Jazmine quickly discovered that going to visit Chuck was a surefire way to get Raleigh to leave her alone for however long she was down there, so she made it a daily habit.

"You're getting to be just as annoying as he is, you know," Chuck told her one day as she bounced in.

"Shut it, I know you love seeing my smiling face," she shot back, presenting him with a bag of jellybeans and some magazines. "Mako sent these." The look that crossed his face for just a split second gave her pause, and a flicker of understanding. "You've got a thing for her, don't you."

"I certainly do not," he grumbled, practically flinging the gifts at his nightstand. "And I'm not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed today, so let's skip that, yeah?"

"Wow you're grumpy. I figured you'd be happy to be out of traction," Jazmine said, nodding at his leg, which was encased in a cast but no longer suspended. "How much longer are you gonna be stuck in that bed?"

"I don't know, and I don't care." He glared at her. It looked more like a pout. "And I don't care that I don't care."

"Fine, dude. You are clearly not in a good place right now, so I'm out of here. Let me know when you're ready to accept that fact that you, y'know, survived a nuclear explosion mostly intact." Jazmine huffed towards the door. "Enjoy your fucking jellybeans."

"Wait." She spun to glare back at him. He seemed to be chewing on the inside of his cheek. "I don't like the green ones."

"I don't like them either." Jazmine crossed her arms. "Or the pink ones. So?"

"What do you bet I could toss more green jellybeans in that cup," he said, pointing at an empty cup on the table by the door, "than you could with pink ones?"

"I bet I could sink more than you," she said.

He perked up, grabbing the bag of candy off his nightstand. "Okay then. If I win, you record yourself telling Raleigh I'm better at everything than he is."

"And if I win," she replied, sitting next to him, "I get to take you around the Shatterdome as soon as you're allowed to get around."

Chuck mulled that over for a moment. "You're on."

Jazmine counted out equal piles of green and pink jellybeans, and took turns shooting while munching on the rest. "You're not bad," she said as he sunk his third in a row.

"I've had a lot of practice," he said, popping a few more into his mouth and talking around them. "I did this every time I got my hands on some. Drove my old man crazy, he thought it was wasteful."

"I know I'm not supposed to be psychoanalyzing you right now, but why won't you let him come visit?" His chewing slowed, but Jazmine kept going. "Seriously, I've met your dad, he's a good guy. He's worried about you."

"Oh, I know he's a good guy. Been in his head, remember?" Chuck sunk another one. "I just don't like having him see me like this."

Jazmine matched his shot. "He thinks you hate him."

"Of course he does. He likes to take responsibility for everything, whether it's his fault or not." A green jellybean bounced off the lip of the cup. "Shit!"

"Oooh, and Becket takes the lead!" Jazmine did a little victory dance in her chair, making Chuck laugh. "Sorry. I'm competitive."

"Hope you're not a sore loser." Chuck popped a few more pieces of candy into his mouth. "He thinks I hate him, does he?"

She shrugged. "He didn't say that, but it's pretty obvious. He's started grilling me about you every time he sees me. He just wants to know about you."

Chuck didn't respond, just lined up another shot - and pegged Raleigh directly in the forehead when he stepped in front of the intended target. Jazmine clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing as her brother gave a sigh of resignation.

"Well, that couldn't have worked out any better if I'd planned it," Chuck smiled. "I'd move if I were you, Jazmine might hit you in the eye next."

"I need to talk to Jazmine for a minute, and then you guys can get back to…" Raleigh turned to look at the cup, then back at Chuck. "…whatever it is you're doing."

Jazmine grabbed the pile of green jellybeans from in front of Chuck. "Just to make sure you don't cheat while I'm gone."

"How'm I going to cheat? I can't even get out of bed!" He threw his hands up. "Fine, but I get a makeup shot for the one your brother blocked!" he called after her

Raleigh led her out into the hallway. "He seems happier."

"I don't ask him if he's ready to be famous every five minutes," Jazmine retorted.

"Touche." Raleigh studied her for a moment. "I have to do some traveling. Visit a couple of countries, do the whole rah-rah let's rebuild thing."

"That should be fun. Wait…" Jazmine narrowed her eyes. "I don't have to come with you, do I?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. You've been doing well, keeping out of trouble…" She rolled her eyes. "Hear me out. I know you're just starting to get comfortable here, and I really want to believe that you'll be fine while I'm gone, but I also don't want you sitting around with a lot of time on your hands because we both know you're way too smart for that. So I got you a job."

"What kind of job?" Her eyes were narrowed so far she almost couldn't see.

"Here. In sick bay. It's not glamorous, just orderly type stuff, but they could really use the help. Here's your schedule," he said, handing her a piece of paper. "You can start tomorrow. If that's okay."

"Orderly type stuff." She looked at the paper, then back up at Raleigh. "You got me a job cleaning out bedpans?"

"That's not all it is. Helping out the nurses, taking food to people, just talking to them when they need it…I think you'd be good at it."

Jazmine turned the thought over in her head for a minute before she responded. "Okay. Sounds good."

"Great! Thank you," Raleigh said, and pulled her into a hug, and for some reason Jazmine felt a surge of comfort at the fact that she'd just made her brother happy. "I'll see you for dinner, okay?"

"Yeah, sure." She watched him disappear down the hall before going back into Chuck's room.

"So what was that all about?" he asked as she sat back down, plunking the pile of candy back in front of him.

"I'll tell you when I'm finished kicking your ass," she replied, and they shot jellybeans in silence until their piles were gone.

"I'll count," he insisted, and sorted the colors, then counted them twice. "That's twelve for me, and…thirteen for you. Congrats. I guess you get to be my tour guide in a few weeks."

"Never bet against a Becket," she told him as she swept the unwanted candy into her hand and dumped it in the trash.

"So what'd your brother want? Did you piss him off? 'Cause that's great if you did."

"No, the opposite of that, actually." Jazmine grinned. "I have a job."

Raleigh and Mako met her in the mess hall for dinner, to Jazmine's mild disappointment. It wasn't that she didn't like Mako; she was kind and smart, and obviously not a pushover if she could deal with Raleigh - all qualities that Jazmine appreciated. The problem was that she and Raleigh had the same weird, nonverbal psychic deal that he'd had with Yancy, which meant that when the three of them were together Jazmine always felt like she wasn't part of the conversation. Even worse, sometimes she felt like she was the topic of conversation and just didn't know it.

"Raleigh told me you're going to be working in the medical facility," Mako said. "That is exciting news!"

"Yeah, it'll be nice to do my own thing, for a while," Jazmine responded, after an awkward silence. "I almost feel like a responsible adult. Plus, it's something I'm kind of interested in, so that's…good. You know."

"Jaz wanted to be a doctor when she was little," Raleigh told Mako. "Anytime Yancy and I had to watch her we'd end up covered in bandaids with thermometers in our mouths."

Mako chuckled, then her and Raleigh's eyes met and they went silent again. Jazmine stared at her food. "So when do you guys have to leave?" she finally piped up.

Raleigh cleared his throat, realizing he'd just left her out again. "In two days, we'll be in Sydney for a week and then Manila-" he was interrupted by Marshal Hansen's abrupt arrival at their table.

"Ms. Becket - Jazmine," the older man addressed her, then shocked all of them by bending over awkwardly to hug her. She stiffened at the unexpected embrace, mashed potatoes still falling off her fork onto the tray, but tried her best to relax, then settled for patting the Marshal on his elbow in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. Mako and Raleigh locked eyes again, but Jazmine was pretty sure she knew what they were thinking this time.

He stood suddenly, seeming to just realize how bizarre everyone else was finding his actions, and Jazmine thought his eyes looked a little red. "You're a wonderful young woman. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." Turning to her dinner companions, he nodded at them, then left as quickly as he'd come.

Jazmine blinked at her brother and Mako in shock. "I don't…know what that was about?"

"Chuck asked to see him today, for the first time in weeks," Mako explained. "I suppose the Marshal feels you are a good influence on him."

"Me, a good influence?" She laughed. "There's a first time for everything, I guess."

Raleigh had been right - once she finally got the hang of where and who everyone was, Jazmine really started to enjoy having something meaningful to do with her time. She quickly established herself as the go-to person when a patient was refusing to do something. "Jazmine can talk anyone into anything," the staff told each other.

"It's like black magic," Chuck told her when she stopped by on one of her breaks. "I suppose your brothers got the brawn and you got all the charm."

"I don't come by it honestly," she admitted. "I spent a lot of years figuring out how to make people do what I wanted them to do."

"Well, you better not try it on me," he teased her.

"Impossible! Chuck Hansen doesn't listen to anyone," she said on her way out of his room.

"Hey! I know what you're doing and it's not going to work!" he called after her.

The day finally came when Chuck was ready to leave his room, and when Jazmine arrived, he was already dressed and in a wheelchair, injured leg sticking out in front of him like a battering ram.

"Wow, Hansen, you clean up nice! You shaved and everything?" Chuck shrugged, but looked pleased. "It's too bad Max and your dad aren't back yet, they'd be excited to see you're up."

"I'm kind of glad they're still gone, actually," he said. "It was nice having the time to myself. Going to be harder to avoid everyone without a bunch of nurses guarding my door. Do miss my dog, though."

"You can't hide from the world forever." Chuck set his jaw, and Jazmine took the hint. "Fine. I'll spare you the lecture. Let's go check out your room first." She wheeled him slowly towards the door, trying not to run his leg into anything. "Sooo…they actually put you in a room right next to mine. I promise I had nothing to do with that."

"No, I did, sort of," he confessed. "I know my dad was pretty keen on me staying with him like we used to, but I…didn't want to. I didn't know they were gonna put me by you, though." He tilted his head back to see her face, and pointed at her. "I've got my eye on you, Becket."

"Join the club." They made their way out of sick bay and towards the barracks. Jazmine was used to walking through the halls without anyone taking notice of her, but she realized that people were looking at them as they passed, whispering to each other, not always quietly. That's Chuck Hansen.

Chuck noticed it too, and Jazmine felt him go quieter and quieter, slumping as much as he could into his wheelchair like he was trying to hide inside of it. "Is there anyone you want to go see? Tendo is around, and some of the ops guys were asking about you-"

"Just take me to my room," he muttered, and spent the rest of the trip in silence.

Jazmine wheeled him into his room, up the ramp that had been installed specifically for him, and parked the wheelchair in the narrow space next to his bed. Someone had brought his things from his father's room, and Jazmine had taped up a few of the pictures she'd found on the walls, and put his bomber jacket over the back of a chair. Herc had stitched two more patches onto it, to mark his last two kills. Chuck stared at it, stared at the pictures, stared at everything but her.

"Who put those up?" he asked, pointing at the pictures.

"I did," she answered, and he shook his head, gritting his teeth.

"I don't want them. Take them down." Jazmine furrowed her eyebrows at him, and he glared back. "I said take them down."

She reached up to pull them down - a picture of Chuck and Herc together, one of a family with a much younger Herc, a smiling toddler, and a beautiful blonde woman, a picture of Striker Eureka with a crew huddled at the bottom. As she reached for a picture of Chuck and Max, he stopped her. "Leave that one." He took the pictures from her hand and grabbed an empty box within arm's reach, dropping the pictures in, then plucking his jacket from the nearby chair and dumping it on top. "Here." He practically threw the box at her.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Jazmine challenged him, knowing full well but demanding he explain himself.

"Get rid of it. Burn it. I don't care." He went back to staring at the picture of him and Max. "I'm going to rest."

"Do you need help getting out of your chair?"

"I don't need any help!" he raged at her, then went quiet again. "Just get out. And take that with you."

"No." She threw the box back in his lap, not caring if she hurt his leg. "Get rid of it yourself. I'll be back when it's lunchtime. Maybe try to get over yourself while I'm gone."

Chuck looked like he was trying to think of something to say, but Jazmine walked out and shut the door behind her before he had the chance. Her hands shook as she let herself back into her room. She willed them to stop as she got dressed for her shift.

She knocked on his door a few minutes after 1, half hoping he wouldn't answer. "Come in," he called from inside.

Chuck was in his wheelchair, and Jazmine wondered if he'd moved at all while she was gone. The box of his things was on the floor on its side. "I wasn't sure if you wanted me to bring you food, or if you wanted to try going to the mess hall."

"I'll eat in here today." When she turned to leave, he reached out and caught her by the wrist. "Jazmine…I'm sorry. That I yelled at you."

She froze, staring at his hand on her arm, surprised by the apology. "Thanks. I guess." He dropped her wrist and she turned to face him. "Look, I know you have lots of reasons to be angry at everything, but you're the closest thing to a friend that I have right now." She let that sink in for a moment, watching his expression get even guiltier. "I'll be back with your lunch in a few."

They'd finished most of their food before either of them spoke again, and it was Chuck who spoke first, again to Jazmine's surprise. "I didn't think I was coming back," he told her, and she could tell he was uncomfortable. "So I don't really know what I'm doing, anymore."

"That's kind of freeing, though, isn't it? You could do anything you wanted to now." Jazmine stabbed at her green beans and watched doubt cloud his face.

"Not anything." He tapped his fork against his cast.

"Yeah, anything." She set down her utensils. "I mean, okay, you don't get to be some superstar athlete. But you're alive, you're not a vegetable, you have full use of most of your body. You've got a past as a hero, nobody's going to tell you no."

"Yeah." Chuck popped a bite of chicken into his mouth, chewing it slowly. "Problem is I never really thought about what else I might like to do."

It was Jazmine's turn to get angry. "God, you're so lucky and you don't even realize it!"

"Lucky? This is lucky?"

"I can't even go back home to the US," she said hotly. "I dropped out of school when I was fourteen, and I have a long history of doing bad things. Really bad. Things I can't take back. My future is not the brightest."

"And here you are sitting in front of me, instead of rotting in a jail cell. Doing work that you love, at a job your brother got you." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Seems pretty lucky to me."

It took all the self-righteous wind out of her sails. "Well, when you put it that way. I guess you're right."

"I'm always right." He cleared the last few bites of food off his tray, and handed it to her with a smug smile.

"You're also an asshole," she said, taking his tray. "I'll see you when I'm off work."