This is the big one, guys! I've decided to split it into two parts. Sorry about the lack of update yesterday- I went to bed at 5 am and didn't wake up until 11:30 or so.

Chapter 5

Sweat

Just make me awake
Oh please, tell me
Why must we face these hard times?
Don't look away
Where is your heart, oh please
I've always heard you
Believe what she said today
Remember how to come from the rain

This feeling- sadness, longing, regret- it hurt, but it was familiar. When she felt like this, it was like he was still there- maybe a world away, but connected to her. And in that sense, she didn't miss him- Lao missed his family, and she was with him.

No, she decided. When she felt this way, this was the only time she wasn't lonely.

("Don't you feel anything!?" Lin screamed. She had tears in her eyes, on her flushed cheeks.

"No."

"He was your friend too! How could you say that?"

"I… just don't feel anything." Cross closed her eyes. "It's like he never existed."

"But he did exist!" Lin slammed Cross against the wall. "Even if you don't care, you could have shown up for Doug and me! You could have done it for him, you… monster!"

"That's enough, Lin!" Elma shouted. Lin snapped her head around- Elma almost never raised her voice. Elma placed her hand on Lin's shoulder, and Lin dropped her arm. Cross took that as her cue to leave, but before she left the barracks, she heard;

"How can she not…"

"Because funerals are to say good-bye, Lin, and she isn't ready for that.")

Cross felt the wind pick up, blowing her hair into her eyes. Her skin prickled, and she shivered. The memory had made her blush- with anger or embarrassment, she couldn't tell. The night air felt good.

She brushed her hair out of her face, and her hand came away wet. She blinked, but saw the dark spots on her jacket- it had started to rain, and she hadn't even noticed. She felt a pang in her chest- Lin had cried for Lao many times- more than she could count. She'd apologised for being "Such a crybaby" one time, and L had told her that he'd read a human saying; "The more tears we shed, the more blessings they receive in the hereafter." It had made Lin feel better, but…

Cross hadn't cried for him. Not once. No matter how painful her feelings were, it just reminded her of him, and she ended up smiling. Lin had said that not many people had shown up for the funeral, but "There wasn't a dry eye in the house."

Maybe he'd been right, that time. Maybe she didn't have a soul.

The park was deserted, and even the dog had decided that staying dry was preferable to being petted. She was alone. She leaned back and sat on the cool, damp ground. The mud seeped between her toes and soaked through her skirt. She placed her hands on her knees and rubbed circles on her skin with her thumbs. Lao had had an old knee injury back on Earth, and the habit of massaging his legs was one he'd never dropped. (Charmaine had massaged his legs too, on bad days, but he'd never told her that part. That part had come unbidden, and it was more than she was supposed to know.)

(She ran her hands over her legs, oil cold on her skin. The ache in her knee was ebbing, being replaced by a throbbing elsewhere. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, tickling her bare thigh-)

Cross whimpered. Why couldn't she just forget? Charmaine had died years before Cross' first memory, but by heart she knew her round face, the smell of her skin, the way her tongue ran over her teeth, the softness of her stomach, the taste-

No! To remember that- it was an insult. Charmaine's ghost haunted her, though not in the same way she'd haunted Lao. To think she'd once embraced that violation;

("If you want to keep each other out, first you have to let each other in." Neither of them had been happy about that.

"I'm not inviting someone to poke around in my head," said Lao. Cross nodded in support- her promise was a secret, among other things.

"Fine then, you can enjoy hearing every random thought that goes though Cross's head until we find the lifehold. She'll get to hear yours too, so have fun having no secrets… ever."

Lao felt alarmed at that, and Irina smiled. "How am I supposed to keep secrets if I let her into my head?"

"You don't have to let her see everything. Look, there's layers to your mind- the surface thoughts; "I want ice cream, I need a bath," the consciousness, which is what we use to talk, and the subconscious; our past memories, our deepest desires, etc. You can think of these as rooms. The trick is to shove the things you don't want to share into a box, and put the box in your "subconscious room."

"Your "surface room" is connected to her's right now- like an open archway. You can't move the rooms apart, but you can build a door. The trick is, one of you has lumber in your "consciousness room," and the other has the tools, but they're too heavy to move on your own. So you let each other in your "consciousness room," and then you can block each other out. Understand?"

"I think so," said Cross. Lao was less confidant, but nodded anyway. Cross closed her eyes, and visualized the rooms… but nothing happened. Cross felt a wave of frustration.

"It's not working."

Irina sighed. "Okay, let's try this. Take each other's hand."

"What?" Asked Lao.

Irina sighed. "Just do it."

"Why?" How could that possibly help?"

"Cross?" Irina growled.

Cross nervously reached out and took his hand. She felt him tense.

"Think about how that feels. You don't have to say anything, just think about it."

Big. Heavy. The skin on the back of his hand was smooth. He moved his hand into a more comfortable position- less heavy now. The muscles were taut- the metal bones were prominent. His fingertips weren't smooth- they were rough, calloused.

"Now, how do they feel about your hand?"

It was small, fragile- but her fingers were long. Her skin was very warm, a little slick. The warmth was nice. The way she was rubbing his knuckles with her thumb felt nice, too.

"Now try visualising the rooms again."

Cross opened her eyes. The room was plain- the beige wallpaper was peeling, leaving tiny freckles of faded, pastel paint. The off-white ceiling had water stains in the corners, the carpet was crushed nearly flat. It smelled of food- grease and alcohol and smoked meat and pepper. On one wall was a dented steel door, on the opposite side a wooden archway. Cross walked to the hole and looked through;

Deep maroon wallpaper and carved wooden paneling covered the walls- the door opposite her matched. It was deep and rich, and the light fixtures looked like candles. The carpet was swirls of off-white and dark grey, and felt like walking on a pillow. The only part of the room that didn't match was the ceiling- it was covered in paper and thumbtacks, colorful splashes and lines that made no sense. It smelled of what was almost flowers, but there was a harshness- a chemical edge that was unpleasant.

"Air freshener."

Cross jumped. She'd forgotten she wasn't alone.

Lao was looking at the ceiling wistfully. "You've never smelled it before, have you? Back on Earth, people made their houses smell like this so they couldn't smell the outside. What I'd give to smell the Earth one more time…"

"Where are we?"

"Charmaine's- no, my bedroom." He sighed. "Her family wasn't wealthy by Earth standards, but she had more money when I married her than I made in my entire life. I don't think I ever got used to this room- I was always afraid of staining the carpet." He opened his eyes. "Where's yours?"

"I don't know." She felt embarrassed. "It looks dirty."

"It looks lived in." He stood at the entrance. "It smells like bacon. I like it."

"That's good enough."

Cross opened her eyes. She was in front of the water purification plant. She was holding Lao's hand. Irina was smiling. "Tonight, practice getting into that room without my help. Maybe try going into your second room if you feel up to it, but don't go in each other's yet. What you just did was the same thing you've been doing on accident- going into someone else's consciousness is a whole other ball game."

Lao nodded. "See you tomorrow, then."

Next time: Part 2, or "Virgins writing sex scenes? What could possibly go wrong?"

"Your life started on that night in Starfall Basin, and you, as a person, are who you are because of your experiences these past two months. If you remember who you used to be, you won't be the same."