Charlie was pulled over, the Van parked somewhat crookedly beside the curb. He was outside the van in the evening's shades of marmalade and pinks as the sun set. He'd had to pull over. Someone had thrown away an upright Baby Grand piano from the turn of the century.

So he was out on the roadside in a pair of jeans and a button down plaid workshirt examining his find. It was still warm even though it was close to dark, so he frequently blots his brow or cleans sweat from his glasses with a handkerchief while he looks over the piano. A flashlight sticks out of his back pocket.

He was mortified as he stood examining it. It had water damage and many of the keys were broken or missing. He gave a few tenative taps at the keys that were there. It was also badly out of tune. He winced, as he listened to the sour notes.

He had to rescue the thing. It was simply too tragic to leave it here falling apart on the roadside, where it would not doubt befall even more abuse, neglect, and damage. He would have a devil of a time loading it onto the van himself though.

He was talking to the piano as he continued to assess it. "You poor dear, someone obviously didn't know what you were, don't worry I'll take you home and fix you up." he told it.

Jex really didn't have much of an interest in pianos. He walked along the road, just happy to be enjoying the sunshine. He made sure not to stray too far from the apartment he shared with Morose, but the day was amazing. After spending nearly a month in bed, it was great for Jex just to stretch his legs again.

His brown hair pulled back around his long face into a pony tail and he wore a simple t-shirt and jeans. It made him look even thinner than he was. But Jex didn't mind the heat if it meant he was walking around in it.

He noticed the van and he heard the voice and then noticed what it was talking to. For a moment he could have sworn that there was an animal somewhere. Instead of a dog or a cat like he expected, it was an instrument. And a man was talking to it as if it could actually hear him...

Jex meant to say, "Excuse me," but it came out as more of a rasp. No real words formed. His voice hadn't recovered completely. It probably wouldn't. He cleared his throat and tried again. It worked the second time.

"Excuse me, do you need help?" He sort of meant as in mentally. Really, who talks to a piano like that? But it could be taken differently.

"Perhaps, the piano certainly does though." he commented while turning to look at the speaker. He smiled then, "I must seem like a nut heh?" he offered with a slight chuckle. "My name's Charlie, I have a thing for antiques and pianos, I had to stop. Not every dy you find a stray piano." He fofered his hand for the man to shake unsure if he would accept it or not.

Great he thought to himself, I'm going to get Charlie stuck back in the asylum out here talkign to a piano. It was actually funny. Charles wasn't even around at the moment, somewhere fiddling in the planes of nightmare.

Charlie made no comment on how thin or unwell the oher looked, it would be, impolite fiorst of all, and he didn't want to touch on anything painful either. So he held his tongue. Either the fellow would talk more or move along, that was simply all there was to it.

It wouldn't have been an insult to Jex if "Charlie" had said something about his health. It just would have been the truth.

"Jex," he shook hands with the other guy. It was only customary. Jex's grip wasn't exactly weak. In fact, it was relatively strong considering the circumstance. Thanks to Morose's insistance that he eat more, Jex was only slightly under the average person in strength. Of course, realize that the average male doesn't exercise and wastes away on a couch of some sort and it's not all that impressive.

"Will you need help moving it?"

He shook the man's hand, not too firmly though, moving furniture and swimming four days out of seven keeps Charlie in very good shape, and he is aware that his grip can be too strong. If one looks there are many faint scars on Charlie's wrists. Other than that he is the picture of health, strong, lean, and tanned.

"Well, I'll need help putting a flatbed Dolly under it, so I can push it on the van. " he says simply. While he can lift the piano in spite of his wiry appearance he could only do so for a very short period. Long enough to get the dolly under it, but doubtfully longer than that. "Would you be willing?" he asks not wanting to assume that it's the case. He does walk over to open the doors on the back of the van though.

"Umm..sure?" Jex winced. He still sounded like he was a frog. He shook his head to dispell thoughts of the attack. He'd managed to not think of it so far, no need to begin now.

He looked from the van to the piano. "So what now?"

Charlie answered, "I need to put down the ramp, get out the dolly, then I'll lift the piano enough for you to slide the dolly underneath it. Once that's done I just need to push it on to the van and take it to the shop." he explained.

He was rather pleased, Jex had come along just in time to help with the small but crucial step with the dolly. Perhaps he could think of a way to make it up to the fellow for helping him.

Instead of answering verbally, Jex only nodded while he silently damned Logan for taking away his voice. It was really horrible.

As he stepped closer, Charlie might begin to notice other presents Logan left behind. Small round scars that looked like connect the dots went over his arms. The rest of them were hidden by his clothes. The skin of Jex's neck was a far more terrible sight. Doctors had done what they could for the scarring but the plain and simple truth was that whomever had done it wanted to do irreversible damage and the doctors--and Jex--had been lucky.

George tends to deliberately tune out unpleasantness. So he says nothing about the shape Jex is in. Charles has things to say about it to George though, the disadvantage to sharing the body, they really had no way to ignore each other completely.

I think someone tortured this guy. Looks like my nightmares, those sand druids, ya know? Are you paying attention? Charles says in George's mind.

The man in control of the body known as Charlie did not answer the voice in his mind. Though for a moment he went throguh a range of very strange looking faces. Then he went ahead and lifted the piano, at which point one expects him to make strange faces.

He eased it down with a grunt. The thing was by no means light. Charlie mopped his brow again before pushing the piano onto the van and shutting the double doors behind it.

"Thanks." he said to Jex, still ignoring an internal running commentary, he was blocking it out enought to keep his face normal for the moment. "Anything I can do to return the favor?" he asked cheerfully.

Such strange changes in Charlie's face didn't lend any weight to the 'not-crazy' verdict. Jex didn't see why he made them before lifting the hunk of wood. But the piano was up and away and the heat of the day wasn't getting any cooler. He might love being alive and walking around but that doesn't erase needing shade.

Jex let out a chuckle that sounded more like a frog than he ever had before and then self conciously rubbed his throat.

"Something cool?"

Charlie nodded "Sounds good to me, I'm roasting. Something particular you'd like to run and get?" He asked. He made no comment about the frog like chuckle, though he hoped it was not causing Jex any pain to speak.

Charlie himself would lean towards an iced capucino, but that didn't mean his heart was set on it. He walked around the van and unlocked the passenger door.

"The chariot awaits us." he said going roujnd to the other side and putting on his seatbelt before cranknng the van and the air conditioning. While he noticed the other man was nervous, he said nothing, Charles just might be right, which was an unpleasant thought, and likely if someone had tortured Jex, he'd not care to revisit it.

And that was exactly why he was wary of getting into a stranger's car. He was aware that no harm was likely to come of it but he didn't want to take another chance. Jex knew that his attacker hadn't used a car to get to him, but he had been in a secluded place and there was no way to control where this man would take him. Besides that, he knew how Morose would act if he knew. Jex agreed, he'd be very stupid to get in the van. In the end, however, he decided to get in.

"Not really, just something cold." It didn't hurt to speak anymore, it had when he'd woken up in the hospital. Morose had made sure that he got better before trying to speak too much.

The seatbelt buckled and he shut the door.

Charlie drove a few blocks away to a little icecream place that also happened to have fresh lemonade and iced capucinos. He parked carefully, and turned everything off before unbuckling.

Then he headed into the building, though he waited for Jex and held the door. the place wasn't very busy other than a large Korean family out for icecream with grandma and grandpa, and they were already seated with their icecream, so there was no wait to order.

He ordered an iced capucino and a brownie. He waited while Jex looked at the choices.

Jex must have done a good job with hiding his nervousness during the ride. He hadn't been scared out of his wits, but he made sure he knew where he was. And now time to order.

Something smooth, something smooth..aha!

He ordered a chocolate malt after repeating himself so the cashier could understand.

Jex smiled at the family. It looked like fun.

Charlie paid. Then made his way to one of the tables with the brownie and his drink. He knew he shouldn't eat so much crap, but You only live once per body. He didn't remember choclate tasting so good in his last body. Proof everyone had differnent taste buds he supposed, not like he could ever discuss how he reached this conclusion.

It felt awkward to simply sit there with a virtual stranger, so he decided to try a conversation. He hoped he wouldn't chose an awkward topic. "So Jex, what do you do for work? I work in antique shop a block from here." he said.

Work, that was an easy topic. Jex was a janitor and he worked at a fast food place. Not as interesting as antiques but it worked, right?

"I work at the hospital as a janitor." Truthfully he hadn't worked there in a month, but he still had a job there. He hoped. If he didn't, Morose would probably be able to bully the staff into giving it back to him.

"It's not too exciting."

Sip.

"Mine's not usually that exciting either, I move all the furniture that gets bought and sold for the boss and repair and restore pieces. I'd probably make more if I went back to carpentry, but I'm mostly lazy and I get by on what I make. I don't mind delivering furniture either, I get to drive around." He offered about himself.

The brownie was gone so he polished off his drink. "Lately I've been moonlighting tuning pianos." he added as an after thought.

Jex nodded. It wasn't very thrilling conversation, was it? Well, they had to do their best, didn't they?

"Mopping and sheet washing. I thought once I might like to do something in engineering but we didn't really have the money." Especially since all of it was being spent on his "witch" of a sister. Even after learning the truth he could tell she was never right in the head.

Money, some things never changd, when He'd died most people worried about money and now it was still the same. Which was why he was content to simply get by, not everyone wanted to get by though.

"That's too bad." was all he said in reference to not enough money for engineering. Personally he'd never aspired to learn anything more difficult than make furniture, so it was actualy hard for him to relate to academic goals.

"You got any hobbies? I used to mess with model trains, but I had to put them all up to make room for other things." He said, he did not mention that hs'd recently had to do some hurried rearranging in his appartment so a semi-homeless siren could stay there. That would surely get him labeled a lunatic. So he left teh bland statement of "room for other things" as it was.

"Not really. I don't do much." Jex doesn't speak much either, does he?

He used to spend his spare hours roaming graveyards, that wasn't exactly something you told people, either.

With another drink of his thick beverage he looked around the restaurant. The family was laughing now.

It's a stretch for Charlie to talk this much, well to a guy at any rate.

Charlie glanced to see what the family was laughing at, apparently it was very funny that granny had an icecream mustache. He smiled at them and returned to the conversation at hand. "You live around here, I live above the shop, sort of a job perk." he said.

He wasn't trying to be nosey, just make conversation and avoid asking, something insensitive, like what the hell happened to you? He's also fairly forthcoming with information about himself, he has no reason at all to be paranoid. Nothing really terrible has happened to him, besides dying from Polio.

"Yeah, around here. With my brother-in-law." Like he was really going to tell the exact whereabouts of his home. And like he was going to give the impression that he was vulnerable.

Charlie nodded. The Korean family was leaving now. Jex seemed to be slurping at the botom of his drink. "You about ready for me to drop you off then, or did you want another malt?" he asked.

Yes, he had a way out. Despite wanting to get out, he knew he shouldn't be gone for too long.

"I should probably be getting back. Anyway it was nice meeting you." He moved to get up and throw his drink away. He hadn't even thought about getting a ride home.

Charlie is getting used to dropping people off at locations near, but that do not reveal where they live. Though when he asked, he'd meant did Jex wish to go back to where they had started out at.

Instead he nodded as the other man bid him farewell. "Okay take care then. If you ever need a piano tuned you know where to find me." He said. He does not literally expect that Jex will need a piano tuned, but certainly he's given Jes enough information that if Jex wants to Find him he can.

Charles babbled as Jex moved towards the door, I swear George you are such a fuddy-duddy, I'd love to know what happene to him. This comment like the others was ignored as much as possible.

Charlie followed Jex out and moved towards the van.

"Likewise," he waved, "Except if you need a floor buffed." That's all I'm good for, anyway.

Well that was odd.

"See you later. Thanks for the malt."

Walk away like you're not worried about being followed.

You think it was an accident with some floor equipment, aw George you shoul've asked!

George simply shook his head at Charles' wild theories and climbed into the van.

Definitely an odd fellow. He buckled his seatbelt and laughed about the floor comment before turning the key.