Author note: Fourth in the series, which does lead to someone other than Elliot getting tortured. The next one (". . .Replacements") sees Gray getting a little action, but I won't be releasing that one for a couple of weeks yet. Still, be afraid of Hershey, ya? ^_^

I don't own any of the TSW characters, DDR or "I want you bad" which is a song by the Offspring. Hershey's mine though, so hands off.

Enjoy! Cookies to reviewers, stalkers to those who deign not to review.

'I want yooou. . . All tattooooooed. . . I want yoooou baaaaaad. . .'

Elliot allowed his eye to twitch violently as that same line came floating through the door between him and Hein. He had been doing this for nearly three hours now; listening to music through his headphones and singing the same lines over and over and over and over. . . He's not even in tune! Elliot thought angrily, resisting the urge to walk in there and stab his boss with a ruler.

'Co. . . Uh. . . Mist. . . Uhm. . .' There was a slight pause in the singing. So he doesn't know the words to this part,

'Ah-hah. I want yooooou bad, bad, bad, baaad, baaaaaaaaad,' Elliot's eye twitched again. He had to get out of here before he killed someone. But where could he go? His reputation was already in tatters after word had got round (thanks to those no good Deep Eyes) about the hallucinating incident. Now wherever he went, he was treated to the sight of grown soldiers pretending to be large, evil, purple caterpillars. No respect in the army these days, he thought, slightly curious as to why the singing had stopped altogether now. He leaned forwards, trying to sneak a peek around the door without being noticed, but he had no such luck. Hein's head appeared around the doorframe, a customary scowl on his face.

'Do I have any messages?' he growled.

'No, sir,' Elliot replied in as bored a monotone as he could muster. 'Well, except for something from the council. They said they had an infestation of giant green cockroaches and they were wondering if you could go and sort it out,' Hein stared at him for a moment, clearly unsure of whether what the major had said was true or not. Then, he cottoned on, hissed at Elliot and ducked back inside his room. Elliot let out a very refreshed sigh. At least with Hein almost back to his normal, moody self, Elliot had something to concentrate on; turning the general back into a psycho.

'Because the council is going to make fun of you like that,' Elliot muttered, staring at the silent door. 'Not to your face, you imbecile,' He leaned back in his seat and stretched slightly, basking in the peace and quiet he had right now.

Moments later, the singing started again. . .

. . .And three hours later, it was still going. And Hein still hadn't learnt any of the words. And Elliot was still trying to restrain himself by stabbing his hand with a pen. As the singing got worse, the stabbing got more powerful.

'I waaant yoooou. . .' Hein sang badly.

'On a stake,' Elliot growled.

'. . .All tattooed. . .'

'Preferably with a rusty nail,'

'. . .I want yooou baaaad. . .'

The last note held on for a good thirty seconds, quavering badly out of tune, and that was when Elliot snapped. Or rather, the pen snapped and left without anything else to satiate his anger, Elliot did the next best thing. He stalked to the door, flung it open and that was when everything went a little hazy.

'We think it's best if you. . . take a few days off, major,' Councilman Drake said, a little nervously, as he eyed the calmly smiling soldier before him. Who would have thought such a quiet, unassuming man could do such foul things with an innocent general, several buckets of glue, a very inconveniently placed pot plant and a paperclip? Elliot just nodded mildly, humming to himself. They had told him this was a court martial! Since when did legal proceedings end in vacations? But there was no point in being confused. Being confused just let his angry fairy out (Or so the therapist had said)

'General Hein has agreed that this is probably the best course of action,' Drake went on, gesturing to Hein, who was just stopping short of hiding from his subordinate. Well, who could blame him? Apparently he was still having trouble sitting down without severe discomfort. 'And though you're officially on vacation, you're not allowed to leave the base,' Elliot moved for the first time during the whole thing, tipping his head to stare curiously up at Drake. The councillor panicked.

'Y-you must understand. We have to protect the citiz -- I mean, protect you from the citizens,' Elliot shrugged.

'Fine by me,'

'Meanwhile,' Drake went on, happy to banish Elliot to the background. 'General Hein still needs a second in command. . . Any volunteers?' The entire room was silent, except for some rather loud whispering coming from three of the Deep Eyes. Seconds later, Gray stepped (or rather, was pushed) forwards by his grinning squad.

'What the. . .?' he exclaimed. Drake decided this was the best volunteer he was going to get and waved a hand.

'Thank you, Captain. You start tomorrow,'

And so, Elliot got his first day off in seven years. Of course, there wasn't much he could do with it, apart from sit in his room and fiddle with the medication they had given him. There was nothing more satisfying than making a full scale version of the Mona Lisa using only small, coloured pills. But even that got boring and it wasn't long before he found himself staring wistfully at the door, wishing he had a pinball machine or something. Even a DDR machine, he thought, knowing full well that he lacked the co-ordination to be any good at any kind of video game. And my parents wonder why I'm stuck in a desk job,

He was all ready to roll over and go to sleep, thereby completely wasting his day of freedom, when someone tapped gently on the door. Horrific visions of Hein back to repay the favour flashed through Elliot's mind, forcing him to cling to the nearest pillow as if it was his only hope. Just pretend not to be here. Find the happy place and pretend not to be here, he thought desperately. To his utter horror, the door began to open slowly. He backed into a corner, closed his eyes and hoped for a quick, easy death from his probably very annoyed boss.

'Are you alright?' He cracked open one eye as that voice twinkled through the room. That wasn't Hein (and if it was, he'd undergone a severe transformation) It was friendly, kind and above all, female. Hershey? he thought, gaping like an idiot as she stood there at his door, eyeing him suspiciously.

'Uh. . . Hi?' he said, or he would have said if he wasn't choking on a pillow at the time. What was she doing here? Was she here to ridicule him like all the others? Or was she (and he very much doubted this one, though there was always that sliver of painfully optimistic hope in the back of his otherwise short-circuited head) here to comfort him? Hee, hee. . . he giggled to himself, somewhat childishly. The other officer continued to stare at him oddly, taking a notable step backwards.

'Are you alright?' she asked again, almost nervously this time. 'Your door was open, so I assumed. . .' Elliot hurled the pillow to one side and tried to smile, unaware that a feather was stuck to the side of his face.

'O-of course. W-why wouldn't I-I be?' he said. Hallelujah! An entire sentence, he thought sarcastically, still smiling falsely. Why her? Why not Hein, here to exact his revenge? Why the cute one? He could deal with the moody one! Cute, he had no experience with.

'If you're sure. . .' Hershey said, suspicion still edging her voice. Elliot grinned a little too eagerly and stood up, brushing himself off and inadvertently stepping on his pill masterpiece as he went. Goodbye, Lisa's nose. Goodbye Elliot's sense of anger control.

'Sonofa. . .!' he hissed, prompting Hershey to take another step backwards.

'Y'know if this is a bad time. . .' she started. Elliot stepped forwards, further crushing his tour de force and shook his head.

'Oh, no, no. W-what are y-you doing here a-anyway?' Hershey kept her distance.

'The council sent me to keep you. . . occupied. Being stuck in here all day can't be good for you,' Elliot scowled for a moment.

'Better than being with him,' The scowl disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared and was replaced by a bright grin. 'Keep me occupied? H-how?'

'I don't know. We'll go do. . .' Her cute nose contorted into an even cuter vision as she scrunched up her face and thought. '. . .Stuff. Or something. We'll figure it out when we get there,' Elliot didn't reply; he was too busy writing mental love poems for her nose. Hershey rolled her eyes and waved a hand in front of his face.

'Come on, major. We don't have time to just stand here,' Elliot blinked.

'What? Oh. . . Right. Uhh. . .' Damn me for blushing so easily! he thought, feeling his cheeks burn. 'L-lead the way?'

He wasn't sure what made everything seem a lot brighter and more cheerful as they walked slowly down one of the huge corridors leading from one part of the base to another. The sun was shining (or it would have been, if there wasn't a barrier to block it out), the birds were singing (or they would be if the phantoms hadn't wiped most bird species off the face of the earth) and he couldn't help but hum merrily. It could have been the sense of freedom at having his first free day in. . . Well, for as long as he could remember. It could have been those happy pills they'd insisted on plying him with. Just in case, they had said. Pff. . . But then again, it could have been the extraordinarily cute (if slightly bored looking) companion he had. Elliot hadn't felt so chirpy around the opposite sex since his mother had "accidentally" dropped several spoonfuls of pure caffeine in his food when he was a child. He felt brave enough to do anything when he was around her; even spend an entire day locked in a small room with no-one but the dear general and a small hamster for company. Wait. . . That's not much different from life now. . . he thought, eyes idly glancing over a sign as they passed it. Except I'm not lucky enough to have a hamster to talk to,

A loud bang exploded his thoughts, bringing him back to reality. He frowned slightly, turning to see Hershey with a somewhat crazed gleam in her eye.

'Uhh. . . Where are we?' he asked. He had spent most of the last seven years in New York, and only now did he realise just how little of the surroundings he was familiar with. He knew his quarters and Hein's office. And uh. . . That was it. And I'm supposed to be the second-in-command of the most powerful military leader we have?

'You mean to say,' Hershey started; contempt obvious in her voice. 'That you're the second-in-command of the most powerful military leader we have and you don't recognise the shooting range?' Elliot would have gaped stupidly at her, wondering if she had the ability to read minds, but he was too busy panicking inside.

'S-shooting r-range?' he whispered. He didn't like guns. He always used to have this dream that one day he be killed by a gun. And not in the conventional way either. It used to be that he saw himself falling to friendly fire, trying to stop Hein from pulling yet another entirely crazy stunt, but now? Now in his increasingly twisted mind, he imagined an enormous gun thwacking him repeatedly over the head with its butt until he was nothing more than an oozing pulp of ex-slightly worried major. Hershey didn't seem to notice his fear and grabbed him by the arm.

'Oh yeah. I love it here. And it'll be good for you to get rid of some of that uhh. . . homicidal rage or whatever it is,' Elliot whimpered and whined uneasily, but his cries weren't heard as another loud bang echoed through the hall. Grinning like a maniac, Hershey dragged him off. To my doom probably!

'Everyone down!' Normally brave and courageous soldiers screamed and fell to their knees as they saw just who was shooting with reckless abandon.

'I don't wanna die!' one of them whimpered, desperately burying his face into the arm of his companion.

'Neil, we all have to die sometime,' Ryan muttered, trying to pry the whining tech from his person. Neil was having none of it; his grip tightening like a limpet on. . . whatever limpets grab hold of.

'But, serge. . .' The tech looked up, genuine tears in his blue eyes. 'B-before we die at the hands of that psycho, I. . . I have to tell you -- '

'Neil. . .' Ryan warned, trying to edge away and finding nothing but wall. First I almost get killed by a lunatic and now. . . I don't even wanna think about what's going to happen now, Neil's face was desperate; pleading almost.

'Serge. I. . . I. . . lo -- '

'You're right, major!' Elliot cackled as he took aim (rather badly) and shot in the vague direction of the target. The bioetheric beam bounced off a conveniently (and somewhat oddly) placed frying pan, sending it back into the group of cowering soldiers. Hershey gave him a sarcastic nod from her hiding place behind the target (Well, he had no hope of hitting the damned thing) 'This is fun!'

'You keep on telling yourself that,' Hershey muttered. 'But do you think we could stop having "fun" now? You're scaring the other soldiers,' Elliot stopped shooting, slightly upset at being forced to pause while doing something he actually enjoyed.

'What?' he called. Hershey poked her head out from behind the target and scrunched up her nose at him.

'Look,' Elliot turned, and saw. . . nothing. Why do I always end up with the crazy ones? he thought, turning back to her.

'What are you talking about? There's nothing there,' No sooner had he said that then little, terrified faces began to appear from various hidey-holes. In fact, it was quite surprising how many soldiers were hiding back there, cowering and whimpering like some bigger kid had stolen their toy. And they were all so silent and still (well, except for the black guy who was running away from the smaller, scrawny guy with all his might) 'Ok. Ignore what I said,'

'I assure you I will,' Hershey replied, taking a tentative step away from the target. 'Now, just put down the gun, alright?' Elliot looked down at the rifle.

'Why? I like shooting,' True, he might not have hit a single thing he was aiming at, but it was fun to imagine that he had. Mind you, now he could see why the council weren't fond of letting Hein have a gun.

'I can see that,' Hershey went on. 'But it's time to stop shooting now,' Elliot pouted.

'But I. . .' he started sulkily. 'I like shooting!' As if to emphasise just how much he liked this new found skill (or lack, thereof) he fired another round at the target. The shot calmly bounced off the floor two feet in front of Hershey, zipped up into the air, hit the ceiling and bounced back into the crowd of frightened soldiers (who did the brave thing and hid again)

'If you don't put the gun down,' Hershey threatened, feeling quite glad that years of training had taught her how not to wet herself when a shot is aimed badly towards you. 'I'll take you back to the general,' The gun clattered to the floor.

'You wouldn't,' Elliot hissed, vaguely aware of what appeared to be a hurricane of footsteps behind him. 'You couldn--' He didn't get much further as he was rugby-tackled to the floor by a horde of squaddies. Desperately scared ones.

'This is why I never take anyone anywhere,' Hershey muttered.

It took them a good half an hour to prise Elliot out of the grasp of a particularly large (yet soft as a teddy bear) lieutenant, by which time the sun was slowly setting over the horizon. Well, it would have been, had the barrier not been in the way to block out the horizon. Hershey had decided that now was a good time to take the other major back; before he could frighten another platoon of soldiers. So, they were walking along one of the long corridors that led from one section of the base to another; not saying a single word to each other. Elliot was trying to think of something to say – to try and cheer the other obviously annoyed major up – while attempting to work the knot out of his neck.

'They didn't have to hold me that tight,' he muttered, earning a raised eyebrow from Hershey.

'Uh, you were trying to kill them,' Elliot opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted when a very alarmed cry came echoing down the corridor. Elliot frowned. That sounds suspiciously like. . . The thought got no further as he was knocked to the ground by his sprinting CO. Hein stopped long enough to frown down at Elliot.

'What are you doing down there, major?' Elliot had little time to even think of an answer as Hein turned his attention to Hershey and grinned.

'Major,' he said, nodding.

'Just come back here, general!' And suddenly Hein was off again, sprinting down the corridor like a whippet on speed. Elliot looked to Hershey to perhaps help him up, but saw that she was staring somewhat scarily after Hein.

'I love those black uniforms,' she sighed. Elliot scowled.

'I'll help myself up then,' he muttered, pulling himself to his feet. He was promptly knocked over again as Gray came barrelling around the corner, carrying what appeared to be a bucket of neon green paint. A bucket that he promptly split all over the scowling, twitching Elliot.

'No running in the halls, Edwards,' Hershey said in a slightly bored monotone, still watching the retreating form of Hein.

'Sorry, Major Hershey,' Gray squeaked. 'I was just trying to catch the general. You see which way he went?' Hershey turned to him and smiled; provoking a very stupid stare from Gray.

'He went that way,' she said; eyes sliding over Gray. 'And is regulation uniform supposed to be that tight?' Gray's eyes widened.

'I uh. . . uhm. . . I. . .' he babbled.

'You were just going, captain,' Elliot growled, picking himself up off the floor for the second time; paint sloshing all over the place. Lovely. Paint. In my hair. And my boots. And. . . He scowled. I'm going to kill them both,

'Y-yeah,' Gray mumbled. 'Gotta go get the g-general an'. . . something. . .' Hershey patted him on the shoulder, grinning cutely.

'Carry on, captain,' She continued to watch him, a particularly wide grin forming on her face as he chased Hein. 'Cute,' she murmured. Elliot, meanwhile, had realised that three was definitely a crowd and was walking the other way down the corridor, leaving squelchy neon green footprints as he stalked along.

'Stupid. . . Woman. . . Everyone else. . .' he muttered, deciding to head back to his quarters and destroy something; preferably something cute, innocent and utterly deserving of a painful death. He almost didn't hear Hershey creep up behind him, and he certainly wasn't expecting her to tap him on the shoulder, thereby frightening the life out of him and making him hit the floor (again) in a non-too brave fashion.

'What happened to you? You're all green,' Hershey asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. Elliot might have found that cute, but he was mad with her now. Damned woman making out that she liked me by taking me out for the day, but NO! She just wants to use me to get closer to. . . to. . .  to. . . He'd never thought that rage could make your thoughts stutter, but there it was. Hershey noticed the violent twitch in Elliot's eye and blinked.

'Are you ok?' Oh-ho! Trying to deceive me again are you, bride of SATAN?! Elliot ranted to himself as he scowled. I won't stand for it anymore! I won't be transfixed by your overly cute nose and saccharine smile. Oh no, He picked himself up off the floor, pointed one finger at her and allowed his eyes to slit.

'I'm onto you; don't think I'm not onto you!'

'Uhh. . . I think someone needs their medication,' Elliot twitched again.

'And I don't need that so-called "medication"! I'm fine,' He paused and looked at his left shoulder, grinning somewhat inanely. 'Oh look. Kittens!' And with that, he fell over.

'Marvellous,' Hershey muttered, loud enough and venomous enough to convince any passers-by that she was, in fact, completely hacked off at Elliot for daring to fall over in the middle of a corridor a mile from his quarters. But. . . Hee, hee! she thought to herself. The time was nigh. Soon her beloved would be with her; whether he liked it or not.

The first thing Elliot noticed when he woke up was the insatiable headache that pounded through his aching mind. Naturally, this brought to mind the last time he'd felt so bad. She wouldn't dare! he thought, deciding not to move or speak or do anything other than just lie here. Hershey – being the know it all she seemed to be – probably knew about his previous run-ins with alcohol and surely – being the serious, un-fun witch she seemed to be – she wouldn't dare imbibe him. Would she? He opened one eye a crack and frowned. It was dark in here; wherever "here" was. In fact, it was more than just dark. It was pitch black; like all the light was being sucked away. Yeah, that bodes well, he thought, doing his best to sit up silently. He was starting to get the impression that. . . well, he wasn't sure actually. His head was all fuzzy, but it had been like that for an awful long time now. It was just a feeling; there was something suspicious about all of this, and he didn't like that one bit.

And so, he pulled himself upright, blinking away the headrush that swept through him before looking around to try and figure out where in heck he was. Plain, boring walls; sterile belongings. If hadn't been for the large, sugar pink bunny rabbit sat on the end of the bed, he could have sworn he was back in his quarters. I don't own a bunny rabbit. . . Do I? He shrugged and swung his legs over to get up. Maybe he'd had another hazy spell, gone to a fair and won the rabbit. Or maybe the rabbit was responsible for his hangover! Or. . . something,

'I'm onto you,' he muttered to the toy, heading to the nearest door and opening it.

He stopped right where he was, staring stupidly into the closet. Now he knew this wasn't his place; not only was the closet on the other side in his quarters, but he sure as hell didn't own a shrine. Especially not one to himself.

'Uhh. . .' was about all he could come up with, raising an eyebrow. His head was telling him to step back and get the hell out of crazy country before the owner of these delightful items returned, but sheer morbid curiosity made him stay; growing more and more un-nerved as he glanced about. There were, what seemed to be, millions of pictures of him, mostly surveillance shots taken when he wasn't paying attention.

'What the. . .?' Who on earth would want a picture of him sleeping on his desk? Or of him making coffee? Or of him. . .

'Oh dear lord,' he exclaimed, grabbing that one and reducing it to shreds within a matter of seconds. What kind of a sicko did this kind of thing? The pictures weren't the worst part; oh no. There was more. There were small pieces of ex-belongings of his; things he'd thrown out long ago had somehow congregated in this one, rather scary closet. There were old magazines from years ago, various ragged looking pieces of clothing --

 'So that's where those socks went,'

-- even a half-eaten pizza; all lovingly and perfectly preserved in formaldehyde. Numerous tapes, each with ominous titles ("Shopping – volume 17", "Sleeping - volume 49", "Picking nose – volume 126") lined the shelves, and then there was the centrepiece; a life size effigy of himself, grinning inanely back out at him. It was insanely well detailed – like looking in a mirror in fact. It was striking a strange pose; its arms outstretched and wide as if just begging for a hug.

'Uhh. . .' he mumbled again, taking one little, tiny, freaked out step back. 'Alright, head. Tell me I'm seeing things,'

No, you're not seeing things. And stop talking to me.

Unsure of whether to be more afraid of the closet or his own mind; Elliot decided to get the heck out and find someone familiar and comforting. Hell, I'd even be willing to stick with him for a while, he thought, turning around. . .

And coming face-to-face with a widely grinning Hershey.

'You're awake!' she said, prompting a perplexed frown from Elliot. There was no trace of sarcasm, of dry wit; of her in her voice. And what was she doing here anyway?

'Uhh. . . Yeah?' he replied uncertainly. Hershey continued to grin chirpily, taking him by the arm and leading him to the bed; not seeming to notice as he frowned at her. There was something. . . weird about the way she looked. For some strange reason, she wasn't very cute when she was grinning like a maniac. She was more sort of. . . scary.

'Good, good,' Hershey went on, sitting him down and standing to grin at him. Elliot sat there in silence for a few moments, feeling more and more un-nerved by her toothy smirk. It didn't help when she didn't say anything; instead just standing there and watching him as if she expected him to do something spectacular.

'Are uhh. . . you alright?' he asked finally, earning a vigorous grin from her.

'Oh yes, yes,' she started hurriedly. 'At first I wasn't, because I was all the way away in Los Angeles and they said they were going to throw me out of the army altogether if I hacked into the databanks again, but it was ok because I managed to convince one of the soldiers to find out for me, well, I say convince, it was more sort of threaten really, but anyway that's not important, what is important is that I found you and you found me and now we can be so, so, so, so happy now,' Elliot didn't know whether to applaud the fact that she managed to say all that without breathing, or whether to ask if she'd taken her medication today.

'That's. . . nice,' he said nervously; feeling more nervous still as she leaned towards him. He could see it now; the crazy glint in her eye. It was exactly the same as the crazy glint Hein got in his eyes when he was about to do something stupid like cower behind his desk because "a flower bit me" or blow up a city. Eep.

'Isn't it just?' Hershey went on, oblivious. 'It's so nice that I finally found you, and got you here, you're going to be so happy here you know because you'll be here with me and you'll never need to go back to that stinky old general again and you'll just have to stay here while I go out and work, but you won't be bored cause I'll make sure no-one tries to interfere, and I can always up your medication, and don't worry about those people who come and do the cleaning 'cause I took care of them,' She gave a little, evil giggle which went on and on and on and on and. . . Though Elliot was quite amused to hear Hein referred to as "stinky" and "old" he just knew this wasn't heading in a good direction.

'You were saying?' he asked, interrupting the giggle. Hershey frowned for a moment, and suddenly she was cute again! But not for long; the grin returned and she nodded vigorously. Elliot suddenly realised that she hadn't let go of his arm yet, and she was holding him pretty tight.

'Oh yeah, well, like I say, you can't leave here ever again cause I went through so much to get to you, I mean I had to get rid of that squad who got too close to taking you away from me forever, and as soon as you go back to sleep again, I'm going to go and deal with that stinky old general who's been making your life so very, very hard,' Elliot's eyes widened.

'Deal with?' Hershey nodded eagerly again, the glint growing.

'That's right. He's been causing my poor little Eli-poo -- ' Eli-poo?! ' – so much trouble and strife and hardship and pain and suffering and bother and inconvenience and horror and trouble and he needs to have someone take care of him, so I went to the galley and I got some of those chocolate bars he really likes and some of that rat poison stuff they say you should never touch without gloves on 'cause it'll burn right through your skin, and that wouldn't be very good would it, but still, I put the chocolate with the poison and I left them outside his office and when he gets back from tormenting some other innocent soldier he'll see them and he'll take them 'cause he's so greedy like that, and he'll eat them and then he'll melt from the inside out,' She said this very sweetly, as if melting from the inside out was a perfectly normal thing to do. Maybe it is in that twisted little world of hers, he thought as she sat down next to him; that pasted on smile and those crazy eyes combining with the news that she was attempting candycide. Elliot was now left with a very difficult conflict of interests. On one hand, there was crazy Hershey and her keeping him here forever and having her apparently destroy half the army to keep it that way. On the other hand, there was crazy Hein, keeping him in that office forever and apparently destroying half the world in order to keep it that way. I hate making decisions!

'Are you sure that killing the general is a good idea?' he asked. Hershey nodded.

'Of course! He causes you trouble and makes you unhappy, so if I get rid of him it'll make you happy, right?' Scarily enough, there was some logic there; logic that Elliot understood and would usually agree with completely. 'But you shouldn't worry about him anymore Eli-poo, because you're going to stay here forever, I got a special chain for you and everything!' That did it; the mention of a "chain" was enough to make Elliot force a laugh and try standing up. It wasn't easy though; Hershey had a very good grip on his wrist and she was a lot stronger than she looked.

'Well, I'm sorry but I can't stay here,' he said hurriedly, shaking his head and trying to look a little less freaked than he felt. 'I have to go and feed the fairies! We don't want them to die now, do we?' Hershey gave him a look that was the sheer definition of contempt.

'You talk to me as if I'm crazy,' she said, her eyes slitting. Elliot contemplated telling her that she was crazy, but decided that he would like to live to see tomorrow.

'Did I say that?' he asked as innocently as he could manage.

'Well I'm not crazy 'cause you're here with me now, and I can be happy and you can be happy, right?' She gave him a look that deeply frightened him, and before he knew it, he was encased in a hug of epic proportions. If there was one thing that terrified Elliot, it was close contact with anyone at all. 'That stinky old general will soon be out of your way and you'll never have to worry about anything again, my dear Eli-poo,' That does it! Elliot thought, wriggling out of her grasp and standing up. Hershey stood up as well, still grinning like a maniac.

'Well, this was fun,' Elliot said with false bravado. 'It sure was good seeing your little uhh. . . closet thing, and it's good to see that they're letting people like you back into the community,' She was still advancing on him, her lips pursed in a sort of kissy motion. Oh. . . my. . . god. . . She didn't get close enough to lay a finger on him, because with a very cowardly scream, Elliot bolted and was out the door before you could say "Come here and kiss me,"

Hershey was left to grin after him.

'Playing hard to get, are you?' she called, jogging to the door and peering after him. 'You won't get away that easy!' And with that, she began to give chase.

Elliot ran and ran and ran, not knowing or caring where he was going. All he knew was that he had to get the hell away from his new-found freak of a stalker.

'I only want to chain you up in my room and keep you there forever and ever!' Hershey yelled after him, gaining much quicker than he had hoped.

'Stay the hell away from me, woman of evil!' he yelled back, rounding a corner and coming face-to-back with a very familiar black trenchcoat. Not caring what Hein was going to think of him, Elliot pulled both of them to their feet, pushing the general in the vague direction of Hershey and sprinting for his life.

He finally reached his quarters (though not before thinking that he was going to die of an exercise-induced heart attack) leapt inside, locked the door and threw as many things in front of it as he possibly could before curling up on his bunk with his favourite pillow and whimpering.

'Duncomeafterme, duncomeafterme!' he wailed into the pillow, hoping that crying loud enough would block out any knock that might possibly come to his door. So he wailed, and he wailed and he wailed. . . And then he stopped, because a good few hours had gone by and he was starting to get a headache. No knock; no little tap on his door. Maybe Hein and Hershey had out-crazied each other and exploded. Or maybe (and this was a longshot, but by far his favourite possibility) they'd killed each other! Well, whatever had happened, it was obviously safe to venture outside, right? Wailing for several hours tended to make him hungry. And he really needed a shower; this shade of green was starting to hurt his eyes.

So, he stepped carefully to the door, still clutching his pillow, and kicked all the stuff out of the way before opening the door just a little, tiiiny bit.

'Hey, major!' Hershey's voice appeared to be louder and scarier when concentrated through a crack in the door. She was stood there, grinning at the door even as it slammed in her face. 'You're not ready to talk yet. Well, that's fine; I'll just wait here until you're ready,'

'Leave me alone!' Elliot screeched. Outside, Hershey shook her head.

'Nu-uh. General Hein wants me to look after you, so that's what I'm going to do, isn't that right, General,' A new voice suddenly floated through the door.

'That's right, major! Now come on out, Elliot, before we get security to break the door down,' Why do you hate me, life?! Elliot thought.

'Get away from my door, you freaks!' He could feel that little niggle of anger building up in the back of his head again, gnawing at his brain like a small mouse of some kind. If they didn't. . . Hein's voice was idiotically cheery as he replied.

'Nope,' Elliot's eye developed a strange new twitch, and suddenly, everything went a little hazy.