Well hey.

Anything For You

"There were three of them."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes… I think so."

"What did they look like?"

"I'm sorry, I can't remember…"

"What can you remember?"

"They were kinda short, could have been in my year."

The officer scribbled his notes down and huffed. This was the second time he had met with her since the attack. No security cameras, no DNA and the victim couldn't remember anything helpful. He looked at the victim in question: a pretty girl with brown locks cascading gracefully down her front. She was shrinking into her hospital bed with tears in her green eyes. Not something he wanted to be dealing with.

"I-I'm sorry I couldn't be more help…" She sniffed, "I haven't been-"

The officer cleared his throat to cut her off and stood up quickly.

"Please, Miss Linphea, you've been great." He gathered his things and pulled a piece of paper with his name and number on out of his pocket, "If you remember anything else…"

"… I'll call you." Flora finished for him. He gave her a nod and left the room, leaving her alone.

Going home had been postponed once more since the seizures started, and Flora was getting more and more anxious. She'd missed the first week of her final year of school; her friends were doing their best to keep her up to date but thinking about what she was missing still gave her heart palpitations. She missed her room, her shower, her blueberry and vanilla granola. She missed her friends too: they visited every day to make sure she was never alone for too long but she was tired of being a liability. Tecna had tried to have her birthday party in the hospital but they were quickly kicked out because of the particularly loud EDM music that for some reason Musa thought was necessary. Helia was there every day too, of course. Thinking of him she glanced at the time: 4:17pm. He'd be there again around 6 with some dinner, like he had been every day since she was admitted.

Flora wanted nothing more than to go back in time and smack some sense into her old self; if she hadn't run off then she wouldn't be there now: alone, pretty much chained to her bed, and being fed a mixture of non-vegan GMO crap along with a cocktail of antiepileptic drugs. Why did she do it? As soon as the idea that Helia could do better entered her mind she suddenly felt worthless. And the fact that a guy could make her feel worthless made her feel stupid. And the fact that Helia would never want her to feel worthless or stupid made her feel even more worthless and stupid. They had both been avoiding the reason why she had decided to flee that night; Flora being too embarrassed to relive it and Helia just being happy that she was safe.

She pulled her legs over the side of the bed and slowly got up- she'd been needing the toilet ever since the officer had first gotten there but didn't want to be rude. Just as she was about to stand up, her nurse entered the room holding a clipboard.

"Need help hon?" Nurse Ofelia offered a hand, but Flora politely rejected it.

"I'm alright thanks, I'm just going to the bathroom."

"Can it wait?" Ofelia asked, taking a seat.

"Uh… In theory, why?" she asked, settling back down with evident concern on her face. Ofelia gave her a small smile, shaking her head.

"It's nothing worrying hon, it's good news."

"Really?" Flora said sceptically. She'd heard this before. Ofelia adjusted her glasses and flipped through the pages on her clipboard.

"According to your latest tests you're responding to the AEDs quite well, your doctor's given you the all clear to be discharged tomorrow."

"… Really?" Flora said again, equally sceptically. Ofelia just laughed.

"You want to stay that badly?"

Flora choked out a laugh.

"I don't want to offend you but…"

"Don't worry hon," she chuckled, standing up, "Your doctor will come see you soon anyway, he needs to talk you through what precautions you need to take in case you have more seizures-"

"He's gonna give me a pamphlet." Flora clarified, making Ofelia laugh again.

"One for you and one for your parents." She nodded, "I'll come see you again before you're discharged," she said, giving Flora's hand a squeeze before leaving. Flora stared blankly at the door for a few moments before realising she still really needed to pee.

A couple of hours later a rain-soaked Helia finally arrived carrying a takeout bag of what Flora was praying was burritos. He gave her a quick kiss and dropped the bag on her lap, revealing that he had indeed taken a trip to the Burrito Shack for her.

"Avocado?" she asked with sparks in her eyes.

"Avocado." He smiled back.

"Aw hell yeah." She dug in. Helia pulled off his shoes and sat at the end of her bed, digging into his own food. His dark jeans were soaked through from the rain and his spiky fringe was sticking to his face. Flora lifted a clean finger to it and brushed it from his eyes.

The usual conversation occurred. Flora struggled to hold her food down while Helia described the fight that Roxy and Riven had gotten into- Riven had called Andy a 'talentless soy-boy' and Roxy had kicked him in the shin. Everyone was getting sick of the whole 'will they, won't they' thing Roxy and Andy had going on, it was likely that Riven was just trying to goad her on. It worked.

"I wish I could have been there," Flora smiled sadly. Helia nodded sympathetically.

"Any news on when they're letting you out?"

"Ofelia just told me that it should be tomorrow."

"Really?" he asked, sounding as sceptical as she had.

"We'll see." She sighed.

Flora watched as Helia finally took off his rain-logged jacket. His grey t-shirt was clinging to his chest, distracting Flora and making her shove the burrito into her chin rather than her mouth. He smirked at her.

"You okay?"

"…es." She said, grabbing a handful of napkins out of the bag and dabbing at her chin.

Clearing his throat, Helia met her gaze again.

"Hey, Flo, we never really…" he paused for a moment, watching as dread came over his girlfriend's face. He didn't want to make her upset but they needed to talk about it. "We never really talked about… Why you left in the first place."

Flora nodded slowly, lowering her food into her lap. After a few moments of silence they both sputtered out an 'I'm sorry' at the same time, before laughing awkwardly at each other.

"What are you sorry for?" she asked him.

"That stupid argument. It really got to me when you asked if we'd done anything that night, and I guess it just escalated from there."

"It didn't help that I was hung over and erratic." Flora sighed, "And I didn't ask that because I thought you would do anything when I was out of it, I was just asking because I literally couldn't remember, and… Well that's just the kind of thing that I'm gonna want to remember."

"I know." He smiled, reaching over and tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. "So… What made you go?"

Flora inhaled sharply, not wanting to relive the events of that night.

"I didn't want to run away. I just… I heard you at the door and I panicked. You're always coming over, and making everything okay, and I really wanted that but… I felt so bad, and useless, and just… I felt like there was no way that I could be enough for you, that you could do better. That was just too much for me to handle."

Helia moved from his spot at the end of the bed and squeezed himself next to her, wrapping her in his arms. He gave her a small kiss on the top of her head and gave her a small sigh.

"Can I tell you a story?"

She looked at him, confused.

"I'm assuming it's relevant?" she laughed dryly.

"I never thought I'd ever end up telling you this."

"Well what the hell is it?" she asked, turning towards him. He was staring at the foot of the bed with a small smile on his face.

"Do you remember Anagan?"

Flora thought for a moment before she remembered.

"Anagan? Anagan Russo? The dick who gave me a black eye with a snowball when I was 8-years-old? What on earth has he got to do with any of this?"

He laughed again, "You know what they say about the little boys who pick on little girls, right? Trying to work out confusing feelings?"

"Yeah I never really got that." Flora shook her head. Anagan was always so mean to her- she was an easy target and he was an asshole.

"It was back in year six, we were changing for gym when Anagan, Ogron and the rest of them had me cornered in the locker room. They were asking me all sorts of things about you, like why we were so close and why I was best friends with a girl. You know, generic kid stuff." Helia explained, Flora nodded.

She couldn't imagine anyone ganging up on Helia: she had seen him stoically tolerate an eye-watering amount of verbal abuse without even flaring a nostril. She still remembered the freezing-cold way he had said 'are you done?' after a boy named Duman had finished berating him about his long hair. No one picked fights with Helia often.

"I was just doing my best to ignore them, you know. I was putting on my trainers when Anagan finally said 'why the hell would she spend any time with you anyway?' I know it doesn't sound like much now but… It really got to me. Not only because we were in year six and he said 'hell', being a no-no word and everything."

Flora laughed slightly at that.

"Anyway, it really made me think about how lucky I was that you spent any time with me at all. That was probably the first time in my life I had ever felt like I wasn't good enough. I saw how closed off and shy you were around everyone and how you lit up when it was just the two of us, I just couldn't understand why you'd chosen me to open up to."

"I can't believe you ever felt that way. It was so obvious that I was helpless without you." She said sadly.

"No one's perfect Flo, we all doubt ourselves. We just get better at handling those feelings." He turned to her smiling, "We bring out the best in each other. We always have."

"You think so? You know how confident and beautiful you make me feel but…" she trailed off, not knowing what she provided him with. He nodded, giving her another kiss.

"I know so. No one else could make me feel as special as you do."

Flora instinctively rose her hand to her neck to feel the infinity pendant he had gotten her last Christmas, before remembering that she had lost it while drunk.

"Shit."

"What's the matter?"

"Helia- I'm so sorry, I didn't tell you… I must have… Shit. I feel terrible." She stuttered, eyes welling up again.

"Your necklace?"

Flora narrowed her eyes at him. "How did you know?"

"You dropped it the night of the fireworks. I've been looking after it ever since. I did tell you." He pulled it out of his wallet and she just stared at it, dumbfounded.

"… You told me?" she vaguely recalled, now that he'd said it.

"Flora! FLORA! WAIT FOR ME!" Helia yelled running after her. She stopped her sprint towards the inflatable slide and stared at him intensely- as though her eyes couldn't properly focus. "Your necklace- I found your necklace…" he huffed. Drunk Flora was fast.

"Oh crap where was it?!" she snatched it from his hands and kissed the pendant, "I can't believe I dropped it!" she attempted to put it back on but couldn't work the clasp. It fell off once more and she didn't even realise. Helia sighed and picked it back up.

"I'll take care of it, okay babe?" he said and she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him close.

"You're so nice to me…" she said before roughly crashing her lips on to his. He froze out of surprise but then let himself drown in Flora's kisses, as clumsy as they were. She roughly pushed him away and continued to stumble towards the inflatable slide. "IF YOU DON'T COME WITH ME I'M GOING TO THROW A TREE AT YOUR FACE!" she yelled.

"How…?" he muttered, before sighing and following her.

"Yeah I guess you did tell me…" she sighed out of relief and then delivered a swift smack to his arm, "Why the hell didn't you tell me before?! I've been so worried!"

"Flo, I was a little bit pre-occupied by the whole my girlfriend's in hospital suffering from seizures thing."

"Ah. Sorry."

"Apology accepted." Helia rubbed his sore arm with an exaggerated pout on his face. Flora put her hand on his, rubbing the soreness away. She pulled herself up to his lips and gently kissed him, then rested her head in the crook of his neck.

~A/N~

See you in another 3 years then I guess :/