[b]Lynn[/b]

Lynn woke up chilly, which she took for a sigh of relief. She blinked and began thrashing, scrambling - the lizard, Christ, she had to -

She was bound to the bed. "Oh motherfucker," Lynn muttered, although her voice sounded strange. She blinked again. There was something strapped to her face. An oxygen tube. Huh. Well, at least these halfwits had figured something out. Lynn shook her head as best she was able. Something scratched against the pillow behind her. Her hair was starting to grow back, at least. There was an IV in Lynn's arm - one in each arm - and Lynn had a suspicion they strapped her down partially to keep her from pulling them out with the other arm. [i]Not incorrect.[/i] Lynn lay back and glanced around for any kind of panic button, her initial skyrocketing fear subsiding. She'd...she'd blown up the cafeteria. Yeah, that was it. Had she killed the lizard? Or Natalie? 

Lynn's eyes settled on the corner, where someone had lain her hoodie. That calmed her down a bit. After about ten thousand years of staring at the ceiling, or fifteen chronological minutes, a nurse came by and unstrapped her. Lynn shifted uncomfortably in the paper gown. She was asking how Lynn felt.

"I got blown through a wall," Lynn said.

The nurse did not seem pleased with this response. Lynn chewed on her lip for a minute and worked up the nerve for her next question, like she had to push the words up from her gut into her throat and out her mouth with one long shove.

"You guys have confidentiality agreements, right? Like you can't narc to anybody?"

"Yes, it's called HIPPA, and we- "

"Did anyone see?"

"...yes, the explosion was quite massive, but - "

"No, I mean after, did anyone..."

The nurse paused for a minute. [i]Damnit.[/i] Lynn leaned back into the pillow even before hearing her answer, some nothing about camera footage but covering her with a blanket as quickly as possible. The nurse went on to describe the symptoms of hypothermia, which Lynn was somehow suffering from despite being partially on fire when they found her. Lynn cursed, which made the nurse startle. [i]Now they have it on file,[/i] she thought wearily. [i]Day one and they know. They all know.[/i] 

Lynn was ready to go after a day or two, her shoulder aching but by no means unusable. Her hair had grown back out to what would be considered an [i]alternative[/i] length, and changed color once every hour or so. The doctors wanted to continue to monitor her for a variety of reasons, including any lasting effects of hypothermia, which involved a lot of needle pinpricks to her fingers and someone taking her temperature like every thirty minutes. She was hovering somewhere around 90 degrees the first day, but was back up to normal by the next.

"I am fine," Lynn said. "Just let me eat and get out of here." They'd at least unstrapped her, but she still wasn't allowed to leave without supervision. Fortunately, they gave her a TV. Lynn watched Maury. She was politely asked to keep her voice down, as her heckling was disturbing fellow patients.

"Well, why aren't they watching?" Lynn asked. "Just trying to enjoy the TV in here. Not much else to do. You want to scream at me for smiling?"

There was then a rather awkward exchange, in which a child psychologist and the nurse, whom Lynn had given a variety of nicknames in her mind, largely relating to her rather equestrian features and Lynn's theories about the lack of sex the nurse was having. The psychologist began to talk to Lynn about a disorder called anorexia, and body dysmorphia, and -

"Oh cut this shit out," Lynn said. "I'm not fucked in the head, I just burn through more calories because -"

"Mental illness isn't being 'fucked in the head'," the psychologist said with the patient tone of someone who has had this conversation a million times before, which just made Lynn more irritated. The last thing she needed was for everyone in the school seeing her naked and bald and throwing up ash on the first day, and then rumors going around that she was some special snowflake who neeeded people to hold her hand. The doctor told Lynn that one of the IV's was supplementing her with nutrients to ensure she got back up to a healthy weight. 

"Dude, I'll eat food."

The doctors nodded politely and continued with their presentation, which at one point included sock puppets that learned not to make fun of their classmates for being too skinny or too fat. 

"But that one puppet is a fatass. Like that's just a fact."

"Do you feel like that puppet, Lynn?"

"I feel like wearing your asshole like that puppet, Doc."

"Angry outbursts are common, Lynn," the doctor said, smiling unshakably.

This continued for several days, in which Lynn devoured every bite of food they put before her. The nurse quickly figured out that mentioning that Lynn couldn't do something was a pretty surefire way to accomplish it, although Lynn had no real reason to spite her on this. She was still starving days after the whole mess. If she'd only had another few meals in her before she'd had to throw down, she thought, she could've lasted a bit longer. She also offered to eat one of the nurses, having not learned that outbursts were not conducive to being released from the hospital more quickly. Fortunately, by a week's time, she'd gained several pounds and her hair was still a short shock, but it was flashing different colors every few minutes. She started melting their thermometers to piss them off. [i]I will destroy your bottom line one thermometer at a time.[/i]

Lynn had a lot of time, during commercial breaks of Judge Judy, to wonder what went down. They hadn't shown her the footage, which she had been pleased by. Apparently, she'd fucked up the cafeteria and the kitchens pretty good, but Spoons had made it out alright, as had Archie. Lynn grinned at that. [i]Yeah, that's right, you big ass lizard. Lynn Holmes, punching above her weight class.[/i] Lynn did wonder how Archie - non lizard Archie - had turned out. She was pretty impressed with Spoons, she had to admit. Spoons had punched that thing like Tyson. She wanted to talk to her at some point and see how she made it out. Truthfully, Lynn hadn't had any idea if that walk-in freezer thing would work, so it was pretty cool Spoons hadn't died.

"Well well," Lynn drawled. They had removed the oxygen tank after Lynn asked them to rewatch footage of the explosion, so she didn't have any crap on her face. Lynn had also gotten them to let her wear her hoodie instead of that scratchy paper gown. She felt weird having her cheeks on a hospital bed.  "You lost weight, Boat Farmer." She paused. "Oh, fuck me, don't tell them I said that, they're convinced - " Lynn looked at his hands. Flowers. Lynn opened her mouth and closed it. What was this? Did...that's..."I..." Lynn's voice tapered off into some kind of stammer. "I, geez, Arch, you, nobody died, I..." she shut her mouth. [i]Motherfucker. Trying to mess with my head. Thinks he can play mind games. [/i]

The truth was that Lynn really didn't hold Archie accountable, in an act of emotional maturity from her that would surprise most. Lynn had gotten chewed out so many times for after-effects of her powers that she couldn't hold it against him. A lot of her friends would bitch that their cigarettes only lasted half as long when she was around, amongst other things. [i]Heh. I still remember that time J shot himself in the foot because I made that gun go off. Good times. [/i] On top of that, Lynn had enjoyed the tussle. A part of her liked that the station knew she could throw down with the best of them on day one. She hadn't been planning on starting any fights, but sometimes, one just has to get knocked around a bit. Lynn was cool with that. Archie manning up and apologizing was pretty cool of him, too. Lynn couldn't fault him for that.

And maybe, in a corner of Lynn's mind she wouldn't admit, there was a sliver of her that was afraid of that thing, and didn't want to be on the wrong side. But until then, she was happy to throw a tennis ball for the human golden retriever every now and then. 

The flowers. "Um, thanks. That's...that's, uh, cool of you." She looked around. Chromatic changes in her hair and eyes were normal for Lynn, but her face was as red as her hair this time. "Look if you can bust me out of here that'd be really cool, I don't know why I'm still here." Everyone was going to think Archie had fucked her up, which she also did not want. Lynn thought maybe she needed to get a PR agent or something. She thought about asking Archie about what he'd heard about things - if that footage had gone around, but she thought better of it. [i]Only security and stuff would've pulled you out of there,[/i] she thought. This was strange. She didn't know what to say. She felt like something was crawling around inside her. Why did he come by? Now she was sure this was some kind of power play. "Do you watch Maury?" she blurted out. "This - this asshole won't pay his child support. It's fuckin' great."

The other thing that Lynn could not engineer a conspiracy theory or questionable motive or ulterior goal for was that no one had ever brought Cordelia Lynn Holmes flowers of any kind. [i]They're pretty.[/i] she thought for a moment, before she gave herself a mental slap to the face. [i]Stop being a complete sissy. The dude threw a table at you.[/i]