A familiar sweet smell of nitrous oxide tingled Noel's nostrils as he slowly drifted in between consciousness and not. Light peeped through his eyelids making him squeeze them shut again.

What time is it?

Noel pondered. He could not feel his hands or legs properly. They felt like cemented blocks bolted to the ground.

Noel somehow managed to crane his neck, because there was someone in his kitchen, moving and cooking, something that did not suppose to happen there, not in his kitchen no. He tried getting up. Instead, he fumbled on his bed in response which caused him to just roll and tussle, catching the attention of his intruder. And she rushed to him.

Noel saw Arizona reaching for the pillow behind him and but he snapped her hands away as he scowled at her half sitting up and half laying down,

"What are you doing here?!"

"Stay still. You're gonna pull a muscle," Arizona replied nonchalantly.

"How did you find me?" he probed again, this time, sounding more impatient than the last time.

Arizona tried dodging the question again when Noel grabbed her wrist.

"Miss Woods, I'm asking you something," Noel confronted looking her square in the eyes. With the same look, Noel had in each of their encounters. Dangerous and like bad news. Not the reaction Arizona was expecting after seeing him bounce back from the death bed.

Arizona tried snapping her wrist away but even in his half capacity, Noel's hold overpowered her strength. She looked at him with daggers in her eyes but Noel noticed traces of something beyond the rage, something he thought was the remanence of his delusion.

Her nose is puffy and red

Why would she -

"I saw smoke outside," Arizona retorted seething. "So I broke damn in and saved your ass from the smoke before you sweet kissed yourself to hell," she completed hissing at him. Noel let go of her hand, still eyeing her with suspicion.

"And why does my back hurt so bad exactly?"

Arizona looked at him impatiently. The emotions in her eyes slowly started sipping from anger to an emotion he could not quite decipher."Because you inhaled the gas pretty bad and it reacted with the liquid ice cream in your stomach causing you to form toxins and collapse. I badly needed to wash out your stomach to save your life."

Noel was starting to see where she was heading. His ears turned red as an image of him sprawled on his vomit vividly sprang in mind. He felt like it would be a nice moment to die.

"I hurt your back while giving you the Heimlich maneuver damn it." Arizona said throwing her hands in frustration, "you did not leave me with much choice by refusing professional help. Now can you please cooperate and let me place the pillow right so that you don't win a sure trip to the hospital?"

Noel unknotted his brows slightly but did not respond. Though he restrained himself from showing it, he was relieved that Arizona kept her words. He could not effort to put his record on the medical registry. That would be extremely risky in keeping up his cover.

She just shook her head exhaling and reached for the pillow to which Noel craned away in response.

Arizona clicked her tongue. "I get it I was straight out bitch to you the last time but can you not be a baby and let me fix that for you?"

"No! " Noel sneered, "you are yet to tell me what you're doing here. You don't even live in this neighborhood."

Arizona sighed, her shoulders dropping. She realized this was the moment for the long-overdue conversation that had been eating her inside.

She looked away from his eyes and at the hem of her long tops. "Look. I've been feeling like crap since the last time we collide."

The sudden change of her tone from defiance to somber took Noel aback. Arizona was clenching her jaws to stop her eyes from pooling up in front of him but the more she restrained, the more they started flooding down her eyes. She did not even know why she was crying. Her composure was never this vulnerable in front of anyone, even in the darkest days of her life. But it seemed like something in her cracked and all her words were pouring out and she let them pour out.

"I have been waiting one week to say sorry for being the presumptuous bitch I was and thank you for saving my life back then. You got no idea what you did for me. And I...how could I... Like I'm sorry..."

Noel by then knew what sorry meant. He looked up the term in the dictionary. It was used to express someone's regret of their action and amend. Not a term anyone ever used with him in the facility and hence, not a term he knew. But what he also did not know was what to do if someone started to break apart in front of him. That was also something no one did for him in the facility when he did. So let his instinct take the lead and did what he always prayed someone would do for him. He gently nestled Arizona in his arm and slowly rubbed his hand on her forearm, letting her pour it all out. She was shuddering. As muffled words escaped in between her cries. It took Noel back to the night he first met her. Though he never actively thought about it the question roamed around in his mind again and again how she managed to be always so fearless when placed against danger. Noel and Arizona rarely met in the kindest of the environment but she was always fierce and on offense. Something Noel never sensed in the ones that he faced. They were always cowering. As anyone is supposed to be.

Guess we're all masquerading huh

Noel thought as he suddenly realized Arizona was pushed against his bare skin which suddenly made his ears burn red. Being someone with almost subzero body temperature, keeping on clothes all the time was somewhat of a challenge for him. He never wore anything more than a boxer at home and it was only now that he noticed that that was exactly how Arizona found him. His self-consciousness urged him to jump up and put on a T at least but Arizona was in too much of a sensitive state to be left down like that. He let her carry on without interrupting. That somehow seemed like the right fit to do. So she did.

"...and then I found by you like that. I mean...I could have never forgiven myself if you committed suicide because of what I said. I'm not that horrible-"

"Wowowow! Hold on," Noel looked at puzzled," who said anything about suicide?"

Arizona craned away and looked at him surprised. "Your house was filled with nitrous oxide gas. Your windows were sealed from the inside and so was your door and your house is piled up with biochem books that even I don't read for my advanced courses and you're telling me you did not start the whole to... you know..?" Arizona pressed her lips in as she looked away. His eyes were too hypnotic to speak out words without jumbling them up. She bit her tongue for speaking so insensitively about suicide to someone who tried to commit it just less than a day ago.

Noel on the other hand was totally at loss. It was true the gas was indeed nitrous oxide but it was not his doing. Someone planted it in his house while he was away and he walked right into the trap but he did not know how to explain it to Arizona without telling her about the facility and how it wanted him dead, badly. So he kind of stared blankly at Arizona while she stared back. All Noel could let out was, "It's....not what you think."

Arizona stared for a few seconds more and then folded her lips into an O like she just grasped what it was and Noel knew exactly what she thought she just realized.

That I'm a druggie high on nitrous oxide

Noel slapped himself internally for giving off this idea but he had no choice. It was way better than thinking he was about to throw away his life and kill himself over something she did. And way better than snooping around for other possible reasons. So he half shrugged and half stared, not knowing what else to do.

Arizona cleared her throat to collect herself. She had run the conversation they might have so many times in her head in doing many possible scenarios but not one included her feeling so seen. She was feeling this awful cocktail of nakedness and ease in front of him. It took her quite to effort to look Noel in the eyes but she did anyway. She wanted her composure back after all.

"So um..since we both caught ourselves in sticky situations, let's just say we're even and start over shall we?" she said grinning.

Noel nodded.

"So I'll go first. I'm Arizona. Arizona Woods. What's your name?"

"I'm Noel," Noel responded with a bit of hesitation. It was a name he gave himself because all his life he was known by the entry K9 in the facility which had a disgusting meaning and for his new normal life, he chose his new normal name 'Noel' which he was pretty sure meant 'Christmas', the normal part was the part he felt less confident about. He was not sure if it was a normal human name.

The name, however, rolled effortlessly down her lips like the most normal thing ever.

Noel smiled. This was the first normal that he had always imagined once if he ever ran away. For some reason, the fact that he shared it with this unpredictable Arizona Woods made him happy.