Chapter 2

She awoke to sunlight assaulting her eyeballs through a window. Her head pounded, her tongue felt like sandpaper, her muscles ached, and her hand stung like hell.

Oh my God. What did I do?

Humiliation and her hangover combined to make her feel even worse than she had before she got drunk. So this is where excessive imbibing gets you. Remind me to change my ways, immediately.

She peeled open first one eye, then the other, prepared to struggle out of bed and sneak down the hall for a mug of coffee and a piss before her parents realized how fucked she was. She jolted fully awake when she realized she had no idea where the fuck she was.

She was lying in a twin-sized bed under a navy duvet. The walls of the small room she was in were grey, and the sunlight that had offended her eyes streamed through a double window to the left of the bed. A row of DVDs lined the window sill; more DVDs were stacked on the tidy desk to her right where a computer screen bore a wallpaper depicting the Wertham Community Centre at sundown, the sky over the lake kissed pink with the setting sun. Four silhouettes were scattered along the path in front of the lake, and she realized with artful appreciation they were Nathan, Curtis, Kelly, and herself.

I'm in Simon's bedroom. What the hell?

She barely had time to wonder before Simon himself came through the door, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.

"You're awake." He stated. He set the coffee meant for her on the table next to the bed and sat in the desk chair, studying her.

"What the fuck happened last night?" she asked him as she slowly dragged her body into a sitting position, reaching gratefully for her coffee.

"You got sick. Then you fell and nearly cracked your skull on the railing outside the pub. I didn't know where else to take you, I mean, I have no idea where you live, so I brought you here. My parents are gone for the weekend." He explained, and she thought she might never have heard him say so much at one time.

Her eyes dropped to her coffee cup, and she realized with a start she was wearing an unfamiliar grey Tshirt, no bottoms, and suddenly she was beyond humiliated to have woken up hungover and half naked in Simon's bed. She looked up at him imploringly, cheeks burning. His eyes grew wide when he noticed her confusion, and then his cheeks turned the tomato-like color of humiliation that she herself felt.

"I-I'm sorry, you threw up a few more times as I was trying to get you back here – I was struggling to carry you without actually touching you – and I j-just couldn't let you sleep in your own sick. I washed your dress. And I swear, I didn't actually look at anything, I-I mean, I just … I was trying to help." He finished, brow furrowed like he was terrified she would be mad at him for saving her and taking her home and changing her and taking care of her.

His gaze found every possible spot to look at except her face. She leaned forward to put her hand on his knee, and he looked directly into her eyes when she said, "Thank you, Simon. I'm sorry I was such a fucking mess."

He shook his head. "You just had a few too many. Nothing we all haven't done." He reassured her.

She smiled ruefully, thinking, Of course, everyone mourns their dead lover by getting so uncontrollably pissed that their present counterpart must throw mind-controlled attackers across dance floors for them and then hold their hair back while they puke and cry and curse and nearly give themselves a concussion. That's normal for everyone. She hated herself so completely in that moment it made her shake, though it might have been the coffee or the weak, empty stomach or the worry in his eyes as he stared at her.

He switched his focus, leaning closer to her. "How's your head?" he asked. She grimaced and gingerly prodded the purpled bruise on her forehead. She winced and hissed as she hit a particularly tender spot.

"Fucking fabulous." She joked. He flashed her something between a smirk and a pitying frown.

"Would you –" he halted for a second, obviously unsure. She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled slightly.

"Would you like some pancakes?"

Alisha was suddenly hit with the absolute absurdity of her situation, this totally muddled clusterfuck she seemed to land herself in. She was out-of-her-mind, crazy in love with this strange boy who wore dress pants every day and carried his lunch in a tin Avengers lunchbox like his was still in primary school. In his mind, he was invisible to everyone he cared about, but he had no idea that ever since he traveled back in time and died for her, he was the only thing she could see.

But she knew, in spite of all of that, she had no idea who he was. Why he liked to videotape everything he saw. Why he loved comic books and movies so much. Why, in spite of everything terrible he had seen her do – all of the terrible things she'd done and said to him – he was still going to fall in love with her.

She remembered one of the last things Future Simon had said to her, on the worst day, when she sat with him gathered in her lap as he gasped his last few breaths.

"It's you falling in love with him. That's what makes him become me."

Well, she was already in love with him. Now she just needed to get to know him.

Totally fucking absurd, she concluded, and the thought made her giggle. Once that first tiny laugh escaped her lips, it felt so good. She hadn't laughed since the worst day, hadn't been able to feel anything besides hopelessness and misery and loneliness. She had finally been able to touch someone, to be touched by them, and his caress had been the gentlest and sweetest thing she had ever felt. Since that had been ripped away, she had felt … irreparable. But looking over at this just as sweet, though more nervous, version of Simon, currently shooting her a quizzical look as her giggles grew into outright, irrational cackling, she felt like maybe everything was not lost for her.

She saw flashes of the Simon who'd stolen her heart in this boy sitting across from her; before now, it had seemed impossible, but she was starting to realize they were, in fact, the same person. Her lover was not gone. She had just gotten a head start and fallen for him before she even learned who he was.

Now it was time for her to truly meet Simon Bellamy.

… who, she realized, stared at her like a terrified deer caught in car headlights as she laughed uncontrollably at him.

Oh God, what must he be thinking?

"W-what's so funny?" he finally asked, and she saw a flash of hurt in his eyes.

She shook her head, her sleep-wild curls bouncing around her pale, hungover, bruised face.

"I was just thinking there is nothing I'd love more than some pancakes."

So she made to get out of bed, but before she could throw the covers off, Simon's eyes grew huge again. He leapt up to open the drawer to a black, wooden bureau and withdrew a pair of black sweatpants. He held them out to her carefully, saying in a choked voice, "Here." As soon as she took them, he bolted out of the room. She smirked at this repentant show of protecting her modesty, and then promptly had to remind herself that this Simon had not seen her naked – yet. Though she did sort of feel bad for how embarrassed he was at having to undress her last night.

She promised herself she was not at all fighting the urge to rip of the clothes he'd dressed her in and throw herself on him. After all, that would not work out well for either of them, with her shit power. Right? Right. Still, there was temptation in the fact that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt it would work…

She put the sweatpants on and checked her reflection in a small mirror above the bureau. Once again, Alisha, you are at your shining best for the boy of your dreams, she thought ruefully.

She emerged from his room a few minutes later, with the sweatpants rolled up to her calves and the roomy shirt tied in a knot at her waist, showing just a hint of skin. Simon smiled from his place by the stove, spatula in hand, when he saw her.

"You're the only girl I know who could manage to look that nice with a hangover and massive egg on your head." He joked, but the way he said it made her glow.

"Well, your last impression of me did involve me passed out and covered in sick, yeah?" she said self-deprecatingly.

"Though still lovely." He promised, but he wasn't looking at her this time, eyes attentively focused on their cooking breakfast.

She was encouraged by his boldness, but she didn't want to scare him.

"Where did you sleep?" she instead wondered.

"Out here, on the sofa." He gestured to the living room with his spatula.

"Thank you for letting me kick you out of your own bed." She said sincerely. He only nodded.

He flipped a few of the pancakes on a plate for her and set it down on the kitchen island. She gladly pulled up a seat to dig in, while he stood across from her with a plate of his own, studying her.

They remained like that, her shoveling down pancakes and him chewing methodically as he considered something, for a few long moments.

Finally, he spoke.

"Last night, when I followed you outside the pub, you told me to stop being so nice to you. And you said you didn't want me to see you like that."

She swallowed, suddenly nervous. God, I hope I didn't say much more than that…

"I remember." She confirmed.

Shit, those goddamned blue eyes aren't looking away this time, and I could very well tell him everything right now if he doesn't stop fucking looking at me like that…

"Why?" he asked simply.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, releasing herself from the power of his stare, and shrugged one shoulder.

"When we first got community service," she began, "I was such a bitch to you. I mean, none of us were very nice to you, b-but I definitely tried to make you feel unwelcome. But you've been a good friend to us, Simon, and you didn't deserve that. You're not the freak you seem to think you are. I think you're … nice." Alisha, you're such an idiot. NICE? A nearly infinite number of words in the Queen's goddamned fucking English, and "nice" is honestly the BEST you can do?

But Simon didn't say a word; he just continued to look at her, and the unblinking way he did it made her feel like he could see all of the wells of misery and devotion for him she had locked away in her soul. So fucking poetic.

"I guess I want a chance to make it up to you." She added.

Simon shook his head. "No, Alisha, there's nothing to make up." He insisted.

She squared her shoulders and gazed directly at him, meeting his uncanny stare with her own.

"Then I want a chance to be your friend. For real." She said.

The grin that spread on his face made her heart squeeze in her chest, joy and sorrow in equal measure.