Have you ever watched a bruise develop ? I mean, really watch it ? Over the course of 12 hours, there's not much to do, except, of course, sleep and watch a bruise form.

That's what happens when you wake up at 10 am. Its a foreign country. There's a teammate who you drank under the table last night, and he's arguing with the owner of... um. Apparently it's a bloody karaoke bar.

That sure as hell explained why JP wasn't thrown out for singing Like A Virgin the previous night. Well that and everybody else was busy crossing their legs and throwing Yin at Elise, who was drunk. I did mention that Elise likes to go Topless when she's drunk, right ? Well. she does. No, its not like she's an exhibitionist (Well... actually, if ye consider it, she is a model in the off season...) its just that she hates the feeling of cloth after the alcohol reaches that part of her noggin. Nothing wrong with that (not at all. Me and the other boyos used to chip in and buy her a different alcoholic drink every week, back before the entire Girlfriend thing... different chapter)

So your sitt..er... laying there, on the bench. There's a yank gel sprayed out oh so nicely on your legs, and there's a Canadian girl sprayed out, topless, to boot, on top of the table. There is a jacket covering her, and there's an old German guy sitting in the booth next to you, and he looks just about ready to throw a Yesibu bottle at the next bastard who says anything above 4 decimals.

So of course, like a sensible person, I keep my happy west indie ass shut. Let it be said that the British (I'm half, due to me mum) are smarter than the French.

"Je ne me pas leve!" Jean-Paul has to go an exclaim, apparently due to Kaori groggily poking him in the side to move over.

The bottle makes an elegant arc, and bounces right off of JP's shoulder, harmlessly. The Frenchman glares at the German. The German snarls at the Frenchman. The British man calmly reaches out and flicks the Frenchman's ear. I point down to the lasses. Both of them stop and grumble to themselves. Elise moans. Mac, who is somehow beneath the table, sits straight up.

BONK

Somehow, we got out of there in time. Our stuff was already packed without our approval. We were hustled onto the plane, still in our gear from yesterday. They fill the need to supply us with more coffee than I thought existed. I was under the impression you just drank what came from a filter. They had that. and something with cream... and something with honey... and...

Three different hard to pronounce coffee's and two different kinds of hot tea from stewardess later, I was quite awake. As I had been quite awake from 5 beverages, Mac (who was from the lesser slopes of Merquery City) had been very well awake after 10 of the free beverages.

Never, never, combine a hyper 15 year old with enough caffeine to power a construction crew and an enclosed airplane cabin. Its the equivalent of releasing your Monty Python DVD to people who think knock-knock jokes are funny. The flying circus, for your information, was not very funny.

I was ignoring the bouncing bundle of energy we used to call Mackenzie, and watching a large bruise form on Zoe's forearm.

Zoe apparently was raised by violent kung-fu feminist, because when someone tried to grab Elise, she used a forearm tackle on the guys head and broke his table. Fortunately, everybody else thought this was funny, so we didn't have to brawl. Not that we wouldn't win, but still... losing to liqueur and being finished by drunken businessmen who wanted to have an arranged marriage of their sons to Kaori, would be humiliation, in the least.

"Looks pretty bad" I finally said, after 6 hours.

"mm...your pretty..." Zoe mumbled. Of course, I had to look up. My dreads bounced in my eyes. Just long enough for pride, short enough for the helmet.

"Earth to Zoe" I said, waving my hand in front of her face.

"... ..Moby?" Zoe said, and I realized that she had avoided the caffeine in order to make sure she didn't aggravate the wound.

"No... Bond. James Bond. Her majesties secret service" I said. She was out of her daze by now and looked up at me with a grin. She had the prettiest smile...

"You would make a great James Bond, Moby" she said, reassuringly. I personally thought she was right (*caugh caugh, wink wink,* MGM)

"well maybe... but only if you could be the girl" I said, flashing my pearly whites.

"Ah... how cute" Elise said

Mac, who had just than been digging in the overhead compartment for something, popped out his head. "Thanks, Elise" he said, with a very big, bright, honest smile. She just smiled reassuringly at him, than winked at us.

We talked the rest of the flight. Not mushy stuff. That would have certainly had Mac's attention. (Kaori got that) but about Bond. About our alternative sports. About brands of bikes.

Of course, after I was done staring into her eyes for several hours, I was quite ready to move onto mushy. The only thing that saved me from making an inopportune mush moment was Hiro announcing we were back at the home camp, in France.

Elysium, freshly groomed, glimmered like the yeti through the clouds.