She blinked a few times, bleary eyes focusing on the ceiling directly above her. Flat on her back, half focused gaze trained on a specific spot. She must have fallen back asleep at some point that night, considering she had to fight herself to get her eyes open and to stay open. And yet she was absolutely exhausted.

She'd been lying there for what seemed like ages, not moving a muscle. In part because the pounding inside of her skull was far more manageable if she didn't move at all.

And she was so drained-in every sense of the word. She wasn't sure she could force herself to move, even if she wanted to. The wretched hollowness that had enveloped her in the late hours of last night had diminished greatly. The self-tormenting thoughts also had yet to make a reappearance. She didn't have the energy to come up with thoughts of any kind at this point. There was nothing but her, the ceiling, and the invisible blanket of metal on top of her, weighing her body down.

Time slipped through her fingers. She didn't make any conscious effort to keep track of it. But by the time she pulled herself together, the light was beginning to stream into her room around the drawn curtains covering her window. She had to get out of bed at some point today, she told herself. She was now intimately familiar with the ceiling above her bed, and lying down staring at it had lost most of its appeal. The thought of getting some painkillers to ease her head was definitely alluring, but the matter of getting up and getting to the bathroom was the problem.

She tossed the sheets aside and sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. Her movements were robotic and stiff after being in disuse for however long she had been asleep for. Once she was in a sitting position she curled and uncurled her fingers, stretched her arms, and twisted. Reintroducing movement.

She managed to lose focus pretty quickly. She noticed that she had been conscious enough when they got back to change out of her gear and into a blue t-shirt and shorts, but had only remembered to take one of two socks off. She pulled off the remaining sock and tossed it over into the hamper, however it landed a little short and ended up on the floor by the laundry instead.

She stared at it for a minute. How could you betray me like this, left sock? Jacelynn thought to herself. I trusted you.

It took her a few minutes to remember what she was originally doing. The painkillers, she reminded herself, do it for the painkillers. Do it to get out of this fucking room.

That was motivation enough for her. She swiftly pushed herself up off the bed and took a step forward, confident in herself. That is, until the room started spinning around her. She careened off balance, stumbling, her foot hit something and she fell to the ground with a thud.

On the ground, the world around her decided to slow down and eventually halt. Her head took the opportunity to communicate that it did not like that one bit by the pounding growing more painful.

Great. Fucking great, she thought to herself, seething. Way to fucking go Jacelynn. Can't even walk one stupid step without fucking it up. Pathetic and weak and stupid.

The self-deprecating was cut short though by the sound of someone bounding down the hallway. She glamoured herself into the usual wavy brown haired, green eyed Jacelynn (that was so safe and so unlike the her her she wanted to yell in relief) just as the door to her room thrust open.

"What the-" Todd eyes flickered around the room before settling on her as they widened in surprise. "Jaelynn? You're awake?! … Why are you on the floor?"

"...There's more room." She sounded unconvincing even to her own ears. "How long was I out for?" She added on quickly, hoping he'd take the bait.

"Uh... I dunno. Little more then two days?"

"Two days?!" She shot up, her head thoroughly not appreciating it, "What do you mean two days?"

"That's how long you were sleepin' for. Not that hard to understand, dawg," Todd replied, and jumped to perch on the edge of her bed.

"Well...shit," she sighed, running a hand through unbrushed hair. "Did I miss much?"

"Slept through the last day of school. It was fine, nothin' happened that was super crazy. Then yesterday was just boring man. There was nothing on the TV, Jace! I watched every single Star Wars movie! In a row! I don't even like Star Wars all that much! But there was nothing! Else! On!"

She blinked. "That sucks?"

"I think you might'a had the most exciting day of all a' us." She panics for a second, ready to jump in and make him swear to never talk of it again but he's already following it up with, "And you were sleeping the whole day, man."

She exhales quietly, leaning back and releasing the tension she hadn't quite realized had injected itself into her muscles. "Ah."

Todd talked on, undeterred by her lackluster responses. "... And the guys weren't all that helpful with making things any less boring, you know? We all kinda did our own things. Kinda like what happened today, too. 'Cept this time everyone just scattered, ya feel? Like Pietro, he said he was going for a quick run but that was like… three hours ago, so I don't know where he is. Fred's is off getting groceries and he somehow got Lance out of the house but it's probably only because he's out of cigarettes. So it's kinda just us right now."

Jacelynn ignored the spike of both pain and her heartbeat at the words "I don't know where he is", a phrase she hated with a very deep passion. She decided against trying to decipher whether the spike was from genuine concern or the fact her mind can't separate him from the fiasco of earlier.

"What do you mean 'somehow'?" She questioned.

"He hasn't left since we got back. Been like pacing the hallway and smoking a whole lot and stuff.." Todd tilted his head to the side, as if only putting it together now. "I think he might be feeling guilty, yo.

Her eyes narrowed. "I would hope so. He brought part of a ceiling down on my head."

"It was on accident, though."

"And I have a concussion now. Accident or not, I'm gonna have a couple choice words for him, either way." She frowned.

Todd had a point but that didn't change her feelings on this. It was her fault she'd gotten into this situation, but she also felt like she deserved to be mad at him for having a hand. This was the worst her headspace had been in years, not including her shitty concussion. Her current outlet for all of these negatives inside her head was just yelling things she already knew about herself in her mind. She wasn't going to kid herself into thinking that directing some that anger onto Lance was going to solve everything, but damn was it going to feel good to get some of it out of her system.

"Let me know when that's gonna happen then, aight? I don't feel like going deaf at the start of summer."

She gave him a wry smile. "Will do."

"If you don't mind I'm kinda starving, so I'm gonna go outside and try to catch some lunch. You want some help getting off the floor?"

"No, no. I'm good." That might have come out a little too quickly to be convincing.

"Alright. You need me to grab you anything?"

Painkillers. Painkillers, painkillers, pain killers, a voice in her head chanted. Instead of giving in, she forced the smile to stay on her face. "No, I'm good thanks."

"Okay." With a half shrug he jumped from the bed to her door, but paused before he left. "Hey, Jacelynn?" He turned to her. "I'm glad you're okay."

She smiled and nodded. "Thanks," she said.

She hoped he would be right soon.

Sometimes Jacelynn wished she wasn't so stubborn. She had hoped in vain that perhaps she'd just get used to the constant aching in her head. It did not happen. A couple of hours later, she was ready to die.

Before she went the decidedly more dramatic route, however, she could at least try her other options. And since the wish and wait route hadn't worked, it was time to get those painkillers.

It was the evening by the time she succumbed. For a brief moment she considered waiting until it was much later to reduce the chances of running into anyone but she was thoroughly and completely done that it was either go and get them at that moment or toss herself out the window. And she didn't have the energy to get herself out her window.

So she made the perilous, and far too long journey from her room-where she had been holed up all day-to the bathroom, where in the cabinet there should be a sizable bottle of aspirin that Lance kept for his migraines.

The bathroom was far and away the cleanest room in the house, likely because Todd stayed out of it as much as humanly possible. Still, she couldn't help but note, it certainly would benefit from a dusting in some places. And a lesson on how to use cabinets, she added on as she saw the state of the sink counter, cluttered with just about everything one could think reasonably put in a bathroom cabinet.

But not, of course.

She shook her head. That was living with guys in a nutshell, she supposed.

And she was getting sidetracked again. Painkillers, she reminded herself.

So Jacelynn started combing through the assorted items on the counter, thinking that at the frequency of her teammate's migraines would mean they'd be somewhere easily accessible. But after rifling through the products on the counter (Jesus, Pietro had more hair products then she did. How many kinds of hair mousse did a guy really need?) but painkillers were, unfortunately, absent.

She frowned. That made things mildly more annoying. But she was stubborn and in a lot of pain, so she wasn't going to give up the fight that easily. So instead, she started rifling through the cupboards around the sink. After sifting for a while, she still came up empty handed.

For fucks sake, how hard should it be to find one bottle of pills?

She closed the cabinet door with a little more force than necessary, and immediately winced at the slam it made.

Today was not her day.

It had not been her day for a few days now, but her morale was certainly not lifting any higher as time progressed.

Internal lamenting of the poor hands life had been dealing her for the past little while aside, she surveyed the sink counter again, searching for the prized item once again.

She was so absorbed by her search, that she didn't notice anything else around her.

So when Fred paused by the open bathroom door to say "Hi, Jacelynn" she might have jumped and let out an uncharacteristic shriek. Though she would never admit it.

"Shit, Fred!" She half laughed, half sighed, a hand going over her chest. As her heart rate goes down she takes a glance at herself in the mirror, her inner alarm bells telling her to check for her glamour, which thankfully is in tact.

"Sorry, I didn't think I'd scare you."

"No, no you're alright. I just zoned out."

"Are you looking for stuff for-" Her eyes widened and she hastily cut him off.

"What has it been like? Did I miss anything super important?"

"What do you mean?"

"What's been going on? You know, in the world outside the boarding house."

"Why'd you wanna know?"

"I'm curious?"

"Well… okay. Um… It was kinda sunny yesterday, but it got cloudy really quick. And then clouds kinda went away earlier but now they are back so I think it's gonna rain."

She blinked slowly. "Freddie, why are you telling me about the weather?"

"You asked!"

It took her a second, but she pieced it together. "Oh, I meant more like 'did anything important happen'."

"Oh. I dunno."

A flash of annoyance crosses her mind, but she reminded herself both that he meant well and she had just grasped at straws to avoid the other line of conversation, she really shouldn't care.

"Nothing is good."

"Why?"

"I don't like missing the action," she shrugged, but the casual gesture looked a little more stiff then it had any right being."Have you been enjoying your summer?"

"Yeah. I got some new comics the other day, so that was nice. The cash guy said they were gonna get the new Superman comic in a few days so I have to go back soon."

She herself was not altogether familiar with superheroes (she got her fill of superpowers and high stakes missions from her own life) but she recognized the name. "That's the guy from the blown up planet right? With super-strength?"

"He has a lot more powers than that, though. Like laser-vision and super-hearing and flight. He's the most powerful hero." He paused thoughtfully. "But he got knocked out by this bigger alien guy, so I dunno if he's the strongest anymore. Oh yeah! That reminds me, I was gonna ask, were you looking for Lance's medicine? For your head."

Her eyes widen and she opens her mouth too deflect or deny or lie, but she couldn't think of any solid hook to grasp into to swing the conversation in any other way, mostly due to the scrambled, painful mess her head was in. Which in of itself made a very good case for swallowing her pride.

Her eyes went to the ground. If she looked up into the mirror she'd have seen the light blush spreading on her face. "Yeah. Yeah I am. You know where they are?"

"I think Lance has them in his room? Have you asked him?"

Jesus Christ, she was so fucking stupid. How had she not thought of that? "No, I have not, actually. Is he here?"

"Yeah, I think he's in his room still. We got back and Todd said you were up and he rushed upstairs. I thought he went to talk to you."

"I haven't heard from him at all." Which, now that she thought about it, was really kind of rude. He gave her a traumatic brain injury, by accident, yes, but blame could be traced right back to him. At the very least he could have popped in and asked how she was. Or maybe a "hey I'm super sorry I dropped a bunch of rocks on your head can you forgive me?" She'd even have settled for an "I'm sorry." But no, he decided to ghost her for the better part of the day.

Quiet anger started to simmer in her head. This might be the perfect moment for killing two birds with one stone. She took one breath, and kept her voice as even as possible. "He's probably in his room, then. I think I'm gonna go and have a few choice words with him. Thanks Freddie, I appreciate the help."

"Are you going to go yell at him?"

A flash of a smile of anticipation and the simmer of resentment. "Oh, I'm quite torn on that. I might chew him out, I might cut to the chase and roundhouse kick him out of the window and see how he likes being grievously injured. Who knows?"

"Have...fun?"

"Oh Freddie, you know I will."

But with her luck, of course nothing went how she pictured.

Because why would it? She was Jacelynn fucking Dionnis, having one mildly nice thing happen in her life was entirely out of the question.

The side of her fist hit the closed door a few times and managed not to flinch at the noise. After a minute the door swung open, and there stood the rock tumbler. A look of surprise on his face, which quickly shifted into a variety of emotions she couldn't read. Or cared too, all that much at the moment.

"Hey?"

"Hey. So I was wondering if you had some painkillers? You probably don't know this, but having a mound of rocks fall on your head hurts like hell." She folded her arms in front of her chest. "Which, while we're on the topic, let's talk about that." She raised an eyebrow, a cold look settling across her features.

She went to start talking while she had him there, beginning in a lecture with enough curse words and insults thrown in there to make one of the more uptight teachers at Bayville High faint, but she didn't get a chance to. Instead, with a speed she didn't know he previously had, Lance reached behind the door, tossed a bottle of Ibuprofen at her and shut the door, without so much as looking at her. In her ten seconds of stunned, shocked silence of staring at the door, she could hear the sound of the door being locked.

"Lance, what the fuck?" She spoke, raising her voice as loud as she dared. He did not just shut the door in her face. Not after the fiasco from the asteroid. Not when he owed her a pretty damn good apology for potentially giving her brain damage and ruining her perfect balancing act of keeping things in check and pretending she had control, sending her on the worst mental health spiral since after her parents had die-

Her heart had started to race to keep up with the pounding in her head and the absolute rage she was feeling seep into her bloodstream. But at that last thought everything ground to a halt in her head and she was able to bring her thoughts back down from the high of anger they were on.

Maybe she didn't want him to apologize for those specific things but she definitely wanted a heartfelt apology at the very least. She could be mad at him about the concussion part, if nothing else.

Part of her wanted to bang on the door, charmspeak him into opening it then chew him out, probably punching him in the face or something. But she was so very acutely aware now of just how tired she was, how much pain she was in, and how badly she needed these painkillers. She knew if she tried to pull all her concentration ito charmspeak she would lose her glamour and then probably pass out before she got a word in. Not the ideal scenario.

"Lance you're a lucky piece of shit. But you can't hide in there forever, and this is not over!" She called through the door, before walking to the bathroom to get some water to take with the pills to maybe finally get a good night's sleep.

Maybe the universe would let her have that. Just one solid chunk of time she wasn't in pain, or angry, or frustrated, or upset. That would be nice.

She trudged to the door, but her streak of bad luck wouldn't let its hold of her go that easily, because as she rounded the corner to the bathroom, the fourth roommate makes an appearance at the top of the stairs.

The two teens freeze mid movement, eyes locked on the other even if they'd both really rather being looking anywhere else. Jacelynn's head a slideshow of all things going on in her head that night, what he had seen. What do you say to someone after they accidentally witness you having an emotional breakdown because of stupid shit any normal person would be over?

"Hey, Jacelynn. You doing better?"

The words are out before she can focus on what she is saying, most of her mind caught up in reliving the moment in excruciating detail and trying to not have a breakdown. "Not really, thanks. Never been worse."

"Is it because of the-"

"Can you fuck off?" She snapped. Her hand gingerly cradles her head. God, it was killing her. It was all too much happening at once.

"Shit 'Lynn I-"

"Shut up! I don't want to talk-" I don't want to think about it, I don't want to be in this house anymore, I don't want to be injured, I don't want to go back down where I was, I don't want to be here. "Okay? Leave me the fuck alone! Don't talk to me! This isn't helping!" A surge of strength she hadn't realized she had left surged out of her and she launched herself into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

Her one reliable way of getting out of minefields like that. Get out. Don't think about it.

Her breath was caught in her throat until she heard him whoosh by when she finally let herself exhale.

Jacelynn's head was trying to bust it's way through her skull at this point, and her heart followed close behind. A few beats of silence in the darkened room allows the wash of something that tasted oddly like regret mixed in with the rancid emotion that always surged up whenever she had an episode like this.

It was all so fucking stupid.

She was so stupid. What was she thinking, saying all that? He hadn't done anything wrong but trigger-

Her self-berating got cut short by flashes from both disasters encounters.

At least she had painkillers. She wasn't going to sleep otherwise.

The following day was a real mixed bag for her. It was initially hard to fall asleep, but once she did she slept decently, and at this point she would take it. She got to have a muffin for breakfast. Nice. The pain in her head hadn't decreased as much as she was hoping it would've, if it had at all. Bad. She did, however, get enough energy to walk to Lance's room. Awesome. Except Lance himself was not there, or anywhere else in the house, and the two ended up playing one of the world's most unfair games of hide and seek for the rest of the day. Not great at all. That left her with just about nothing to do. Also not good. Without distractions, she kept drifting back to her explosion last night. Very bad. Whenever she did, she felt this sharp pain in her chest and something far too close to guilt for her taste. Horrible.

In the end, she resolved to bury it as best she could in the back of her head. So she went to sleep early with the hope that she would be able to tear Lance a new one tomorrow. A nice thought to drift off to.

She had never heard the house this quiet before. Someone was always walking around bumping into things, and sound carried incredibly easily in the house. If they weren't doing that, someone was watching or listening to something loudly, or someone had thrown something into the wall. Other times, it was a good old fashioned heated argument. And the majority of that annoyed Jacelynn to no end. But the sudden change to be able to hear a pin drop was kind of unsettling. She wasn't sure she was one hundred percent on board with it.

But it was very beneficial to her current head problem. And it was only to be expected, really. Lance was currently nowhere to be found, not to mention she was currently trying to forget Pietro existed. Which kind of sucked because he would be the absolute perfect person to bitch about her current situation to. That, and she kind of missed talking to him. But she couldn't even look at him right now, so that was a no-go. She banned Todd from being in the same room with her for more then five minutes, because while he was trying his best to be a good friend, he had a constant running dialogue with himself, and while she could do conversation, she could not handle that at the moment. The only person she had left was Fred, who was an absolute angel who brought her things when she needed, and could stay incredibly quiet when he wanted to.

She took the opportunity though, of utter dead silence, to do some reading. From her shelf of books she had plucked her well worn copy of Macbeth. It might not have been the best choice of all her books considering the drastic language differences, but she didn't really care. She had made the effort and was more concerned with having a nap.

Her eyes were sliding shut, her arm losing tension, the book sliding from her grip and onto the hardwood floor. Her normal glamour flickering as her focus slipped away.

The door to her room opened, hitting the wall as it swings, her name gotten out a breath before the sound hits.

The suddenness catches her off guard, she scrambles mentally to re-secure her glamour, flailing for a second in her mildly precarious position, and almost falling off the edge of her bed. Finding her balance she pushed herself into a sitting position, and looked to her roommate.

"Lance?" she questioned incredulously.

"Hey, uh, Jacelynn. I-look can I have two minutes to talk at you? Just... I owe you an explanation."

"You owe me a hell of a lot more than that," she scoffed, but she let him continue, sitting up and watching him cooly.

He took a breath. "Look, I'm really really sorry for what happened. For accidentally dropping a roof on your head, but mostly for being a dick these past few days." He scratched the back of his head. "I've never majorly fucked up and wanted to apologize genuinely so this all sort of new territory for me... So I sort of tried to put off apologizing until I figured out how to do it right, but I still don't really which is why this is all sort of a mess? Oh, also here." He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it at her. "A 'sorry' gift. Girls like chocolate right? It's a good 'I'm sorry' gift?"

She looked at the blue wrapper, the bold dark chocolate on the front and held back a sigh. In the back of her head a long winded rant-that had been simmering for what felt like the longest time-started to fade as her anger fell.

"If this is the first time you've apologized, I'm pretty sure that's why you've never had a girlfriend." A little half laugh. A beat of silence as she wrestled with lingering curdles of mixed emotions. "You want to sit down?"

"I dunno, are you going to fling me right back to the ground the second I do?" He looked at her, amusement evident, and a refreshing break from the pure sincerity

"Don't think I could right now, even if I wanted to." His hand tensed and she was about to backtrack to something not in the "too soon?" category, but he moves to sit next to her.

"It's nice to hear you joking. When this was playing out in my head I just assumed you'd cuss me out for ten minutes."

"Oh, believe me, I thought the very same thing." She shrugged. "If you want I can lay some of my best ones on you, to keep us with expectations."

'I'll have to pass, thanks."

"Suit yourself I guess." A half smile. "Um, thanks for the apology. And the chocolates. Mostly the apology. I was a little mad about the door thing."

He rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah. Not my best moment. I guess I was sort of wrapped up in figuring out everything else that I kind of went with the first idea to make the immediate problem go away. And then made things worse because of it. Lesson learned, I guess."

Damn. If that didn't hit home. Her thoughts drifted over to the conversation she had with Pietro the other night. Maybe Lance wasn't the only person who needed to give an apology.

Wherever this train of thought was going, it could wait. Self-reflection was both tedious and draining, something on a whole that could be dealt with another day. "It's alright. I can understand where you're coming from, trust me." And now for a much needed topic-change... "Anyway, have you been doing anything besides smoking recently?"

"That bad?"

"Certainly more noticeable then normal." The scent of cigarettes wafted across her nose even as she spoke.

"Not anything exciting. I mean, I went to the store with Fred and when I wasn't doing that I was stressing myself out."

"Tell me about the store, then." He shot her a weird look. "Listen, I've been cooped up in my room for forever and I am about to die of boredom. Tell me about the fucking grocery store."

And cooped up did she remain. The thought of going out into the bright glare of sunlight was enough to set her head pounding. After another few days it became easier to get around the house without the urge to faint looming as a constant possibility. Which was convenient, since she would have started getting up anyway she was so sick of her room.

That didn't come without drawbacks however, as it wasn't long before inevitably, she had to come face to face with the last roadblock.

On that specific day, she got in mind the idea to test her endurance. As currently it was a piece of shit, and she would rather pass out from dizziness or exhaustion then let it stay that way. However, it wasn't exactly like she could go and run a marathon, so she settled for the stairs.

She got to exactly nineteen and a half, which was the absolute worst place to stop in her mind. She had only meant to lean against the wall and take a short break.

Of course, an uncertain amount of time later, Jacelynn was sprawled out on the middle of the staircase with absolutely no intention of moving. If she continued to remind herself that she was going to get up and continue (at some unspecified point) then it was relaxing and almost guilt-free.

"Jacelynn?"

Well shit.

She turned her head to see a rather confused looking Pietro standing at the base of the stairs.

"...Hey."

"Why are you in the middle of the stairs?"

"Because why not?" She retorted dryly.

"Wow. I think that's the most you've said to me in days." She winced. While she hadn't exactly forgotten about it, she hadn't been thinking about it.

But taking a second on it, with a clear head… "Look, I'm uh, I'm sorry about that. Honest. I was not doing good, and I took it out on you, and I shouldn't have done it."

He just looks at her for a second, and she almost started to worry before he responds. "It's cool. I assumed. I didn't really care, you know? You can do what you want…" He fidgeted. "But uh, just to be clear, I didn't do anything wrong?"

"No. It was more of a wrong place at the wrong time sort of thing. Both times." She stressed.

"Okay. So we're cool now?"

"Yeah. I'd say I'll be less of a bitch now but I don't think that's possible for me."

He smirked. "The day that happens is when the end of the world starts."

"Fair enough," she laughed, before going quiet. "And um, I know I'm in no place to ask for anything but that first night, it didn't happen. Okay?" She would honestly rather die than even think about talking about it. This way, at least, she could dodge any questions about it for at least a little while.

"Uh yeah, sure. I do have one question for you though."

Fuck. "What?"

"Do you need help getting off the stairs?"

"N-" she paused and sighed, gaze going to the ceiling. "I wouldn't mind help standing up."

"Wow, I'm sorry. Can you say that again? I don't think I've ever heard you -"

"Pietro-"

He grinned. "Sorry 'Lynn."

She rolled her eyes. She had almost forgotten how annoying he could be.

She had kind of missed it.

Not that he was ever going to know that.

And that's a wrap on this chapter! It ended up longer than I had initially anticipated, I'll be honest. I've started on 12 - but I think I might go back and make some "quality of life" edits to old chapters from before I had anyone editing. I don't plan on anything major, but if I do a good bit of rewriting I'll pop in at the end of chapter 12 to give you a heads up. (On that same note - a huge thanks to Ken - my friend/editor/person who lets me vent about writing; you rock!) My goal is to get the next chapter out before the holidays, I have a spare period which I hope to take advantage with in regards to writing. But, I'm not the most consistent when it comes to updating so don't hold your breath, lol.

Hope you all enjoyed! If you decide to leave a review I'd really appreciate it - I respond to every one and they all mean a lot!

See you next time!