Nice loooong chapter for you, since it'll probably be a minute till the next one.

And - this has nothing to do with the story whatsoever, I just have to put it out there because none of my friends or family care. But as an obvious follower of the 2k12 series, I'm saying this: I. Miss. Master Splinter! *Sigh* Soooo ready for him AND Karai to get back in there. Somehow, seeing his spirit in "Vision Quest" just wasn't enough o.o Though I did like the episode :)

Anyway, that's enough of that. Read on!

"Make sure you've got a good hold on her. Previous experience says she's not going to stay very still, and the sedative should be wearing off right about now. Be ready in case she wakes up before the mutation's complete."

Everybody nodded once, practically digging their heels into the floor—if only they could. Leo glanced down at Karai's currently unconscious "human" form—or at least it might've been easy to call her human if it weren't for the scales. He hadn't paid much attention to it before. Every other time he'd seen her like this the situation was high-pressured and there was no time to fuss over details, but now that they were in the newly restored brightness of Donnie's lab and Leo had one hand on her shoulder and the other firmly—but not excessively so—clutched around her wrist, the scales were so obviously there that he was surprised he'd been so neglectful of this little feature before. Her entire suit was made up of them, glossy black and silver scales that occasionally shimmered purple and green. There were thousands of them, just as smooth and sharp around the edges as they were in her serpent form, protecting a figure of pure muscle that moved and breathed beneath his fingers.

He was on her right side. Splinter was on her left, just as they'd been before, only now it was Casey and Raph that anchored her legs to the table, waiting tensely. Leo might've noticed the way Raphael keep glancing up at him, watching his eyes and where they looked, probably noticing how intensely the blue-banded turtle was examining every inch of Karai's figure, but he chose not to acknowledge it. This wasn't about Raph … and it wasn't about him either.

Donnie stood over Karai's head with a dropper he'd filled with the revised retro-mutagen. He glanced around the room at all of them, including Mikey and April who stood farther back, and nodded when he felt they were all ready.

With a sharp breath that he held back behind puffed cheeks, Donnie positioned the dropper right over Karai's forehead and squeezed out a single drop.

Leo's throat went dry and he tensed, watched with baited breath as the iridescent blue droplet stole a large span of time to free fall, slicing through the thickness of the atmosphere as simply as a raindrop on a humid day. And then it contacted its intended surface.

Karai's skin absorbed the chemical like a sponge and the effects were so immediate, it nearly took Leo by surprise.

She thrashed wildly, her back arching against the table, fists curling, muscles jerking beneath his own. He leaned over her, pressing his full weight against her arm and gritting his teeth. Raph, Casey, and even Splinter, did the same. Leo grimaced as his ears rang with the inhuman screech that erupted from her chest and he tried not to watch her face. Instead, he let his eyes drift to the scales covering her body and noticed them shivering like chimes in a resilient breeze.

His brow furrowed, and he forced himself to remember his job and not let go when the scales lining her neck started falling away, revealing pale, soft, peachy human skin underneath. They trickled to the table and then the floor, bouncing around his feet and filling the lab with a sound like thousands of coins being dropped to the ground in a waterfall effect.

His heart lodged itself in his throat when they started shedding away even more rapidly, peeling from her body to now reveal the entirety of her collarbone.

"Eyes!" he shouted, immediately squeezing his own shut and turning his head away.

He trusted the rest of them to do the same, and yet wasn't all that surprised when Mikey gave an audible gasp from across the room. But April seemed to cover Raph's job of smacking him over the head and he squeaked out an apology.

Leo waited, listening to the cascade of scales hitting the floor and the tapering of Karai's screams that turned from ear-piercing screeches to very human-sounding gasps of pain, before she quieted the very same instance that she became still and no longer struggled against them.

He was so tempted, so very tempted to look—just to make sure she was still there, still breathing, but the tender consistency of warm skin just beneath his own confirmed both, so he squeezed his eyes shut even tighter.

"April, retrieve a blanket, please, quickly," Splinter said in a voice that gave no indication to his state of composure at the moment. He sounded just as cool, calm, and collected as ever.

The motion of April leaving the room was very obvious and she was back just as quickly. Leo made sure not to crack an eyelid until she was done fussing with the blanket and it was draped over Karai's entire figure. Slowly, he opened his eyes and then immediately glanced toward her face, leaning closer to her than he probably meant to, his father and purple-banded brother doing the exact same.

She certainly looked completely normal, no scales whatsoever now. He was tempted to take a peek at her teeth, fairly wary that there might still be fangs hiding behind her lips. But even more so than that, he wished she would open her eyes. But he was far too cautious and trapped in awe to risk waking her and he wasn't sure if Donnie's sedative had worn off yet or not. And anyway, in this exact moment, with her lying so still and him not having to worry about her gazing back, he felt not at all hurried to turn his eyes away. Her appearance—somehow fierce, bold and tender all at the same time—was just as mystic and alluring as it had been the day they'd met. And he was just as perplexed and speechless as ever. And he realized …

He'd missed her.

Leo blinked when Splinter's hand entered the picture and gingerly plucked a strand of hair from her face and tucked it to the side.

"Do you believe it worked as it fully should have?" he asked, replacing both hands behind his back and glancing up at Donatello who looked very tempted to start poking and prodding and peeking beneath her eyelids with a flashlight.

He shrugged. "So far so good." His eyes glanced over at the clock on the wall. "If I calculated it correctly she should be waking up about—"

His voice was cut off by a gasp that made the lot of them jump back as Karai's eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright.

Leo reacted instinctively, catching the blanket before it could fall away from her chest. For a moment, she seemed too engrossed in breathing heavily and whipping her head around to notice. She curled in on herself a little bit, muscles tensing defensively.

"It is alright, my child," Splinter said softly, attracting the snap of her gaze.

"F-Father?" she stammered, her voice breathless and wispy, as though she hadn't spoken in months, which … wasn't a far cry from the truth.

Her breathing began to taper to something more mediated, but she continued to switch her gaze, eyes resting on each wide-eyed individual that gawked back, until her eyes landed on Leo.

It took a fierce amount of restraint not to tackle her, to throw his arms around her in a protective embrace that would assure him twice over that this wasn't a dream—she was really there, really solid, really human. He never thought he'd be so happy that she was human. And he never knew how much he truly thought her sharp golden eyes were so beautiful.

She just barely glanced away, dropping her eyes a fraction, and then her hands took the edge of the blanket from him, holding it protectively to her own chest.

He blinked, still unable to speak, and took half a step back, an embarrassing heat breaking out over the entirety of his face. His eyes shifted around until they glanced over Casey, April, Mikey and Raph who were all still standing there practically with their mouths open.

He felt it then, the initiative beginning to return, the instinct to be in command of the situation. He rolled back his shoulders. "Out," he said.

All four of them blinked at him.

"Now."

April, Mikey, and Casey obediently turned away, not at all eager to argue, given the current situation. Only Raph hesitated to follow his order.

Leo narrowed his eyes on his brother firmly, and while Raphael responded with a glare of his own, he did no less than follow the others out within the next passing moment.

Leo glanced back at his sensei who nodded once, and then the turtle began to back away, eyes automatically falling on Karai who stared back at him with a gaze he couldn't interpret.

"W-We'll go find you something to wear," he said. "Master Splinter will explain … Donnie will make sure you're okay."

She only blinked at him, and it took all the self-control he had to leave her there, waves of confusion and complete oblivion passing in quick succession across her face. He had to bite his tongue against whole spreadsheets of explanations and apologies and questions and emotions he'd been dying to admit to her for what seemed like so long, but he couldn't, not now.

So he didn't, and he left the lab, and he closed the door, and he turned only to find his brother facing him, their noses inches apart.

For a moment, he and Raph just stared each other down, participating in a silent argument that made Leo curl his hands into fists. He said absolutely nothing to his brother and those persistent, green eyes, and turned his gaze on April who was very unashamedly watching them.

"April, do you think you have something that Karai could wear?"

She blinked herself out of a thought and then nodded. "Yeah, of course."

"Could you run and grab it please?"

She nodded once and started to leave, but he held up a hand to hold her at bay, having to say nothing more. She waited and he turned his eyes back on his brother.

"Go with her, Raph."

Raphael narrowed his eyes. "Why me? Why not Mikey or Casey?"

"Because I said so." Leo turned away before his brother could respond and started for the kitchen.

"You serious?" Raph said to his back. "That's really how this is gonna be, Fearless?"

Leo set his jaw but didn't look back. "Just go, Raph," he said before pushing his way past the curtain that would separate him from his brother.

He yanked out the tea kettle from the cabinet and filled it with water then set it on the stove and turned on the eye. He stood stock still then, in a cold silence, counting in his head until he was positive they were gone. Only then did he poke a hand through the curtain and slowly lift it back to peek into the common room. All he could see was Mikey standing by the pit, staring off into the distance as he twisted his fingers together.

Leo sighed, closing his eyes as he let his pulse make whatever stutters and stops seemed necessary. Something settled in the bottom of his stomach, something heavy and yet altogether hollow. He didn't know what it was, but he didn't necessarily want to think about it either. So he stepped out of the kitchen and ventured over to where Mikey stood.

Michelangelo turned at the sound of him approaching, but he didn't immediately crack his usual smile. "What was that about?" he asked, gazing up at his brother with innocent blue eyes.

Leo only allowed himself a glance in his direction. "Nothing. Where's Casey?"

"He went with Raph and April, said he was gonna go home. I think he'd had enough for today."

Leo nodded, but said nothing in return. An uncertain silence hung between them for a few passing beats, which was odd. Normally, silence was a rarely visited concept when it came to being in Mikey's presence. However, it didn't last long before the orange-banded turtle glanced toward the lab with a thoughtful gaze.

"You think she's okay?"

Leo looked toward the lab too but let nothing on about the unsettled churning of his stomach. "She seemed okay. Just a little shaken maybe. If anything's wrong, Donnie will figure it out."

Mikey hummed. "So d'you think she'll stay this time?"

Leo blinked, turning his eyes on his youngest brother, brow furrowed. He thought about it for a moment and then said, very seriously, "She doesn't have a choice."

Mikey raised a brow. "You gonna hold her against her will or somethin'?"

"No. She can go wherever she wants to. She'll just have to get used to me going with her. I'm not going to let this happen again … I refuse to let it happen again."

Mikey gazed at him strangely, and then nodded as though he understood. "So …" he said slowly. "I guess it's official then."

"What is?"

Mikey shrugged. "We have a sister."

Leo pursed his lips, mulling over this sentence and the way it settled awkwardly in the back of his mind. Maybe to Mikey she would be some type of sister, if one at all. Maybe to Donnie she could be, if he ever decided to look at her that way. To Raph, Leo was sure she was nothing more than an obstacle. And to Leo … He'd never thought of her as a sister, and he never would. At the least she was his friend, but maybe—maybe he could do better than that one day.

But this was Mikey he was talking to, and as much as the blue-banded turtle knew confiding in his brothers made for better results than keeping secrets, Mikey simply didn't need to know. Mikey was too innocent, too simple to know. So he nodded.

"We have a sister."

They had resorted to paper football and drinking tea. Leo had found he was too distracted even to practice katas, let alone meditate, and since he and Mikey were the only ones in the common room, he had to entertain his little brother somehow.

They were sitting in the very center of the pit, flicking the folded paper at one another until the lab door finally opened after about half an hour and Donnie stepped out.

Leo stood immediately, not even waiting for Mikey to finish his turn, and he was standing at the edge of the pit before he even realized his feet had moved.

"How is she?"

Donnie adjusted the knot of his mask then quickly rubbed his eyes. "Embarrassed," he said, "and exhausted, but otherwise perfectly fine. Except …"

Leo frowned. "Except what?"

Donnie turned his brown eyes on his brother with a sheen of severity. "It's just like what happened with April's dad. She hardly remembers anything about being a mutant. She said the last thing she remembered clearly was falling into the mutagen, and that's it. But …" Donnie sighed, scratching at the back of his head with a yawn. "She's not just embarrassed, Leo. She's mortified. I wouldn't ask her too many questions about it or bombard her about it at all. Physically she may be fine, but stress in any form can take its toll, and she's gone through enough."

Leo could've sworn he was talking to his sensei, the way Donatello was speaking. He watched his purple-banded brother sigh heavily, his shoulders sagging, arms hanging loosely by his sides, eyelids drooping.

Leo pursed his lips. "Go to sleep, Donnie."

Donatello blinked up at him and cleared his throat, shaking his head. "I want to check her vitals again in the next hour or so, just to make sure she's not—"

"Dude," Mikey interrupted, brow furrowed with concern.

"Donnie," Leo said again. "Go to sleep. It wasn't a suggestion."

"But—"

"Come on, bro." Mikey climbed out of the pit and held out his hand.

Donnie's shoulders sagged even more, lips puckering with distaste.

"You've done enough, Donnie," Leo said. "In fact, you've done more than enough. Get some rest, please."

"For us, bro," Mikey insisted, shaking his empty palm.

Donnie groaned but put his hand in Mikey's and allowed himself to be tugged to his room.

Leo patted his shell as they passed, making sure his brother heard him when he said thank you. Donnie smiled, glancing once over his shoulder and then he and Mikey were gone around the corner.

It was hardly thirty seconds after this that April and Raph returned.

"Is she still in the lab?" April asked, walking briskly and toting a bulging duffle bag.

Leo nodded. "Splinter's with her."

April sashayed up to the lab door, knocked and then walked straight in when Splinter opened the door for her. It was closed again, just as quickly, leaving a heavy echo that solidified itself as a second wall between him and Karai.

He sighed, then stiffened when he felt the sensation of a gaze on his neck. He looked over at Raph who was glaring at him with his arms folded.

"What?" Leo demanded.

"Any particular reason you sent me away?"

Leo scrunched up his nose and turned away. "No."

He plopped down on the bench and folded his legs on top of it. If it weren't for the fact that Karai was in the lab and likely to emerge fairly soon, he'd be putting all effort into escaping his brother who placed himself directly next to him, eyes unrelenting.

"What do you want, Raph?"

"Nothing—at the moment … Seems a little weird don't you think?"

Leo didn't take his eyes off the floor. "What does?"

"That she would so conveniently show up on our doorstep when we've been searching for her for months."

"So?"

Raph stiffened. "That doesn't bother you?"

"No."

"Not even the fact that she cut off our power?"

"She didn't know what she was doing."

Leo felt his brother's eyes narrow with that deadpan glare that was so infamous of him. "Right, the way she didn't know what she was doing when she bit you."

The older turtle curled his fists. "She only bit me because I got in the way."

"Yeah, you got in the way of her trying to eat Splinter."

"Well, why don't we mutate you into a giant snake and see how you act around Splinter," he said shortly, snapping a glare on his brother. "Donnie said she doesn't remember anything. She didn't do it on purpose, Raph. You're just paranoid because you didn't think we'd get her back so soon, and you don't want her in the way."

Raph blinked, shrinking back as though he hadn't expected this retort—as though he'd been punched in the chest by it. A wounded frown slipped down to the corner of his mouth. He looked away, shoulders hunched, and didn't respond.

Leo felt his own rigidity melt away. He frowned and looked back down at the floor.

"You're suffocating me," he said, clearly but not meanly.

Raph's shoulders sank, but he said nothing.

"I know we had a deal, but she's hardly been back for a whole day, and not even as her normal self. I haven't even been conscious the whole time. Give me a minute to breathe before you start looking at me like you expect something from me … Can you do that?"

He finally turned his eyes back on his brother. Raph's gaze remained far off to the side, sharp, heavy, and frustrated. It took a long weighted moment before he finally looked back at Leo. They stared at each other for a while—a while in which Raph's gaze seemed to soften, if a little reluctantly. He let out a dense sigh.

"How can you trust her so easily?"

Leo furrowed a brow, not having expected this. "It isn't easy. I'd call it faith more than anything. Why don't you try to get to know her? You'll have the time now. Maybe you'll realize you actually like her."

Raph grimaced as though disgusted by the thought.

Leo rolled his eyes to the side. "Give her a chance, Raph. Please."

He watched Raph's jaw flutter before those bright green eyes flickered back on him. "Fine. But you have to answer a question for me."

Leonardo grimaced. "What?"

"What do you see in her?"

He blinked, again caught off guard by Raph's choice in question. What did he see in Karai? What did he see in Karai? He forced himself not to release a haughty snort. What didn't he see in Karai was a more accurate query. He shrugged and pressed his palms into the bench.

"I dunno … What do you see in me?"

He stared at his brother, but Raph could not match his gaze for more than five seconds before dropping his eyes again, this time with a resentful crease to his brow. He didn't respond, but this could've been credited to the familiar clatter of the lab door sliding open. Both boys glanced up. Leo automatically stood.

Splinter emerged alone, closing the door behind him. He paused on the step and took in the presence of his two sons before speaking.

"Where is Donatello?"

"I sent him to bed," Leo said.

Splinter nodded as though this was the most relieving news he'd heard all day, which was ironic. "Good. And Michelangelo?"

"He went to make sure Donnie got there."

Splinte nodded again and then let his amber gaze flicker between the two boys and the way they purposely avoided looking at one another, though, in proximity, there was still only a few inches of open air between them, even with Leo now standing.

"Is something wrong?" the rat asked.

Leo and Raph both responded with a quick, "No."

Splinter regarded them with a squint of suspicion, but said nothing about it. Instead, he turned stiffly, hands behind his back, and started for the kitchen. Leo took a step after him, not entirely on purpose.

"Sensei?"

Splinter looked back, eyes glinting with an emotion that the oldest turtle could not read. "I know you are anxious, my son," he said, as though it were routine. "But I must insist that you do not approach Karai tonight. She is in great need of rest and does not wish to be bothered."

Leo's back teeth locked. He said nothing.

"Promise me you will do this, Leonardo."

The blue-banded turtle swallowed back a knot of protest and bowed his head. "Hai, Sensei."

He rolled over in his bed, further twisting the sheets around his legs, and sighed at the wall of shadows across from him. He repeated that promise to himself, allowing his obedient and ever-loyal conscience to forbid him from submitting to the yank of his gut.

Stay in bed, Leo. Don't get up, Leo. You told Master Splinter you wouldn't bother her. You promised him you wouldn't bother her. You looked him straight in the eye, you gave him your word, he gave you an order.

He closed his eyes and groaned to himself, folding his arms around his torso and digging his fingers into his skin where it was exposed beneath his arms above the bridge of his shell. The contrast of temperatures between his icy fingers and the searing skin stretched over his ribs made him shiver. He grimaced, then opened his eyes and peered at the wall, repeating his conscience's weakening persuasion: Don't get up. You promised …

He turned over again, now helplessly entangled in his sheets and so impossibly far from sleep that he could've jumped up right then and easily sprinted a lap around the city. His stomach clenched impatiently and he pulled his knees up to his chest, curled into a ball on his side now.

He glanced at the clock and his insides tightened even further. It wasn't even midnight.

He could feel her presence, like an overcast sky that refused to rain but hovered there instead hour after hour, looming over his head, providing neither water nor sunshine. And it left a dense haze of imminence that was never fulfilled, an unyielding impatience and aimlessness. He sat up and threw his pillow to the floor then yanked his legs out of the sheets and tossed those too. Then he just sat there, breathing, waiting, suffering for what felt like years.

They'd been waiting so long for this. He'd been waiting so long, just for her to be where she was right now, a few strides away, separated only by concrete walls. And now all he wanted to do was talk to her, look at her, hear her voice. He had to be absolutely sure he wasn't dreaming, that this was real, that everything they'd been struggling over for months had finally paid off. She was safe, but was she okay? Was she relieved? Happy? Scared? Maybe as anxious as he was?

He looked at the clock again. It had only been two minutes.

He gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and then shook his head to himself before sliding out of bed. He tied on his mask - for the sole reason that there wasn't much else to don that would make him feel any less naked - and then slipped out of his room.

The lair was quiet and still. If it had been a normal day, Donnie would still be awake, tinkering away in his lab, but when Leo paused in front of the genius's bedroom door, he heard the satisfying whistle of his brother deep in much needed sleep.

He didn't dare check on Raph. Who knew how long the rebel normally lay in bed staring at the ceiling before finally allowing himself to fall asleep? And there was no need to peek in on Mikey. As high-wired and full of relentless energy as Mikey was when he was awake, simply telling the little turtle to sleep could get him effortlessly there in seconds, no matter how much he might argue that he wasn't tired.

Leo crept silently across the common room, also not daring to go anywhere near the dojo and Splinter's room where he knew his father would emerge the moment he detected the faintest whisper of movement. Leo hardly even dared to breathe as he tiptoed over to the dividers that Karai was supposedly sleeping behind.

He paused in front of them, listening for her specific indicator of sleep, though he wasn't sure what that sounded like yet. He supposed he'd learn fairly soon, but right now, having her here and here to stay was a brand new experience entirely. There was nothing familiar about it.

When he heard nothing, he placed his hand on the edge of the divider, checked over his shoulder, then took a breath and gently pulled it back a few inches.

A golden flicker of light glanced around the walls of the little space she now claimed as her own. There wasn't much to it yet. They'd eventually acquire more furniture and homely possessions for her to keep as the days passed. For now, all she had was candles, a mat, and a sufficient amount of blankets and pillows to make herself comfortable with. She wasn't sleeping.

She was sitting up, legs crossed, back straight, eyes closed, her face expressionless and surprisingly clean. He had never seen her without thick black, pointed lines of make-up framing her eyes, and it was astonishingly appealing. She seemed much more tender, much more ... approachable, not only because she'd cleared the maquillage away, but because she no longer donned her usual armored getup. Instead she seemed perfectly comfortable in a pair of sweatpants tied at the waist and a white tank top. It was as though all the accessories that had shielded and solidified her before had been stripped away as easily as the scales had fallen from her skin, leaving behind something natural, soft, and true to what actually lay beneath all the protective covering. And for a moment, he was not only content to stare at her, but didn't realize that he was doing so … until she opened her eyes.

His heart jumped up to his throat and he tensed but didn't move. There was no point. She was staring straight at him, and from the look in her eyes, she'd known the exact moment that he'd left his own room.

"I was wondering when you were going to break your promise," she said serenely, all the usual accents of control and mischief attached to her voice.

He hesitated for another moment and then allowed himself to cross the threshold and replace the screen behind him.

"You were listening?" he said, allowing the sound of his voice to cover his movement as he strolled closer and took a seat in front of her, close enough to clearly make her out through the pale light and heavy shadows, but far enough not to invade any kind of bubble she might have made.

"Of course," she said. "I've been training my senses as long as you have—longer in fact. I know how to listen in on conversations from the next room."

He didn't smile—but it was intensely hard not to. "How did you know I wouldn't keep my promise?"

She raised a brow. "Did you actually think that you could? You might think you're more respectful of Splinter's orders than your brothers are, but to anyone looking in from the outside, it's pretty obvious you can be easily just as defiant as they are."

"I'm not defiant," he argued. "Just ... anxious. It's been a long time, Karai. Can you blame me?"

The hint of a smile formed at the corners of her lips. "No. I was counting on it." The smile flickered away just as quickly as it had come and he watched her eyes turn away from his and graze his face.

She was quiet for a long time, and he allowed her to be, saying nothing to break the silence. The compromise he'd made for disturbing her so late was not to ask any questions or be the first to mention anything about what had taken place during the long months of her absence.

"What happened?" she asked, indicating the scars on his face that, until that moment, he'd completely forgotten about.

He frowned and refrained from touching his cheek. "Tigerclaw."

She nodded once before a flash of uneasiness fluttered across her expression, so faint he almost didn't catch it. "Splinter said you guys did your best to bring me back sooner. But he didn't go into detail about it—said it wasn't important."

She looked directly at him again, with a gaze so heavy and stern that he stopped breathing for a moment. "I have to know though, what I did …"

Leo shook his head, stomach tightening. "You didn't do anything," he said. "You were fast," he added with a grin. "You made it hard to keep up. But there's nothing to blame you for."

Her gaze did not relent in the slightest. "Nothing except for biting you."

He tried not to give anything away in his expression, but he couldn't stop himself from automatically laying a hand over the gauze around his forearm, as though to cover it up. "I don't blame you."

"That's nice," she said dryly. "Doesn't mean no one else does."

He grimaced when he realize she'd heard his conversation with Raph too. "That doesn't matter. I was the one you bit, and it was only because I got in your way. I don't blame you."

She stared as though thinking it through in the back of her mind, but not wishing to expose any truths or suspicions. "You were trying to get me back weren't you, when Tigerclaw did that to you?"

Leo swallowed. "I don't blame you," he said again, as firmly as he could manage. "And anyway, even if I did there's nothing you could do about it now. It happened and it's done. There's no taking it back. Tigerclaw left a mark, end of story. It's not like he wouldn't have done the same thing under different circumstances. He's just not a nice cat." He shrugged.

At this she finally released something reminiscent of a real smile and it caused a reaction in his stomach, like dropping Mentos in Coke and watching the bottle explode with a sweet, bubbly foam—or the words that he spoke without meaning to.

"I missed you, Karai."

He kicked himself immediately for saying it, but it wasn't like he had never given him and his blushing self away before. It was embarrassing how easily she could do that to him, but, at the same time, he might occasionally choose not to fight it. Not that he particularly enjoyed the way she made his stomach squirm, even though, actually, he did.

Her expression, on the other hand, gave away nothing. "I almost wish I could say the same," she said with a smirk.

He smiled, despite the subject, and then completely forgot that he'd promised he wouldn't ask any questions about it. "So you really don't remember anything?"

The corner of her lips dropped and he immediately regretted it, but she spoke before he could take the question back, her eyes gazing hazily off to the side.

"Since I woke up, I've been getting flashes, visions of things, but only quick snippets. And nothing more than …"

She stopped, her nose crinkling, and she looked back at him, her eyes taking in his entire presence as he leaned over his knees without realizing he was doing so. Her brow furrowed and she pushed herself to her knees, brazenly crawling closer to him.

He stiffened and leaned away, his heart beating hard against his plastron as she stopped, her face hovering dangerously close, eyes now closed with a concentrated furrow to her brow. He wasn't sure how long this lasted, but when she finally sat back, he felt like he hadn't breathed in years.

She stared at him through eyes that looked both cautious and intrigued. "You smell like polish."

He blinked—hesitating, mulling this over—and then turned his head ever-so-slightly over his shoulder to get a whiff of his own scent. There was nothing different about it, and to him it didn't really smell like anything—though he was partly grateful he, at the very least, didn't smell bad. He looked forward again, brow furrowed.

"Do I?"

She blinked. "You know what's funny?"

He shook his head.

"You're just as gullible as you were before all of this."

It took a moment for this to settle in the back of his mind, but when she cracked another grin, he smiled back and they both laughed.