I took a night off and slept like a bebe.

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"No, those are not your only options. If you felt like it, you could strip and go dashing about the room, but I don't think that would get us anywhere," she said dryly.

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"That's a joke, man." She sighed again, and shifted in her seat. As she did so, she felt pain shoot through her right side. A quick glance down, and she noticed that the shot hadn't missed her after all. It was just a graze to her side, but it was beginning to bleed more, now that she noticed it. She must have torn something when she shifted, though it was curious that it would tear now and not while she was dancing about the room.

She held her hand out and said, "Give me a minute here; I seem to be bleeding on your chair."

"Good to know that someone can hit you," he muttered.

She shot him a dirty look. "Your concern for me is touching. You could at least care about the chair."

"No, I was planning on burning it after you sat in it anyway."

She boggled. "Don't you think that's a little extreme? I mean, wash it if you're that paranoid, but a bonfire? What, am I hazardous waste?" She closed her eyes so she could concentrate better on healing the tear in her flesh. "Or is it supposed to be a cathartic moment, the releasing of what has been touched by the icky, icky thing into the atmosphere? Burning it as you wish to burn me? Did you know that that is an awful way to die," she rambled. "Feeling your flesh crisp and listening to the fat pop as flames lick at your lower body? The lucky ones die of smoke inhalation first."

He didn't say anything when she finally stopped babbling.

After a moment, Anne said, "Mark, I love you dearly, but if you make me hit you again, I swear, this time it is going to hurt. Now go sit down in that chair where I can keep an eye on you."

"How did you know I was back here?" he asked sullenly, but she could hear him move off from behind her and over to the other chair.

"Because as soon as you tried to be stealthy, you stopped wheezing on the floor back there. Now sit down." A few seconds later she was done healing, and opened her eyes.

Her boss was looking at her intently, his eyes boring into hers. She met his gazer levelly, but he said nothing for almost a minute. The only noise in the office came from Mark fidgeting in his chair.

"What?" she asked, slightly disconcerted by the expression on his face.

"It's interesting how you can do that."

"You know I can heal; I did it to him, after all," she said, hooking one thumb over to Mark after she wiped off her hand on her shirt. She looked down at yet another ruined garment and sighed. "I should make you pay for my clothes," she mused.

"What all can you do? Healing-wise, that is?"

"Potentially? Anything. I'm mostly practiced at fixing obvious problems, the ones where blood is spurting all over the place. But given enough time to prepare and a problem I can comprehend, I could fix everything from congenital defects to broken bones to knee surgery."

"Could you fix arthritis?"

She thought about that one for a moment, finger tapping against her knee as she pondered. "I'm not sure. I could lessen the effects of it, I'm fairly confident about that, but I think that's an auto-immune disorder? Isn't it? And I really don't know how to much about with the immune system when it starts to go crazy. I'm sorry about that," she apologized.

He waved a hand and said, "I never expected a miracle cure."

"Do you want me to see what I can do? I might be able to help with the pain, at least a little."

"Will it hurt?"

"Nope. If I can or can't do anything to help, I can at least keep the nerves from firing while I'm looking at it."

"Then please, try."

She stood up and stepped to the desk, rubbing her hands together briskly before taking one of his between them. He sighed as she stopped the pain. She looked at the knuckles and decreased the swelling at the joints, then tried her best to figure out how to fix what was there. After a minute, she shook her head, giving up.

"I'm sorry; I just don't know enough about arthritis to be a help. If you give me a little time, I could read up on it and see if there is anything I can do." She reached for his other hand. "Here. I can at least help with the symptoms now."

"Can all plants heal, or are you special?"

She laughed. "I'm not special. It's just a bit of specialized knowledge, that's all. And the boys, well, they are boys. They think in terms of big explosions and such, and ignore the fact that you can use the same little mental tricks on a smaller scale." She let go of his hand and sat back down.

He flexed his fingers, a small smile trying to break out on his face but he fought it down. "You only did this to try to make me change my mind about your kind."

"Actually… no. I did it because you asked me to." She rubbed at her temples. "You seem to think that I'm much more calculating than I really am. I try to not think about life that much. It just makes things complicated when you think about them too much."