[For Mary Jane] Slow pain I feel will not let me be.

I remember falling asleep. The air was humid and warm, clinging to my skin in a way I'd almost missed during my time in the clinic. Mary Jane was using my arm as a pillow. My fingers were going numb, but I didn't have the heart to move. We'd spent two months with little more than stolen moments. It seem important, somehow, to keep her close, now that I could. The ache in my leg -- persistent and dull -- belonged to somebody else. I remember being happy. Sated. Content.

When I wake up, someone is screaming. The sound's like none I've ever heard, desperate and raw and terrified -- more animal than human. Adrenaline pushes me out of bed, but it's then I realize I wasn't in bed to begin with, and that the bed is, in fact, looming large and dark in the background from my vantage point on the floor. Glass bites into my hands. Sharp, blinding pain radiates up from my leg and through my hip. The metallic taste of blood coats my tongue.

Someone is still screaming. I'm aware, distantly, that all of this is connected, but it's not until I take my first gasping breath and the screaming stops that I realize that that someone was me. My ears ring in the comparative silence. Bile rises in my throat and onto the floor, painting it the color of yesterday's breakfast. Tears spill hot down my face, and I shut my eyes to stop them, but it's no use. It's already too late. It's always too late.

[For Mary Jane]

It's stupid to be nervous. For one, this whole date was my idea -- an idea born of a desperate situation, sure, but I've been on a real roll with those lately. At this rate, I'm thinking the day I actually consider what I'm saying before I say it will go down in the history books. I mean, it's getting a little ridiculous. Pretty soon I'll be promising the moon instead of a proposal, and all the spaceships on this piece of rock are currently out of service.

Not that tonight's going to change the very nature of our relationship or anything -- boy, that sounds dramatic -- but, well, it's like I said: I don't think. Between the sunset and the food and the beautiful company, I might end up blurting out something neither of us are ready for, and then what? That's a rhetorical what, by the way. 'Cause, I mean, I know exactly what will happen. Mary Jane's already told me. You'd think knowing would take some of the pressure off, but in all honesty, it's harder not to ask. She's seen me through two of the worst months of my life, and she's still here. In a place full of uncertainty, she's been my tether, kept me grounded and sane and-- I really need to stop thinking about this. When it's right, it's right. And this -- here and now -- isn't about being right. It's about making up for one sleepless night and over fifty spent underground in a concrete box of a building. It's about having a little fun.

You do remember fun, don'tcha, Parker?

We're both sprawled across a blanket by the waterfall close to my place, the food MJ prepared mostly eaten. Unneeded for the time being, the wheelchair is folded closed behind us. The first stars are blinking up in the sky. Last time we did anything like this was months ago, suspended high above the ground in a web. That was a little more my speed, admittedly, but this is fine -- better than fine. But I turn my head look at her, and the butterflies in my stomach just flap their wings that much harder. And you know what? Maybe it's stupid, but a part of me hopes I never lose that. The corners of my mouth tug upwards in a smile.

"So, on a scale from one to ten -- one being not at all, and ten being a lot, Pete, are you kidding me -- this beats Scrabble night in the clinic by how much, you think?"