After a solid five or so hours of sleep, Zelda awoke to feeling like a new woman. She felt refreshed, like she could conquer the entire world. She texted Robin telling him she was awake, and he immediately answered back asking for her to come to his room. A small bit of anxiety hit her then, but she accepted. She then recalled that there was an outdoor jacuzzi somewhere, and while she wasn't sure if she would enjoy being half naked out in the freezing cold, she still figured it might be a nice experience, so she changed and decided she would ask the other two once she got to their room.

Thankfully for her, their room wasn't too far away, but she did have to hurry since she only had a bathrobe over her swimsuit. She hurriedly knocked on their door and ran inside as soon as it opened. Claude and Robin gave her odd looks as the former closed the door. Zelda sighed in relief and walked to the nearest bed, which Robin was laying on, and sat next to him. She looked at him with a sly, knowing smile, a smile he knew all too well by now. "So, how did it go skiing with Lucina?"

"He passed out," Claude grinned, taking a seat next to Zelda.

"I got knocked out," Robin corrected, throwing a quick glare at Claude, who only smiled in response. "A girl named Samus bumped into me while I was going down the hill, I fell, passed out, yada yada yada, I got sent back inside 'cause I had a headache." He sighed dramatically, feeling his face heat up while thinking back on the memory. "To say the least, not the ski date, quote-on-quote, I was hoping for."

"Well, did she at least help you out?" Zelda asked.

"She took me to the nurse's room, I was kinda leaning on her since I was a little dizzy," Robin recalled.

"See? That's a cute little romantic moment!" Claude smiled, leaning closer to Robin with mischief in his eyes. "Now, all you have to do is ask her out!" He tried to ignore the twinge in his chest when he said that.

"Har, har, funny joke." Robin threw himself back with a sigh, taking off his glasses as his back hit the mattress. "I'm never asking her out."

"Why not? I think the two of you would be very cute together," Zelda said as she, slightly out of habit, started to move his bangs around to make them appear neater.

"I don't think I have the courage to," Robin chuckled humorlessly. "Plus, I don't think she's moved on from Palutena yet."

"Didn't they break up weeks ago, though?" Claude asked.

"Yeah, but they've been together for a while, so I doubt it would be easy to move on that fast."

"Well anyway, I think you should give it a shot, once you feel ready to, of course," Zelda grinned.

"Right..." Robin sighed. He looked up at her, suddenly noticing what exactly she was wearing. "Um, Zel, why are you only wearing a robe? Aren't you cold?" Before she even got a chance to answer, he sat up with a groan and walked over to a closet at the corner of the room. "Hold on, let me get a blanket for you."

"You don't have to, really," Zelda smiled, though she appreciated the action. "Actually, I was wondering if you guys wanted to come to the jacuzzi with me."

"I forgot there was an outdoor jacuzzi here!" Claude gasped. "Do you think we'll freeze when we come out of it?!"

Zelda laughed, taking off the hair tie she kept on her wrist. "Only one way to find out. What about you Robin, you wanna come?"

"I'm not exactly for the idea of freezing, but sure," Robin called out from the closet.

"Great! I'll wait for the two of you to get ready, then," Zelda smiled as she gathered her hair into one of her hands, lifting it over her head then tying it into a very loose bun. A tight one would've surely given her a headache. As she did that, though, Claude noticed something.

It was faint, almost invisible, in fact he was sure he would've missed it were it not for the lack of hair in the area. But, coming from just behind the helix of her ear, diagonally all the way up to nearly the top of her skull, was a scar that had previously been easily covered by her hair. It bulged out ever so slightly, but Claude didn't get a good chance to look at it before it was covered up by hair once again.

He didn't know what to say. His heart dropped at the mere size of it, and he was insanely curious about it, but he didn't know if he should point it out. She had never made any sort of mention of it, or even alluded to it. But gods he was so curious. Did Robin know? Maybe he should ask him about it later.

"What are you looking at?"

Claude was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of her voice. He hadn't realized it, but he had been staring at the right side of her head for a while. When he looked at her face, he almost expected her to be angry for staring so blatantly at her scar, but it was quite the opposite. Her eyes were open wide as they usually were, her lips were tilted up in her usual casual smile, and her mannerisms were relaxed. She seemed... clueless? Maybe she thought he was just spacing out in her direction. She didn't seem to think that there was anything on herself that would draw any sort of attention. Or, maybe she was pretending she knew he was looking at her scar. Though, if he had learned anything about Zelda over the past couple months of knowing her: she was horrible at pretending.

Well, now might be as good a time as any to ask about it. "Um, well," he gulped, "It's just... I noticed a... a scar... on the side of your head." Her eyes went wide and her smile dropped slightly, and he immediately regretted bringing it up.

"A scar?" Robin said, furrowing his eyebrows as he came back and put a blanket over Zelda's shoulders. He sat beside her, on her left side, and looked at her with eyes full of concern. "You have a scar?"

She smiled awkwardly, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself as she put a hand up to the site of the scar. "I... I never told you guys about it?"

"No, not to me at least," Robin said.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't feel comfortable doing so! I just... noticed it and it sparked my interest, is all, but I won't push for details," Claude said.

Her smile remained, but her eyes had a hint of sadness within them. Robin and Claude looked at each other for a moment, and as if they were reading the other's thoughts, they both scooched up a little closer to her. She was the type of person that was comforted by feeling the warmth of others, they both knew that, so they hoped that this might help her explanation a little easier for her.

After a moment's silence, she began, shakily, "I...I never meant to purposely hide it from you guys. After years of living with it, I just kind of forget it exists sometimes."

"That's okay, we're not mad or anything," Robin reassured. "And if you want to stop there, that's okay too-"

"No," she interrupted before he could say anything else. They noticed tears were starting to pool in her eyes and her body began to tremble. "You guys... deserve to know."

The two boys looked at each other again, worried out of their minds, then turned back to her. Claude put his hand over hers and gave it a light, reassuring squeeze. "We're listening."

She laughed light-heartedly, and whether that was in an attempt to comfort herself or the other two, they didn't know. She herself didn't know either. When she spoke, her tone was that of laughter, she smiled and closed her eyes, moved her hands in all sorts of ways. But her eyes and the cracks in her voice betrayed her, and the reality of the situation. "Well, when I was younger, like seven-ish, I think, I was in a pretty bad car crash. My mom and I were leaving some function and on our way home, a loading truck hit us... on my side."

"Holy shit," Robin said. "But, was it a graze, or..."

"A direct impact," she finished for him, still smiling. The two boys shuddered at the visualization of it, their guts both filling with trepidation. "If it was just a graze, I probably wouldn't have gotten a piece of metal stuck in my head, haha!" She tried so hard to make it seem less serious than it was, to keep them from worrying about her, but Robin and Claude weren't here for that at all. She blinked several times, then continued. "Um, yeah, that's kinda where I got the scar from. I have a couple other smaller ones from follow-up surgeries, b-but anyway! Um, it was pretty bad, big mess, big mess. Sheik told me he saw the whole thing happen; he was there too, by the way, he stayed with my dad at the function. He saw it from one of the windows, told me there were plenty of car parts flying around, um..."

By now, she was sniffling, trying her best to hold her tears back while keeping a happy face. "A-anyway," she continued, "Since it was a pretty busy intersection, one where a ton of accidents happen, the paramedics got there pretty quick, and there was a hospital nearby too, so I got treatment pretty quick. But..." she took a deep, shaky breath, "I was left with quite a lot of trouble afterwards. To start, since I got hit in my temporal and parietal lobes, I lost a good chunk of my memory. Not to mention, I was left with language comprehension issues. It's not as bad today, but back then I had a lot of trouble understanding what people said to me, and I had trouble speaking too. So, if I don't understand what you tell me even after you explain it to me a couple times, now you know why! Hah, um, and, being paralyzed certainly didn't help-"

"What?!" Claude gasped.

"PARTIALLY paralyzed, sorry, I should've clarified," Zelda laughed. It didn't make it any better. "I-I don't know if you've noticed, but the left side of my face is a little droopy compared to the right side of my face. I can still move it, clearly, just... not as much."

Silence consumed the room. It was heavy, as each of them tried to find something to say. Zelda still had a smile on her face, which was now covered in tears. Claude held her hand tighter, the guilt he felt for bringing this up in the first place overwhelming him. He should've just found some other excuse, he should've just told her he was spacing out. Otherwise, she wouldn't be crying right now, she wouldn't have had to remember all those painful memories from her childhood. He felt like crying too, but he had to remain strong, for her.

Finally, after the pressure in the room had become too much for any of them to handle, Robin wrapped his arm around Zelda and pulled her in, shocking both her and Claude. "...It must've been hard," he said in a low and calm voice. "I'm glad... I'm really glad you're okay now, Zel."

More tears sprang to her eyes. Robin wasn't a very touchy or otherwise physically affectionate person, so for him to go this out of his comfort zone to try to ease her mind and relax her body, it meant so much to her. She let out small, quiet sobs, finally dropping that happy appearance she had been trying to keep up. She wrapped her arms around Robin's waist, but not before pulling Claude into the hug too. "It-it's weird," she cried, "If the crash hadn't happened at a busy intersection, if the paramedics hadn't gotten there fast enough, if the best doctor in that hospital had left by the time the ambulance arrived, I probably wouldn't be alive right now. I'm not a religious person, but I like to think that, perhaps, there was a little divine intervention."

"We're so happy you're with us, Zel," Claude said. "I can assure you, my life would've been a heck of a lot more depressing if you weren't here."

"It's the same for me," Robin nodded. "If the gods did have some play in keeping you alive, I'm glad they did, I don't know what I would do if you weren't here."

Zelda sniffled again, grabbing the back of Robin and Claude's shirts with each of her hands. "I love you guys so much!" Was all she managed to say before bursting into more sobs. Robin and Claude looked at each other, smiling with a mix of sadness and glee, before giving all their attention to their dear friend.

"I guess this means no jacuzzi?" Claude said jokingly, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"That's right! I completely forgot about it!" Zelda gasped, her energy completely restored as she shot up from the bed. She walked towards the window, opening it only to reveal that the sun had already begun to set. "It's probably too late to go now anyway, maybe tomorrow?"

"We're leaving tomorrow evening, so if we go right after breakfast, it should be enough time," Robin said, thinking of the schedule that was messaged to them by the school.

"Great! Oh, and how about we do this too..." She then went off on some other activities Robin had no real interest in doing, but for her sake he would do. Despite how cheery she seemed to be now, he was still very concerned for her. Her attitude changed quickly, way too quickly. It was like she was trying to draw their attention away from something else, to keep them from asking any more questions. He wasn't sure what exactly that something was, but still. It worried him. Well, who knows, maybe it's all in his head and he's just overthinking things, as he usually does.