Finn's entire life had been a strange web of whatness, but this was a whole new level. How it was possible that he and the same random stranger girl had both passed out at the exact same time of day, simultaneously experiencing the same symptoms and both had a weird burn mark around their wrists in the same place was beyond him.

The nurse stared into the distance deep in thought. For an awkward moment, no one said anything - sending Finn way back in time, about two or three years ago, to when he was an awkward teenager with no chance at getting a girlfriend. He caught himself gazing into the distance, directly at the girl's face. Even though she didn't seem to notice, he blushed anyway, quickly looking away.

Regardless of the baggy hospital gown that she was wearing, she still somehow looked beautiful. He couldn't stop worrying about the moment when she'd realize who he was, go crazy fangirl mode over him, and then ruin every good thought he had about her. But the moment never came - it never would.

"What's your name again?"

He tried to sound casual about it, asking as normally as possible. The girl was drawn out of her daze, snapping back to reality at his voice. She raised her eyebrows.

"Hm? What? Oh. Ash Smith. What's yours?"

He opened his mouth, prepared for the worst as his name left his throat. He tensed, waiting for her to go crazy and beg for an autograph, but to his complete and utter surprise, she just nodded. Wanting - only slightly desperately - to change the subject, he asked the nurse her name as well. It wasn't like him to do it - ask a staff member or worker that served him - but he didn't want another awkward moment to creep up on them and push him back to his horrible teen years.

"My name's Rose," the three of them were all a little shook about everything - Finn's sudden care about people he didn't normally care about only made it weirder.

"What do we do now?" It seemed like an obvious question when Ash asked it, but it was the one taking up the majority of their thoughts. Rose clicked her tongue, an idea popped into her head so clearly that the two of them could see it on her face.

"I have an idea. It might not work so don't expect much but- I'll be right back."

She left the room in a hurry, closing the door behind her out of habit. Ash and Finn said nothing at first, willing the other to break the silence. Finn was the one to do it.

"What do you think is going on?"

"I-I don't know," she slightly tilted her head, the wheels in her mind turning as she sat on his bed, causing him to move his legs over to make room. He waited, curious to hear what she was about to say.

"I think . . . I don't know. The weird thing is . . . my whole life this kind of thing has been happening. When I was little, strange, and unexplainable things would happen - my mother called them phantom pains."

She talked about how she and her mother were kind of poor, so the hospital wasn't a regularly visited place - no matter what pain or weird instances would happen, and how they couldn't get to the bottom of the strange things, and then the conversation somehow veered into a personal direction. She explained how she'd worked - although it felt more like a trip to Grandma's house - at Blossom farm for so many years, losing that job because of a reason she intentionally passed over, and had been looking for a job for the past year or so.

"I'm sorry," she said after a quick silence, "I don't know why I told you all that."

"I don't mind. In all honesty - if anyone can relate, it'd be me."

"What do you mean?"

Now it was his turn to share more personal information than she needed, ranting on about his own childhood, except that it was so much different than hers - practically opposite in every way. After he'd finished, they both sat in silence, but this time, it wasn't awkward - just . . . quiet.

Then, out of the blue, she just smiled. It was small but confident, and her brown eyes twinkled. Finn swallowed, trying not to give away his dry throat.

Rose walked through the door, beaming with a giant grin across her face. Ash and Finn were both happy to see her joy until the doctor following her walked into the room.

The room grew cold at his presence - Finn was instantly colder, pulling his blanket higher up. Ash seemed to feel the same, trying not to shiver. The man had salt and pepper hair paired with a tall and slender yet strong build with deep brown eyes that bore into anyone he glared at.

Even though he was in great shape for his age - he looked about sixty-something - he took up a lot of space in the room somehow. Finn immediately felt intimidated, inwardly promising never to let himself feel less than this man. Rose didn't seem to notice - or ignored it - but everyone else in the room almost cowered back at his presence, everyone except Finn.

There was a small crowd of hospital staff behind the doctor, who reminded Finn of mice, living in fear under the shadow of a powerful fox. The doctor walked up to Finn and Ash, standing over them like a frost giant.

"So . . . I hear that you two have a special case . . ."

Finn forced his sweaty hands not to shake, staring up at the man with as much power as he could muster. Finn was about to reply with some comment he would probably regret, but Ash cut him off - as if she knew how horribly it could go if it was left to him.

"Yes - we do."

The doctor narrowed his eyes.

"Tell me about that."

His voice was cold, with no emotion. Finn was in awe of Ash, who spoke to the man was a calm voice and a proud posture, clearly unshaken by him.

"Well, we were just discussing it, actually," she glanced at Finn for approval. "It's happened all our lives - strange things happening, things no one could explain."

"Give me an example."

Ash thought about it, unmoved by his dagger-like stare. He reminded Finn of a wolf considering inwardly how he would kill his next victim.

"When I was young - I think about five - I thought I'd broken my arm, I was sure I did, actually, but when I told my mother about it, especially given the fact that I hadn't been doing anything except read, she didn't believe me. Eventually, she took me to a friend, who was a nurse at the time, and she examined it- but there was nothing wrong. I was completely healthy."

A shiver ran down Finn's spine as a memory came to mind. He was about five years old, playing in his dad's office, climbing up the high bookshelves, right before he lost his grip and fell to the ground, breaking his arm.

The doctor was unfazed, playing Ash's story through his head. He turned stiffly to Finn.

"And what about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me, did anything like that particular story happen when you were the same age?"

Finn reluctantly told them, explaining the thing as well as he could remember it. They figured out that it had been the same arm, in the exact same place, at the exact time of day in the exact same month, et cetera.

When they were done talking, an unreadable look passed over the cold man's face. Disgust? Joy? Victory? Finn didn't know. But the way the man thought to himself - the face he held - made Finn want to curl up under the covers and never come out.

"Sorry- are we done here? Since nothing is wrong with either of us," he rubbed his wrist without thinking about it, "I think it's time to say by-by to this little . . . thing. Thanks for all your help," he said as he pulled out his IV and stood from his bed, face to face with the man, "but we're done."

He took Ash's hand - she let him - and took a step towards the door. The man's hand shot out, pushing him back onto the bed with such force Finn had to catch his breath.

This man was stronger than he let on.

"No. I don't think we are."