A/N: Hey-o, all! Yes, it's me. I'm back. Run in fear, bwahahaha.

Anywho, instead of doing the usual and just thanking everyone for their wonderful reviews, I decided I'm going to respond to them here. So here be my replies:

Ghetto squirrel: I appreciate your review! And I'm glad you thought it was funny. That's what I was aiming for :D Love the name, by the way!

Elle Steinig: Awww... -adorable mental picture- Well, I don't think I gave Tor venting time in this chapter, but oh well. Here is your update! :)

talim440: Yes, well, because of how much blood she lost (enough to make her pass out), she would've had to get a blood transfusion, I believe, but since she wasn't exactly awake for it, she wouldn't exactly know that... and as for how long she was in the hospital, it says in this chapter. :) And thank you for your lovely compliments.

Persion: Chapter says exactly what you want to know, so read on. :D

Dude-Rawk: Man, I always look forward to your reviews. They're so long and you comment on so many things. It makes me happy. :D Here is your update.

Okay, so I know I should probably update more often than I do even now, but as school is starting up for me this next week, I'm going to take a little "mini-vacation" from updating here, because I'd rather be able to be ahead of this story chapter-wise, so I'm going to not update until October 5th, just to give myself enough time to get two or three chapters ahead of my updating. Sorry, guys, but I'd rather be able to have some of the story written ahead of time just in case something comes up and I'm unable to write the next part of the story for some reason or another by one of my deadlines. Hope you'll all forgive me. :(

Anywho, without further ado now, here is the chapter!

--

"So, Tor, mind telling me how you know that boy you were sitting on?" dad demanded, giving me that tight-lipped smile of his that I'd learned long ago meant that if you didn't give him a straight answer, he'd ground your arse to hell and back. Dad had dragged me out into the hall after uttering a terse "Excuse us" to the other inhabitants of the room. I briefly entertained the idea of telling him that the redhead's name was Dennis, and he was the devil incarnate come to take Demyx and I as his concubines, and that Roxas was his cross-dressing wife. As hilarious as the look on his face would've doubtless been if I'd told him that (he likely would've turned purple in his rage), I decided that no, I did not feel like getting grounded for the rest of my miserable life. I bit back my laughter and told him the truth.

"His name's Axel Waddell, dad. I met him on the last day of school." I deliberately left out the fact that I'd saved Demyx from getting beat up worse than he had been already by the redhead, as I could see how deeply dad's mistrust for Axel lay already, and I didn't want to give him a reason to justify it. "He's been hanging out with Dem and I since Sam left. He's a pretty good guy, really." I couldn't help but smile a bit. Had it been two days ago I'd talked to my dad about Axel, I would never have said such things in his defense. In fact, I'd probably be trying to get my dad to dislike him. But here I was, telling dad that Axel was a "good guy"… and, I realized, he really was.

"Hmph. Well, if you say so. But… if I ever catch him doing so much as one thing I don't approve of, I will not allow you to have him in my house ever again!" he said, going a bit red in the face, which let me know he really meant what he was saying. I withheld my resigned sigh and simply nodded.

"Sooo… am I free to go home now, doc?" I said, grinning a bit. Dad pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were trying to fend off a migraine. I rolled my eyes. I swear, my dad can be such a drama queen at times.

"Alright. But mark my words, young lady," he said in a warning tone, "if you ever pull a stunt like you did yesterday ever again, I swear I'll ship you off to military school!" He momentarily regained the red tinge that marked his words as truth, and I paled. He had only ever threatened me with military school once before, and that had been two years ago, when I'd been in Grade 8. I'd used to pick fights in school, and I'd wound up losing one of them… badly… so of course, my dad had found out, and he'd been so enraged he'd told me he'd send me off to military school if I didn't wise up and stop trying to beat the snot out of people when they so much as looked at me the wrong way. I was mildly aware of the fact that he'd said "if you ever pull a stunt like you did yesterday ever again", which at least told me what day it was—Monday, June 30th. I nodded again to let him know I understood, and he turned to walk away, but paused, looking back at me over his shoulder.

"Oh, and Demyx has a change of clothes for you. I highly doubt you want to walk home in a hospital gown," he said, an amused look on his face, before turning back around and walking off down the blinding white hospital corridor. I looked down, surprised to find that I really was dressed in a hospital gown. Now, how in the world did that fact manage to slip by me before? I quickly zipped back into the room, throwing Dem a glance which he caught, as he immediately stood and began ushering everyone out of the room, closing the door behind him so I could change in complete privacy. I was grateful for this as I tugged my favorite pair of stonewash jeans on, along with my rainbow belt Demyx had thought to bring. Overall, I was fairly pleased with the clothes Dem had brought me as I pulled on my watermelon socks and mine and Sam's opposite-colored flats, but then… I caught a glimpse of the shirt.

It was sleeveless.

And it was fitted.

The two things I absolutely loathed in a shirt.

Why, oh why, did Demyx have to give me a fricking tanktop to wear, when he knows I haven't worn anything but big sweaters for the past half a year? And he even knew my reason why, now, too! I was extremely flustered, but, as it was the only shirt that he had brought, and it was better than wearing a hospital gown home over my jeans, I reluctantly tugged the horrid white tanktop on over my head. It even had the spaghetti straps that I despised so… I really wonder where, when, and why in the seven hells I ever bought this damn thing… Maybe it was one of the clothing items Sam had forced me to buy when we went shopping together because she thought it looked good on me. She always did have this way of persuading me to buy things I didn't like—usually just so that she could borrow them from me. I concluded that that was probably why I'd bought this tanktop, because it sure as hell wasn't something I'd usually wear.

Curse you, Demyx… I thought as I tugged at the bottom of the tanktop; it wasn't quite long enough for my taste. I really wasn't used to fitted stuff like this, because usually my big sweaters completely covered my physique, obscuring what very little figure I had; just the way I liked it. And they were always long enough that I never had worry about them riding up and showing my stomach, like I was kind of paranoid this stupid tanktop was going to do. And the main thing about my big sweaters was that you could never see any of the scars I'd inflicted on myself… unlike with this tanktop. I was ashamed of what I'd done now, and it didn't help that Demyx had given me this sleeveless shirt to wear in front of all my new friends, so that they'd be able to see all the scars all the way up my arms and on my shoulders, although I absent-mindedly noted that at least no one who didn't already know what'd happened to me would be able to really tell what'd happened to my wrist, as dad had bandaged it up, but then put a tensor bandage over it to make it seem like I'd just sprained my wrist instead of slicing it open.

Well, if there's one good thing to say about dad, it's that he hates when people talk bad about our family, so he's not about to give people a reason to gossip about us, I thought as I folded the hospital gown somewhat sloppily, leaving it on the bed for a nurse or someone to pick up later and heading to join up with the gang, wanting to get the trip home over and done with so I could put a sweater on again. As I reached for the doorknob, it suddenly occurred to me that even though dad had so carefully made it so no one would suspect I'd slit my wrist, Demyx had thrown caution to the wind by giving me this frigging tanktop, so that people could see all my new and old scars, and so that they could speculate and gossip about my scars and how they thought I might have gotten them. If dad found out what Dem had done… I didn't want to think about how mad he'd be. I shuddered, quickly exiting the room I'd been previously occupying and, spotting the gang down the hallway a ways, rushing down to join them. I carefully took in everyone's reactions to seeing all my scars: a mix of pain, shock, and sadness, for the most part, although the degree to which each person's expression held each emotion varied. No one commented on all my scars, although I kind of wished they would berate me for my stupidity; I just felt so bad that I was making such a negative impact on everyone. I really wished I could be the happy person that everyone could count on to make them feel better when they felt down about stuff, but instead, here I was, the cause for everyone feeling down, to some extent, at least.

Needless to say, it was a very quiet walk back home. No one spoke, everyone keeping whatever thoughts they might have to themselves, although I was dying to speak, to say something like, "Aren't you going to yell at me for what I did?" I felt just like a little kid waiting for their punishment for doing something bad, and, truth be told, it was slightly unnerving. However, as we stepped into the porch, just as I was about to take my shoes off, Demyx caught me in a bone-crushing hug that felt almost…desperate? I was stunned, to say the least. It felt, to me, like he must've thought he was going to lose me after that stunt I'd pulled. My vision began to blur as tears threatened to spill, but I saw Roxas and Axel share a look before joining in on the hug, as well. I tried to smile, but it felt a bit lopsided, even to me. I saw Zexion, standing a couple feet away still, roll his eyes, almost as if to say, "I can't believe I'm doing this", before briefly joining the big group hug, quickly retreating from arms' reach thereafter. I was shocked. Even though last time we'd talked, it had ended on a sour note, he didn't seem to begrudge me for being as cryptic and secretive as I had been. At this, I brightened a bit, quickly ducking out of the group hug everyone else was still part of and running to the kitchen even as I heard Roxas, Axel, and Demyx falling in a heap on the floor. I grinned, quickly grabbing some chips and dip from the cupboard and fridge respectively and heading to the living room, setting the snack food on the table as I hauled our big cardboard box of Disney movies out from where they were stored in the entertainment center beneath the TV.

I glanced over all the familiar titles; I was a big fan of Disney movies. It was something about me that hadn't changed since I was just a little kid. I was more a fan of the classics than I was of most of the sequels, though. Grinning, I closed my eyes and randomly grabbed one of the movies from the box. When I looked to see what I'd gotten, I was amused to see I'd grabbed Alice in Wonderland, the one Disney movie that Sam had been practically obsessed with. I rolled my eyes. I had practically the whole movie memorized, by now, but oh well; might as well watch it again, despite how many times Sam had gotten me to watch it before.

I realized detachedly that I didn't really feel angry or sad anywhere near as much as I had before about Sam moving away. I wondered bemusedly if that was because of the new friends I'd made and all the crap I'd gone through over the past four days. I started a bit when I realized that, indeed, it had only been four days since the last day of school had ended and Sam had moved away.

'Wow. That's pretty unbelievable. What with all that's happened over the past few days, it makes it seem like at least a WEEK has gone by…' I thought.

Shrugging, I stuck the movie in, pressed play, turned the TV on, and hurried back to join the guys as they were converging on the couch. Axel had already snatched the chips and was eagerly tearing the bag open. I rolled my eyes, seating myself on the floor beside Zexion, in front of Demyx's legs, since there was no way we were all going to fit on the one and only couch in the room, and I didn't want poor Zexy to feel alone because he was the only one sitting on the floor. As the advertisements for other movies began showing, I smiled, settling back comfortably against Dem's legs in preparation for the movie, surrounded by my friends.

I smiled. I liked the sound of that.

Surrounded by my friends.

--

Sighing contentedly, I set down New Moon beside me on the gently sloped garage roof, as I'd just finished said book. It was now about 10:30pm, I estimated, as I was beginning to feel like I should be going to sleep about now. I smiled a bit; it had been a fun day, overall.

After we'd finished Alice in Wonderland, I'd noticed it was 5:07pm, surprisingly enough, although I realized then that I'd never really bothered to check what time it'd been after getting home from the hospital. I was delighted when Zexion had offered to help me make supper, as I'd tasted myself how well he could cook, but I was kind of wary when Axel offered to help… and then Roxas… and then Demyx… and we ended up just throwing random cooking ingredients at each other and making a very large mess of the kitchen that I'd no doubt have to clean up later.

We ended up just eating sandwiches in the end.

After we'd eaten, Roxas and Axel had bid us adieu, though Zexion had accepted Demyx's challenge of a game of Soul Calibur. He, too, had bid us adieu about half an hour later, wearing a smug grin, as he had seriously handed Dem's ass to him on a silver platter. After he left, I ran through a couple songs on the piano, then left Demyx to his guitar as he messed around with some chords, apparently trying to write a song yet again. I quickly snatched New Moon from my room and climbed out Demyx's window and onto the garage roof, carefully picking my way over to the part that was right by where I guessed my room would be. I immediately seated myself on the slightly slanted surface, and quickly delved deep into the book, losing myself in the second book of Bella's life story. Demyx would know to look for me here if he needed me; it was where I usually went when I felt like my room just wouldn't cut it privacy-wise. Nothing disturbed my reading throughout the entire book, so I managed to finish it all in one sitting.

And so, here I was, finished the book, with nothing to do. I was fairly sure Demyx wouldn't be asleep already; he usually went to sleep later than I did. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, so I just lay back on the roof, looking up at the stars, even though I didn't know any of the constellations to be able to spot them. My eyes were quickly drawn to the moon, which, for some reason, seemed different than usual…

My eyes bugged.

The moon was shaped like a heart.

I quickly shut my eyes, rubbing them furiously with both hands until spots appeared behind my eyelids. First I was mentally unstable enough to resort to cutting myself to make myself feel better about stuff, and now I'm seeing a heart-shaped moon? Am I seriously going loony? I opened my eyes again, blinked once, feeling bewilderment wash over me.

The moon was normal.

It was just a normal, full moon.

My eyes had been playing tricks on me.

Severely disturbed, I grabbed my book and headed inside, not sure what to think of what I was no longer sure that I'd just seen.