Well...

June yelped as she noticed the fog pooling around the corners of the room. "What the fuck? No!" They locked on the smiling form of Meredith. "You! You fucking bitch!"

Meredith nodded in agreement. "That's right. Get it all out now."

The air was getting slightly hazy and June coughed. "Fuck, it's in my lungs! You fucking bitch, I'll never forgive you!"

"We both know that's not true," Meredith said with an infuriatingly empathic smile.

June knew if she didn't act now she never would. She leapt at her former intern as fog swirled around them. "You fucking betrayed me!" she spat and hit Meredith with a hard right hook. She felt an immense pain swirl through her fist and looked at in wonder.

Oh, she thought. She looked at her bleeding fist, now murky through the fog. I'm bleeding. It hurts.

June turned to the smiling face of Meredith underneath her. There was a swelling bruise on her left cheekbone and her lip was split. I did that, June realized. Why would she want her friend to suffer, though? That made no sense.

It was because of the ataraxia, she realized. She gasped as her new perspective set in. I can't remember that we're guinea pigs in an unethical medical experiment. But she could? She knew it, right? The knowledge was so tied up with loathing and hatred. Now that she was free of those, it seemed like a new revelation. They were being held captive illegally by a massive pharmaceutical corporation who was testing research chemicals on them.

Of course we are. She knew that, but the knowledge carried no emotional weight. It carried value; it was bad thing, one she hoped to rectify. At the same time it was no more distressing than a wrinkled shirt. It needed improvement but was not worth stressing out about. She looked at Meredith and saw love, a love deeper than personality or sexuality or humanity. This was another ataraxic. They were comrades.

Meredith was laughing, like there was some joke only she knew. June laughed too, not even noticing the missing resentment at being left out. She was just glad that her friend was laughing. But what was she laughing about?

What I just said, her mind immediately spat out. What did that mean?

Meredith is laughing because of what I said right before the fog kicked in. I said I'd never forgive her. That's ridiculous! Of course I forgive her!

June's body was smiling and holding out her arms before her consciousness caught up. "Oh, Meredith, I forgive you!" Tears came to her eyes as they hugged tight. June had never felt this close to another person, another being in the divine dance of lips up and down her neck and a face pressed against hers and the smell taste she felt so much, she felt the skin the tongue the nipples the fingertips and she couldn't think