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She had breath that smelled like a chlorinated pool, brillo hair that jutted from her mottled scalp like shrubs on a blanched desert. She smelled fresh like disinfectant. New skin glistened wet, like perspiration on a machine. The grafts were taking, irregularly but they were taking. Local flaps popped up in different stretches of her back and feet, her tummy and hands -- archipelagoes of new flesh. “Man,” Lance thought, transfixed in the burn unit doorway. “She’s hot.” “What happened to her, Doc?” “A terrible thing. She like blowing things up.” She liked it a little too much, by the looks of it. “She used to be beautiful, you know.” “What do you mean used to be? Don’t saddle me with your dated morality, old man. I’m in love with her.” “I know you are,” the Doctor replied absently as he flipped through a chart. “I am too. I’m her father.” “Do I have your permission to take her out when she, you know, finishes,” Lance asked, standing upright in a nod to formality. The doctor placed the chart on the stomach of moaning old person who was being rushed to the ER. That is when he started in with his “skin” speech. “Do you know the purpose of skin what function it serves for the body?” Lance stared back blankly. “Forget it sit down and listen to me. Skin covers the whole body. It’s what makes her feel. It’s how she interacts with world. It protects her from her changing environment -- changes in temperature, infection, trauma, and powerful beams of radiation from outer space. With her skin in the state it is from the accident, she’s liable to get hurt. Don’t you see? She might love explosives, but she’s still my little girl, damn it. How can she love when she can’t feel?” Lance didn’t understand. It was clear from his trembling face. “Love is a lot like explosives, kid,” the Doc said, slinging his arm over Lance’s shoulder. “Why,” Lance said through sniffles. “Because they both are volatile and dangerous and filled with excitement.” “No because they both are functions of science. Love is just chemical interactions.” At that moment Lance learned another valuable lesson about skin – it controls insensible fluid loss, too.