Jared let out a slightly annoyed sigh as he looked back toward Kyle. “Really, Kyle? You wanna start that conversation right now?”

“What stuff?” Ian had to ask impatiently.

“It’s a bit overdue, don’t you think?” Kyle answered Jared’s question rather than Ian’s.

Jared just scoffed as he glanced between the two of them, then back to the younger of them. “So, does that stuff include your stuff too? Does it, huh?” he couldn’t help stating with a bluntness that was normally uncommon for him.

Kyle just shook his head. “My ‘stuff’ only affects me, no one else.”

“Well, I could say the same thing,” Jared returned.

“Oh please,” Kyle denied.

“Could we stop talking in whatever code this is, and just tell me what the hell you both are talking about?” Ian interrupted loudly.

“I saved his life earlier, and now he apparently wants to stir a bunch of other stuff up, despite that,” Jared pointed out with a cool look toward Kyle.

“Would you two just please say something with one iota of clarity to it, please?” Ian interrupted again.

“Ask him how he killed the bear,” Kyle grumbled in response to Ian’s plea, though kept his eyes on Jared.

“Odd, I thought you were the one who shot it in the head,” Jared returned in a matching mumble.

“Yeah, and care to explain how I got close enough to pull off that aim?” Kyle shot back.

“I dunno; maybe you’re a genius, supposedly,” Jared returned with a slight growl.

“Supposedly?” Kyle couldn’t help getting caught up on that word.

“Well, your own ‘stuff’ makes one doubt the theory.”

“Oh shut up,” Kyle glared back at him.

It was then that Ian pushed himself up to his feet painfully once again. “Someone start talking, plainly, before I beat it out of both of you,” he told them angrily, casting his own cool look at both the teens.

“I told you to stay off your leg,” Jared complained as Ian stood, causing him to turn back toward him once more.

“Kind of an odd time to threaten us with physical harm, considering the walking thing itself seems to be a bit of an issue for you right now,” Kyle added, though more quietly.

“Oh you doubt I can kick both of your asses, even with the bum leg? Do you, really?” Ian retorted.

“What the hell are any of you even doing?” Lili interrupted loudly, having since appeared inside the doorway upon hearing the growing volume of the increasingly heated discussion outside.

“Apparently keeping way too many secrets,” Ian answered her bitterly, his eyes still moving between the other two.

“I told him about why the vision is upsetting you so much,” Jared offered her a slight answer.

“Yeah and there were no real answers in that vision, just questions,” she shook her head. “So why the continued display of testosterone, now?” she pressed.

“Cause there’s some other stuff Jared ain’t telling anyone, either,” Kyle added, though that only caused a slight indecipherable twinge in Lili.

“Yeah, how’s your stomach, Kyle?” Jared finally shot back, feeling more than a bit boxed in by the pseudo-interrogation.

“Did I say fuck you yet today?” Kyle muttered.

“What about your stomach?” Lili interrupted worriedly as Ian’s eyes also turned to the youngest of the group.

“It’s nothing,” Kyle answered through gritted teeth.

“Then why try so hard to hide it?” Jared returned, though with only a touch more gentleness.

“Well ain’t that a nice question, Jared? Should I try asking you that?”

“What the fuck?” Lili was the one who exclaimed more loudly then. “Both of you stop it right now, and say whatever the hell you’re both dancing around already!” she ordered, her own impatience easily bubbling to the surface considering her own recent stress and exhaustion.

“Yeah, I tried that already,” Ian mumbled in response to her outburst, as unexpected though it was.

Jared finally sighed heavily before speaking. “The reason I really didn’t wanna bring any attention to this, despite the fact that Kyle’s now given me no choice,” he added under his breath, “is cause of the same reason that I didn’t tell you all about the visions at first: I don’t understand it yet, and I don’t wanna have to try to explain things that don’t even make sense to me yet. Is that such a goddamn crime?” he added with another shake of his head as he cast his eyes downwards.

“Explain what?” Ian finally spoke up after another moment.

“Didn’t I just say that I can’t explain something that doesn’t make any sense to me either?” Jared mumbled further.

“Just tell us what he’s talking about, please,” Lili asked, though much more gently than any of the others had been speaking.

“You already know about it, Lili,” Jared admitted under his breath. “That’s how I stopped the bear-thing earlier. Ian’s right; I’m not a good enough shot to depend on a gun that I’ve never even fired before, so I used the only other kind of self-defense that I could. And apparently Kyle now thinks I need to try and explain it to he and Ian, when I have yet to even be able to explain it to myself.”

“Lili knows. Surprise, surprise,“ Ian scoffed, though quickly continued onwards. “Again I say, explain what? What did you actually do?” he pressed.

Kyle just shook his head and answered for him. “He threw a five hundred pound animal through the air, without even touching it: Smashed its skull against a rock, without even lifting a finger,” Kyle finally filled in the blanks Jared had left while the older teen just took a seat, burying his forehead in his hands stressfully.

Ian looked over at Jared with more than his fair share of disbelief, while Lili swallowed her own breath trying to find a proper response. “A five hundred pound animal? Not just a cup, or a fish, this time?” she whispered as she too looked only slightly less shocked as her eyes moved over the first of her lovers.

“I knew there was something up with those fish,” Kyle added as if then just coming to that realization.

Ian just shook his head as he turned away, not even able to come up with any response of his own right then. Lili took another breath as she looked between the three of them, her eyes finally coming back to settle on Jared. “Apparently you don’t need me to be an anchor anymore,” was her only response.

Jared just shook his head at her statement before looking back up at Ian’s continued silence and Kyle’s seeming thoughtfulness. “You happy now, Kyle?”

“Oh, yeah, just thrilled,” Kyle scoffed. “Though it does really make me wonder what else you’re gonna be able to do…what else we’re gonna be able to do,” he added more thoughtfully.

“That’s it? All that prodding just for the sake of your own curiosity?” Jared scoffed more loudly. “Well, glad I could give you a new note for your case file. Now mind telling them about your stuff?” Jared added pointedly.

Kyle just glared back. “Please, Jared, my stuff is nothing compared to that shit.”

“Then fucking spit it out already!” Ian exclaimed angrily, finally turning back to face the three of them once more, his words causing a bit of tension in Kyle as he looked back his way.

“Please, I’m just way more stressed than I let on, ok?” Kyle attempted to play down the actual problem. “And Jared wants to play shrink and make a huge deal about it. That’s all it is, really,” he added, though sounded more as though he were trying to convince himself than any of them.

Jared just shook his head up at Kyle. “How is you sitting alone out by the river, cutting yourself up, and thinking that all of us being stuck here is all your fault…How is that not a big deal Kyle, really?”

Lili’s breath caught again as she looked over at the youngest of them. “Cutting yourself up?”

Kyle just looked down with a shake of his head. “It’s not anything that affects any of you, which is why none of you needed to know it,” he mumbled.

Lili just shook her head with disbelief which was mirrored on Ian’s face as he sat down again, shaking his head and rubbing at his tired eyes with further stress. She then moved toward Kyle and reached for the bottom of his t-shirt.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, a bit startled by the motion.

“Not like I haven’t undressed you before,” she told him with a slight scowl as she attempted to push his hands away from where he tried to deter her own fingers.

“Yeah, bit of a different situation those times,” he complained.

“Stop it,” she ordered him as she made her way past his fingers and slowly lifted the shirt, gasping a bit as her eyes moved to over half a dozen bloody gashes in his flesh.

“What the fuck, Kyle?” Ian spoke up again as his eyes followed the motions of Lili’s hands as well.

“Yeah, I already said that,” Jared mumbled his own response, his own eyes not yet turning toward them, as he had already seen the sight.

“How can you do this?” Lili asked with her own worried whisper.

“Yeah, he already asked that, too,” Kyle grumbled, finally pulling away to move the shirt back down over the cuts.

Lili sniffled a bit as she tried to catch Kyle’s eyes with her own, worried though they were. “Why in the world do you think us being stuck here is your fault?” she repeated the other part of Jared’s earlier statements.

Kyle just scoffed as he looked away. “You all keep acting like you don’t know it is. I’ve already admitted it to myself. You don’t have to keep pretending you don’t blame me for all of this too, ok?” he managed with a sniffle of his own, still not looking back toward where even Jared then turned his dark eyes back as well.

“Have either of you ever said that?” Lili asked Ian and Jared worriedly.

“No,” Jared was the first to deny. “Why do you think I’m so shocked by Kyle thinking it?”

“Ian?” Lili turned her eyes toward him as well.

“I don’t remember blaming anyone, personally,” Ian admitted.

“Well, it’s not either of them thinking that, and you should know damn well how I feel about you by now. So, who exactly is blaming you, Kyle?” she asked, returning her eyes to his face pointedly. “Other than you,” she had to add.

Jared just sighed slightly before interjecting. “Narcissistic personality disorder: He thinks everything is his fault, be it good or bad,” he glanced at Kyle’s returned look back his way. “You said read medical books. Psychiatry is part of medicine, isn’t it?” he had to remind.

“Yeah, thanks doc,” Kyle scoffed.

“Any time,” Jared returned in a quieter tone as he looked down again.

Kyle just shook his head once more as he looked between all of them. “Personality disorders aside,” he began bitterly, “I don’t know how you all aren’t blaming me for this. I mean, I was the one who picked the whole damn team to even come here at all, redesigned the pod, put my trust in a computer, and then left that bitch up there running it,” he added with a bit of venom still directed at Serena. “How this is anyone else’s fault but mine, is beyond me!” he argued.

That was when Ian spoke up. “Yes, and I helped pick the team. And her mom and my dad approved our choices, and we all made the final decision to come along, ourselves. Let’s not forget that,” only a slight pause. “And the pod didn’t malfunction, so that wasn’t the problem either: It did get us here safe, like you designed it to. And as for your last argument, everyone else up there went along with letting Serena replace you too, so even if she did have anything to do with--” though his voice trailed off as Jared suddenly put his hands to his temples as though in sudden terrible pain then, himself.

“Jared?” Lili was the first to rush towards him, though he was trapped there inside that waking nightmare, not even seeming to be with them in the present at all for several long moments wherein he was terrified by whatever it was that none of the others could see or even fathom themselves, as those visions continued playing through his brain, holding him as their captive audience for seemingly endless moments.

When those images finally released him from their grasp, he opened his eyes once more with a shaky, ragged breath, seeming almost startled back to the present, where all of their worried eyes awaited some explanation. After another long, shaky breath while trying to compose himself and make any sort of sense of the things he had just been shown, Jared finally breathed his response more than speaking it. “I think I know what happened to the ship.”