Jem sat waiting for Zero as she did everyday, except today she did not look for him, nor did she consume herself in a book. She simply stared at the ground, not sure if she was still allowed to wait for him.

When he saw her there, a little frustration returned. He wasn't so much mad at her anymore as he didn't know what to do with her. It was also partially due to a little disappointed in himself for the way he acted last night. When he was within ten feet of her he stopped, putting his hands in his pockets, and sighed.

She heard him and looked up. Upon seeing him, she hastily stood up, "Zero," she said before she bowed her head. "I'm so sorry for everything I did-"

"Stop," he said, "you don't have to do this."

"No," she exclaimed, "I want you to hear this. No one has ever encouraged me to be who I am before. I thought something was wrong with me, so I began to identify with the person closest to me, the only one to show me kindness, but it never felt right. I'm sorry I didn't realize you cared about me. I've been hating myself ever since last night. It made me realize just how much your opinion matters to me. I think-" She looked up. "I think you must be my friend, because I care a lot about you, too." She hesitated for a moment, giving him a moment to say something. Zero did not know how to respond, but he did realize that what she had just said meant a lot to him. She continued in his silence, "I promise I won't touch any of that again... I can't stand you being disappointed in me."

He avoided having to say anything. Instead, he told her, "I didn't know it was your birthday yesterday, but I happened to have gotten you something."

She wasn't expecting to hear this. She was expecting to angrily be told off. "Wait, does this mean we're ok?" she asked.

"Yeah," Zero sighed. "We're ok."

She was more than relieved. She couldn't help but go to him and hug him, almost wanting to cry. She was happy, but with a melancholy overtone from the emotional exhaustion of the whole thing. "Thank you," she whispered.

Zero was taken aback by this, but after a moment, literally embraced it, putting his arms around her shoulders. Then he said, "Ok, I left it in in my room."

She pulled back and turned to get her things without looking up at him, hoping he didn't notice as she wiped away her couple tears.

As they walked along, Zero asked, "What did your brother mean last night when he called me Orion?"

Jem sighed as she walked along next to him at the mention of her brother's antic. "Jude likes to think of us as the twin gods Apollo and Artemis. He actually encompasses Apollo pretty well. He is a total womanizer, extremely talented musically, and is pretty much the sun himself. He likes to think of me as Artemis, especially for her untouched quality. Though I don't totally encompass her, I can identify with her in a few ways. I would like to think of myself as my own woman, and have a relationship with the moon and find myself rejuvenated in the depths of nature, but aside from that I'm a pretty lousy Artemis."

"So, what does that have to do with my question?" Zero asked.

"Oh, right, sorry I totally forgot I was answering that. Orion was the best friend and favorite of Artemis," Jem answered. "He called you that because he thought you were acting as though you were more entitled to me than he was."

"So why did you say it made you uncomfortable, then?" he asked.

She looked at him, not knowing why he didn't already know all this. "Because Apollo kills Orion out of jealousy," she replied. "Or worse yet," she turned to look ahead where they were going, "Artemis kills him, mistakenly, but still."

"I thought the scorpion killed Orion," Zero said, revealing the little he knew about it.

"Yes, that was sent after him by Apollo," she answered as they reached Zero's room. He gave no response as he went to his desk, moving on to give her the present.

But before he did, he remembered something. "Oh, before I forget, this came in the mail for you yesterday," he said, turning back to her as she set her things on his bed. He took an envelope out of his jacket and handed it to her. She looked at it briefly before he started talking again.

"I picked this up for you," he said. She looked up as he handed it to her. "They didn't have a copy in the library, but I thought it was something you would really enjoy."

Jem took Dante's The Divine Comedy in her grasp and looked it over, turning it in her hands to examine as she did every book he handed her. "Thank you, I look forward to reading it," she commented. "These books really have helped with, you know, the withdrawals."

"Yeah, well, I'm off," Zero responded briefly before he stepped past her to go on patrol.