And we did indeed fall—just not for very long. 

As it turns out, elevators don't really fall anymore. I mean, they can break and stuff, but the whole plunging-to-the-bottom-of-the-shaft-and-perishing-in-a-fiery-explosion thing? Pretty unlikely. Modern technology is a wonder.

So when Rokim and the building admins finally did show up (after my rather dramatic descent into unconsciousness), they found us stuck between the first and second floors. We'd sort of bumped ourselves down a level, and they'd had to pry the doors open and haul us through whatever little space was left. After that, I was promptly rushed to the hospital, checked for injuries, blah blah blah. You know, the usual.

That's why when I first opened my eyes, I was assaulted by bright white fluorescent lights. Obviously that didn't jive well with me, having just been subjected to a horribly traumatic experience and all, so I squeezed my eyes shut again.

Perhaps that wasn't the best idea, because as soon as I did I became aware of a few voices shouting at each other nearby. Familiar voices.

"Look at what you did to her! She could have died!" yelled the first. 

"I know," said the second. Their words were stiff and forced. "It wasn't my intention—"

"Fuck you!" I heard something being slammed against the wall, and I tried to move and stop them somehow, but my limbs were sluggish. I forced my eyes open again. They hadn't completely adjusted to the light, so I could only squint at the two people having it out in my room.

Rian was pinned against the wall by . . . is that Rokim?  I thought in shock. His face was almost unrecognizable, completely contorted by fury. His dyed blond hair was a mess, and he looked like he hadn't slept at all. "You don't even know, do you?" he hissed, staring at Rian accusingly.

Rian, in sharp contrast to Rokim, wasn't the least bit aggressive. He didn't try to remove Rokim's hands from his collar or fight back in any way. He just looked . . . resigned? 

No, that wasn't it. Rian looked guilty.

"I don't know what?" Rian echoed tonelessly. 

Rokim's eyes narrowed and he slammed Rian against the wall again. I wanted to yell and stop them, but my voice was stuck in my throat—my body hadn't completely woken up yet. I could only watch as Rian rocked back, his black hair splaying haphazardly over his forehead and getting in his eyes.

"Do you have any idea what that girl has put herself through because of you?" Rokim stabbed a finger in the direction of my hospital bed. "Can you even fathom what she's done for you already? What she's sacrificed?"

Rian's gaze shot up from where it had been boring a hole in the floor. "What?" he asked tensely. "Tell me."

Rokim seemed to seize with rage then. He stared Rian in the eye for a few seconds longer, and I was sure he was about to punch him. 

But instead he abruptly released his collar, his lip curling in disgust. "Whatever," he muttered, turning away from him. "Just get out."

Rian stood stock still, not moving an inch. "No. Tell me what you were about to say." His voice carried an edge that I'd heard only once before, on the way to that meeting with Prof—a dark, feverish undercurrent that I didn't know how to define.

Rokim glared at him hard, and I saw his hand clench into a fist. He struggled for a moment, his fingers digging into his palm, before his shoulders dropped and he turned to face Rian fully.

"She has nightmares," he said finally. 

Rian stiffened. "What . . . kind of nightmares?" he asked, his voice strained.

"I don't know." Rokim dragged his fingers through his hair agitatedly. "She's never told me what they were about. Not once." He sank onto one of the hospital chairs. "All I know is that they're horrible. Sometimes she screams, but the worst ones are when she makes no sound at all."

He looked up at Rian, that accusing look back in his eye. "When that happens," he continued, his voice seething with anger, "there's always a tell. Hanna's never been very good at hiding things."

Rian didn't move, his dark eyes trained on Rokim in morbid horror. I tried forcing my voice out, but all I could get were a few pathetic squeaks, too quiet to hear. 

"What is it?" Rian asked quietly. 

Rokim's eyes took on a cruel glint. "She avoids looking at you. When someone makes an appearance in one of her nightmares, she can't stand to look in their eyes for several days afterwards. She's burned plenty of pictures just because of that."

Rian looked stricken at this revelation. I knew he was thinking of my own recent inability to look him in the eye, and this finally gave me the strength to propel a cough out of my weakened lungs. Their heads both whipped in my direction, two pairs of eyes widening when they realized I was awake.

"Can you guys keep it down?" I rasped, attempting a smile. "Trying to catch up on my beauty sleep over here."

Rokim rushed to my side. "Hanna!" he breathed, fretting over me worriedly. "Are you alright? Does anything hurt?"

I groaned as he helped me sit up, noting that I was still in regular clothes, no hospital gown. I probably hadn't been here too long. Rian simply stood and stared at me from the other side of the room, almost like he was afraid to get too close. 

"I'm good," I said hoarsely. "A little sore, but I guess that's to be expected when you conk out in an elevator."

I glanced up at Rian, looking at him steadfastly. "You guys had an . . . interesting conversation." 

He held my gaze, his expression inscrutable. With his loose black sweater and hair that was somehow perfectly tousled despite being tossed back and forth repeatedly, you couldn't even tell he'd nearly been in a fistfight less than a minute ago.

I turned to Rokim, watching as his eyes widened. "You heard all that?" he asked tentatively. 

With a grimace, I nodded. "Yeah, I heard it." I swung my legs off the side of the mattress, wincing a little. My body had loosened up considerably, but I still heard a few satisfying cracks as I stretched and hopped off the bed. 

"FYI," I started, shuffling across the sizeable room to the coat hook. "If you wanted to know, you could've just asked me."

I directed my words at Rian, staring at him pointedly and raising an eyebrow. I swung my peacoat around my shoulders, sighing in comfort at the familiar weight, and marched straight up to him.

"Fair warning," I looked up at his face, allowing my lips to tug into a wicked grin. His blank facade took on a hint of suspicion, like I was something dangerous that better be avoided. "Now that you know all about me, I expect you to return the favour."

"Please," Rian said derisively, throwing me the usual glare. "I'm obviously some kind of trigger for you. If you think I'm going to spend even a second within ten meters of you after this, you're sadly mistaken."

"And why is that?" I asked, my smirk morphing into a mockingly sweet smile. "Are you worried about me?"

Rian continued to glower at me. "That's not—"

"Because it seems like you are," I continued smoothly. "Here, let me posit my theory. First, let's consider that very few people are willing to literally rock a random acquantaince to sleep in a dark elevator, and in the middle of a convulsive episode at that!" 

He didn't respond this time, and instead settled on maintaining his cold silence.

I started to circle him slowly, filled to the brim with self-satisfaction. Rokim watched it all with a stunned expression. "So that means that you're either an extremely good person, which we both know isn't true," I said slowly, my smirk returning in full force when his expression darkened, "or you must have some deep-seated emotional attachment to me."

Rian scoffed scornfully, and I plopped into a chair and crossed my legs. "I understand your skepticism," I said, raising my hands in a palms-out gesture, "but here's the thing. According to you," I waved a hand at Rian nonchalantly, "we've only known each other for about two weeks. A normal person with a working phone, like yourself, caught in that situation would call someone for help or instructions on what to do. Or at the very least panic. But not you."

I started to button my coat, scooping my hair away so it tumbled down the length of my back. "And given the short-lived nature of our relationship—as colleagues—that kind of care and intimacy seems wildly out of place, don't you think?"

I leaned back in my chair, watching the realization dawn on both Rian and Rokim's faces simultaneously. Oh, they knew where I was going with this. My smug smile broadened into a full-blown grin.

"Conclusion: you, Mr. Rian Aronhalt, must have some prior relationship with me that you've neglected to mention. Something that would explain the heart-warming TLC administered in that elevator." I wiggled my eyebrows, feeling the sweet satisfaction of a checkmate neatly sliding into place. "A certain lifelong friendship, perhaps?"

Rokim stared at me, open-mouthed. Rian simply glared and didn't say a thing, which was also fine. I cocked my head and waited patiently. He was gonna have to talk at some point, and I intended to savour every word.

Finally, he opened his mouth. I leaned forward slightly, eager to hear the words I'd been anticipating for so long. 

I remember y—

"I have to go."

Wait, what?

My mouth dropped open as Rian stalked past me. He crossed the room in a matter of seconds, moving at superhuman speed. Or maybe I just thought that because his legs were a million miles longer than mine, who knows? The point was he hightailed it out of there, like a coward.

I gaped at the space he'd left behind and the door left swinging on its hinges. A surge of anger rose up within me, and I let out a string of curses even Blackbeard would have shied away from. If Blackbeard had spent three years in France, that is.

"That insufferable pisse-froid!" I yelled. "Que connard! Il n'a pas les couilles pour me dire la verité, je le sais bien!"

"Alright, alright," Rokim approached me carefully. "Calm down, Han."

"Mais le salaud—"

"Let's try english first, okay?" he assuaged. "L'anglais."

I clenched my fists, breathing heavily. Had I seen that right? Had he really just up and left? "Does he think I'm above chasing him down and dragging the truth out of him?" I exclaimed in rage, stomping my way to the door.

"Woah," Rokim blocked my path, his expression wary. "Han. You literally woke up five minutes ago."

"So?" I growled, trying to find a way around him.

"So," Rokim grabbed my shoulders, maneuvering me into a plush sofa. "don't overdo it. You've been knocked out for nearly 15 hours."

I stopped struggling, dumbfounded by that revelation. "What? 15 hours?"

Rokim grimaced, taking a seat beside me. "Yeah. Not great."

I sagged back into the chair, stunned. "Wow. Usually it's only five or six at most." I shook my head, lost in quiet contemplation. If it's already this bad, then that means . . .

"Hanna." Rokim broke the silence, shifting to look at me seriously. "That guy . . . he's bad news. You should stay away from him."

My expression softened. There was genuine concern in Rokim's eyes, and for the first time I got a glimpse of how worried he must have been when he found me unconscious in that elevator. 

"Rokim," I said gently, with a warm smile. "I can't do that."

He got up and started pacing agitatedly. "But why? Every time you get near him, you're at risk." He turned to me, a note of desperation in his voice. "He's not worth your life, Hanna!"

My smile faltered. Beyond the open door, I could hear a medley of different sounds. Coughing, crying, the incessant beeping of a hundred heart monitors. I'd been forced to listen to them all countless times before, but even then nothing could drown out the endless screaming that came to me in the middle of the night. Nothing, except . . . 

"The way I've been living, Kimmy," I said, shaking my head, "my life hasn't been worth all that much anyway."

"Hanna—"

"But," I continued, "if I'm lucky, Rian can change that." I looked at him earnestly, trying to make him understand. "I can finally, finally move on. And hopefully so can he."

Rokim stared at me for a moment despondently. Finally, his shoulders sagged. "Alright," he agreed reluctantly. I began to smile, but he held up a hand. "Still, if you insist on putting your life in danger like this, then I have a condition."

I nodded pensively, curious what it could be. "Shoot."

"The Evaluation Competition," Rokim said firmly. "That's in about three weeks. You have to get Rian to recognize you by then."

I frowned—that was way too short. "Three weeks? Uh, Kimmy . . . have you met Rian?"

"Unfortunately, I have," Rokim replied drily. "I don't care how—by force, persuasion, witchcraft, whatever. If you don't make at least that much progress, then I'm going to go to Prof and switch with you as Rian's partner for the ecomp." He looked at me resolutely. "Prof values your life more than winning the competition. He won't hesitate."

I took in his words silently. He wasn't wrong, and it didn't seem like I had much of a choice in the matter. "Alright," I said finally. "You've got a deal."

Rokim let out a breath. "Wow. That was easier than I thought," he said, smiling at me.

I grinned back, glad to have at least something back to normal. "I guess you're just really persuasive."

He grabbed his coat off the hanger and slung his arm over my shoulder. "Come on, let's go get you discharged." 

"Can we get ice cream after?" I asked cheekily, walking with him to the door.

Rokim smirked. "Sure. My treat, since you're still out of commission and all," he said, which earned him an elbow in the ribs.

As we left the hospital, I kept turning Rokim's words around in my head. Three weeks, I thought determinedly. I could do that. 

Probably.