"Tony…I hate to tell you this, but you look like shit today," Chris said, watching the tall, thin psych major slide into the chair at Wendy’s. "Astute as usual, Christopher," Tony replied, and gave his dark hair a toss out of his way. He started on his fries, scowling when he wasn’t chewing. "You know, you’re really just trying to ask what happened to me last night, so why don’t you ask?" "What happened to you last night?" "Nothing." Chris frowned at him. "They why did you have me ask?" "I just wanted to help you communicate more clearly. Communication is extremely important." "So why don’t you communicate to me what’s wrong?" "It isn’t polite to use my reasoning against me." "Come on." Chris sat up more in his chair, leaning over. "Is this about Jules? I understand, if it is." Tony shot him a venomous warning glance. Chris soldiered on in the face of it, trying to discuss the situation. "Well, I do. You know you should have at least tried to—" Tony ignored him, picking up his tray and moving to another table. He dropped it down and dropped himself into the chair, looking moodily out on the wet street and the cars rolling by beneath the heavy gray rain clouds. Sarah came to Chris’s table, frowning, having gotten out of line just in time to witness Tony’s departure. "What happened?" "I mentioned Jules." "He’s still really broken up over that. You shouldn’t have said anything about her. It’s even worse with me around you and Dee around Taco all the time. I think he feels like a third wheel everywhere now." "Did he tell you that?" She sighed. "He never tells anyone anything." She opened up her pita and started rearranging it’s contents. "I guess that’s part of what happened. It drove Jules crazy." "Yeah, well, Jules tells everyone everything and it drove him crazy." "You make it sound like this was all her fault." "Well, you were making it sound like it was all his." Chris shrugged. "She did the actual breaking up. I don’t know. She hasn’t been the same and neither has he. I just thought maybe if he talked about it…" "It’s more than just that." Sarah sighed and looked over at Tony. "It’s Taco and Edie getting married, it’s the financial aid situation, it’s being in one place for seven years…It’s lots of stuff. Jules is just the icing right now." She thought back to October, to Tony’s diagnosis, to the way they talked through what had happened to her. His insight had helped free her from a desolate private madness, and in a very real way she felt she owed him her life as much as she did Chris, maybe more so. Chris had pulled her back from the brink, but it was Tony that had solved the real labyrinth and showed her the maze of her mind from a different view. "He’s always trying to help people. But he acts like he doesn’t need any himself. The worse it gets, the harder he pretends. Would it be so bad to just ask?"