Christmas came and went, the two of them having a small affair of it that left JR more sad than anything else. He knew that his cousin tried to make it special, decorating their new two-bedroom apartment with lights and a tree, but it just didn;t feel right without his parents. JR was determined to not let his own sadness bring them both down, though, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and gave it his best try.

JR had gotten stronger each day, and over the past month and a half he had gone from only walking from the bedroom to the living room, to be being able to go with Aron to run errands. At first he would get tired, but he had come to realize that the more he pushed himself, the stronger he was the next time, and so despite Aron's concerns he tended to move until he couldn't any longer. That meant taking his wheelchair with them in the car in case he overdid it, but except one of the first day's when he was too tired to make it up the apartment stairs, he hadn't needed the chair.

It didn't stop Aron from switching from fussing over him like a mother hen to being his own personal drill sergeant, cajoling him to continue pushing himself as long as he was getting enough to eat. Even now, as JR stood at the refrigerator and peered into the contents, he could hear Aron's prodding in his mind. Dairy, protein, vegetablesc went the litany. Well, technically pickles were part of the latter group, JR decided, and reached for the jar. He had loved pickles as a child but had been unable to eat them during any of his cancer treatments,  due to the acidity in them. Now that he could eat anything he wanted (his body had had no rejections of any foods), Aron said that he ate a ridiculous amount of pickles. As his hand closed around the lid, JR's mind was on what his cousin would say when he learned that JR had finished off this latest jar. Knowing it had been in the fridge and was likely tighty sealed,  he added just a bit of pressure to ensure the jar opened smoothly, and he twisted.

To his utter shock, the pickle jar exploded in his hands, shards of glass, splashes of juice, and displaced pickles flying everywhere. It sounded as if a small explosion had gone off right there in their small kitchen, and the noise brought Aron hurrying from his bedroom with wide eyes full of concern.

"What happened?" he exclaimed, looking at the glass and pickles strewn everywhere before carefully stepping up to JR to touch his face. "You're bleeding!"

"Pickle jar exploded," he said numbly, still shocked about the whole ocurence, though the word bleeding did make it through his conscious and he raised a hand to touch his own face, staring in morbid curiousity when it came away red. 

Aron snatched several paper towels off of the roll and pressed them against the cut on JR's face. "Hold this," he grumped, and it was his tone more than anything else that brought JR out of his surprise. He did as he was told and took the towels, gingerly holding them in place as Aron loked at the mess around them in dismay.

"I'm sorry," he began, to which Aron's thick brows furrowed more and he pointed a finger at his younger cousin. 

"None of that. You don't apologize for things out of your control. Get to the bathroom and take care of that cut, then come help me clean up, okay? But don't step on the glass!" he added sharply as JR made his way across the kitchen and toward the hallway.

He couldn't understadn what had happened, he had never had a jar do something like that. Had it been spoiled and built up too much pressure from the gasses? He didn't think so, but he couldn't imagine any other explanation. Then he stepped up to the bathroom mirror and removed the paper towels from his cut to find that there was just a scratch in the skin where the cut had been, and all thoughts of jars fled his mind. 

"What in the world?" he whispered to himself, leaning closer to the mirror to get a better look. There were streaks of still wet blood all down his face and yet there was none coming from the cut itself. He scanned his face for any other wounds, but there was only the one, high on his right cheekbone. His eyes returned to it and he blinked in surprise, brow furrowing as he realized that the scratch was even less of one than it had been moments before. "Oh my god," he mumbled, watching in shock and fascination as the cut finished healing, disappearing alltogether from his face, leaving only blood as the evidence. 

Suddenly things clicked into place for him: the miraculous disappearance