Cass felt rough.

She didn't expect a run in with the Midnight Sun to leave her feeling great, but this was worse.

She was in the hospital. Had been for just over two weeks.

In the interests of maintaining a low profile, Cass hardly ever visited the doctors- it usually only led to awkward questions. Plus, healthcare professionals sometimes need to wear surgical gloves and this would make it all too easy for Midnight Sun members to blend in and read through her records.

Nope, going to the hospital or family doctor was out of the question.

However, after being kidnapped for a number of weeks with nothing but meagre food portions, bugs, and water to sustain her, it is no surprise that Cass had become weak. So weak in fact, that a cut sustained on her right arm whilst escaping very easily became infected. Not wanting to draw attention to herself, Cass managed it the best she could on Price Island. It was only during the trip back to the USA that she started to feel very unwell. At the end of the journey, a concerned Owen half persuaded, half forced Cass to attend the ER where she was diagnosed with early-stage sepsis secondary to an abscess.

This was how Cass found herself rattling off a very improvised story about how she was hiking in Nevada and got lost before she cut her arm on a rock and was finally found by another intrepid explorer (Owen) who had generously taken her back to her hometown hospital to get treated.

The kindness of strangers, hey?

She could tell that most of the hospital staff didn't really buy it, but they were just too busy to question her any further.

Now, as almost every doctor and nurse had mentioned to her so far, a fit and young patient like Cass would usually come out of this very quickly with some help from IV antibiotics and fluids. But given that she had become severely malnourished, her admission would now be prolonged as her body would require more time to heal.

She looked around at her hospital room- it was about the same as any hospital room you could imagine. White walls, IV lines, hospital bed, "Get Well Soon" cards and an analogue clock whose hands currently indicated that it was 11 O' Clock in the morning.

Cass groaned. Every day was the same, the doctors would examine her on their morning ward round and review her labs only to let her know she needed more treatment and had to stay in. Someone would serve her meals, a nurse would take her vitals, the phlebotomist would take her bloods, the dietician would scold her for being so careless.

The sounds of daytime TV in the background served as her only distraction.

After a physiotherapy session followed by a tasteless lunch and chalky milkshake, Cass finally cheered up as she saw Max-Ernest walk through the door.

"Finally, what took you so long? I've been bored out of my mind here!" she eagerly sat up.

Max-Ernest shot her an apologetic grin before sitting down at the end of her bed. "Sorry, last minute holiday shopping with Anthony, you know?" he blushed slightly.

Cass smiled. "It's okay, I understand. You two deserve time together and I'm happy you managed to book something far, far away from the madness."

"I don't know" Max-Ernest mused as he lied down on his left side supported by his elbow "the madness has a habit of following us both no matter where we are." He stared out the window for a while before asking: "So, how's your arm doing?"

Cass rolled her eyes. "Well, they're finally finished with the surgical wash outs and they did a scan the other day to make sure my bone isn't infected…don't worry, it isn't. And other than that I'm getting a new flavour of antibiotic every other day and making myself eat the gross hospital food to try and regain the weight I lost."

Max-Ernest tilted his head sympathetically "Well, you're starting to look better."

"Ugh don't EVEN lie to me Max-Ernest, I know I look like crap." her ears began burning bright red. Max-Ernest noticed.

"Oh no! Are you getting another fever? Maybe I need to get the nurse, all these hospitals with their MRSA you might have a super-added infection. I read all about those you know in an article about antibiotic resistance, turns out the USA has one of the highest numbers of…"

"ENOUGH. I don't want to hear it!" Cass began covering her ears to block out Max-Ernest. The last thing she wanted to think about was getting worse and having to stay in hospital for longer.

"Sorry. Sometimes I just get carried away, like the other day when I was speaking with…" Max-Ernest suddenly stopped.

"Speaking with who?" Cass eyed him suspiciously. "It can't be Anthony because you don't exactly talk WITH him, it's more you talking TO him…he's very quiet, probably why you both get on so well."

"Hey!" now it was Max-Ernest's turn to be annoyed. "He's not quiet, he's just a great listener!"

Cass rolled her eyes. "I know that, I'm only joking. Now stop trying to avoid the question, who were you talking to?"

"No-one."

"Max-Ernest."

"…"

"Tell me."

"Okay", he sighed. "I wasn't going to bring this up until the end of my visit because I didn't want you to get mad, but I was talking to Yoji yesterday and, well…"

The words which followed were not audible to Cass, she could hear him talking but it wasn't registering. She suddenly felt very sick.

"Cass? Hello…?"

She suddenly perked up "Huh? Sorry I didn't get what you said just now."

Max-Ernest suddenly became wide eyed. "Oh no! It's the antibiotics, I read about this the other day, some of them can cause deafness as a side effect- it's called ototoxicity, I KNEW they shouldn't have put you on something so strong, what should we do? Get a nurse? Get a doctor? Get a nurse AND a doctor? Or maybe I should just call the microbiologist directly from the switchboard? I can ask the receptionist to use her phone, I'm sure she'd let me, you know. And after that, maybe get the ENT in and…"

Cass reached towards her bedside cabinet and grabbed a box of chocolates her Mom had left for her yesterday, promptly opened them and shoved two or three into Max-Ernest's hands who abruptly stopped talking and gazed down at them with dilated pupils.

It worked like a charm.

"Right" Cass began. "Now that I'm not losing my hearing, can you tell me what you and Yoji were talking about?"

Max-Ernest gulped. He took a big breath before speaking very quickly: "We were just thinking, you're gonna get out of here eventually and when you do, you're going to need someone to help you for a bit while you get back on your feet and I'm gonna be abroad for 3 weeks and your Mom is busy with Grandpa Wayne and Grandpa Larry so who would help you? I know you were planning to live with Daniel for a bit but his comic book store AND apartment is getting renovated at the same time so that's not ideal, Albert 3D is on a sabbatical in Egypt and" Max-Ernest paused to take a breath and looked over his shoulder before dropping his voice to a whisper "the Terces lot are quite busy after that stunt pulled by you-know-who and well, who does that leave? So Yoji is free at the moment…"

Cass put her hand up to stop him "wait a second, you called Yoji to leave his tour to help me? Max-Ernest, you can't make him do that!"

"His tour is actually over now…I thought you'd know that too?" he looked over at her with concern.

"Oh. I guess I'd lost track of time…my phone got taken away from me, you know?"

"That's fair…but back to what I was saying, you ARE going to need someone to help you and Yoji is free right now, he told me he was coming back here for a bit to visit his family anyway. It was actually his idea."

"Really…" Cass had a tough time believing what she was hearing. The last time she had met with her ex-boyfriend face to face was slightly awkward to say the least.

"Really!" Max-Ernest said. "It's a good solution, this way you can stay at your house while you recover and Yoji is someone we can trust so you won't have to constantly lie about what happened to you, how 'bout that?"

"How 'bout it…" Cass replied with an obvious hint of worry in her tone. She stared down at her bedsheets for a bit before Max-Ernest finally spoke.

"You know, I did think about it...whether things might be awkward between you guys…"

"Noooo no, we are wayyyy over that now!" she exclaimed.

"Okay…good then."

"Good."

"Fine."

Judging from her reaction, Max-Ernest decided that he didn't totally believe her. He decided to drop it and he spent the rest of his visit discussing anything else before a nurse came and reminded him that visiting hours were over.

Cass had her dinner, watched some more TV, and resigned herself to an early bedtime. It's not like she had anything else to do.