmm." Although this is definitely worrying, I'm admittedly relieved that this is probably not my fault. I'm wondering what the cause was when Wright sits in his usual spot at our table.

"Hey, interns," he greets us absently, not bothering with names. As he unwraps a sandwich, I take note of something new: a thick gold band on his ring finger. Yes, that is definitely new. I frown to myself, and continue eating my own lunch.

"Eli?" I call out, walking into our house after work. There's no response. Teddy is gone, too – to where, I neither know nor care. I sigh heavily. "Look, Eli, I know you're here. I need to talk to you." I run up the stairs and fling open the door to her room.

Sure enough, she's lying on the bed with a fresh tub of ice cream, licking the undisturbed surface again and again, evenly. I almost laugh.

"It's not like we have spoons." I shake my head and sit down next to her, remembering that I'm frustrated with her. "Look, I know you're upset, but I bought that ice cream and now it has your tongue germs all over it."

She sticks out said tongue at me and goes back to sullenly licking.

I groan dramatically. "Okay, my point is this: you're making a big deal out of nothing."

Her blue eyes widen suddenly and she freezes mid-lick. "Nothing?" she gasps.

"Oh, come on, I thought the whole thing was just a joke. It was a joke right?"

"How is it a joke?" she stammers, unbelievingly.

"You didn't actually think you had a shot with Scotty, did you?"

Her delicate eyebrows knit together briefly as she looks at me questioningly. Then her face relaxes again and she sits up. "Maybe I did. He seemed to like me."

"But not in that way! Surely you realized that. Besides, you've always joked about this kind of thing."

"But Mr. Right is different," she says confidently. "Surely you realized that."

I still can't tell whether or not she's joking, and am not sure what to say. Eli doesn't give me the chance, anyway.

"It's not really that different from you and Teddy, anyway." She eyes me with feigned-innocence as she takes another long lick all the way across the ice cream carton.

I bristle and shift away from her a bit, so I can properly meet her gaze. "What does that mean?" I ask stiffly.

"It means that, yes, you seriously do love him—you were never joking about that. But it doesn't change the way he feels about you."

I'm on my feet, my fight or flight instinct apparently having kicked in. I'm not sure which one I'm going to go with yet, but my muscles are tense, ready for either. "What does that mean?" I repeat, through clenched teeth.

"It means that it doesn't matter how many times you sleep with him. You and I both know he's going to go back to Victoire in the end. He knows that, too."

I stare at her in disbelief. "We—we love each other."

Eli looks amused. "Do you, now? It's funny, 'cause you'd think you two would be a bit less awkward around each other if you were actually in love. Both of you made a mistake, but you can't admit that to yourselves."

I let out a dangerous laugh. "Well—well. At least I'm not so pathetic that I can't get over a guy twice my age that I never had a chance with."

Eli is on her feet too, and the ice cream is spilled on the floor, melting a bit faster than it should have, soiling the carpet. "At least I'm not so pathetic that I would have rebound-pity-sex with a guy that I never had a chance with."

"So you're telling me that if Scotty's fiancée dumped him you wouldn't jump into bed with him if he showed any interest?"

"No, I wouldn't, because I'm not a desperate slut."

We stare at each other in communal horror for a moment, her eyes begging to pretend that didn't happen, my eyes wishing it didn't. I turned around slowly and left the room, imagining that Eli called out an apology that I could ignore as I slammed the door. But she didn't. She probably just picked up the ice cream and kept licking it, slowly, not regretting anything.

The next day, Eli isn't given her usual posts at St. Mungo's – the Healers still apparently reluctant to entrust her with so much responsibility – and the rest of us have to pick up the slack. And it's a lot of slack. I guess I should appreciate how much Eli actually does around here.

Anyway, I get unarguably the best of her jobs: taking care of Bertie. It's a bit harder than I expected, though; don't they say Healers make the worst patients? This is true, at least in Bertie's case.

"Did you take your potions?" I ask him that morning.

"Most of 'em, yeah." He eyes me challengingly.

"Most of them?" I repeat. "No, you have to take all of them."

"Even if I know for a fact that some of them will kill me?"

"They won't kill you – they'll heal you. And that's what we want, right?"

"You might think I'm old school, but I remain firmly grounded in my belief that giving any amount of Wolfsbane, however small, to a non-werewolf has absolutely no positive effects."

"Well, there've been studies to prove it increases lucidity and it's a powerful pain killer."

"I'm not senile yet, and I can handle the pain."

"I would think you'd be a firm believer in patients following the instructions of their Healers."

"You're not a Healer. I'm a Healer."

"You were a Healer, and I'm following orders from current Healers. I'm not leaving this room until you take the rest of your potions. Where are they?"

Bertie smiles slyly, and folds his arms.

I groan. "You didn't vanish them, did you?"

"I might have accidentally…"

"Bertie," I moan, dropping my head in my hands. "Why can't you just cooperate? Those potions are expensive and you will be billed for them."

He gives me the most aggravatingly knowing look then it quickly falls from his face. "Where's Elizabeth?"

"Elizabeth is experiencing something akin to a mental breakdown and will not be available to force you to swallow potions, so you'll have to put up with me."

"Oh my, is she alright?"

"She's just overreacting to something," I say without sympathy.

He catches this and scrutinizes me. "I certainly hope you're still as good of friends as you were last year. Inseparable, really. It was as touching as it was annoying."

I'm unable to smile even at fond memories. "It's a little tense right now, between us."

"Over what?" I guess I blushed a little because he continued, "Oh, no – not… boys? I always thought you two were smarter than that."

I find this a little offensive. "Hey! You know how overdramatic Eli can be! She's all torn up over the stupidest thing…"

"Have you asked her what's wrong or why she's upset about it?"

I stare at him blankly. "Well, yeah, she's mad about… about Wright being engaged."

"Isn't he a little old for her?" he chuckles.

"Exactly, thank you, that's what I think! But she's deaf to reason and she's mad at me for finally being with someone that I really like and she just shouldn't have a problem with it. It's my life."

"And it's hers. She can be upset about dumb things if she wants to be. Maybe her reasons are better than you assume."

I glare at him for a second. "Just shut up and take your potions."

That night, sitting on the couch over a cringingly bad TV show and equally bad leftover pizza, Teddy tells me that he's going to go back to his apartment in London and try to get a job. (In what, he didn't tell me, and I'm not sure how many career paths he has left to attempt.)

"I feel bad about mooching off of you for so long."

I wonder if he means the few days he's been eating all my food, or the many years he's been bleeding me dry in every other way.

For some reason I almost tell him that it's okay and not to worry about it. But I'm able to stop this pathetic reflex. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea." The only reason I'd want him to stay is to put off having to admit to myself that Eli was right – which is not a good reason.

So I let him go. And I was almost glad for it.

A/N: It's been a while, but I'd like you to know I'm still working on this. I took some time off to read (I hadn't read in awhile) and re-inspired myself for at least the time being. If you care at all, I read The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, both by John Green (I love John Green, btw) and they're both great books that I'd definitely recommend! There's only about two chapters left of this little story, maybe three. Any predictions? A lot of this part of the story has to do with misunderstandings between characters. Have you caught on to any of them? Please leave a review and stick around for the end! -Jenni