"Went to see Trouble in the hospital. How was yours?"

"He's in the hospital?"

"It was f- wait, yeah, why is he in the hospital, what happened?"

"Somebody kicked his arse," she snorts. "He's not saying who. For all I know it was his idea of fun. But he's got cracked this and broken that and he's on some lovely painkillers. Me and Ethan dropped in on him yesterday."

"Ethan didn't do it himself, I take it."

"Why isn't he saying who?"

Robin shrugs. "I wasn't about to interrogate him. He told me to skip it; I skipped. And yeah, he's had some fun with Ethan, but Ethan would've told me if the fun had broken any bones."

"What hospital's he at? And I assume I won't get his room number if I walk in and literally ask for 'Trouble'."

She laughs. "Yeah. I forget the room number, I think I have it written down somewhere - he's at St. Joseph's, anyway. Ask for Angel Sawyer."

"Will do."

"Wow, he has a real name, I got so used to thinking of him without."

"I assume if he wanted to be called that he'd have informed us before now."

"He threw a fork at Ethan when Ethan called him Angel, but between those two I think that qualifies as flirting. Still, I wouldn't try it."

"Yeah, thought so. I think I'll go this afternoon."

"Okay. Robin, d'you wanna come over today? We can play nice and loud if Bella's gonna be out of the house."

"Perfect," says Robin.

Robin grins. "Awesome, I can't wait."

So after school, Robin goes home with Andi, and Bella buses to the hospital.

Trouble is lying in a hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown, with a cast on his left arm and a dreamy smile on his face.

"Hey, you," says Bella. "Robin told me you were all busted up."

He grins. "I aaaaaaam," he says, waving lazily with his good arm. "How're you?"

"I'm fine. Is there a point to asking what happened? I am told it wasn't Ethan."

"It wasn't Ethan," Trouble agrees, nodding. "You could ask but then I might answer and nobody wants that." He giggles.

"Why does nobody want that?"

"'Caaaause," he yawns, "I'm on drugs I don't wanna be on and you're asking me things I don't wanna tell you?"

"You don't want to be on what you're on? Is it anything besides painkillers?"

"Nope. But fuck painkillers," he says, more sharply and less slowly than he has said anything else since she came in. His voice slows down and softens again as he adds, "I like being in pain, most of the time, and I don't like being stoned."

He grins at her. "I like you. You're nice. Thanks for coming to visit. I didn't think anybody would."

"Robin said she and Ethan dropped in on you."

"Yeah, I was surprised about them too," he laughs. "Ethan never comes to visit."

"Maybe Robin's a good influence on him."

"Must be it," he agrees.

"Wait, never visits you, or never visits you in the hospital?"

"Oh. Neither," says Trouble, shrugging.

"You're in the hospital that often?"

He grins. "How often is often? Once in a while. And I've known Ethan for like a year."

"I'm not in the hospital more than once a year."

Trouble giggles.

"And I am very accident-prone."

"I'm not," says Trouble, his eyes drifting closed.

"Yeah. Robin said 'someone' did it."

"Skip it," he sighs.

"She also mentioned you said that, yeah."

He nods tiredly.

"It would probably be wrong to take advantage of you being high to figure you out more than you wish to be figured out, I suppose."

"Probably," says Trouble. "Is that gonna stop you?"

"Things being wrong generally does, yeah."

He smiles wryly. "Good for you."

"So to speak."

Trouble giggles again.

"I might come by again tomorrow or Wednesday, if you're still going to be here; do you want me to bring anything?"

"Oh, I'm still gonna be here," he assures her. "Gonna be here all week, I bet." He cracks a grin. "You could bring me some cake."

"Sure. Cake it is."

"I love you," says Trouble.

"Beg pardon?"

He waves his hand vaguely - the one not attached to a broken arm. "You're nice and you're bringing me cake. I love you. I'm kind of high," he adds as an afterthought. "Or I would've been lying more."

"I don't like being lied to, future reference."

"Okay," he says agreeably.

Bella writes down that she should bring him cake.

Trouble grins hazily at her.

"Do you care what kind of cake?"

"Nope."

"Didn't think so."

He grins again, happily. "I loooove you."

"I do hope you aren't the sort to be embarrassed by things you've said while stoned once the condition has passed."

"No way," he laughs.

"Yeah, that didn't sound like you either."

He beams at her.

"I also suspect you don't care if anyone brings you your homework, or class notes, or anything."

"Nooooooope."

"Ah-huh. Do you have anything to do in here? Should I bring you some books or something as well as cake?"

"I really don't have shit to do in here," he says. "Some books would be nice, I guess."

"If you have a better idea for portable entertainment do tell."

"Nah. Books are nice."

"What kind of books do you like?"

"All of 'em."

"Well, that's convenient."

He grins. "That's me. Convenient as fuck."

Bella chuckles.

"I love you," he says, snuggling his crappy hospital blanket.

"You keep saying that. They may be overdosing you."

"Nah," he says comfortably. "Bet you twenty bucks I'll still love you when I'm off this shit."

"Is twenty dollars enough to motivate you to lie about that?"

He laughs. "No way. I can get twenty bucks anywhere."

"Really, what's your secret?"

"I suck a lot of dick."

"Ah. I guess that could do it."

"Not especially, but I'll survive the experience."

"Okay."

"And I'm sure you're already aware of and do not care about relevant laws regarding prostitution and the age of consent and so on."

"...Are you okay? Apart from the obvious broken bones."

"There's some less obvious broken bones, too," he says brightly. "I'm pretty fucked up."

"Are you okay apart from the physical injuries."

"Should I ask you about that when you aren't high?" Bella asks wryly.

"Better than asking me about it when I am."

"See you," he says, nodding.

She is back Wednesday, at about four-thirty, and she comes with a slice of cake in a little box.

"Are you still on drugs?" she asks, offering him the cake, and a fork.

"It's not as good as yours."

"Nah," he agrees easily, "but it's cake and it's tasty and you're nice and I love you."

"I'm glad we never actually settled on a bet about whether you'd go on saying that. I've known you for like a month."

"Are those two statements related?"

"Somewhat. It's awfully fast to be proclaiming that you love me, particularly since in the course of the month in question we haven't done anything like, oh, go out at all."

"Yeah," he says, "so? I've never gone out with Freddie Mercury and I love him."

"Are you claiming to love me in the same sense that one loves celebrity musicians? Because that might actually be weirder."

"I dunno. I love you, I love Freddie, I love Ethan. I don't think any of those are that much like each other," he says thoughtfully.

"What is it like, then?" she asks, leaning her chin on her hands.

"I dunno," he repeats. "I think it's sweet how you have, like, moral impulses, I don't see a lot of that. And I don't really get you, but I feel like I could. And you came to visit me in the hospital. And you brought me cake."

"How does that list of things add up to loving me?"

"I dunno. But it does. I mean, they're not what it feels like, but they're kind of what it's about."

"I don't get it."

"Do you want to?" he inquires.

"Yes."

He shrugs. "Okay. So what don't you get, exactly?"

"No one outside my family who wasn't obviously using agape as a rhetorical device has claimed to love me before," shrugs Bella, "and this is not at all the way the I had been led to expect it to go by the apparently underinformed mainstream media. I want to know - what could have led me to expect it. And what to expect next."

"Agape?"

Bella waves her hand. "I think it's Greek. It's sometimes called 'Christian love'? Divine unconditional love for one's fellow human beings."

"Oh." He grins. "Yeah, that too, I guess. But that's different."

"Do tell."

"I dunno. I love people, you know? They're so," he gestures expansively with his good hand, "...people. But I don't love everybody as specifically as I love you or Ethan. And some people when I get to know them I don't love them so much."

"So you love people, I've been promoted for some reason - which puts me in company with Ethan, grand - and demotion's also a possibility."

"You're not anything like Ethan," he snorts. "You're like the opposite of Ethan."

"That doesn't help this make more sense!"

"Why not? I love pumpkin pie and I love butter chicken, that doesn't mean they have anything much in common besides both being orange foods."

"People aren't food."

"So? Are all your friends exactly the same as each other? Bet not."

"I will daresay that, for example, you don't have that much in common with Andi," Bella concedes.

"Let me clarify something here - are you just saying you love me in a friend kind of way or are you claiming to have fallen in love with me?"

"I love my sister. I am not in love with her," shrugs Bella. "As an obvious example."

"Sure," says Trouble. "But I don't have any sisters. So if the only difference is whether or not you'd make out with them if they wanted, then I don't think I love anybody in just a friend way, and other than that I'm stumped."

"There are other subtleties, I have heard, but I have never been in-love so I cannot verbalize them. You would literally make out with anybody?"

"Anybody I liked. Definitely anybody I love."

"But you have your generalized agape for the entire human species, yeah?"

"Yeah. That's not the kind of love I was talking about there, though. I meant - I dunno, do you have another Greek word handy? The kind that means I noticed somebody specifically and I love them for being the exact person they are and not anybody else."

"There are more Greek words for love but I don't think any of them mean that, exactly."

"Okay. Guess we're stuck with English, then."

"Which alas has only the one word. Terribly inadequate."

"We were trying to figure out if your noticing-people-specifically love thing is romantic in nature."

"Right," says Trouble. "Fucked if I know, man."

"And I have no distinguishing criteria to inquire after, I suppose."

"Yeah. So I guess - what's the difference to you? What's it mean to you if it's one thing or the other?"

"Yeah, not likely," he snorts.

"Didn't think so. How does it affect - anything?"

"That's nice, I've gone and gotten used to it."

"It does."

Trouble laughs.

Bella writes some things down.

"So, figure anything out yet?"

"About you? Nothing definitive. But there is a big blank space around your home life."

"Yep," says Trouble. "There sure is."

"I might ask questions, but I think you'd lie to me; I think you've probably done so before."

"I probably have," he agrees. "You said you didn't like it, though."

"I don't. That doesn't remove - whatever incentives you have to do it. Did you think I liked it, before?"

"Nah. But that was then," he says, shrugging. (A fleeting wince crosses his face as the movement shifts his broken arm.) "Question is, if I stop lying, am I gonna regret it?"

"If I told you something I don't want anybody else to know, and somebody else found out."

"Do you think we'd be overheard, or do you just expect me to run around telling tales?"

"I don't expect you not to."

"And it would make things worse somehow if I did."

"You bet."

"How do you know?"

"How am I gonna tell you that without telling you anything I might get in shit for?"

"You could describe the type of evidence. I will be more impressed if there are past similar incidents or explicit threats or something instead of, like, 'I just have a feeling'."

"That," says Trouble, "is because you don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"Unless you do and you're just fucking with me."

"I'm not trying to."

"I know what I know," he says. "It's the kind of thing where if it gets out, somebody is gonna have a nasty time of it, and somebody is probably gonna be me."

"You aren't under any particular obligation to trust my judgment."

"But I do have to know if you're gonna trust mine."

"I don't know if yours is any good. You are closer to the situation, whatever it is - which means you have more information but potentially also more operative biases." She sighs.

"How about," he says, "you just promise me you won't talk?"

"Is there anybody but you in the line of fire?"

"Not really."

"Does that mean 'no' or 'I want to tell you so I'm going to say the things that will extract the promise of silence'?"

"It means this shit is fucking complicated. Nobody but me is getting hurt right now, as far as I know. Somebody else might get hurt if something changed. Like, say, some asshole white knight starts spreading rumours. I don't know it'll work out that way if that happens, but I don't know it won't."

"If you wind up in the hospital several times a year I'm surprised no one's cottoned on before."

"It doesn't suprise anybody that a kid who looks the way I look and acts the way I act gets into a lot of shit. Look, what do you think is going on?"

"The obvious guess is at least one of your parents hurts you. Or some relative, anyway, I don't know who you live with because you never say."

"That's the obvious guess, all right," says Trouble. "So what are you gonna do about it, if you guess that?"

"If you lived in Forks - and Charlie weren't acting so weird - maybe I'd want to tell him. You don't, and he is. I think Renée must know channels to go through in case one of her kindergartners starts acting funny or coming in with suspicious injuries, but I don't know what they are or how good they are. I could potentially find out without mentioning you. If you have anywhere else to go - then I don't know why you wouldn't already be gone, but if it's some kind of resource you don't have and I do, I could help."

"And what if you find out all the ways you could help, and I don't want any of 'em? Could you just sit on it?"

"Don't want because we disagree about whether it'll work or don't want because even if it works you don't like the look of the endgame?"

"Either. Both."

"Second one - yeah, I can sit on it. First one I will probably argue with you. If you remain unconvinced -" She chews her lip. "I can sit tight unless someone else wanders into harm's way, I'm not turning anyone else into a human shield for you."

Trouble shrugs. "Okay, deal," he says.

"So you remember when I showed up at your place with bruises, and you asked what happened, and I said really great sex?"

"That was what you might call a... reinterpretation of the truth."

"Yeah, now you're getting the picture."

"Mm."

"His name's Reggie. He's my stepdad. He didn't use to put me in the hospital three times a year, but something got into him a while ago. Maybe it's just that I'm getting bigger and he's not sure how long he can hang onto me. Anyway, that's why nobody ever comes over to my house or even knows where it is, that's why I don't say shit about my family ever to anyone. Now you know."

"How long can he hold onto you?"

Trouble shrugs. "Until I leave, I guess. But I don't wanna just skip town. I have friends here."

"You could make more. I don't know about Ethan, I guess, but I don't want you getting hurt for my sake. So you can bring me - pie." She makes a helpless gesture.

"What do you think would happen if you went to the cops, or a teacher or something?"

"Maybe they'd believe me. Probably they wouldn't. If enough people or the right people did, maybe they could put him in jail, or maybe he could weasel his way out because he's a rich white guy who's respected in the community and I am none of those fucking things. And even if he did go to jail, someday he'd get out."

"Used to be she'd do the trophy wife thing, but at some point she figured out what Reggie was up to with me and now she pretty much doesn't leave her bedroom anymore."

"And you don't think she'd back you if you told cops or teachers or anything."

"She might. She might not. But she's not gonna add a whole lot of credibility, because when she met Reggie she was eighteen years old with a two-year-old kid and she believed in aliens. And you bet he's gonna drag that shit out."

"Aliens?"

"Aliens. Flying saucers and everything. She used to talk about it a lot when I was little, but Reggie kept telling her how crazy it was and eventually she just stopped."

"That's... sad."

Trouble shrugs. "Yeah."

"I have email, you know? If you skipped town we could still talk."

He sighs. "Yeah. Would we, though?"

"Why wouldn't we?"

"Maybe when you take away the cake we don't actually have that much in common," he says.

"I'd read the emails if you had things you wanted to say to me. I'd answer them if you wanted to hear about what was going on on my end."

"Maybe it would be nice," he says. "Maybe it wouldn't. Don't know until I try it. If I run away, I will."

Bella writes down her email address for him on a corner of notebook paper and hands it over.

"I don't really have anywhere to put it," he observes, grinning wryly.

"Memorize it. Tuck it in your shoe," she shrugs. "Lose it and ask me for it again when you come back to school."

"Okay."

"Should I even bother finding out what Renée would do with a mistreated kindergartener?"

"Probably not."

"How well does short-term escaping work? Would it improve anything if you were invited to stay over on our couch a lot?"

"It might. It'd be nice, anyway. And it if fucked anything up I could just stop doing it."

"Okay. I'll figure out some way to explain it, I guess."

"Yeah, good luck with that."

Bella shrugs. "Hey, Mom, the buses suck this time of day and he doesn't give out his address so you can't drive him. Gosh, Mom, we lost track of time playing Parcheesi, I'm sure it's fine with his folks if he just goes to school with us in the morning. Look, Mom, he brought us bread pudding, the kind you refrigerate overnight and put in the oven in the morning for breakfast, he should be here when we eat it."

"Awwwww," he says delightedly.

"What?"

"I like it that you liked it when I said that."

"It's a kind sentiment."

He grins.

"I hope it's not awkward for you that I can't say the same. Then again, I suppose you've put up with Ethan not even liking you for a long time."

"You are way better than Ethan that way," he agrees. "I don't really know what you think of me, but at least I don't know you don't give a shit."

Bella flips idly through the pages of her notebook. "You're interesting and flattering company."

Trouble laughs. "Yeah, I'll bet. Or did you mean before I started saying I love you?"

"Routine dessert bestowal is also flattering, albeit differently."

"Huh. Really? How's that?"

"You could've been giving anybody desserts, presumably," shrugs Bella. "You picked me."

He grins. "Well, yeah. 'Cause I tried it and it was fun."

"Exactly."

He shrugs. "Anyway, no, I don't need you to love me. It would be nice if you did but it's not bad that you don't."

"Good, otherwise it would be kind of a problem."

"What, feeling that someone you love ought to love you back?"

"Yeah," he says. "I mean - you're here, being you, you came to see me in the hospital, you brought me cake, what more am I supposed to want? How could I possibly feel like complaining?"

"Hmm - everybody I love is related to me, so if I was in the hospital and they brought me cake and didn't love me back it could conceivably be out of duty, which would bother me, but I guess that doesn't apply here."

"Well, yeah," he says. "I mean - I don't know why you came to see me and brought me cake, but I'm pretty sure you felt like it on some level. That's important. If it was just 'cause you felt like you had to or somebody was blackmailing you or something then it wouldn't mean anything."

"Nobody is blackmailing me and I didn't have to."

"Great," he says. "If somebody was blackmailing you I might have to do something about that."

"Like what?"

"Like make them stop?"

"How, though?"

He shrugs. "Fucked if I know. Depends who and what and why and all that. But if somebody's blackmailing people into pretending to be my friends, that's my problem, I'm not gonna stand for that shit."

"I can't actually think of a reason for someone to blackmail me into being nice to you."

"Me neither. Ethan would probably do it, if he felt like it for some reason. But he's all about Robin these days."

"That's really weird, the way he latched onto her. I mean, Andi likes her too, but he appears to orbit her."

Trouble giggles. "Orbit. That's a good word for it."

"Yeah. I wonder why."

"They just fit," he says. "Couldn't tell you why, but I saw it happen. They make sense together. They get each other. Robin hasn't quite figured him out yet, but he's got her down perfectly."

"I wonder if there is somebody I fit with waiting to drop into my lap. Maybe Andi's it. Andi's probably it, on reflection."

He laughs. "Maybe. Who knows? Maybe there's somebody you fit with and they live in China and don't speak English and you're never gonna meet."

"I think my ability to fit with someone who doesn't share a language with me is probably pretty limited."

Trouble shrugs. "Yeah, so's your ability to fit with somebody you're never gonna talk to in the first place. If you had an Ethan who didn't speak English and he found you somehow anyway, he'd learn it."

Bella laughs. "Now that would be flattering."

He giggles.

"Well," she amends, "it would be flattering if it were based on some translated or non-linguistic facet of my personality. I wouldn't be meaningfully flattered if someone learned English because they thought I had pretty eyes."

"Yeah. But that wouldn't be an Ethan."

"Yeah. It's possible I should hang out with them more to see how they work, it sounds interesting."

"Maybe you should," he laughs.

"What do they even do together? If Ethan were picking up an instrument for Robin's sake I'd expect to see him over at ours more, playing with her and Andi."

"Talk, play cards, make out, talk..."

"What do they talk about, though? And - I thought they were just friends? Is Ethan just the kind of person who acquires friends with whom he then incidentally makes out?"

"Maybe. Or maybe he just happens to have picked up two."

"Bit of a coincidence, I don't think it's typical," shrugs Bella.

"Sure. But coincidences happen."

"That's true."

Trouble grins.

"Does anyone but your mom and stepdad know the thing I know now?"

He shakes his head.

"Right. Okay."

"You gonna spill?"

"No. I just wanted to know how thorough the required silence is." She hefts her notebook a little. "I'll write about it, but it's all encoded, nobody but me can read this stuff."

"Okay."

"Caught Andi reading one of them back when I wrote plaintext."

"And that's bad?"

"Yes. I mean, not if it's just a homework assignment or a reminder to buy socks, but there's a lot of private content."

Trouble shrugs.

"You going to be here much longer?"

"End of the week at least. Might not be back at school for a while after that."

"I really don't."

"Well, I'll be back Friday, anything else I should bring?"

"Cookies?" he suggests whimsically.

"I might not find time to bake. Is storebought better than nothing?" she asks, unloading miscellaneous novels and a random pop psychology book from her backpack and setting them on the table beside him.

"Yeah. Ooh, books. I wanna hug you, can I hug you?"

"I don't know, are you healed enough for that to be wise?"

"It won't kill me. Won't even make me any worse, probably."

"How probably?"

"Probably like not unless you decide to punch me in the chest, that's how probably."

"I am not going to decide to punch you in the chest. You may hug me."

He grins and sits up and holds out his good arm.

Hugs.

He hugs her harder than he probably should, given his condition, and in fact when he lets go he is biting his lip a little. But he seems happy. 'Aglow' might be a good word for it.

"Do I?"

"Yes." She pats him on the head; it seems like a thing to do. "I'll be back Friday, with cookies of one sort or another."

"Okay," says Trouble, grinning.

She is back on Friday. She has a little bag of cookies with her, which look plausibly homemade. "Andi made me the dough in exchange for help with her English essay, but I babysat the actual batches," says Bella.

"Awwwwwwwwww, lemme hug you again," he says, beaming.

"What does that face mean?"

"Means something hurts. But not in a bad way."

"I have no idea what it would be like for something to hurt in a good way."

"Yeah, a lot of people don't."

"I don't suppose you can describe it?"

"Even negative intensity. Huh."

"Well, is it still negative if I like it? But yeah."

"Well, it's a signal of damage."

"Sure. But there's damage and there's damage. Like, it hurts when I hug you but that doesn't mean I'm making anything worse, it just means I'm already pretty busted up."

"It's not a perfect signal of damage. It's not like anyone designed us."

Trouble laughs. "Now that would be funny."

"What would be - perfect damage signals or someone having badly designed humans?"

"Somebody having designed humans. I'd hate it if pain didn't work the way it does, that would be terrible."

"A lot of other people would be much happier if pain didn't work how it does."

"Sure," he says. "I'd still hate it."

"If you got a magic button to press that would make it work as a neutral damage report for everybody, would you refrain from pressing it so you could keep it how you like it?"

"Yes."

"Hm."

"I mean - okay, what's a food you don't like very much? Something you don't hate but you could happily just never eat it again, it's not awful but it's not any good either?"

"Mmm... turnips."

"Okay," says Trouble. "Now imagine you could do the pain thing, but it also makes all the food in the world taste like turnips forever. To everybody. Everything you ever liked about food, gone. It's turnips from here on out. And everybody else who liked a food that wasn't turnips, they'd be fucked too. You'd think twice, wouldn't you?"

"I'd do it if the number of people who enjoyed non-turnip food was very small."

"Do you know the numbers? 'Cause let me tell you, I am not even close to the only masochist in the world. Sure, okay, the way pain works makes more people unhappy than happy on balance, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't be losing anything if you just got rid of it. Like, I'd just about die. I would miss it a lot."

"I don't know the exact numbers, I just think the 'on balance' thing matters more than you seem to. I acknowledge something would be lost even if I don't know what that thing is like, but that's just - if pain started out like a neutral damage report, and someone offered to let you change it to the other way around, doing that would hurt a lot of people, in a bad way. The way things start out isn't special. The one way and the other both have their good points, but the one adds up better."

"How do you know? How do you actually know? Look, the reason I wouldn't push that button is that pushing that button would be worse than dying. I can't actually think of a worse thing than that right now. And I have been through the kind of hell you get when pain isn't nice, I know who I'd be fucking over by not hitting it, but the way pain works is just not something I can give up."

"Well, what I'd actually do with a button like that is find who made it and find out why they didn't give me a better button," says Bella. "Assuming it is a naturally occurring thought experiment button, apparently we don't agree on what to do with it. I'm not judging, especially, it would be a wrench to push the Turnip Version of the button - but I would throw you under the bus to help the rest of the world." She shrugs. "I hope that doesn't take the flavor out of your cookies or anything."

Trouble shrugs. "Means you scare me, but hey, so does Ethan," he says, and grabs a cookie.

"I scare you because I'd make a tradeoff that didn't work out well for you if I obtained extremely specific magical abilities?"

"Not exactly." He nibbles the cookie. "I mean, I'm not afraid you're actually gonna get your hands on a button like that and wreck my life. But the way you talk about this stuff, it's like... you're so sure you've got it all down right, you're not waiting to figure anything out and see if maybe it's gonna screw more people over worse than you think, you're just gonna hit the button. And when I was asking you to keep quiet before I told you about Reggie, you said if anybody else started getting hurt you'd spill - not if anybody else started getting hurt and wanted you to. So if Reggie starts messing with somebody new, are you going to wait and find out if they like the odds? Or are you just gonna go straight to the cops? I don't think he will, or I might've asked you then. But people who want to make things better and are really sure they already know how - think they know how better than the people they're gonna be fixing it for - that's dangerous. I can't have too many of those around. Not with my life."

"We were idly conversing about extremely improbable events; I didn't think you were going to conclude that I'm somehow a dangerous person if I glossed over the information-gathering steps because they're somewhat less interesting to talk about. And in the other case - I just meant my specific promise to you wouldn't cover the situation where someone else was in harm's way, that I wouldn't promise to you about them, that they will not encounter me already committed to keep secrets whether they like it or not. I'd have to talk to them separately and that wouldn't be under the umbrella of the promise."

"You don't sound particularly impressed. I have no actual magical powers to responsibly wield for your approval and don't really care to spend much of my time seeking such approval in less magical ways, so I guess that's reasonable."

"It's not that, it's - it takes more for me to stop being scared of somebody than it takes for me to start. You're less scary now, but I'm not really feeling it all the way yet."

"I'm not that scared of you," he says. "And I'd miss you if you stopped. Look - if I know that when shit gets real you're gonna pay attention to who you might be screwing over, then you're not scary. I just need a little while where you're around and I can tell that's true, to give my feelings time to catch up."

"How little a while?"

He shrugs. "Dunno. Just - time. If I wasn't gonna be in the hospital and then out of school, I'd say a week."

He smiles encouragingly and takes another cookie.

"...Maybe not completely," he admits. "Especially with Ethan."

"Hmm?"

"I kind of love him because he's scary. I love what's scary about him. He'd screw me over in a second if it got him something he wanted. He'd do it to almost anybody. That's part of why it's so sweet that he's stuck on Robin like he is - I get to watch him have all these nice feelings when I wasn't even sure he had it in him."

"So you don't think he'd screw her over?"