Chapter 9: Recovered

People were asking if this story was over last chapter. No. This is a Romance story, so by gosh, there has to be at least one kiss! I might (if I can bring myself to do it) end it in this chapter, then do a little summary or something. I'm not good at ending stories (or chapters) but I try. Plus, I'm working on Pride and Psychicness. I'm still looking for an ending of Can and Can't Change, but I don't think I'm going to find one, so…

Lili felt better. She was done with her homework, she'd done a little work on her mind's defenses, and she'd done some pilates.

Now, to find Raz to make today perfect…

She decided to just find his mind.

Hey, dorkface! You there?

If I'm your boyfriend, why do you call me all those names?

Because it's fun. You don't complain like other people. And you have no idea how fun it is.

You don't call Milla, Sasha, or Zig names!

Sasha and Milla are Psychonauts and a lot more powerful than I am right now. Zig just doesn't care. You don't notice it, but your mind twitches a little when I call you names. It's like when you use a little wire to jump a spark into a frog and its leg twitches. It's hilarious.

Y'know, our relationship is kinda weird.

Well, duh, we're ten year old psychics. What did you expect, freak?

Well, do you remember the first, uh, ten words you said to me?

No. Why would I?

They were, "Why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer."

I remember that! Then I went back into Oleander's mind and we met up at the first meat plant. You had a lot of arrowheads… you know, for not having been at camp long.

Well, Dogan also gave me four.

Oh, wow, four mental arrowheads. Amazing feat there, huh, Raz?

He pulled out of her mind. He was in his room. She started towards it. After finding Zig, who was looking for things she'd missed in her mind.

She knocked on his door. He answered it. This was why she'd been working on her mental defenses. Just this. The emotion she was feeling… everyone at camp had thought she was emo or emotionless or something. She just knew how to bottle up her emotions and save them to express later. She'd been saving her thoughts about Raz ever since she'd been thrown in the psycho-room. Now, she knew she couldn't hold them much longer.

"Oh! Hi Lili! Uh, I wasn't expecting… why are you looking at me like that?"

She kissed him. Right there in the hallway. It was as romantic as at Thorny Towers. Well, not with him shielding them both from a piece of falling debris… and he hadn't actually saved her… but he'd helped to keep her relatively sane while she was in psychoisolation.

Love couldn't be contained for long, or it just burst out. Not like anger, or sadness, or any of those emotions.

A psychonaut passed by in the hallway, looking at them for a couple seconds as he walked by. She ignored him. She and Raz were locked in… she'd never know what to call it. It was like, after a certain emotional event, you can't keep secrets from that person. She felt that with Raz for the first time in her life. Then they stopped kissing.

"Wow."

Just like at Thorny Towers.

Then she hugged him, smiling, and whispered, "Thank you for keeping me sane, Raz. And for helping me fight my personal demons. And for everything."

And that was the beginning

Of the rest

Of their relationship.

And that was that.

Wow that was a good chapter. I don't see Lili as being as emotionless as everyone else seems to. Sadistic and sarcastic, definitely, but not emotionless. I think this is a happy compromise. A very happy compromise. In fact, and absolutely joyful and loving compromise.

So now I only have one story that I'm actively working on. Wow, that's a relief. Not that this was a bad story, I actually liked it a lot, but you have no idea how hard it is to turn a book from 1813 into a modern story about Raz and Lili. Now, since I have ten minutes, plus and extra twenty or so, I'm going to work on that one.