Jessica paced the living room floor, almost wearing a hole in the carpet as she scuffed her feet roughly in her frustration. She glanced at the clock again. Fifty minutes. She had been gone for almost an hour! It doesn’t take that long to get a box of tampons!!! And it didn’t help matters any that Taeyeon was still raging in the bathroom, occasionally yelling more death threats at Jessica or muttering some other unintelligible stuff.

She’s probably putting a curse on me or something in there…OMGAWD!!!! WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?!???

Just as Jessica was going to throw on her own jacket to go look for Tiffany, the sound of a key jiggling in the door made Jessica snap her head up. She ran to the door and flung it open…only to have a huge bag of something cold into her arms.

“Hurry! Stick those in the freezer. NOW!” came Tiffany’s husky voice from behind the bags. Jessica shuffled over to the freezer and threw the contents in…ice cream. A lot of ice cream. Jessica was going to squeal in happiness when she remembered. Tiffany. Tiffany who had been gone for fifty minutes. Tiffany who had made her worry. Jessica rounded angrily on the younger girl.

“Yah! Where wer–” Jessica stopped and narrowed her eyes. Tiffany’s clothes were slightly askew, nothing ripped, but it looked like she had been in a scuffle of sorts. Her pants were kind of dirty too. And…her hair…it stuck to her head in places… Jessica reached out to touch the back of Tiffany’s head, but the younger girl skirted to the side and walked to the bathroom.

“Taeyeon! Open up! I have the tampons!”

“Oh thank the good lord! I’m dying in here! Literally blood pouring out of every orifice!”

“That’s...nice…”

Taeyeon opened the door a crack and zipped her hand out to grab to proffered plastic bag and scurried back inside.

“Hey when you’re done, cramp meds are on the kitchen countertop, snacks and drinks are in the cupboards and ice cream’s in the freezer!”

“AH-SHU KA-REEM!!!!!”

Tiffany turned around and almost walked face first into a glaring Jessica.

“You’re hurt.”

“Not really.”

“Your head is bleeding. And now your nose is bleeding too. What the hell happened?!”

“Hey hand me one of those tampons will you?”

“Tch! Beckham doesn’t actually stick tampons up his nose, you know that right?”

“It works, so lets not question the magic that is the tampon.”

Taeyeon came out of the bathroom then, and without even looking at the other two (one of whom now has a tampon hanging out of one nostril) ran squealing towards the freezer.

“TIPPANY!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!”

Tiffany chuckled and walked into the bathroom. Jessica walked in right behind her, closing and locking the door as she came in.

“I’m going to shower. You need to get out.”

“With an open wound on your head?”

“I’ll manage.”

“I’ll just wash your head for you then I’ll leave. Ok?”

“That’s not a good idea Jessica.”

“You’ve controlled yourself well enough for the past two months, it’ll be fine.”

“But I’ll be completely …and you’ll be completely …and did I mention that you’ll be too? . Bare. Nada. In your freaking birthday suit.”

“I’ll keep my clothes on then. How’s that?”

“Nono…that even worse. I’m much hotter than James Bond and you sure as hell are ier than Vesper Lynd. I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“Why do you keep comparing things in your life to movies?”

“Why not?”

“…”

“…”

“There. You’re . I’m . It’s not so bad now, is it? Now turn on the shower and face the wall.”

“…”

“…”

“Can you not press your s up against my back? It’s driving me nuts.”

“Well then crouch down a little so I can reach! Gawd your hair keeps getting in the way… Oh my…it’s still oozing blood…does this sting? I think you should get this stitched up. And your back…DID SOMEONE TAKE A PIPE TO YOU?!?!??”

“Shush!!!”

“Tiffany Hwang Miyoung!!!”

“I got jumped. Now stop yelling and rinse my hair. I’m not going to the hospital. The moment I register as a patient Jaesung will know and that automatically means Nayeong will know. I’ve had head wounds before. They always look worse than they are. It’ll be fine.”

“You got jumped…like with pipes and crowbars…what did he take?”

“Some money from my wallet.”

“And he didn’t take any of the groceries?”

“Well half of the bags were filled with tampons, what the hell would a bunch of guys need tampons for?”

“Well for nosebleeds apparently…wait…bunch of guys? As in there was more than one?”

“Yea. Now come on. Dry off. I’m tired. I wanna sleep.”

“This discussion isn’t over Tiffany.”

“It is.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As they lay in Jessica’s bed that night. Tiffany recollected what had happened. She had lied to Jessica. Those men weren’t after anything material. They just wanted to hurt her. Or maybe even worse, kill her. Tiffany didn’t want to alarm Jessica, so she had kept that to herself. But things were looking a little sketchy from where she stood.

Who the hell were they…?

Tiffany eventually drifted off to sleep. Jessica waited till the girl’s breathing became slow and deep before moving out from under Tiffany’s protective embrace. She propped herself up a little against the headboard and gently pillowed the younger’s head on her chest, contemplating the events of that night.

After the shower, she had patched up the wound on Tiffany’s head as best she could as the girl stubbornly refused to go to the hospital. Then the younger girl had practically dragged her to the bed, very eager to get to sleep.

Jessica had noticed that Tiffany seemed very excited every night to fall asleep, and when she did, she would often mumble snatches of phrases and bits of names. Jessica could never make much sense of the broken phrases and words, but she could tell Tiffany was happy, happier than she had ever seen her when she was awake and conscious.