* SOMEONE LIKE YOU [sandy]

Sandra had just woken up from a wonderful nap, a proper one in her actual bed rather than an accidental one halfway through class for once. She'd gone straight to her dorm after class had ended, and had sat around "reading" (or looking at, rather) one of her textbooks -- she couldn't even remember which one now -- but had fallen asleep after some time. It was a long nap too, as she hadn't really slept well the night before (much to her dismay), and so when she woke up several hours later and looked at the clock, she realized that she'd actually already missed dinner. It had been such a nice nap, really -- comfortable and it was quiet all around her, because even the chatty Waters often took the opportunity to calm down and relax occasionally -- so all in all it wasn't surprising that she'd stayed in bed for so long... but really, in retrospect, it probably hadn't been the greatest of ideas.

Not that Sandra cared about what was the smart thing to do, of course, at least in respect to naps. A nap is a nap is a nap.

She didn't actually sleep with her teddy bear, not in the way that she would have as a child clutching onto it, but he, Roosevelt, was waiting faithfully on her bedside table when she awoke. She rolled out of bed, still in her pyjamas (she had actually gotten dressed this morning, but had gotten undressed again promptly for her nap) and picked him up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her other hand. Naps were always nice. She shoved her feet into big puppy slippers (which were much better than bunny slippers) and stretched briefly before heading out the door and into the Common Room, from where she could hear the vague jumble of conversation. They had gotten chattier since she'd fallen asleep earlier, she thought, but this was unsurprising. She passed several people on the way, smiling and saying hello as she went -- none of them seemed at all surprised that she looked like she'd just gotten up, which was just a mark of how well most around these parts knew her -- but didn't stop to talk, instead continuing on.

She looked around the Common Room once she got there, but it didn't seem that any of her closer friends were around at the time being... That was a shame; she had been hoping that she would be able to find someone to drag along with her to find food, seeing as she'd missed dinner. (Sleep was the greatest thing in the world, Sandra was pretty sure, but food did come a very close second.) Apparently she'd overlooked someone though, because on her second inspection of the room she did spot someone sitting on his own some ways away from her, and luckily for Sandra, said person turned out to be Gale. (Or, at least, it was the back of Gale's head, but she was pretty sure she could recognize it.) She smiled triumphantly. Gale had to be one of, if not the only one, of her best friends here at the Academy and quite possibly anywhere, and on top of that, she was sure he'd be willing to come with her on her adventure to find food. "Ga~ale," she sang as she approached, grinning and leaping over the couch that he was sitting on. She landed neatly beside him and didn't hesitate in leaning over and resting her head on his shoulder, her eyes closing briefly although she wasn't really tired. "What are you up -- what happened to your face?" Once she'd straightened up and could actually see him properly, it came out as a bit of a squeak as she spotted the bruise on his face. Or, rather, all over his face, she corrected herself in her head, eyes wide as she couldn't help but gape at him.

Sandra didn't mind the slight mocking, was used to it and did it pretty frequently to other friends as well (maybe for other reasons, though; Sandy's voice was all her own). She let him put his arm over her shoulders -- it felt pretty natural, but then again Sandra kind of cuddled up to whoever would let her. Physical contact wasn't a problem. She did note, though, now she had pulled away to a tiny bit of a distance, that his smile had faltered once she'd asked about, er, the enormous bruise on his face. Seriously, it was pretty hard to miss -- she didn't know how he might have thought that she wouldn't have seen it. It definitely hadn't been there when she'd seen him just a few hours ago in class, either... No, this was definitely very new, judging not only by her memory but also the bruise itself. She was no doctor, and no expert when it came to injuries at all (she tried to avoid legitimate fighting if she could) but its colour indicated relative freshness.

She listened to his explanation with a frown, for once not returning his smile, sheepish as it was. So it really was a fight. That wasn't something that she'd seen coming, not by a long shot, at least not in the sense that Gale would have gotten in a fight -- shown the bruise, though, she was pretty sure there were few other things that could have worked. "Gale!" she squeaked, but this time when she said his name it wasn't happy and sing-songy at all. Her hunger was forgotten for the time being as she stared at him, eyes wide. "Who was it?" she demanded to know, as if she would go put a stop to this, but this was extremely unlikely. She wasn't a fighter. Neither, she had thought, was Gale. He was their leader! He was supposed to be resolving the conflicts, not getting into fistfights! He was a big softie, too -- there was no way "the other guy" had gotten roughed up any more badly than he himself had. "Gale..." she repeated once more, biting her lip, this time sounding sad rather than panicked. She just worried about her friends, especially when they were getting into fights that resulted in huge, purple bruises on their faces. Yeah, those were special moments to worry.

She didn't answer his question for a long moment, thinking that whatever problems she had were significantly less important than Gale's face was right now. "I'm okay," she said, uncharacteristically quiet as she pouted, after some hesitation. "I wanted to see if you wanted to go find some food or something, but..." She reached her hand up as if to touch the bruise on his face, but she decided that would be a bad idea in case it hurt (which it almost positively did, she was sure), and dropped it instead. "Not enough about you. You okay?" she asked softly.

Waters weren't known for being notorious fighters, not so much as the Fires and even Thunders were. Of course, they also weren't as peaceful as the Earths, but at least the majority of Waters were able to stick up for themselves pretty well (and one another, she guessed, in many cases). She wasn't going to encourage this fighting, though. It wasn't exactly desirable. She gave Gale a look that told him this wasn't over, though she wasn't likely to remember later... at least, that would probably be the case if he didn't have an enormous bruise covering half his face. It served as a pretty decent reminder, to be honest. "You already told me that," she said, but she decided that if he obviously didn't want to tell her, then she would just have to get it out of him later. Between having an older brother and parents and all her friends, she had a good arsenal of tactics when it came to getting things from people... not that Sandra demanded very much, not really. "How'd you take care of it?" she wanted to know anyway, still eyeing the dark bruise with wariness as if it were something separate that had attacked and latched itself onto her friend's face. (She knew, of course, that this wasn't really the way bruises worked.)

The idea was reassuring enough, but Sandra noticed the look on his face even as he smiled, and there was something off about it somehow. "Does it hurt?" she asked, feeling a little bit childish and probably sounding that way too, like a tiny kid asking her parents about it. Unlike a parent, though, Gale definitely wasn't about to say "no, it doesn't hurt" -- or at least, not if he were being honest. It was a bit of a stupid question, in retrospect, like asking someone if it was hard to walk with a broken leg, or if being blind impaired vision at all. He'd have to be Superman not to feel that bruise (assuming that Superman could be bruised, which was really just a ridiculous notion). Gale, however, was no superhero. He was a good guy, to be sure, and her best friend, but he was no Clark Kent, and until such time as he developed some Clark Kent-esque superpowers, Sandra wasn't going to be too into the idea of his getting into random fights with the Thunders. Those guys could be vicious. This was clear evidence of that.

She made a soft hummm sound to herself for a second before answering, but eventually took his hand and stood up, back to all smiles though her mind wasn't really at ease as before. "Food sounds good," she said, one hand on her stomach as if feeling it would somehow tell her that she was hungry. She didn't really need random quirks to tell her that she was, indeed, pretty hungry, though. "Me too! I slept through dinner!" She figured that this wasn't a really weird thing for him to hear; it definitely happened more frequently to Sandra that it seemed to for other people. "We should get something for that bruise, too..." she said, half-pulling him along to the Common Room exit, even though it'd been his suggestion to go in the first place. Once outside, she linked their arms, her right with his left. "So where to, boss?"

Rafael. The name sounded familiar, but Sandra didn't really know the guy at all, and judging by the shade of purple that Gale's bruise was turning, she really didn't want to. She was relieved, though, that she hadn't had to do anything in particular to get the information that she'd wanted. Unfortunately, now that she had it, Sandra wasn't really sure what the heck she was going to do with it. She couldn't very well just march up to Rafael and demand that he stop, and to be honest, she definitely wasn't strong enough (physically or elementally) to stand up to a guy like that... Well, maybe if he was younger, but if Gale couldn't take him, then she probably wouldn't be able to do anything. Some kind of protective instinct flared inside of her, though. "Rafael..." she said, and the name felt weird in her mouth because she didn't think she'd ever said it before, at least not when referring to the Thunder kid. "What grade?" She didn't know that, even. "When did you get into fights before?!" His insistences that it was "no big deal" were meaningless, though, because obviously his own face didn't agree.

It was a departure from what she'd consider the "normal" Gale, the happy and friendly Gale who had that perpetual smile on his face. They were alike in that sense. She supposed this kind of set them apart, though, because Sandra was pretty unlikely to go running off and getting into fights. She wasn't a fighter, had never really wanted to be, and the best she could do was keep looking forward and holding her own. She was pretty good at that, actually, just getting by and taking care of herself when it was needed, but she wasn't the type to attack. Gale sounded pretty sure of himself and the fact that he was going to, though. She frowned right back even as he smiled. "But Gale..." She was no good at standing up to friends, on a whole other note from fighting and defending herself against the likes of rough and tough Thunders. "Boys," she huffed to herself, but she let him hear it and didn't bother to keep her voice down much. "But why go back if you could get hurt again?" This was one of thsoe things that didn't really make much sense to Sandra and probably never would. She didn't really want it to, either. Gale really was her best friend, but this was probably something she couldn't really get behind at all.

She grinned at his reaction to what she'd said, though, something that was actually much more characteristic than a frown. "Me either!" Sleeping through dinner was pretty common, actually, or at least more common than it was for anybody else. Most people didn't exactly have that problem, at least not the high schoolers at the Academy -- the schedule was pretty inflexible for them. "Yo," she started, poking his cheek (the one on the side of his face that was still okay, of course), "it's pretty bad and we're getting you ice or something." If they couldn't find any ice just lying around (and she wasn't sure it was too likely they would) they could always make a stop by the nurse's office and ask for some -- Sandra knew from personal experience that they usually had everything a student needed for this kind of thing. Apparently fights were pretty common... Fights or sports injuries. "I have no idea though! I was hoping you knew... or for an adventure. Adventures are good. Except I'm kind of really hungry." She decided to take the lead anyway, basically pulling him along after her despite the fact that he was, actually, a considerable amount bigger than she was. "So sloooow," she whined.