The man behind the counter brings the girl a cinnamon pastry, gooey with sugary icing.  "It's on the house," he says, and smiles, and leaves without waiting for a thank-you.
   I watch the girl tear into the pastry, and tweak my shields so I can see her blues again.  I close my eyes and try to reach out to them with my mind, to feel them again.  I want to warm myself in her energy again, even streaked through with fatique and confusion as it is now.  Suddenly, I want terribly to wear her energy again, to be so close to her that I feel nothing else.
   "Come home with me," I say, and hear my voice more desperate than it should be.
   She shakes her head, tucking a piece of pastry into her mouth.  "I have to go back to my friends."
   I pause, and nod.  Up go the full sheilds again.  "We can go now, if you want.  Are you dizzy?"
   She shakes her head, and slides off the table.
   We walk back to toward the club, and, apart from my shields, the girl seems shut off from me.  She hugs herself and does not sing.  I consider singing, myself, even go through the first two verses of a Scottish folk song in my head...  but I realize I am used to the quiet now and that I don't really want to disturb it.
   So we walk in silence.  The club is small, but its sound system is loud, and I can hear the music before I see the building.  I let down my shields and expand carefully to feel the world around me; the girl beside me still feels cut off, and the residual energies from the sidewalk's former patrons are boring and weak.
   Then we are at the club's door, and the music energy and the energy from inside are almost overwhelming; I can feel the sound pounding through me and I grab the doorjamb to steady myself.  The girl surprises me by stopping to wait for me, and I take this proximity as my opportunity.  I reach out to her, physically, touch her arm and gather in some of her energy around myself.  I quickly throw up shields to keep it in, to hold the blues as long as possible.  "Thank you," I smile.
   "Hey," she says.  "No problem."  And I don't know if she means it.  She waves to me and wanders back to her friends.
   I do not watch her.  I weave through the dwindling crowd back to the couch and sit down, dropping my bag on the floor.  I draw my knees up to my chin and stare out at the remaining people, tweaking my shields to see the Others.  The girl I used to know is gone, the werecat is gone.  My friend is still dancing, but now her wings droop somewhat and her hair is plastered with sweat to her forehead.
   I lean my head against the back of the couch and close my eyes.  I move inside myself, amuse myself in my memory rooms.  I stroll through the hospital my mother was born in, grow bored with it and move quickly to a field at the base of a hill.  As I look up at an unfinished palace, I hear my friend's voice:  "Are you asleep?"
   I open my eyes and look up into my friend's pleasantly tired face.  "Nope," I say.
   "I got us a ride," she says, picking up her lemur backpack.  "How long have you been back?"
   "Not long," I say.  I follow her, dragging my bag along the floor.  When the scraping sound becomes annoying, I hoist the bag to my shoulder.
   My friend leads me out to a beat-up sedan driven by a cute spookykid with too much eyeliner trailing down his face.  We climb in, and he cranks up the radio--music I've never heard before--as he pulls out of the parking lot.  I close my eyes against the lights of traffic, the changing focus that always gives me a headache, and listen to my friend and the spookykid talk without paying enough attention to understand them.