"That is just too cool," said Alexa, blinking as the light finished fading from her body. She stood up, brushed off her pants, and looked around. The blue magic in Sarah's wood must have finished draining, the flames weren't visible anymore, although Sarah could still see where they'd pitched camp. With a deep breath, Alexa's eyes glowed green again, and she was able to pick her way back to their fire and tent without tripping over the rough ground.

"I'm going to absolutely get used to this," said Alexa, looking around in the night. "Sarah, I won't say anything about you, but there's no way I'm not going to do this all the time, everywhere."

"Well, just don't expect me to visit you after you get yourself locked up," said Sarah.

"Why not, I visited you?" asked Alexa. "At least, I tried to."

Sarah didn't answer that. The two walked in silence until they reached their campsite and Alexa realized that she'd forgotten about starting dinner. She'd wrapped potatoes in tin foil and left them in the fire, but had forgotten about them when Sarah woke up. The potatoes were barely lumps of charcoal wrapped in collapsed foil. But the girls had plenty of hot dogs still, roasted on coat hangers over the fire. Alexa wouldn't let Sarah infuse more wood - she said that the smoke and crackles were part of the camping experience and that it made their food taste better.

"Do you think we should visit Finn?" asked Sarah. Sarah thought he'd probably talked about her, but if she was lucky people would figure that what he saw was part of whatever had made him sick.

"We probably should. I dunno if we can really help him, but maybe. Talking to you made it make sense, to me at least. And if he's still stuck in the hospital, maybe just knowing we figured it out might help him calm down," said Alexa. She was picking at her third baked banana thing. She'd shown Sarah how to slice a chunk out and fill it with marshmallows and chocolate. After a few minutes in the fire, it turned into a sweet mushy mess. Sarah had taken a couple of bites and let Alexa eat all of the rest.

"Yeah, we kinda have to," said Sarah.

Alexa watched Sarah for a moment, and then announced, "Well, that won't be till tomorrow, at the soonest. And even though I kinda want to try to punch down a tree, we probably ought to sleep."

Sarah didn't even try to ask about punching trees, instead, she dutifully crawled into the tent and her sleeping bag. She was certain she'd be up forever, adding Alexa's breathing to the sound of the water, the wind, and the animals around them was sure to keep her up. She wouldn't complain though, she’d had plenty of sleepless nights before, one more wasn’t a big deal.

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Sarah was asleep before she could even think about the noise.

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The sun was well over the mountains by the time Sarah woke up. She could hear the water burbling down the hill, like last night. She could also hear something crashing around the trees across the meadow, followed by thumps as something hit the ground. No bird song, whatever was messing around in the trees had probably scared them all silent.

Crawling her way out of the tent, Sarah stood and stretched. She'd slept on her side, and her hip and shoulder were complaining at their mistreatment. It looked like Alexa had already cleaned a bunch up. The fire was cold, and everything but the tent and Alexa's sleeping bag were gone. Cuddles had fallen off the rock where Sarah had left him the night before, but he was still glowing brightly blue in the sunlight. His blue contrasted pleasantly with the purple mist filling the hillside. He looked dry now too, and despite some bits hanging loose, he was pretty clean. It didn’t even look like he’d had any bugs bother him overnight.

Sarah opened up the back of the jeep and pulled out a cold hot dog and a bottle of water. It wasn't good, but it was probably a better breakfast than chips or licorice would be. At the thought, she got back into the car and got a piece of licorice to chase down the hot dog. Candy dangling from her lips, she crawled back into the tent and bundled up her sleeping bag for the car. She eyed the tent itself but decided to wait for Alexa. It looked like the kind of thing that probably needed to be packed in some extremely specific way, and Sarah didn't want to have to make Alexa act all helpful in re-doing whatever was wrong.

Another crash in the distance made Sarah look up. Up the side of a hill, she could see the top of a tree shaking violently. Sarah heard a quieter thud as the tree settled down, and then another grunt as the tree started to shake again. That must be where Alexa was. Sarah considered calling out to her but decided to just walk over instead of shouting. Cuddles trailed in the dirt behind her as Sarah walked through the sunny grass.

Getting closer, Sarah started to make out movement through the wall of brush that bordered the meadow. Alexa wasn't punching trees like she'd said last night. She was jumping up into them. Sarah wasn't sure how tall these trees were, but Alexa was getting well up into their branches. She noticed Sarah right after landing feet first on a branch well over Sarah's head. Alexa couldn't quite catch her balance right away but grabbed the trunk of the tree to keep herself straight.

"You're up!" shouted Alexa as she flung herself from the tree. Green spread evenly throughout her body as she landed on all fours with a loud thud. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"No, I slept great," said Sarah.

"Good, I figured you were tired, but I just couldn't lay still any longer."

"It's fine, but I'm not sure how to pack up the tent," said Sarah.

"No worries, it's easy."

The two skipped back to the camp, Cuddles slithering invisibly in the grass. The dead snake kept up easily even with them moving fast in the bright morning. Sarah felt a bit silly for being worried about packing the tent. They pulled the poles out, folding them up into their bag. The tent itself was sorta rolled up and then just stuffed into the bag. That done, Alexa dumped more water on the cold fire and made them walk back and forth a few times to look for trash.

And then it was time to go. The only real hiccup came when Alexa refused to let Sarah bring Cuddles into her car.