Days and days passed. No progress on Em's part, really, except for her body starting to heal. The emotional wounds were as fresh as ever, but Ben had been told not to expect much progress for awhile. After all... Seventeen years of that treatment? It was a miracle Em was still functioning.

If you could call her current state functioning. Em was in bed, her hair in two little braids on each side to keep it out of her face. Her cheeks were still sunken in and she was still covered in bruises, but her fingers were working nimbly right now. Ben had the brilliant idea to get her sets of those little pocket puzzles, the ones that you'd get for Christmas or Easter and then give up on after about five minutes of trying.

They'd given something for her to do. Given her brain something to focus on. When she wasn't sedated or eating the little food she did eat, she'd do those puzzles. Every day Ben would bring her a new one and help her glue the puzzle so that it would stay put together. His favorite so far was probably the tree made of little wooden curves she'd laced together. It looked impossible but somehow she'd managed it. Now as he sat working on his AP History homework he'd occasionally glance up at Em, who was now piecing together a winding snake.

He couldn't help but smile. At least she looked coherent again. She looked human. She still didn't look exactly like herself, but she was getting there. It was strange, seeing her without all the piercings and heavy makeup. She was strikingly intruiging before but seeing her all fresh faced made him realize she was actually very pretty. Em had a very feminine face when it came down to it. Her hair was a little curly, he could tell. It was like a whole different person.

"Finished another one," Em said softly, voice hardly audible unless you were actually listening for it. Ben looked up and smiled when she held the snake out towards him.

"Awesome," he said with a grin. "You want another one to work on or do you want to go to sleep?"

Em thought for a moment, and before she could stop herself the words were tumbling out. "I want a hug," she murmured.

Ben looked surprised. She'd been pretty jumpy and completely adverse to almost any kind of touching. Affection was something foreign to her. "...Are you sure?"

"I want to try."

He nodded and started to move towards her slowly. "Tell me if this isn't okay, tell me if you need me to stop."

Em took a deep breath and nodded, stretching out her arms to welcome his body against hers gently. Ben held the now-frail girl in his arms like she'd fall apart at any moment, and kept his arms loose so she could get away if she wanted to. "This okay?"

"...It's weird," she said with a raspy laugh. Ben rolled his eyes.

"A good kind of weird or a bad kind of weird?" he asked, keeping his voice gentle.

"...A good kind, I think."

Ben laughed and pulled her a little closer. Em started to squirm a little and he pulled back finally, his heart racing. Em's mind was reeling. Touching was bad. Touching was always bad but Ben had just held her close and hugged her and nothing bad happened.

...He wasn't going to hurt her.

In that moment, something clicked. Em looked up at Ben, looked up at that curly-haired, brown-eyed puppy dog of a boy and realized in that moment he was good. He was okay. He wasn't going to hurt her.

The last time she'd felt something like that... She couldn't remember the last time she felt something like that to be honest.

"You're not gonna hurt me," Em said, almost to herself.

Ben blinked and shook his head. "No, I'm not going to hurt you, Em. Promise. Cross my hair and hope to die. Or at the very least go comatose."

Em rolled her eyes. "Thanks," she mumbled. "Good, I don't want you to die. Can I sleep now?"

"I'll be here when you wake up."

"...Cross your heart and hope to go comatose?"

"Cross my heart and hope to go comatose," he said with a soft chuckle, switching off the lights.