AN Time to perform CPR on this story! This takes place in a boarding school for girls, so there will be talk of menses and that wonderful stuff that most authors usually overlook in their stories. But I'm not quite 'most authors'! So that dreadful time of the month will be addressed. Yours in femslash, Milly

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blackout

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three.

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Two knocks on the bathroom door. Ryou couldn't tell whether it was from the neighbours' side or if it was Joey knocking. She laid the cleaning product on the sink and cleared her voice, as if it took her effort to speak up.

"Y-yes?"

"Oh sorry, um, do you think you're going to be done soon? I really need to, um, to use the bathroom."

"Oh!" Ryou hadn't realized just how long she'd been locked in the tiny room, scrubbing and rinsing and scrubbing some more. She'd been surprised to even see some cleaning products under the sink; less so when she saw they had never been used. The safety seal was still on!

Some people had it in their personality to be a slob - well, not that Joey was a slob but, erm, let's say her sanitation standards somewhat differed from Ryou's - but if the two neighbours next door were as uncaring for grime and discarded hairs as Joey was, Ryou would have to pick 'cleaning' as her compulsory extra-curricular activity.

"Ryou?" The friendly blonde's voice called again. "You alright?"

"Yes! Yes! Just a second"

She took off the yellow rubber gloves, laid them on the side of the bath and opened the door to a very bashful looking Joey. She was holding something behind her back.

"Sorry, I sort of dozed out and-"

"Oh shit!" The blond exclaimed. "You didn't have to do that!" Her smile revealed that she was actually quite happy that Ryou had 'done that'. "I had no idea, like, I thought you were playing with the shower head or something." And then Joey let out a nervous sort of laugh that faded away gradually as she realized that the innuendo was lost on the pale girl.

Ryou double checked the interior of the bath and toilet. "It's pretty much done, I just need to do the floors, I'm almost done I swear!"

"You make me feel bad for being such a slob," Joey said with a bashful grin.

Ryou blushed at the word slob she herself had been using during her previous internal monologue. "No, no, it's normal, you've been busy with school is all," she started meekly.

"Nah, you're giving me too much credit. I don't really need to put that much effort into my studies to get a passing grade." She raised her arm above her head, leaning into her elbow against the doorframe in a decidedly rather macho and confident pose. Ryou couldn't help but notice that she was indeed a shaver - she'd seen two suction cup razor holders on the shower but wasn't sure whom they belonged to. "Perks of being the track and field star of the school. So, erm, I don't mean to ruin all your good work, but..."

The sentence hung in mid-air. A lightbulb lit itself above Ryou's head.

"Are you alright? Do you feel ill? I'm- I'm sorry I was in the way!"

Joey laughed nervously some more. "No, it's um, it's not that, it's just... Er... I'll try not to dirty everything, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

Joey held out a small, funnel shaped, transparent contraption. She gave it a squeeze, revealing the material's flexible characteristic.

"What... What's that?" Ryou asked, wide-eyed.

"Blood goes in there. I fucking hate pads, they smell and they get sticky and gross. This is so much better. I guess this is the one thing you can't lend a girlfriend, but you should definitely look into buying one."

Understanding dawned on Ryou's face. "Oh. Ohhh. Oh I see. Erm, take your time," she said as she exited the premises, squeezing herself between Joey and the door frame, eager not to touch either. She kept her eyes cast to the ground and only dared looking up once she heard the click of the bathroom door behind her.

So she was on her period. And she was using this weird... basket thing... Ryou had never heard about anything like that. She thought of the piles of pads lurking in her luggage and... well, she'd have to make sure to keep them away from the blonde's sight.

Now after barely an hour spent quietly picking up tiny hairs and cobwebs (yes, cobwebs) Ryou hadn't expected to come back to a slightly disorderly bedroom. It seemed like Joey just couldn't help herself; in search of tomorrow's change of clothes, maybe, she'd managed to undo much of Ryou's neat folding and arranging. The 'shoe spot' was a mess again.

But Ryou didn't mind. She was used picking up after other people's mistakes and wrongdoings. Especially since these 'other people' dwelled inside of her more often than not.

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"So this is Triss, or Trista, but her real name is Christina actually. Her little brother couldn't do his K's for the longest time until he saw a speech path and used to call her that, so it stuck."

"Oh." Ryou was looking at Joey's yearbook from last year. In all honesty Ryou would have preferred to catch up on sleep, but Joey was so enthusiastic about 'introducing' her to her friends that Ryou hadn't been able to refuse. As a result they were looking at 'you had to be there' pictures of people Ryou would meet face to face in less than four hours now.

"... goes back to live with her grandfather in the summer. It's kind of hard to raise a girl when you're just the one old man, so that's why she's here."

"What did you say her name was again?"

"Yugi. Yeah I know it's a weird kind of name. Actually until like, two years ago I didn't give two shits about her. But she just won me over, man, we're best friends."

"She won you over," Ryou echoed, all-too aware of how good she was at active listening, and at how well it worked on Joey.

"Yeah, I don't know, before coming here I was kind of a bad person. I don't know. I don't really like to think about it. It's like - it's a part of my life that's behind me now, type of thing."

"You look like a very nice person to me."

"You're just saying that," Joey said, pulling the cotton sheet over her lap like a protective armor, "there's lots of me you don't know about. I don't know you that well yet but you look to me like the kind of girl who's always been surrounded with good and doesn't really know anything else."

It would be tempting to mirror Joey's comment on 'not knowing things' about her, but Ryou shushed herself. It would be like jinxing it; if the blackouts ceased here at Saint-Mary's, all for the better, and people would never have to know about her shady past. Her condition. "I wished I had brought pictures, too, to share," she simply said. I wished I had friends to talk about.

"Yugi has a camera, actually. We're going to make our own pictures, trust me."

"We?"

"Yeah! You're kind of cool and pretty nice, I can't see why you wouldn't be part of the gang."

Thanks but no thanks, Ryou thought. It was nice of you to tell me about your friends, and I'm sure I'll see them in class and maybe chit chat a bit when waiting in line at the cafeteria, but that's about it. I'm not planning on starting something I can't finish.

"No, for real!" Joey added, interpreting Ryou's silence about right. "I'm telling you, they're gonna love you. Yugi is pretty quiet and all, she'll like you. Plus there's always three of us and that's kind of an awkward number, don't you think? Especially during lunch and everything."

No, this was not about Ryou being the shy new girl afraid she won't be able to make friends. It was more a matter of dreading she wouldn't cause their deaths.

"And- and- like three isn't a good number. Like, there are things all three of us have in common, you know, but there are things only Yugi and I kind of get, or that only Tris and I get, and well I guess there's things Tris and Yugi care more about but not me, like that whole school thing, haha, so anyway, bottom line is, there's always one of us who is bound to feel like a third wheel, you know? Four is just the right number," she concluded triumphantly, nodding her head emphatically, arms crossed over her modest chest.

"So you only want me to palliate that missing spot on the team," Ryou said quietly, keeping her smile in check.

"What?" That Joey was asking herself, genuinely searching her brain for what she'd been saying that could be misinterpreted. "No, that's, like, that's not it at all! I just want to hang out with you because you're you, like, you're super nice and smart and cute and everything. I mean, I am sitting in your bed, if that means anything at all." The blonde stopped herself before she said something more embarrassing, and Ryou had the decency to pretend not to notice the blush creeping on her cheeks.

"I know," Ryou added, as quietly as before, "I was just pulling your leg." And then she allowed herself to smile.

Joey laughed in relief at Ryou's faint snark. "Well I sort of suspected that no one could be that nice," she said before quickly adding "I'm joking, I'm joking, seriously you really are super nice, I'm really really lucky to have the bestest roommate in the whole school!"

"Best roommate?"

"Well," Joey blushed some more, to the point where it grew impossible to ignore it. "I mean, like, yeah, yeah you're like some kind of angel who, erm, who cleans the bathroom and is... amazingly good at folding clothing and all." She then sported one shameless, silly, 'asking for favors' type of grin.

Ryou allowed herself a chuckle. "You know, Josephine, flattery will only get you so far," she said. "And I would've done it anyway. If you want to we can lump our laundry together and I'd take care of everything. I'm used to it, I don't mind at all." She smiled for good measure, and it didn't feel like it was putting either of them in danger. "Really."

Joey scratched the back of her head, something Ryou had seen her done a countless amount of time since she'd set foot in her new room - less than ten hours ago. "Well I gotta admit that it's not my greatest skill. If you could do that, that would be great. I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Oh, you don't need to," Ryou said automatically.

Just try to stay alive.

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