Sorry, no Halloween Town story this time! Besides, I asked Jack what was happening but he was too busy trying to get his holiday ready. So there you go, real busy time there. You should know, you're reading it.

Kemina woke up suddenly, smacking her head on the low lamp above her bed and swore foully. A book was laid across her chest, and the lamp was still on. She opened her eyes and tried to find what had woken her up. It didn't take long.

He was screaming. Phrixos, on the other side of the room, still half-asleep, but was screaming his head off. Kim jumped out of bed and ran over, not bothering to cover her modesty, wearing nothing but her vest and flimsy underwear.

"Phrixos, Phrixos, wake up!"

He didn't stop at first, but soon the scream died away into whimper. Still with his eyes closed tightly, Phrixos felt her arms around him, hugging him tight. It helped.

"You okay?" he heard, the sound was rather quiet after the harsh noise he'd been making. Of all the stupid questions.

"K…Kim?"

She smiled and nodded, loosening her hug just a little. He was sweating, cold sweat, and clutching the back of his arms firmly. His pale green eyes were fixed on her face, expressionless. After a while, his grip slackened too, and he drew a shaky breath.

"Oh jeez, I'm…"

Phrixos didn't finish before they heard a loud knock on the door. Looking up, Kim realised that the scream had woken everyone up. Crap.

"Kemina! Are you in there? Open the door please!" came a voice, male and familiar.

She walked over and unlocked the door, opening it a touch. Several people were outside, including the voice's owner, Mr Balden, a maths teacher. Presumably, he was in the corridor when Phrixos woke up.

"M'kay." She mumbled, opening the door fully. She glanced over at Phrixos, who had jumped up and sat on the end of the bed. He watched Mr Balden with an expression of nervousness, who said

"What happened?"

He wasn't going to answer, looking over at the door. There must have been 10 kids there, having a good nosy around. So Kim answered for him.

"Nightmare, I think." She said, looking down at her feet. Of all times, the prudence now seemed to come into play. Mr Balden shooed off the remaining students and walked in, offering the bed to Kemina whilst eyeing the boy carefully. The mattress springs creaked loudly as she flopped back onto Phrixos' bed.

"A nightmare? I don't know about you, but I heard that noise from the teachers' lounge. What's up, Jack?" answered the teacher, turning back to Phrixos.

Staying silent, that was one of his newly found tricks. Better to keep you mouth shut than speak and worsen the situation.

Mr Balden straightened up and looked at them both, Phrixos, rigid and white as ivory, and Kim, her red hair a complete mess, complete with entangled pair of glasses.

He frowned and sighed in what seemed to be defeat, but said

"Look, I'm not going to force you, but I'd like you to come with me and see . You know, to be on the safe side." was the school's nurse; she was nice and spoke in a soft tone without rushing anything. He shrugged as if it was no big deal going, but Kim saw Phrixos gulp. Obviously he'd had a bad experience with nurses. Or maybe hospitals in general.

Ten minutes later, they were dressed again, sitting in the nurse's office. The painted blue walls were rather unfamiliar to Kim, who, hating sport and physical activities, almost never got an injury of any sort. The last time she'd been was last year, when she'd been forced to play football and promptly kicked the ball off a wall and into her own head. The sport teacher was worried for her but amazed at the force Kim had kicked the ball.

Phrixos, meanwhile, was sitting cross-legged on the examining bed, staring into space. She had been watching him for sometime and counted the seconds between every time he blinked, which didn't seem to be very often. The blue jumper he was wearing was too big and slipped off one shoulder, which he didn't bother to put back. She was going to say something to calm him down when from another room, appeared. It seemed that she'd been woken up too, and hovered uncertainly in one corner.

"Now, what's happened here?" she spoke in a flustered but soft voice, Kim had always liked the school nurse and now was no exception. But Phrixos was a completely different kettle of fish.

"You could have at least protested. Some kind of friend." He murmured, the comment aimed at Kim, who was just getting under the sheets again.

He was talking about his trip to the nurse's office. Over the last hour, he had been prodded and poked, his temperature taken and his blood sugar levels checked. But fortunately for him, they found nothing odd, if they had it would've meant another hour or even another day there.

Kim wasn't ready for a remark like this and she stopped pulling up her soft duvet to blink at him. Phrixos hadn't spoken since his half-apology before the knock on the door. Silent as the grave, pale as death, those were only a few of the morbid expressions that sprang to mind.

"What?"

"You heard." He spat. "After what I showed you, I guessed you'd take a hint that I hate nurses."

This left her stumped. What he'd shown her?

"Showed me what?"

He fixed his dark green gaze on her coolly. His irises swirled like thunderclouds in the lamp light and his skin was a contrast of ebony and ivory from the shadow. In one quick movement, he thrust out his arms and Kim got it. His scars. But pressing for a little more information couldn't hurt could it?

"What's that got to do with the nurse?" Being polite, she avoided looking at his scars again.

A pause. "That was the last time I'd been to a hospital. Bad experience."

Kim thought about leaving it there, but he continued without prompt.

"You did guess how I got them, didn't you?"

"I…I had a hunch." Another silence. "Am I right?"

He didn't answer this time, but looked away with a steely expression.

Kim got up and sat down next to the boy, who still didn't look at her. The only sound was the buzz of heating systems above their heads.

Softly, ever so softly that he almost didn't hear her, Kim said,

"You did them, didn't you?"

Despite his silence and his calm exteirior, Kim knew the answer. She thought about it, about how he acted like a normal 17 year-old. And then about how his mood could change at the blink of an eye, which creeped her out. It was obvious.

Phrixos finally raised his eyes to her face, but she would have preferred if he hadn't had. In those clear green glass eyes, there was turmoil of emotion, misery, anger, regret. This only lasted a few seconds, before they filled with tears, silently.

"Phrix…" she touched his shoulder gently, and he sobbed, tears splashing down his front and cheeks. He flung himself against Kim, who wrapped her arms around him like a protective mother. The sound of him crying echoed through the normally echoless room, maybe it just did that in her head.

"Ki-Kim…I can't…I'm s-sorry…" Phrixos sobbed, teeth gritted, tears still flowing freely.

"Phrix…its okay, its okay-…"

"No, it isn't!" he shouted suddenly, still crying. He broke loose from her hug and treated her to a hard stare, his fists clenched and his jaw set. His eyes shone like green fire, dark and vibrant at the same time.

But, as quickly as he'd tugged away, Phrixos weakened again. This time, his crying was silent, but it was nonetheless heartbreaking for Kim.

After a while –or maybe hours- , Phrixos woke up somewhere dark and unfamiliar. Bolting upright, he opened his eyes wide, searching for a hint to where he was. Pale walls, white tiled floors, but apart from that, there wasn't enough light to distinguish anything else. When his brain processed this information, he let out a groan and let his head fall back again.

White. He was back in the asylum. But still...

He smiled weakly, feeling a rush of heat cover him completely in the white room, counteracting the coldness on his bare legs and his sweat-moistened hair.

What a great dream.

Feeling with his unusually freed hands, he found something beside the bed where he was laid. A jumper. He clutched at it, and was surprised when it yelped.

"What-…?" came a voice, the jumper's. "Phrixos?"

Kemina. It all came back in a flash.

He'd been taken back to the nurse's office, where Kim had offered to stay the night with him, despite 's doubts.

"You 'kay?" she asked sheepishly, yawning loudly. He nodded and plucked at the lining of his jumper, already fully awake and alert. So much for a dream.

"What time is it?" he asked after a moment of silence.

Kim pressed the light button on her watch, illuminating her face with an eerie blue glow.

"Almost quarter to 4. Jeez, you don't sleep long." She added, smiling. "You were nodding off when we came here but still protesting that nothing was wrong."

"Nothing is wrong." He said stubbornly, ignoring the fact that he'd screamed that it wasn't okay when she'd said so. Kim did too, deciding to keep her big mouth shut for once.

"You…you think I'm crazy don't you?" Phrixos asked, almost whispering. He'd gone back into emotional Phrixos mode, she thought to herself.

"A little. But don't take that as a bad thing, Phrix." She added quickly when he sighed. "Maybe being a bit mad is all it takes to be really cool."

He didn't say anything for a few minutes, thinking that phrase over. "You think I'm cool?"

Kim laughed, she couldn't help it; Phrixos got to her like that.

"Yeah, yeah, you're cool."